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 between 80 and 100 AD. Dan Wallace dates it to 60 AD. Dr. Peter S. Ruckman dates it to around Acts 28.

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. Here is the Greek text that Clement of Rome would be reading.

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.

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 3, and Jonah 3 in the Septuagint contains none of this language either. 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. So the alien language is not drawn from Jonah 3. This does not prove that Ephesians is where Clement got it, but it rules out Joel and Jonah 3 as the source of that language.

Sources. Greek of Ephesians: Textus Receptus . Greek of 1 Clement: J. B. Lightfoot - The Apostolic Fathers. English of Ephesians: King James Version. English of 1 Clement: Schaff. Jonah 3: Greek from the Septuagint, English by John Barach.

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 possible echo, though it is far more contested. 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

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.

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.

Hagner, in The Use of the Old and New Testaments in Clement of Rome, believed it was a possible allusion, though he held that “alien” was a commonplace Christian word.

"Additional possible allusions are somewhat less convincing. In Cl. 26.1 the phrase ἐν πεποιθήσει πίστεως ἀγαθῆς (cf. 35.2) could possibly reflect the ἐν πεποιθήσει διὰ τῆς πίστεως αὐτοῦ of Eph. 3.12. When Clement writes of the Ninevites that they received salvation (7.7) καίπερ ἀλλότριοι τοῦ θεοῦ ὄντες, he may reflect Paul’s words about the salvation of the Gentiles ἀπηλλοτριωμένοι τῆς πολιτείας τοῦ Ἰσραὴλ κτλ. (Eph. 2.12). When Clement speaks of τῇ παναρέτῳ καὶ σεβασμίῳ κεκοσμημένοι (2.8), he may refer to this same passage in Ephesians. However, if he is at all dependent on Paul, Phil. 1.27 or 3.20 seems a more likely source. Clement’s words ὁ ἐκλεξάμενος τὸν κύριον Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν καὶ ἡμᾶς δι’ αὐτοῦ in the benediction of chapter 64 could possibly be reminiscent of Eph. 1.4: καθὼς ἐξελέξατο ἡμᾶς ἐν αὐτῷ. Again, while these various parallels remain possible allusions, because of their commonplace character they cannot be used to argue Clement’s dependence on Ephesians." - Page 225

Note: I believe he overlooks the blood connection, and Ephesians 2:13.

There's some other scholars who compare it, but no one who outright says it's an echo.

"4. ἀλλότριοι τ. θ.] 'aliens from God'; i.e. 'Gentiles': comp. Ephes. ii. 12 ἀπηλλοτριωμένοι τῆς πολιτείας τοῦ Ἰσραήλ... καὶ ἄθεοι ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ. Both ἀλλότριοι and ἀλλόφυλοι are thus used, as opposed to the covenant-people." - J. B. Lightfoot, D.D., S. Clement of Rome. The Two Epistles to the Corinthians: A Revised Text with Introduction and Notes, page 56

"ἀπηλλοτριωμένοι] The Apostle seems to have in mind Ps. lxviii (lxix) 9 ἀπηλλοτριωμένος ἐγενήθην (מוּזָר הָיִיתִי) τοῖς ἀδελφοῖς μου, καὶ ξένος τοῖς υἱοῖς τῆς μητρός μου. This will account for his choice of a word which does not appear to be a term of Greek civic life. Its ordinary use is either of the alienation of property, or of alienation of feeling : the latter sense prevails in Col. i 21, καὶ ὑμᾶς ποτὲ ὄντας ἀπηλλοτριωμένους καὶ ἐχθροὺς τῇ διανοίᾳ...ἀποκατήλλαξεν, where estrangement from God is in question. The participial sense is not to be pressed : strictly speaking the Gentiles could not have been alienated from the sacred commonwealth of which they had never been members. The word is used almost as a noun, as may be seen from its construction with ὄντες in iv 18 and in Col. i 21. So too here we have ὅτι ἦτε...ἀπηλλοτριωμένοι...καὶ ξένοι. It thus scarcely differs from ἀλλότριος : comp. Clem. Rom. 7, of the Ninevites, ἔλαβον σωτηρίαν, καίπερ ἀλλότριοι τοῦ θεοῦ ὄντες." - J. Armitage Robinson, D.D., St Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians: A Revised Text and Translation with Exposition and Notes, pages 158-159.

As far as I am aware, while I was not the first person to discover this, I believe that I am the first person to verifiably look into it and use the arguments I did, as I cannot find anyone else (edit: October 8, 2026) who did.

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 the capstone of his argument, 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.

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.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/S._Clement_Of_Rome_Volume_1-_The_Two_Epistles_to_the_Corinthians_%28IA_SClementOfRomeV1%29.pdf

J. Armitage Robinson, D.D. St Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians: A Revised Text and Translation with Exposition and Notes

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2f/St_Paul%27s_epistle_to_the_Ephesians_-_a_revised_text_and_translation_with_exposition_and_notes_%28IA_cu31924075889307%29.pdf