Supplication in 1 Clement 7: How Prayer Brought Salvation

Quick Facts

Text: 1 Clement 7, a letter from the church at Rome to the church at Corinth, usually dated to around 95–96 A.D.

Key Greek phrase: ἐξιλάσαντο τὸν Θεὸν ἱκετεύσαντες (7.7), “they obtained God’s mercy by supplicating him”.

Greek background: In classical Greek, ἱκετεύω (“supplicate”) and ἱκέτης (“suppliant”) name a formal act in which a person throws himself on the mercy of someone stronger. Homer’s Chryses (Iliad 1.12–15) and Priam (Iliad 24.477–478) are classic examples, and Zeus is called ἱκετήσιος, “god of suppliants” (Odyssey 13.213).

Core claim: In 1 Clement 7, supplication is the means by which the Ninevites obtained God’s mercy and “received salvation” (ἔλαβον σωτηρίαν), the same salvation for which, according to 7.4, Christ’s blood was shed.

Key texts: 1 Clement 2.3, 7.4–7, 8.2–5, 9.1, 48.1 and 59.2–60.1; Homer, Iliad 1.12–15, 9.497–502 and 24.477–478; Odyssey 13.213.

Supplication in 1 Clement 7: The Greek Background, and Why It Is Salvific

When the writers of 1 Clement say the Ninevites “obtained God’s mercy by supplicating him” (ἐξιλάσαντο τὸν Θεὸν ἱκετεύσαντες, 7.7), they are using a word with a long history in Greek. ἱκετεύω is not the ordinary Greek word for asking; that is αἰτέω, which Clement uses for ordinary requests (for example 50.2, “let us ask”). ἱκετεύω is the word of the suppliant, and a Greek reader would hear the whole picture: someone in need who comes to a stronger party, throws himself on that party’s mercy, and waits to be received.

In this article I will first show what supplication meant in the classical Greek world, and then show that in 1 Clement 7 supplication is clearly salvific: it is how the Ninevites received salvation.

1. What Supplication Meant in the Greek World

The Greek suppliant (ἱκέτης) comes to someone stronger, usually with the outward signs of a suppliant, and asks for protection, mercy or the return of something he cannot take by force.

Homer’s Iliad opens with exactly this scene. The priest Chryses comes to the Greek ships to ransom his daughter:

στέμματ’ ἔχων ἐν χερσὶν ἑκηβόλου Ἀπόλλωνος / χρυσέῳ ἀνὰ σκήπτρῳ, καὶ λίσσετο πάντας Ἀχαιούς

“holding in his hands the wreaths of Apollo who shoots from afar, upon a golden staff, and he begged all the Achaeans.” (Iliad 1.14–15)

Agamemnon drives him away (1.24–32), and the rest of the book follows from that refusal. The point for us is that the outcome of supplication lay entirely with the one supplicated. Chryses could plead, but he could not compel.

The Iliad ends with the most famous supplication in Greek literature. Priam, the king of Troy, comes alone to Achilles, the man who killed his son:

χερσὶν Ἀχιλλῆος λάβε γούνατα καὶ κύσε χεῖρας

“with his hands he took hold of Achilles’ knees and kissed his hands.” (Iliad 24.478)

Clasping the knees was the classic gesture of the suppliant: the one asking puts himself physically at the feet of the one who has the power to grant or refuse. This time the supplication is accepted, and Achilles gives back Hector’s body.

Supplication was also a religious matter. Zeus was its guardian, and Homer calls him ἱκετήσιος, “god of suppliants”:

Ζεὺς σφέας τίσαιτο ἱκετήσιος, ὅς τε καὶ ἄλλους … “May Zeus, god of suppliants, punish them, he who watches over other men also.” (Odyssey 13.213)

The theme was strong enough to give its name to whole plays: Aeschylus’ Suppliant Women (Ἱκέτιδες) is about the Danaids, the daughters of Danaus, who flee to Argos as suppliants. The same Danaids appear in 1 Clement 6.2, so the writers clearly knew this literary world.

Three things stand out in the classical picture. The suppliant is in need and cannot help himself. He is often a stranger, an outsider with no claim of his own. And the result depends on the mercy of the one supplicated, not on the suppliant’s power.

Supplication in Greek literature was not only about protection. Homer also connects it with pardon for wrongdoing. In Iliad 9, Phoenix tells Achilles that even the gods can be turned: “Their hearts by incense and reverent vows and libations and the savour of sacrifice do men turn from wrath with supplication, whenso any man transgresseth and doeth sin. For Prayers are the daughters of great Zeus” (Iliad 9.497–502, trans. Murray). A Greek reader already knew the idea that a sinner can turn away wrath by supplication. Clement takes that idea and grounds it in the blood of Christ (7.4).

2. Clement’s Supplication Words

1 Clement uses this whole family of words, and always toward God:

ἱκετεύω, “to supplicate”: 2.3, 7.7, 48.1.

