comments:
I haven't found a scholar who has noticed any connection between these two texts, although there certainly may be some. From Jörg Frey's recent magisterial commentary, it doesn't seem that he, or any of the scholars he has quoted from, has noticed any connection in the list of possible connections between 2 Peter and 1 Clement: Depending on the time and place of composition, the author could also have been familiar with texts among those now known as the Apostolic Fathers. Conversely, under the assumption of an earlier dating, these have often been discussed as potential recipients of 2 Pet. However, parallels alone can prove nothing; for a literary awareness in either direction, better arguments would need to be produced. Failing this, the question arises as to how to explain the correspondences: Do these indicate a shared milieu, perhaps a shared place of composition, or simply an analogous situation? a) The points of contact with 1 Clem., (On this, Gilmour, Significance, 115–16; Ruf, Propheten, 591–92; Grünstäudl, Petrus Alexandrinus, 191–93. On the date, see Lona, Clemensbrief, 95; Lindemann, “Clemensbrief,” 77–78) probably composed around the end of the first century, pertain to a few terms and motifs such as the “way of truth” (2 Pet 2:2; 1 Clem. 35.5) and the metaphor of the way in general, the designation of God as μεγαλοπρεπὴς δόξα (2 Pet 1:17; 1 Clem. 9.2), the motif of the epistolary reminder (2 Pet 1:12; 3:1; 1 Clem. 7.1), the parallel usage of Lot as an example (2 Pet 2:6-9; 1 Clem. 7.5–6; 11.1), and the motif of creation and destruction through God’s word (2 Pet 3:5; 1 Clem. 20.6). The clearest correspondence is between 2 Pet 3:9 and 1 Clem. 8.2, 5, yet this can be explained by the parallel reference to Ezek 33:11. (So Gilmour, Significance, 116). Frey goes on to note several other hypothetical connections between 2 Peter and other so-called Apostolic Fathers, but determines that none of them are conclusive: The ‘proximity’ of a few texts of the Apostolic Fathers to 2 Pet can thus be observed phraseologically and substantively, and this offers an indicator for the dating of 2 Pet, but there are no demonstrable literary relationships in either direction. It seems then, as you yourself recognize, literarily, these two texts are quite different, although they share a common motif. But literary dependence cannot be established based on this. It is just as likely that 1 Clement 23 and 2 Peter 3:3-4 share a common Christian polemic at that point, and in light of the nearly non-existent attestation of 2 Peter in the 2nd century, who's to say that it is not 2 Peter that may possibly draw on 1 Clement? Further, I should just like to add that, regardless of any literary relationship, the Domitianic/Eusebian dating of 1 Clement, while probably the majority position today, can be and has been dated even later by other scholars. So the recent comments by Stanley Stowers: For instance, J. N. Bremmer, The Rise of Christianity Through the Eyes of Gibbon, Harnack, and Rodney Stark (Groningen: Barkhuis, 2010), 50 writes that 1 Clement, for which he gives the traditional Eusebian dating, also gives the same impression of a substantial church. A number of scholars have shown that 1 Clement cannot be plausibly dated that early and probably comes from the 120s: Otto Zwierlein, “Petrus in Rom? Die literarischen Zeugnisse," Petrus und Paulus in Rom: Eine Interdisziplinäre Debatte“, ed. S. Heid et al. (Freiburg-Basel, 2009), 468–91. According to Eusebius’s impossible scheme, Clement was the third bishop of Rome from the twelfth year of Domitian (93 CE) until about 100. Clement’s talk of persecutions in Rome and the supposed one under Nero have been mutually reinforcing for scholars, each text the reason for dating the other early. Christian Beginnings, 146.