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Showing posts with label Apostolic Fathers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Apostolic Fathers. Show all posts

Wednesday 23 November 2016

Word counts by book for Septuagint, New Testament, Apostolic Fathers and Justin Martyr

Religious studies meets data science. The result:


Click on image for a larger result.

Texts used for this exercise were as follows. The LXX text is taken from freely available text files from the Center for Computer Analysis of Texts at the University of Pennsylvania. The NT text is taken from freely available text files of the SBL GNT maintained by James Tauber. The Apostolic Fathers text is taken from the Logos software edition of Michael W. Holmes' critical text.1 Justin Martyr's writings are taken from online Greek texts which are in turn based on Goodspeed's 1915 critical text (at least for the Apologies; no attribution is present for the Dialogue with Trypho). Text mining to obtain the word counts was conducted using R statistical software.

A few fun facts:

  • We have more words of Justin Martyr preserved (69741) than the entire Apostolic Fathers corpus (64757), thanks to the truly massive size of his Dialogue with Trypho.
  • Justin Martyr and the Apostolic Fathers combined (134498) are only slightly shorter than the New Testament (137554).
  • The Gospels and Acts make up over 60% of the New Testament by word count. The Pauline corpus makes up "only" 23.5%.
  • The whole of the LXX consists of 589013 words (based on the texts used here). Of this, 82% comes from books considered canonical by Protestants (albeit in Hebrew). An additional 13% (77806 words) comes from books considered canonical by Roman Catholics but not Protestants (1-2 Maccabees, Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, Judith, Tobit, Baruch, Epistle of Jeremiah, Bel and the Dragon, Susanna).2 The other 5% comes from books not considered canonical by Protestants or Roman Catholics (1 Esdras, 3-4 Maccabees, Odes of Solomon, Psalms of Solomon).

A couple of caveats. In cases where two quite divergent text families exist for a single book (e.g., Joshua, Judges, Daniel, Susanna, Bel and the Dragon, Tobit) I've just represented one of the texts. It should also be noted that some of the texts have lacunae (Epistle to Diognetus; Dialogue with Trypho) or lost endings (Gospel of Mark; Didache), so the original word count would have been larger than the one reported here. Other texts have portions extant only in Latin (Polycarp's Epistle to the Philippians; Shepherd of Hermas) which will also have slightly affected the word count since, for example, there is no article in Latin. For the Martyrdom of Polycarp I've only included chapters 1-20 since the epilogues in chapters 21-22 are obviously added by later hands.


Footnotes

  • 1 Michael W. Holmes, The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007).
  • 2 The Greek additions to Esther, also considered canonical by Roman Catholics, are not included here since I didn't go to the trouble of counting these words separately.

Wednesday 3 February 2016

Christadelphian ecclesial deism (2): five counterarguments


This article continues from the previous post on ecclesial deism, which could be defined as a doctrinal position which minimizes present divine activity in the Ecclesia and regards her work as almost exclusively a human responsibility. The previous post emphasized that Christadelphians have traditionally held to a radical version of this ecclesiology as a corollary of their view that the Holy Spirit has been inactive since shortly after the apostles died. We noted that Christadelphian literature tends to take an earthbound view of the Ecclesia, emphasizing what kind of Ecclesia we ought to be without emphasizing what the powerful presence of the Head of the Body of Christ causes the Ecclesia to be.

The last part of the post began a critique of Christadelphian ecclesial deism, noting that it is out of sync with abundant biblical testimony about the perpetual presence of the Holy Spirit and God's ongoing role in building, nourishing and protecting the Ecclesia. It seems to reflect a pessimistic lack of faith concerning Christ's promises to His Bride. There is, quite simply, no biblical warrant for ecclesial deism. In this post we will continue the critique of Christadelphian ecclesial deism with five additional lines of argument.


If we hold that the Ecclesia was established by Christ with an outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the promise of the Father, which endured throughout the days of the apostles, but that the Holy Spirit ceased operations shortly thereafter, an important theological question we need to answer is why this happened. If Christ loves and nourishes His Ecclesia, why would He have withdrawn this gift? I am aware of two main explanations that have been proposed by Christadelphians. In fact, both of them can be found in the writings of Robert Roberts, although they seem to be mutually exclusive.

The first explanation holds that the Holy Spirit was withdrawn because it was no longer needed. It had been given to get the Ecclesia up and running, so to speak. With the Ecclesia off to a running start and with the apostolic writings having been divinely inspired, the Holy Spirit's work was complete and the gift could safely lapse.

Robert Roberts explains it this way:
If the early churches, consisting of men and women fresh from the abominations and immoralities of heathenism, and without the authoritative standard of the completed Scripture which now exists, had been left to the mere power of apostolic tradition intellectually received, they could not have held together. The winds of doctrine, blowing about through the activity of "men of corrupt minds," would have broken them from their moorings, and they would have been tossed to and fro in the billows of uncertain and conflicting report and opinion, and finally stranded in hopeless shipwreck. This catastrophe was prevented by the gifts of the spirit... In this way the early churches were built up and edified. The work of the apostles was conserved, improved, and carried to a consummation. The faith was completed and consolidated by the voice of inspiration, speaking through the spiritually-appointed leaders of the churches. By this means the results of gospel-preaching in the first century, when there were no railways, telegraphs, or other means of a rapid circulation of ideas, instead of evaporating to nothing, as, otherwise, they would have done, were secured and made permanent, both as regards that generation and succeeding centuries. 
But it must be obvious that the case stands very differently now. There is no manifestation of the Spirit in these days. The power of continuing the manifestation doubtless died with the apostles; not that God could not have transferred it to others, but that He selected them as the channels of its bestowment in their age, and never, so far as we have any evidence, appointed "successors."1
How plausible is this explanation? To begin, Roberts' contrast between converts to Christianity in the apostolic period and thereafter is completely backwards. Firstly, the first generation of Christians was predominantly made up of Jews. It was only toward the end of the first century that the Ecclesia became predominantly Gentile.2 Moreover, scholars who regard Acts as historically accurate generally conclude, like Skarsaune, that 'The Christian mission continued for a long time to work primarily among the God-fearing Gentiles surrounding the Diaspora synagogues.'3 Skarsaune explains how this changed in the second century:
Most of the first Gentile converts to Christianity, the God-fearers, had this break with paganism behind them when they became Christians. In the second century this changed. An increasing number of converts came directly from paganism. They went, so to speak, directly from the ‘table of the demons’ (1 Cor 10:21) to the table of the Lord. This posed a challenge to the growing church.4
To summarize, then, in the apostolic period the Ecclesia was made up largely of (a) Jews, and (b) God-fearing Gentiles, neither of which were 'men and women fresh from the abominations and immoralities of heathenism'. As the apostolic period drew to a close, Gentiles became the majority, and in the second century, the Ecclesia increasingly evangelized 'raw' Gentiles who were still steeped in paganism. Hence, according to Roberts' own reasoning, the second-century Ecclesia needed the Holy Spirit more than the first-century Ecclesia did!

A further contradiction ensues when one recalls that, according to the Christadelphian meta-narrative, the Great Apostasy shifted into high gear in the late first and early second centuries. So it is being claimed on the one hand that the Ecclesia no longer needed the Holy Spirit, and on the other hand that as the Holy Spirit faded, the Ecclesia was progressively engulfed by apostasy.

Nor is it apparent that modern advances in technology have rendered the Holy Spirit surplus to the Ecclesia's requirements, as Roberts suggests. If anything, modern technology has been a secularizing force which has made faith in a theistic God more difficult, augmenting the need for divine activity in the Ecclesia! And in another place, contradicting his position here, Roberts admits that 'It would be an unspeakable source of comfort and strength to see the gift of the Spirit again restored.'

So much for the first explanation (though one aspect of it, that it was specifically the writing of the New Testament that rendered the work of the Holy Spirit complete, will be considered below). Perhaps sensing its weakness, Roberts elsewhere put forth a completely different explanation for why the Holy Spirit was withdrawn:
The apostasy prevailed more and more, as the Apostles, by the Spirit, predicted would be the case (2 Tim. 4: 1-4; 2: 17), until all trace of primitive truth disappeared, and the Spirit of the Lord was withdrawn from all association with an empty Christian name. Whatever genuine profession may have existed since then, has not been honoured by a return of the Spirit's witnessing and governing presence.5
Elsewhere, commenting on the Lord's threat to the ecclesia at Ephesus to 'remove your lampstand out of its place' (Rev. 2:5) unless they repent, Roberts clarifies further:
Oil symbolically used stands for the Spirit of God, as proved in many ways which we need not refer to. The Spirit of God was bestowed upon the ecclesias in the first century. It was this that constituted them the Spirit's candlesticks. Hence the threat was a threat of the withdrawal of the Spirit. The threat was duly carried into effect. The reformation desired did not set in. The Apostasy, which Paul declared to be in active progress before his death, got the upper hand everywhere, and the candlesticks were removed in all senses, since which day, the light of inspiration has been extinct, except in so far as it survives in the writings of the Spirit -- the oracles of God which are to us a treasure beyond price.6
Roberts' second explanation for why the Holy Spirit was withdrawn, then, is that it was a punishment inflicted on the Ecclesia for disobedience and apostasy. We will first consider whether this can be inferred from Revelation 2-3, and then offer some broader objections.

One can begin by observing that oil is never mentioned in Revelation 2-3. The Lord's threat was not to withdraw the oil from the candlestick, but to remove the candlestick. And, as Rev. 1:20 plainly states, 'the seven lampstands are the seven churches'. The threat, then, is not to withdraw the Spirit from the ecclesia but to withdraw the ecclesia itself! And one must not overlook that this threat was issued to one local ecclesia at Ephesus, not to the Ecclesia universally, nor even to these seven ecclesias of Asia. While the tenor of Jesus' letters to the seven ecclesias in Revelation 2-3 is one of rebuke, two of the seven ecclesias addressed (Smyrna and Philadelphia) receive no rebuke at all. Hence, we can conclude that in this passage (i) the threat is not to withdraw the Spirit, but to remove the ecclesia; and (ii) the threat is not to the universal Ecclesia but to one local ecclesia. Of course the Lord Jesus would never threaten to remove the universal Ecclesia, since to do so would renege on His promise that the gates of Hades would not overpower her (Matt. 16:18). Revelation 2-3 provides no evidence that Christ ever threatened to withdraw the Holy Spirit from the Ecclesia, much less that He ever carried out this threat.7

A broader objection is that surely not all ecclesias and believers were apostate. Christadelphians themselves typically maintain that the true body of Christ has persisted as a remnant through all the ages of darkness and apostasy. Thus, while it is entirely plausible that Christ would withdraw the Spirit 'from all association with an empty Christian name' in apostate ecclesias, the punishment explanation offers no plausible reason why Christ should also, at the same time, withdraw the Spirit from all association with the elect remnant that faithfully bore Christ's name! There is just no logic to it.

In view of the implausibility of the two reasons proposed by Robert Roberts, my challenge to hyper-cessationist Christadelphians today is to offer a reasonable explanation for why Christ withdrew the Holy Spirit from His Bride at a time when she was under great duress due to persecution, heresy, and an increasing number of converts directly from paganism.


