Pope Clement I (called CLEMENS ROMANUS to distinguish him from the
Alexandrian), is the first of thesuccessors of St. Peter of whom anything definite is known, and he is the first of the "Apostolic Fathers". His
feast is celebrated 23 November. He has left one genuine writing, a letter to the
Churchof
Corinth, and many others have been attributed to him.
The fourth pope
According to
Tertullian, writing c. 199, the
Roman Church claimed that Clement was
ordained by St. Peter (De Praescript., xxxii), and
St. Jerome tells us that in his time "most of the Latins" held thatClement was the immediate successor of the Apostle (
Illustrious Men 15).
St. Jerome himself in several other places follows this opinion, but here he correctly states that Clement was the fourth
pope. The early evidence shows great variety. The most ancient list of
popes is one made by Hegesippus in the time of Pope Anicetus, c. 160 (Harnack ascribes it to an unknown author under Soter, c. 170), cited by
St. Epiphanius (Haer., xxvii, 6). It seems to have been used by St. Irenæus (Haer., III, iii), by
Julius Africanus, who composed a chronography in 222, by the third- or fourth-century author of a Latinpoem against
Marcion, and by
Hippolytus, who see
chronology extends to 234 and is probably found in the "Liberian Catalogue" of 354. That catalogue was itself adopted in the
"Liber Pontificalis".
Eusebiusin his
chronicle and history used Africanus; in the latter he slightly corrected the dates.
St. Jerome'schronicle is a translation of
Eusebius's, and is our principal means for restoring the lost Greek of the latter; the
Armenian version and Coptic epitomes of it are not to be depended on. The varieties of order are as follows:
Linus, Cletus, Clemens (Hegesippus, ap. Epiphanium, Canon of Mass).
Linus, Anencletus, Clemens (Irenaeus, Africanus ap. Eusebium).
Linus, Anacletus, Clemens (Jerome).
- Linus, Cletus, Anacletus, Clemens (Poem against Marcion),
- Linus, Clemens, Cletus, Anacletus [Hippolytus (?), "Liberian Catal."- "Liber. Pont."].
- Linus, Clemens, Anacletus (Optatus, Augustine).
At the present time no critic
doubts that Cletus, Anacletus, Anencletus, are the same
person.Anacletus is a Latin
error; Cletus is a shortened (and more
Christian) form of Anencletus. Lightfoot thought that the transposition of Clement in the "Liberian Catalogue" was a mere accident, like the similar
error "Anicetus, Pius" for "Pius Anicetus", further on in the same list. But it may have been a deliberate alteration by
Hippolytus, on the ground of the tradition mentioned by
Tertullian. St. Irenæus(III, iii) tells us that Clement "saw the blessed Apostles and conversed with them, and had yet ringing in his ears the preaching of the Apostles and had their tradition before his eyes, and not he only for many were then surviving who had been taught y the Apostles". Similarly Epiphanius tells us (fromHegesippus) that Clement was a contemporary of Peter and Paul. Now
Linus and Cletus had each twelve years attributed to them in the list. If
Hippolytus found Cletus doubled by an
error (Cletus XII,Anacletus XII), the accession of Clement would appear to be thirty-six years after the death of the
Apostles. As this would make it almost impossible for Clement to have been their contemporary, it may have caused
Hippolytus to shift him to an earlier position. Further,
St. Epiphanius says (loc. cit.): "Whether he received episcopal
ordination from Peter in the life-time of the Apostles, and declined the office, for he says in one of his epistles 'I retire, I depart, let the people of
God be in peace', (for we have found this set down in certain Memoirs), or whether he was appointed by the Bishop Cletus after he had succeeded the Apostles, we do not clearly
know." The "Memoirs" were certainly those ofHegesippus. It seems unlikely that he is appealed to only for the quotation from the Epistle, c. liv; probably Epiphanius means that Hegesippus stated that Clement had been
ordained by Peter and declined to be
bishop, but twenty-four years later really exercised the office for nine years. Epiphaniuscould not reconcile these two facts;
Hippolytus seems to have rejected the latter.
