And I intreat thee also, true yokefellow, help those women which laboured with me in the gospel, with Clement also, and with other my fellow labourers, whose names are in the book of life. (Philippians 4:3)

(Dating of First Clement - Written prior to AD70?)
"Not in every place, brethren, are the continual daily sacrifices offered, or the freewill offerings, or the sin offerings or the trespass offerings, but in Jerusalem alone. And even there the offering is not made in every place, but before the sanctuary in the court of the altar; and this too through the high-priest and the aforesaid ministers." (41:2)

"Of a truth, soon and suddenly shall His will be accomplished" (23:5)

(Fulfillment of Matthew 24:14)
"But not to dwell upon ancient examples, let us come to the most recent spiritual heroes. Let us take the noble examples furnished in our own generation. Through envy and jealousy, the greatest and most righteous pillars have been persecuted and put to death. Let us set before our eyes the illustrious apostles. Peter, through unrighteous envy, endured not one or two, but numerous labours and when he had at length suffered martyrdom, departed to the place of glory due to him. Owing to envy, Paul also obtained the reward of patient endurance, after being seven times thrown into captivity, compelled to flee, and stoned. After preaching both in the east and west, he gained the illustrious reputation due to his faith, having taught righteousness to the whole world, and come to the extreme limit of the west, and suffered martyrdom under the prefects. Thus was he removed from the world, and went into the holy place, having proved himself a striking example of patience." (5.1–17)

"All glory and enlargement was given unto you, and that was fulfilled which is written My beloved ate and drank and was enlarged and waxed fat and kicked." (1Clem 3:1)

(On the New Jerusalem)
"The earth, bearing fruit in fulfillment of His will at her proper seasons, putteth forth the food that supplieth abundantly both men and beasts and all living things which are thereupon, making no dissension, neither altering anything which He hath decreed." (Clem 20:4)

WHAT OTHERS HAVE SAID

Epiphanius of Salamis
"At Rome the first Apostles and bishops were Peter and Paul, then Linus, then Cletus, then Clement, the contemporary of Peter and Paul" (Medicine Chest Against All Heresies 27:6 [A.D. 375]).

Irenaeus of Lyons
"The blessed apostles [Peter and Paul], having founded and built up the church [of Rome], they handed over the office of the episcopate to Linus. Paul makes mention of this Linus in the letter to Timothy [2 Tim. 4:21]. To him succeeded Anacletus, and after him, in the third place from the apostles, Clement was chosen for the episcopate. He had seen the blessed apostles and was acquainted with them. It might be said that he still heard the echoes of the preaching of the apostles and had their traditions before his eyes. And not only he, for there were many still remaining who had been instructed by the apostles. In the time of Clement, no small dissension having arisen among the brethren in Corinth, the Church in Rome sent a very strong letter to the Corinthians, exhorting them to peace and renewing their faith . . . To this Clement, Evaristus succeeded . . . and now, in the twelfth place after the apostles, the lot of the episcopate [of Rome] has fallen to Eleutherus. In this order, and by the teaching of the apostles handed down in the Church, the preaching of the truth has come down to us" (Against Heresies, 3:3:3 [A.D. 189]).

Tertullian
"[T]his is the way in which the apostolic churches transmit their lists: like the church of the Smyrneans, which records that Polycarp was placed there by John, like the church of the Romans, where Clement was ordained by Peter" (Demurrer Against the Heretics 32:2 [A.D. 200]).
 

The First Epistle of Clement

The following is transcribed from Kirsopp Lake in The Apostolic Fathers (published London 1912), v. I, pp. 3-7.

The writing which has always been known by this name is clearly, from internal evidence, a letter sent by the church of Rome to the church of Corinth in consequence of trouble in the latter community which had led to the deposition of certain Presbyters. The church of Rome writes protesting against this deposition, and the partizanship which has caused it.

The actual name of the writer is not mentioned in the letter itself: indeed, it clearly claims to be not the letter of a single person but of a church. Tradition, however, has always ascribed it to Clement, who was, according to the early episcopal lists, the third or fourth bishop of Rome during the last decades of the first century. There is no reason for rejecting this tradition, for though it is not supported by any corroborative evidence in its favour there is nothing whatever against it.

Nothing certain is known of Clement; but from the amount of pseudepigraphic literature attributed to him it is probable that he was a famous man in his own time. Tradition has naturally identified him with the Clement who is mentioned in Philippians iv.3. A Clement is also mentioned in the Shepherd of Hermas, Vis. ii. 4, 3, in which it is stated that it was his duty to write to other churches. This certainly points to a Clement in Rome exercising the same functions as the writer of I. Clement; but Hermas is probably somewhat later than I. Clement, and the reference may be merely a literary device based on knowledge of the earlier book.

More complicated and more interesting are suggestions that Clement may be identified or at least connected with Titus Flavius Clemens, a distinguished Roman of the imperial Flavian family. This Titus Flavius Clemens was in 95 A.D. accused of treason or impiety (aqeothV) by Domitian, his cousin, owing, according to Dio Cassius, to his Jewish proclivities. He was put to death and his wife, Domitilla, was banished. There is no proof that he was really a Christian, but one of the oldest catacombs in Rome is supposed to have belonged to Domitilla, and certainly was connected with this family. It is not probable that T. Flavius Clemens was the writer of I. Clement, but it is an attractive and not improbable hypothesis that a slave or freedman of the Flavian family had the name of Clemens, and held a high position in the Christian community at Rome.

