RAHAB, ESTHER, AND JUDITH AS

MODELS FOR CHURCH LEADERSHIP IN

1 CLEMENT

Janelle Peters
University of St. Francis, Joliet, IL

ABSTRACT
Several powerful women receive praise in 1 Clement. Clement introduces
women into the historical survey known from Hebrews. He compares female
martyrs with apostles, and he lists Esther and Judith with foreign kings. I argue
that Clements validation of the prayer and prophecy of figures such as Esther
and Judith indicates that Clement is not opposed to female leadership, and,
indeed, Clement does not forbid women from office in his discussion of the
leadership structures of the Corinthian church. Clements concerns may be
connected to the contemporary movement from temporary ecclesial offices
to less democratic, permanent priesthoods in Roman Greece. Roman control
of Greece increased the importance of belonging to the Greek aristocracy.
Corinthian Christian support for democratically elected leaders could be the
impetus for Clements letter. Arguing against Roman Greek priestesses and
Christian female leaders on account of their sex is not part of Clements project.
We have no evidence from 1 Clement that the letter, which refers to the Pauline
correspondence with churches of Corinth, knows of and adheres to the injunction
against female public speech in the Pastoral Stratum of 1 Corinthians 14:3435.

Keywords: Rahab, Esther, Judith, Clement, prophecy, priesthood

university
of south africa

Journal of Early Christian History Print ISSN 2222-582X

Volume 5 | Number 2 | 2015 Unisa Press
pp. 94110

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Janelle Peters Rahab, Esther, and Judith as Models for Church Leadership in 1 Clement

1. INTRODUCTION
In 1 Clement, a letter written from the Roman church to the historic Pauline church
situated in Corinth in the late first or early second century C. E., we find several
women lauded for prophecy and intercessory prayer. Rahab, the prostitute from
Joshua 2, embodies hospitality and prophecy. Judith and Esther pair to form political
and priestly heroines. Such prominent placement of these two figures in Clements
letter might stem simply from significant representation in the Roman library
attached to the church from which Clement writes.1 There are other shared sets of
rhetorical examples from authors such as Paul, Josephus, and Clement.2 However,
examples were not chosen at random by Greek and Roman rhetoricians. Each figure
served to illustrate a larger point.3 Clement, moreover, is addressing a community
that has recently deposed its leaders. Contestation over leadership is the occasion
that gives rise to 1 Clement. In this paper, I will build upon Shelly Lis argument for
the feminist import of Clements equation of Rahab and Abraham as prophets and
his location of the Christian dispensation within the person of Rahab. I will contend
that the pairing of Esther and Judith holds significance for Clement.4 Three factors
commend this view: 1) Clements is the first pairing of Esther and Judith; 2) Clement
is the first Christian author to cite Judith, and 3) Clement expects his audience to be
well-versed in the Scriptures and yet introduces female figures where his sources
had masculine or gender neutral figures. Clements use of these figures as rhetorical
examples furnishes evidence that Clement is not simply invoking Rahab as a Gentile
woman to the detriment of the patriarch Abraham. Rather, Clement consistently cites
positive examples of female charismatic authority in a manner that indicates he does
not interpret the negative attitudes toward female church leadership evinced in the
Pastoral Stratum of 1 Corinthians 14 to bar women from prophetic roles, if in fact he
even knows the later interpolation in which Paul bids women to be silent in Christian
assemblies (1 Cor. 14:3435).5

1 Martin Hengel, The Septuagint as Christian Scripture: Its Prehistory and the Problem of Its
Canon (New York: T&T Clark, 2002), 115.
2 Margaret M. Mitchell, Paul and the Rhetoric of Reconciliation (Louisville: Westminster John
Knox, 1991), 14950.
3 Kathleen Wicker OBrien, Mulierum Virtutes (Moralia 242E263C), in Plutarchs Ethical
Writings and Early Christian Literature (ed. Hans Dieter Betz; Leiden: Brill, 1978), 106.
4 Shelly Li, Imposing the Silence of Women: A Suggestion About the Date of the Interpolation of 1
Corinthians, in Hermeneutics and the Authority of Scripture (ed. Alan Cadwallader; Hindmarsh:
ATF, 2011), 1345.
5 Winsome Munro, Authority in Paul and Peter: The Identification of a Pastoral Stratum in the
Pauline Corpus and 1 Peter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 12021.

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Janelle Peters Rahab, Esther, and Judith as Models for Church Leadership in 1 Clement

