UNIVERSITY OF DENVER & ILIFF SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY

TAKE UP THE EPISTLE OF THE BLESSED PAUL

A GENETTIAN APPROACH TO THE INFLUENCE OF ROMANS UPON I CLEMENT


SUBMITTED TO DR. PAMELA EISENBAUM
IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT
OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE COMPLETION OF IST 3005,
NEW TESTAMENT LITERATURE: ROMANS

BY
DANIEL M. YENCICH

DENVER, COLORADO
28 MAY 2013

1


Introduction
This paper attempts a redescription of the presence and influence of Romans in I Clement. My
approach differs from earlier studies on the reception of the traditions which later became known
as the New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers
1
by applying the transtextual theory of Gerard
Genette to I Clements use of Romans against the backdrop of the mixed media culture of
nascent Christianity.
2
With sensitivity to the media culture of Roman antiquity, I argue that we
can speak confidently of at least two instances of strong literary influence of Romans upon I
Clement. The mixed media culture of early Christianityin which texts like Romans were
accessible primarily in oral form via public readingcan account for the fluidity and freedom
with which Romans is used in I Clement.
A corollary aim will be to establish a better vocabulary and more contextually-sensitive
method for understanding issues of intertextuality between I Clement and Pauls most famous
letter. To this end I will employ the language of intertextuality and hypertextuality gleaned from
French literary theorist Grard Genette to redescribe the use of Romans in I Clement within the
media culture of the latter first century in Rome. Following a brief description of I Clement and
its place within the early Christian cultural corpus, we will explore the literary linkages between
Romans and I Clement. I argue that Romans undeniably exerts an influence upon I Clement even
when it is not quoted explicitly. Rather than quoting exactly from a text in front of him, I argue

1
Apostolic Fathers is a somewhat artificial designation used to bring together a diverse group of writings
from the late first and early second century. It is a scholarly constructa convenient shorthandwhich groups
together I & II Clement, the letters of Ignatius, the letter and martyrdom of Polycarp, the Didache, the letter of
Barnabas, The Shepherd of Hermas, the letter of Diognetus, and some fragmentary writings from Papias. Like the
term the New Testament, Apostolic Fathers is a later categorization which brings into one corpus a collection of
theologically diverse and contextually specific writings which were otherwise and originally discrete from one
another. On the origins of this term, see H. J. De Jonge, On the Origin of the Term Apostolic Fathers, JTS
XXIX, no. 2 (1978): 503.
2
Although the two texts dealt with in this paper both hail from the first centurywhen Christianity as
such had not fully emerged from JudaismI will use the term early or nascent Christianity as a shorthand to
denote the traditions, texts, and movement(s) associated with those who followed Jesus in this era.
2

that Clement
3
draws upon Romans primarily via his reminiscence of public readings of the letter
in worship gatherings.
I Clement and Christian Origins
Dating to the late first or early second century, I Clement is a letter from followers of Jesus in
Rome to their fellow believers at Corinth.
4
It is an exhortatory appeal which aligns with the
rhetorical genre of the sumbouletikona form of deliberative rhetoric which is marked by gentle
persuasion rather than exhortation by compulsion.
5
The problem at Corinth to which I Clement
attends concerns issues of intraecclesial conflict and schism (I Clem 1:1; 63:4; 65:1). The
Corinthian elders have been summarily deposed without cause by a faction of younger men (3:3;
44:6), resulting in extensive schism and turmoil within the church (47:6; 1:1). News of these
problems has reached Rome and the epistle of I Clement represents the Roman churchs
response.
I Clement bears witness to a period in the origins of Christianity in which traditions and
authority were in flux. In the course of his exhortation towards ecclesial unity, Clement draws
upon some traditions which are now familiar to contemporary audiences as canonical, New
Testament texts. Yet, for Clement, there is no New Testamentfinal canonization is still some
two hundred years offand when he cites traditions later included in the New Testament, he
does so in ways which do not perfectly match the traditions as they are preserved in either our

