Talk:Epistles of Clement

Untitled
Shouldn't this be referred to as the "Epistles of Clement" vice "1 Clement"? With no information on 2 Clement at present, it is probably best to wrap the pair up together for the moment. Mitsukai 19:54, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * I totally agree. Compare the Pastoral epistles I recently collected together. Context counts! --Wetman 19:59, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * I've moved the page, and reaimed all the links to 1 Clement and 2 Clement here. Hope no one minds my being bold. Jwrosenzweig 16:40, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

No, these ought to be split. There shouldn't be one article on two different works, unless that article compares the two and two seperate articles exist for the subset works. Thanatosimii 21:41, 26 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree that two separate articles seems appropriate. I'll try to expanding the text substantially and create two the two articles. --Alecmconroy 22:55, 17 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Your stubs are prepared. We don't usually cannibalize existing articles to make new ones. --Wetman 23:46, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

The two epistles should definitely be separated, for several reasons. First, there is no logical connection between them. It is debatable whether both are even by the same author. More important still, we can tie 1 Clement precisely into first-century Roman history, as George Edmundson did in 1913, in his book The Church in Rome in the First Century.

Since all the scholarship I've read suggests pretty strongly that they are both spurious to some extent, I've consolidated the two pages into this one but, for those who feel that they deserve their own pages, have not deleted the originals. I've also cleaned up a few of the syntax and spelling errors. The original individual pages exist but I see no real reason for them to continue to do so. Silvanus42 21:50, 16 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree with Silvanus42. German, Italian and Spanish Wikipedia have separated articles.--Egaida 12:38, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

deleted information restored
Defenders of POV routinely delete information that they don't like. In this case, I've restored it. If there are issues with the material, let's discuss it on the talk page. Leadwind (talk) 16:45, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm going to go through the article and add "citation needed" tags for the parts that need it. I'm also going to make some changes to the structure of the lead section being careful to not remove any text. Dgf32 (talk) 17:29, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

The following section of the text needs refining to achieve NPOV: "The spiritual authority wielded in this epistle comes not from a Pope claiming authority by virtue of office like that envisioned in the eighth century forgeries "The Donation of Constantine" and the Pseudo-Isidorean Decretals, but rather from a Church claiming authority by virtue of the inspiration of the Holy Spirit as this church reasons with a sister church, quoting the words of God found in scripture and appealing to the apostolic tradition shared by both churches." Dgf32 (talk) 18:02, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Just as some use 1 Clement to argue against Roman Primacy, many use 1 Clement as an example of the early Roman Church asserting it's primacy. The text above offers one interpretation of the epistle, which while held by some scholars, is also objected to by many scholars. If you want to include a discussion of interpretation in the article, then the full arguements from both sides must be presented in neutral tone, citing sources on both sides, and avoiding individual interpretation and original research. If you're willing to put in the time to doing it correctly, it could stay in the article. Dgf32 (talk) 18:02, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I've gone through several different English translations of the epistle, and none of them use terminology "sister church" or other terminology which might have a similar meaning. Since that section of the text is both factually incorrect and not verifiable, I'm going to remove just that one particular part now. Hopefully in the next few days you can work out a more neutral version of the text I included above. Thank you! Dgf32 (talk) 18:06, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Again, I still didn't get a response on this issue. The paragraph starting with "No where in the epistle itself..." has very strong POV. Unless we can balance that interpretation of the epistle out with other interpretations and good, solid citations, I think that entire paragraph can be deleted without affecting the quality of the article. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. If people want religious interpretations of the epistle, either Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox, they wouldn't be looking in an encyclopedia. If we can't improve this section soon and present a more balanced arguement, I think it needs to be removed from the article. Dgf32 (talk) 15:50, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
 * There still were no citations provided, nor was there any attempt to provide a NPOV. Instead of trying to advance both Roman and Orthodox interpreations of the document, I think it's better to leave the article as it was before the uncited information was added. If you can provide citations and reformulate the text with NPOV, please do edit the article accordingly. Dgf32 (talk) 23:41, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Dgf32, thanks for deleting that uncited material, and thanks for having the patience to see if the other editor would provide the citations. Leadwind (talk) 02:24, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

