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In 1 Corinthians 6, Paul calls the body a temple of the Holy Spirit to urge sexual restraint. In 2 Clement, the preacher applies the same temple image to flesh, using it to argue that the flesh will be raised and judged.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
1 Corinthians 6:19
New Testament
15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Should I take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! 16 Or do you not know that anyone who is united with a prostitute is one body with her? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.” 17 But the one united with the Lord is one spirit with him. 18 Flee sexual immorality! “Every sin a person commits is outside of the body”—but the immoral person sins against his own body. 19 Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? 20 For you were bought at a price. Therefore glorify God with your body.
2 Clement 9:3
Early Christian
1 And let none of you say that this flesh is not judged or does not rise again. 2 Understand this: in what were you saved? In what did you recover your sight—if not in this flesh? 3 We ought therefore to guard the flesh as a temple of God: 4 for just as you were called in the flesh, you shall also come in the flesh. 5 If Christ the Lord who saved us, being first spirit, then became flesh and so called us, then in the same way, in this flesh we shall receive our reward. 6 Let us therefore love one another, that we may all enter the kingdom of God.
Date: 130-160 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
“... While a Pauline origin of this idea is not necessarily to be denied, it seems quite likely that it may quickly have become a Christian commonplace. ‘Clement’ is clearly making a point that is consistent with Pauline precedents, but he uses σάρξ rather than σῶμα. It is quite possible that the whole of 2 Clem. 9. 1–6 reflects Pauline teaching about the resurrection such as is found in 1 Cor. 15, though Donfried’s claim that ‘it is likely that the author of 2 Clement has 1 Corinthians 15 in mind’ seems to claim too much. ...”
Gregory, Andrew F.
The Reception of the New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers
(p. 284) 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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