3
Despite the title which has been appended to it, I Clement is an anonymous letter representing a collective
of concerned churchmen at Rome. Irenaeus, writing about one hundred years later, attributes the letter to a certain
Clement of Romea bishop third in succession to the apostolic ministries of Peter and Paul. Clements name
appears in the titles of each extant textual witness to the letter, although his actual authorship of the document is
contested. For ease of reference, I will refer to the author of I Clement as Clement, but this should not be taken as a
definitive assertion of authorship. As is often the case for scholarly writings about anonymous Christian documents,
the traditions of the church provide a convenient shorthand with which to refer to the composers of documents like
the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John as well as our own I Clement.
4
Andrew Gregory, I Clement: An Introduction, The Expository Times 117, no. 6 (2006): 227.
5
Ibid., 226.
3

extant textual witnesses or modern critical texts.
6
As will become clear, the form that portions of
Romans take in Clements letter to Corinth differ markedly from Romans as it is known to
modern scholarship because of the mixed media by which Clement accesses Pauls letter.
The Presence of Romans in I Clement:
Intertext and Hypertext

Before we begin our assessment of the presence and influence of Romans in I Clement, we must
turn to a brief discussion of the theory and method of Genettian inter- and hypertextuality. First,
lest it hopelessly devolve into jargon, the methodological apparatus which I employ to identify
the textual intersections between Romans and I Clement must be described and theorized. Then
we must establish the plausibility that Clement knew of, had access to, and would likely appeal
to the traditions of Paul to support his own discourse. Finally, with our methodology described
and criteria applied, we will explore the literary linkages between I Clement and Pauls letter to
Rome and attempt a media-cultural explanation for why these linkages are so divergent from
Romans as it is known to modern scholarship.
Theory: The What of Inter- and Hypertextuality
My understanding of intertextuality has been greatly influenced by the work of Grard
Genette in his book, Palimpsests: Literature in the Second Degree.
7
In this book, Genette
deploys the metaphor of the palimpsesta manuscript whose original writing has been scraped
off and written-over with a new textto explore the literary relationships between texts. For
Genette, all texts are palimpsestuous or transtextual: every new text is in some way dependent

6
Andrew F. Gregory, 1 Clement and the Writings That Later Formed the New Testament, in The
Reception of the New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 131. Cf. I Clem
13:1-2; 46:7-8; 24:5.
7
Grard Genette, Palimpsests: Literature in the Second Degree, trans. Channa Newman and Claude
Doubinsky (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997).
4

upon and in relationship with earlier texts.
8
This transtextual relationship of one text to another
can be obviousas in the case of Paul citing the Abrahamic narrative in Romans 4or it can be
more subtle (at least to modern eyes), as when Paul alludes to Roman imperial propaganda in 1
Thessalonians 5:3.
9
Yet whether obvious or concealed, transtextual relationships are ubiquitous
in the production of texts. All text is written as on a palimpsest: each new text is in dialogue with
and influenced by texts produced before it.
10

For Genette, there are five overlapping types of transtextuality: intertextuality,
paratextuality, metatextuality, architextuality, and hypertextuality. Although each form of
transtextuality may shed additional light on our study of I Clements use of Romans, two forms
of transtextuality are most important for our purposes: intertextuality and hypertextuality.
Genette defines intertextuality as the actual presence of one text within another.
11
The
immediately preceding sentence, in which I explicitly quote Genettes own text, is an example of
intertextuality: one text, a portion of Palimpsests, existing within my own.
Hypertextuality may be defined, once again following Genette, as any relationship
uniting a text B (which I shall call the hypertext) to an earlier text A (I shall, of course, call it the
hypotext), upon which it is grafted.
12
The hypertext is a derivative text which is written upon
(, hyper) a foundational text beneath it (, hypo). Hypertexts may present intertexts with
their hypotexts, but explicit quotation is neither required by nor always present in hypertextual
relationships. Once again, this paper may illustrate: it is intertextually related to Palimpsests
because I have placed portions of Genettes text within my own. Yet my text is also

8
Ibid., ix, 1.
9
Jeffrey A. D. Weima, Peace and Security (1 Thess 5.3): Prophetic Warning or Political Propaganda?,
NTS 58, no. 03 (2012): 33159.
10
Tzvetan Todorov, Mikhail Bakhtin: The Dialogical Principle, trans. Wlad Godzich (Manchester:
Manchester University Press, 1984), x.
11
Genette, Palimpsests, 2.
12
Ibid., 5.
5

hypertextually-related to Genettes because I have adopted language and a theoretical framework
from Palimpsests that exerts influence upon my own text even when I do not expressly quote it.
13

