1. The Context of 1 Clement

1 Clement is a letter sent by the church in Rome to believers in Corinth, probably sometime toward the end of the first century of the Common Era.Footnote ² Although the document is called ‘1 Clement’ because of an early tradition that it was written by Clement, the third bishop of Rome,Footnote ³ the letter itself names no individual author and purports only to originate from ‘the church of God that sojourns in Rome’ (prescript; cf. 65.2), even if its stylistic and literary unity suggests that it is the creation of a single hand.Footnote ⁴ For the sake of convenience, I shall refer to the author of the text variously as ‘the author’ and ‘Clement’, although I do not believe that we can maintain with certainty that the text was actually written by a historical person called Clement, still less that its author was an early Roman bishop.

The general occasion for 1 Clement can be reconstructed with some confidence from allusions throughout the epistle to the experience of conflict among the Corinthian believers to whom the epistle is addressed. The text opens with a reference to ‘the matters in dispute among you, dear friends, especially the detestable and unholy schism’ (1.1). In 1 Clem. 3.1-4 the author cites Deut 32.15 to claim that ‘jealousy and envy, strife and sedition, persecution and anarchy, war and captivity’ have come to the Corinthians (3.2), and this scriptural citation is followed by a reference to various groups within the church being ‘stirred up’ against one another: ‘those without honor against the honored, those of no repute against the highly reputed, the foolish against the wise, the young against the old’ (3.3). More explicit is the indication in 1 Clement 44 and 47 that the Corinthians had rebelled against and removed from ministry certain leaders—identified as those holding the office of ἐπισκοπή (44.1, 4) and also as οἱ πρεσβύτεροι (47.6)—an act of ‘schism’ (σχίσμα) that the author of the letter believes ‘has brought many to despair, plunged many into doubt, and caused all of us to sorrow’ (46.9), particularly because of Clement's conviction that the deposed leaders had fulfilled their ministry blamelessly. Information about this conflict in Corinth reached the church in Rome, and the Roman believers responded by dispatching this letter, framed in the discourse of deliberative rhetoric, along with a delegation from the church in Rome (63.3-4; 65.1).Footnote ⁵

The aim of the epistle is pithily summarized near its conclusion in 63.2: ‘For you will give us great joy and gladness if you obey what we have written through the Holy Spirit and root out the unlawful anger of your jealousy, in accordance with the appeal for peace and harmony that we have made in this letter’. Practically, this goal of ‘peace and harmony’ will be manifested in the restoration to office of the deposed leaders, accompanied by either the departure of the rebels (54.2) or the submission of repentant schismatics to the authority of the presbyters (57.1–58.2). We shall return in due course to the letter's goal of promoting peace and harmony, for it is directly related to the author's cosmology.

2. 1 Clement and Paul's Letter to the Romans

The first task of this article is to show that the letter called 1 Clement does, in fact, offer a reading of Romans 5–6. Before we consider specific linguistic evidence from the letter, however, it is worth pointing out that references to Paul's letters—and 1 Corinthians and Romans in particular—in 1 Clement are a priori likely, given (1) the author's knowledge of the tradition concerning Paul's death in Rome in 1 Clem. 5.5-7, (2) the historical existence of close connections between the Corinthian and Roman congregations, both recipients of Paul's letters, from the earliest apostolic times (e.g. Acts 18.1-3; Rom 16.1-16; 2 Tim 4.20), and (3) the likelihood of continuity between the community to which Paul first addressed his epistle to the Romans and the Christian believers in Rome at Clement's time.Footnote ⁶ Considering these factors, it would be unusual if the author of 1 Clement did not betray any evidence of an awareness of Paul's letters to Corinth and Rome.

