Texts in conversation

Compare Matthew 10:32 and 2 Clement 3:2

New Testament · Early Christian

Summary

In Matthew 10, Jesus promises to acknowledge before his Father those who acknowledge him. In 2 Clement, the preacher repeats Matthew's form of the saying, likely drawing on it to explain that confessing Jesus requires obedience.

Passages

Matthew 10:32

New Testament

28 Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Instead, fear the one who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. 29 Aren’t two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will. 30 Even all the hairs on your head are numbered. 31 So do not be afraid; you are more valuable than many sparrows. 32 “Whoever, then, acknowledges me before people, I will acknowledge before my Father in heaven. 33 But whoever denies me before people, I will deny him also before my Father in heaven.

70–90 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Matthew

2 Clement 3:2

Early Christian

1 Seeing then that He bestowed such great mercy on us; first of all, that we, who are living, do not sacrifice to these dead gods or worship them, but through Him have known the Father of truth. What else is this knowledge of Him but not to deny Him through whom we have known the Father? 2 Yes, He Himself says, “Whoever confesses Me, him will I confess before the Father.” 3 This then is our reward, if truly we shall confess Him through whom we were saved. 4 But how do we confess Him? When we do what He says and are not disobedient to His commandments, and do not merely honor Him with our lips, but with our whole heart and our whole mind. 5 Now He says also in Isaiah, “This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me.”

130–160 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in 2 Clement

References

“... Much more relevant is the fact that 2 Clement here agrees closely in substance with Matthew against Luke in (a) making Jesus’ statement about his confessing as a first person claim (rather than a third person reference to the ‘Son of Man’ as in Luke), and (b) having the ‘audience’ before whom Jesus will confess those who confess him as ‘my father’ (Matthew also has ‘in heaven’), rather than Luke’s ‘the angels of God’. The version in 2 Clement is thus significantly closer to Matthew’s version than to Luke’s. Further, and probably of most significance in the present context, both these differences between Matthew and Luke are almost universally taken by commentators on the synoptic tradition and/or Q to be due to MattR. [...] The version in 2 Clement thus agrees with Matthew at just those points where Matthew has redacted the tradition. It is thus most probable that 2 Clement presupposes the development of the tradition after it has gone through Matthew’s editorial hand, and hence presupposes Matthew’s finished gospel. ...”

Andrew Gregory and Christopher Tuckett, eds., The Reception of the New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 257–258.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

2 Clement20 chapters

Compare Matthew 10:32 and 2 Clement 3:2

Summary

Passages

Matthew 10:32

2 Clement 3:2

References

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