Did 1 Clement of Rome Echo Ephesians 2:12-2:13?

In this article I apply Richard Hays's seven tests for scriptural echoes to ask whether 1 Clement 7:7 echoes Ephesians 2:12-13.

1) Availability

Was the purported source of the allusion or echo available to the author and his audience?

Joshua Schachterle dates Ephesians probably between 80 and 100 AD. Dan Wallace dates it to 60 AD. Dr. Peter S. Ruckman dates it to around Acts 28. For 1 Clement itself, J. B. Lightfoot gives A.D. 95 to 96 as the received date (The Apostolic Fathers, Part I, vol. 1, p. 346). Hagner concludes that Clement was very probably familiar with Paul's letter to the Ephesians (The Use of the Old and New Testaments in Clement of Rome, 1973, pp. 225-226).

I would very much argue yes.

2) Volume

Was the allusion loud enough to hear, in terms of repetition of words and patterns in the original source?

I would argue that it was. Here are the two passages side by side, with the key words in bold.

The English word "alien" hides how much the Greek has in common. Both words come from the root ἀλλότριος ("belonging to another, foreign, estranged"). Ephesians uses the perfect passive participle ἀπηλλοτριωμένοι ("having been alienated") with the genitive τῆς πολιτείας ("from the commonwealth"). Clement uses the adjective ἀλλότριοι ("alien, estranged") with the genitive τοῦ θεοῦ ("from God"). The two words are different forms, but they share a root and the same construction: being estranged from something, with that something put in the genitive.

The same Greek word appears again in Ephesians 4:18, where it comes even closer to Clement's phrase.

ἐσκοτισμένοι τῇ διανοίᾳ ὄντες ἀπηλλοτριωμένοι τῆς ζωῆς τοῦ θεοῦ διὰ τὴν ἄγνοιαν τὴν οὖσαν ἐν αὐτοῖς διὰ τὴν πώρωσιν τῆς καρδίας αὐτῶν

Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart:

Here ἀπηλλοτριωμένοι takes a genitive that ends in τοῦ θεοῦ (τῆς ζωῆς τοῦ θεοῦ, "the life of God"), so the one being estranged from is God. Clement says the same thing more briefly with ἀλλότριοι τοῦ θεοῦ. Ephesians describes Gentiles as estranged in two places (2:12 and 4:18), and Clement describes the Gentile Ninevites with the same root, in a letter that elsewhere draws on Ephesians 4 (1 Clement 46:6).

Hagner notes one more point of contact with this verse. He calls the ἐσκοτωμένη διάνοια of 1 Clement 36:2 very similar to the ἐσκοτωμένοι τῇ διανοίᾳ of Ephesians 4:18 (the Textus Receptus reads ἐσκοτισμένοι there), although he prefers Romans 1:21 as the source (p. 225). So the verse that contains ἀπηλλοτριωμένοι τῆς ζωῆς τοῦ θεοῦ may be echoed elsewhere in Clement too, but that is disputed.

The blood language has a Greek parallel too. Ephesians 2:13 says ἐν τῷ αἵματι τοῦ Χριστοῦ, and 1 Clement 7:4 says εἰς τὸ αἷμα τοῦ Χριστοῦ ("to the blood of Christ"). Hagner quotes 1 Clement 7:4 with these same words (p. 168), and Lightfoot's 1869 text prints them without brackets, so they are not restored from a gap in the manuscript. So both the blood and the alien language appear in the same chapter of 1 Clement, and Ephesians 2:12-13 has them in adjacent verses.

I also checked whether this language could have come from a shared Old Testament source. Joel in the Septuagint has no form of ἀλλότριος, no form of ἀπαλλοτριόω, and no ξένος. The closest words are ἀλλογενεῖς in Joel 4:17 (3:17 in English Bibles) and ἀλλοφύλων in Joel 4:4, which are different words used in a different sense.