Not surprisingly, then, the author of 1 Clement not only directly cites 1 Cor 1.10 in 1 Clem. 47.1-3, but also attributes the statement to ‘the epistle of the blessed Paul the apostle’.Footnote ⁷ Given the author's aim of extinguishing factionalism and encouraging peace among his contemporaries in Corinth, an explicit appeal to material from 1 Corinthians 1–4, a text in which the apostle Paul addresses a similar issue among the same Corinthian congregation some thirty years earlier, is entirely expected.Footnote ⁸

Evidence for Clement's use of Romans is equally compelling. ‘Practically certain’ is the literary relationship between the vice lists of Rom 1.29-32 and 1 Clem. 35.5-6.Footnote ⁹ Additional links between Romans and 1 Clement can be found throughout the latter epistle, but the next strongest parallel—and the key text for our purposes—is located in 1 Clement 32–33.Footnote ¹⁰

3. Romans 5–6 in 1 Clement 32–33

There are notable linguistic and stylistic connections between these two passages, including Clement's use of the literary device of diatribe. The links are even more formidable at the conceptual level, however: both feature the language and logic of justification by faith (Rom 5.21; cf. 5.1: ‘Therefore, since we are justified by faith…’); both raise rhetorical questions related to the possibility that justification by God's grace might provide a license for ethical laxity, either sin (Rom 6.1) or failing to do good and to demonstrate love (1 Clem. 33.1); and both emphatically reject the logic of antinomianism by pointing out the ethical implications of justification and calling readers to moral transformation, either through walking in the new life that comes from freedom from sin (Rom 6.3-7) or through the performance of good works (1 Clem. 33.1-2, 8).Footnote ¹²

The aspect of Clement's reading of Romans here that has generated the most scholarly discussion is found in the assertion that ‘we are not justified through ourselves…but through faith’ (οὐ δι᾽ ἑαυτῶν δικαιούμεθα…ἀλλὰ διὰ τῆς πίστεως), with this statement often viewed as one of the earliest post-apostolic expressions of the Pauline doctrine of justification by faith. This articulation notwithstanding, previous generations of interpreters—especially in the German tradition—tended to dismiss the soteriology of 1 Clement as a lamentable departure from the radical grace of Paul's gospel, an exodus into the self-justifying, moralistic legalism represented by the bogeyman of either ‘Hellenistic Judaism’ or ‘early Catholicism’. Thus, Rudolf Knopf, in his influential 1920 commentary on 1 Clement, declared the language of faith and works in Clement to represent Synergismus:

Knopf was followed in his interpretation of 1 Clement by Rudolf Bultmann, who identified 1 Clement as the clearest example of a movement in the early church away from the Pauline doctrine of sola gratia toward the view that humans must perform good works in order to obtain future salvation.Footnote ¹⁴ According to this view, either the Pauline-sounding statement about justification in 1 Clem. 32.4 employs the terminology of πίστις and δικαιόω in markedly different ways from how that same vocabulary is used in the undisputed Pauline letters or this one avowal of justification by faith stands in tension with the rest of Clement's letter, a document that is alleged elsewhere consistently to affirm justification by works.Footnote ¹⁵

More recent scholarship has suggested that this unsympathetic reading of 1 Clement is deeply flawed, however.Footnote ¹⁶ First, any interpretation of 1 Clement must account for the rhetorical nature of the composition. The author of 1 Clement is not offering a soteriological treatise but is instead providing practical paraenesis for members of the Corinthian congregation as they negotiate the aftermath of a serious internal conflict. Second, while the author of 1 Clement does consistently stress the fact that human behavior can incur God's blessing or wrath, Clement's stress on judgment according to works must be located in the larger context of the document's emphasis on divine compassion and divine agency in salvation. Those to whom the letter is addressed, for example, are ‘called and sanctified by the will of God through our Lord Jesus Christ’ (prescript; cf. 1.1); God is the giver of peace, of the desire to do good, and of the Holy Spirit (2.2); God has poured out the blood of Christ for the salvation of the whole world (7.4; cf. 21.6); and those from Adam to the present day who are perfected in love receive this perfection—and with it a place among the godly—by God's grace (50.3). According to the soteriological economy of 1 Clement, ‘everything rests on the goodness, mercy, and election of the Creator, which have befitted the “chosen portion” through Jesus Christ. Since God has acted in this way, it is people's duty to do his will in obedience.’Footnote ¹⁷ This emphasis on divine initiative in salvation, coupled with a stress on the fact that God's mercy should lead to good deeds while the failure to perform good works will lead to divine judgment, is fully compatible with the soteriology of the Pauline epistles.Footnote ¹⁸ Far from offering a departure from the Pauline doctrine of justification by faith, 1 Clement represents an early and emphatic adoption and recontextualization of it.

