A clarification about this work on Torrance and 1 Clement

Just for the sake of clarification, with this series of posts on 1 Clement, I’m attempting to build the type of case that Cullmann talked about: the notion that, for one reason or another, writers in this era of 100-150 “lost something” that was very important for Christianity. In the case of Clement (and indeed, all the “Apostolic Fathers” writings that he discussed), the concept of grace, freely given, was lost.

And it took something like the “canonical core” that Kruger wrote about to help focus the minds and attentions of more orthodox later writers like Irenaeus and Tertullian on what the “apostolic teaching” really was. Prior to that, a reliance on the viva vox (and cultural considerations as well) had permitted these writers to lose track of such a vital concept.

This, too, may be why Augustine, the great searcher of the Scriptures that he was, was able to come up with his own “doctrine of grace” – something that was (to borrow from Warfield) confused and obscured by the bright glory [I say this sarcastically] of the nearby Church of Rome – fresh with infusions of cash from emperor-converts, and to be sure, muddled a bit with notions of some Roman-ish “sacramental” ideas already in place. But also, to be sure, a foundation for later understandings by Luther and Calvin and the other Reformers.