Texts in Conversation
In Matthew 9, Jesus says that he calls sinners rather than the righteous. In 2 Clement, the preacher cites this as scripture, and gives it the same authority given to his earlier quotation of Isaiah.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Matthew 9:13
New Testament
9 As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax booth. “Follow me,” he said to him. So he got up and followed him. 10 As Jesus was having a meal in Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with Jesus and his disciples. 11 When the Pharisees saw this they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” 12 When Jesus heard this he said, “Those who are healthy don’t need a physician, but those who are sick do. 13 Go and learn what this saying means: ‘I want mercy and not sacrifice.’ For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
2 Clement 2:4
Early Christian
3 Again, in that He said, “For the children of the desolate are more than of her who has the husband,” He spoke so, because our people seemed desolate and forsaken by God, whereas now, having believed, we have become more than those who seemed to have God. 4 Again another scripture says, “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” 5 He means this: that it is right to save those who are perishing. 6 For this indeed is a great and marvelous work—to establish, not those things that already stand, but those that are falling. 7 So also Christ willed to save the things that were perishing; and He saved many, coming and calling us when we were even now perishing.
Date: 130-160 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
“... We should also note that ‘Clement’ here states that the saying comes from ‘another’ γραφή (having just cited a verse from the Old Testament, viz. Isa. 54. 1). This at the very least suggests that ‘Clement’ is taking his quotation here from a written source, and hence not from some free-floating oral tradition. Further, it would seem that the source has almost the status of ‘scripture’ for ‘Clement’, γραφή being the word that Christians came to use to refer to Scripture. One cannot be certain of the last point, but the language certainly suggests that, rather than quoting a free-floating saying of Jesus from some unattached oral tradition, ‘Clement’ is rather quoting the saying as coming from a larger written text. It is of course theoretically possible that this text was a gospel text otherwise unknown to us. But a more economical solution would be to say that 2 Clement here presupposes the gospel of Matthew. Thus, whilst certainty is not possible, some dependence on Matthew (direct or indirect) seems to be the most likely explanation of the evidence here. ...”
Gregory, Andrew F.
The Reception of the New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers
(p. 255) Oxford University Press, 2005
* 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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