There is much more that could be said regarding the language of justification by faith in 1 Clem. 32.4. My primary interest in this article, however, lies less in the specific nature of Clement's appropriation of the Pauline doctrine of justification by faith than with the relationship of this confession to the ethics and cosmology of 1 Clement. For just as Paul concludes his discussion of justification by faith in Romans 5 by posing a question about the significance of this teaching for the behavior of those who are justified by faith in Christ in Rom 6.1—‘What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound?’—so also Clement emulates the Apostle by following his own statement of justification with a rhetorical question focused on the obedience of those whom God has justified: ‘What then shall we do, brothers and sisters? Shall we idly abstain from doing good, and forsake love?’ (33.1). For both Paul and the author of 1 Clement, the answer to these questions is clearly, ‘No’. For each of these authors, justification by faith has profound implications for the moral transformation of believers in the present. Yet in articulating the warrant for such ethical behavior, Clement of Rome demonstrates a perspective that differs significantly from his apostolic forebear.

According to Paul in Romans 6, those who are called to belong to Jesus cannot continue to live in sin because the enslaving power of sin has been destroyed by the believer's participation in Christ's death and resurrection through faith and the ritual of baptism. Romans 6, in fact, presents one of the most focused and powerful declarations of participationist soteriology in the Pauline letters (cf. Gal 2.19-20; 1 Cor 15.20-28; 2 Cor 4.5-12; 5.17; Phil 3.8-11).Footnote ¹⁹ Death to sin and sin's enslaving power is signified by the believer's burial with Christ in the act of baptism, and those who join in Christ's death through baptism are assured of their participation in Christ's resurrection (6.5, 8). For this reason, Paul can issue an imperative of new existence, free from the power and passions of sin, for those ‘who have been brought from death to life’ (Rom 6.13). Paul's negative answer to the question, ‘Should we continue to sin in order that grace may abound?’, then, is formed by his conviction regarding the believer's participatory union in Christ's crucifixion and resurrection, a shared narrative made possible by God's grace and resulting in the believer's death to sin and release from sin's enslaving power.Footnote ²⁰

Clement, on the other hand, roots his ethical exhortation in an appeal for readers to imitate the pattern of good works established by God during creation (1 Clem. 33.2-8). The Corinthian believers are urged first to ‘hasten with earnestness and zeal to accomplish every good work’ (πᾶν ἔργον ἀγαθὸν ἐπιτελεῖν, 33.1), for with this commitment to the performance of good deeds they emulate God, ‘the Creator and Master of the universe’, who rejoices in his own works.Footnote ²¹ There follows in 1 Clem. 33.3-6 a litany of the works of the Creator, an account roughly modeled on the creation narrative in Genesis 1. As in Genesis 1, and supported by a direct citation of Gen 1.26-27, the fabrication of humankind in God's own image represents the high point of Clement's brief narrative of beginnings (1 Clem. 33.4-6). The Lord's adorning of himself with good works in the act of creating the heavens, the earth and water, all living creatures, and humankind, the crown jewel of the created world, thus serves as an example (ὑπογραμμός) for readers of the letter to follow in order to conform themselves to the divine will, a conformity demonstrated by their doing ‘the work of righteousness’ (33.7-8). It is not that participationist soteriology is entirely absent in 1 Clement, but such a conviction is muted throughout the letter,Footnote ²² and it is not found in Clement's explicit appropriation of Romans 5–6 in 1 Clement 32–33.Footnote ²³ Instead, the author of 1 Clement turns to creation for evidence of the character of God when encouraging readers to imitate God's own work and to conform to the divine will.