More importantly, 1 Clement 7:7 is a summary of Jonah, and no chapter of Jonah in the Septuagint contains this language. Jonah has no form of ἀλλότριος, no form of ἀπαλλοτριόω, and no ξένος in any of its four chapters. Clement's καταστροφὴν ἐκήρυξεν ("preached destruction") tracks Jonah 3:4, where Jonah preaches and says that Nineveh καταστραφήσεται ("shall be overthrown"). But Clement's ἔλαβον σωτηρίαν ("obtained salvation") and ἀλλότριοι τοῦ θεοῦ ὄντες ("though alien from God") have no counterpart in the Jonah text. The only salvation word in Jonah is σωτηρίου in 2:10, which belongs to Jonah's own thanksgiving and is not about the Ninevites. So the alien language is not drawn from Jonah.

This does not prove that Ephesians is where Clement got it. Clement also adds other terms of his own, such as ἐξιλάσαντο ("appeased") and ἱκετεύσαντες ("supplicating"), which are also absent from Jonah. But it does rule out Joel and Jonah as the source of the alien language.

Sources. Greek of Ephesians (2:12-13 and 4:18): Textus Receptus. Greek of 1 Clement: J. B. Lightfoot, The Two Epistles of Clement of Rome to the Corinthians: A Revised Text with Introduction and Notes (London and Cambridge: Macmillan, 1869). English of Ephesians: King James Version. English of 1 Clement: Charles H. Hoole, as hosted on earlychristianwritings.com. Jonah: Greek from the Septuagint; the English of Jonah 3 is by John Barach. Lightfoot on the date and on Clement's use of Paul: J. B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers, Part I: S. Clement of Rome, vol. 1 (London: Macmillan, 1890). Hagner: Donald A. Hagner, The Use of the Old and New Testaments in Clement of Rome (Leiden: Brill, 1973).

3) Recurrence and clustering

How often is the source quoted or alluded to by the author?

Clement references Ephesians 4:4 in 1 Clement 46:6.

Have we not one God and one Christ? Is not the Spirit of grace, which was poured out upon us, one? Is not our calling one in Christ?

Compare Ephesians 4:4-6:

There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; One Lord, one faith, one baptism, One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.

There is another echo that Hagner rates as very probable (p. 224), though not every scholar agrees. Compare Ephesians 1:17-18:

That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him: The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints,

with 1 Clement 59:3:

That we may hope in thy name, which is the first of all things, open the eyes of our heart to know thee

Hagner's study of Clement's use of Paul supports both. He finds that every phrase of 1 Clement 46:6 is paralleled in Ephesians 4:4-7 and says it is difficult to doubt Clement's dependence (p. 223). For 59:3, he notes that the phrase "the eyes of the heart" occurs nowhere in the Septuagint, nowhere else in the New Testament, and among the Apostolic Fathers only in Clement and the Martyrdom of Polycarp, and he judges Clement's dependence on Ephesians 1:18 for it very probable (pp. 223-224). He adds that the wider context of 1 Clement 59 has further contacts with Ephesians 1, including holiness, election, the Beloved, and the knowledge of Jesus (p. 224).

Lightfoot's overall assessment fits this pattern. He describes Clement as "imbued with the Epistles to the Romans, Corinthians, and Ephesians" (vol. 1, p. 397). That is a general statement and does not mention Ephesians 2:12-13, but it supports the claim that Ephesians was well known to Clement.

4) Thematic coherence

Does the allusion fit well with the line of discourse or argument the author is developing?

Very well. Clement's entire point in 1 Clement 7 is that the blood of Jesus Christ was shed as the basis of salvation, and therefore of repentance.

He then gives historical cases of repentance. The last of them is the Ninevites, who repented, made humble supplication to God, and obtained salvation. In Ephesians' terms, they were made nigh by the blood, which is the basis of repentance and salvation.

Lightfoot also notes that "the blood of Christ" recurs in 1 Clement (in §§ 7, 12, 21, 49, and 55) and reads this as evidence that Clement understood the Atonement (vol. 1, p. 398). So the blood is a settled theme of the letter, not a one-off in chapter 7.