We have so far discussed the 'why' of the alleged withdrawal of the Holy Spirit from the Ecclesia. What of the 'how'? According to a standard Christadelphian account, only the apostles received the power to transfer the Holy Spirit by the laying on of hands. Thus, once the apostles died, no one else could receive the Holy Spirit, and so the Holy Spirit's activity dwindled into nothingness as those on whom the apostles had bestowed the gift gradually died out.

Remarkably, this entire version of events is reconstructed ex silencio from a few passages in Acts that describe the apostles laying their hands on others for the bestowal of the Holy Spirit. Of particular note is Acts 8:17-21:
Now when Simon saw that the Spirit was bestowed through the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money, saying, “Give this authority to me as well, so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.” But Peter said to him, “May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money! You have no part or portion in this matter, for your heart is not right before God. (NASB)
Hyper-cessationist Christadelphians take 'the Spirit was bestowed through the laying on of the apostles' hands' to be an exclusive, universal statement: the Spirit was only ever bestowed through the laying on of the apostles' hands. But this is to read into the text something that is not there. Indeed, Peter's response offers no hint that Simon's request for this authority was intrinsically impossible because he was not an apostle. Rather, it focuses on the bad state of Simon's heart. Other passages in the New Testament suggest that non-apostles could have the authority to bestow the Holy Spirit through the laying on of hands. Paul instructs Timothy not to neglect 'the spiritual gift within you, which was bestowed on you through prophetic utterance with the laying on of hands by the presbytery' (1 Tim. 4:14). While this ordaining body seems to have included the apostle Paul himself (2 Tim. 1:6), the emphasis in this passage is on the presbytery or council of elders, which was surely not made up only of apostles. Moreover, 1 Tim. 5:22 presupposes that Timothy himself, a non-apostle, now had the authority to carry out the rite of the laying on of hands, and the context provides no basis for differentiating this laying on of hands from that which bestowed the Holy Spirit. Finally, the Book of Hebrews, probably not written by an apostle or to apostles, refers to 'instructions about washings and laying on of hands' among the 'elementary teachings' or, to use KJV and traditional Christadelphian language, 'first principles'. This gives the impression that 'laying on of hands' was a widespread practice in the early Ecclesia apart from the apostles themselves.

This Christadelphian argument for the total cessation of the Holy Spirit also rests on the premise that the laying on of hands is the only means by which the Holy Spirit can be bestowed on a person. Yet following the example of Christ, we must regard regeneration in baptism as a work of the Holy Spirit (Matt. 28:19; Mark 1:8-10; John 3:5; 1 Cor. 12:13; Tit. 3:5); hence all Christians have the Holy Spirit poured out in their hearts (Rom. 5:5; 1 Cor. 12:13; 2 Cor. 1:22; 3:3; Gal. 4:6). Much more could be said on this subject, but it is sufficient for us to conclude that the argument from silence offered for the cessation of the Holy Spirit carries no weight, in view of the many, many New Testament passages that presuppose the Holy Spirit as a going concern in the Ecclesia.


If the Christadelphian version of events is true, then after the last apostle died (traditionally understood to be John, c. 100 A.D.), the Ecclesia would have been aware that no further bestowal of the Holy Spirit was possible and that the heavenly gift would cease as soon as those individuals died on whom the apostles had laid their hands. If this were the case, we could reasonably expect Christian writings from the early second century to make reference to: (1) an expectation of the Holy Spirit's withdrawal; and (2) special attention paid to those last remaining individuals who had the Holy Spirit.

In fact, we find nothing of the kind in second century Christian literature. Although there is an awareness of the apostles' uniqueness (which the Ecclesia has always maintained), there is no mention anywhere of the idea that Holy Spirit activity died out with them, or would soon do so. It may be claimed that this is an argument from silence, but one can also point to abundant positive evidence that the post-apostolic Ecclesia regarded the Holy Spirit as still active.

Here is a quick survey of this positive evidence, which ranges in date roughly from the late first century to the middle of the second century. (For dates of individual texts, see my blog series on supernatural evil in the Apostolic Fathers.)
  • The Didache contains a whole section devoted to distinguishing between true and false prophets (chapter 11), which presupposes ongoing prophetic activity
  • The author of 1 Clement refers to the 'full outpouring of the Holy Spirit' that 'came upon everyone' in the Corinthian ecclesia (1 Clement 2.2),8 and later asks, 'Do we not have one God, and one Christ, and one gracious Spirit that has been poured out upon us...?' (1 Clement 46.6). He begins a statement with, 'For as God, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit all live...' (1 Clement 58.2). Near the close of the letter he says, 'For you will make us joyful and happy if you become obedient to what we have written through the Holy Spirit and excise the wanton anger expressed through your jealousy' (1 Clement 63.2).
  • In his Epistle to Polycarp, Ignatius of Antioch instructs Polycarp to pray that the invisible things may be revealed to him and that he may 'abound in every gracious gift (charismatos)' (2.2). In the prescript of the Epistle to the Philadelphians Ignatius asserts that the bishop, presbyters and deacons are 'those who have been securely set in place by his [Jesus Christ's] Holy Spirit according to his own will'. In his Epistle to the Ephesians Ignatius uses the following metaphor: 'For you are being carried up to the heights by the crane of Jesus Christ, which is the cross, using as a cable the Holy Spirit' (9.1). He also describes his relationship with the bishop in Ephesus as 'an intimacy that was not human but spiritual' (5.1).9
  • The Epistle of Barnabas opens thus: 'So great and abundant are the righteous acts of God toward you that I am exceedingly overjoyed, beyond measure, by your blessed and glorious spirits. For you have received such a measure of his grace planted within you, the spiritual gift! And so I share your joy all the more within myself [Or: I congratulate myself all the more], hoping to be saved; for truly I see that, in your midst, the Spirit has been poured out upon you from the abundance of the Lord's fountain' (Barnabas 1.2-1.3) Later, having emphasized that the habitation of our heart was formerly a house of demons, the writer states that now, 'God truly resides within our place of dwelling - within us' (Barnabas 16.8).
  • The Martyrdom of Polycarp reports that when Polycarp, at his martyrdom, was stabbed with a dagger, a dove came out (16.1). In view of the story of Jesus' baptism, this is probably to be understood as a manifestation of the Holy Spirit.10 
  • The Shepherd of Hermas contains clear references to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in Mandates 5.1.2-5.1.3, 5.2.5-5.2.6, 10.2.5, 11.1.8-11.1.9. For instance, 'For if you are patient, the holy spirit that dwells in you will be pure and will not be overshadowed by another, evil spirit; but dwelling in a broad place it will rejoice and be glad with the vessel it inhabits, and it will serve God with great cheerfulness, flourishing in itself. But if any irascibility should enter in, immediately the holy spirit, which is sensitive, feels cramped; and not having a pure place it seeks to leave.' (Hermas, Mandates 5.1.2-5.1.3; cf. Mandates 5.2.5-5.2.6, 10.2.5).11 The Visions and Similitudes  sections of the work consists of revelations which the author claimed to have received in the Spirit.
  • The Epistle to Diognetus says, 'This is the eternal one who "today" is considered to be the Son, through whom the church is enriched and unfolding grace is multiplied among the saints. This grace provides understanding, manifests mysteries, proclaims the seasons, rejoices in the faithful, and is given to those who seek, among whom pledges of faith are not broken and the boundaries of the fathers are not transgressed' (Diognetus 11.5)
  • Justin Martyr, in his Dialogue with Trypho, tells Trypho, 'You should realize from the fact that among us Christians the charisms of prophecy exist down to the present day that the gifts that previously resided among your people have now been transferred to us' (Dialogue 82.1),12 and, 'Now if you look around, you can see among us Christians both male and female endowed with charisms from the Spirit of God.' (Dialogue 88.1)13
  • There are some second century writings, such as 2 Clement and Polycarp's Epistle to the Philippians, that make no unambiguous mention of the Holy Spirit (though see Polycarp Philippians 5.3). However, we can no more interpret this silence as a belief that the Holy Spirit had lapsed than we can interpret the Epistle of James' silence as a belief that the Holy Spirit had lapsed in the first century.
There is thus abundant evidence that Christians soon after the apostolic period held a robust belief in the continuing activity of the Holy Spirit, with no hint of expectation that this activity would soon cease. Of course, some Christadelphians may want to claim that these writers were all apostate and deceived, but such persons ought to admit that their hyper-cessationist views cannot be found in early Christian texts.


As we saw in the previous post, Christadelphians have taught that the definitive product of the Holy Spirit's activity in the first century was the New Testament, and that once this was written, the Holy Spirit was no longer needed. As Robert Roberts stated in the passage quoted above, the early Ecclesia needed the Spirit because they lacked 'the authoritative standard of the completed Scripture which now exists'. Hinton wrote that 'Within two generations from the apostles, the New Testament had been written, and the purpose for which the Holy Spirit was given had been accomplished', while Crawford explains, '1 Cor. 13:10 demonstrates that the manifestations of the Holy Spirit mentioned in 1 Cor. 12 "will be done away", i.e. when the canon was completed.' The Agora Bible Commentary, by Christadelphian George Booker, comments on 1 Cor. 13:10:
The canon of Scripture was completed in first century. Therefore, the main purpose of Holy Spirit (i.e. to produce and confirm inspired Bible) was accomplished.
One can note in passing that Booker provides no evidence for his claim that the production and confirmation of the Bible was the main purpose of the Holy Spirit (or for the implicit corollary that once the Bible was complete, the Holy Spirit was surplus to requirements). However, it is important that Booker here acknowledges that not only the production but also the confirmation of the biblical canon was the work of the Holy Spirit. Hence, by Booker's own admission, we must conclude that the Holy Spirit was active in the Ecclesia until the complete New Testament canon was confirmed. The all-important question, then, is when this occurred.