Chronology
The date intended by Hegesippus is not hard to restore. Epiphanius implies that he placed the
martyrdom of the Apostles in the twelfth year of
Nero. Africanus calculated the fourteenth year (for he had attributed one year too little to the reigns of Caligula and Claudius), and added the imperialdate for the accession of each
pope; but having two years too few up to Anicetus he could not get the intervals to tally with the years of episcopate given by Hegesippus. He had a parallel difficulty in his list of the Alexandrian
bishops.
| Hegesippus | | Africanus (from Eusebius) | | Interval | | | Real Dates A.D. |
|---|
| Linus | 12 | Nero | 14 | 12 | Nero | 12 | 66 |
|---|
| Cletus | 12 | Titus | 2 | 12 | Vesp | 10 | 78 |
|---|
| Clemens | 9 | Dom | 12 | (7) | Dom | 10 | 80 |
|---|
| Euaristus | 8 | Trajan | 2 | (10) | Trajan | 2 | 99 |
|---|
| Alexander | 10 | Trajan | 12 | 10 | Trajan | 10 | 107 |
|---|
| Sixtus | 10 | Hadrian | 3 | (9) | Hadrian | 1 | 117 |
|---|
| Telesphorus | 11 | Hadrian | 12 | (10) | Hadrian | 11 | 127 |
|---|
| Hyginus | 4 | Anton | 1 | 4 | Anton | 1 | 138 |
|---|
| Pius | 15 | Anton | 5 | 15 | Anton | 5 | 142 |
|---|
| Anicetus | | Anton | | 20 | Anton | 20 | 157 |
|---|
If we start, as Hegesippus intended, with
Nero 12 (see last column), the sum of his years brings usright for the last three
popes. But Africanus has started two years wrong, and in order to get right at Hyginus he has to allow one year too little to each of the preceding
popes,
Sixtus and
Telesphorus. But there is one inharmonious date,
Trajan 2, which gives seven and ten years to Clement andEuaristus instead of nine and eight. Evidently he felt bound to insert a traditional date — and in fact we see that
Trajan 2 was the date intended by Hegesippus. Now we
know that Hegesippus spoke about Clement's acquaintance with the Apostles, and said nothing about any other
pope until
Telesphorus, "who was a glorious
martyr." It is not surprising, then, to find that Africanus had, besides the lengths of episcopate, two fixed dates from Hegesippus, those of the death of Clement in the second year of
Trajan, and of the
martyrdom of
Telesphorus in the first year of
Antoninus Pius. We may take it, therefore, that about 160 the death of St. Clement was believed to have been in 99.
Identity
Origen identifies Pope Clement with
St. Paul's fellow-labourer (
Philippians 4:3), and so do
Eusebius,Epiphanius, and Jerome — but this Clement was probably a
Philippian. In the middle of the nineteenth century it was the custom to identity the
pope with the consul of 95, T. Flavius Clemens, who was
martyred by his first cousin, the
Emperor Domitian, at the end of his consulship. But the ancients never suggest this, and the
pope is said to have lived on till the reign of
Trajan. It is unlikely that he was a member of the imperial
family. The continual use of the
Old Testament in his Epistle has suggested to Lightfoot, Funk, Nestle, and others that he was of Jewish origin. Probably he was a freedman or son of a freedman of the emperor's household, which included thousands or tens of thousands. We
know that there were
Christians in the household of
Nero (
Philippians 4:22). It is highly probable that the bearers of Clement's letter, Claudius Ephebus and Valerius Vito, were of this number, for the names Claudius and Valerius occur with great frequency in inscriptions among the freedmen of the Emperor Claudius (and his two predecessors of the same gens) and his wife Valeria Messalina. The two messengers are described as "faithful and prudent men, who have walked among us from youth unto old age unblameably", thus they were probably already
Christians and living in
Rome before the death of the Apostles about thirty years earlier. The Prefect of
Rome during
Nero's persecution wasTitus Flavius Sabinus, elder brother of the
Emperor Vespasian, and father of the
martyred Clemens.
Flavia Domitilla, wife of the Martyr, was a granddaughter of
Vespasian, and niece of Titus and
Domitian; she may have died a
martyr to the rigours of her banishment The
catacomb of
Domitilla is shown by existing inscriptions to have been founded by her. Whether she is distinct from anotherFlavia Domitilla, who is styled "Virgin and
Martyr", is uncertain. (See
FLAVIA DOMITILLA and
NEREUS AND ACHILLEUS) The consul and his wife had two sons
Vespasian and Domitian, who had Quintilian for their tutor. Of their life nothing is known. The elder brother of the
martyr Clemens was T. FlaviusSabinus, consul in 82,
put to death by
Domitian, whose sister he had married. Pope Clement is rep resented as his son in the Acts of Sts. Nereus and Achilleus, but this would make him too young to have known the
Apostles.
