Clement and the Corinthians

Recently I re-read the epistle of Clement to the Corinthians.  The letter was probably written shortly after Revelation was written, and the author had likely been an associate of the Apostle Paul.  (Although the book is anonymous, the evidence points to Clement, a leader of the Church in Rome and likely the fellow mentioned in Philippians 4:3.)

What I didn’t know about the epistle specifically is that Clement apparently includes over 800 allusions and quotes from the Bible.  In fact, about 3/4 of those are from the New Testament.

Now that’s pretty amazing, because the New Testament has just been written.  Clement obviously was immersed in both the OT and NT, in order to use all these quotes.  Not only that, he expected his readers to catch the quotes (even though he didn’t always mention where they were from)!

I caught a lot of them – probably not all – did the average church member in Corinth know the whole Bible better than me?  It makes one think.

This is also another bit of evidence that the majority of the Bible was well known, copied and distributed all over place, read and considered authoritative very early on.

Anyway, if you’d like to read more about the epistle, here’s an interesting article – Clement of Rome.  Also, the majority of the works of the early Church Fathers (Ante Nicene) can be found for the Kindle free here.

But in the meantime, how about a quote from the epistle itself?

Finally may the all-seeing God and Master of spirits and Lord of all flesh, who chose the Lord Jesus Christ, and us through Him for a peculiar people, grant unto every soul that is called after His excellent and holy Name faith, fear, peace, patience, long-suffering, temperance, chastity and soberness, that they may be well pleasing to His Name through our High priest and Guardian Jesus Christ, through whom to Him be glory and majesty, might and honour, both now and forever and ever.  Amen.