4. Cosmology and Ethics in 1 Clement

I would like to suggest that these two different warrants for ethical behavior also reflect substantive differences in the cosmological perspectives of Paul and Clement, at least insofar as the cosmologies of Romans and 1 Clement are related to the rhetorical and theological concerns of their respective authors. When I use the term ‘cosmology’, I am referring to one's view of the origin, nature, and purpose of the cosmos, the physical universe. Since both Paul and the author of 1 Clement hold to the conviction that the physical world is the product of God's purposeful action, it is appropriate also to speak of each author's view of ‘creation’.Footnote ²⁴

The cosmology of Romans is complex, and can only be summarized in the briefest terms in the present study.Footnote ²⁵ In a recent article on this topic, Beverly Gaventa has shown that Paul generally uses the term κόσμος in Romans in a neutral way, sometimes to refer to humanity as a whole (1.8; 3.6) and once to refer to God's creation of the universe as a display that ought to have evoked praise and worship of God as Creator among human beings (1.20; cf. 3.19).Footnote ²⁶ Gaventa also demonstrates, however, that ‘one important, perhaps the most important, aspect of Paul's cosmology in Romans is that humanity (i.e. the human cosmos) is at present the object of a conflict between God and anti-God powers. That is, the universe is inhabited by powers other than the power of God and the frail power of human beings.’Footnote ²⁷ Not only is humanity apart from Christ captive to the powers of Sin and Death, but, as Rom 8.19-23 indicates, even non-human creation is bound up, along with humanity, in its subjection to futility; humans in Christ and non-human creation together groan in expectation of their freedom from bondage to decay.Footnote ²⁸ Thus, the κόσμος in Romans, which includes both human beings and non-human creation, is presently, as Gaventa puts it, ‘the location of a conflict between God and anti-God powers, most prominently the powers of Sin and Death’.Footnote ²⁹

When we turn to the portrayal of the origin, nature, and purpose of the cosmos in 1 Clement, a very different picture emerges. In considering this topic, pride of place must be given to the praise of peace and harmony in creation found in 1 Clement 20, a passage that has perhaps received more attention than any other in the letter. Having introduced the theme of humility in ch. 16, the author provides a series of scriptural models of this virtue in 16.1–18.17, a section that begins with an extended reflection on the pattern (ὁ ὑπογραμμός) of humility provided by Christ (16.1-17) and concludes with examples from the biblical tradition, including the prophets Elijah, Elisha, and Ezekiel (17.1); Abraham (17.2); Job (17.3-4); Moses (17.5-6); and, with an extended citation of Psalm 51, David (18.1-17). It seems that this motif of mimesis continues at the beginning of ch. 19, although the focus shifts from the imitation of humble predecessors (ταπεινόφρων) in 19.1 to the imitation of the peace and harmony of God's creation in 19.2-3. The ‘hymn of the universe’ that follows paints an idyllic picture of the peace and harmony of the entire created order:Footnote ³⁰

This passage has received considerable scholarly attention because of a longstanding debate about the possible influence of Stoic and/or Jewish sources upon the author's thought. An impressive array of Stoic parallels can be considered in comparison with 1 Clem. 20.1-12, not least because a number of Stoic sources also emphasize the harmonious nature of the universe, often with notable linguistic overlap with this text.Footnote ³¹ While recognizing the presence of Stoic themes and terminology, Willem van Unnik, in an influential article, highlighted the motif of harmony (ὁμόνοια) in creation in a number of Palestinian Jewish writings, arguing that ‘the point of view of the Stoics is anthropocentric, that of 1 Clement theocentric, his “theos” being the God of the Old Testament’.Footnote ³² More recently, Cilliers Breytenbach has shown that numerous Stoic texts map notions of cosmic harmony onto portrayals of (or arguments for) civic harmony. Breytenbach suggests that Clement's depiction of cosmic concord as an example for the Corinthian community to follow participates in this same tradition of political rhetoric, even as Clement's ‘Jewish Christian monotheistic tradition’ shapes the author's conviction that true cosmic harmony is accomplished by the one Creator.Footnote ³³

For the purposes of the present article, more important than the alleged background of 1 Clement 20 is the function of its passage in this present literary context.Footnote ³⁴ As it stands, the chapter serves two purposes. First, as we have seen in 1 Clement 34, to the extent that readers of the letter are encouraged to emulate the good works of God, which are manifestly demonstrated in God's creation of the world, God's praiseworthy activity as Creator provides a pattern for imitation (cf. 1 Clem. 33.7-8). Note that the ‘hymn of the universe’ is introduced in 19.2-3 with a series of six first-person subjunctive exhortations, four of which are verbs of sight or perception (ἀτενίζω, ὁράω, ἐμβλέπω, νοέω) whose object is ‘the Father and Maker of the whole world’.