The date of I. Clement is fixed by the following considerations. It appears from chapter 5 to be later than the persecution in the time of Nero, and from chapters 42-44 it is clear that the age of the apostles is regarded as past. It can therefore scarcely be older than 75-80 A.D. On the other hand chapter 44 speaks of presbyters who were appointed by the apostles and were still alive, and there is no trace of any of the controversies or persecutions of the second century. It is therefore probably not much later than 100 A.D. If it be assumed that chapter 1, which speaks of trouble and perhaps of persecution, refers to the time of Domitian, it can probably be dated as c. 96 A.D.; but we know very little of the alleged persecution in the time of Domitian, and it would not be prudent to decide that the epistle cannot be another ten or fifteen years later. It is safest to say that it must be dated between 75 and 110 A.D.; but within these limits there is a general agreement among critics to regard as most probable the last decade of the first century.

The evidence for the text of the epistle is as follows:

The Codex Alexandrinus, a Greek uncial of the fifth century in the British Museum, contains the whole text with the exception of one page. It can be consulted in the photographic edition of the whole codex published by the Trustees of the British Museum.

The Codex Constantinopolitanus, a Greek minuscule written by Leo the Notary in 1056 A.D. and discovered by Bryennius in Constantinople in 1875; it also contains the second epistle of Clement, the epistle of Barnabas, the Didache, and the interpolated text (see pp. 167 ff.) of the epistles of Ignatius. A photographic edition of the text is given in Lightfoot's edition of Clement.

The Syriac version, extant in only one MS. written in 1169 A.D. and now in the Library of Cambridge University (MS. add. 1700); the date of this version is unknown, but it is probably not early, and may perhaps best be placed in the eighth century. A collation is given in Lightfoot's edition, and the text has been published in full by R. H. Kennett (who took up the material of the late Prof. Bensley) in The Epistles of St. Clement to the Corinthians in Syriac, London, 1899.

The Latin version, also extant in only one MS which formerly belonged to the Monastery of Florennes, and is now in the Seminary at Namur. The MS. was probably written in the eleventh century, but the version which it represents is extremely ancient. It seems to have been used by Lactantius, and may perhaps be best regarded as a translation of the late second or early third century made in Rome. The text was published in 1894 by Dom Morin in Anecdota Maredsolana vol. 2 as S. Clementis Romani ad Corinthos versio latina antiquissima.

The Coptic version is extant in two MSS., neither complete, in the Akhmimic dialect. The older and better preserved is MS. orient, fol. 3065 in the Konigliche Bibliothek in Berlin. This is a beautiful Papyrus of the fourth century from the famous 'White monastery' of Shenute. It was published in 1908 by C. Schmidt in Texte und Untersuchungen, xxxii. 1 as Der erste Clemensbrief in altkoptischer Ubersetzung. The later and more fragmentary MS. is in Strassburg and was published in 1910 by F. Rosch as Bruchstucke des I. Clemensbriefes; it probably was written in the seventh century.

Besides these MSS. and version exceptionally valuable evidence is given by numerous quotations in the Stromateis of Clement of Alexandria (flor. c. 200 A.D.). It is noteworthy that I. Clement appears to be treated by Clement of Alexandria as Scripture, and this, especially in connection with its position in the codex Alexandrinus and in the Strassburg Coptic MS., where it is directly joined on to the canonical books, suggests that at an early period in Alexandria and Egypt I. Clement was regarded as part of the New Testament.

The relations subsisting between these authorities for the text have not been finally established, but it appears clear that none of them can be regarded as undoubtedly superior to the others, so that any critical text is necessarily eclectic. At the same time there is very little range of variation, and the readings which are in serious doubt are few, and, as a rule, unimportant.

The symbols employed in quoting the textual evidence are as follows:

A = Codex Alexandrinus.
C = Codex Constantinopolitanus.
L = Latin Version.
S = Syriac Version.
K = Coptic Version (Kb = the Berlin MS., Ks = the Strassburg MS.).
Clem = Clement of Alexandria.

"Second Clement"

(On Fulfillment of Isaiah 54:1-5)
CHAP. II.--THE CHURCH, FORMERLY BARREN, IS NOW FRUITFUL.
"Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not; for she that is desolate hath many more children than she that hath an husband." In that He said, "Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not," He referred to us, for our church was barren before that children were given to her. But when He said, "Cry out, thou that travailest not," He means this, that we should sincerely offer up our prayers to God, and should not, like women in travail, show signs of weakness. And in that He said, "For she that is desolate hath many more children than she that hath an husband," [He means] that our people seemed to be outcast from God, but now, through believing, have become more numerous than those who are reckoned to possess God. And another Scripture saith, "I came not to call the righteous, but sinners." This means that those who are perishing must be saved. For it is indeed a great and admirable thing to establish not the things which are standing, but those that are falling. Thus also did Christ desire to save the things which were perishing, and has saved many by coming and calling us when hastening to destruction. " (Chap. II.-- The Second Epistle to the Corinthians)

(On the Dual Nature of the Christian)
"For the Lord Himself, being asked by one when His kingdom would come, replied, "When two shall be one, that which is without as that which is within, and the male with the female, neither male nor female." And "that which is without as" that which is within meaneth this: He calls the soul "that which is within," and the body "that which is without." (Chap. XII.-- The Second Epistle to the Corinthians)

(On the Last Days)
"the Books and the Apostles teach that the church is not of the present, but from the beginning. For it was spiritual, as was also our Jesus, and was made manifest at the end of the days in order to save us. (Chap. XIV.-- The Second Epistle to the Corinthians)