Method: the How of Inter- and Hypertextuality
Dennis MacDonald furnishes a helpful and highly portable set of criteria for identifying
inter- and hypertextual relationships between texts. First, the density of parallels between two
textswhere one text appears to be influenced by anotherestablishes a first level of
plausibility for the presence of a hypertext. The more parallels there are between two texts, the
more likely the case for literary connection. Conversely, the fewer the parallels, the weaker the
case. Second, the explanatory value of positing a hypertext lends credence to its plausibility: [I]f
one can understand a text perfectly well without appeal to its dependence on an antecedent, the
casediminishes. Third, if it can be established that the author of the hypertext was likely to
have had access to the anterior hypotext, the likelihood for influence increases. Finally, if
analogous influence of the same hypotext can be demonstrated in other hypertexts, the case for
literary influence gains more credibility.
14

I Clement passes each of these criteria easily with regard to Romans. As we shall see, I
Clement presents a text that is at times quite dense with material derived from Romans. Even if
Clement does not explicitly name Romans as a source, the explanatory value of positing Romans
as a literary source to Clements letter will be self-evident. Clement, writing from Rome, is likely

13
Genette illustrates hypertextuality via the influence of Homers Odyssey upon Virgils The Aeneid and
James Joyces Ulysses. Neither Virgils nor Joyces texts could have been produced without the direct literary
influence of their shared hypotext. Ibid., 3.
14
Dennis R. MacDonald, Christianizing Homer: The Odyssey, Plato, and the Acts of Andrew (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1994), 302. Richard Hays furnishes seven similar criteria by which the relationships
between texts may be identified and tested. See Richard B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 2932.
6

to have had access to Romans in some form.
15
Although he never mentions Romans by name,
Clement appeals to Paul as an apostle and to his writings as authoritative, as when Clement
exhorts his audience to take up the epistle of the blessed Paul the apostle (I Clem 47:1).
16

Furthermore, the circumstantial similarity between I Clement and Romans as letters written to
encourage ecclesial unity is perhaps suggestive of why Pauls letter would be on Clements mind
as he writes to Corinth. I Clement also satisfies the criteria of analogous influence, as Romans is
hypertextually linked to other early Christian writings from the same period as well.
17

As we shall see, it will become quite clear that Romans is operative both inter- and
hypertextually in Clements letter to Corinth. Clement quotes Paulor at least attempts to quote
himto create an intertext. But elsewhere, where direct quotation is not evident, I suggest that
Romans still influences I Clement as the remembered oral hypotext upon which the hypertextual
epistle to Corinth has been inscribed. With our method theorized and our criteria defined and
applied, we now turn to the text of I Clement and its literary linkages to Romans.
I Clem 35:5-6 as Intertextual Vice List
In 1 Clem 35:5-6, the author deploys a vice list in his letter which strongly resembles the
vice list showcasing Gentile immorality in Romans 1:29-32. Based on the density of strong
parallels between these two passages, interpreters have for the most part agreed that this locus
presents very strong evidence for Clementine familiarity with and use of Romans.
18
Although the
vice list in I Clement is not prefaced by any sort of citation formula, the similarities between the

15
Provided that one does not posit a developmental model that sees Clements community as somehow
disconnected from those whom Paul addressed at Rome in his letter to the Christians of that city, then there is an a
priori possibility that Clement would have been familiar with this text. Gregory, 1 Clement and the NT, 148.
16
Here Clement is alluding to a letter with which he assumes the Corinthians to whom he writes would
have intimate knowledge of, namely 1 Corinthians. Clement makes more explicit use of 1 Corinthians than he does
Romans, but the influence of Romans as a hypotext to I Clement is still profoundly felt.
17
Cf. Barnabas, the epistles of Ignatius, and Polycarp. A Committee of the Oxford Society of Historical
Theology, The New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers (Oxford: Clarendon, 1905), 138.
18
Ibid., 378; Gregory, 1 Clement and the NT, 149.
7

two passages suggest Pauline influence.
19
Arranged side-by-side, the similarities between these
two texts become evident:
I Clem35:5-6
20

casting off from ourselves all
unrighteousness ( ) and
lawlessness, covetousness (), strife
(), malice () and deceit
(), gossip () and slander
(), hatred of God (),
pride () and arrogance
(), vanity, and inhospitality.
6
For
those who do these things are hateful to God;
and not only those who do them, but also
those who approve of them (
,
).
Romans 1:29-32
21


29
They were filled with every kind of
wickedness ( ), evil, covetousness
(), malice (). Full of
envy, murder, strife (), deceit (),
craftiness, they are gossips (),
30
slanderers (), God-haters
(), insolent, haughty
(), boastful (), inventors
of evil, rebellious towards parents,
31
foolish,
faithless, heartless, ruthless.
32
They know
Gods decree, that those who practice such
things deserve to dieyet they not only do
them but even applaud others who practice
them (
).

