Nature Shows There Will Be a Resurrection

Chapter 24

1 Let us understand, dear friends, how the Master continually shows us the coming resurrection; of which He made the Lord Jesus Christ the firstfruit, when He raised Him from the dead.⁠ 2 Let us look, dear friends, at the resurrection that happens at its proper season. 3 Day and night show us the resurrection. The night falls asleep, and day arises; the day departs, and night comes on. 4 Let us note the crops, how and in what way the sowing takes place. 5 The sower goes out and casts each of the seeds into the earth;⁠ and these, falling into the earth dry and bare, decay; then out of their decay the might of the Master’s providence raises them up, and from one they multiply many times over and bear fruit.

Texts in conversation

Compare Mark 4:3 and Clement of Rome, 1 Clement 24:5

New Testament · Early Christian

Summary

In 1 Clement, the author argues for resurrection from a sower going out to sow, possibly an echo of the parable Jesus tells in Mark 4, but gives the image the meaning Paul gives it, where a buried seed that decays and rises again stands for the dead.

Passages

Mark 4:3

New Testament

3 “Listen! A sower went out to sow. 4 And as he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it. 5 Other seed fell on rocky ground where it did not have much soil. It sprang up at once because the soil was not deep. 6 When the sun came up it was scorched, and because it did not have sufficient root, it withered. 7 Other seed fell among the thorns, and they grew up and choked it, and it did not produce grain. 8 But other seed fell on good soil and produced grain, sprouting and growing; some yielded thirty times as much, some sixty, and some a hundred times.”

60–75 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Mark

Clement of Rome, 1 Clement 24:5

Early Christian · First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians

1 Let us understand, dear friends, how the Master continually shows us the coming resurrection; of which He made the Lord Jesus Christ the firstfruit, when He raised Him from the dead. 2 Let us look, dear friends, at the resurrection that happens at its proper season. 3 Day and night show us the resurrection. The night falls asleep, and day arises; the day departs, and night comes on. 4 Let us note the crops, how and in what way the sowing takes place. 5 The sower goes out and casts each of the seeds into the earth; and these, falling into the earth dry and bare, decay; then out of their decay the might of the Master’s providence raises them up, and from one they multiply many times over and bear fruit.

90–100 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Clement of Rome, 1 Clement

References

“... The third example comes at 1 Clem. 24. 5. Here Clement makes the statement that ‘the sower went out’ (ἐξῆλθεν ὁ σπείρων) in the context of a discussion of the resurrection of the body. He appears to draw on 1 Corinthians 15 as the wider context of his discussion, and uses these words to refer to the way in which God the sower brings human lives into existence. The words are parallel to the phraseology of Jesus’ parable of the sower, found in all three synoptic gospels, but they do not carry the same meaning as the phrase carries in that context. Therefore it is unclear whether Clement echoes that parable at all, either consciously or unconsciously. [...] Nevertheless, it is of interest to note the way in which Clement appears to conflate traditions associated with Jesus and with Paul. ...”

Andrew Gregory and Christopher Tuckett, eds., The Reception of the New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 137–138.

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

Nature Shows There Will Be a Resurrection

1 Clement65 chapters

Compare Mark 4:3 and Clement of Rome, 1 Clement 24:5

Summary

Passages

Mark 4:3

Clement of Rome, 1 Clement 24:5

References

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