Moral Suasion in 2 Clement and the Early Christian Church

1. Introduction

The Apostolic Fathers (ca. AD 70–150) are a loose collection of various Christian authors discussing many aspects of the Christian life. These works serve as important primary sources for scholarship on the development of the ecclesiastical polity. These writings cover the period “beside and after the New Testament” (Harrower 2021, 1). The usual focus on these works, however, tends to emphasize their historical or theological components. We explore aspects pertaining to economics and governance. We focus on one text from this corpus: 2 Clement. Our argument is that 2 Clement attempts to use moral suasion to align individual self-interest with communal well-being by advancing norms that prevent suboptimal contributions toward the charity fund.

2 Clement is a homily exhorting Christians to discipline and virtue through repentance. Its author commends almsgiving, fasting, and prayer, but emphasizes almsgiving as a greater form of repentance than the other two practices. A homily in the early Christian church would give spiritual, moral, and practical advice for everyday living. 2 Clement’s format distinguishes itself from the other works of the Apostolic Fathers, which are usually epistles that gave more detailed and formal advice. This homily uses moral suasion to elicit greater charitable contributions from the community. The call to increase charitable giving reveals perceived issues within the early church about the collection and distribution of resources. 2 Clement is an example of the early church identifying potential causes of suboptimal behavior and attempting to create mechanisms to resolve them.

The exhortations in 2 Clement recall Christian obligations to obedience and adherence to Christ’s commands, emphasizing the abandonment of worldly goods and desires. Early Christians would be aware of Christ’s warning to “guard against all greed” as “one’s life does not consist of possessions” (Luke 12:15). Jesus says, “You cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6:24). 2 Clement uses moral suasion to connect obligations that Christians already recognized to norms on almsgiving. Specifically, 2 Clement draws on the Christian understanding of the nature of community to make moral suasion more effective.

We contribute to the literature in the economics of religion, particularly Laurence Iannaccone’s work on resolving externality problems in religious organizations (Iannaccone 1992; 1994; 1995; 1998). Iannaccone’s framework has been applied to explain strict contemporary religions, such as ultra-Orthodox Judaism and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Berman 2000; McBride 2007). Due to the author of 2 Clement’s attempt to change the beliefs and norms of the Christian church, we draw upon the moral suasion literature to explain the mechanism used in this homily to align individual interests with the group interest of stocking the charity fund (see Ito et al. 2018; Reiss and White 2008; Dal Bó and Dal Bó 2014; Balafoutas and Rezaei 2022; Capraro et al. 2019). While this paper focuses on 2 Clement, we believe our framework can be used to explain the emergence of rules within the early Christian church and religious organizations more generally.

Our article also contributes to the literature that applies rational choice theory to explain apparently bizarre behavior (Leeson 2012a; 2012b; 2014; Leeson and Suarez 2015; Gill 2024; Gill and Thomas 2023). Especially relevant are recent works explaining the institutions and practices religious organizations adopt (e.g., Whitener and Salter 2022; Gill 2021; Singh 2022; Koyama 2020; Raynold 2020).

We argue that 2 Clement uses moral suasion to try to convince Christians to forsake worldly goods and activities and to give more charitably. We also show how moral suasion can be a particularly effective mechanism in religious organizations to change group practices, provided members share core norms and beliefs. We do not argue that the norms were necessarily effective, but we show that moral suasion was a low-cost mechanism available to the early Christian church. By using 2 Clement as textual evidence, we demonstrate that social scientists can use the writings of early Christian authors to understand how religious groups adopt new rules.

2. Textual Review

2.1. Background

This section will explain the context and setting of 2 Clement. We examine the probable dating and author of this text as well as the intended audience to clarify the document’s purpose for the early Christian community. All quotations of 2 Clement come from the Roberts and Donaldson (1995) edition. Several quotations draw from the introductory note, which comments on the authorship, dating, and purpose of the homily. When quoting the introductory note, we use the section within the introduction. When quoting from the text of 2 Clement itself, we indicate the chapter from which the quotation was drawn.

This text is difficult to date precisely, but most scholars place it during the early second century. Conventional scholarship dates the homily “between A.D. 120 and 140” (2 Clement, 1995, section 2, p. 513). Similarly, Janelle Peters describes the probable dating of 2 Clement “to the first half of the second century” (Peters 2021, 202).

