3 - Clement of Rome: The Earliest Christian Author after the Apostles | Way of the Fathers
32,191
Published 2020-01-13
Clement’s Epistle to the Corinthians is, says Johannes Quasten, “the earliest piece of literature outside the New Testament for which the name, position, and date of the author are historically attested.” It provides us a snapshot of Church life as the first Christian generation turned over to the second. And it reveals the origins of so many doctrines: apostolic succession, Roman primacy, the papal office, and the unity of the Old Testament and the New.
Christians today don’t fully understand the achievement of the Apostles unless they understand the work of their immediate disciples. Clement knew both Peter and Paul and carried their mission forward according to their model and instructions. His words are useful for our own time of crisis.
Links
Buy Kenneth Howell’s new edition and translation of Clement of Rome’s Epistle. www.amazon.com/Clement-Didache-Early-Christian-Fat…
Read Clement in the context of the other Apostolic Fathers. www.amazon.com/Early-Christian-Writings-Apostolic-…
Compare Clement’s letter in Greek and English. www.amazon.com/1-Clement-Readers-Theodore-Bergren/…
Read a recent study of Clement’s Letter, by a respected scholar and official of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. www.amazon.com/Clement-Early-Church-Rome-Corinthia…
Clement’s First Epistle to the Corinthians online www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/fathers/vi…
More Works by the Fathers www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/fathers/
Mike Aquilina’s Website fathersofthechurch.com/
Theme music: Gaudeamus (Introit for the Feast of All Saints), sung by Jeff Ostrowski. Courtesy of www.ccwatershed.org/.
Donate today! www.catholicculture.org/donate/audio
All Comments (17)
-
I'm a protestant "Church of Christ" . There needs to be an outreach to make protestants aware of the continuation of Acts. No one, that I know, has ever mentioned Clement. It was as if there was radio silence after Acts and epistles were written, the way we were taught. Keep up the Lord's work, and I'll eagerly keep listening and studying form your series.
-
According to the ecclesiastical writings of Eusebius, it was Barnabas who introduced Clement of Rome to Peter. Barnabas was also John Mark's cousin and the Apostle Paul's brother-in-law.
-
This was excellent. I was expecting a polemic monologue filled with apologetics, and was delighted to discover instead a high-level, scholarly approach to and investigation of the personhood of Clement of Rome.
-
Superb thank you.
-
Thank you 🙏
-
Very interesting
-
Thanks a lot.
-
when you recite the hail holy queen,who was o clemen?
-
It’s debatable as to whether he Or Polycarp wrote first.
-
Do we have any correspondence between St. Peter and Clement?. Do we have any evidence that Peter was considered "Bishop of Rome" from historians at this time?
-
So we don't know for sure who he was and even if he wrote on his own merits or represented a collective. We don't even know if he wrote early (pre 70 AD) or late(circa 95-100+). What we do know is that it is anachronistic to read later understandings and terms into his writings. Interestingly, his writing seems closer to the writing of the NT and his understanding of God is far removed from that of post Nicean fathers.
-
Polycarp?
-
I’ve read his letter and I haven’t seen anything that indicates he was the only Bishop at Rome or that the papacy existed.
-
This is a very good treatment of a very important piece of Church history. That said, one needs to be careful when using the terms "Bishop" and "Pope" in the context of Clement. There is a strong argument to be made (See for example R Brown and Benedict XVI) that what we would consider today the office of Bishop was not yet established in Rome at the time of 1 Clement - even if you accept the later dating. Consequently, 1 Clement cannot rightfully be used as an example of "Roman Primacy." It does no good to Catholic Christianity to project the ideas of papacy and Roman primacy back that far into Church history. The more we Catholics come to terms with this truth, the better true ecumenism can prosper and the stronger the Christian witness to the world.
-
People need to understand that in the first church the Roman church wasn’t preeminent! We had several centres of Christianity such as Antioch, Jerusalem, Ephesus and Alexandria. These churches were all on the same level and there was no Pope preeminent over them.
-
If in Matthew it says to call no one Rabbi or Father why do we call these men Fathers of the church? I'm not implying their impact and there usage by God to be a vessel, by why do Catholics (universal) call men Father; say to a man "forgive me Father for I have sinned", asking a man for forgiveness. I am lost on where this comes from
