St Clement, Pope & Martyr

From Fr Alban Butler's Lives of the Saints:

See Tillemont t. 2, p. 162; Celliler, Wake, Pagi ad an 100, n. 2; Schelstrate, Ant. Illustr. Diss. 3, c. 2, p 340; Adnotatores in Anast. Bibi. t. 2, p. 55, ed. an. 1723; Oral, t. 1,1. 2.

A. D. 100.

ST. CLEMENT, the son of Faustinus, a Roman by birth, was of Jewish extraction; for he tells us himself, that he was of the race of Jacob.1 He was converted to the faith by St. Peter or St. Paul, and was so constant in his attendance on these apostles, and so active in assisting them in their ministry, that St. Jerom and other fathers call him an apostolic man; St. Clement of Alexandria2 styles him an apostle; and Rufinus,3 almost an apostle. Some authors attribute his conversion to St. Peter, whom he met at Csarea with St. Barnabas: but he attended St. Paul at Philippi in 62, and shared in his sufferings there. We are assured by St. Chrysostom,4 that he was a companion of this latter, with SS. Luke and Timothy, in many of his apostolie journeys, labors, and dangers. St. Paul (Phil. 4:3) calls him his fellow-laoorer, and ranks him among those whose names are written in the book of life; a privilege and matter of joy far beyond the power of commanding devils. (Luke 10:17) St. Clement followed St. Paul to Rome, where he also heard St. Peter preach, and was instructed in his school, as St. Irenus,5 and pope Zozimus testify. Tertullian tells us,6 that St. Peter ordained him bishop, by which some understand that he made him a bishop of nations to preach the gospel in many countries; others, with Epiphanius,7 that he made him his vicar at Rome, with an episcopal character to govern tha church during his absence in his frequent missions. Others suppose he might at first be made bishop of the Jewish church in that city. After the martyrdom of SS. Peter and Paul, St. Linus was appointed bishop of Rome, and, after eleven years, succeeded by St. Cletus. Upon his demise, in 89, or rather in 91, St. Clement was placed in the apostolic chair. According to the Liborian Calendar he sat nine years, eleven months, and twenty days.

At Corinth, an impious and detestable division, as our saint called it, happened amongst the faithful, like that which St. Paul had appeased in the same church; and a party rebelled against holy and irreproachable priests, and presumed to depose them. It seems to have been soon after the death of Domitian, in 96,* that St. Clement, in the name of the church of Rome, wrote to them his excellent epistle, a piece highly extolled and esteemed in the primitive church as an admirable work, as Eusebius calls it.8 It was placed in rank next to the canonical books of the holy scriptures, and with them read in the churches. Whence it was found in the very ancient Alexandrian manuscript copy of the Bible which Cyril Lucaris sent to our king James I., from which Patrick Young, the learned keeper of that king’s library, published it at Oxford in 1633. St. Clement begins his letter by conciliating the benevolence of those who were at variance, tenderly putting them in mind, how edifying their behavior was when they were all humble-minded, not boasting of any thing, desiring rather to be subject than to govern, to give than to receive, content with the portion God had dispensed to them, listening diligently to his word, having an insatiable desire of doing good and a plentiful effusion of the Holy Ghost upon all of them. At that time they were sincere, without offence, not mindful of injuries, and all sedition and schism was an abomination to them. The saint laments that they had then forsaken the fear of the Lord, and were fallen into pride, envy, strife, and sedition, and pathetically exhorts them to lay aside all pride and anger, for Christ is theirs who are humble, and not theirs who exalt themselves The sceptre of the majesty of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, came not in the show of pride, though he could have done so; but with humility. He bids them look up to the Creator of the world, and think how gentle and patient he is towards his whole creation: also with what peace it all obeys his will, and the heavens, earth, impassable ocean, and worlds beyond it,† are governed by the commands of this great master. Considering how near God is to us, and that none of our thoughts are hid from him, how ought we never to do any thing contrary to his will, and honor them who are set over use showing with a sincere affection of meekness, and manifesting the government of our tongues by a love of silence. “Let your children,” says the saint, “be bred up in the instruction of the Lord, and learn how great a power humility has with God, how much a pure and holy charity avails with him, and how excellent and great his fear is.”

It appears by what follows, that some at Corinth boggled at the belief of a resurrection of the flesh, which the saint beautifully shows to be easy to the almighty power, and illustrates by the vine which sheds its leaves, then buds, spreads its leaves, flowers, and afterwards produces first sour grapes, then ripe fruit; by the morning rising from night, and corn brought forth from seed. The resurrection of the fabulous Phœnix in Arabia, which he adds was at that time very strongly affirmed and believed by judicious Roman critics,9 and might be made use of for illustration; and whether the author of this epistle believed it or no, is a point of small importance, whatever some may have said upon that subject.10 The saint adds a strong exhortation to shake off all sluggishness and laziness, for it is only the good workman who receives the bread of his labor. “We must hasten,” says he, “with all earnestness and readiness of mind, to perfect every good work, laboring with cheerfulness: for even the Creator and Lord of all things rejoices in his own works.” The latter part of this epistle is a pathetic recommendation of humility, peace, and charity. “Let every one,” says the saint, “be subject to another, according to the order in which he is placed by the gift of God. Let not the strong man neglect the care of the weak; let the weak see that he reverence the strong. Let the rich man distribute to the necessity of the poor, and let the poor bless God who giveth him one to supply his want. Let the wise man show forth his wisdom, not in words, but in good works. Let him that is humble, never speak of himself, or make show of his actions. Let him that is pure in the flesh, not grow proud of it, knowing that it was another who gave him the gift of continence.11 They who are great cannot yet subsist without those that are little: nor the little without the great.—In our body, the head without the feet is nothing: neither the feet without the head. And the smallest members of our body are yet both necessary and useful to the whole.”12 Thus the saint teaches that the lowest in the church may be the greatest before God, if they are most faithful in the discharge of their respective duties; which maxim Epictetus, the heathen philosopher, illustrates by a simile taken from a play, in which we inquire not so much who acts the part of the king, and who that of the beggar, as who acts best the character which he sustains, and to him we give our applause. St. Clement puts pastors and superiors in mind, that, with trembling and humility, they should have nothing but the fear of God in view, and take no pleasure in their own power and authority. “Let us.” says he, “pray for all such as fall into any trouble or distress: that being endued with humility and moderation, they may submit, not to us but to the will of God.”13 Fortunatus, who is mentioned by St. Pau1,14 was come from the church of Corinth to Rome, to inform that holy see of their unhappy schism. St. Clement says, he had dispatched four messengers to Corinth with him, and adds: “Send them back to us again with all speed in peace and joy, that they may the sooner acquaint us with your peace and concord so much prayed for and desired by us; and that we may rejoice in your good order.”

