Page:Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature (1911).djvu/191

Rh ordination seems to have been fully believed by the Roman church. The death of Clement and the consequent accession of Evaristus is dated by Eusebius in his Chronicle A.D. 95, and in his Church History the third year of Trajan, A.D. 100. According to the chronology of the Liberian Catalogue, the accession of Evaristus is dated A.D. 95. Now no one dates the death of Peter later than the persecution of Nero, A.D. 67. If, therefore, Clement was ordained by Peter, and if we retain the order of Irenaeus, Clement had an episcopate of about 30 years, a length far greater than any tradition suggests. Hippolytus, probably following the then received account of the length of Clement's episcopate, has placed it A.D. 67‒76; and, seeing the above difficulty, has filled the space between Clement and Evaristus by transposing Cletus and, as the gap seemed too large to be filled by one episcopate, by counting as distinct the Cletus of the liturgy and the Anacletus of the earlier catalogue. Apparently it was Hippolytus who devised the theory stated in the Apostolic Constitutions, that Linus held the bishopric during the lifetime of Peter; for this seems to be the interpretation of the dates assigned in the Liberian Catalogue, Peter 30‒55, Linus 55‒67. But the whole ground of these speculations is removed if we reject the tale of Clement's ordination by Peter; if for no other reason, on account of the chronological confusion which it causes. Thus we retain the order of Irenaeus, accounting that of Hippolytus as an arbitrary transposition to meet a chronological difficulty. The time that we are thus led to assign to the activity of Clement, viz. the end of Domitian's reign, coincides with that which Eusebius, apparently on the authority of Hegesippus, assigns to Clement's epistle, and with that which an examination of the letter itself suggests (see below).

The result thus arrived at casts great doubt on the identification of the Roman Clement with the Clement named Phil. iv. 3. This identification is unhesitatingly made by Origen (in Joann. i. 29) and a host of later writers. Irenaeus also may have had this passage in mind when he speaks of Clement as a hearer of the apostles, though probably he was principally influenced by the work which afterwards grew into the Recognitions. But though it is not actually impossible that the Clement who held a leading position in the church of Philippi during Paul's imprisonment might thirty years afterwards have presided over the church of Rome, yet the difference of time and place deprives of all likelihood an identification merely based upon a very common name. Lightfoot has remarked that Tacitus, for instance, mentions five Clements (Ann. i. 23, ii. 39, xv. 73; Hist. i. 86, iv. 68). Far more plausibly it has been proposed to identify the author of the epistle with another Clement, who was almost certainly at the time a distinguished member of the Roman church. We learn from Suetonius (Domit. 15) and from Dio Cassius, lxvii. 14, that in 95, the very year fixed by some for the death of bp. Clement, death or banishment was inflicted by Domitian on several persons addicted to Jewish customs, and amongst them Flavius Clemens, a relation of his own, whose consulship had but just expired, was put to death on a charge of atheism, while his wife Domitilla, also a member of the emperor's family, was banished. The language is such as heathen writers might naturally use to describe a persecution of Christians; but Eusebius (H. E. iii. 13) expressly claims one Domitilla, a niece of the consul's, as a sufferer for Christ; and (Chron. sub anno 95) cites the heathen historian Bruttius as stating that several Christians suffered martyrdom at this time. If, then, the consul Clement was a Christian martyr, his rank would give him during his life a foremost position in the Roman church. It is natural to think that the writer of the epistle may have been either the consul or a member of his family. Yet if so, the traditions of the Roman church must have been singularly defective. No writer before Rufinus speaks of bp. Clement as a martyr; nor does any ancient writer in any way connect him with the consul. In the Recognitions Clement is represented as a relation of the emperor; not, however, of Domitian, but of Tiberius. A fabulous account of Clement's martyrdom, probably of no earlier origin than the 9th cent., tells how Clement was first banished to the Crimea, worked there such miracles as converted the whole district, and was thereupon by Trajan's order cast into the sea with an anchor round his neck, an event followed by new prodigies.

The only genuine work of Clement is the Ep. to the Corinthians already mentioned. Its main object is to restore harmony to the Corinthian church, which had been disturbed by questions apparently concerning discipline rather than doctrine. The bulk of the letter is taken up in enforcing the duties of meekness, humility, submission to lawful authority, and but little attempt is made at the refutation of doctrinal error. Some pains, it is true, are taken to establish the doctrine of the Resurrection; but this subject is not connected by the writer with the disputes, and so much use is made of Paul's Ep. to the Corinthians that we cannot lay much stress on the fact that one of the topics of that epistle is fully treated. The dissensions are said to have been caused by the arrogance of a few self-willed persons who led a revolt against the authority of the presbyters. Their pride probably rested on their possession of spiritual gifts, and perhaps on the chastity which they practised. Though pains are taken to shew the necessity of a distinction of orders, we cannot infer that this was really questioned by the revolters; for the charge against them, that they had unwarrantably deposed from the office of presbyter certain who had filled it blamelessly, implies that the office continued to be recognized by them. But this unauthorized deposition naturally led to a schism, and representations made at Rome by some of the persons ill-treated may have led to the letter of Clement. It is just possible that we can name one of these persons. At the end of the letter a wish is expressed that the messengers of the Roman church, Ephebus and Bito, with Fortunatus also, might be sent back speedily with tidings of restored harmony. The form of expression distinguishing Fortunatus from the Roman delegates favours the supposition that he was a Corinthian, and as Clement urges on those 