S. Clement of Rome, First Epistle, CIRCA A.D. 95–6
About the year of grace 95–6, Clement, bishop of Rome, wrote his letter to the Christian congregation of Corinth—generally known as his 1st Epistle. From the days of Irenæus downwards this letter has ever been considered a work of the highest importance, and its genuineness as a writing of Clement of Rome has never been disputed. Its importance consists in its record of the traditional interpretation of the apostolic teaching which was held in the great congregation of the metropolis from the first days. The immediate reasons of the Bishop of Rome writing to the Church of Corinth were the disastrous internal dissensions which were harassing the Corinthian congregation, disputes which not only marred its influence at home, but were productive of grave scandal abroad, and which, unless checked, would seriously affect the work of the Church in cities far distant from Corinth.
It was a gentle loving letter of remonstrance; but its value to the Church at large in all times consists in its being an authoritative declaration of the doctrine taught in the great Church in Rome in the closing years of the first century, somewhat more than a quarter of a century after the deaths of SS. Peter and Paul.
Clement in his Epistle to the Church of Corinth had no intention of writing a history of his Church. The object of his writing was a very different one. There are, however, a few notices scattered here and there in the course of his long letter, which bear upon the subject now under discussion, i.e., the continuous nature of the persecution under which the Christian folk lived from the year 64 onward.
Clement begins by explaining the reason of his delay in taking up the questions which vexed the Corinthian congregation. “By reason of the sudden and repeated calamities which are befalling us, we consider, brethren, we have been somewhat tardy in giving heed to the matters of dispute that have arisen among you, dearly beloved” (1 Ep. 1).
The next allusion is a very striking one. “But to pass from the examples of ancient days” (Clement had been quoting from the Old Testament), “let us come to those champions who lived very near to our time. Let us set before us the examples which belong to our generation ... the greatest and most righteous pillars of the Church were persecuted and contended even unto death. There was Peter who ... endured not one nor two but many labours, and then having borne his testimony went to his appointed place of glory.... Paul by his example pointed out the prize of patient endurance ... he departed from the world, and went unto the holy place.... Unto these men of holy lives was gathered a vast multitude, who through many indignities and tortures ... set a brave example among ourselves.
“These things, dearly beloved, we write not only as admonishing you, but also as putting ourselves in remembrance; for we are in the same lists, and the same contest awaiteth us” (1 Ep. 5–7).
Clement’s words here, which occur in the middle of his argument, indisputably imply that after the martyr-death of the two great Christian teachers Peter and Paul, a continuous persecution harried the congregation (he is speaking especially of Rome) all through his own generation. “A vast multitude of the elect,” he tells us, in their turn suffered martyrdom, and were joined to the eminent leaders who had gone before them. When Domitian perished we know there was a temporary lull in the storm of persecution. Dion relates how the Emperor Nerva dismissed those who were awaiting their trial on the charge of sacrilege. It was no doubt in this very brief period of comparative quiet that Clement had leisure to attend to the troubled affairs at the Church of Corinth, and to write the important letter just quoted from.
But the Roman bishop was aware that “the lull” was quite a temporary one, and was due only to the reaction which set in after the murder of Domitian during the short reign of the Emperor Nerva; for he goes on to speak (in chap. vi.) of his condition and of the condition of his co-religionists at Rome: “We are in the same lists (with those who have been slain), and the same contest awaits us.”