The dating of 2 Clement places it during a transitional period in the early Christian church from Paul and the apostles to their disciples and other second-generation church leaders. 2 Clement, along with the rest of the corpus of the Apostolic Fathers, shows that Christian thinkers were beginning to confront practical governance problems during this transitional period. The author of 2 Clement appears to be a “moral [authority], but they have a lesser role in both the day-to-day activities and general running of their church audiences than did Paul and the other apostles” (Peters 2021, 207). The role of church leaders in governing nascent Christian communities was changing during this period, but these leaders retained their influence as moral authorities in their respective communities.

The authorship of 2 Clement is difficult to determine precisely. 2 Clement was traditionally attributed to Clement of Rome, the author of 1 Clement, another important document from the Apostolic Fathers, which was written at the end of the first century. But scholars are convinced the author of 2 Clement is not the same Clement of Rome. Scholars have also proposed several locations for the origin of this homily. Besides Rome, Corinth and Alexandira have been discussed as possible origins. Regardless of the homily’s origin, the text suggests that the author “was a preacher. . . . It is, however, very probable that the author was a presbyter; and it is not improbable that he was the chief presbyter, or local bishop” (2 Clement, 1995, section 2, p. 513). The author seems to be a person with influence and a leader for moral instruction, and perhaps ecclesiastical governance as well. Indeed, the homily form presumes the author’s position as a moral leader.

2 Clement itself was intended to be read at public worship, usually along with 1 Clement, partly explaining the early church’s pairing of these distinct works. The audience for 2 Clement would be the entire worshipping community, so the homily’s exhortations deal with the everyday behavior of Christians. 2 Clement explains the duties of the Christian community, placing special emphasis on almsgiving and wealth distribution. The text elevates almsgiving as “a good thing, as [a means of] repentance from sin; fasting is better than prayer, but almsgiving than both” (2 Clement 26, 1995, p. 522). The purpose of “this moral exhortation might be a case of love-patriarchalism intended to create unity. Such a focus on moral improvement and unity would be congruent with the nature of 2 Clement as a homily” (Peters 2021, 204). Instead of specific institutional figures or rules to adhere to, the “prospect of eternal judgment is used to convince the audience” to adopt norms specified by 2 Clement (Peters 2021, 207).

The factors surrounding 2 Clement’s dating, authorship, and audience give us a window into the early Christian church. The use of moral arguments to change behavior indicates perceived problems that the early church faced in living the Christian life. The chosen resolutions to these problems give us an idea about the influence that church leaders held and what means were available to them to change congregational behavior.

2.2. 2 Clement Text

We review the text of 2 Clement itself to understand the obligations that Christians are being called to follow. This section analyzes the theological and historical aspects of the document to show the perceived constraints the early church confronted. We do not intend to advance any theological or historical argument; we restrict ourselves to surveying the content of the document.

The actual text of 2 Clement is not long. Its major theme “is the duty of fulfilling the commands of Christ” (2 Clement, 1995, section 3, p. 514). 2 Clement argues three general points: (1) Christians must give obedience and a true confession to Christ; (2) Christians must be willing to forgo the benefits of the present world for the benefits of the afterlife; (3) to be faithful, Christians must engage in righteous works to receive the benefits of the afterlife.

2 Clement begins by explaining the importance of honoring Jesus Christ. The document continuously recalls a Christian’s obligation to be obedient and faithful to Christ. The content of one’s faith is of utmost importance to Christians; “for if [they] think little of Him, [they] shall also hope but to obtain little from Him” [emphasis in original] (2 Clement, 1995, chap. 1, p. 517). Belief in Christ has saved Christians from destruction by revealing their errors: “Involved in blindness, and with such darkness before our eyes, we have received sight, and through His will have laid aside that cloud by which we were enveloped. For He had compassion on us, and mercifully saved us, observing the many errors in which we were entangled, as well as the destruction to which we were exposed, and that we had no hope of salvation except it came to us from Him” (2 Clement, 1995, chap. 1, p. 517).