Martyrdom
Of the life and death of St, Clement nothing is known. The
apocryphal Greek Acts of his
martyrdomwere printed by Cotelier in his "Patres Apost." (1724, I, 808; reprinted in
Migne, P.G., II, 617, best edition by Funk, "Patr. Apost.", II, 28). They relate how he converted Theodora, wife of Sisinnius, a courtier of Nerva, and (after
miracles) Sisinnius himself and four hundred and twenty-three other
persons of rank.
Trajan banishes the
pope to the Crimea, where he slakes the thirst of two thousand
Christian confessors by a
miracle. The people of the country are converted, seventy-five churches are built.
Trajan, in consequence, orders Clement to be thrown into the sea with an iron anchor. But the tide every year recedes two miles, revealing a Divinely built shrine which contains the
martyr's bones. This story is not older than the fourth century. It is known to
Gregory of Tours in the sixth. About 868St. Cyril, when in the Crimea on the way to evangelize the Chazars, dug up some bones in a mound (not in a
tomb under the sea), and also an anchor. These were believed to be the
relics of St. Clement. They were carried by St. Cyril to
Rome, and deposited by
Adrian II with those of
St. Ignatius of Antioch in the
high altar of the basilica of St. Clement in
Rome. The history of this translation is evidently quite truthful, but there seems to have been no tradition with regard to the mound, which simply looked a likely place to be a
tomb. The anchor appears to be the only evidence of identity but we cannot gather from the account that it belonged to the scattered bones. (See Acta SS., 9 March, II, 20.) St. Clement is first mentioned as a
martyr by Rufinus (c. 400). Pope Zozimus in a letter toAfrica in 417 relates the trial and partial acquittal of the
heretic Caelestius in the basilica of St. Clement; the
pope had chosen this church because Clement had learned the Faith from St. Peter, and had given his life for it (Ep. ii). He is also called a
martyr by the writer known as Praedestinatus (c. 430) and by the Synod of
Vaison in 442. Modern critics think it possible that his
martyrdom was suggested by a confusion with his namesake, the
martyred consul. But the lack of tradition that he was buried in
Rome is in favour of his having died in exile.
The basilica
The church of St. Clement at
Rome lies in the valley between the Esquiline and Coelian hills, on the direct road from the Coliseum to the Lateran. It is now in the hands of the
Irish Province of
Dominicans. With its atrium, its choir enclosed by a wall, its
ambos, it is the most perfect model of an early basilica in
Rome, though it was built as late as the first years of the twelfth century by Paschal II, after the destruction of this portion of the city by the Normans under
Robert Guiscard. Paschal IIfollowed the lines of an earlier church, on a rather smaller scale, and employed some of its materials and fittings The marble wall of the present choir is of the
date of
John II (533-5). In 1858 the olderchurch was unearthed, below the present building, by the Prior Father Mulooly, O.P. Still lower were found chambers of imperial date and walls of the Republican period. The
lower church was built underConstantine (d. 337) or not much later.
St. Jerome implies that it was not new in his time: "nominis eius [Clementis] memoriam usque hodie Romae exstructa ecclesia custodit" (
Illustrious Men 15). It is mentioned in inscriptions of Damasus (d. 383) and Siricius (d. 398).
De Rossi thought the lowest chambers belonged to the house of Clement, and that the room immediately under the altar was probably the original
memoria of the
saint. These chambers communicate with a shrine of
Mithras, which lies beyond the
apse of the church, on the lowest level.
De Rossi supposed this to be a
Christianchapel purposely polluted by the authorities during the last
persecution. Lightfoot has suggested that the rooms may have belonged to the house of T. Flavius Clemens the consul, being later mistaken for the dwelling of the
pope; but this seems quite gratuitous. In the sanctuary of
Mithras a
statue of the Good Shepherd was found.
Pseudo-Clementine writings
Many writings have been falsely attributed to Pope St. Clement I:
- The "Second Clementine Epistle to the Corinthians", discussed under III.
