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It really does!!Jax wrote: ↑Wed Oct 02, 2019 6:06 amFair enough. It does seem to go on forever though.Ben C. Smith wrote: ↑Tue Oct 01, 2019 6:38 pm While I am not opposed to the idea of a compound letter by any means, I think that "amen" can be used to close out a miniature doxology.
If 1 Clement were a law code, I would get your point. But it is not; it is an exhortation (in this section, anyway), and, if it postdates 70, it is exhorting its readers to follow the example of priests who are no longer physically even able to set an example.
Yet hath our legislator no where forbidden us to pay honors to worthy men, provided they be of another kind, and inferior to those we pay to God; with which honors we willingly testify our respect to our emperors, and to the people of Rome; we also offer perpetual sacrifices for them; nor do we only offer them every day at the common expenses of all the Jews, but although we offer no other such sacrifices out of our common expenses, no, not for our own children, yet do we this as a peculiar honor to the emperors, and to them alone, while we do the same to no other person whomsoever. And let this suffice for an answer in general to Apion, as to what he says with relation to the Alexandrian Jews.
Now there is so great caution used about these offices of religion, that the priests are appointed to go into the temple but at certain hours; for in the morning, at the opening of the inner temple, those that are to officiate receive the sacrifices, as they do again at noon, till the doors are shut. Lastly, it is not so much as lawful to carry any vessel into the holy house; nor is there any thing therein, but the altar [of incense], the table [of shew-bread], the censer, and the candlestick, which are all written in the law; for there is nothing further there, nor are there any mysteries performed that may not be spoken of; nor is there any feasting within the place. For what I have now said is publicly known, and supported by the testimony of the whole people, and their operations are very manifest; for although there be four courses of the priests, and every one of them have above five thousand men in them, yet do they officiate on certain days only; and when those days are over, other priests succeed in the performance of their sacrifices, and assemble together at mid-day, and receive the keys of the temple, and the vessels by tale, without any thing relating to food or drink being carried into the temple; nay, we are not allowed to offer such things at the altar, excepting what is prepared for the sacrifices.
Yes, I believe so. And I agree that there is such a thing as an "historical present," as it were. In Josephus this present makes sense to me, since he is debating Apion, who wrote before 70 about the temple rites, and is thus using Jewish practice from before 70 to counter Apion's points. As for Clement, however, an historical present makes less sense; that link from Jax makes this point pretty well, I think, though the author blanks out when trying to guess why the Mishnah uses the present tense of the temple rites: law codes usually do use the present tense, even of practices which have been abandoned. And I have already pointed out how the cessation of the rites undermines Clement's point, whereas for Josephus (who has earlier in the work already alluded to the siege under Vespasian and thus situated himself in time) there is no such undermining at all, since Apion's points presume a working temple cultus and are, therefore, best countered by presuming the same.John2 wrote: ↑Wed Oct 02, 2019 10:17 am Ben wrote:
I'm still thinking it is possible to follow the example of priests from the OT. Judaism does this today without a Temple by correlating home rituals with the priestly service. But since it's only my hunch, I'm curious to see (and I would need your help with the Greek) how Josephus writes about sacrifices after 70 CE. In Against Apion 2.6 and 2.8 (which, as Wikipedia notes, "cites Josephus' earlier work Antiquities of the Jews, so can be dated after C.E. 94) he writes:If 1 Clement were a law code, I would get your point. But it is not; it is an exhortation (in this section, anyway), and, if it postdates 70, it is exhorting its readers to follow the example of priests who are no longer physically even able to set an example.
Yet hath our legislator no where forbidden us to pay honors to worthy men, provided they be of another kind, and inferior to those we pay to God; with which honors we willingly testify our respect to our emperors, and to the people of Rome; we also offer perpetual sacrifices for them; nor do we only offer them every day at the common expenses of all the Jews, but although we offer no other such sacrifices out of our common expenses, no, not for our own children, yet do we this as a peculiar honor to the emperors, and to them alone, while we do the same to no other person whomsoever. And let this suffice for an answer in general to Apion, as to what he says with relation to the Alexandrian Jews.