We have a large fragment of a second epistle of St. Clement to the Corinthians, found in the same Alexandrian manuscript of the Bible; from which circumstance it appears to have been also read like the former in many churches, which St. Dionysius of Corinth expressly testifies of that church15 though it was not so celebrated among the ancients as the other. In it our saint exhorts the faithful to despise this world and its false enjoyments, and to have those which are promised us always before our eyes; to parsue virtue with all our strength, and its peace will follow us with the inexpressible delights of the promise of what is to come. The necessity of perfectly subduing both the irascible and concupiscible passions of our soul, he lays down as the foundation of a Christian life, in words which St. Clement of Alexandria enforces and illustrates. Besides these letters of St. Clement to the Corinthians, two others have been lately discovered, which are addressed to spiritual eunuchs, or virgins. Of these St. Jerom speaks, when he says of certain epistles of St. Clement:16 “In the epistles which Clement, the successor of the apostle Peter, wrote to them, that is, to such eunuchs, almost his whole discourse turns upon the excellence of virginity.” Doctor Cave,17 having in his eye the letters of this saint to the Corinthians, is angry with St. Jerom for these words, and accuses him of calling a period or two in this saint’s first epistle to the Corinthians, in which virginity is commended, the whole epistle. But this learned writer, and his friend Dr. Grabe,18 founded this false charge upon a gross mistake, being strangers to these two letters, which were found in a manuscript copy of a Syriac New Testament, by John James Westein, in 1752, and printed by him with a Latin translation at Amsterdam, in 1752, and again in 1757.* A French translation of them has been published with short critical notes. These letters are not unworthy this great disciple of St. Peter; and in them the counsels of St. Paul concerning celibacy and virginity are explained, that state is pathetically recommended, without prejudice to the honor due to the holy state of marriage; and the necessity of shunning all familiarity with persons of a different sex, and the like occasions of incontinence, is set in a true light.†

St. Clement with patience and prudence got through the persecution of Domitian. Nerva’s peaceable reign being very short, the tempest increased under Trajan, who, even from the beginning of his reign, never allowed the Christian assemblies. It was in the year 100, that the third general perse cution was raised by him, which was the more afflicting, as this reign was in other respects generally famed for justice and moderation. Rufin,19 pope Zosimus,20 and the council of Bazas in 452,21 expressly style St. Clement a martyr. In the ancient canon of the Roman mass, he is ranked among the martyrs. There stood in Rome, in the eighth century, a famous church of St. Clement, in which the cause of Celestus the Pelagian was discussed. This was one of the titles, or parishes of the city; for Renatus, legate from St. Leo to the false council of Ephesus, was priest of the title of St. Clement’s. At that time only martyrs gave titles to churches.‡ Eusebius tells us, that St. Clement departed this life in the third year of Trajan, of Christ 100 From this expression some will have it that he died a natural death. But St. Clement says of St. Paul, who certainly died a martyr, that the departed out of the world.”22 It is also objected, that St. Irenus gives the title of martyr only to St. Telesphorus among the popes before St. Eleutherius.23 But it is certain that some others were martyrs, whatever was the cause of his omission. St. Irenus mentions the epistle of St. Clement, yet omits those of St. Ignatius, though in some places he quotes him. Shall we hence argue, that St. Ignatius wrote none? When the emperor Louis Dbonnaire founded the great abbey of Cava in Abruzzo, four miles from Salerno, in 872, he enriched it with the relics of St. Clement, pope and martyr, which pope Adrian sent him, as is related at length in the chronicle of that abbey, with a history of many miracles. These relics remain there to this day.24 The ancient church of St. Clement in Rome, in which St. Gregory the Great preached several of his homilies, still retains part of his relics. It was repaired by Clement XI., but still shows entire the old structure of Christian churches, divided into three parts, the narthex, the ambo, and the sanctuary.25

St. Clement inculcates,26 that the spirit of Christianity is a spirit of perfect disengagement from the things of this world. “We must,” says he, “look upon all the things of this world, as none of ours, and not desire them This world and that to come are two enemies. We cannot therefore be friends to both; but we must resolve which we would forsake, and which we would enjoy. And we think, that it is better to hate the present things, as little, short-lived, and corruptible; and to love those which are to come, which are truly good and incorruptible.—Let us contend with all earnestness, knowing that we are now called to the combat.—Let us run in the strait road, the race that is incorruptible.—This is what Christ saith: ‘Keep your bodies pure, and your souls without spot, that ye may receive eternal life.’ ”