Jax wrote: ↑Fri Sep 20, 2019 9:17 amGood question. Maybe two independent compilations by different compilers? Maybe combining the two would have made the length unwieldy? Maybe an attempt to keep two letters in play because of 2 Corinthians 7.8? Then again, 1 Corinthians 5.9 apparently did not inspire a similar maneuver. Not sure.
I think that your first answer may have merit. As far as I know 1 Clement only seems to know 1 Corinthians but not the second letter. Does this seem right to you?
The editors of
The New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers (1905) judged the following correspondence to the too weak to demonstrate dependence:
1 Clement 36.2-3: 2 Through this one we gaze into the heights of the heavens; through this one we behold [ένοπτριζόμεθα] the reflection of his perfect and superior countenance; through this one the eyes of our hearts have been opened; through this one our foolish and darkened understanding springs up into the light; through this one the Master has wished us to taste the knowledge of immortality. He is the radiance of his magnificence, as superior to the angels as he has inherited a more excellent name.
2 Corinthians 3.18: 18 But we all, with unveiled face, beholding [κατοπτριζόμενοι] as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.
They also discussed the following correspondence:
1 Clement 5.5-6: 5 Because of jealousy and strife Paul pointed the way to the prize for endurance. 6 Seven times he bore chains; he was sent into exile and stoned; he served as a herald in both the East and the West; and he received the noble reputation for his faith.
2 Corinthians 11.23-27: 23 Are they servants of Christ? I speak as if insane. I more so; in far more labors, in far more imprisonments, beaten times without number, often in danger of death. 24 Five times I received from the Jews thirty-nine lashes. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I have spent in the deep. 26 I have been on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brethren; 27 I have been in labor and hardship, through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure.
Partly because Clement includes that detail about bearing chains seven times, which cannot be sourced from Paul, the editors thought that he may have gotten his information from stories about Paul. Overall, the editors gave Clement's possible knowledge of 2 Corinthians their lowest possible rating: a D. The twin updates to that 1905 book,
The Reception of the New Testament in the Fathers and
Trajectories Through the New Testament and the Fathers, edited by Andrew Gregory and Christopher Tuckett, do not alter this picture so far as I can tell; in footnote 4 of page 10 of the second volume, in his chapter on Paul in Clement and Ignatius, Andreas Lindemann asserts that "we cannot say anything about the knowledge of 2 Corinthians (or its original parts)" by Clement.
And there is this:
1 Clement 47.1-2: 1 Take up the epistle of that blessed apostle, Paul. 2 What did he write to you at first, at the beginning of his proclamation of the gospel?
The fathers do not always say "first" or "second" epistle when they know more than one, but they often do, and Clement does not here.