In this sense, gazing upon and contemplating the activity of God the Creator provides a model for Christian ‘theoformity’, or conformity to the character of the Creator, the God whose actions here are characterized by peace, patience, and an absence of anger.Footnote ³⁶

The second function served by this passage is that it offers a picture of an obedient, ordered, and peaceful creation as an example for the Corinthians to imitate in their own (presently disobedient, disordered, and contentious) social relations. The author of 1 Clement is not interested in cosmology as a matter of metaphysical reflection or aesthetics (even if the imagery in 1 Clement 20 is evocatively poetic). Instead, the construction of the world in 1 Clement 20 is intimately related to the letter's goal of encouraging ‘peace and harmony’ in Corinth (63.2). That the harmonious universe is a paradigm for Corinthian mimesis is made clear in the following section.Footnote ³⁷ Having highlighted the extent to which the peace and harmony of the universe results in ‘benefactions with respect to all things, but especially to us who have taken refuge in God's compassionate mercies through our Lord Jesus Christ’ (20.12, my translation), the author warns his readers not to neglect this harmony: ‘Take care, dear friends, lest his many benefits turn into a judgment upon us all, as will happen if we fail to live worthily of him and to do harmoniously those things that are good and pleasing in his sight’ (21.1). Just as the earth bears abundant fruit in time in accordance with God's will (κατὰ τὸ θέλημα, 20.4), with the result that all creatures enjoy plentiful food from the earth without dissension, so also the readers of the letter are summoned to follow God's will and avoid dissension (cf. 21.4). Thus, the harmonious cosmology of 1 Clement 20 reflects the rhetorical aims of its author insofar as the idyllic picture of the peace and harmony of the created world serve as a model for the Corinthian church to imitate.

What is stated or implied about the origin and purpose of the physical world elsewhere in the letter of 1 Clement largely corresponds to the sanguine portrait of ch. 20 and occasionally echoes the two important themes developed there: (1) God's good work as Creator provides an example for God's people to follow, and (2) the peaceful and harmonious nature of the cosmos itself serves as a model for Corinthian mimesis. God is frequently and positively identified as ‘Creator’ throughout the letter:

1. 1. When LXX Gen 1.26-27 is cited in 33.5, the verb ποιέω is used three times to designate God's creative activity, and in 7.3 and 14.3 a participial form of the same verb describes God as ‘the one who made us’.Footnote ³⁸

2. 2. The term κτίστης denotes God as ‘Father and Creator’ in 19.2, ‘Guardian and Creator’ in 59.3, and ‘Father and God and Creator’ in 62.2, and in 34.6 the entire creation is said to be full of God's glory (πλήρης πᾶσα ἡ κτίσις τῆς δόξης αὐτοῦ; cf. 19.3; 59.3).

3. 3. Similarly, the synonym δημιουργός (‘craftsworker, builder, creator’) is a title for God in 20.11; 26.1; 33.2; 35.3 (δημιουργὸς καὶ πατὴρ τῶν αἰώνων); and 59.2. Another favorite divine title in 1 Clement, δεσπότης, is three times qualified with the adjective ἅπας, indicating that God is the ‘Master of all things’ (my translation; 8.2; 20.11; 33.2; cf. 55.6: τὸν παντεπόπτην δεσπότην τῶν αἰώνων; 64.1: δεσπότης τῶν πνευμάτων καὶ κύριος πάσης σαρκός).