2 Clement continually warns Christians of being of a “double mind,” where there is doubt as to God’s promises, because Christians who do not believe “shall be miserable” (2 Clement, 1995, chap. 11, p. 520). 2 Clement recounts the duty that Christians must be faithful and obedient to Jesus Christ. This framework defines Christians’ duties but has not explained the concrete requirements of these duties. This is clarified in the second and third parts of 2 Clement.

2 Clement emphasizes a distinction between the world and God to clarify the benefits of choosing one over the other. In early Christianity, “the world” is creation that seeks to go its own way without God. Thus, to follow “the world” was to reject God’s authority. John the Apostle says that “all that is in the world . . . is not from the Father” (1 John 2:16) and “who [indeed] is the victor over the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God” (1 John 5:5). Following “the world” is seen most clearly in the pursuit of material objects, but the ultimate concern was following a life that does not recognize God’s authority. Indeed, Christians saw that dedication to the world forsakes God and vice versa: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and decay destroy, and thieves break in and steal. But store up treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor decay destroys, nor thieves break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be” (Matthew 6:19–21).

Next, 2 Clement emphasizes that many worldly activities must be forsaken to actively follow Christ’s commands. The pursuit of a holy life results in a loss of temporal goods in favor of the eternal goods of salvation: “By what course of conduct, then, shall we attain these things, but by leading a holy and righteous life, and by deeming these worldly things as not belonging to us, and not fixing our desires upon them? For if we desire to possess them, we fall away from the path of righteousness” (2 Clement, 1995, chap. 5, p. 518).

2 Clement compares the relative uselessness of the present world against the future world: “It is better to hate the things present, since they are trifling, and transient, and corruptible; and to love those which are to come, as being good and incorruptible” [emphasis in original] (2 Clement, 1995, chap. 6, p. 518). These two worlds are set in contrast to each other, where obtaining one results in loss of the other. Under this framework, Christians must choose between the current world or the future world of the afterlife. Given these options, 2 Clement highlights the eternal benefits of the afterlife, making the benefits of the current world infinitely worse.

2 Clement then explains how the future world can be striven after while still in the present, earthly world. Christians have a duty to confess belief in Christ “by doing what He says, and not transgressing His commandments, and by honouring Him not with our lips only, but with all our heart and all our mind” (2 Clement, 1995, chap. 3, p. 518). Faith in 2 Clement meant loyalty to God, which required both belief and works to demonstrate: “Let us, then, not only call Him Lord, for that will not save us. For He saith, ‘Not every one that saith to Me, Lord, Lord, shall be saved, but he that worketh righteousness.’ Wherefore, brethren, let us confess Him by our works, by loving one another” (2 Clement, 1995, chap. 4, p. 518).

In 2 Clement’s framework, being a Christian is more a matter of action than intellection. Christians’ works must conform to the dichotomy presented earlier between the present earthly realm and the future heavenly realm. To make clear a Christian’s rejection of the present world, meaning not material reality but everything that resists God’s sovereignty, 2 Clement states that Christians must “practice repentance” (2 Clement, 1995, chap. 8, p. 519). The best way to practice repentance is to participate in almsgiving: “Almsgiving therefore is a good thing, as repentance from sin; fasting is better than prayer, but almsgiving than both; ‘but love covereth a multitude of sins.’ But prayer out of a good conscience delivereth from death. Blessed is every one that is found full of these; for almsgiving lighteneth the burden of sin” (2 Clement 1995, chap. 16, p. 522).

2 Clement has explained the duties of Christians, the priority of the future world over the present world, and the relative excellence of almsgiving at achieving repentance. If Christians follow this established framework, they will constitute the “living Church.” The idea of being part of the “living Church” would have been familiar and accepted by Christians, so by tying these elements together, 2 Clement appeals to previously held beliefs. 2 Clement mentions this pre-established belief when it says, “I do not, however, suppose ye are ignorant that the living Church is the body of Christ” (2 Clement, 1995, chap. 14, p. 521).

In summary, 2 Clement presents to Christians a framework for fulfilling their duties to Jesus Christ. It exhorts that many goods and activities must be forsaken to be a Christian, and that explicit actions, especially charitable giving, must be undertaken to embody and express faith.

