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Lectio Studies

The Second Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians

Chapter 12

6 sections

Unknown (traditionally ascribed to Clement of Rome)

Transcribed from a dated scan; artifacts may remain. Edition notes

Let us then wait for the kingdom of God, from hour to hour, in love and righteousness, seeing that we know not the day of the appearing of God.

For when the Lord himself was asked by someone when his kingdom would come, he said: “ When the two shall be one, and the outside as the inside, and the male with the female neither male nor female.”

Now “the two are one’’ when we speak with one another in truth, and there is but one soul in two bodies without dissimulation.

And by “ the outside as the inside” he means this, that the inside is the soul, and the outside is the body. Therefore, just as your body is visible, so let your soul be apparent in your good works.

And by “the male with the female neither male nor female” he means this, that when a brother sees a sister he should have no thought of her as female, nor she of him as male.

When you do this, he says, the kingdom of my Father will come.

Trans. Kirsopp Lake, The Apostolic Fathers, Volume I (Loeb Classical Library), 1912. Public domain.

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