Despite striking similitude, I Clement does not follow the Pauline vice list exactly. If
Clement is attempting to explicitly quote Paul and so produce a straightforward intertext, he has
apparently not succeeded.
22
When the two texts are compared line-by-line, missing, added, and
rearranged words are obvious. The author of I Clement does not appear to be attempting to

19
I Clement does at times make use of citation formulae to introduce Scriptural quotations or quotations
from the Jesus tradition. Cf. I Clem 13:1 ( , for the Holy Spirit says;
, let us remember the words of the Lord Jesus); 13:3 ( , for the holy
word says); 15:2; 21:2 ( , for it says somewhere); 15:4 ( , and again it [the scripture]
says); 17:3 ( , it is thus written); 22:1 (
, for he himself through the Holy Spirit calls us); 30:2 (, it [the scripture] says).
20
Unless otherwise noted, all translations of I Clement are from Michael W. Holmes, The Apostolic
Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007).
21
Unless otherwise noted, all biblical translations are from the NRSV with quotations from NA28 in Greek.
22
This is, of course, dependent upon the assumption that our modern critical edition of Romans
approximates the version of Romans that Clement had access toan assumption that is not uncontested. Cf.
William Petersens judgment that we simply must admit that the passages found in the Apostolic Fathers are
different from the texts found in our oldest New Testament papyri, from the texts of the great uncials, and from the
text of our modern editions. William L. Petersen, Textual Traditions Examined: What the Text of the Apostolic
Fathers Tells Us about the Text of the New Testament in the Second Century, in The Reception of the New
Testament in the Apostolic Fathers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 34.
8

recreate the vice list exactly as it appears in Romans 1:29-32, as a scribe would attempt to copy
his exemplar exactly. Clement omits words from Pauls list: e.g., evil (, 1:29); full of
envy, murder ( , 1:29); insolent (, 1:30); inventors of evil
( , 1:30); rebellious towards parents ( , 1:30), foolish,
faithless, heartless, ruthless ( , 1:31), and so on. The
verbal order also differs between the two lists as well: I Clement has strife () and malice
() together following directly after covetousness (), whereas Paul only
places malice directly after covetousness and does not arrive at strife until a few words
later (1:29). Even when Clement does reproduce the same words as Paul, he often inflects them
differently.
Yet a strong density of parallelism is nonetheless clear: the vice lists share vocabulary,
rough order, and, most tellingly, end with the condemnation of those who practice such vices and
approve of others who practice them (I Clem 25:6, cf. Rom 1:32). At this point we may concede
that we are dealing in the currency of likelihoods and informed speculation. Yet which is more
likely: that Clements vice list is not influenced by Paulsdespite the density of parallels and
the strong similitude of the closing condemnationor that Clement, who explicitly claims
familiarity with and respect for Paul, would attempt to imbue his own letter with the apostolic
authority of the blessed Paul (I Clem 47:1)? I suggest that it is significantly more likely that I
Clement here shows direct influence of Romans upon its text in the Clementine attempt at an
explicit intertext.
23


23
Gregory suggests that both I Clement and Paul could be independently drawing from an already-existing
tradition. Yet, lacking such a common extant source to explain the density of parallels, Gregory concedes that it is
probably easier to explain the passage by positing Romans as a source from which directly draws. Gregory, 1
Clement and the NT, 149.
9

Despite its subtle deviations from Romans, I Clem 35:5-6 shows significant enough
affinity with Rom 1:29-32 that we may comfortably classify the Clementine passage as a(n
attempted) quotationor, in Genettian terms, as an intertext.
24
Its similarities with Rom 1:29-32
satisfy MacDonalds criteria of density as well.
25
The verbal deviation of the quotation from its
source may be explained in part because it appears to be a citation from memory rather than a
direct citation of another text in front of the author.
26

