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Clement of Rome

1 Clement

First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians

About this book
Chapter 6

1 A vast multitude of the elect was gathered to these men of holy lives, and through many indignities and tortures, as victims of jealousy, they set a brave example among us. 2 Because of jealousy, women were persecuted, and after suffering cruel and unholy insults, like the Danaids and Dircae,⁠ they safely reached the goal in the race of faith and received a noble reward, though they were weak in body. 3 Jealousy has separated wives from their husbands and reversed the words of our father Adam: ‘This now is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.’ 4 Jealousy and strife have overthrown great cities and uprooted great nations.

Texts in conversation

Compare Horace, Horace Odes 3.11 and Clement of Rome, 1 Clement 6:2

Classical · Early Christian

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Summary

In 1 Clement, the author says Christian women were persecuted as Danaids, the daughters of Danaus who in the Odes of Horace kill their bridegrooms and must forever pour water that drains away. The women may have suffered torments made to copy the myth.

Passages

Horace, Horace Odes 3.11

Classical · Carmina
25 Let Lyde hear those maidens' guilt, 26 Their famous doom, the ceaseless drain 27 Of outpoured water, ever spilt, 28 And all the pain 29 Reserved for sinners, even when dead: 30 Those impious hands, (could crime do more?) 31 Those impious hands had hearts to shed 32 Their bridegrooms' gore! 33 One only, true to Hymen's flame, 34 Was traitress to her sire forsworn: 35 That splendid falsehood lights her name 36 Through times unborn. 37 “Wake!” to her youthful spouse she cried, 38 “Wake! or you yet may sleep too well: 39 Fly—from the father of your bride, 40 Her sisters fell: 41 They, as she-lions bullocks rend, 42 Tear each her victim: I, less hard 43 Than these, will slay you not, poor friend, 44 Nor hold in ward: 45 Me let my sire in fetters lay 46 For mercy to my husband shown: 47 Me let him ship far hence away, 48 To climes unknown.
23 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Horace, Odes Book 3

Clement of Rome, 1 Clement 6:2

Early Christian · First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians
1 A vast multitude of the elect was gathered to these men of holy lives, and through many indignities and tortures, as victims of jealousy, they set a brave example among us. 2 Because of jealousy, women were persecuted, and after suffering cruel and unholy insults, like the Danaids and Dircae, they safely reached the goal in the race of faith and received a noble reward, though they were weak in body. 3 Jealousy has separated wives from their husbands and reversed the words of our father Adam: ‘This now is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.’ 4 Jealousy and strife have overthrown great cities and uprooted great nations.
90–100 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Clement of Rome, 1 Clement

References

“... So too with one of the most famous emendations in the texts of the Apostolic Fathers, this one in 1 Clement’s reference to women who were martyred as Δαναΐδες καὶ Δίρκαι (1 Clem. 6. 2). The author’s meaning is unclear. Some scholars have suggested that he is referring to Christian women martyred under Nero, who was known for his creatively brutal excesses. If so, women executed as Dircae may have been dragged to death in the arena, bound to the horns of a bull, like Dirce of Greek myth. The reference to the Danaids is more puzzling. Some scholars have seen it as an allusion to the legend that the daughters of Danaus were taken by men against their will—i.e., that the Christian women were publicly raped before being put to death. Others have thought that it refers to the punishment of Danaus’s daughters in the afterlife, where they were compelled perpetually to fill leaking vessels—i.e., that the Christian women were subject to pointless and seemingly endless torments prior to their deaths. ...”
Bart D. Ehrman, “Textual Traditions Compared: The New Testament and the Apostolic Fathers,” in The Reception of the New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers, ed. Andrew Gregory and Christopher Tuckett (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 17–18.

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

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Horace, Horace Odes 3.11 and Clement of Rome, 1 Clement 6:2

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