- Two "Epistles to Virgins", extant in Syriac in an Amsterdam manuscript of 1470. The Greekoriginals are lost. Many critics have believed them genuine, for they were known in the fourth century to St. Epiphanius (who speaks of their being read in the Churches) and to St. Jerome. But it is now admitted on all hands that they cannot be by the same author as the genuineEpistle to the Corinthians. Some writers, as Hefele and Westcott, have attributed them to the second half of the second century, but the third is more probable (Harnack, Lightfoot). Harnack thinks the two letters were originally one. They were first edited by Wetstein, 1470, with Latintranslation, reprinted by Gallandi, "Bibl. vett. Patr.", I, and Migne, P.G., I. They are found in Latinonly in Mansi, "Concilia", I, and Funk "Patres Apost.", II. See Lightfoot, "Clement of Rome" (London, 1890), I Bardenhewer, "Gesch. der altkirchl. Litt." (Freiburg im Br., 1902), I; Harnack in "Sitzungsber. der k. preuss. Akad. der Wiss." (Berlin, 1891), 361 and "Chronol." (1904), II, 133.
- At the head of the Pseudo-Isidorian decretals stand five letters attributed to St. Clement. The first is the letter of Clement to James translated by Rufinus (see III); the second is another letter to James, found in many manuscripts of the "Recognitions". The other three are the work of Pseudo-Isidore (See FALSE DECRETALS.)
- Ascribed to Clement are the "Apostolical Constitutions", "Apostolic Canons", and the "Testament of Our Lord", also a Jacobite Anaphora (Renaudot, Liturg. Oriental. Coll., Paris, 1716, II; Migne, P.G., II). For other attributions see Harnack, "Gesch. der altchr. Lit." I, 777-80. The "Clementines" or Pseudo-Clementines. (q.v.)
The Epistle to the Corinthians
The
Church of
Corinth had been led by a few violent spirits into a sedition against its rulers. No appealseems to have been made to
Rome, but a letter was sent in the name of the
Church of
Rome by St. Clement to restore peace and unity. He begins by explaining that his delay in writing has been causedby the sudden calamities which, one after another, had just been falling upon the
Roman Church. The reference is clearly to the
persecution of
Domitian. The former high reputation of the Corinthian Churchis recalled, its
piety and hospitality, its obedience and discipline. Jealousy had caused the divisions; it was jealousy that led Cain, Esau, etc., into
sin, it was jealousy to which Peter and Paul and multitudes with them fell victims. The Corinthians are urged to repent after the example of the Patriarchs, and to be
humble like Christ himself. Let them observe order, as all creation does. A curious passage on the
Resurrection is somewhat of an interruption in the sequence: all creation proves the Resurrection, and so does the phoenix, which every five hundred years consumes itself, that its offspring may arise out of its ashes (23-6). Let us, Clement continues, forsake
evil and approach
God with purity, clinging to His blessing, which the Patriarchs so richly obtained, for the Lord will quickly come with His rewards, let us look to
Jesus Christ, our
High-Priest, above the
angels at the right hand of the Father (36).Discipline and subordination are
necessary as in an army and in the human body, while arrogance is absurd for man is nothing. The Apostles foresaw feuds, and provided for a succession of
bishops and
deacons; such, therefore cannot be removed at pleasure. The just have always been
persecuted. Read
St. Paul's first epistle to you, how he condemns party spirit. It is shocking that a few should disgrace the
Church of
Corinth. Let us beg for pardon; nothing is more beautiful than charity; it was shown by
Christ when He gave His Flesh for our flesh, His
Soul for our
souls; by living in this
love, we shall be in the number of the saved through
Jesus Christ, by Whom is glory to
God for ever and ever,
Amen (58). But if any disobey, he is in great danger; but we will
pray that the Creator may preserve the number of His elect in the whole world.--Here follows a beautiful Eucharistic
prayer (59-61). The conclusion follows: "We have said enough, on the necessity of repentance, unity, peace, for we have been speaking to the
faithful, who have deeply studied the Scriptures, and will understand the examples pointed out, and will follow them. We shall indeed be
happy if you obey. We have sent two venerable messengers, to show how great is our anxiety for peace among you" (62-4). "Finally may the all-seeing
God and Master of Spirits and Lord of all flesh, who chose the
Lord Jesus Christ and us through Him for a peculiar people, grant unto every
soul that is called after His excellent and holyName
faith, fear, peace, patience, long-suffering, temperance, chastity, and soberness, that they may be well-pleasing unto His Name through our
High Priest and Guardian.
