Questions about Dating 1 Clement

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ABuddhist
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Questions about Dating 1 Clement

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So, I have been fascinated by Neil Godfrey's recent discussion upon this forum of the ways in which 1 Clement is dated, and I have some questions about that.

1. Was there any reason why people around 170 CE might have wanted to forge a document dating back decades and addressing the issues that 1 Clement addresses?

2. Are there any mythicists who think that 1 Clement should be dated later than it usually is? The strongest argument in my opinion for its earliness is its lack of reference to any gospels or their stories, placing it prior to Justin, who cites gospels and their contents with no authors as memoirs of the apostles. Later forgers, I would think, would be unable to create Christian literature without incorporating gospels' narratives to some degree - as with the pastoral reference to Jesus's interacting with Pilate (1 Timothy 6:13).
Last edited by ABuddhist on Mon Feb 21, 2022 10:02 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Irish1975
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Re: Questions about Dating 1 Clement

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ABuddhist wrote: Fri Oct 15, 2021 11:13 am So, I have been fascinated by Neil Godfrey's recent discussion upon this forum of the ways in which 1 Clement is dated, and I have some questions about that.

1. Was there any reason why people around 170 CE might have wanted to forge a document dating back decades and addressing the issues that 1 Clement addresses?
The Church allied with Polycarp, Justin, Irenaeus, etc. and with the canonical NT, had an obvious interest in authenticating their “apostolic” credentials and traditions, i.e. their monarchical bishops, their claim to the mantle of “Peter and Paul,” their conservative church discipline and immunity to youthful takeovers, their “rule of faith,” their scripture collection. 1 Clement clearly serves those interests. These are 2nd century issues, although 170 might be a bit late.
The strongest argument in my opinion for its earliness is it lack of reference to any gospels or their stories, placing it prior to Justin, who cites gospels and their contents with no authors as memoirs of the apostles. Later forgers, I would think, would be unable to create Christian literature without incorporating gospels' narratives to some degree - as with the pastoral reference to Jesus's interacting with Pilate (1 Timothy 6:13).
If it could be as late as Justin, then clearly it’s not 1st century.

People were forging gospels and letters and other writings in the names of the apostles well into the 4th century at least, e.g. the Clementine literature, which (as noted recently) does not accord with the NT narrative at all.
ABuddhist
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Re: Questions about Dating 1 Clement

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Irish1975 wrote: Fri Oct 15, 2021 12:01 pm If it could be as late as Justin, then clearly it’s not 1st century.

People were forging gospels and letters and other writings in the names of the apostles well into the 4th century at least, e.g. the Clementine literature, which (as noted recently) does not accord with the NT narrative at all.
I entirely agree with your points, but to clarify, I was not arguing that 1 Clement is as late as Justin but rather must be earlier, because it neither alludes to stories from the Gospels nor even to what we would now call gospels (Justin's memoirs of the apostles). Rather, I think that if it can be assigned to any stratum, it would be the Didache's - when Christianity had moved beyond charismatic preachers into institutionalized authority but did not yet have gospels or their narratives. When that would be I have no idea. But then again, I am a functionally unilingual interested amateur, not a scholar, and I welcome corrections.
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Re: Questions about Dating 1 Clement

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ABuddhist wrote: Fri Oct 15, 2021 11:13 am
So, I have been fascinated by Neil Godfrey's recent discussion upon this forum of the ways in which 1 Clement is dated, and I have some questions about that.

1. Was there any reason why people around 170 CE might have wanted to forge a document dating back decades and addressing the issues that 1 Clement addresses?
.
This begs the question, 'Did anyone forge 1 Clement?' (sorry to answer a question with a question, but I'm trying to be 'open', not disparaging)

Could it just be that later [modern] scholars are the ones who date it back decades?

ABuddhist wrote: Fri Oct 15, 2021 11:13 am 2. ... The strongest argument in my opinion for its earliness is it lack of reference to any gospels or their stories, placing it prior to Justin, who cites gospelsa and their contents with no authors as memoirs of the apostles.
  1. Whether Justin cites gospels is up for debate.
Brett Nongbri has challenged the notion that he does (though he agrees with your point about 'with no authors as memoirs of the apostles').

In a series of blog posts about something Larry Hurtado said about at least one other scholar's views, Nongbri ends up saying

.
In his preserved works, Justin doesn’t mention the “Gospel According to” any author. Now, I have no reason to doubt that Justin was familiar with texts very much like what we call the Gospels According to Matthew, Mark, and Luke (John is trickier). But the issue Larsen’s work raises is that Justin isn’t talking about the gospel(s) in that way. Justin is not distinguishing between discreet, independent writings, with individual attributed authors (it’s the “apomnemoneumata of the apostles“), and this point is what should be catching our attention.

https://brentnongbri.com/2018/04/09/ear ... /#more-943 b

b perhaps see this thread for a supposed summary of the whole saga viewtopic.php?f=3&t=7698

The Roberts-Donaldson translation of one of Justin's works (I can't recall which one & haven't looked it up for this) has, "For in the memoirs which I say were drawn up by His apostles and those who followed them," ie. that's a mere assertion by Justin (with "I say"), not an allusion to an actual 'source'.

