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In 1 Clement, God promises to hear repentant sinners in a saying attributed elsewhere to Ezekiel. Exegesis on the Soul, a Nag Hammadi text, also quotes it, possibly through Clement or a shared source.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Clement of Rome, 1 Clement 8:4
First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians
Early Christian
3 For, ‘As I live,’ says the Lord, ‘I do not desire the death of the sinner as much as his repentance.’ 4 And He also gave a merciful judgment: ‘Repent, O house of Israel, of your iniquity. Say to the children of My people: Though your sins reach from the earth to the heavens, and though they be redder than scarlet and blacker than sackcloth, if you turn to Me with your whole heart and say, “Father,” I will listen to you as to a holy people.’ 5 And in another place He says: ‘Wash, be clean. Remove your iniquities from My sight. Cease from your sins; learn to do good; seek justice; defend those who are wronged; give judgment for the orphan and uphold righteousness for the widow. Come now, let us reason together,’ says the Lord. ‘Though your sins are as crimson, I will make them white as snow; though they are as scarlet, I will make them white as wool. If you are willing and listen to Me, you will eat the good things of the earth; but if you refuse and do not listen, a sword shall devour you—for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.’
Exegesis on the Soul 5:8
Nag Hammadi
The Father, however, is good and loves humanity, and he listens to the soul who calls on him, sending it the light of salvation. By the Spirit he therefore said to the prophet: “Say to the children of my people: ‘[If] your sins reach [from earth to] heaven, and if they are [red] as scarlet, and blacker than sackcloth, [and if] you return to me with all your soul, and say to me “my Father!” I will listen to you as a holy people.’” ‒ (1 Clement 8:3) Yet another passage: “Thus says the Lord, the holy one of Israel: ‘If you return and weep, then you will be saved, and you will know where you were when you hoped in what is empty.’” ‒ (Isaiah 30:15)
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Notes and References
“... The earliest witness to the second apocryphal Ezekiel fragment is 1 Clem. 8:3, which also contains the longest form of the saying. Clement does not attribute the saying to Ezekiel, but it falls in a sequence with a passage (8:2) that bears resemblence to Ezek 33:11, although some have argued that 8:2 was part of the Ezekiel apocryphon as well.44 The saying is explicitly attributed to Ezekiel by Clement of Alexandria, Paed. I.[10.]91.2, who reports only a portion of the text contained in 1 Clement. A third witness, the Exegesis on the Soul (Nag Hammadi, Π 6, 135.30-136.4), provides a Coptic version of the saying that encompasses the full scope of the fragment as it is found in 1 Clement. The passage as a whole has the character of a biblical prophetic saying. [...] The Exegesis on the Soul, however, does not present a clear picture, and one could argue for either its independent or derivative status.48 ...”
Wright, Benjamin G.
"The Apocryphal Ezekiel Fragments" in Stone, Michael E.; Wright, Benjamin G.; Satran, David (ed.) The Apocryphal Ezekiel
(pp. 19-20) Society of Biblical Literature, 2000
* 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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