It may be granted that all the individual books that now form the New Testament were produced (i.e. written) by the first century, according to the traditional dating. However, the development from individual books to 'the authoritative standard of the completed Scripture' was a gradual process. The exact details of this process remain a subject of much debate among scholars.14 Du Toit describes the general contours of this process according to four stages:
Phase 1 ('latter part of first century CE'): 'Creation of various early Christian documents'
Phase 2 ('roughly from the close of the first century to the middle of the second'): 'Growing recognition of the normative character and collection into groups of a basic number of writings'
Phase 3 ('ca. mid-second century to 190 CE'): 'The New Testament canon becomes a reality... by now the idea of the canon has materialized; its broad base is fixed, but uncertainty still exists over the books on its periphery'
Phase 4 ('ca. 190-400 CE'): 'The closing of the canon'15
It may be eye opening to some Christadelphians to know how little use the Apostolic Fathers (writing from the late first to mid second centuries) made of the New Testament writings. The standard work in this respect is still The New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers (NTAF, which is in the public domain), published in 1905,16 although contemporary scholarship is more conservative about attributing New Testament parallels in the Apostolic Fathers to direct literary dependence.17 NTAF helpfully provides a fourfold classification system which classifies the use of a New Testament book in an Apostolic Father as 'A' (beyond reasonable doubt), 'B' (highly probable), 'C' (less probable), and 'D' (possibly, but without reliable evidence).18 NTAF further provides a helpful table in the appendix giving the authors' results for each Apostolic Father. Consider these below, remembering that contemporary scholarship would be more conservative:
Barnabas: B - Rom.; C - Eph., Heb.; D - Matt., 1 & 2 Cor., Col., 1 & 2 Tim., Tit., 1 Pet.; Unclassed - Luke, John, Rev.
Didache: B - Synoptic tradition; C? - Matthew; D - Luke, 1 Cor., 1 Pet.; D? - Acts, Rom.; Unclassed: John, Heb., Jude.
1 Clement: A - Rom., 1 Cor., Heb.; C - Acts, Tit.; D - 2 Cor., Gal., Phil., Col., 1 Tim., 1 Pet., 1 John, Apoc.
Ignatius: A - 1 Cor.; B - Matt., John, Eph.; C - Rom., 2 Cor. (?), Gal., Phil., 1 & 2 Tim., Tit.; D - Mark (?), Luke, Acts, Col., 1 & 2 Thess. (?), Philem. (?), Heb., 1 Pet.
Polycarp: A - 1 Cor., 1 Pet.; B - Rom., 2 Cor., Gal., Eph., Phil., 2 Thess., 1 & 2 Tim.; C - John, Acts, Heb., 1 John; D - Col.
Hermas: B - 1 Cor., Eph.; C - Matt., Mark, Heb., Jas; D - Luke, John, Acts, Rom., 1 Thess., 1 Pet.
2 Clement: C - Matt., Heb.; D - Luke, 1 Cor., Eph., Jas, 1 Pet.; Unclassed: Rom., 1 Tim., 2 Pet., Jude19
Of course, absence of evidence that a writer knew a New Testament book is not proof of the writer's ignorance of that book. However, it is clear that these leading Christians in the late first through mid second centuries were not writing with anything remotely like a 27-book New Testament open next to them.

It is apparent that something approaching our New Testament was in place by the late second century (particularly if the widely held but disputed second-century date for the Muratorian fragment is correct). Indeed,
The specific designation “New Testament” for Christian Scripture began to be used in the late second century, as the church began to select those documents that bore authentic witness to God’s act in Christ.20
However, the earliest extant listing of the 27 books which now form the New Testament canon occurs in a letter from Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, in 367 A.D.21 (Yes, this is the same Athanasius who was a passionate defender of Trinitarian orthodoxy.) He is also the earliest writer to use the Greek word for 'canon' with reference to that list. The earliest extant listing of our 27-book New Testament in a communal decision comes from the regional Council of Carthage in 397 A.D. In other words, the earliest date when we could plausibly say the New Testament canon was complete and normative is the end of the fourth century.22 23 Hence, by Booker's reasoning, we are required to conclude that the Holy Spirit was active in the Ecclesia - specifically, the catholic Ecclesia - until at least the end of the fourth century.

This highlights two fundamental inconsistencies in the Christadelphian account of early Christian history. The first inconsistency is the claim that, on the one hand, the Holy Spirit ceased to be active in the Ecclesia by the mid second century but that, on the other hand, the New Testament canon that was set around the end of the fourth century infallibly defines the boundaries of Scripture.24 The foundational article of the Christadelphian Statement of Faith takes the canon of Scripture as an a priori:
That the book currently known as the Bible, consisting of the Scriptures of Moses, the prophets, and the apostles, is the only source of knowledge concerning God and His purposes at present extant or available in the earth, and that the same were wholly given by inspiration of God in the writers, and are consequently without error in all parts of them, except such as may be due to errors of transcription or translation.25
This proposition cites several Scripture passages in support (2 Tim. 3:16; 1 Cor. 2:13; Heb. 1:1; 2 Pet. 1:21; 1 Cor. 14:37; Neh. 9:30; John 10:35), but none of these passages tell us which books constitute 'Scripture'. None of them prove that Scripture consists exactly of 'the book currently known as the Bible'. Hence, Booker rightly asserted that the Holy Spirit needed not only to produce the books of the Bible but also to confirm them; and this confirmation, as we have seen, was only completed in the fourth century at the earliest. Christadelphians must either deny the infallibility of the New Testament canon, or else must affirm that the Holy Spirit was active in the Ecclesia at least until the late fourth century.

The second fundamental inconsistency in the Christadelphian account of early Christian history is this: on the one hand, Christadelphians accept as infallible the New Testament canon as first mentioned in the second half of the fourth century (by a Trinitarian bishop). On the other hand, Christadelphians assert that the Ecclesia was hopelessly apostate long before the fourth century (the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D. being regarded as a particularly egregious embrace of apostate doctrine). Hence, Christadelphians accept a canon that, in their view, was defined by an apostate Ecclesia that had long since abandoned the essentials of the gospel. Again, Christadelphians are faced with a difficult choice. They must either deny the infallibility of the New Testament canon, or else must affirm that the Holy Spirit was active in the Ecclesia in the late fourth century, in which case they can hardly regard the fourth century Ecclesia as apostate. It would be arbitrary to claim that the Holy Spirit guided the fourth century Ecclesia to an infallibly correct definition of the New Testament canon but allowed the fourth century Ecclesia to completely misunderstand its contents.

Having looked at these historical issues, the bottom line is this: one cannot have ecclesial deism of the Christadelphian variety and also have a divinely sanctioned New Testament canon. Logically, one must allow either for Holy Spirit activity in the Ecclesia through the fourth century, with all that this entails, or else one must give up the foundation on which the entire Christadelphian Statement of Faith rests - the idea of an infallible New Testament canon.26

Besides the logical inconsistencies in the Christadelphian narrative of early Christian history, there is an additional theological problem that should be mentioned. The Christadelphian narrative implies the existence of a 'dark age' during which the Ecclesia had neither the Holy Spirit nor a canonical New Testament. This state of affairs would have existed from the time when the Holy Spirit passed off the scene (mid second century) until the canon was effectively closed (late fourth century). The problem would have been particularly acute in the mid second century when the Holy Spirit was extinct and yet even the idea of a New Testament canon had not yet developed (as far as we have evidence). It is as though the Lord abandoned His Bride for a time; and this abandonment had devastating effects, since - according to the Christadelphian paradigm - this was precisely the time when the great apostasy became entrenched in the catholic Ecclesia.


If the Bible 'is the only source of knowledge concerning God and His purposes at present extant or available in the earth', as the BASF asserts, then how can one know that one's theological understanding of the Bible is correct? This question is very pertinent given the proliferation of competing, mutually exclusive doctrinal systems, particularly over the past two centuries. The ecclesial deism paradigm is closed to answers given by Protestants (one can know through the internal witness of the Holy Spirit) and Catholics (one can know through submission to a visible, divinely sanctioned ecclesiastical authority). In fact, in answering this question the ecclesial deist can appeal to no higher authority than himself. I can be as confident in the soundness of my theology as I am confident in my own intellectual prowess and honesty. Indeed, if I am confident in my theology, it is perfectly reasonable for me to boast about it (and I may even give my magnum opus the title, 'I have found it', Eureka!, like any other natural scientist might.)

We noted in the previous post how Robert Roberts emphasized Dr. Thomas' natural qualities as a major factor in his rediscovery of the Truth. For an ecclesial deist to cross the hermeneutical bridge from Scripture to theology, it is necessary to put confidence in man - whether that man is oneself, Dr. Thomas, or someone else. When asked if we understand the Scriptures, we are not allowed to ask, with the Ethiopian eunuch, 'Well, how could I, unless someone guides me?' (Acts 8:30 NASB) We must simply study harder, and avoid the fatal risk of wresting the Scriptures (2 Peter 3:16) apparently through sheer willpower.

It should be clear that the epistemology of ecclesial deism is radically humanistic, and it ultimately confronts the seeker of divine truth with one of two options. The first option is to elevate myself, regarding my own interpretations of Scripture as more trustworthy than anyone else's. If I want to maintain that I understand the true gospel while the vast majority of professing Christians do not, and yet that the true gospel is understood through a purely human process of reflective Bible study, then I must either maintain that my own intellectual qualities are extraordinarily good, or that the intellectual qualities of the masses are extraordinarily bad while mine are ordinary. Either way, I am elevating myself relative to the masses. This is theological narcissism or elitism.

The second option is a retreat from dogma. Why is this? If I am unwilling to elevate myself, then I cannot be confident that my theology is sound. Neither, for that matter, can anyone else, since all are in the same boat. Hence, if I am to maintain my Christian profession, I must assert that sound theology really doesn't matter. All Jesus cares about is our sincere belief in an absolute minimum of the gospel, and/or our character. Theologizing beyond that is at best an interesting hobby and at worst a Pharisaical distraction. However, given the widespread concerns about false doctrine in the New Testament, it is clear that sound theology matters to Jesus.

In short, for the hyper-cessationist, the ecclesial deist, there is no logical basis for being theologically humble and confident at the same time.


In this article, following on the brief critique of ecclesial deism in the previous article, we have given five reasons why ecclesial deism is biblically, historically, and epistemologically untenable. To recap: (1) Ecclesial deists are unable to provide a principled, internally consistent reason why the Holy Spirit should have become inactive in the early Ecclesia. (2) The New Testament did not teach that the Holy Spirit would become inactive. (3) Second century Christians, as exemplified by the Apostolic Fathers, continue to presuppose the activity of the Holy Spirit and do not show the slightest awareness that the gift had ceased or would soon cease. (4) Ecclesial deists have no epistemological basis for maintaining an authoritative New Testament canon, since the canon was defined at a time when, according to the narrative of ecclesial deism, the Holy Spirit had ceased and the Ecclesia had been almost totally corrupted. (5) An ecclesial deist cannot appeal his/her interpretation of Scripture to any higher authority than his/her own natural intellect. Hence, one must either elevate oneself, or belittle others, or both.

Hopefully the reader is convinced that ecclesial deism is not a viable ecclesiology, just as hyper-cessationism is not a viable pneumatology. If Jesus is Lord, then the Holy Spirit must be active in His Ecclesia until the end of the age, just as He promised. I would like to make an appeal to Christadelphian readers who find themselves in agreement with the previous sentence. You belong to a sect founded on a very specific theological system. The founders of the sect, Dr. John Thomas and Robert Roberts, were emphatic proponents of hyper-cessationism and ecclesial deism, among other distinctive theological positions. If you now acknowledge they were seriously mistaken in this area of their theology, might it not be time for a more critical look at other aspects of Christadelphian theology? After all, by their own testimony, the founders of this system were not led by the Spirit in their interpretation of Scripture.