5) Historical plausibility

Could the author have meant the particular meaning derived from the source, and could his readers have understood that meaning?

Assume that Ephesians was written by Paul but, for whatever reason, only began to circulate between 80 and 100 AD. It would still have been available to Clement of Rome's readers in 95-96 AD.

6) History of interpretation

Have other interpreters of the same text, whether modern, medieval, or ancient, detected the same allusion? There is strength in numbers.

Partly. Two interpreters have noticed the same parallel, but neither argues that it is a probable echo.

J. B. Lightfoot's note on 1 Clement 7:7 glosses ἀλλότριοι τοῦ Θεοῦ as "aliens from God," that is, "Gentiles," and sends the reader to Ephesians 2:12 (ἀπηλλοτριωμένοι τῆς πολιτείας τοῦ Ἰσραήλ... καὶ ἄθεοι ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ). He adds that both ἀλλότριοι and ἀλλόφυλοι are used this way, as opposed to the covenant people (1869 edition, p. 56). He says "comp." and does not call it an echo.

Donald Hagner goes a step further. He says that when Clement writes that the Ninevites received salvation though alien from God, Clement "may reflect" Paul's words about the salvation of the Gentiles in Ephesians 2:12. But he lists it among the "possible allusions" and concludes that, because of their "commonplace character," such parallels cannot be used to argue that Clement depends on Ephesians (The Use of the Old and New Testaments in Clement of Rome, 1973, p. 225).

Hagner's objection is aimed at that group of parallels as a whole, and not at the word "alien" alone. His own conclusion is that Clement was very probably familiar with Ephesians, based on other passages (46:6 and 59:3, above). In his discussion of Ephesians he treats 7:7 on its own and does not connect it with the blood language of 7:4 (pp. 222-226). My argument is that the combination is less commonplace than any single word: the same root of estrangement from God, the blood of Christ in the same chapter, and the two paired in adjacent verses in Ephesians 2:12-13. I do not claim this is certain, only that it is a better-supported echo than the word alone suggests.

7) Satisfaction

Does the allusion make sense of and illuminate the discourse, regardless of lucid confirmation of the other criteria?

Yes, absolutely.

1 Clement 7

7:4 Let us look steadfastly to the blood of Christ, and see how precious in the sight of God is his blood, which having been poured out for our salvation, brought to the whole world the grace of repentance.

7:5 Let us go back to all generations, and learn that in every generation God hath granted a place for repentance to such as wished to return unto him.

7:6 Noah preached repentance, and as many as hearkened unto him were saved.

7:7 Jonah prophesied destruction to the Ninevites, and they, repenting of their sins, appeased God through prayer, and, though alien from God, obtained salvation.

If 1 Clement 7:7 is an echo of Ephesians 2:12-13, it is a callback to 7:4, which says that the blood of Jesus Christ is the basis of salvation and that it brought the grace of repentance to the whole world. Clement then goes through the historical examples.

7:7 is the last of those examples, and he has already established that repentance is possible because of the blood. It therefore makes sense logically that the Ninevites obtained salvation through supplication, and that the blood which makes it possible for the world to repent is what did it.

Verdict

On Hays’s tests, availability, recurrence, thematic coherence, historical plausibility, and satisfaction are met. Volume is moderate: a shared root and construction, not identical wording. History of interpretation is partial, since Lightfoot and Hagner both noticed the parallel and Hagner thought it too commonplace to prove dependence. I conclude that 1 Clement 7:7 echoes Ephesians 2:12-13. The more interesting connection, however, is what that means for the soteriology of Clement and/or the Church at Rome, as the writer is never actually identified.

Credit

Thank you to the Themelios review of The Hermeneutics of the Biblical Writers: Learning to Interpret Scripture, where I found these criteria. They come from Richard B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (1989). Hays built them to ask how Paul echoes the Old Testament. Here I have adapted them to ask whether a later author, Clement, echoes a New Testament text, Ephesians.