2. CLEMENTS HEROINES
Women appear often in 1 Clement.6 Clement revises the historical survey known from
Hebrews 11 to be more favourable to women.7 The purpose of Clements survey is to
prove the continuity of Gods promise for those who repent from one generation to
the next (7:2). First Clement casts the Corinthians of its time as reliving the factions
of the original community, the group to whom Paul had written in 1 Corinthians. In a
historical survey, Clements narrated history stretches from Abel to Ezekiel. Clement
contrasts Rahabs faith and prophecy with Lots wifes lack of concord. Rahab
prophesies redemption through the blood of Christ. Later, after the biblical review
and in a manner completely disparate from it, the anonymous author of 1 Clement
cites Esther and Judith as comparable to pagan kings who sacrifice themselves on
behalf of their people. Esther and Judith are not examples of demonstrating the
constant presence and power of God. They are not adduced to illuminate divine
sovereignty, as is the function of examples in a historical review. Rather, Esther and
Judith function as illustrations for the role of leaders.
Clements choice of Rahab, Esther, and Judith is part of his broader use of
Jewish traditions in his letter to the Corinthian church. While not overtly affiliated
with Judaism or Jewish synagogues, the churches identify with Israelite history and
see themselves as being an extension of it.8 Since Paul was a former Pharisee, this
self-understanding on the part of the Roman and Corinthian churches is perhaps not
surprising. However, unlike Pauls correspondence, Clements missive contains no
polemics against Jewish practices. The church of Rome may have Jewish resources
in its library Clements didactic expansion of Esther, for instance, resembles that
of Josephus.9

6 Elisabeth Schssler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of

Christian Origins (New York: Crossroads 1983), 293. As the original presbyters chosen by the
apostles have died (44:2), the epistle is generally placed in the late first century. Since Hegesippus
was introduced to this letter from the church of Rome by the church of Corinth in 150, it was
probably not written after 140; Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 3.16; 4.22. According to Dionysos, bishop of
Corinth, in a letter to Soter, bishop of Rome, 1 Clement was still being read in the assembly. Hist.
eccl. 4.23; see also Irenaeus, Adv. haer. 3.3.3; Clement of Alexandria, Str. 1.38.5, 4.105.1, 5.80.1.
7 The examples listed in Hebrews 11, in order of appearance, are: Abel; Cain; Enoch; Noah;
Abraham; Jacob; Sarah; Isaac; Esau; Joseph; Moses; Rahab; Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David
and Samuel and the prophets; women [who] received their dead. First Clement lists: Cain and
Abel (4:16); Jacob and Esau (4:8); Joseph (4:9); Moses (4:10, 17:5); Aaron and Miriam (4:11);
Dathan and Abiram (4:12); David and Saul (4:13); Peter, Paul, and female martyrs 5:16:2); Noah
(7:6, 9:4); Jonah (7:7); Enoch (9:3); Abraham (10:1); Lot (11:1); Rahab (12:1); Elijah, Elisha,
Ezekiel, and the prophets (17:1); Job (17:3).
8 Bart J. Koet, Isaiah 60:17 as a Key for Understanding the Two-Fold Ministry of
and According to 1 Clement (1 Clem. 42:5),in The Scriptures of Israel in Jewish and
Christian Tradition (ed. B.J. Koet, J. Verheyden, and S. Moyise; Leiden: Brill, 2013), 34562.
9 Hengel, Septuagint as Christian Scripture, 115.

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Janelle Peters Rahab, Esther, and Judith as Models for Church Leadership in 1 Clement

I will suggest that, for Clement, leaders are constructed with a universal
perspective that does not exclude women, though it does not overtly promote
individual women within the community. Thus, while the Corinthian churchs
deposed leaders were men, as appears frequently to have been the case in later
generations of Christian communities, there is no explicit barring of women from
religious office. Clement goes beyond merely failing to silence women, forming a
contrast with 1 Timothy 2:12.10 Clement introduces traditional female examples of
religious leadership in order to equate women with apostles, prophets, and even with
foreign kings.11 Rahab, Judith, and Esther are all adduced by Clement as illustrations
of prophecy and intercession.

3. LEADERSHIP STRUCTURES IN 1 CLEMENT

Clements impetus for writing 1 Clement was to address the leadership problem
at Corinth, where church factions had deposed some leaders. The occasion for
Clements lengthy letter finally receives a direct mention in 1 Clement 44:13, where
Clement voices support for ousted church leaders. In the process of ratifying the
leadership of the now deposed leaders, Clement gives scholars information about
the state of ecclesial hierarchy at the time of the letters composition. The church
of Rome cannot simply reinstate these leaders of the church of Corinth, nor does
it appear to have appointed them in the first place. Nonetheless, in 44:12, Clement
claims that the apostles knew with complete foreknowledge that there would be
strife over succession and so provided for the continuance of leadership offices. To
go against apostolic tradition would be, as Clement argues, no small sin (44:4). He
argues that this sin is present at Corinth (44:6).
Once it is established that Clement writes to reinstate deposed leaders, the
question becomes: does Clement have equally viable alternative courses of action
that he is refusing to recommend? Moriarty has suggested that there is an implicit
church leadership custom that Clement, the Roman church, and the Corinthian
church all knew and that has been lost to us. A diversity of church practice seems to
have existed in the early churches.12 First Timothy 4:14 describes elders laying hands
on Timothy, and, at Alexandria, local church leaders may have appointed their own
local leaders and bishops. First Corinthians itself, a letter to which Clement refers
directly, mentions a custom of local leaders at Corinth taking a tribute to the apostles

10 Li interprets this as a lack of acquaintance with the Pastoral Stratum of 1 Corinthians 14:3435,
where Paul reverses his earlier position on female prophecy. See Li, Imposing the Silence of
Women.
11 Munro notes that the centrality of Peter and Paul in 1 Clement corresponds with a privileging
of Rome. Munro, Authority in Paul and Peter, 137. What is being deconstructed by Clements
equations is Roman hierarchy, not Jewish hierarchy.
12 W. Moriarty, 1 Clements View of Ministerial Appointments in the Early Church, Vigiliae
Christianae66 (2012): 11538.

