Jealousy Brings Rebellion to Corinth

Chapter 3

1 All glory and abundance were given to you, and what was written was fulfilled: ‘My beloved ate and drank, grew strong, and became proud and rebellious.’⁠ 2 From this came jealousy and envy, strife and rebellion, persecution and chaos, war and captivity. 3 So people were stirred up—the lowly against the honorable, the disrespected against the esteemed, the foolish against the wise, the young against the elder. 4 Because of this, righteousness and peace have withdrawn, while each person has forgotten the fear of the Lord and become blind in faith, no longer walking in the ordinances of His commandments or living in a way that honors Christ. Instead, each follows the desires of their corrupt heart, having embraced an unrighteous and ungodly jealousy—through which death entered the world.⁠

Texts in conversation

Compare LXX Deuteronomy 32:15 and Clement of Rome, 1 Clement 3:1

Septuagint · Early Christian

Summary

In 1 Clement, the author quotes the Greek Septuagint translation of Deuteronomy 32, where Israel prospers and then abandons God, to describe how the church in Corinth fell from its earlier good reputation into pride, rivalry and rebellion.

Passages

LXX Deuteronomy 32:15

Septuagint

13 He brought them up on the strength of the land; he fed them with the fruits of the fields; they sucked honey out of the rock, and oil out of the solid rock. 14 Butter of cows, and milk of sheep, with the fat of lambs and rams, of calves and kids, with fat of kidneys of wheat; and he drank wine, the blood of the grape. 15 So Jacob ate and was filled, and the beloved one kicked; he grew fat, he became thick and broad: then he forsook the God that made him, and departed from God his Savior.

300–201 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in LXX Deuteronomy

Clement of Rome, 1 Clement 3:1

Early Christian · First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians

1 All glory and abundance were given to you, and what was written was fulfilled: ‘My beloved ate and drank, grew strong, and became proud and rebellious.’ 2 From this came jealousy and envy, strife and rebellion, persecution and chaos, war and captivity. 3 So people were stirred up—the lowly against the honorable, the disrespected against the esteemed, the foolish against the wise, the young against the elder. 4 Because of this, righteousness and peace have withdrawn, while each person has forgotten the fear of the Lord and become blind in faith, no longer walking in the ordinances of His commandments or living in a way that honors Christ. Instead, each follows the desires of their corrupt heart, having embraced an unrighteous and ungodly jealousy—through which death entered the world.

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

References

“... Countryman's main evidence for this hypothesis is 1 Clem 3.1-3 which he takes as implying 'that Clement blames the rebellion on the increased prosperity of the Corinthian church'. However, since the terms which suggest this arise from the quotation of Deut 32.15 (LXX) in 1 Clem 3.1, it is surely unwise to assume that this is a 'veiled' reference to increased prosperity among the rebels. It seems more likely that Clement uses the LXX citation, from a story about Jacob's pride, simply to describe the 'fall' of the Corinthian church from its previously praiseworthy state (1.2-2.7), a fall perhaps attributed in a vague way to pride and complacency and interpreted in the light of the cautionary and paradigmatic stories from Israel's history. It is most probably an example of Clement's use of biblical citations and allusions wherever they seem to fit or illustrate his line of thought (cf. esp. 42.5). ...”

David G. Horrell, The Social Ethos of the Corinthian Correspondence: Interests and Ideology from 1 Corinthians to 1 Clement (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996), 246–247.

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

Jealousy Brings Rebellion to Corinth

1 Clement65 chapters

Compare LXX Deuteronomy 32:15 and Clement of Rome, 1 Clement 3:1

Summary

Passages

LXX Deuteronomy 32:15

Clement of Rome, 1 Clement 3:1

References

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