The Hypertextual Linkage of I Clem 32:4-33:1 and Romans 5:21-6:2a
A few short chapters before Clements intertextual vice list we find a Clementine
reference to Romans which is more aptly described as hypertext rather than intertext. Here
Clements language seems to be less an explicit attempt at a quotation and more obliquely
influenced by Pauls own rhetoric in Romans. At first glance, the parallels to Romans here are
not as strong as in Clements vice list. Nonetheless, when I Clem 32:4-33:1 is compared with
Romans 5:21-6:2a, certain similarities are present and render likely a hypertextual relationship:


24
Andrew F. Gregory and Christopher M. Tuckett, Reflections on Method: What Constitutes the Use of
the Writings That Later Formed the New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers?, in The Reception of the New
Testament in the Apostolic Fathers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 64; Cf. Genette, Palimpsests, 2.
25
MacDonald, Christianizing Homer, 302.
26
Cf. Committee of the Oxford Society of Historical Theology, NTAF, 38.
10

I Clem32:4-33:1
32:4
And so we, having been called through his
will in Christ Jesus, are not justified
() through ourselves or through
our own wisdom or understanding or piety, or
works that we have done in holiness of heart,
but through faith ( ), by which
the Almighty God has justified all who have
existed from the beginning; to whom be the
glory for ever and ever.
33:1
What shall we
do, brothers? ( , ;)
Shall we idly abstain from doing good, and
forsake love? (
;)
May the Master never allow this to happen
(
), at least to us; but let us hasten
with earnestness and zeal to accomplish every
good work.
Romans 5:21-6:1, 2a

5:21
just as sin exercised dominion in death,
so grace might also exercise dominion
through justification () leading to
eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
6:1
What then are we to say? (
;) Should we continue in sin
( )
in order that grace may abound?
2
By no
means! ( ) How can we who died to
sin go on living in it?


While the vocabulary of these passages do not wholly match one another, the thought of
both passages are nevertheless strongly related.
27
Both passages speak to matters related to
justification by faith and the moral expectations for justified believers. Both passages contain an
emphatic negative answer to the authors similar rhetorical questions about the ethical standards
by which justified believers should live. Once again we must weigh likelihoods: that Clement is
not here reliant on Paul and any resemblance is purely coincidental, or that Clement is indeed
echoing an important passage from an apostle whom Clement holds in highest esteem. And so,
despite verbal dissimilarity, the affinity of thought between these two passages and the influence
of Paul throughout I Clement suggests very strongly that Romans is serving as the remembered
hypotext upon which Clements hypertextual discussion of justification and ethics has been
written.

27
Gregory, 1 Clement and the NT, 150; Cf. Committee of the Oxford Society of Historical Theology,
NTAF, 38.
11

Intertext and Hypertext and the Question of Media Culture
I suggest that the influence of Romans upon I Clem 35:5-6 and 32:4-33:1 appears as it
doesthat is, in marked deviation from Romans as we know itdue to the mixed media culture
of Christian origins.

By the term media culture, I refer to the conduits of human
communication characteristic of different people groups at certain times and in certain places.
These conduits (media) of communication change over time and may vary from place to place.
Within a culture comprised largely of non-literates, we can expect that the characteristic medium
of communication would be oral rather than written. Yet media culture is not often comprised of
only one medium; rather, media culture, whether ancient or contemporary, is most often
characterized by a mixture of various media.
28
The media culture which enabled the production
of I Clement is no different. The hypotexts which influence Clements hypertext suggest the
presence of mixed media in Clements cultural milieu.
Beneath Clements letter to Corinth rest a collection of hypotexts which numbers so great
that we cannot possibly attempt to survey it within this paper. Septuagintal materials
29
, ancient
mythologies,
30
Jesus sayings (canonical and otherwise),
31
other NT traditions,
32
and unknown
scriptures
33
all exert varying forms of hypotextual influence upon Clements hypertext. Yet
while the author of I Clement does appear to have direct, unmediated access to the LXX
showcased by his propensity for near-exact quotations of Septuagintal material throughout his
letterhe does not appear to be accessing Romans, or the other NT traditions, in the same way.