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Janelle Peters Rahab, Esther, and Judith as Models for Church Leadership in 1 Clement

at Jerusalem. Paul requests to join this local delegation on its voyage. When Clement
invoked an apostolic tradition of local decision-making, then, there could well be
existing precedents that would have been common to Clement and his audience.13
The question with which Clement and his audience were wrestling was one
of whether or not there should be retraction of ecclesial offices. Horrell has argued
that the Roman and Corinthian Christian communities of 1 Clement were part of
the movement away from the itinerant prophets of Pauls ministry and the Didache
and toward the stationary prophets of the Pastorals.14 In addition to the concern over
the location of the leaders, I think another factor might be time served. What is of
importance is the duration of the tenure of these leaders. Some within the Corinthian
church felt free to cease their support of these leaders, indicating that the office was
thought to be a temporary rather than a permanent one. The ecclesial hierarchy, as
the varying reception of Ignatius on his way to martyrdom in Rome shows, had not
yet been established to the point where the role subsumes the individual rather than
where the individual inhabits the role as one of many possible identities.
Much of Clements anxiety may have been directed at the precedent of temporary
priesthood being established at Corinth. Romans preferred to deal with aristocracies,
meaning that it became increasingly important in occupied Greece to belong to a
noble genos.15 A preference for lifetime priesthoods was present in Roman Greece,
a trend that began with Augustus. Although they had been annual in earlier periods,
democratic priesthoods became lifetime positions. This made them resemble the
inherited priesthoods associated with a genos. One such office that changed from
being annual to lifetime was that of the priestess of Artemis Kalliste. Restricting the
priesthood offices to lifetime positions consolidated power in the hands of a limited
number of elite Greek families, who could then be controlled more easily by the
occupying Romans.16
Corinth held a prominent position in Roman Greece, particularly since the
constitution of Athens had prevented it from siding with any one participant in the
civil war that followed the assassination of Julius Caesar. The post-Augustan elite
families of the Euryclids from Sparta and the Claudii of Marathon both married into
a wealthy Italian family at Corinth, the Vibullii, effectively securing the province for
a limited number of families and Roman interests. The Euryclids of Sparta had been

13 After 1 Clement was composed, it became associated with Peter and church order in Syria.
Christine Trevett suggests that Ignatius may have modeled himself on the exemplary self-sacrifice
of kings in 1 Clement 55; Christine Trevett, Ignatius To The Romans and 1 Clement LIV-LVI,
Vigiliae Christianae 43 (1989): 47.
14 David Horrell, Leadership Patterns and the Development of Ideology in Early
Christianity, Sociology of Religion 58 (1997): 32341.
15 Alex K. Schiller, Multiple Gentile Affiliations and the Athenian Response to Roman Domination,
Historia 55 (2006): 284.
16 Elena Muniz Grijalvo, Elites and Religious Change in Roman Athens, Numen 52 (2005):
26465.

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Janelle Peters Rahab, Esther, and Judith as Models for Church Leadership in 1 Clement

established by an unnamed client-kingship given by Octavian to C. Julius Eurycles,

who understandably fought for Octavian after Antony killed his adoptive father.
From the Euryclids, C. Julius Spartiaticus was made a Roman knight and Imperial
High Priest of the Koinon of Achaia (IG II2 3538).17 For the Corinthian church to
argue that it had the right to democratically elect elders on an ongoing basis would
have raised alarms as resurging democracy, pushing against the trend of calcifying
social status as the Roman Empire moved from the early imperial to the late antique
period.18
What does not seem to be under contention is the sex of the deposed leaders.
Men have been democratically elected. Women are not replacing them. Unlike 1
Timothy, 1 Clement includes no injunction silencing women. Clement does give a
Haustafel that commends the Corinthian church on its tradition of educating women
to submit to their proper, lower status within the hierarchy. First Clement 1:3 claims
that the former harmony that had been enjoyed by the Corinthian church was one of
traditional, inoffensive Roman honour:
For you used to act impartially in all that you did, and you walked according to the ordinances
of God, submitting yourselves to your leaders and rendering all due honour to those who
were older among you. You instructed your young people to think moderate and respectful
thoughts. You directed women to accomplish all things with a blameless, respectful, and pure
conscience, dutifully loving their husbands. And you taught them to run their households
respectfully, living under the rule of submission, practicing discretion in every way.

