Texts in Conversation
1 Clement and Revelation each join a phrase from Isaiah about God coming with his reward to one from Proverbs about repaying each person for what he has done. The combination may come from a lost writing about the end of the age that each knew.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Clement of Rome, 1 Clement 34:3
First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians
Early Christian
1 The good workman receives the bread of his work with boldness, but the slothful and careless dares not look his employer in the face. 2 It is therefore needful that we should be zealous to well doing; for of Him are all things. 3 since He forewarns us saying, “Behold, the Lord, and His reward is before His face, to recompense each man according to his work.” 4 He exhorts us therefore to believe on Him with our whole heart, and to be not idle nor careless to every good work. 5 Let our boast and our confidence be in Him: let us submit ourselves to His will; let us mark the whole host of His angels, how they stand by and minister to His will.
Revelation 22:12
New Testament
10 Then he said to me, “Do not seal up the words of the prophecy contained in this book, because the time is near. 11 The evildoer must continue to do evil, and the one who is morally filthy must continue to be filthy. The one who is righteous must continue to act righteously, and the one who is holy must continue to be holy.” 12 (Look ! I am coming soon, and my reward is with me to pay each one according to what he has done! 13 I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end!) 14 Blessed are those who wash their robes so they can have access to the tree of life and can enter into the city by the gates.
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Notes and References
“... Carlyle and the Oxford Committee found no evidence for classifying higher than ‘d’ any potential allusions to either non-Pauline letters or the Apocalypse. [...] The committee remarks on the ‘noticeable’ combination of phrases from Isaiah and Proverbs found in both 1 Clement and Revelation, but observes that this ‘may perhaps be accounted for by the hypothesis that it may have been made in some earlier apocalyptic work’, and refers to Barn. 21. 3 (NTAF, 58). ...”
Gregory, Andrew F.
The Reception of the New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers
(p. 154) 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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