4. 4. In 1 Clem. 38.3, readers are encouraged to acknowledge God's role and beneficence in their own personal creation: ‘Let us acknowledge, brothers and sisters, from what matter we were made; who and what we were, when we came into the world; from what grave and what darkness the one who made and created us brought us into his world, having prepared his benefits for us before we were even born’. This text suggests that, while the Corinthians are called to imitate God's character and God's good deeds, works seen in God's activity of creation, the readers of the letter are not themselves ‘creators’, nor are they responsible for their own lives. They must acknowledge their ultimate dependence upon God, and the fitting result of such recognition is thanks and praise to God (38.4).Footnote ³⁹

5. 5. 1 Clem. 59.2 introduces a prayer to the ‘Creator of the universe’, the content of which runs from 59.3–61.3. In this doxological section, God's creative power and sustaining protection of his creation are both praised and invoked: believers hope on God's name, ‘which is the primal source of all creation’ (59.3); God is called ‘the God of all flesh’ and ‘the Creator and guardian of every spirit’ (59.3); God's ‘works have revealed the everlasting structure of the world’ (60.1); the Lord who ‘created the earth’ is praised as ‘faithful throughout all generations, righteous in your judgments, marvelous in strength and majesty, wise in creating and prudent in establishing what exists’ (60.1); God is asked to give ‘harmony and peace to us and to all who dwell on the earth’ (60.4); and, in the portion of the prayer concerned with earthly rulers and governors, their ability to rule is ascribed to God's granting to ‘human beings glory and honor and authority over the creatures upon the earth’ (61.2).

The harmonious characterization of the physical world in 1 Clement 20 is also paralleled briefly in 9.4, where it is noted that during the time of Noah living creatures entered into the ark in harmony. Moreover, in 1 Clement 24–25, three positive examples from nature are used to testify to the validity of Jesus' resurrection. First, believers observe ‘the resurrection that regularly occurs’ (τὴν κατὰ καιρὸν γινομένην ἀνάστασιν) when night gives way to day and day to night (24.3) and when seeds are sown into the ground but ‘the Master's providence raises them up’ (24.4-5). Moreover, the example of the phoenix (25.1-5)—which the author of Clement ostensibly assumes to be a real bird that lives for 500 years before it dies, and a worm nourished by the phoenix's decaying flesh grows wings and carries the bones of its parent to the city of Heliopolis—also supports the hope that ‘the Creator of the universe shall bring about the resurrection of those who have served him in holiness’ (26.1). Thus, these examples from the order of the cosmos attest to the surety of resurrection.

If there are hints in 1 Clement of a darker portrayal of the created world, they are substantially muted. Certainly conflict (1.1; 3.2-4; 44.4-6; 46.5–48.6; 54.3; 57.1-2), struggle (1.1; 2.4; 55.2; 59.4), persecution (5.2; 6.1; 39.1; 45.3-8; 59.4), and even martyrdom (5.1-7) are part of the past and (potentially) present experience of the faithful in Christ. Yet there is little in 1 Clement that corresponds to Paul's claim in Romans 8 that the physical world itself suffers bondage and awaits liberty. There is an assertion in 1 Clem. 3.4 that ‘through ungodly jealousy…death entered into the world (θάνατος εἰσῆλθεν εἰς τὸν κόσμον)’. Although this sentiment is loosely paralleled in Rom 5.12, the phrase θάνατος εἰσῆλθεν εἰς τὸν κόσμον is actually a direct citation of Wis 2.24 (φθόνῳ δὲ διαβόλου θάνατος εἰσῆλθεν εἰς τὸν κόσμον). Given the reference here to death's entry into the world through ‘unrighteous and ungodly ζῆλος’, it is likely that the author of 1 Clement has borrowed the phrase from Wisdom and associated ζῆλος with the divisive activity of the opponents in Corinth.Footnote ⁴⁰ It does not appear that θάνατος is personified as an anti-God power in 1 Clement, as is the case in Romans 5–8. The author also suggests, at least as a theoretical possibility, that God, who established all things by his majestic word, can destroy all things by a word (27.4), but this insinuation is not related to any corruption within the created universe so much as it is an assertion of God's absolute freedom (cf. 1 Clem. 27.5-7).Footnote ⁴¹ Thus, there is nothing in 1 Clement that appreciably undermines the pleasant portrayal of creation in chs. 20 and 33, the emphasis on God as Creator, or the positive role that the physical world plays in attesting to theological truth.