28
Rafael Rodriguez, Oral Tradition and the New Testament: A Guide for the Perplexed (London:
Bloomsbury, 2013), 23.
29
Cf., I Clem 2:8; 3:1; 3:3; 7:7; 8:4.
30
Cf. I Clem 6:2; 25:1-5
31
Cf. I Clem 46:7-8; 24:5; 46:8; 13:2.
32
Cf. I Clem 37:7; 36:1-3
33
I Clem 23:3-4
12

When I Clement appeals to the LXX, he does so often with a citation formula and
typically with an exact, or nearly exact, quotation of an LXX tradition.
34
When Clement makes
use of Romans, however, even in the form of an attempted quote (as in 35:5-6), he does not
recreate Romans exactly according to any extant version of Pauls letter known to scholarship.
Either I Clement presents a unique text critical problem and the (now lost) text of Romans that
Clement has in front of him differs substantially from our extant manuscripts, or he is attempting
to quote Pauls vice list from memory in 35:5-6.
35
Similarly, either I Clem 32:4-33:1 bears
witness to a radically different version of Romans now lost to us, or Clement is allowing his
memory of a pertinent text, Romans 5:21-6:2a, to influence his discussion of justification and the
moral expectations of justified believers.
While I suggest the latter interpretation for the data, the recollection from memory
theory is not without opposition. William Petersen suggests that the Apostolic Fathers had direct
access to the New Testament traditions and display a text that is very different from both the
extant manuscripts and our modern critical editions.
36
For Petersen, Clement was directly
accessing and quoting the text of Romans in front of hima textual witness to Romans now lost
to us and in marked deviation from other extant sources and our modern critical text.
Such an interpretation rests on assumptions made possible by Petersens vocation and
place in the history of media culture. As a modern scholar of Christian origins, Petersen has
constant and direct access to the texts with which he works: he works from a desk, has access to

34
See, for example, I Clem 22:1-7 and its relationship to LXX Ps 33:12-18, 20. The author of I Clement
explicitly cites the psalm as a medium through which the Holy Spirit speaks to his audience (
) and quotes the psalm almost verbatim, with only a few deviations: I
Clem 22:3 reads , cf. LXX Ps 33:14b ; I Clem
22:7a reads , , cf. LXX Ps 33:18 ,
. I Clem 22:7b reads , cf. LXX Ps 33:18
. Cf. I Clem 3:1 // Deut 32:15; I Clem 4:1-6 // Gen 4:3-8; I Clem 4:10b //
Exod 2:14.
35
Committee of the Oxford Society of Historical Theology, NTAF, 42.
36
Petersen, Textual Traditions Examined, 34.
13

a library, and produces his text via the electronic medium of word processing software. Writing
in 2005, Petersen is able to easily and accurately create an intertext by quoting a 1905 study on
the Apostolic Fathershe is able to cut and paste!and signals his quotation with the proper
footnoted citation.
37
The modern scholarly vocation and the media technology such as printed
texts, digital software, and office furniture which enable it make the availability and accessibility
of texts seem like an historical constant. Yet, unlike Petersen, Clement was not likely writing his
letter from a desk piled with texts which he could easily and accurately cite.
38
In fact, it is
unlikely that Clement even shared with Petersen the technological amenity of a writing desk: in
antiquity a copyist rested his manuscript on his lower thigh and knee and wrote from this
position while seated on the floor.
39

While it is plausible that I Clement (and his fellow Apostolic Fathers) accessed and
quoted textual versions of the NT traditions that are now lost to us, I suggest that the mixed
media culture and reading practices of the era render it considerably more likely that Clements
main access to Romans was in its oral form as a text read publicly in Christian gatherings.
Clements use of Romans in 35:5-6 and 32:4-33:1 stems from his memory of a public reading of
Romans, and the frailty of human memory of a public reading can account for the fluidity with
which Clement appeals to Romans in his letter.
40
There are a number of factors which make this

37
E.g., Ibid., 32n17.
38
Although he writes about the Gospel of Mark, Burton Macks remarkable discussion of the vocation of
the ancient author as a scholar who composed at a desk in a scholars study lined with texts is relevant for our
discussion. Mack furnishes no direct evidence to support these claims but rather appears to blur the lines which
separate the technologies which enable the vocation and activity of an ancient writer from the technologies which
enable his own as a modern biblical scholar. Burton L. Mack, A Myth of Innocence: Mark and Christian Origins
(Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991), 32122.
39
Harry Y. Gamble, Books and Readers in the Early Church: A History of Early Christian Texts (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), 90.
40
Memory and tradition are "refracted through the contemporary social realities of the communities in
which [they are] enacted, such that it comes in important respects to reflect, even to signify those realities. Alan
Kirk, Memory Theory: Cultural and Cognitive Approaches to the Gospel Tradition, in Understanding the Social
World of the New Testament, ed. Dietmar Neufield and Richard E. DeMaris (Oxford: Taylor and Francis, 2009), 62.
14

