Pursuing Veritas

The Jewish Scriptures are clearly important for 1 Clement, for they provide the source of revelation through which God speaks (1 Clement 22:1), form the narrative basis for the epistle, and function as the authoritative sources for the epistle’s paranesis.

Plentitude of Quotation

Within 1 Clement there are between sixty-five and eighty-five quotations from the Jewish scriptures, which, along with numerous allusions, furnish nearly one-quarter of the epistle’s length. Most unique among early Christian writings, 1 Clement exhibits considerable reliance upon lengthy and formal quotations of the Septuagint text, nine of which are of such extensive length that they almost certainly required reliance upon extant copies of text for their transcription. These long quotations derive from Genesis 4.3-8 (1 Clement 4), Job 4.16-5.5 (39), Job 5.17-26 (56), Psalm 33.12-18 (22), Psalm 49.16-23 (35), Psalm 50 (18), Proverbs 1.23-33 (57), Isaiah 1.16-20 (8), and Isaiah 53 (16). The length, frequency, and introductions to these passages leave no doubt that the author of 1 Clement considered these writings as useful and acceptable sources of authority for the purposes of his epistle.

Apocryphal Writings

1 Clement utilizes several apocryphal writings included in the Septuagintal form of the Jewish Scriptures, most clearly the Wisdom of Solomon (1 Clement 3:4 and 27:5), Judith (55, 59-60), and Sirach (59-60). Interestingly, in none of these applications of apocryphal material does 1 Clement include formal literary introductions. However, the implications of this are less than clear, as formulae are employed for several citations of non-canonical material, such as those in 1 Clement 17:6; 23:3; and 46:2, which are often thought to have originated from lost works such as Apocryphal Ezekiel, the Assumption of Moses, and Eldad and Modad.

Affinity with the Septuagint Text

While the vast majority of quotations in 1 Clement are clearly and accurately from the Septuagint, several passages contain slight variations. The affinity of quotations with the Septuagint text may be classified in the following ways: citations clearly from the Septuagint, though containing occasional minor differences (approximately thirty-nine uses in 1 Clement); composite quotations from the Septuagint, where two or more passages—almost always from the same book—are conflated and cited as a single source (twelve uses); citations which are moderately different than the Septuagint text (nine uses); and quotations not from the Septuagint (five uses). Most variations appear to originate from the author’s reliance upon memory or the purposeful alteration of the text for linguistic or stylistic purposes. The likelihood of reliance on memory increased in instances where the word pou (somewhere) is included in the introductory formulae. There are eight basic forms of introduction prevalent in 1 Clement: graphei, legei, eipen, phesi, narrative introductions, non-canonical formula, miscellaneous introductions, and a few non-introductions. However, there is no clear relationship between the application of a formula to introduce a quotation and the relationship of that quotation to the text of the Septuagint. The variations in the form of the texts, as well as the citations of unknown passages, indicates a broader understanding of which sources could be viewed as authoritative scripture during this period.

Paranetic Use of the Septuagint

The use of the Jewish Scriptures in 1 Clement demonstrates the paranetic purposes governing the epistle, as the Scriptures are primarily employed to legitimate arguments concerning concord and order in the Corinthian church. Quoting sources from memory, offering stylistic modifications, and allowing non-Septuagintal textual readings all fit the general mold of an early Christianity influenced by Hellenistic Judaism, where examples of good and bad conduct from Jewish writings were developed in order to find applicable messages for the Church and Christian ministry. A major component of using materials from the Jewish Scriptures were the immediate concerns of 1 Clement in writing to Corinth, as the Septuagint form of the Jewish Scriptures offered many of the available, authoritative, and applicable sources for addressing the situation in the Corinthian church. These paranetic concerns evince the authority of the Jewish Scriptures for the early Christian church as demonstrated in 1 Clement.