Jesus Christ, through whom unto Him be glory and majesty, might and
honour, both now and for ever and ever,
Amen. Now send ye back speedily unto us our messengers Claudius Ephebus and Valerius Bito, together with Fortunatusalso, in peace and with
joy, to the end that they may the more quickly report the peace and concord which is
prayed for and earnestly desired by us, that we also may the more speedily rejoice over yourgood order. The grace of
our Lord Jesus Christ be with you and with all men in all places who have been called by
God and through Him, through whom is glory and
honour, power and greatness andeternal dominion, unto Him, from the ages past and for ever and ever.
Amen." (64-5.)
The style of the Epistle is earnest and simple, restrained and dignified, and sometimes eloquent. TheGreek is correct, though not classical. The quotations from the
Old Testament are long and numerous. The version of the
Septuagint used by Clement inclines in places towards that which appears in the
New Testament, yet presents sufficient evidence of independence; his readings are often with A, but are less often opposed to B than are those in the
New Testament; occasionally he is found against the
Septuagint with Theodotion or even Aquila (see H. B. Swete, Introd. to the 0. T. in Greek, Cambridge1900). The
New Testament he never quotes verbally. Sayings of Christ are now and then given, but not in the words of the Gospels. It cannot be
proved, therefore, that he used any one of the SynopticGospels. He mentions
St. Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians, and appears to imply a second. Heknows Romans and Titus, and apparently cites several other of
St. Paul's Epistles. But Hebrews is most often employed of all
New Testament books. James, probably, and I Peter, perhaps, are referred to. (See the lists of citations in Funk and Lightfoot, Westcott, Introductions to Holy Scripture, such as those of
Cornely, Zahn, etc., and "The New Test. in the Apost. Fathers", by a Committee of the Oxford Society of Hist. Theology, Oxford, 1906.) The tone of authority with which the letter speaks is noteworthy, especially in the later part (56, 58, etc.): "But if certain
persons should be disobedient unto the words spoken by Him through us let them understand that they will entangle themselves in no slight transgression and danger; but we shall be guiltless of this
sin" (59). "It may, perhaps, seem strange", writes Bishop Lightfoot, "to describe this noble remonstrance as the first step towards
papaldomination. And yet undoubtedly this is the case." (I, 70.)
Doctrine
There is little intentional dogmatic teaching in the Epistle, for it is almost wholly hortatory. A passage on the
Holy Trinity is important. Clement uses the
Old Testament affirmation "The Lord liveth", substituting the Trinity thus: "As God liveth, and the
Lord Jesus Christ liveth and the Holy Spirit — thefaith and hope of the elect, so surely he that performeth", etc. (58). Christ is frequently represented as the
High-Priest, and
redemption is often referred to. Clement speaks strongly of justification by works. His words on the
Christian ministry have given rise to much discussion (42 and 44): "TheApostles received the Gospel for us from the
Lord Jesus Christ;
Jesus Christ was sent from
God. So then Christ is from
God, and the Apostles from Christ. Both [missions] therefore came in due order by the will of
God..... So preaching everywhere in country and town, they appointed their
first-fruits, having
proved them by the
Spirit, to be
bishops and
deacons for those who should believe. And this in no new fashion, for it had indeed been written from very ancient times about
bishops and
deacons; for thus saith the Scripture: 'I will appoint their
bishops in
justice and their
deacons in
faith"' (a strangecitation of
Isaiah 60:17). . . . "And our Apostles
knew through
our Lord Jesus Christ that there would be strife over the name of the office of
bishop. For this cause therefore, having received complete foreknowledge, they appointed the aforesaid
persons, and afterwards they have given a law, so that, if these should fall asleep, other approved men should succeed to their ministration."