interpretation the most likely marshalling of the data. First, literacy rates were quite low in
Roman antiquity, as William Harris has shown in his comprehensive study, and generally limited
to 5-10% of the male population.
41
Gatherings of Jesus followers in the latter first century did not
likely boast literacy rates higher than this.
42
Indeed, Origen substantiates this claim, at least for
Christianity in the third century (Cels. 1.27), and it seems unlikely that literacy rates would be
significantly higher among urban followers of Jesus in Clements time. Furthermore, written
materials such as scrolls and codices were expensive and, for most people, somewhat rare. Even
if one possessed the ability to read, large personal librariesthough not unheard of in
antiquitywere the exception rather than the rule.
43

It is well attested in writings of the era that the primary mode of public access to
important writings (Scriptural or otherwise) was via public reading. Instead of being sent off to a
publisher to be printed, ancient literary works were published via public readings in great halls
or in outdoor gatherings.
44
Similarly, Paul, writing in ca. 52 CE, asks that his letter to
Thessalonica be read before the entire gathering (
, 1 Thess 5:27). The author of 1 Timothy admonishes his protg to pay attention to the
public reading of Scripture ( , 1 Tim 4:13), while the author of Colossians
assumes that Pauls letters are being publicly read () before multiple gatherings (Col
4:16). The author of Revelation acclaims the one who reads the prophecy aloud ( )

Clements use of Romans reflects the social reality of the mixed media culture of nascent Christianity in the fluidity
with which Romans is appealed to in Clements letter.
41
William V. Harris, Ancient Literacy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989), 114.
42
Keith Hopkins, Christian Number and Its Implications, Journal of Early Christian Studies 6, no. 2
(1998): 209.
43
Whitney Shiner, Proclaiming the Gospel: First-Century Performance of Mark (New York: Bloomsbury,
2003), 1314.
44
Ibid., 39. Cf. Gamble, Books and Readers, 205; Hopkins, Christian Number and Its Implications, 211.
15

and the ones who hear it ( ) as blessed.
45
1 Timothy, Colossians, and Revelation can
all be dated to roughly the same period as I Clement, late first or early second century CE and
thus provide valuable parallels to Clements own mixed media culture and the reading practices
which accompanied it.
A little further down the historical timeline, Justin Martyr, writing ca. 50-80 years after I
Clement, describes the early Christian public reading within the context of worship:
And on the day which is called the day of the sun there is an assembly of all those who
live in the towns or in the country, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the
prophets are read for as long as time permits. Then the reader ( )
ceases, and the president speaks, admonishing and exhorting us to imitate these excellent
examples (Apol. 1.67).

Does Clement serve as such a reader in worship? By devoting a full quarter of his text to
quotations the LXX, Clement clearly shows that he possesses the literacy requisite for the job.
46

Why does he not just access and quote Romans directly, as he quotes the LXX or as a modern
scholar quotes and cites a printed text? I suggest that Clement would cite Romans in this way but
is apparently precluded from doing so by the circumstances (whatever they are) surrounding his
writing. Perhaps the text of Romans is kept elsewhere, whereas a copy of the LXX is more near
to hand at the time of Clements writing. While Clementine citation of the LXX is often exact
throughout the letter, Clements references to Romans, as we have seen, are less common and
reflect the mixed media cultural milieu of the latter first century.
Conclusion
Although I Clement does not evince extensive use of Romans throughout its text, the two
instances of literary linkage examined here strongly suggest a transtextual relationship between
the two epistles enabled by the media cultural milieu in which both texts were produced and

45
Gamble, Books and Readers, 206.
46
Donald Alfred Hagner, The Use of the Old and New Testaments in Clement of Rome (Leiden: Brill,
1973), 21.
16

brought into palimpsestuous relationship. While this study has limited its scope to deal only with
the inter- and hypertextual influence of Romans upon I Clement, the methodology employed here
could be used to redescribe the palimpsestuous relationships between other early Christian texts
and the New Testament traditions upon which they are inscribed.

17

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