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Originally Posted by yalla
Either way, one or both of Eusebius/Irenaeus was wrong.
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Yessss. But we knew that already. Irenaeus said X. Eusebius said not X. At least one of them had to be wrong.
If the game is down to finding where the church fathers got things wrong, well, that is like shooting milk cans from two paces.
We learn more about ancient Christianity by discovering where the fathers got things right, even if (or perhaps especially if) reluctantly.
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But that is actually based on Eusebius HE IV 23.11 Where Eusebius quotes Dionysius as writing "like the earlier epistle which Clement wrote on your behalf".
Eusebius takes this as referring directly to 1 Clement aka "Epistle to the Corinthians" but fails to note that Dionysius could be referring to an altogether different epistle.
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An altogether different epistle, but one still written by the Roman church to the Corinthian church?
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Maybe it was another letter altogether, who knows, after all there is at least one other letter assigned to the virtually unknown and shadowy Clement which is widely acknowledged to be a forgery.
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Are you referring to 2 Clement?
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I strayed into this arena because I wanted to point out that accepting this material at face value is fraught with problems.
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I agree! This is why we test it by cross referencing other internal and external evidence.
Ben.
01-15-2008, 10:37 PM