Rothe, Michiels(Origines de l'episcopat, Louvain, 1900, 197), and others awkwardly understand "if they, the Apostles, should fall asleep". For
epinomen dedokasin, which the Latin renders
legem dederunt, Lightfoot reads
epimonen dedokasin, "they have provided a continuance". In any case the general meaning is clear, that the Apostles provided for a lawful succession of
ministers. Presbyters are mentioned several times, but are not distinguished from
bishops. There is absolutely no mention of a
bishop at
Corinth, and the
ecclesiastical authorities there are always spoken of in the. plural. R. Sohm thinks there was as yet no
bishop at
Corinth when Clement wrote (so Michiels and many other
Catholic writers; Lightfoot leaves the question open), but that a
bishop must have been appointed in consequence of the letter; he thinks that
Rome was the origin of all
ecclesiastical institutions and
laws (Kirchenrecht 189). Harnack in 1897 (Chronol., I) upheld the paradox that the
Church of
Rome was so conservative as to be governed by
presbyters until Anicetus; and that when the list of
popes was composed, c. 170, there had been a
bishop for less than twenty years; Clement and others in the list were only
presbyters of special influence.
The
liturgical character of parts of the Epistle is elaborately discussed by Lightfoot. The
prayer (59-61) already mentioned, which reminds us of the
Anaphora of early
liturgies, cannot be regarded, says Duchesne, "as a reproduction of a sacred formulary but it is an excellent example of the style ofsolemn
prayer in which the
ecclesiastical leaders of that time were accustomed to express themselves at meetings for worship" (Origines du culte chret., 3rd ed., 50; tr., 50). The fine passage aboutCreation, 32-3, is almost in the style of a Preface, and concludes by introducing the Sanctus by the usual mention of the
angelic powers: "Let us mark the whole host of the
angels, how they stand by and minister unto His Will. For the Scripture saith: Ten thousand times ten thousand stood by Him, and thousands of thousands ministered unto Him, and they cried aloud: Holy holy, holy is the Lord of
Sabaoth; all creation is full of His glory. Yea, and let us ourselves then
being gathered together in concord with intentness of heart, cry unto Him." The combination of
Daniel 7:10 with
Isaiah 6:3 may be from a
liturgical formula. It is interesting to note that the contemporary
Apocalypse of St. John 4:8shows the four living creatures, representing all creation, singing the Sanctus at the heavenly Mass.
The historical references in the letter are deeply interesting: "To pass from the examples of ancient days, let us come to those champions who lived very near to our time. Let us set before us the noble examples which belong to our generation. By reason of jealousy and
envy the greatest and most righteous pillars of the
Church were
persecuted, and contended even until death. Let us set before our eyes the good Apostles. There was Peter, who by reason of unrighteous jealousy endured not one or two, but many labours, and thus having borne his testimony went to his appointed Place of glory. Byreason of jealousy and strife Paul by his example pointed out the prize of patient endurance. After that he had been seven times in bonds, had been driven into exile, had been stoned, had preached in theEast and in the West, he won the noble renown which was the reward of his
faith having taught righteousness unto the whole world and having reached the farthest bounds of the West; and when he had borne his testimony before the rulers, so he departed from the world and went unto the holyplace having been found a notable pattern of patient endurance (5). It is obvious that these twoApostles are mentioned because they suffered at
Rome. It seems that
St. Paul went to
Spain as he intended (
Romans 15:28) and as is declared by the spurious Acts of Peter and by the
Muratorian fragment. "Unto these men of holy lives was gathered a vast multitude of the
elect who through many indignities and tortures, being the victims of jealousy, set a
brave example among ourselves. By reasonof jealousy
women being
persecuted, after that they had suffered cruel and unholy insults as Danaids and Dircae, safely reached the goal in the race of
faith, and received a noble reward, feeble though they were in body" (6). The "vast multitude" both of men and
women "among ourselves" at
Rome refers to the horrible
persecution of
Nero, described by Tacitus, "Ann.", XV, xliv. It is in the recent past, and the writer continues: "We are in the same lists, and the same contest awaits us" (7)- he is under another
persecution, that of
Domitian, covertly referred to as a series of "sudden and repeated calamities and reverses", which have prevented the letter from being written sooner. The
martyrdomof the Consul Clement (probably patron of the
pope's own
family) and the exile of his wife will be among these disasters.
Date and authenticity
The date of the letter is determined by these notices of
persecution. It is strange that even a fewgood scholars (such as Grotius Grabe,
Orsi, Uhlhorn, Hefele, Wieseler) should have dated it soon after
Nero. It is now universally acknowledged, after Lightfoot, that it was written about the last year of
Domitian (Harnack) or immediately after his death in 96 (Funk).