That submission was not expected only of women can be seen in the next line, which
claims all (pantes) of the Corinthians had in those halcyon days been submissive
rather than forcing submission (2.1). Clement further emphasises submission by
using the word despot over twenty times to describe God. Clements submission to
God is not casually invoked to support womens subordination; it is a thoroughgoing
part of his theology and his purpose in writing the letter.19 Everyone is to be in
submission.20
Expanding on a brief note by Craig Evans, Bart Koet has suggested that
Clements attitudes toward leadership might be evident in his example of ordered

17 Michael Woloch, Four Leading Families in Roman Athens (A.D. 96161), Historia 18 (1969):
506.
18 A similar phenomenon favouring the upper classes appears to be operating in contemporaneous
hereditary honorifics in Jewish synagogues, particularly in famous inscriptional examples such
as Rufina; see Bernadette J. Brooten, Women Leaders in the Ancient Synagogue: Inscriptional
Evidence and Background Issues (Atlanta: Scholars, 1982), 6.
19 Lightfoot held this view in the nineteenth century: This fact is perhaps due in part to the subject of
the epistle, which required Clement to emphasize the duty of submission; but it must be ascribed
in some degree to the spirit of the writer himself., J.B. Lightfoot, 1 Clement (London: Macmillan,
1890), 37.
20 Li, Imposing the Silence.

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Janelle Peters Rahab, Esther, and Judith as Models for Church Leadership in 1 Clement

Jewish worship in the Book of Isaiah.21 Evans original attribution of Clements

purpose of finding an Old Testament scriptural example is to be preferred to Koets
ascription of a particular middle place between Israel and Christianity here.22
Had Clement wanted to find a middle place between Israel and Christianity, one
wonders why he does not invoke contemporary Jewish communities, whether ones
with male heads of synagogue or female heads of synagogue.23 The discussion of
the sacrifices of the Temple in chapters 4041 appears more part of the common
Roman rhetorical technique of argument by way of example than a middle place
between Israel and Christianity. Both Evans and Koet argue, from the fact that
Clement couples episkopoi and diakonoi in 42:45 in a paraphrase of Isaiah 60:17,
that Clement has been influenced in his scriptural recitation by the contemporary
ecclesial structures implicit to the churches of Rome and the church of Corinth. Koet
concludes that Clement uses Isaiah 60:16 in 42:45 as a scriptural example to prepare
for his defence of the episkopoi/presbuteroi at 44:4.24 By this logic, if women were
uniformly expected to be submissive under a highly advanced systematic theology,
they could still be deacons. However, there is really nothing to suggest that gender is
at stake in this passage. Clement refers to Isaiah not to evade contemporary female
heads of synagogue but to have a canonical example for his argument.

4. EXAMPLES AND HEROINES IN 1 CLEMENT

With this framework of ecclesial hierarchy explored, we may enter into a broader
consideration of 1 Clements use of the common rhetorical practice of appeal to
example. It is clear that the epistle draws examples from both Jewish and Gentile
canons. This distinguishes it from the letter on which it depends, Hebrews, which
prefers Old Testament precedents. Whereas Hebrews prefers to focus on heroes, 1
Clement supports its arguments with exemplary structures and people. Hebrews cites
male and female martyrs to encourage believers to persist despite persecution and
discrimination, but 1 Clement adduces female martyrs in order to compare them
with the martyrs Peter and Paul. Like Hebrews, 1 Clement chooses figures who are
somehow marginal in relationship to Israel, whether initially living in a foreign city
like Rahab, gazing back upon the foreign like Lots wife, ruling a foreign nation like
Esther, or taking military action in an enemy camp like Judith. However, Clement
interprets these scriptural figures in a manner that imputes to them the charisms of
prophecy and political intervention.

21 Koet, Isaiah 60:17.

22 Craig A. Evans, The Citation of Isaiah 60:17 in 1 Clement, Vigiliae Christianae 36 (1982):
1057.
23 For possible titles and roles for Jewish leadership during the time of Clement, see Brooten,
Women Leaders in the Ancient Synagogue.
24 Koet, Isaiah 60:17, 362.

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Janelle Peters Rahab, Esther, and Judith as Models for Church Leadership in 1 Clement

4.1. Heroes as a Rhetorical Technique for Roman and

Christian Authors
The Jewishness of these figures is of note, but their femininity is even more at the
fore since Clement follows the standard rhetorical practice of drawing illustrations
from recognised culturally authoritative sources in Greek and Jewish tradition. As
Kathleen OBrien Wicker observes, 1 Clement, like one of its sources, Hebrews,
parallels Plutarchs method of historical examples.25 Plutarch follows the rhetorical
practice of using paradeigmata as examples of behaviour (243A, 253E). Repeatedly
in the Lives and the Moralia, Plutarch professes his subscription to the notion that
virtuous behaviour can be achieved by recalling the lives and deeds of notable
persons. He also frequently adduces examples of persons whose lives illustrate the
characteristics of virtue or vice which he wishes to praise or condemn. Hebrews
adduces the faith of figures from the Old Testament (chapter 11) before concluding
with the suffering and glory of Jesus (12:13; 13:12) and the faith of Christian
preachers (13:7). Pamela Eisenbaum has argued that the hero list of Hebrews differs
from those of Jewish sources as it chooses marginalised Jewish heroes, outside the
national narrative, in order to denationalise them further and make them identifiable
as Christian heroes.26 Though dependent upon Hebrews, 1 Clement draws heroes
from a broader array of sources, weaving together church history and Roman history,
with aretalogies of women alongside those of men. Abraham, Lot, David, Christ,
Peter, Paul, and pagan kings and rulers become the functional equivalents of Rahab,
Judith, and Esther.

