St. Clement of Rome
(Pope C. 92-101 AD)
Historical Note
We are aware from the writings of Hegesippus, St. Irenaeus of Lyons and
Eusebius of Caesarea that St. Clement was the third successor to St. Peter
as Bishop of Rome (after Linus and Cletus). The fact that he held such a
position of authority is clearly evident in the opening address of his epistle
whereby he makes an attempt to heal the ruptures in the Church of Corinth
which resulted in insurrection against the bishop and presbyters and their
deposition. St. Clement in his epistle is deeply concerned with the sin of
pride which he saw as responsible for the jealousy, strife and disorders
racking the Corinthians.
St. Clement wrote only one epistle which was held in very high esteem in
the early Church: “Clement has left us one recognized epistle, long and
wonderful, which he composed in the name of the church of Rome…in
many churches this epistle was read aloud to the assembled worshippers in
early days, as it is in our own” (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 3, 4, 80).
The Apostolical Canons of the sixth century actually includes St. Clement’s
epistle in the New Testament canon. Some in the early Church held the
opinion that St. Clement also wrote the book of Hebrews or translated it
into Greek. Extant ancient copies of St. Clement’s epistle exist in Greek,
Syriac and Latin.
Most authorities date the composition of St. Clement’s epistle around the
years 96-98 AD (Lightfoot, Harnack, Funk). This dating is based upon the
opening words of the epistle’s main text, “Owing to the sudden and
repeated calamities and misfortunes which have befallen us,” as referring
to the persecution of the Emperor Domitian. However, Jurgens (Vol. 1, p.
7) prefers to give the year 80 for the epistle’s date basing his view that (i)
the “repeated calamities” in question rather refers to the eruption of
Vesuvius which also caused fire and pestilence in Rome, (ii) there are very
few New Testament references in the work and (iii) that the martyrdom of
Sts. Peter and Paul are referred to as recent events.
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