Footnotes

  • 1 Roberts, Robert. Christendom Astray
  • 2 'One of the remarkable features of the early church was its transition from a Jewish Christianity to a Gentile Christianity in the Greco-Roman world. Jesus himself, of course, was a Jew, deeply rooted in the faith and traditions of his people. The earliest believers after the resurrection were Jews, natives of Palestine and inhabitants of the diaspora. But it was not long before there were evangelizing efforts among those who were not Jews... In the course of the first century the Christian church moved from its Jewish Christian beginnings to become a new and distinct religion, predominantly Gentile, seeking to find a place in the Greco-Roman world.' (Cwiekowski, Frederick J. (1988). The Beginnings of the Church. Mahwah: Paulist Press, p. 199)
  • 3 Skarsaune, Oskar. (2002). In the shadow of the temple: Jewish influences on early Christianity. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, p. 83.
  • 4 op. cit., p. 228
  • 5 Roberts, Robert. A Guide to the Formation and Conduct of Christadelphian Ecclesias.
  • 6 Roberts, Robert. Thirteen Lectures on the Apocalypse, p. 17
  • 7 It seems that the threat was not carried out even in the case of Ephesus, since this ecclesia is the recipient of a letter from Ignatius of Antioch only a few years or decades later.
  • 8 Unless otherwise indicated, translations of Apostolic Fathers passages are from Ehrman, Bart D. (2003). The Apostolic Fathers (2 vols.). Harvard: Cambridge University Press.
  • 9 See also Ignatius, Epistle to the Ephesians 17.2.
  • 10 See also Martyrdom of Polycarp 7.3.
  • 11 Similarly, 'The holy spirit does not speak when the person wants to speak, but when God wants him to speak. When, then, the person who has the divine spirit comes into a gathering of upright men who have the faith of the divine spirit, and a petition comes to God from the upright men who are gathered together, then the angel of the prophetic spirit lying upon that person fills him; and once he is filled, that one speaks in the holy spirit to the congregation, just as the Lord desires. In this way the divine spirit will be evident to you. This, then, is the kind of power that the divine spirit of the Lord has.' (Hermas, Mandates 11.1.8-10)
  • 12 trans. Slusser, Michael. (ed.). (2003). St. Justin Martyr: Dialogue with Trypho: translated by Thomas B. Falls, revised and with a new introduction by Thomas P. Halton. Washington: Catholic University of America Press, p. 128).
  • 13 trans. Slusser, op. cit., p. 137.
  • 14 'The question of how, when, and why the New Testament came into being – a firmly delimited collection of precisely 27 documents – is still very much in dispute among biblical scholars and church historians.' (Gamble, Harry. (2004). Literacy, Liturgy, and the Shaping of the New Testament Canon. In Charles Horton (Ed.), The Origins and Transmission of the Earliest Christian Gospels – The Contribution of the Chester Beatty Gospel Codex P45 (pp. 27-39). London: T&T Clark International, p. 35).
  • 15 Du Toit, Andrie B. (1993). Canon. In Bruce M. Metzger & Michael David Coogan (Eds.), The Oxford Companion to the Bible (pp. 98-104). Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 102-103.
  • 16 A Committee of the Oxford Society of Historical Theology. (1905). The New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
  • 17 Williams, in a review of a more recent work entitled The Reception of the New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers, notes that 'As would be expected, they generally find fewer certain references of the NT in the Apostolic Fathers' than the 1905 volume (Williams III, H. Drake. (2009). Review of Gregory & Tuckett, eds. ‘The Receptionof the New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers’. Themelios, 34(2), 232-234; here p. 233.)
  • 18 The NTAF description of the classification system is as follows: 'It was decided to arrange the books of the New Testament in four classes, distinguished by the letters A, B, C, and D, according to the degree of probability of their use by the several authors. Class A includes those books about which there can be no reasonable doubt, either because they are expressly mentioned, or because there are other certain indications of their use. Class B comprises those books the use of which, in the judgement of the editors, reaches a high degree of probability. With class C we come to a lower degree of probability ; and in class D are placed those books which may possibly be referred to, but in regard to which the evidence appeared too uncertain to allow any reliance to be placed upon it.' (op. cit., p. iii.)
  • 19 op. cit., p. 137.
  • 20 Boring, M. Eugene & Craddock, Fred B. (2009). The People’s New Testament Commentary. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, p. 2. Clark-Soles similarly notes, 'By the end of the 2nd century, many of the New Testament books in the canon today were being used scripturally' (Clark-Soles, Jaime. (2010). Engaging the Word: The New Testament and the Christian Believer. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, p. 91).
  • 21 This letter is 'most widely remembered... for its inclusion of an inventory of the 27 books of the New Testament that is the first mention of the canonical list as it has been used ever since. It also features the earliest use of a form of the Greek word for "canon" applied to that list.' (Gallagher, Eugene V. (2014). Reading and Writing Scripture in New Religious Movements. New York: Palmgrave McMillan, p. 1.
  • 22 Debate still continued thereafter, in some quarters, for several centuries; and no ecumenical, magisterial pronouncement on the canon of Scripture was made until the Council of Trent in the 16th century.
  • 23 'The North African Council of Carthage in 397 CE asked for Rome's approval of the list. So, by the close of the 4th century, we have our New Testament. However, not all Christian congregations and individuals agreed with that list or ceased using other books that they had considered authoritative.' (Clark-Soles, op. cit.)
  • 24 I have not dealt with the issue of the Old Testament canon here, since Christadelphians might plausibly claim that this was fixed by the end of the first century.
  • 25 The Christadelphian pioneers, Dr. John Thomas and Robert Roberts, seem never to have opened the canon to any serious scrutiny.
  • 26 An objection that might be raised is that the New Testament canon is somehow self-evident. But if this was not the case for the early Ecclesia (as evinced by the gradual development of the canon, the extensive debate that took place over certain books, and the adoption of narrower or wider canons in, for example, the Nestorian and Ethiopian churches), it is unclear why it should be the case today.

Tuesday 22 December 2015

The intermediate state in 1 Clement (part 2)

In the previous post, we noted the claim of Christadelphian apologist Dave Burke that the core theological teachings of 1 Clement correspond exactly to those of Christadelphians today. We found that, although this claim has repeatedly been portrayed as factual information by Dave in his interactions with Christadelphian audiences, it is in fact at odds with contemporary scholarship. In particular, we surveyed the scholarly literature concerning Clement's individual eschatology and found that most scholars agree that Clement believed in an intermediate state for the righteous dead prior to the resurrection; some scholars explicitly locate this post-mortem existence in heaven.

We now turn to a closer exegesis of the relevant passages in 1 Clement. Perhaps the most significant is 1 Clement 5.3-6.2, already quoted in the previous post but reproduced here for convenience:
3. We should set before our eyes the good apostles. 4. There is Peter, who because of unjust jealousy bore up under hardships not just once or twice, but many times; and having thus borne his witness he went to the place of glory that he deserved. 5. Because of jealousy and strife Paul pointed the way to the prize for endurance. 6. Seven times he bore chains; he was sent into exile and stoned; he served as a herald in both the East and the West; and he received the noble reputation for his faith. 7. He taught righteousness to the whole world, and came to the limits of the West, bearing his witness before the rulers. And so he was set free from this world and transported up to the holy place, having become the greatest example of endurance. 6.1. To these men who have conducted themselves in such a holy way there has been added a great multitude of the elect, who have set a superb example among us by the numerous torments and tortures they suffered because of jealousy. 2. Women were persecuted as Danaids and Dircae and suffered terrifying and profane torments because of jealousy. But they confidently completed the race of faith, and though weak in body, they received a noble reward. (1 Clement 5.3-6.2)1
A person with the user name Evangelion, whom I believe was Dave, discussed this passage on a Christadelphian web forum in 2005 and offered the following explanation:
‘I see no reference to heaven (or any form of afterlife) in these passages. I see only a reference to the reward of superlative rank that was promised to him (“…the place of glory due to him… the holy place”) with the word “place” here signifying not a literal abode but a position of authority. The truth of this interpretation is confirmed by Clement’s use of the phrase “due to him”, which makes no sense in the context of a place to which one departs (how can a literal place be “due” to someone?) but perfect sense in the context of a glorious promotion to the heavenly host. It is also vindicated by the New Testament, which is replete with similar language; not least from the writings of Peter himself.’2
It is unclear exactly how Dave conceives of a 'glorious promotion to the heavenly host', a 'position of authority' which yet does not constitute 'any form of afterlife'. It is not obvious how a person who is in no sense alive could receive such a promotion. However, let us for the sake of argument assume the internal consistency of Dave's interpretation.

Evangelion/Dave also comments on 1 Clement 44.4-5, which contains language relevant to our passage. It reads thus in Ehrman’s translation:
Indeed we commit no little sin if we remove from the bishop’s office those who offer the gifts in a blameless and holy way. How fortunate are the presbyters who passed on before, who enjoyed a fruitful and perfect departure from this life. For they have no fear that someone will remove them from the place (topos) established for them.3
Evangelion/Dave writes concerning 1 Clement 44.5:
As in the passage which spoke of Peter’s reward, "the place appointed for them" here is clearly a reward of rank, as opposed to an actual location (such as heaven.) This is confirmed by the context, which makes repeated references to the presbyters' "office", "place" and "ministry."
The key claim is that topos (‘place’) in 1 Clement 5.4, 5.7 does not refer to a location, an abode, but to a position of authority. Evangelion/Dave makes three arguments in favour of this interpretation. 

(1) It is said that the phrase ‘due to him’ (Greek: opheilomenon) makes no sense in relation to a literal place. However, this is not an exegetical argument but merely an assertion for which no lexical or other evidence is provided. If the ‘place’ to which Peter went is construed as a reward (as it clearly is, given the parallel expression ‘noble reward’ in 1 Clement 6.2), then prima facie it is reasonable that it be called his due. Moreover, the same word is used in a similar way by Polycarp in his Letter to the Philippians 9.2, where he says concerning the apostles that ‘they are in the place they deserved, with the Lord’ (kai hoti eis ton opheilomenon autois topon eisi para tō kuriō). Here it seems that topos denotes a location since it is 'with the Lord'.4 Also comparable is Barnabas 19.1, which uses a different word but has a similar idea: ‘Anyone who wants to travel to the place that has been appointed (ton hōrismenon topon) should be diligent in his works.’

(2) It is claimed that the New Testament is replete with similar language confirming his interpretation of topos in 1 Clement 5.4 and 5.7. However, none of the New Testament passages he cites use the word topos, and none of them explicitly refer to something gained immediately after death. Hence, they provide no support for Evangelion/Dave's interpretation of topos in 1 Clement 5.4 and 5.7.