4.2. Lots Wife and Rahab

Among 1 Clements exemplars proving that faith is rewarded are Rahab and Lots
wife. Here Clement seems to accord with fledgling Christian traditions. Hebrews
11 elaborates on the great cloud of witnesses (12:1), commencing with Abel and
concluding with Rahab. That these examples are to reassure the faithful of the utility
of individual faith as opposed to the triumph of national agenda is evidenced by the
rearrangement of chronological order in order to have Rahab conclude the list.27
Second Peter renders its historical resume in a slightly less reassuring fashion,
finding order in Gods condemnation of the Watchers and Sodom and Gomorrah and
in Gods rescue of Noah and Lot (2:410).
1 Clements survey of biblical history adheres to the traditional Greek rhetorical
practice of adducing examples for moral instruction. This is stated by the letters
author as the very purpose of the historical review: Let us review all the generations

25 OBrien, Mulierum Virtutes (Moralia 242E263C), 106.

26 Pamela Eisenbaum, The Jewish Heroes of Christian History: Hebrews 11 in Literary Context
(Atlanta: Scholars, 1997), 23.
27 Eisenbaum, Jewish Heroes of Christian History, 173.

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Janelle Peters Rahab, Esther, and Judith as Models for Church Leadership in 1 Clement

and learn that from generation to generation the Master has given an opportunity for
repentance to those wanting to return to him (7:5). Clement starts his history with
Noah and finishes it with the prophets Elijah, Elisha, and Ezekiel. At points within
and without his historical survey, Clements narrative shows verbal similarity to and
possible knowledge of Hebrews 11.28
It is toward the end of the historical narrative in 1 Clement that we find Lots
wife and Rahab. Whereas Hebrews positions Rahab as the counterpart to Abraham
in hospitality, Clement compares the two female scriptural figures and exegetes them
as representing concord, faith, and prophecy. Lots wife falls out of concord (ouk
en homonoia) and is thus transformed into a pillar of salt (11:2). For Clement, her
example indicates that all who are of two minds and doubt the power of God enter
into judgment and become a visible sign for all generations. This is consistent with
the injunction in Luke 17:32 to remember Lots wife. Clements use of political
language (homonoia) for Lots wife presages his idea that the Corinthians be citizens
of God, performing their civic duty to God (politeian tou theou, 54:4).29
Rahab immediately follows the example of Lots wife and provides the
contrasting virtue of hospitality.30 Her sign of a piece of scarlet from the window
makes her the embodiment of the prophecy that redemption will come from those
who hope in God through the blood of Jesus (12:7). Clement notes that not only
faith was found in the woman, but prophecy as well. This establishes Rahab as
the female counterpart to the male prophets Elijah, Elisha, and Ezekiel. Clements
attribution of prophecy to Rahab implicitly subverts the biblical account of Hosea
marrying the prostitute Gomer, a symbol that the land has played the harlot and
is unfaithful to Yahweh (Hos. 1:2). Such a biblical interpretation appears to have
become popular during this time Justin Martyr overtly elaborates on this point by
noting that Rahabs scarlet cloth is a sign that the harlots and unrighteous may now
be saved (Tryph. 111). True concord has been defined as the reparation of women
to the state rather than their separation from it. Rahab, the prostitute who embodies
prophecy, is a positive example.

28 Edgar J. Goodspeed, First Clement Called Forth by Hebrews, Journal of Biblical

Literature 30 (1911): 15760.
29 The term homonoia occurs three times in 1 Clement 20, where Clement describes
the racecourse of the cosmos (20:3, 20:10, 20:11). Swain discusses the date for the
appearance of homonoia, primarily celebrating homonoia between cities, on coins to the
reign of Vespasian. See Simon Swain, Hellenism and Empire: Language, Classicism,
and Power in the Greek World, A.D. 50250 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996),
220, n. 126. Clements use of political language is consistent with the letters genre;
see W. Jaeger, Echo eines unbekannten Tragikerfragmentes in Clemens Brief an die
Korinther, Rheinisches Museum fr Philologie 102 (1959): 33040.
30 Gerhard Swart suggests that Josephus depiction of Rahab serves as the model for his presentation
of Esther. See Swart, Rahab and Esther in Josephus: An Intertextual Approach, Acta Patristica
et Byzantina 17 (2006): 5065.

