Texts in Conversation
In Luke 13, Jesus rejects evildoers who claim to know him. In 2 Clement, the preacher repeats the rejection but adds that even closeness to Jesus cannot replace obedience, likely using a source outside the New Testament gospels.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Luke 13:27
New Testament
23 Someone asked him, “Lord, will only a few be saved?” So he said to them, 24 “Exert every effort to enter through the narrow door because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to. 25 Once the head of the house gets up and shuts the door, then you will stand outside and start to knock on the door and beg him, ‘Lord, let us in!’ But he will answer you, ‘I don’t know where you come from.’ 26 Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’ 27 But he will reply, ‘I don’t know where you come from! Go away from me, all you evildoers!’
2 Clement 4:5
Early Christian
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. 5 For this reason, if you do these things, the Lord said, “Though you be gathered together with Me in My bosom, and do not My commandments, I will cast you away and will say to you, ‘Depart from Me, I do not know where you are from, you workers of evil.’”
Date: 130-160 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
“... However, the form in which the saying might have been known to ‘Clement’ has to take account of the first half of the saying as well. Here there is a well-known close parallel to the version in 2 Clement in the marginal gloss to Matt. 7. 5 found in MS 1424, said to be from ‘the Jewish gospel’ [...]. The identity of this ‘Jewish (gospel)’ is much debated. [...] Nevertheless, whatever one decides about this, it would seem that ‘Clement’ here has access to, and uses, a form of a saying of Jesus that has no parallel in any synoptic gospel, but which was clearly known more widely. Further, there is no evidence that ‘Clement’ thought that the whole of his ‘citation’ at 4. 5 was anything other than a single citation (see above). It is thus most likely that ‘Clement’ is here drawing on a source for a saying of Jesus that is not one of the synoptic gospels, even though it overlaps with (at least) Luke in the second half. ...”
Gregory, Andrew F.
The Reception of the New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers
(pp. 262-263) 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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