Jesus Tradition in Early Patristic Writings

Abstract

Early patristic writings provide us with a wealth of Jesus tradition. Even small scraps of reliable extracanonical Jesus traditions deserve to be taken into account for the study of historical Jesus. This chapter gives a survey of the different kinds of such extracanonical traditions, in order to make it clear in which context the more valuable ones - valuable with respect to the historical Jesus - have been transmitted. It confines our survey of early patristic writings roughly to authors of second century CE, i.e., from Clement of Rome, whose Epistle to the Corinthians is usually dated to the end of the first century, to Clement of Alexandria, whose works date to the end of the second and the beginning of the third centuries. It also pays attention to the philosopher Celsus who wrote a book, Alethes Logos against the Christians. It then distinguishes catgories of Jesus traditions in patristic writings of this period. Keywords: Alethes Logos ; Christians; Clement of Alexandria; Clement of Rome; Epistle to the Corinthians ; extracanonical traditions; Jesus tradition; patristic writings; philosopher Celsus