ἱκέτης, “a suppliant”: 9.1.

ἱκεσία, “supplication”: 59.2.

Alongside them, Clement uses the language of God becoming merciful: ἵλεως, “merciful, gracious” (2.3, 48.1, 61.2), and ἐξιλάσκομαι, “to obtain someone’s mercy, to appease” (7.7). In 2.3 and 48.1 the two go together exactly as in a classical supplication: the suppliant entreats, and asks the stronger party to become merciful (ἱκετεύοντες αὐτὸν ἵλεων γενέσθαι, “supplicating him to become merciful”, 2.3).

So when 7.7 says the Ninevites “obtained God’s mercy by supplicating him”, a Greek reader would picture them as suppliants: people under sentence of destruction, strangers to God, throwing themselves on his mercy, with the outcome resting on him.

3. Why Supplication Is Salvific in 1 Clement 7

Now to the main question. Is supplication in 1 Clement 7 actually salvific, or is it just something the Ninevites happened to do? Let’s break it down.

First, the participle names the means. The main verb is ἐξιλάσαντο, literally “they propitiated God”, that is, they turned away his anger and obtained his mercy. ἱκετεύσαντες, “by supplicating”, tells us how they did it. A participle like this can in principle express time or cause as well, but here it answers the question the main verb raises (how does someone propitiate God?), and that is why Lightfoot translates it “obtained pardon of God by their supplications”. Supplication is not a side detail. It is the means by which God’s mercy was obtained.

Second, the result is salvation. The sentence continues: καὶ ἔλαβον σωτηρίαν, “and they received salvation”. The same people who obtained God’s mercy by supplicating him are the ones who received salvation.

Third, it is the salvation Christ’s blood was shed for. The chapter opens by telling us to fix our eyes on the blood of Christ, “shed for our salvation” (διὰ τὴν ἡμετέραν σωτηρίαν, 7.4). The chapter closes with the Ninevites receiving σωτηρία (7.7). Same word, at the start and at the end. The writers are not telling a story about a city escaping a disaster. They are showing how the salvation of 7.4 is received.

Fourth, the problem was sin. The Ninevites repented “of their sins” (ἐπὶ τοῖς ἁμαρτήμασιν αὐτῶν) and obtained God’s mercy. A city escaping danger does not need God’s mercy for its sins. Sinners being forgiven do.

Fifth, they were strangers to God. The sentence ends καίπερ ἀλλότριοι τοῦ Θεοῦ ὄντες, “although they were strangers to God”. They had no covenant, no law and no sacrament. Like the classical suppliant, they were outsiders with no claim of their own, and they were received anyway. That is exactly the point of 7.4: the blood of Christ brought the grace of repentance “to the whole world” (παντὶ τῷ κόσμῳ).

Sixth, the writers prove it from Scripture on forgiveness. Chapter 8 follows with God’s own words: “I desire not the death of the sinner, but his repentance” (8.2), and “though your sins be as scarlet, I will make them white as snow” (8.4).

Seventh, they apply it to the Corinthians. The conclusion comes in 9.1 with “therefore” (Διό): “becoming suppliants (ἱκέται) of his mercy and goodness, let us fall down before him and turn to his compassions.” The Corinthians faced no flood and no siege. What they faced was God’s judgement on their sin and schism. The writers tell them to do what the Ninevites did: become suppliants.

Put together, the Greek of 7.7 says: having repented of their sins, the Ninevites obtained God’s mercy by supplicating him, and so received salvation, even though they were strangers to God. That is salvific supplication.

4. The Same Pattern Across the Letter

This is not a one-off in chapter 7. The letter opens by praising the Corinthians for stretching out their hands to God, “supplicating him to be merciful” whenever they had sinned (2.3). It prescribes the same thing as the cure for the schism: “let us fall down before the Master and weep, supplicating him, that he may become merciful and be reconciled to us” (48.1). And the writers close their argument by doing it themselves, making “earnest prayer and supplication” (δέησιν καὶ ἱκεσίαν, 59.2) and praying, “forgive us our iniquities” (ἄφες ἡμῖν τὰς ἀνομίας ἡμῶν, 60.1).

The Ninevites are the clearest picture of it. Repentant sinners, strangers to God, threw themselves on his mercy as suppliants, and they received salvation.

Sources

Homer, Iliad 1.12–15, 1.24–32, 9.497–502 and 24.477–478; Odyssey 13.213. Greek text via the Perseus Digital Library. Translations are my own, kept literal, except Iliad 9.497–502, which is A. T. Murray’s (Loeb, 1924).

Aeschylus, Suppliant Women (Ἱκέτιδες).

Greek text of 1 Clement: Lightfoot (1869), corrected from the Jerusalem codex; Kirsopp Lake’s edition (1912), as corrected by the Open Apostolic Fathers project.

J. B. Lightfoot, translation of 1 Clement 7.7, in The Apostolic Fathers (1891).