Tuckett Christopher – 2 Clement - Introduction, Text, and Commentary

Christopher Tuckett – 2 Clement - Introduction, Text, and Commentary

My interest in 2 Clement was probably first aroused in a significant way as a result of a conference in Oxford, held in 2004 and arranged by myself and my colleague Andrew Gregory, on the Apostolic Fathers and the New Testament. Many of the papers from the conference were subsequently published in a two-volume collection The Reception of the New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers and Trajectories through the New Testament and the Apostolic Fathers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). The Reception volume included a set of essays analysing each of the writings of the Apostolic Fathers individually (focusing on the issue of their relation to the writings of the New Testament), and it fell to me (with Andrew Gregory) to write the essay on 2 Clement for this volume. (I wrote on 2 Clement and the gospels, he on 2 Clement and the rest of the NT: see the bibliography here.) Arising out of the conference was also the plan to inaugurate a series of new editions and commentaries on the writings of the Apostolic Fathers. As a result of writing the part of the essay in the Reception volume, my own interest in 2 Clement had been already excited and I volunteered to try to write the volume in the series on 2 Clement. The present volume is the end result of that process.

I am very grateful to the other editors of the series, Paul Foster and Andrew Gregory, for supporting my proposal to write this volume in the new series and for their unfailing encouragement throughout the time of research and writing. I am grateful too to Tom Perridge at OUP for his constant and continuing support for the project, as well as to the anonymous readers of the initial proposal and the final manuscript for their helpful and constructive comments. However, the shortcomings in the finished volume are of course solely my own. A significant time for work on the volume was undertaken during a period of sabbatical leave from my post in the University of Oxford, which was extended by a further term thanks to extra funding provided by the John Fell Fund of the University: I am very grateful for the extra time and space this provided to enable me to finish the project during this period of freedom from teaching obligations.

Writing a commentary, especially on a text that has not generated a great amount of scholarly interest in the past (commentaries on 2 Clement are not that numerous!), means that one engages with a few other scholars, past and present, quite intensively. In writing this commentary, I have been constantly aware of how much one owes to others in the past who have worked on the text and I am grateful for all their endeavours as I have interacted with them. In particular, Andreas Lindemann’s and Wilhelm Pratscher’s fine commentaries have been constant companions with me during the time of research and writing, and I have learnt an enormous amount from them.

Last, but most important, I owe a very great debt of thanks to my wife for her constant support and encouragement throughout the time of preparing for, and writing, this volume. She has been a rock of support for which I am grateful beyond measure. I am grateful too to my children for their support and encouragement, including at one point the suggestion (when I was struggling with the Introduction to this commentary) that all one should say was '2 Clement needs no introduction’. For better or worse, I chose to ignore the advice!