The editor previous introduced into the article that the epistled was sent from "the Church of God which sojourns in Rome" to "the Church of God which sojourns in Corinth", and he used these quotations form the epistle to suggest that Clement was not its author since he did not sign his name to it. This obviously has POV issues, but more importantly, its original research. While I always try to give editors the benefit of the doubt, if you look through the editor in question's contributions history, it's obvious he came to Wikipedia with a particular POV to push. Dgf32 (talk) 20:28, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Suggested EL
Over on Clement of Rome, the author of this webpage, http://www.mortalresurrection.com/2008/12/25/63/#more-63, added it to the ELs. I removed it as COI, but I do think it is a good site. Footnoted and everything. I'm suggesting it be added to this page, as it is about 1 Clement, not Clement himself. For a short discussion on the issue, you can refer to the bottom of my talk page. Carl.bunderson (talk) 06:26, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

The referenced article is a short study on the use of material deriving from the Synoptic Gospels in I Clement. Since the 'apostolic fathers' are a primary source for understanding the organization of the early church, and more specifically the development of the Christian Canon, it seemed appropriate to include the article here. Mortalresurrection (talk) 15:35, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Done. Carl.bunderson (talk) 08:53, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, suggested revision
Much of the material currently residing in the Section concerning I Clement appears to come from Bruce Metzger's Canon of the New Testament. While we could argue whether influence from the works of Lightfoot, Westcott, or even F.F. Bruce might also be employed, my concern right now is that of assuring that we properly represent the conclusions of the scholarly work of Metzger. Specifically, I am concerned that the last sentence of Paragraph 3, although an apparent paraphrase of Metzger's conclusion, is quite misleading in its current form.

Metzger's concluding paragraph runs as follows: "By way of summary, we see that Clement’s Bible is the Old Testament, to which he refers repeatedly as Scripture (γραφή), quoting it with more or less exactness. Clement also makes occasional reference to certain words of Jesus; though they are authoritative for him, he does not appear to enquire how their authenticity is ensured. In two of the three instances that he speaks of remembering ‘the words’ of Jesus, it seems that he has a written record in mind, but he does not call it a ‘gospel’. He knows several of Paul’s epistles, and values them highly for their content; the same can be said of the epistle to the Hebrews, with which he is well acquainted. Although these writings obviously possess for Clement considerable significance, he never refers to them as authoritative ‘Scripture’." (emphasis mine)

The last sentence of section three reads: "Though he quotes some of the letters of Paul and the Epistle to the Hebrews and remembers some sayings of Jesus, he never refers to these as authoritative Scripture.

Doesn't this convey a significantly different meaning than that of Metzger? My proposed emendation would run as follows; replacing ONLY the last sentence of Paragraph 3, and possibly commencing a new Paragraph between what is now Para 3 and Para 4: "New Testament references include Clement’s admonition to “Take up the epistle of the blessed Paul the Apostle” which was written to this Corinthian audience; a reference which seems to imply written documents available at both Rome and Corinth (Metzger, p.42). Clement also alludes to the epistles from Paul to the Romans, Galatians, Ephesians, and Philippians; numerous phrases from Hebrews, and possible material from Acts, James, and I Peter (Metzger, p.42-43). On several instances, he asks his readers to “remember” the words of Jesus, although it is unclear from the text whether these sayings emanate from written gospels (Metzger, p. 43). Although these New Testament allusions are employed to strengthen Clement’s arguments to the Corinthians, Clement never explicitly refers to them as “Scripture”. "

I am open to discussion on this. Mortalresurrection (talk) 18:12, 17 January 2009 (UTC)


 * On its face, I don't think the last sentence of section three conveys a significantly different meaning than that of Metzger. But I also think your emendation would be good. Be bold, and add it. Just make sure that when you actually put it in the article itself, that you use the ??ref?? kinda looking button above the edit button to add the refs, rather than using parenthetical refs. Cheers. Carl.bunderson

Splitting into Two Articles
As mentioned at the top, this Article refers to two separate entities, and should thus be split into two. Please voice your objections before I go ahead. -- Schewek (talk) 16:34, 5 March 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Schewek (talk • contribs) 20:48, 4 March 2009 (UTC)


 * The article that enfolds both is Pope Clement I. Up-to-date summaries of both articles should be available there.--Wetman (talk) 17:38, 5 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Ok, I will try to split this, trying to follow directions in WP:SPLIT. I will first try to move this to First Epistle of Clement, and then split out the 2 Clement part. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 20:01, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah well, that does not work, because there is prior history there. Someone merged these two articles in October 2007. That was unfortunate. I propose to resurrect those two articles first, and to butcher this one. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 20:07, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Authenticity
Article seems to slur together 2 different senses:


 * 1) when was it written?
 * 2) who wrote it?

As far as I know, scholarly opinion is that the answers are


 * 1) c 96
 * 2) anon

Peter jackson (talk) 10:31, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, should have specified I Clement. Peter jackson (talk) 10:31, 23 April 2009 (UTC)