II Clement.

        Another prominent feature of early Christian worship was the sermon, of which examples are imbedded in New Testament writings, especially in the Epistle of James. The oldest complete sermon we possess is what has survived as the Second Letter of Clement-obviously not a letter at all and probably not by Clement. But it follows the Letter of Clement both in the Greek manuscripts of that work and in the Syriac one, although not in the Latin or Coptic versions of it. Eusebius is the first writer to mention 11 Clement (Church History iii. 38. 4), but he is careful not to acknowledge it as actually being a letter of Clement. Irenaeus may have used it, but he did not refer to the work.

        This sermon is an appeal to its hearers to repent and serve God with their whole hearts, live pure and holy lives, and cling to their hope of the resurrection of the body. Its true character as a sermon is plain from some words in 17:3: “Let us not merely seem to believe and pay attention now, while we are being exhorted by the elders, but also when we have gone home let us remember the commandments of the Lord, and let us not be dragged aside by worldly lusts, but let us try to come here more frequently, and to make progress in the commands of the Lord.” It is evidently, like James, a sermon that has come to be treated as a letter-a letter of Clement of Rome.

        It evidently owes this connection with Clement to the fact that it was preserved at Corinth, which was the destination of I Clement, the genuine letter of the Roman church to the Corinthians, written about A.D. 95. It must either have been preached in Corinth or sent there for some purpose. At any rate, it came to be associated with the Letter of Clement, which was preserved there and perhaps occasionally read in church, as Dionysius of Corinth says in his letter to Soter, bishop of Rome, about A.D. 165-75. He is replying to a letter from Soter recently received by the Corin thians and indicates their purpose to preserve it and read it from time to time. “From it,” he writes, “whenever we read it, we shall always be able to draw advice, as also from the former epistle, which was written to us through Clement” (Eusebius Church History iv. 23. 11). This prompt associating by the bishop of Corinth of Soter's letter with Clement's led Hilgenfeld and Harnack to think that II Clement was probably Soter's letter and that immediately on its arrival in Corinth it had been filed with the Letter of Clement, making two letters from the church at Rome to that at Corinth from which the Corinthians could read from time to time for their edification. This is an attractive suggestion, for it solves two problems: How did Il Clement ever come to be grouped with I Clement? What has become of the letter from Soter, which Dionysius said the Corinthians would keep and read with the Letter of Clement?

        The difficulty with this view is that II Clement is not really a letter but a homily or sermon and conveys nothing in the way of a message from Rome to Corinth that might not have been sent from any church to any other. In fact, it does not sound like a church letter at all. That it lacks the name of Soter does not matter; I Clement has no mention of Clement. It is, of course, hard to see why the church of Rome should send a sermon, of no particular applicability, to the church of Corinth, except as a gesture of interest and good will; that is perhaps, in view of Dionysius' words to Soter, the best explanation of it.

        This difficulty led scholars like Lightfoot to the view that the homily was really written in Corinth, perhaps at a time when crowds were gathering for the Isthmian games, and that these are reflected in chapter 7:”Many are landing for the corruptible contests.” It may have been a favorite sermon with the Corinthians which was kept and read occasionally in church, like 1 Clement, and so came to be associated with it.

        Others have thought 11 Clement might have been of Alexandrian origin, partly because of its use of something like the Gospel ofthe Egyptians, especially in 12:2:”For when the Lord himself was asked by someone when his kingdom would come, he said, `When the two shall be one, and the outside as the inside, and the male with the female neither male nor female.”' This closely resembles Jesus' words to Salome, as quoted by Clement of Alexandria from the Gospel of the Egyptians (Miscellanies iii. 92). Other curious sayings ascribed to Christ in the sermon are derived either from oral tradition or from that gospel, but the writer is also familiar with the Four Gospels, the principal letters of Paul, and I Peter. This list of Christian books with which Clement is acquainted, especially his knowledge of the Gospel of the Egyptians, brings the date of the sermon well into the second quarter of the second century. From another curious book, which he does not name, but merely describes as “the word of prophecy,” he quotes a strange saying:

Miserable are the double-minded who doubt in their hearts and say, “These things we heard long ago, and in the days of our fathers, but we have waited from day to day and have seen none of them.” You fools! Compare yourselves to a tree; take a vine; first it sheds its leaves, then there comes a bud, after that an unripe grape, then a full cluster....

This passage appears also in I Clement (23:3, 4), but in II Clement it is carried a sentence further, so that the writer is not quoting I Clement but the word of prophecy from which it drew, possibly the mysterious Book of Eldad and Modat, which is mentioned in Hermas (Vision ii. 3, 4). Hernias quotes from it the saying, “The Lord is near those who turn to him,” and described Eldad and Modat as those “who prophesied to the people in the wilderness” (Num. 11:26).

        Nothing is really known of this work, although it is mentioned in the Stichometry of Nicephorus among the Old Testament apocrypha.[33] But, at any rate, II Clement is certainly quoting the same book as 1 Clement, and that suggests that both were written in the Roman church. If the book they quoted was the Book of Eldad and Modat, mentioned and quoted in Hermas, the link between II Clement and Rome becomes still stronger, for Rome would appear to be the one place where that little apocryphon was known and valued. But of this we cannot be certain.

        Although the place of II Clement's origin remains uncertain, its value as a piece of Christian preaching from the second quarter of the second century is considerable. For the time of its origin is reasonably clear; traditions like those in the Gospel of the Egyptians are current but not yet suspected as heretical. As to place, it must certainly have been written in a circle remarkably well provided with Christian books-five gospels, the principal Pauline letters, I Peter-and the “book of prophecy,” now lost. This points to one of the major Christian centers of the time, such as Antioch, Alexandria, Ephesus, Corinth, or Rome. And while the Gospel of the Egyptians is mentioned by Clement of Alexandria and by Origen, it is also discussed by the Roman Hippolytus, about A.D. 230, so that it was obviously known far beyond the borders of Egypt, and its use does not necessarily connect II Clement with Alexandria. II Clement was translated along with I Clement into Syriac, but it did not follow it into Latin and Coptic versions, so that I Clement must have begun to circulate widely before II Clement became attached to it.

        After the time of II Clement we encounter other sermons, of course. The most important are those by Melito of Sardis, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen. Sermons provide one means of giving interpretation to the biblical texts. Another is that of writing books of exegesis-a practice already current not only among Jews like Philo but also among Greek and Roman commentators on the poets.