3. 2 Clement Analysis

In this section, we apply rational choice to the text of 2 Clement to explain why moral suasion was perceived to be a feasible mechanism for aligning individual self-interests with communal interests. We classify the charity fund as a common-pool resource (cf. Ostrom 1990; Aligica 2019) for the early Christian church. Using this model, historical evidence, and the text of 2 Clement, we explain the practical effects of moral suasion on the provision of the common-pool resource. We clarify how moral suasion as a mechanism can align individual interests with communal interests and the conditions that make moral suasion more effective. Then, we show how the moral norms advanced in 2 Clement create a costly signal that allows the early Christian church to screen potential members. We argue that 2 Clement used moral arguments to promote norms that would make competing uses of members’ resources costlier while promoting greater contributions to the community’s charity fund. The expected change in norms yields an increase in both the spiritual and material benefits that Christians received.

Before analyzing the common-pool resource provision, we discuss important Christian beliefs that characterize the early church’s self-understanding as a worshipping community. These beliefs are important because they form the constraints that Christian leaders and believers confronted when attempting to stock the charity fund. Early Christians sought to follow Christ’s commands above all else, so dedicated Christians pursued selflessness and communal fidelity as a dominical command. The Christian community thus resembles what Buchanan calls a “moral community” (1981, 1983). A moral community exists when “individual members of the group identify with a collective unit” (Buchanan 1981, 188). Early Christians believed that membership entailed association within the body of Christ: “Now the Church, being spiritual, was manifested in the flesh of Christ, thus signifying to us that, if any of us keep her in the flesh and do not corrupt her, he shall receive her again in the Holy Spirit: for the flesh is the copy of the spirit” [emphasis in original] (2 Clement, 1995, chap. 14, p. 521).

Intriguingly, Buchanan (1981) notes that when “most but not necessarily all persons are expected to follow the precepts of moral order, government as such may be restricted to a minimal” (p. 191). In other words, in some contexts, “moral order” can be a substitute for more formalized governance mechanisms. With this understanding of the Christian community in mind, we interpret 2 Clement’s emphasis on almsgiving as a reaction to those persons who do not entirely follow the precepts of the moral order, indirectly supporting the office of the presbyters in early church governance.

3.1. Common-Pool Resource and Moral Suasion

Analyses of the problems with common-pool resource provision are not new. Olson (1965) discusses the issues facing collective action in governing common resources. Drawing on this framework, we highlight that the common-pool nature of charity in the early Christian church results in suboptimal contributions from the community. Rational choice allows us to explain the use of moral suasion and what its perceived effects could be on the Christian community.

Charity in the early Christian church was a common-pool resource. The food, clothing, or money provided as charity is itself rivalrous within the community, so the smaller the stock of charity provided, the less each member could receive. However, due to the corporate nature of Christianity, benefits were accessible to all Christians, making exclusion difficult. Access to these benefits was tightly bound to worship. The central act of Christian worship, celebration of the Eucharist, “was one activity of the Church which never took place outside Christian homes” (Zizioulas 2001, 51). For the early church, the celebration of the Eucharist was likely accompanied with a community banquet, and this banquet “was in and of itself a means of extending charity” (Stewart 2014, 79). Christians would also help non-Christians through acts of mercy, but being a Christian came with the additional benefits of being part of a community where one could expect to receive hospitality wherever there were Christians.

The common-pool nature of charity raises the problem of suboptimal contributions, which is a dominant strategy from a narrowly self-interested point of view. Several characteristics about the provision of the charity fund raise immediate concerns of suboptimal contribution. The early Christian communities relied on wealthy patrons to support the provision of the eucharistic meal. This resulted in the patrons providing “a social and financial support of the church rather than receipt of support” (Stewart 2014, 163). The main financial burden rests upon patrons, but their contributions would be allocated to the poorer members in the community. The charity fund depended upon a fraction of the community to supply it, and the material donations would be distributed to the members whose consumption of charity exceeded their contributions. To maintain the collection and distribution of charity, patrons require an offsetting benefit to justify their contributions.

Moral suasion in 2 Clement deals with this issue in two ways. First, it creates an exclusion mechanism by making Christian initiation a costly signal. Second, it raises the spiritual benefit of giving by bestowing greater honor to the givers, which created an individual (excludable) benefit associated with charitable contributions. Costly signals allow church leaders to gauge more accurately the commitment of potential converts. Church leaders held esteem within the community, allowing them to bestow honor and reputation among complying patrons. Implicit within both these mechanisms was members’ submission to the church’s presbyters (elders), who were leaders in the worshipping community.