A couple of days later, Nongbri notes that when he says

When Justin refers to texts very similar to what we would call the Gospel According to Matthew and the Gospel According to Mark, he consistently uses the plural (both apomnemoneumata and euangelia) and does not distinguish individual authorship (it’s nearly always “of/by the apostles” “and their followers”). https://brentnongbri.com/2018/04/11/jus ... e-gospels/

Along these same lines, Markus Vinzent has noticed the same with the Ignatius letters (and he relates that to the same point about Justin's lack of references to written εὐαγγελίου / gospels)

.
Looking through all our early evidence, even if we add Ignatius (who together with many others I date after the mid second century), IgPhld 5,1-2; 8,2; 9,2; IgSm. 5.1; 7,2; the Martyrdom of Polycarp (4,1) and 2Clement (8,5), it becomes clear that we have exclusively references to sayings 'of the Lord' or the teachings of Jesus but not a single quote of any biographical story, wonder, or any other narrative from the Gospels.
When Ignatius comes closer to the latter with his reference to the Lord’s death and his resurrection (IgPhld. 8,2; see 9,2; IgSm. 7,2), he gives less than Justin who generally seems to avoid using ‘εὐαγγελίου of written texts’ and who assembles material especially from the Old Testament and other sources which, again, cannot simply be related directly to any of our known Gospels.

https://www.academia.edu/51206523/Vinze ... c_Question, p.37

So -
ABuddhist wrote: Fri Oct 15, 2021 11:13 am Later forgers, I would think, would be unable to create Christian literature without incorporating gospels' narratives to some degree - as with the pastoral reference to Jesus's interacting with Pilate (1 Timothy 6:13).
- would be a valid point.
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Re: Questions about Dating 1 Clement

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MrMacSon wrote: Fri Oct 15, 2021 3:00 pm This begs the question, 'Did anyone forge 1 Clement?' (sorry to answer a question with a question, but I'm trying to be 'open', not disparaging)

Could it just be that later [modern] scholars are the ones who date it back decades?
In all fairness, I think that dating its composition to the 1st century CE is legitimate, if one interpret its claims at face value. It indicates that the deaths of Peter and Paul took place "within our own generation" (ch. 5). Of course, a forger from the second century wanting to make the letter seem older could easily do this.
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Re: Questions about Dating 1 Clement

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ABuddhist wrote: Fri Oct 15, 2021 11:13 am So, I have been fascinated by Neil Godfrey's recent discussion upon this forum of the ways in which 1 Clement is dated, and I have some questions about that.

1. Was there any reason why people around 170 CE might have wanted to forge a document dating back decades and addressing the issues that 1 Clement addresses?

2. Are there any mythicists who think that 1 Clement should be dated later than it usually is? The strongest argument in my opinion for its earliness is it lack of reference to any gospels or their stories, placing it prior to Justin, who cites gospels and their contents with no authors as memoirs of the apostles. Later forgers, I would think, would be unable to create Christian literature without incorporating gospels' narratives to some degree - as with the pastoral reference to Jesus's interacting with Pilate (1 Timothy 6:13).
My views on 1 Clement and in particular some of the methods I found most useful in a critical analysis of the Church Fathers (yielding cogently explanatory results) are influenced by Joseph Turmel (who often wrote under the name of Henri Delafosse). Roger Parvus introduced me to this Catholic scholar. Unfortunately not all of his books are available at archive.org. They should be, and hopefully I will be able to make up for that serious hole in their collection.
Giuseppe
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Re: Questions about Dating 1 Clement

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neilgodfrey wrote: Fri Oct 15, 2021 6:46 pmUnfortunately not all of his books are available at archive.org. They should be, and hopefully I will be able to make up for that serious hole in their collection.

It is great! :cheers: I also am searching for his Historie des dogmes t. 5, only its too much expansive cost and the historicist faith of the author have prevented me from buying it.

Why just that tome 5? Because in it, it seems that Turmel introduced a very original hypothesis about John the Baptist being an image of Jesus different from the image the evangelists had about Jesus, and so they explained that difference by attributing it to a different prophet.

(P.S. Turmel became atheist).
andrewcriddle
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Re: Questions about Dating 1 Clement

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If one accepts the evidence in Eusebius from Hegesippus and Dionysius of Corinth then c 170 CE Clement to the Corinthians was already regarded as an ancient and valued text. This would seem to require a date well before 150 CE.

Andrew Criddle
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Re: Questions about Dating 1 Clement

Post by ABuddhist »

andrewcriddle wrote: Sat Oct 16, 2021 12:53 am If one accepts the evidence in Eusebius from Hegesippus and Dionysius of Corinth then c 170 CE Clement to the Corinthians was already regarded as an ancient and valued text. This would seem to require a date well before 150 CE.

Andrew Criddle
With all due respect, though, such claims might not have been true. The claimers could have been lying or deceived by liars who wanted to make people believe that 1 Clement was older than it was.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Questions about Dating 1 Clement

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andrewcriddle wrote: Sat Oct 16, 2021 12:53 am If one accepts the evidence in Eusebius from Hegesippus and Dionysius of Corinth then c 170 CE Clement to the Corinthians was already regarded as an ancient and valued text. This would seem to require a date well before 150 CE.

Andrew Criddle
That would appear to follow -- IF that is all there is to consider. What I find curious (sigh) is the assumption that certain critics of the status quo must be in it just to be naysayers (psychological issues, perhaps, from a bent religious past, for example) and that they have not bothered to seriously consider all the obvious testimony that is available, that all that is required to rebut a naysayer is to point to the obvious, cum a naive reading of the obvious. It's called proof-texting in other departments.
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