I offer an examination of the passage’s function in 1 Clement and potential reception
among the Corinthians. The latter part of this chapter imagines how the
Corinthian recipients of 1 Clement may have understood its brief scene of
violence against women and their purported overcoming of “being weak in
the body.” Building upon scholarship on the mythological staging of Roman
executions as well as archaeological data at Corinth, I suggest that the unexcavated
Corinthian amphitheater and Roman spectacle culture serve as essential
for a correct understanding of 1 Clem 6.2. The amphitheater, one of the
first in mainland Greece built soon after the establishment of the Corinthian
colony (colonia), was one of many features that typified Corinth’s deep ties to
Rome. Corinthian Christ-followers may have understood 1 Clement’s exemplary
women and the sexualized violence they experienced through their own
participation in or viewing of Roman spectacles. Such spectacular images, I
argue, highlight the dependency of Corinth on Rome for its prominent colonial
status, and strengthens the case of the writer of 1 Clement that Rome’s
ecclesiastical advice should be taken by their imperial and ecclesiastical colonia.
The sexually violated women of 1 Clem 6.2 are thus used by the Roman
assembly as an example, as a veiled threat that violence might come upon
those who cause enough internal dissent to be noticed and notable in the eyes
of the (imperial and ecclesiastical) Romans.