The author of 2 Clement functioned as a moral authority, as evidenced by the homily. He also bestowed status (honor and acclaim) in his role as a presbyter. In the early church, presbyters served an important function in presiding over the provision of the Eucharist. They also engaged in the “practice of granting honor” [emphasis in original] (Stewart 2014, 138). Patrons received “honor” through recognitions of their contributions at the banquets they supplied. Stewart (2014) references 1 Timothy to show that patrons, described as presbyters for their support of the church, “should receive a double honor” [emphasis in original] (p. 163). This double honor likely took the form of “a double portion of food [given] at community banquets” (Stewart 2014, 163). Granting honor through a double portion of food was “known in Greco-Roman meal practice,” so this specific practice of bestowing honor is a recognized social practice even outside the Christian communities (Stewart 2014, 163). The tight-knit nature of early Christian churches made reputation a strong informal mechanism for encouraging adherence to moral norms. To get patrons to donate, they required recognition of their contributions to the community, and the “double helping of food at the meals of the community provide precisely such a recognition” (Stewart 2014, 166).

The prominence of the chief presbyter (perhaps bishop; see discussion below) as a moral leader and distributor of honor and the Eucharist further shaped how early Christians resolved the practical issues of stocking and distributing the charity fund. Early Christians made no distinction between “charism and hierarchy because hierarchy and order without a spiritual charism were inconceivable at that time” (Zizioulas 2001, 62). When 2 Clement uses moral suasion to confront suboptimal contributions to the charity fund, it treats the Christian community’s submission to the presbyters as given.

The historical evidence suggests that informal mechanisms could work at motivating charitable behavior, but it does not necessarily resolve the problem of suboptimal contribution, for patrons can be contributing but not as much as would be considered optimal. We posit that moral suasion draws upon the effectiveness of reputational rewards by describing new behaviors that merit additional reward. First, we explain how moral suasion functions and specify the conditions that make moral suasion relatively more effective.

Moral suasion is a mechanism for aligning individual and collective interests by making normative appeals. Moral suasion can create social norms or promote adherence to existing norms, which can increase individual contributions to common-pool resources and public goods. This mechanism is not unique to early Christianity. Moral arguments have been used to advance energy conservation (Ito et al. 2018; Reiss and White 2008), cooperation in public goods (Dal Bó and Dal Bó 2014), and charitable behavior (Balafoutas and Rezaei 2022; Capraro et al. 2019), to name just a few activities.

Moral suasion is an attractive incentive-alignment mechanism because it is relatively cheap to implement. All that is needed is the formulation of an argument motivating certain behavior, which can easily be tailored to specific audiences. The goal of moral suasion is to create moral “nudges” to align individual self-interest with public goals (Capraro et al. 2019). Of course, the effectiveness of moral suasion varies. It is not always successful. However, it can be effective in certain circumstances. For example, Ito et al. (2018) find short-term success with moral suasion in promoting energy conservation. And as we previously discussed, moral suasion works better when community members identify with the community as such (Buchanan 1981; 1983), as early Christians undoubtedly did.

Additionally, relevant studies suggest that the type of moral arguments used matter for their effectiveness. Deontological (duty-based) and consequentialist (results-based) moral arguments tend to be more effective at compelling pro-social behavior than virtue ethics (character-based) and a simple call for donations (Balafoutas and Rezaei 2022; Bos et al. 2020; Dal Bó and Dal Bó 2014). However, moral suasion by itself seems to provide only short-term benefits. Dal Bó and Dal Bó (2014) finds that moral suasion retains a persistent effect with an effective punishment mechanism. Ito et al. (2018) finds that moral suasion retains its short-term effects when there is a “sufficiently long time between interventions” (p. 264). These characteristics of moral suasion might explain why most religions consistently use moral appeals, even when other formal mechanisms exist.

The arguments in 2 Clement resemble instances of moral suasion that the literature has found effective. 2 Clement relies on both deontological and consequential arguments. It makes clear that Christians are perpetually bound to follow Christ, representing a deontological appeal. Also, it compares the rewards Christians will enjoy in the world to come by forsaking the current world, representing a consequentialist appeal. This mixed-appeal approach can be more effective at changing individual behavior to align with group well-being.

