Préceptes laïcs (λαικὰ προστάματα) et commandements humains (ἐμτάματα ἀνθρώπων). Les Fondements scripturaires de 1 Clément 40, 5

Abstract

A. Fatvre, « Secular precepts and human commandments », The scriptural basis of 1 Clement 40, 5, p. 288-308. - The term "lay" is first used at the end of the lth century by Clement of Rome when he writes : "the layman is bound by lay regulations". To appreciate the general impact of this phrase, we need only refer to Isaiah 29, 13 which reduces the Jewish cultural prescriptions to the level of "human prescriptions" in order to emphasise the superiority of spiritual worship. Thus, for Clement, the layman belongs to the People of Israel and "the man of this People" is bound by the "precepts" peculiar to this people. The special terminology used by Clement comes from the synthesis of the two basic connotations of the term prostagma in the book of Ezechiel (criterion of belonging to a people and criterion making it possible to distinguish between the sacred and the profane). Clement was probably aware of apocryphal groupings of quotations or rereadings that already achieved this synthesis and introduced the term Laikos (not used in the Septuagint, but used in the versions of Symmachus and Theodotion) into the text of Ezechiel. Thus Clement was led to use the expression laUca prostagmata and to create the first apophthegm for "the layman".