Is all this likewise in the present tense?Now there is so great caution used about these offices of religion, that the priests are appointed to go into the temple but at certain hours; for in the morning, at the opening of the inner temple, those that are to officiate receive the sacrifices, as they do again at noon, till the doors are shut. Lastly, it is not so much as lawful to carry any vessel into the holy house; nor is there any thing therein, but the altar [of incense], the table [of shew-bread], the censer, and the candlestick, which are all written in the law; for there is nothing further there, nor are there any mysteries performed that may not be spoken of; nor is there any feasting within the place. For what I have now said is publicly known, and supported by the testimony of the whole people, and their operations are very manifest; for although there be four courses of the priests, and every one of them have above five thousand men in them, yet do they officiate on certain days only; and when those days are over, other priests succeed in the performance of their sacrifices, and assemble together at mid-day, and receive the keys of the temple, and the vessels by tale, without any thing relating to food or drink being carried into the temple; nay, we are not allowed to offer such things at the altar, excepting what is prepared for the sacrifices.
... why the Mishnah uses the present tense of the temple rites ...
When he speaks of order, though, he is appealing to enduring and perennially valid examples of order … Applying this to his reference to the Temple, one would have to admit that if the Temple, once quite an ordered affair, now lay in ruins, 1 Clement would have been better advised not even to mention the Temple in the first place.
Senior archaeologists approached by Israel HaYom with photographs of the skeletons said that they were not enough to determine the history of the cave. Samples need to be taken from the site and dated, they said, before deciding that the mass grave holds Jews and not Muslims.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/158417
Rabbi Eliezer said: I have heard that when they were building the Temple [complex] they made curtains for the Temple and curtains for the Temple-courts; but in the case of the Temple they built from the outside, and in the case of the Temple-court they built from the inside. Rabbi Joshua said: I have heard that sacrifices may be offered even though there is no Temple, and that the most holy sacrifices may be eaten even though there are no curtains, and the less holy sacrifices and second tithes even though there is no wall [around Jerusalem]; because the first sanctification sanctified both for its own time and for the time to come.
https://www.sefaria.org/Mishnah_Eduyot. ... l&lang2=en
But there is still the problem that the Temple part of the letter is probably not part of the original letter of 1 Clement. That part of the letter is clearly Jewish and Clement of Rome would have been Roman not Jewish.John2 wrote: ↑Wed Oct 02, 2019 2:16 pm Hm. I'm not buying Herron's argument that what was good for Josephus and the Mishnah regarding the use of the present tense is not good for 1 Clement, at least regarding "One simply cannot say that of 1 Clement: we do not know that 1 Clement knows the Temple is in ruins!"
Alright, we don't "know" that 1 Clement is aware that "the Temple is in ruins," but for the various reasons I've given I suspect that it was written c. 95 CE (or at least after Paul and before Hegesippus), so I at least feel comfortable with the idea that 1 Clement knows that "the Temple is in ruins" like Josephus and the Mishnah.
And in the big picture it looks like I'm with Lightfoot on this (to judge from Herron's takedown, but I want to see what more I can find about him on this), but I'm not in a position to say (based on the grammar) if I can agree with Herron that Lightfoot's argument is weak.
On the question of whether there were sacrifices on the Temple Mount after 70 CE, you make a good point that 1 Clement does say the altar was in front of the sanctuary and I need to give that more thought. But perhaps it was there in a "crumbled state" as per Clark (which Herron doesn't buy). And Herron makes a good point that the skeletons that were found by the Temple Mount would have rendered the area unclean and would have compelled Jews to bury them and that they didn't indicates that they thus didn't offer sacrifices.
But if the bodies were in caves and a drain under a house, would post-70 CE Jews have been aware that they were there (particularly if everything was in a "crumbled state")? And I don't know if it is the same thing Herron (via Kenyon) is referring to (it seems more recent), but there appears to be some question about the dating and identity of a mass grave of skeletons found near the Temple Mount, e,g,:
Senior archaeologists approached by Israel HaYom with photographs of the skeletons said that they were not enough to determine the history of the cave. Samples need to be taken from the site and dated, they said, before deciding that the mass grave holds Jews and not Muslims.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/158417
Maybe the same applies to other skeletons. But I need to look into this issue more.
And where have I read that the Temple Mount is sanctified for all time, Temple of no Temple? Perhaps that could be a factor in the question of whether sacrifices were made there post-70 CE.