(3) It is claimed that topos in 1 Clement 44.5 refers to an office or rank is highly plausible and, since this would provide a precedent for interpreting topos in the same way in 1 Clement 5.4 and 5.7, it represents the strongest aspect of Evangelion/Dave's argument. It does appear that the place (topos) established for the presbyters who have departed from this life is a position, given the contrast with removal from office in v. 4.5 However, it is possible that there is wordplay here, so that topos simultaneously refers to the presbyters' permanent position as well as the transcendent location of reward. A likely parallel to such wordplay is found in Acts 1:24-25:
And they prayed and said, "You, Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which one of these two you have chosen to take the place (topos) in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place (topos)." (ESV)
A quick survey of scholarly interpretations of the last clause of v. 25 is in order. Apparently the majority view is that 'his own place' refers to 'a transcendent region related to one's final destiny...In this case...a place of punishment after death'.6 Johnson thinks there is a double entendre so that Judas’ ‘own place’ refers both to his ‘place of final destiny’ and ‘the abandonment of the apostolic circle symbolized by his purchasing of his property’.7

A different, but still spatial, interpretation of ‘his own place’ is Keener’s, who interprets it simply as ‘the field he bought, where he met his gory end’.8 McCabe thinks ‘his own place’ refers to Judas’ ‘solitary and shameful death’;9 this is still a quasi-spatial interpretation. Van de Water thinks this clause alludes to Psalm 36:36 LXX where the plight of the wicked is described thus: ‘and his place was not found.’10 However, this text does not help to explain what place Judas did find according to Acts 1:25 (and van de Water does not elaborate on this point). Whitlock regards Acts 1:24-25 as a poem in which the repetition of the word ‘place’ plays an important role: ‘The place of service is contrasted with Judas’s own place. The contrast is made explicit by the repetition of topos’. Whitlock does not clearly opt for an exclusively spatial or metaphorical meaning of Judas’ own place, but says it leaves readers ‘with a tragically precise summation of Judas’s conflict and fate’.11

If topos can be used poetically in Acts 1:25a and 1:25c to refer to Judas’ position and to his spatial location or destiny respectively (and possibly takes on spatial and positional meanings in 1:25c), then such multivalence should also be regarded as a possibility in 1 Clement 44.5. That topos refers at least partly to a transcendent reward and not merely an office in 1 Clement 44.5 is argued by Hill12 and suggested as a possibility by Lindemann13 Lona regards τόπος in this text as an office only.14

Thus, while the context suggests a metaphorical meaning for topos as 'office' or 'position' in 1 Clement 44.5, it is plausible that there is wordplay here and that a spatial sense is also intended, referring to the presbyters' place of reward. Even if topos takes an exclusively metaphorical sense in 1 Clement 44.5, this does not necessarily mean it takes on an exclusively metaphorical sense in 1 Clement 5.4, 7. This passage must be considered on its own terms. Below are six exegetical arguments which, collectively, in my view, represent a compelling case for interpreting topos spatially in 1 Clement 5.4, 7 (more specifically, as referring to the heavenly sanctuary) and thus concluding that Clement believed in an intermediate state.

(1) Religion-historical parallels adduced by Hill strongly support a heavenly interpretation of 'the place of glory' and 'the holy place' to which Peter and Paul respectively are said to have gone. Concerning the 'holy place' he notes the following important background:
τὰ ἅγια is the customary name used by the author of Hebrews for the holy place, or the holy of holies, whether the earthly (9.8[?], 25; 13.11) or the heavenly (8.2; 9.12, 24; 10.19). It is moreover significant that in Hebrews, which almost certainly Clement knows,15 we have clear evidence of the belief that the "spirits of just men made perfect" now congregate at the cultic precincts of the heavenly Mount Zion (12.22-4).16
A further parallel is adduced from 'Clement's Jewish contemporary at Rome, Josephus' from Bellum Judaicum 3.374:
in accordance with the law of nature and repay the loan which they received from God, when He who lent it is pleased to reclaim it, win eternal renown (κλέος);17 that their houses and families are secure; that their souls, remaining spotless and obedient, are allotted the most holy place in heaven (χῶρον οὐράνιον λαχοῦσαι τὸν ἁγιώτατον), whence, in the revolution of the ages, they return to find in chaste bodies a new habitation.18
Hill comments that 'This teaching is remarkable for its resemblance to that of 1 Clement' and 'In it the "most holy place" is expressly set in heaven'.19 Finally, Hill adduces 'another document of Roman Christian provenance' which 'Within a few decades'20 of 1 Clement portrays 'the celestial lot of Christian martyrs after death as the "right hand portion of the sanctuary" (τοῦ ἁγιάσματος) (Hermas, Vis 3.1.9; 3.2.1), a place also characterized by glory.'21

These religion-historical parallels from Hebrews, Josephus and Hermas support interpreting ‘the holy place’ as a reference to the heavenly sanctuary. To this can be added some relevant OT texts. Throughout the OT, a part of the earthly sanctuary is denoted ‘the holy place’22 and in certain instances the mountain of the Lord (Ps. 24:3; Ps. 68:5 cp. 68:17) or God’s heavenly dwelling-place (Isa. 26:21) is described as God’s ‘holy place.’23 If you asked a person steeped in Second Temple Judaism what ‘the holy place’ (or ‘the place of glory’) was (note the presence of the article in Greek), he would no doubt tell you either that it was the earthly sanctuary (the temple), or the heavenly sanctuary (of which the earthly is merely a copy, according to Heb. 9:24). Since Clement obviously does not mean that Peter and Paul went to the Jerusalem temple, he must mean they went to the heavenly sanctuary. There is, to my knowledge, not one instance in the OT, Second Temple Jewish literature, or early Christian literature where ‘the holy place’ takes on any other spatial meaning, much less a metaphorical meaning such as an office or position! Certainly Dave has not produced any such evidence that suggests otherwise.

(2) There is a text-critical issue concerning the verb used in the description of Paul’s martyrdom in 1 Clement 5.7. Holmes’ critical text follows the two Greek manuscripts in reading ἐπορεύθη, and so he translates, ‘he thus departed from the world and went to the holy place.’24 Ehrman’s critical text, however, follows the Latin, Coptic and Syriac versions in reading ἀνελήμφθη, and so he translates, ‘he was set free from this world and transported up to the holy place.’25 This reading is also favoured by Hill,26 as well as Arndt et al.27 That ἀνελήμφθη is not attested in any extant Greek manuscript is not very significant, because the presence of equivalent verbs in Syriac, Latin and Coptic versions essentially proves the existence of a Greek textual tradition that read ἀνελήμφθη, since it is extremely unlikely that three translators would have made the same semantic change independently. If Ehrman’s text has the correct reading, then Paul explicitly ascended to the holy place, which supports its spatial location in heaven.

(3) Even the verb poreuō (in 5.4 and in the Greek manuscripts 5.7) usually takes on the spatial meaning ‘go’. The only metaphorical meanings attested in Arndt et al are ‘to conduct oneself’ and ‘to die’,28 neither of which are possible in this context. Certainly, for an expression consisting of a verb (‘go’) and a noun (‘place’) which both have a spatial meaning as their primary sense, a spatial interpretation is most natural.

(4) In 1 Clement 5.7, the explicit contrast between ‘this world’ (the place from which Paul departed or was set free;29 cf. John 13:1; 1 Cor. 5:10) and ‘the holy place’ implies spatial movement. ‘This world’ is not an office or position. It is a place; an abode.

(5) In 1 Clement 50.3, the writer uses a different Greek word to refer to the ‘place’ of the righteous dead: chōros. This text reads:
3 All the generations from Adam till today have passed away, but those perfected in love through the gracious gift of God have a place (chōros) among the godly. And they will be revealed when the kingdom of Christ appears. 4 For it is written, “Come into the inner rooms for just a short while, until my anger and wrath pass by; and I will remember a good day and raise you up from your tombs.”30
These inner rooms are regarded by Clement not metaphorically but as a spatial place, since chōros means ‘an undefined area or location, place’;31 ‘a definite space, piece of ground, place’ or ‘land’, ‘country’, ‘estate’, etc.32 and, unlike topos,  does not have any attested metaphorical sense. The sense of 1 Clement 50.3-4, therefore, is that the righteous dead dwell in a spatial place, identified with the ‘inner rooms’ (ta tameia) of Isa. 26:20 LXX, until the resurrection. Thus it is best to interpret ‘place’ spatially in 1 Clement 5.4 and 5.7 as well. We note further that Josephus, writing in the same city as Clement around the same time (see above), uses the same word chōros to refer to the heavenly abode of the souls of the righteous dead while they await the resurrection of the body.

(6) Remarkably, the passage on which Clement explicitly depends for his doctrine of the intermediate state in 1 Clement 50.3-433 is also the passage which contains the clearest OT reference to ‘the holy place’ as a transcendent location: ‘For look, the Lord from his holy place (tou hagiou) brings wrath upon those who dwell on the earth’ (Isa. 26:21 LXX, NETS). Since we can be certain that Clement’s ideas about the intermediate state have been influenced by this passage, it makes sense to interpret his reference to ‘the holy place’ in 1 Clement 5.7 in line with the reference to ‘the holy place’ in Isa. 26:21 LXX. Accordingly, ‘the holy place’ in 1 Clement 5.7 is best understood as a reference to heaven.

Besides all of this evidence concerning the spatial meaning of topos in 1 Clement 5.4 and 5.7, we redirect the reader’s attention to 1 Clement 6.2, which says of some female martyrs that they received ‘a noble reward’ (geras gennaion). Arndt et al define geras as ‘a material exhibition of esteem, prize, reward’.34 For these martyrs to have received a prize after their death but before their resurrection, they must have still existed. Dave’s post does not mention this verse.

In conclusion, there is substantial evidence that Clement believed in an intermediate state for the righteous dead, or at least for martyrs. The idea that the ‘place’ of the righteous dead refers to a position of authority is plausible in 1 Clement 44.5 but untenable in 1 Clement 5.4 and 5.7 (where it also seems to have no scholarly support). Rather, the ‘place of glory’ and ‘holy place’ to which Peter and Paul are said to have gone (or ascended, in Paul’s case) is best understood as the heavenly sanctuary.

What are the implications of this finding? First, the theology of 1 Clement is not exactly as Christadelphians believe, as Dave claims. In particular, the theology of 1 Clement shows that belief in an intermediate state was entrenched in the church of Rome before the end of the first century. This doctrine was being projected back onto the martyrdoms of Peter and Paul at a time when the church elders in Rome likely included individuals (even Clement?) who had known them personally and sat under their teaching.35 This is reason enough for Christadelphians to take a long look at their materialistic anthropology, and revisit their exegesis of New Testament texts such as Acts 7:59, Phil. 1:22-24 and Heb. 12:22-24 which appear to presuppose belief in an intermediate state. Second, in early Christian theology, heaven-going and resurrection were not mutually exclusive, competing models of individual eschatology. Rather, they could be held simultaneously as two sequential components of individual eschatology – as they still are today in orthodox Christian theology.

