Clement, the Patriarch of Rome, is said to have written a letter to the church of Corinth. There is a disagreement between the scholars regarding the exact year that this letter was written. Canterbury puts it between 64 and 70 AD. Leclerc claimed it to have been written in 69 AD, while Duchesne and Tillemont have said that Clement did not become Pope until 91 or 93 A.D. How Clement could have written letters to the church in 64 or 70 AD when he was not yet Pope is not explained. However, setting aside all the differences, the letter in question could have not been written later than 96 AD. Some sentences of this letter, however, happen to be identical to some of the sentences in one of the four gospels. This allowed the Christians to claim that Clement had copied those sentences from the gospel. This claim is liable to be rejected for the following reasons:

           Firstly, it is not sufficient to copy only some sentences from a gospel. If this were the case the claim of those people would be true who are considered heretics[1] by the Protestants because they have claimed that all the moral teachings contained in the gospels have been borrowed from the pagans and other philosophers (because some of their ideas were identical to some of the ideas of the gospels). The author of Aksihumo said:

           The moral teachings of the Evangel, of which the Christians are very proud, have been copied word for word from the Book of Ethics of Confucius,[2] who lived in the sixth century BC. For example he said under his moral no. 24: ”Behave towards other as you want to be behaved towards by others. You need only this moral because this is the root of all other morals. Do not wish for the death of your enemy because to do so would be absurd since his life is controlled by God.” Moral no. 53 goes: ”It is quite possible for us to overlook our enemy without revenging him. Our natural thoughts are not always had.”

           Similar good advice can be found in the books of Indian and Greek philosophers.

           Secondly, if Clement really had copied it from the gospel, all its contents would have been identical to the gospel, but such is not the case. On the contrary, he differed from the gospel in many places, showing that he had not copied what he wrote from the gospels. Even if it were proved that he had copied from a gospel, it might have been from any of the many gospels which were current in his time, as Eichhorn admitted in respect of the sentence spoken by a heavenly voice at the time of the descension of the Holy Spirit.

           Thirdly, Clement was one of the followers of the disciples and his knowledge about Christ was no way less than that of Mark and Luke, which allows us to believe, and logically so, that he might have written the letter from reports received by himself directly. If there were an indication anywhere in his writing that he had copied it from any of the gospels, our claim would certainly have been out of place.

           We quote below three passages from his letter.

           He who loves Jesus should follow his commandment.

           Jones claimed that Clement copied this sentence from John 14:15 which reads:

           If ye love me, keep my commandments.

           The apparent similarity between these two statements led Mr. Jones to suppose that Clement had copied it from John.  However, he has chosen to overlook the clear textual difference between these two statements. The falsity of this claim has already been proved by our showing that the letter could not have been written after 96 AD, while, according to their won findings, thc Gospel of John was written in 98 AD. It is nothing but a desperate effort to provide some authenticity to the present gospels.

             Horne said on page 307, Vol. 4 of his commentaries printed 1824.

           According to Chrysostom and Epiphanius, the early scholars and according to Dr. Mill, Fabricius, Leclerc and Bishop Tomline, John wrote his gospel in 97 AD, while Mr. Jones situates this gospel in 98 AD.

           However, a true lover always follows what his love commands, otherwise he would not be a 1over in the true sense of the word. Lardner justly said in his Commentaries printed 1827 on Page 40 of Vol., 2:  

          I understand that the copying of this letter from the gospel is doubtful, because Clement was fully aware of the fact that any claim to the love of Christ necessitated practical obedience to his commandments, because Clement had been in the company of the disciples of Jesus.

 

[1] 1.The Rationalists who strongly favour liberalism.

 [2]  Confucius, 6c great moral philosopher of China born in 551 BC, who had  strong influence on the religion and general character of the Chinese. Thc past  Chinese ideology was thus called Confucianism.