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Janelle Peters Rahab, Esther, and Judith as Models for Church Leadership in 1 Clement

Pamela Eisenbaum, writing on Hebrews, notes that the appearance of Rahab, as

a woman, is unusual for hero lists.31 Women do not feature in Jewish lists of heroes.
Yet both Jewish and Christian traditions come to afford Rahab an honoured place
(cf. Matt. 1:5; James 2:25). This is striking, because not only is Rahab a woman,
but she is also a Gentile and prostitute. Eisenbaum detects an authorial motive of
denationalising Jewish heroes on the part of the author of Hebrews. Hebrews places
the story of Rahab after the fall of the walls of Jericho, a sign that the message is
taking precedence over the chronology of the biblical order. Whereas Attridge argues
the function of Rahabs inclusion is to extend the boundaries of the old covenant,32
Eisenbaum asserts that Rahab represents the logical conclusion of the trajectory the
author of Hebrews has been developing all along:
The true heroes of biblical history are not Israels national leaders; they are those who are
separate from national affiliation, distinguished by pistis. All heroes are outsiders; they stand
apart from their generation, from their nation, and from the world.33

Clements move to position Rahab as the equivalent of Abraham likewise represents

an inclusion of women in the biblical tradition yet a separation of the church from
the nonetheless authoritative Jewish tradition.34 This is not peculiar to the case of
Rahab; Clements military imagery and use of political motifs such as the phoenix
argue for a wholesale acculturation into Roman culture and the Roman Empire.35
Yet Clement makes the clear exegetical choice of choosing not Sarah, Abrahams
wife and frequent corrector in the biblical tradition, but Rahab, the harlot capable of
moving customers and spies in and out of her domicile with equal ease.36 Clement
rechristens Rahabs prostitution with the term hospitality and characterises the
trust necessary to accept all who entered under her roof as faith. Without Rahab,
Joshuas spies would have been killed by the kings soldiers and would not have been
able to complete their mission. For Clement, Rahabs faith and hospitality exemplify
salvation. It is through Rahab, not Abraham, that believers can envision salvation

31 Eisenbaum, Jewish Heroes of Christian History, 173.

32 Harold Attridge, The Epistle to the Hebrews (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1989), 306.
33 Eisenbaum, Jewish Heroes of Christian History, 173.
34 Li, Imposing the Silence of Women, 134.
35 See Munro, Authority in Paul and Peter, 137. For the military imagery, Horrell finds Clements
description too imprecise to refer to the Roman army; see David G. Horrell, The Social Ethos
of the Corinthian Correspondence: Interests and Ideology from 1 Corinthians to 1 Clement
(Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996), 256.
36 One notes that here Rahab surpasses even the legendary courtesans of Venice as she completely
controls the international relations happening in her home; see Margaret F. Rosenthal, The Honest
Courtesan: Veronica Franco, Citizen and Writer in Sixteenth-Century Venice (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1992).

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Janelle Peters Rahab, Esther, and Judith as Models for Church Leadership in 1 Clement

through the blood of the Lord (12:7).37 Clement positions Rahab as the prophetess
of faith. While Eisenbaums argument about Rahab in Hebrews surely applies to
1 Clement as well, Rahab nonetheless wields significant power, far more than that
possessed by women in 1 Corinthians 14:3435, which is a part of Pauls letter that
Clement never references.

4.3. Esther and Judith

Later in the letter, we find more heroines provided for moral instruction.38 In chapter
55, Clement claims to be adducing examples from the Gentiles (55:1). He cites those
who have handed themselves over to death in order to stem a plague, those who
voluntarily went into exile, and those among Christians who imprisoned themselves
for another before concluding this Gentile list with the Jewish heroines Judith and
Esther. Judith, described by Clement as blessed, is described as a savvy political
negotiator and military victor for petitioning the elders of her city to let her hand
herself over to danger in a foreign camp (55:4). Esther, meanwhile, is described as
perfect in faith. For Clement, she achieves her goals not through political strategy
but through mantic intercession on behalf of her people (55:6). She is, in effect, a
priestess, whose fasting and humility convinced God to hear her prayer.
While the examples of Esther and Judith are structurally discrete from the
historical review that Clement gives in the first part of the letter, the wording
that Clement uses for Judith in the second part of the epistle closely parallels the
conclusion of the historical review in Hebrews. Clement refers to women who
perform manly deeds and gives Judith as a concrete example: Many women were
made strong by the grace of God to perform many manly deeds; the blessed Judith,
when her city lay under siege, asked the elders for permission to go out to the
foreigners camp (tn paremboln tn allophuln) (55:34). Hebrews has a similar,
albeit ungendered, string of phrases: Out of weakness they were made powerful,
became strong in battle, and turned back camps of aliens (parembolas allotrin)
(11:34).39 Clement must have had knowledge of the verse in Hebrews 11 by some
means, particularly since his earlier exhortation to become imitators of those who

37 While arguing for a lack of knowledge on Clements part of 1 Corinthians 14:3435 as Pauline,
Li argues that Clement presents Rahab as a model for specific female members of the Corinthian
community: For Clement, what Corinthian women prophets there were, were not to be silenced
but to be wedded to their mother in prophecy, Rahab of Jericho, in her avowal of allegiance to
the elect of God and in a faithful prophetic witness to Christian redemption. Li, Imposing the
Silence of Women, 135.
38 Although 1 Clement abounds in female protagonists, the fact of Clements probable male
identity means that he may still be using women to think with. Nonetheless, as Claude Lvi-
Strauss has cautioned, women are still persons who participate in the economy of signs; Lvi-
Strauss,Elementary Structures of Kinship (2ded.; trans. James Bell, John Sturmer, and Rodney
Needham; Boston: Beacon, 1966), 496.
39 James Rendel Harris, Sidelights on New Testament Research (London: Kingsgate, 1908), 16971.