However, even if moral suasion is an effective mechanism for the early Christian church, its use in 2 Clement raises the question as to why other, more formal mechanisms were not employed. After all, tithing has a long tradition in Jewish law, requiring the faithful to “tithe all the produce of your seed that grows in the field” (Deuteronomy 14:22). Why rely on moral suasion instead of “an established tithing schedule or a clear ministry prescription such as the food service for the widows in Act 6” (Peters 2021, 207)?

We believe that the author of 2 Clement was not able to establish or enforce formal rules but was able to provide moral guidance that would likely be heeded. The author of 2 Clement appears to be a moral authority, but his official power and control over the day-to-day lives of Christians is less clear. Recalling the dating of 2 Clement to around the middle of the second century, we contend that this homily was written during a period of development and change in Christian ecclesiastical history. Written after the lives of the apostles but before a more defined and codified hierarchy was in place, the author of 2 Clement does not have extensive control over the Christian community. The willingness of early Christians to defer to leading presbyters for guidance over resource allocation meant that moral suasion was the least-cost mechanism to govern the community. More direct and formal mechanisms were simply too costly to implement at this time.

To better understand the author of 2 Clement’s position in the early church, we must briefly clarify two positions of authority, denoted by the terms presbyteros (“elder”) and episkopos (“overseer” or bishop). Traditional scholarship holds that the New Testament used these terms interchangeably to refer to leaders within Christian churches. However, Stewart (2014) argues that, while these terms contain overlapping meanings, they indicate distinct duties and roles. Stewart states that presbyteroi “denotes a gathering of those who act in their communities as episkopoi,” but importantly, “presbyteroi is a collective term” (Stewart 2014, 44). The author of 2 Clement was most likely an overseer in his community and a member of a college or federation of presbyters in the larger region. The “primary functions of the presbyters as gathered leaders was the policing of the boundaries of a relatively diffuse church, . . . and that [presbyters in federation] is used for bearers of tradition in view of their role of policing the boundaries of orthodoxy and of propagating literature” (Stewart 2014, 29–30). Overseers worked with their peers in other communities mainly to maintain consistent borders for their communities and to promote unity in belief. Together they formed a “federated set of individual Christian communities” (Stewart 2014, 27). Even in a single city, no single overseer could likely command the entire Christian community there. The author of 2 Clement holds an important role as a religious leader, but his ability to make authoritative decisions for the body of Christian believers was limited.

The role of church leaders was undergoing change during the time of 2 Clement as Christian authors began to make greater distinctions between elders and overseers. We do not take a firm stance on the status of these offices during the church’s earliest days but rather emphasize that the development of ecclesial polity coincides with the increasing differentiation of these roles. Though arguments calling for greater unity and hierarchy within the church had been made by the time of 2 Clement, this organizational structure was not yet widely adopted by the various Christian communities. Whitener and Salter (2022) give an account of the development of hierarchical overseers (bishops), which would not emerge “as the dominant form of church governance in Christianity” (p. 3) until the third century. Given this institutional environment and the pressing material and spiritual concerns that 2 Clement was trying to address, moral suasion was the most feasible mechanism to achieve communal goals.

We have argued why moral suasion would be preferred to other strategies for changing behavior, but moral suasion needs to be accepted to be effective. We do not attempt to justify why moral suasion would be accepted by Christians on theological grounds, as that is outside the purpose of this article. We focus on the practical effects that these moral arguments had on the Christian community’s ability to stock the religious common-pool resource, the charity fund. 2 Clement advances two norms. The first norm demeans the present temporal world compared to the future heavenly world, which creates a costly signal that the church leader in charge of the liturgy can use to monitor and punish deviant members. The second norm elevates almsgiving as a greater means to repentance, which justifies greater reputational rewards to contributing members.