In 1996, as Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, PopeBenedict XVI supported a date of A.D. 70, and by 2002 most scholars a date earlier than 96, some agreeing with the A.D. 70 date. The
Roman Church had existed several decades, for the two envoys to Corinth had lived in it from youth to age. The
Church of
Corinth is called
archai (47). Bishops and
deacons have succeeded to
bishops and
deacons appointed by the
Apostles (44). Yet the time of the Apostles is "quite lately" and "our own veneration" (5). The external evidence is in accord. The dates given for Clement'sepiscopate by Hegesippus are apparently 90-99, and that early writer states that the
schism at
Corinth took place under
Domitian (
Eusebius,
Church History III.16, for
kata ton deloumenon is meaningless if it is taken to refer to Clement and not to
Domitian; besides, the whole of
Eusebius'saccount of that emperor's
persecution, III, xvii-xx, is founded on Hegesippus). St. Irenæus says thatClement still remembered the Apostles, and so did many others, implying an interval of many years after their death. Volkmar placed the date in the reign of Hadrian, because the Book of Judith is quoted, which he declared to have been written in that reign. He was followed by Baur, but not by Hilgenfeld. Such a date is manifestly impossible, if only because the Epistle of Polycarp is entirely modelled on that of Clement and borrows from it freely. It is possibly employed by St. Ignatius, c. 107, and certainly in the letter of the Smyrnaeans on the
martyrdom of St. Polycarp, c. 156.
The Epistle is in the name of the
Church of
Rome but the early authorities always ascribe it toClement. Dionysius,
Bishop of
Corinth, wrote c. 170 to the Romans in Pope Soter's time: "Today we kept the holy day, the Lord's day, and on it we read your letter- and we shall ever have it to give us instruction, even as the former one written through Clement" (
Eusebius,
Church History IV.30).Hegesippus attributed the letter to Clement.
Irenaeus, c. 180-5 perhaps using Hegesippus, says: "Under this Clement no small sedition took place among the brethren at
Corinth and the
Church of
Rome sent a most sufficient letter to the Corinthians, establishing them in peace, and renewing their
faith, and announcing the tradition it had recently received from the Apostles" (III, iii).
Clement of Alexandria, c. 200, frequently quotes the Epistle as Clement's, and so do
Origen and
Eusebius. Lightfoot and Harnack are fond of pointing out that we hear earlier of the importance of the
Roman Church than of the authority of the Roman
bishop. If Clement had spoken in his own name, they would surely have noted expressly that he wrote not as
Bishop of Rome, but as an aged "presbyter" who hadknown the
Apostles. St. John indeed was still alive, and Corinth was rather nearer to Ephesus than to
Rome. Clement evidently writes officially, with all that authority of the
Roman Church of which Ignatiusand
Irenaeus have so much to say.
The Second Letter to the Corinthians
An ancient
homily by an anonymous author has come down to us in the same two Greek
manuscriptsas the
Epistle of Clement, and is called the
Second Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians. It is first mentioned by
Eusebius (
Church History III.37), who considered it spurious, as being unknown to the ancients; he is followed (perhaps not independently) by Rufinus and Jerome. Its inclusion as a letter ofClement in the
Codex Alexandrinus of the whole Bible in the fifth century is the earliest testimony to a
belief in its authenticity; in the sixth century it is quoted by the
Monophysite leaders Timothy of
Alexandria and Severus of Antioch, and it was later known to many Greek writers. This witness is a great contrast to the very early veneration paid to the genuine letter. Hilgenfeld's theory that it is the letter of Pope Soter to the Corinthians, mentioned by Dionysius in the fragment quoted above, was accepted by many critics, until the discovery of the end of the work by Bryennios showed that it was not a letter at all, but a
homily. Still Harnack has again and again defended this view. An apparent reference to the Isthmian Games in 7 suggests that the
homily was delivered at
Corinth; but this would be in character if it was a letter addressed to Corinth. Lightfoot and others think it earlier than
Marcion, c. 140, but its reference to
Gnostic views does not allow us to place it much earlier. Thematter of the sermon is a very general exhortation, and there is no definite plan or sequence. Some citations from unknown Scriptures are interesting.
