aa5874

You could not be more mistaken. It is of extreme significance to find out when and who wrote the anonymous letter attributed to a character called Clement of Rome. Perhaps you do not realize that Andrew Criddle is claiming that the anonymous letter was written by Clement sometime between 95-100 CE while Clement was Bishop of Rome.

A writer under the name of Tertullian CONTRADICTS Andrew Criddle. The Tertullian writer claimed the records of the Church of Rome show that Clement of Rome was bishop of Rome sometime at around c 67 CE.

So, if the anonymous letter was written between 95-100 CE based on Tertullian it was NOT written by Clement of Rome or the letter was NOT written at 95-100 CE.

The same of applies to The Recognitions, and Letter 53 attributed to Augustine of Hippo, they both contradict Andrew Criddle.

Amazingly, the anonymous letter attributed to Clement, and Clement are NOT direct evidence of the Pauline letters but appears to be evidence of fraud.

Apologetic sources have NO idea when Clement was bishop of Rome supposedly between 67 CE and 100 CE.

jdl

Andrew, I wonder if you've read L. L. Welborn's article "On the Date of First Clement"? I tend to think it throws considerable doubt on the traditional dating.

And an issue I don't remember that article addressing is whether there ever was a Domitianic persecution. I own, but haven't finished, Brian W. Jones' biography of Domitian, and he certainly seems to hold that there's no evidence for such persecution under Domitian.

Joseph

la70119

Joseph,

If one would compare Josephus Antiquities 18.3.3 against the so-called Domitian persecution, and assume that Josephus actually WROTE the rubbish, instead of (in my opinion) correctly figuring it out as a forgery, one would HAVE to come to a conclusion that the "Orthodox-Catholic" stripe of Christianity, if it existed then, not only was NOT persecuted, but quite the opposite --- it was politically correct!

jdl

Just re-read the article. It covers Domitian in a lot of detail, so I'm not sure why I didn't remember that.

Joseph

Grog

But they placed him within an historical context, in other words, cast an earthly ministry during the time of Pilate.

If we accept a pre-70 Paul, I do not see that Paul has in mind a Jesus who lived during the time of Pilate.

This is what I mean by "historicized." I am not saying humanized. I accept your argument that the Gospel Jesus is a mythical, nonhuman Jesus.

tanya

Impressive. One measure of genius is the ability to discern pattern or correlation from text or objects, which others (me, for example) would examine carefully, without being able to derive any meaningful conclusion. I gather that neither Tertullian, nor Origen, offer suggestions similar to your own discovery. Congratulations on reading the same old, same old, yet finding something new, and notable, all the more significant for providing additional support to your estimable hypothesis that Paul's letters were composed AFTER the gospels, a theory which seems reasonable to me, since I interpret Galatians "kurios, brother of the lord" business, as utter fabrication, and misinterpretation, mixed in with a dash of interpolation for good measure.

andrewcriddle

Hi Joseph

I haven't read Welborn's article. However there are substantial excerpts/summaries on the Internet and I'll comment on the basis of those.

Although on the whole I think there probably was some sort of persecution of Christians under Domitian, I agree with Welborn that this provides little or no basis for dating First Clement.

However I would interpret chapter 44 rather differently. I think this implies that the presbyterate at the time of writing was a mixture of those appointed directly by the apostles and those appointed later after the death of the apostles. If so this pretty much rules out a date after the end of the reign of Trajan. IE on internal evidence the epistle is to be dated after the accession of Domitian but before the death of Trajan. (Welborn IIUC thinks it possible that the epistle could be as late as the end of the reign of Hadrian.)

The traditional dates of Clement as bishop (or senior presbyter) at Rome are c 90-100 CE. This period is near the middle of the range of plausible dates on internal evidence. This makes it seem likely that one should accept the traditional authorship and dating.

Andrew Criddle

tanya

Thanks Andrew.

Yup, that's the crux of it. When were the two sets of documents written? Our best estimate of the date of our oldest extant manuscript of Clement's letter, is 2nd-3rd century. This is the Latin translation of the Greek original.

Does Irenaeus write about Clement's letter? I think he mentions the Didache, though, right?

This bit from analysis of the significance of the Didache is kind of interesting, I find:
Do you find, that "Paul's" use of "lord" to refer to Jesus, suggests a second century date of origin of composition, rather than the traditional view of a first century date? I am thinking of the turmoil surrounding the expulsion of the Jews from Jerusalem, with considerable innovation accompanying reference to the ancient texts, which were no longer available, the temple having been destroyed....

Further, is it not a tad curious that the subject of "Paul's" letters is invariably disturbances of one kind or another in his churches? That sounds to me, at least, more like a situation in which a fairly mature congregation, has evolved theologically, to the point of posing troublesome questions, threatening the underlying foundations of the church.

What did we do, in the medieval era, when a big gothic cathedral (Koelner Dom), required repair? We added stuff.....

Is the STYLE of writing in "Paul's" epistles, consistent with the style of writing, e.g. by Philo or Josephus, i.e. a pair of first century authors, writing in Koine Greek? I don't the answer. To my untrained eye, "Paul's" writing feels more recent than that of Mark.

andrewcriddle

Irenaeus Against Heresies book III Andrew Criddle

aa5874

You MUST observe the Strict meaning of "historical" as it applies to the Quest for an "historical" Jesus.

You MUST understand that the quest for an "historical" Jesus was INITIATED PRECISELY because the NT is about a NON-HISTORICAL Jesus--a Non-human Jesus--a Divine Jesus.

You must understand that the authors of the NT and Apologetic sources claimed or wrote stories about a Non-historical Jesus that supposedly was BORN of the Holy Ghost and a Woman in Bethlehem, Lived in Nazareth, was baptized by John in the river Jordan, performed Miracles, Walked on the SEA, Transfigured, was on trial in Jerusalem by the Sanhedrin and Pilate, was crucified, buried, resurrected and ascended.

The NT is a compilation of the "biography" [Myth fables] of the NON-HISTORICAL Jesus--the NON-HUMAN Jesus--the Myth Jesus.