3.2. Costly Signals and Sorting

The exhortations in 2 Clement to abandon many worldly goods and activities mitigate free riding in the church by making alternative uses of members’ resources costlier. At first glance, 2 Clement telling Christians to make their lives harder by abstaining from various goods and activities seems irrational. Why would a Christian follower want to make his life more difficult by accepting moral arguments that limit his consumption? Iannaccone (1992; 1994) shows that strictness and sacrifice make apparently strange restrictions effective mechanisms to prevent free riding. He argues that costly restrictions mitigate externalities in religious groups by increasing the costs of competing activities. Restrictions on behavior and use of resources serve as costly signals for members to demonstrate their dedication. Olson and Perl (2005) find empirical support for the success of strict rules in raising the average commitment levels in conservative churches by mitigating free riding. By using moral suasion to create norms that restrict behavior, 2 Clement is trying to change the composition of the Christian community by weeding out low-participation members. Moral suasion works better in smaller and more homogenous communities, so creating a costly signal makes 2 Clement’s norm of increased charitable giving relatively more effective.

The church needed a way to distinguish between low-participation and high-participation members to avoid free riding on the material and spiritual benefits of a religious good. High-participation members are those who believe in the spiritual benefits of Christianity, so the spiritual benefit they receive from religious goods is higher relative to the material benefit. Low-participation members are those who do not receive much benefit from religious belief but are still in the community for the possible material benefits they could receive through free meals and other forms of charity from Christians.

Requiring members to abandon many worldly goods and activities, 2 Clement limits competing uses of members’ resources, resulting in Christian membership being costlier. The costlier membership creates a selection mechanism where low-participation members will exit or not join at all. If a member’s main draw to Christianity was the material benefit it provided, but the religion also requires abandonment of other material benefits that are substitutes for Christian charity, then that member would be better off not joining at all if the value of Christian charity does not exceed the value of the competing goods and activities. This means that increasing the stringency of religion excludes more low-participation members as the relative cost of being a Christian rises. Recalling moral suasion in 2 Clement, setting the present world against the future world helps to solve the screening problem. High-participation members do not care about this change in relative costs because they would have committed to being Christian regardless of the alternative behavior. They prefer the change described in 2 Clement because now the material benefit of Christianity is not being absorbed by free riders, so the remaining high-participation members expect a higher net benefit from charity.

This goal to deter shirking is important for any common-pool resource arrangement. The norm specified in 2 Clement enabled the author to punish low-participation members by withholding honor to patrons who consumed worldly goods. It is difficult to observe any one person’s religious fervor, but it is much easier to observe how they spend their money and the goods that they purchase, particularly in smaller communities. The norm of forsaking the “world” gave the author of 2 Clement and other liturgical leaders the ability to monitor participation among members.

The moral norms advanced in 2 Clement target a specific portion of the Christian community, namely the wealthier members. 2 Clement’s call to renounce worldly goods imposes a greater burden on richer members. The wealthier members would have to forsake the benefits of the alternative uses of their wealth and renounce non-Christian social and political relationships, limiting their access to resources and goods outside of the Christian community. Considering only the increase in costs that richer members face, we would expect the wealthy members to exit the Christian community. However, 2 Clement emphasizes the spiritual rewards of forsaking the world, providing greater value for those who more strongly held Christian beliefs. If these norms were effective, then the Christian community would be better off only if the extra contributions made by remaining rich members exceeded the lost contributions from wealthy members who exited. The goal of these norms is to increase the average level of participation among donors by raising individual benefit until it aligns with group benefit. To ensure greater contributions from remaining rich members, there needs to be effective monitoring and punishment mechanisms in place.

The presbyter responsible for the liturgy was also responsible for granting honor to the patrons who supplied the material goods necessary for the religious celebrations. Even if the moral norm calling for abandonment of substitute material goods was not generally held by the community, the presbyter could still punish those whom he saw violating the norm. The presbyter has an interest in propagating this norm because it increases the homogeneity of the community and is expected to result in greater charitable contributions. This norm creates a costly signal for present members and potential converts, operating primarily on the average effort levels of the congregation via a filtering effect. However, other mechanisms may be more effective at changing marginal behavior (by altering perceived costs and benefits) of the congregation. We argue that 2 Clement’s second norm, emphasizing the spiritual reward of almsgiving, attempts to further influence the cost and benefit evaluations of the church members.

