Texts in Conversation
In 1 Clement, the author describes the sea staying inside its barriers and quotes the order given to the waves in Job 38 from the Greek Septuagint translation, making the obedient sea a lesson for a church that would not keep its place.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
LXX Job 38:11
Septuagint
6 Upon what were its rings established? And who was it who placed a cornerstone upon it? 7 When the stars came into being, all of my angels praised me with a great voice. 8 And I shut up the sea with a gate when it rushed, coming out from its mother’s belly. 9 And I made the cloud its clothing, and swaddling clothes for it with a mist. 10 And I assigned boundaries to it, setting out barriers and gates. 11 And I said to it, ‘As far as this you shall come, and you may not go beyond. But your waves shall be broken within yourself.’
Clement of Rome, 1 Clement 20:7
First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians
Early Christian
4 The earth, bearing fruit in fulfillment of His will at her proper seasons, puts forth the food that supplies abundantly both men and beasts and all living things which are upon it, making no dissension, neither altering anything which He has decreed. 5 Moreover, the inscrutable depths of the abysses and the unutterable statutes of the nether regions are constrained by the same ordinances. 6 The basin of the boundless sea, gathered together by His workmanship into its reservoirs, passes not the barriers with which it is surrounded; but even as He ordered it, so it does. 7 For He said, “So far will you come, and your waves shall be broken within you.” 8 The ocean which is impassable for men, and the worlds beyond it, are directed by the same ordinances of the Master.
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Notes and References
“... Generally speaking, creation by the establishment of boundaries is a thread that runs through many of the texts in this chapter. Of these there are two major groupings – the boundrification of watery things and of light and darkness, the latter being more directly related to Gen 1.1-5. First of all, the watery things: in Pr.Man. 3, it is God who fetters the sea and seals the abyss with the divine name. [...] In 1 Clem 20.6-7, the sea is also boundaried and at the command of the Creator, similar to LXX Job 38.11. A similar concern is expressed in 1 Clem 33.3, in which the sea and all in it is enclosed by God’s power. ...”
Giere, S. D.
A New Glimpse of Day One: Intertextuality, History of Interpretation, and Genesis 1.1-5
(p. 273) Walter de Gruyter, 2009
* 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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