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went about in goatskins and sheepskins, preaching the coming of Christ: I mean
Elijah and Elisha and also Ezekiel resonates with Hebrews 11:37 (they wandered
about in sheepskins, in goatskins) as well. This means that 1 Clement deliberately
feminises traditional source material that, in Hebrews, we see as masculine or gender
neutral.
Esther is not described in language reminiscent of Hebrews 11. Clements
purpose is to introduce Judith and Esther in 1 Clement 55 and not simply to assign
biblical figures to the historical survey of Hebrews 11, which last figured in the
text at 1 Clement 17. It is unlikely that Clements readers would have immediately
recognised the echo of Hebrews in the description of Judith, though Clement claims
that they are well-versed in Scriptures and his rich allusions would be characteristic
of the rhetoric of the Second Sophistic.40 It is more likely that the echo would have
seemed vaguely reminiscent of the structure of an inspiring account of male activity,
lending Judith more authority. This conforms to the presentation of Esther and Judith
as those who perform manly and kingly deeds. First Clement 55 begins with kings
who voluntarily handed themselves over to death at the behest of an oracle. These
receive warm praise from Clement. Likewise, individuals have sold themselves into
prison or slavery in order to save others. Clement notes that many women were
empowered to perform manly deeds (andreia; 55:3), recalling those who have been
athletic contenders in the arena and forced to play the roles of Dircae and Danaids
(6:2). Finally, he exhorts the Corinthians with the victories both Esther and Judith
had in foreign lands.
Clements comparison of Esther and Judith to the royalty who begin the Gentile
list (55:1) accentuates the royal character of both women in addition to playing upon
Esthers status as queen by virtue of her marriage to Ahasuerus. Other contemporary
texts show an interest in augmenting Esthers royal status. Josephus decides that both
Esther and Mordecai have a royal genealogy.41 The LXX of Ezra 4:6 replaces the
Persian king with his queen Esther, highlighting the regal role of Esther.42 Regardless
of the persistence of the Hasmonean influence on the literary production featuring
royals, texts from this period evince an interest in portraying Jewish women in high
socioeconomic statuses. Clements assignment of Judith to the status of royalty along
with the already royal Esther is empowering because she earns the right to be a royal
based on her noble deeds beyond the role of consort.

40 Brent includes Clement with Ignatius as fully participatory in the Second Sophistic; see Allen
Brent, Ignatius of Antioch and the Second Sophistic (Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006).
41 Feldman sees this as a function of Josephus attempt to portray Esther in the manner of a
Greek romance; see Louis H. Feldman, Hellenizations in Josephus Version of Esther,
Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 101 (1970):
145.
42 Tal Ilan, Integrating Jewish Women into Second Temple History (Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1999),
135.

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Janelle Peters Rahab, Esther, and Judith as Models for Church Leadership in 1 Clement

The pairing of Judith with Esther also serves to elevate the role of Esther.
Unlike later texts, 1 Clement undercuts the importance of concord in marriage. Just
as unmarried Rahab formed the positive counter to married Lots wifes negative
example, widowed Judith prevents Esther from embodying self-sacrifice in marriage
for the sake of concord. The humility of Esthers soul that Clement notes not
to mention the fainting of Esther in the Book of Esther is countered by Judiths
bold assassination and inversion of gender roles. Clement takes no notice of either
womans beauty. By describing the female martyrs more obliquely as those who
perform manly deeds instead of the more salacious account of their performance
of the roles of Dirce and Danaids, which featured earlier in the letter, Clement
deemphasises physical appearances and sexual attractiveness.43

4.3.1. Esther
Clement shares with contemporary Jewish historiographers such as Josephus an
increased interest in and perhaps even an increase of the royal status of Esther.
Like the conservative novelistic tradition of accentuating the nobility of characters in
order to justify the storys happy conclusion, Josephus begins his narration of Esther
by assigning her to a royal family (Ant. 11.185). According to biblical tradition,
Mordecai, her cousin, is a descendant of Shimei, the son of Kish, and of the tribe
of Benjamin (Esther 2:5). Rabbinic tradition posits that this Kish is the father of
King Saul, but this would only make Mordecai distantly related to royalty, not
from a royal line himself. Interpreters have thus thought that Josephus intentionally
employs a characteristic feature of Hellenistic novels in his description of Mordecai
and Esther.44 Moreover, Josephus heightens Mordecais political stature by claiming
he was one of the Jewish leaders in the diaspora (Ant. 11.198).
Clement takes away the sexuality and bravery of Esther, whose biblical role is
first to sleep her way to becoming queen of Persia and then to reveal political intrigues
to the king at strategically hosted dinner parties.45 Clements emphasis instead falls
on her piety, which is exemplified by her fasting and humility. Ahasuerus and his
retinue play no role in Clements description, distinguishing them from the elders
of Judiths town and the antagonist Holofernes mentioned in the preceding verses.
Clement erases both Esthers feast and Ahasuerus himself in his biblical retelling. For
the ecclesial leader in Rome, Esthers accomplishment was her successful petition to

43 Balch points to the fresco of Dirce in the House of the Vettii at Pompeii and the male and female
believers publicly exposed to abuse in Hebrews 10:33; see David L. Balch, Roman Domestic
Art and Early House Churches (Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008): 13537; cf. E. Champlin, Nero
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003): 12425.
44 See the discussion of Louis H. Feldman, Studies in Josephus Rewritten Bible (Leiden: Brill,
1998), 514.
45 Joshua A. Berman, Hadassah Bat Abihail: The Evolution from Object to Subject in the Character
of Esther, Journal of Biblical Literature 120 (2001): 64769.