Footnotes

  • 1 Ehrman, B.D. (2003). The Apostolic Fathers (Vol. 1). Cambridge: Harvard University Press, pp. 43-47; emphasis added.
  • 2 He goes on to quote Matt. 19:28; 1 Cor. 9:25; 2 Tim. 4:8; Jas 1:12; 1 Pet. 5:4.
  • 3 Ehrman, op. cit., p. 115.
  • 4 Evangelion/Dave disputes this in a separate post on the same discussion board, claiming that 'with the Lord' is symbolic. Space does not allow further discussion of this text here, but suffice it to say that a symbolic meaning for 'with the Lord' is not 'clear' as Dave claims.
  • 5 Unquestionably, topos takes on a figurative sense in 1 Clement 40.5: ‘For special liturgical rites have been assigned to the high priest, and a special place (topos) has been designated for the regular priests, and special ministries are established for the Levites.
  • 6 Oropeza, B.J. (2010). Judas’ Death and Final Destiny in the Gospels and Earliest Christian Writings. Neotestamentica, 44(2), 342-361; here pp. 352-353. Also favouring this view are Barrett (Barrett, C.K. (1994). Acts 1-14. London: T&T Clark, pp. 103-104; he also considers the possibility that Judas’ own place refers to his position as a traitor); Witherington, B., III. (1998). The Acts of the Apostles. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, p. 122; Marshall, I.H. (1980). The Acts of the Apostles: An Introduction and Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, p. 66; Arndt, W., Danker, F. W., & Bauer, W. (2000). A Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament and other early Christian literature (3rd ed.) Chicago: University of Chicago Press, p. 1011; Bock, D.L. (2007). Acts. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, p. 89; Gaertner, D. (1995). Acts. Joplin: College Press, p. 64; Peterson, D. (2009). The Acts of the Apostles. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, p. 128; Zwiep, A.W. (2004). Judas and the Choice of Matthias: A Study on Context and Concern of Acts 1:15-26. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, pp. 166-168. Zwiep offers perhaps the most comprehensive exegesis, considering five possible interpretations of ‘his own place’ before concluding that it ‘is a euphemism for his postmortem state, in Luke’s view geenna.’ Among the parallels cited by scholars in support of this interpretation, the most impressive are Targum on Ecclesiastes 6.6 and Ignatius Magnesians 5.1. The former reads, ‘On the day of his death his soul goes down to Gehenna, the one place where all the guilty go’ (Talbert, C.H. (2005). Reading Acts: A Literary and Theological Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles. Macon: Smyth & Helwys, p. 21, trans., who also cites this text in connection with Acts 1:25 and thus presumably holds to the same interpretation.) The latter reads, ‘the two things are set together, death and life, and each person is about to depart to his own place’ (Ehrman, op. cit., p. 245). In this text, the expression ‘his own place’ parallels that in Acts 1:25, and appears to refer to one’s final destination.
  • 7 Johnson, L.T. (1992). The Acts of the Apostles. Collegeville: Liturgical Press, p. 37.
  • 8 Keener, C.S. (2012). Acts: An Exegetical Commentary (Vol. 1). Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, p. 771.
  • 9 McCabe, D.R. (2011). How to Kill Things with Words: Ananias and Sapphira under the Prophetic Speech-Act of Divine Judgment (Acts 4.32-5.11). London: T&T Clark, p. 208.
  • 10 Van de Water, R. (2003). The Punishment of the Wicked Priest and the Death of Judas. Dead Sea Discoveries 10(3), 395-419; here p. 405.
  • 11 Whitlock, M.G. (2015). Acts 1:15-26 and the Craft of New Testament Poetry. Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 77(1), 87-106; here pp. 104-105.
  • 12 ‘In one other place Clement uses the word τόπος to denote “the post-mortal place of honour.” This time, in an ironical jab at the Corinthians, he is speaking of the lot of deceased presbyters… The directional quality of προοδοιπορήσαντες, not merely “predecessors” but those who have traveled or gone before, is reinforced by the clear terminus for the journey in the τόπος of the departed. Despite, then, prima facie resemblance to Irenaeus’s “appointed place” (ὡρισμένος τόπος, Against Heresies V.31.2), Clement’s “established place” (τόπος) represents a conception of the place of the dead entirely at odds with that notion. There is every reason to assume that the teaching here is of a piece with that of chapter 5, in which the due place of glory and the holy place must be understood as the heavenly sanctuary and not as a subterranean holding place’ (Hill, C.E. (2001). Regnum Caelorum: Patterns of Millennial Thought in Early Christianity. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, pp. 83-84).
  • 13 ‘τόπος meint die irdische Amtsstellung der Presbyter (vgl. 40,5), die ihnen nicht mehr genommen werden kann, oder aber den "himmlischen" Ort wie in 5,4.7 (so nachdrüklich Aono, Entwicklung 67; dann wäre ἱδρυμένος allerdings uneigentlich gemeint); vielleicht soll gar nicht präzise unterschieden werden’ (Lindemann, A. (1992). Die Clemensbriefe. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, p. 132)] and (apparently) Arndt et al (op. cit., p. 1011), who list 1 Clement 44.5 under the ‘position’ meaning of topos but also asks the writer to ‘Cp. 44:5’ when listing 1 Clement 5.7 under the ‘transcendent site’ meaning.
  • 14 ‘Die Presbyter haben nun keinen Anlaß mehr zur Furcht, von ihrem Platz bzw. Amt entfernt zu werden (μεθίστημι wie in 1 Kön 15,13; 1 Makk 11,63; Lk 16,4). Die Ausdrucksweise verrät in zweifacher Weise das Interesse, die Vorstellung von einer schon soliden, feststehenden Einrichtung wachzurufen. Einmal ist von τόπος der Presbyter die Rede, was in diesem Zusammenhang an I Clem 40,5 erinnert: καὶ τοῖς ἱερεῦσιν ἴδιος ὁ τόπος προστέτακται. Sodann wird das bedeuteungsvolle  ἱδρύειν gebraucht, um die Errichtung des Amtes zu bezeichnen. Die Passiv-Form  ἱδρυμένος weist wie in 40,5 auf Gott als den Urheber hin, das Perfekt auf die Gültigkeit des den Presbytern errichteten τόπος. Der Terminus paßt in das Gesamtbild. Der fest gegründete Platz der Presbyter hat sich für einige von ihnen als nicht sicher erwiesen, da sie aus ihrem Amt hinausgedrängt wurden. Dieser Gefahr sind die schon verstorbenen Presbyter entgangen.’ (Lona, H.E. (1998). Der erste Clemensbrief. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, p. 470)
  • 15 1 Clement 36 appears to borrow extensively from Hebrews, quoting several of the same OT texts quoted in Hebrews 1, and referring to Jesus as ‘the high priest of our offerings, the benefactor who helps us in our weaknesses’ – language reminiscent of Heb. 2:18; 3:1 (cf. Ehrman, op. cit., pp. 26, 99-100).
  • 16 Hill, op. cit., p. 83.
  • 17 Hill notes that this same Greek word is used in 1 Clement 5.6.
  • 18 quoted in ibid.
  • 19 ibid.
  • 20 If the Visions were the first part of The Shepherd of Hermas to be written, around the end of the first century, as Osiek 1999: 20 suggests, then this text would have arisen around the same time as 1 Clement from within the same local church!
  • 21 Hill, op. cit., p. 83. He discusses this text in more detail in his discussion on the Shepherd of Hermas, ibid., pp. 92ff.
  • 22 following LXX: Ex. 28:26; 29:31; Lev. 6:27-36; 10:13-18; 16:2-27; 24:9; Num. 4:16; 28:7; 1 Ki. 8:10; 1 Chr. 23:32; 2 Chr. 5:9-11; 29:7; 31:18; Eccl. 8:10; Ezek. 41:21; 42:14; 44:27; 45:4; 45:18; Dan. 8:11; cf. 1 Macc. 14:36; 2 Macc. 2:18; 8:17; 3 Macc. 2:1; 4 Macc. 4:12; 1 Enoch 25.5.
  • 23 Cp. 1 Enoch 12.4, which refers to the Watchers having ‘left the high heaven, the holy eternal place’.
  • 24 Holmes, M.W. (2007) The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, p. 53.
  • 25 Ehrman, op. cit., p. 53.
  • 26 ‘Both Greek mss have ἐπορεύθη (he went), but ἀνελήμφθη (he was taken up) is presumed by the Syriac, Latin, and Coptic versions. Since ἐπορεύθη here may also be accounted for as an assimilation to v. 4, ἀνελήμφθη is preferred by Harnack, I. Clemensbrief, and Lake, ApF. It is also adopted by Funk-Bilhmeyer, though not by Jaubert. Knoch assumes ἐπορεύθη and does not even mention the variant…If  ἀνελήμφθη is original, it would, of course, be very unsuitable for depicting a removal to Hades but utterly natural for depicting an ascension to heaven. (Hill, op. cit., p. 82 n. 19).
  • 27 Arndt et al, op. cit., p. 66.
  • 28 op. cit., p. 853.
  • 29 Ehrman's translation above has Paul being 'set free' from this world, whereas Holmes (op. cit., p. 53) translates 'he thus departed from the world...' Both 'set free' and 'depart' are possible meanings of the verb apallassō (Arndt et al, op. cit., p. 96).
  • 30 Ehrman, op. cit., p. 125, trans.
  • 31 Arndt et al, op. cit., p. 1096.
  • 32 Liddell, H.G. & Scott, R. (1940). A Greek-English Lexicon (revised and augmented throughout by H.S. Jones with the assistance of R. McKenzie). Oxford: Clarendon Press. Retrieved from http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Dxw%3Dros1, 21 December 2015.
  • 33 Lona's comments on this text, already quoted in Part One of this article, are as follows: 'Zitat, dessen Herkunft in einem zweiten Schritt erörtert wird, will offensichtlich das zuvor Gesagte unterstreichen. Gemäß der vom Vf. praktizierten Schriftauslegung ist der als Zitat angeführte Text wörtlich zu nehmen. In diesem Fall sind τὰ τεμεῖα (die Kammern) identisch mit dem χῶρος εὐσεβῶν von V.3. Der Aufenthalt dort hat eine beschützende Funktion, aber er ist nicht dauernd, sondern nur für die Zeit des göttlichen Zornes gedacht, bis Gott sich des guten Tages erinnert und die Gläubigen auferstehen läßt. Zwei Aspekte sind in diesen Wort enthalten, die das Verständnis der Stelle im Kontext bestimmen. Der erste und vordergründige ist der eschatologische. Präzis ist er aber nicht. Die in der Liebe Vollendeten würden in diesen Aufenthaltsort eingehen - was nur als postmortales Ereignis vorstellbar ist - , um dort auf den guten Tag zu warten, an dem Gott sie auferstehen lassen wird. ἀναστήσω ist als Auferstehungsverheißung auszulegen. Die jüdische Apokalyptik kennt ähnliche Vorstellungen über einen Zwischenzustand. Sie sind auch dem NT nicht fremd (vgl. Phil 1,23; Lk 23,43), wenngleich die Ausdrucksweise dort nicht so bildreich ist wie in I Clem 50,4' (Lona, op. cit., p. 534).
  • 34 Arndt et al, op. cit., p. 195.
  • 35 1 Clement 44.3, 6 may indicate that among the ministers who had been deposed in Corinth were some who had been appointed by the apostles.