3.3. Aligning Individual and Group Interests

2 Clement’s second norm seeks to elevate the spiritual benefit of charitable giving, which would make the additional benefits of almsgiving greater for all members. Importantly, high-participation members are the ones most likely to perceive such benefits. Yet even among high-participation members, suboptimal charitable contributions are expected, because the amount they donate and the amount that they would receive are independent.

The tendency to suboptimally contribute toward the charity fund depends on the relative material and spiritual benefits that a Christian expects. Christians contribute less when the material benefit is greater relative to the spiritual benefit. To offset this, 2 Clement uses moral suasion to raise the spiritual benefits of giving, so even though the material benefit of most Christians’ almsgiving is lower than the material cost, they are better off due to the increase in the spiritual benefit of the activity.

Moral suasion is more effective when community members are committed to the moral norms in question. The practices in 2 Clement’s moral suasion give good reasons to believe that they would increase high-participation membership in the Christian community. Hoge (1994) uses an axiomatic approach to explain church giving, and one axiom that he uses is that “people strongly committed to God and God’s promises will give more money to the church” (p. 102). Hoge’s axiom aligns with Buchanan’s (1981) idea that moral communities with a greater share of members dedicated to the collective unit can address governance concerns without relying on formal processes. In the context of 2 Clement, high-participation members are not of a “double mind,” meaning they are more likely to comply with the norms being advocated, resulting in more contributions and greater spiritual benefit from almsgiving.

In the early Christian church, where there was greater reliance on prominent patrons, the norm elevating almsgiving raises the spiritual benefit of giving and raises patrons’ honor and reputation within the community. This indicates an increase in the marginal benefit of contributing, which overall increases donations. This second norm paired with the first norm affects the marginal cost of giving. We explained that the first norm creates a costly signal when screening Christian converts. Ex ante, the material costs of being Christian are higher, but once someone becomes a Christian the value of their wealth is lower because of the restrictions on material goods that they can purchase. For current members, the opportunity cost of donations also decreases because many competing uses of their material income are restricted. Combining these norms raises the marginal benefit and lowers the marginal cost to Christians of contributing to the charity fund.

The purpose of moral suasion is to coordinate beliefs around desired norms and behaviors. We have shown how certain moral arguments result in excluding low-participation members. Among high-participation members, 2 Clement can make them change their moral norms by appealing to moral obligations that they already accept. These benefits rely upon the spiritual benefits that Christians receive, which is difficult to measure. But if the moral arguments presented in 2 Clement are taken seriously, there would be a shift in the composition of the Christian community from lower participation to greater participation. Greater effort and religious devotion from all members raise the benefits enjoyed by each member.

4. Conclusion

The text of 2 Clement clearly relies on moral arguments to convince Christians to change their behavior. The goal of 2 Clement is to make Christians more committed to God by reminding them of their obligations to follow Christ. It elevates almsgiving as a form of repentance to induce more charitable giving. While it is difficult to know the extent that these practices were adopted by the Christian community during the sub-Apostolic era (ca. AD 100–155), we can say that the moral arguments in 2 Clement functioned as an incentive-alignment strategy to mitigate free riding and promote charity.

The Christian church needed to ensure that there were enough high-participation patrons to stock the charitable commons. Moral suasion was a preferred method during the church’s early history. But we should not expect the church’s solutions to collective action problems to remain constant over time. Reliance on high-participation patrons becomes increasingly difficult as the size of the community increases. While moral suasion seems to be an effective mechanism at this point in Christian history, it encounters problems with Christianity’s evangelistic priority emphasizing growth. It is important to remember that 2 Clement is just one work within the corpus of the Apostolic Fathers. The formal mechanisms that the Christian church will later adopt (see Whitener and Salter 2022) are being formulated concurrently with 2 Clement. Institutions are not created ex nihilo, and moral suasion’s short-term effects are important to consider when explaining more durable resolutions to collective action problems later in the church’s history.

Nevertheless, 2 Clement’s use of moral suasion provides invaluable insight into the problems that beset the early Christian church. Presumably the author of 2 Clement would want Christians to abandon selfish material concerns only if a nontrivial number of Christians were still occupied by such concerns. The use of moral suasion, regardless of effectiveness, shows that early Christian authors were aware of the problems preventing what they saw as complete devotion to their religion. Exploring these issues helps us understand the rules and institutions that would govern the Christian church in later centuries.