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Janelle Peters Rahab, Esther, and Judith as Models for Church Leadership in 1 Clement

the all-seeing Master, the God of eternity on behalf of the twelve tribes of Israel
through her fasting and humility (55:6). This is a greater role than he ascribes to
himself.

4.3.2. Judith
In the years intervening between the composition of Judith and 1 Clement, Jewish
literature dealing with the themes of Judith was composed, though there are no direct
mentions of Judith that appear in the extant literature composed between the writing
of the LXX and 1 Clement. One of these Jewish books was 3 Maccabees, written
in the first century C. E. The beginning of 3 Maccabees sets up a comic contest
between the salvation of Philopator by an apostate Jew and Philopators subsequent
persecution of Jews and degradation of Jewish status to that of war slaves. A certain
Dositheus, son of Drymylus, a Jew by birth but a convert to a more imperially
sanctioned religion, saves Philopator by uncovering a plot by Theodotus to sneak
into Ptolemys camp and slay Philopator in his tent.46 An insignificant man is left
in the place of Philopator, and Theodotus manages to slay this unfortunate double.
While 3 Maccabees depicts Theodotus as acting singlehandedly, Polybius says that
he takes two of Ptolemys slaves with him.47 Judiths stunning decapitation might
have lost some of its novelty and gained some parallel historical events.
Of course, the exploits of Judith as presented by her eponymous book also
parallel Roman military themes as the empire developed. From Dio Cassius, we
learn that in the second half of the second century Ulpius Marcellus lived the life of a
soldier because he trained himself to eat sparingly in order to stay awake.48 As Phang
has noted, this is typical of Roman military ideology which associated sleepiness and
gluttony.49 Judiths military victory over Holofernes is achieved precisely because
she is able to bring and ration her food and to stay awake longer than her adversaries.
Holofernes, by contrast, gorges on wine and food until he falls asleep, leaving himself
vulnerable to being slayed by his sexual target.
It is therefore somewhat disappointing to the contemporary historian that
Clement does not highlight Judiths military prowess in more detail. Nonetheless,
Clements description of Judith emphasises her success as a politician and a military
operative. Clement notes Judiths careful bureaucratic procedure of consulting the
town elders. Despite the concern over apostolic instructions over the arrangement of

46 Dov Gera, Judaea and Mediterranean Politics: 219 to 161 B.C.E. (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 15.
47 This may be a simple product of historical carelessness and/or disinterest on the part of the author;
see Dov Gera, Judaea and Mediterranean Politics, 1516. Gera notes that this and many other
features of 3 Maccabees may be modeled on Esther, making the association of Esther and Judith
by Clement even more natural.
48 Dio 73 (72).835.
49 Sara Elise Phang, Roman Military Service: Ideologies of Discipline in the Late Republic and
Early Principate (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 269.

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Janelle Peters Rahab, Esther, and Judith as Models for Church Leadership in 1 Clement

lower-ranked presbyters and other even more lowly leaders in the letter, presbyters
here are simply elders. Having acquired political sanction for her actions, Judith
prevails. Clement finds the Lord handed Holofernes over to the hand of a female
(55:5). Clements epithet for Judith of blessed links Judith with blessed Abraham
and a self-sacrificing Isaac in 31:24.50 Judith is not setting a standard for men by
what even women can do. Her rhetorical purpose is not to shame men into greater
valour. Instead, Clement presents Judith as the equivalent of kings and blessed
patriarchs through her heroic actions.

5. CONCLUSION
Clement, to be sure, makes no resounding call for women to occupy Christian
leadership roles with the same regularity as men. However, as Li has suggested,
with Rahab and Abraham, Clement adds female examples where he is under no
compulsion to do so either from his Jewish and Christian sources or from Greek
rhetorical tradition. This may be seen not only with Rahab but also with Esther
and Judith. Clements heroines prophesy and intercede on behalf of their people.
Clements Judith consults with the elders of her town. His Esther negotiates with
God and achieves her ends through fasting and humility. That this validation of
prayer and prophecy occurs throughout 1 Clement suggests that Clements original
audiences in Rome and Corinth held more inclusive views of women in worship than
the Pastoral Stratum of 1 Corinthians 14:3435. As the Corinthian house-churches
were well-acquainted with 1 Corinthians and continued to read 1 Clement in services
for many years, this is no small statement about the esteem for womens leadership
that may have persisted in the Corinthian house-churches since the time of Pauls
original ministry.

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