Monday 21 December 2015

The intermediate state in 1 Clement (part 1)

1 Clement is an early Christian letter written from the church of Rome to the church of Corinth.1 The consensus date for this document is c. 96 AD, though it may have been written as early as the 70s.2 It is traditionally ascribed to Clement of Rome; the name Clement 'appears in the titles of each manuscript in which the letter survives'.3 For convenience we will refer to the author as Clement. One can find scholars arguing that the author was 'almost certainly...a Gentile believer'4 or, on the other hand, 'almost certainly a Jewish Christian'!5 Given the writer's knowledge of Old Testament and Jewish tradition but familiarity with and use of Hellenistic ideas, Hagner's balanced statement seems on point: 'We may be sure…that Clement was either a Jew whose Hellenization was complete, or a Greek who had drunk deeply of Jewish thought and practice.'6 The high valuation of this letter in the patristic Church can be seen from its inclusion (together with 2 Clement) at the end of the New Testament in Codex Alexandrinus, one of the most important early biblical manuscripts.

Some Christadelphian apologists have attempted to enlist the author of 1 Clement as essentially a proto-Christadelphian. For instance, in a recent talk on early Christianity, Dave Burke says the following:
In the letter of Clement to the Corinthians we find New Testament theology7 exclusively; we don’t find the deity of Christ, we don’t find the pre-existence of Christ, we don’t find the Trinity, we don’t find the immortal soul, we don’t find a supernatural devil; everything here is exactly as we [Christadelphians] believe. It’s perfectly consistent with New Testament theology.8
More recently, in a Facebook post from August 2015, Dave asserts the following:
Clement's theology is utterly apostolic; there is no evidence that he believed in immortal soulism, the pre-existence of Christ, the deity of Christ, the deity of the Holy Spirit, or an evil supernatural devil.
This appears on a Facebook page authored by Dave which is entitled 'Christian History'. The stated purpose of this page is 'to provide information about early Christian history, the Reformation, and the three Great Awakenings.' The page does not state that it offers a Christadelphian slant on early Christian history, so one would expect the information to be factual or at least in line with the current scholarly consensus. Sadly, this is not the case.

In fact, 1 Clement 51.1 refers to 'the adversary' and it is universally agreed by scholars that this is a reference to Satan (as I have discussed previously). Moreover, scholars have concluded that several passages in 1 Clement presuppose the pre-existence of Christ.9 Dave does not mention any of this evidence. However, our main concern in this article is with Clement's individual eschatology: his beliefs concerning the afterlife. Dave's assertion in this respect is imprecise: he says there is no evidence that Clement believed in 'immortal soulism' and infers that, because Clement believed in resurrection, his individual eschatology must have been identical to that of Christadelphians. However, this implicitly creates a false dichotomy as though Christadelphian conditionalism and 'immortal soulism' (a term Dave does not define) are the only options. If, by 'immortal soulism', Dave means the Greek doctrine of the immortality of the soul founded upon Platonic dualism, in which the soul is temporarily imprisoned in the body which is a mere shell, then one can heartily agree that Clement held no such anthropology. However, there is a third possibility that Dave does not mention: that of an intermediate state, in which the soul continues to exist after death while awaiting the consummate goal of bodily resurrection.

Hence, the question that needs to be asked is whether there is any evidence that Clement believed in a post-mortem existence prior to the resurrection. In order for Clement's theology to be exactly as Christadelphians believe, the answer would have to be no. However, the answer from the scholarly literature, and from careful exegesis of certain passages in 1 Clement, is a decisive yes!

Before turning to these passages we must first note our agreement with Dave that the doctrine of bodily resurrection is at the core of Clement's individual eschatology.10 Consider, for instance, 1 Clement 24.1:
We should consider, loved ones, how the Master continuously shows us the future resurrection that is about to occur, of which he made the Lord Jesus Christ the first fruit by raising him from the dead.11
Having noted this, we must reiterate that Clement's belief in resurrection does not imply his disbelief in any post-mortem existence (as in Christadelphian theology). Schmisek reminds us that Clement 'did not spell out the nature of his resurrection anthropology' and that he 'felt free to draw on pagan imagery to convey the concept of resurrection'.12 More importantly, 1 Clement refers to a blessed state of existence which faithful believers and martyrs in particular enter immediately after death. The most significant text in this respect concerns the martyrdom of Peter, Paul and some women, and reads as follows:
3. We should set before our eyes the good apostles. 4. There is Peter, who because of unjust jealousy bore up under hardships not just once or twice, but many times; and having thus borne his witness he went to the place of glory that he deserved. 5. Because of jealousy and strife Paul pointed the way to the prize for endurance. 6. Seven times he bore chains; he was sent into exile and stoned; he served as a herald in both the East and the West; and he received the noble reputation for his faith. 7. He taught righteousness to the whole world, and came to the limits of the West, bearing his witness before the rulers. And so he was set free from this world and transported up to the holy place, having become the greatest example of endurance. 6.1. To these men who have conducted themselves in such a holy way there has been added a great multitude of the elect, who have set a superb example among us by the numerous torments and tortures they suffered because of jealousy. 2. Women were persecuted as Danaids and Dircae and suffered terrifying and profane torments because of jealousy. But they confidently completed the race of faith, and though weak in body, they received a noble reward. (1 Clement 5.3-6.2)13
It should be obvious that, prima facie, this passage constitutes evidence for Clement's belief in post-mortem existence. A plain reading of the text suggests that these martyrs went somewhere after death and received a reward. Certainly, one will never hear the kind of language used in this passage at a Christadelphian funeral! However, Dave neglects to mention this passage when summarizing Clement's theology in his talk and on his Facebook page. This is not because Dave is unaware of the passage; in fact, he had discussed it in an online discussion forum almost a decade earlier (assuming, according to my recollections, that Evangelion was Dave's user name on this forum). However, neither in that post nor at any time since (as far as I am aware) has Dave shown any familiarity with scholarship on this passage and others relevant to our subject. It is to this scholarship that we now turn.

Based on my survey of scholarship, it appears that most scholars conclude, based primarily on 1 Clement 5.3-6.2, that Clement believed in an intermediate state. Some of these, such as Lampe,14 Bauckham,15 Hill,16 Wright,17 and Lehtipuu,18 explicitly locate the intermediate state in heaven. Others, such as Lindemann,19 Lona,20 Arndt et al,21 and Mutie,22 do not explicitly describe Clement's intermediate state as 'heaven' but do conclude that he believed in post-mortem existence.

More nuanced views are those of Sumney, who thinks Clement's intermediate state concept applied to martyrs only,23 and Gonzalez, who thinks 1 Clement is ambiguous about the kind of post-mortem existence which the martyrs enjoy.24

Having surveyed the literature, it is apparent that most scholars have concluded that Clement's theology included the notion of post-mortem existence in an intermediate state for believers. None of the scholars I read concluded that Clement held that believers ceased to exist between their death and resurrection (although Sumney held this to be the case with the exception of martyrs). Contemporary scholarship weighs against Dave Burke's claim that the theology of 1 Clement corresponds exactly to that of Christadelphians in the matter of individual eschatology. Accordingly, I call on Dave to provide his Christadelphian audiences with an objective picture of Clement's theology and to stop presenting his own private interpretations as factual information.

This is Part One of a two-part article. In the next installment, I will interact with Dave's exegesis of 1 Clement 5.3-6.2 and provide exegetical arguments that Clement believed that the righteous dead go to heaven to await the resurrection.

