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In 1 Clement, the author holds up the army as a model of order, but its officers over thousands, hundreds and fifties fit no Roman army and are the leaders Moses appoints in Exodus 18, so Clement may have taken his picture of army ranks from scripture.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
LXX Exodus 18:21
Septuagint
21 And you yourself search out capable men from all the people, God-fearing men, righteous ones, who hate pride. And you shall set leaders of thousands up over them and leaders of hundreds and leaders of fifty and leaders of ten. 22 And they shall judge the people all the time, but the word that is too much they will present to you, and the smaller matters for judgment they will judge themselves. And they will lighten things up for you, and they will bear the load with you. 23 If you put this process into effect, God will strengthen you. And you will be able to stand, and this entire people will go unto its own place with peace.”
Clement of Rome, 1 Clement 37:3
First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians
Early Christian
1 Let us therefore enlist ourselves, brothers and sisters, with all earnestness in His faultless ordinances. 2 Let us mark the soldiers that are enlisted under our rulers, how exactly, how readily, how submissively, they execute the orders given them. 3 All are not prefects, nor rulers of thousands, nor rulers of hundreds, nor rulers of fifties, and so forth; but each man in his own rank executes the orders given by the king and the governors. 4 The great without the small cannot exist, neither the small without the great. There is a certain mixture in all things, and in this is utility.
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Notes and References
“... This is surely implied by the image of the army, which appears in 1 Clem 37.1–4. Certainly the army is an example of a body of people who are interdependent, but it is also one in which subordination is appropriate according to one's rank. According to Annie Jaubert, 'this is the first time in a Christian writing that the mutual subordination of the members of the community is attached to an ideal of military type'. [...] The uncertainty on this point arises because the Roman army did not have a rank 'in charge of fifty' (1 Clem 37.3) whereas this group size (followed usually, however, by 'groups of ten') is known in the LXX (Exod 18.21, 25; Deut 1.15; 4 Kings 1.9-14; Isa 3.3; 1 Macc 3.55) and at Qumran (1QS 2.21-22; CD 13.1-2) [...] It is possible that Clement did have the Roman army in mind but drew his 'knowledge' of army structure from the LXX ...”
Horrell, David G.
The Social Ethos of the Corinthian Correspondence: Interests and Ideology from 1 Corinthians to 1 Clement
(p. 256) T&T Clark, 1996
* 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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