Biography
Clement of Rome lived in the closing years of the first century, and he belongs to the generation that came right after the apostles. Much about his life is uncertain, and the early church itself kept only a few details. He is remembered as one of the earliest leaders of the church in Rome, and the old lists of the bishops of that city place him third or fourth after Peter and Paul. Some early writers believed that he was the Clement whom Paul mentions in his letter to the Philippians as a fellow worker whose name is in the book of life. That cannot be proved, and it should be held loosely.
What can be said with confidence is that he was a respected leader of the Roman church during a time of pressure. The emperor Domitian was on the throne, and Christians in Rome lived under suspicion and sometimes under attack. Peter and Paul had been put to death only a generation earlier, and the memory of their suffering was fresh. The church lived with the cost of faith.
Around AD 96, word reached Rome that the church at Corinth was in turmoil. Paul had written to that very congregation decades before, and he had warned them of divisions. Now a group of younger men had risen up and removed some of the church's older and faithful leaders from their positions. The elders had done nothing wrong. The people had simply tired of their authority and wanted new voices. The congregation was torn.
The church in Rome wrote a letter to the church in Corinth. It is traditionally ascribed to Clement, who wrote in the name of the whole congregation, and it is now known as the First Letter of Clement. It was one of the earliest Christian writings outside the New Testament. In it he called the Corinthians back to humility, to love and to order. He reminded them of the shame of jealousy and strife. He gave example after example from the Old Testament of how envy led to ruin, from Cain and Abel to Joseph's brothers and Saul's rage against David. He told them to look to the apostles, to Peter and Paul, who endured much and gave their lives. He called them to look to Christ, who is humble and meek, and who was willing to suffer for them.
The letter also shows how the early church understood its own life. Clement taught that God is a God of order, and that the church should reflect that order. He taught that the apostles had appointed leaders and that those leaders should not be removed without cause. He also spoke of the resurrection and used the picture of the seasons and of the fabled phoenix to show God's power to raise the dead. The letter quotes the Old Testament often and echoes many New Testament writings, including Paul's letters and the letter to the Hebrews. It bears witness to how widely those writings were known in the early church.
The Corinthians valued the letter. A bishop of Corinth named Dionysius wrote around the year 170 that it was still being read aloud in the church's gatherings. It was held in such high regard that some early Christians included it among the books read as Scripture, although it was never accepted into the New Testament canon. Another writing called Second Clement, which is a sermon from a later time, was wrongly attributed to him.
Later stories about his death grew up, including a tale that he was banished to the Crimea and was drowned with an anchor tied to his neck. These accounts are late and uncertain, and they cannot be relied on. We do not know how he died. We know that his letter was written in an hour of crisis and that it sought to heal a divided church.
He was a man, and he surely knew his own weakness, though none of it was set down. His letter stands as a record of how the church spoke near the time of the apostles. It also shows what the church was concerned about. The leaders of that age did not ask first how the church could grow. They asked how it could keep humble, loving and unified. Clement's answer was the same as that of the apostles, and it remains a plain call to look to Christ and to love one another.