Footnotes

  • 1 The prescript of the letter reads, 'The church of God that temporarily resides in Rome, to the church of God that temporarily resides in Corinth' (Ehrman, B.D. (2003). The Apostolic Fathers (Vol. 1). Cambridge: Harvard University Press, p. 35).
  • 2 Gregory, A. (2006). I Clement: An Introduction. The Expository Times, 117(6), 223-230 (here pp. 227-228).
  • 3 ibid., pp. 224-225.
  • 4 Skarsaune, O. (2009). Does the Letter to the Hebrews Articulate a Supersessionist Theology? In R. Bauckham, D. Driver & T. Hart (Eds.), The Epistle to the Hebrews and Christian Theology (pp. 192-200). Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, p. 198.
  • 5 Sanders, J.T. (1993). Schismatics, Sectarians, Dissidents, Deviants: The First One Hundred Years of Jewish-Christian Relations. London: SCM Press, p. 220.
  • 6 Hagner, D.A. (1973). The Use of the Old and New Testaments in Clement of Rome. Leiden: Brill, p. 8.
  • 7 Read: the Christadelphian version of New Testament theology.
  • 8 These remarks are from a talk Dave delivered in 2014, which can be downloaded here (the discussion of 1 Clement begins around the 9:45 mark).
  • 9 E.g. 1 Clement 16.2, 16.17, 36.2, 42.1. These are the texts adduced by Talbert who concludes that 1 Clement 'assumes pre-existence' and thus 'reflects an epiphany model' of Christology (Talbert, C.H. (2011). The Development of Christology during the first hundred years. Leiden: Brill, p. 36). I hope to discuss Clement's Christology in detail in a future post.
  • 10 Wright states: 'He not only believes in final resurrection; he mounts various arguments to show that it is not as unreasonable a thing to believe as one might suppose. First, the sequence of day and night, and seedtime and harvest, indicates that such a progression is built into the created world… Clement then – boldly, we may think – advances the apparent parallel of the phoenix, which rejuvenates itself after dying every 500 years. And he rounds off his exposition with three biblical passages which demonstrate, he says, that "the creator of all things will create the resurrection of those who have served him in holiness, in the assurance of a good faith."' (Wright, N.T. (2003). The Resurrection of the Son of God. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, p. 481) Similarly, Chester: 'The main concentration of eschatological themes in 1 Clement… is to be found in chapters 23-27. It is clearly the delay of the Parousia that constitutes one main problem that the writer has to deal with… Chapters 24-26 provide the main, central thrust of this section as a whole, arguing for the resurrection of the body as not in the least improbable, on the analogy of the seed dying in order to product fruit and the phoenix rising from the ashes. Clearly the writer sees the doubts about the Parousia, and those about the resurrection of the believers, as closely bound up together.' (Chester, A. (2007). Messiah and Exaltation: Jewish Messianic and Visionary Traditions and New Testament Christology. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, p. 455.) See also Mutie, J. (2015). Death in Second-Century Christian Thought: The Meaning of Death in Earliest Christianity. Eugene: Wipf & Stock, pp. 56-57. Offering a different perspective is Schmisek, who surprisingly claims that 'resurrection was not a major issue for Clement and he spent little time discussing it' (Schmisek, B. (2013). Resurrection of the Flesh or Resurrection from the Dead: Implications for Theology. Collegeville: Liturgical Press, p. 3.)
  • 11 Ehrman, op. cit., p. 81.
  • 12 Schmisek, op. cit., p. 4.
  • 13 Ehrman, op. cit., pp. 43-47; emphasis added.
  • 14 Lampe thinks that topos refers to 'heaven' in 1 Clement 5.4, 5.7 (Lampe, G.W.H. (1961). A Patristic Greek Lexicon. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 1397).
  • 15 Bauckham regards the word sunēthroisthē in 1 Clement 6.1 as possibly suggesting that 'the great multitude joined the martyrs just mentioned in heaven: this would supply a reference to the heavenly reward of the great multitude of martyrs, which is otherwise missing but which is expected by comparison with the examples of Peter, Paul and the women' (Bauckham, R.J. (1992). The Martyrdom of Peter in Early Christian Literature. In ANRW II.26.1, pp. 539-595; here p. 561).
  • 16 Hill concludes that Clement believed in a 'heavenly version of the intermediate state' and yet that 'absolutely no tension can be detected, in Clement's mind' between this and his 'vigorous Christian doctrine of the resurrection of the body' (Hill, C.E. (2001). Regnum Caelorum: Patterns of Millennial Thought in Early Christianity. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, p. 85). Hill's exegesis of the relevant passages in 1 Clement is the most detailed among the scholars cited here. We will consider it in more detail in the second part of this article.
  • 17 Wright says that 'Clement believed in a temporary post-mortem heaven rather than in the righteous going to Hades' and argued that 1 Clement 5.4-6.2 dovetail with Clement's teachings on the resurrection of the dead: 'We are not surprised, therefore, to find that Clement articulates a doctrine of resurrection not far removed from that of the New Testament. To begin with, however, it might have seemed otherwise. In the early chapters Clement speaks of the apostles Peter and Paul having died and gone, in the first place, to a "place of glory", and in the second to the "holy place". He goes on to speak of martyrs who "received a noble reward", of those who obtain the gift of "life in immortality", and of presbyters who have finished their course and have obtained "a fruitful and perfect release (analysis)", and who now need have no fear of being moved "from the place appointed to them". By themselves these passages could have been taken to indicate a belief in a final disembodied state, capable of being described in shorthand (though Clement does not use this phrase) as "going to heaven". But when Clement expounds his own view of the final state of the blessed departed, he makes it clear that this language about Peter, Paul and the others must refer to their temporary abode in a blessed, glorious and holy place. He not only believes in final resurrection; he mounts various arguments to show that it is not as unreasonable a thing to believe as one might suppose' (Wright, op. cit., p. 479).
  • 18 Lehtipuu regards this passage from 1 Clement as one witness to a widespread conviction 'that martyrs will pass immediately to heaven at the moment of their death': 'The conviction that martyrs will pass immediately to heaven at the moment of their death is so widespread that it can be called "a commonplace in martyrological literature."… The emphasis of the martyr accounts is on the continuation of life after death without any interruption.' (Lehtipuu, O. (2015). Debates over the Resurrection of the Dead: Constructing Early Christian Identity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 169).
  • 19 Lindemann regards 1 Clement 5.4-7 as referring to a post-mortem state of existence analogous to that implied by NT passages such as Luke 16:22f, 23:43 and Acts 7:56-59. He writes, 'τόπον vgl. Apg 1,25 (dort ἴδιος statt ὀφειλόμενος) und in der Sache Joh 14,2f; Ign Magn 5,1; vgl. auch die etwas rätselhafte Bemerkung in Apg 12,17: Petrus ἐπορεύθη εἰς ἕτερον τόπον (M. Smith, NTS 7, 1960/61, 86-88 sieht hier einen literarischen Zusammenhang und ein Argument gegen die Petrus-Rom-Hypothese; s.u.). Zur eschatologischen Bedeutung von δόξα s. Röm 8,18.21. V. 4 besagt wohl nicht, daß dem Märtyrer "ein besonderer Platz am postmortalen, interimistischen Ort der Frommen" zuteil wird oder er schon "in die volle Seligkeit" gelangt ist, auf die "andere Tote noch bis zur Endvollendung warten müssen" (so Baumeister aaO. 242, der auf 44,5 verweist; s. dort), denn ein Vergleich mit anderen ist gar nicht im Blick. Die Stelle bestätigt freilich eine im NT vor allem in den lk Schriften zu beobachtende Tendenz zur Individualisierung der Eschatologie (vgl. Lk 16,22f; 23,43; Apg 7.56.59),' (Lindemann, A. (1992). Die Clemensbriefe. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, pp. 37-38).
  • 20 Lona regards the 'place of glory' in 1 Clement 5.4 as the eschatological place (Ort) of salvation. He writes on this 'place of glory' that it is 'ein klarer Hinweis auf die von Petrus empfangene eschatologische Belohnung' (Lona, H.E. (1998). Der erste Clemensbrief. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, p. 161). He adds in a note, 'Zu τόπος als eschatologischem Ort des Heiles vgl. auch I Clem 44,5; II Clem 1,2; Herm Sim IX 27,3 (104,3)' (ibid., p. 161 n. 1). On 1 Clement 5.7 he writes, 'Das Verlassen der Welt bedeutet in diesem Fall das Hingehen zu einem anderen Ort' (ibid., p. 166). In 1 Clement 50.3-4 Lona finds a concept of the intermediate state similar to what is found in Jewish apocalyptic and in NT passages such as Luke 23:43 and Phil. 1:23: 'Das Zitat, dessen Herkunft in einem zweiten Schritt erörtert wird, will offensichtlich das zuvor Gesagte unterstreichen. Gemäß der vom Vf. praktizierten Schriftauslegung ist der als Zitat angeführte Text wörtlich zu nehmen. In diesem Fall sind τὰ τεμεῖα (die Kammern) identisch mit dem χῶρος εὐσεβῶν von V.3. Der Aufenthalt dort hat eine beschützende Funktion, aber er ist nicht dauernd, sondern nur für die Zeit des göttlichen Zornes gedacht, bis Gott sich des guten Tages erinnert und die Gläubigen auferstehen läßt. Zwei Aspekte sind in diesen Wort enthalten, die das Verständnis der Stelle im Kontext bestimmen. Der erste und vordergründige ist der eschatologische. Präzis ist er aber nicht. Die in der Liebe Vollendeten würden in diesen Aufenthaltsort eingehen - was nur als postmortales Ereignis vorstellbar ist - , um dort auf den guten Tag zu warten, an dem Gott sie auferstehen lassen wird. ἀναστήσω ist als Auferstehungsverheißung auszulegen. Die jüdische Apokalyptik kennt ähnliche Vorstellungen über einen Zwischenzustand. Sie sind auch dem NT nicht fremd (vgl. Phil 1,23; Lk 23,43), wenngleich die Ausdrucksweise dort nicht so bildreich ist wie in I Clem 50,4' (ibid., p. 534).
  • 21 The lexicon classifies topos in this text under the following definition: ‘a transcendent site: esp. of the place to which one’s final destiny brings one’ (Arndt, W., Danker, F. W., & Bauer, W. (2000). A Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament and other early Christian literature (3rd ed.) Chicago: University of Chicago Press, p. 1011).
  • 22 Mutie states that the writer of 1 Clement 'concludes his understanding of death by suggesting that those who are perfected in love have already entered their glorious places in Christ’s kingdom. [cites 1 Clement 50.3-4] In other words, not only does the writer of 1 Clement understand death in terms of sleep, but he also, within the tradition of the Old Testament, affirms the survival of the soul beyond the physical death. As Dewart observes, "it is interesting to note that the letter contains one of the passages in the Apostolic Fathers which seems to affirm the survival of the soul independently of the body" after death.' (Mutie, op. cit., pp. 56-57).
  • 23 Sumney's main focus is Paul's individual eschatology. He argues that in Paul's view,  'most people (including believers) cease to exist at death' but 'Martyrs and others of exceptional faithfulness...may be exceptions to this general rule and thus possess a limited existence with God before the parousia' (Sumney, J.L. (2009). Post-Mortem Existence and Resurrection of the Body in Paul. Horizons in Biblical Theology, 31(1), 12-26; here p. 12). He regards Acts 7:59, Revelation 6:9-11 and 4 Maccabees 17:17-18 as evidence for a belief that 'the fate of martyrs differs from that of others...martyrs are already in heaven with God' (ibid., p. 24). He interprets 1 Clement 5.3-6.2 in the same way, as affirming a 'post mortem existence for martyrs': 'Clement says that Peter has gone to the ‘place of glory’ because he is a martyr (1 Clem 5:4). Clement goes on to say that Paul is in ‘the holy place’ (5:6) and that women martyrs receive a ‘noble reward’ (6:2). So various people within the early church thought that post mortem existence for martyrs, including Paul, was different from the state of others' (ibid., p. 25). Sumney's thesis has been criticized by Orr, who says that the literature cited by Sumney holds out martyrs as examples to imitate but does not differentiate their fate from that of other believers. Orr says Sumney has missed 'the fact that the texts that he cites, although they speak of the martyrs being with God, do not, in fact, distinguish between martyrs and other believers. So 4 Maccabees does indeed picture martyrs being present with God following their death, but these are held out as examples for readers to imitate so that they too will suffer like these martyrs. The state of those who die without suffering is not raised. The implicit understanding of the book is that those who τῆς εὐσεβείας προνοοῦσιν ἐξ ὅλης καρδίας (7:18) will suffer death and so will go to be with God. Similarly, Revelation appears to apply the description (if not the term) of martyr to all believers (7:9, 14). Sumney argues that Polycarp distinguishes between martyrs and other believers in Philippians 9:2 when, in fact, he is using their example and reward to call his readers to imitate them (9:1). The same note of imitation is found in 1 Clement 5 (cf. 5:1). Further, it seems that Paul himself fails to make any distinction between martyrs and other Christians. In any case, this distinction would be very odd in a letter where he so definitely sees himself as a model for other Christians' (Orr, P. (2014). Christ Absent and Present: A Study in Pauline Christology. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, p. 46).
  • 24 Gonzalez states: 'The early church fathers tend to support the view that the martyrs, through some means, and within a context of an anthropology that is never defined, go straight to heaven at their deaths. In the earlier chapters of 1 Clement, reference is made to Peter and Paul, who were martyred and who are respectively described as having gone ‘to his appointed place in glory’ (εἰς τὸν ὁφειλόμενον τόπον της δόξης), and ‘departed from this world and went to the holy place’ (ὁυτως ἀπηλλάγη τοῦ κόσμου καὶ εἰς τὸν ἅγιον τόπον ἐπορεύθη). 1 Clement also refers to the martyrs as having received ‘a noble reward’ (ἔλαβον γέρας γενναῖον). There is some ambiguity in this matter, however. It is notable (and rather overlooked) that 1 Clement never explicitly describes the martyrs or the righteous dead as having ascended or as specifically having gone to heaven. The extent to which the state in which the martyrs exist is merely blessed in anticipation rather than in reality is unclear. It may be either that the immediate admittance of the martyrs to heaven is simply assumed, or that this idea has not yet fully matured in the concept of early Christianity… From what we have seen, the concept of the immediate post-mortem ascent of the soul itself is not explicitly found in the writings of the "Apostolic Fathers." Perhaps it may be assumed in 1 Clement, and in the Martyrdom of Polycarp with regard to the martyrs. However, in relation to the martyrs as discussed in 1 Clement and the Polycarp texts, there is still no concept of a soul as separate from the physical body, nor of the motion of ascent of the martyrs to God. The martyrs are portrayed as receiving an immediate reward upon death, although the tension with the teaching of the resurrection is at times quite apparent.' (Gonzalez, E. (2014). The Fate of the Dead in Early Third Century North African Christianity: The Passion of Perpetua and Felicitas and Tertullian. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, pp. 57-58). Gonzalez shows reserve in his exegesis of this passage, but this does not amount to an endorsement of a Christadelphian reading of Clement's theology.