Jesus Never Existed Com

[Confused Ape]

Simply put, you're incorrect: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Epistle_of_Clement

From further on in the article -

Sources

Though known from antiquity, the first document to contain the Epistle of Clement and to be studied by Western scholars was found in 1628, having been included with an ancient Greek Bible given by the Patriarch Cyril of Jerusalem to King Charles I of England.[7] The first complete copy of 1 Clement was rediscovered in 1873, some four hundred years after the Fall of Constantinople, when Philotheos Bryennios found it in the Greek Codex Hierosolymitanus, written in 1056. This work, written in Greek, was translated into at least three languages in ancient times: a Latin translation from the 2nd or 3rd century was found in an 11th-century manuscript in the seminary library of Namur, Belgium, and published by Germain Morin in 1894; a Syriac manuscript, now at Cambridge University, was found by Robert Lubbock Bensly in 1876, and translated by him into English in 1899; and a Coptic translation has survived in two papyrus copies, one published by C. Schmidt in 1908 and the other by F. Rösch in 1910.

The Namur Latin translation reveals its early date in several ways. Its early date is attested to by not being combined with the pseudepigraphic later Second Epistle of Clement, as all the other translations are found, and by showing no knowledge of the church terminology that became current later — for example, translating Greek presbyteroi as seniores rather than transliterating to presbyteri.

Looks like the original document didn't survive so we can't be 100% certain that the text wasn't tampered with. On the other hand, maybe Paul was invented earlier than Marcion's time by a group of Christians who didn't want to follow Jewish rules.

I had a lot of fun inventing a conspiracy theory about this hypothetical faction which included Clement of Rome when he was a young man.

When the Corinthians were told to “Take up the epistle of the blessed Paul the Apostle” they were puzzled.

Corinthians: What epistle? Nobody here has heard of it.

Clement: I know he sent you one. It must have got lost in the post.


I wouldn't write a book about it and try to get it published as a serious theory, though. After all, we can't be certain that Clement really existed. Even if he did, we can't be certain that he wrote the epistle which has been attributed to him.