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  • From: "David C. Hindley" <dhindley AT compuserve.com>
  • To: "Corpus-paul" <corpus-paul AT franklin.metalab.unc.edu>
  • Subject: RE: Clement of Philippians
  • Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2002 01:59:01 -0500


Paul McDonald asks:

>>Was the Clement of Philippians 4:3 likely Clement of
Rome?<<

That will depend somewhat on who you are asking. <g>

I just recently saw a post on one of the e-lists that cited
a scholar making such a claim, sort of reviving a claim made
by one (or more?) of the church fathers (can't recall who
offhand, but it is certain to be cited in almost any
introduction to the Epistle of Clement of Rome as found in
any edition of the church fathers. This is often advanced by
more conservative Christians, including some academics.

On the other hand, I believe that most critics since the mid
19th century date the epistle circulated under the name
Clement of Rome to about 95-100 CE. Then again, not
everybody accepts this epistle as a genuine article
(personally, I have my suspicions - most of the distinctly
Christian material seems to be found in "clumps"
interspersed here and there inside a rather bland homily
bidding the readers to follow the noble examples of persons
mentioned in Jewish scripture).

Even if the epistle of Clement is genuine, the kind of
Christian doctrines found seem a bit advanced for what I
would expect of the Christian movement of the mid 1st
century CE as described in the letters of Paul, even if we
assumed it was the same man writing 40(!) years later.

Respectfully,

Dave Hindley
Cleveland, Ohio, USA






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