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In Matthew 7, Jesus requires obedience to his Father's will for entry to the kingdom. In 2 Clement, the preacher interprets this as doing right to be saved, adapting the saying to his appeal for good deeds rather than just verbal confession.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Matthew 7:21
New Testament
18 A good tree is not able to bear bad fruit, nor a bad tree to bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 So then, you will recognize them by their fruit. 21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter into the kingdom of heaven—only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. 22 On that day, many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many powerful deeds in your name?’ 23 Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you. Go away from me, you lawbreakers!’
2 Clement 4:2
Early Christian
1 Let us therefore not only call Him ‘Lord,’ for this will not save us: 2 for He says, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord,’ shall be saved, but the one who does what is right.” 3 So then, brothers and sisters, let us confess Him by our deeds, by loving one another, by not committing adultery or speaking evil against one another or envying, but by being temperate, merciful, and kind. We ought to have empathy for one another and not be greedy. By these works let us confess Him, and not by the opposite. 4 And we ought not to fear people rather than God.
Date: 130-160 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
“... A very similar situation may arise in 2 Clem. 4. 2. This is another explicit ‘citation’ of what ‘the Lord’ (= Jesus) ‘says’. The citation is clearly close in substance to Matt. 7. 21 // Luke 6. 46. Further, once again, 2 Clement is much closer to the version in Matthew than to that in Luke [...] Thus, although one cannot point to verbatim agreement with clearly identifiable elements of Matthean redaction, the fact remains that the version in 2 Clement does agree with Matthew in what is (probably) Matthew’s restructuring of the saying from Q 6. 46; and the further points where 2 Clement differs from Matthew (and in so doing avoids the more obviously Matthean terminology) can be adequately explained by the linguistic preferences of ‘Clement’ himself. ...”
Gregory, Andrew F.
The Reception of the New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers
(pp. 258-259) Oxford University Press, 2005
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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