On Illustrious Men

15. Clement the bishop

XV. CLEMENT THE BISHOP lement,1 of whom the apostle Paul in his Epistle to the Philippians wrote, “with Clement and my other fellow-workers whose names are written in the book of life,”2 was the fourth bishop of Rome after Peter, in that Linus was second and Anacletus, third,3 although the greater part of the Latins4 think that Clement was second after the apostle . 2. He wrote in the name of the Roman church a most useful Letter to the Church of Corinth,5 which in some places is even read publicly,6 which seems to me to correspond to the style of the Epistle to the Hebrews ascribed to the authorship of Paul,7 and uses many expressions from that same epistle which not merely agree in sense but even in word order, and there is an altogether great similarity between the two. 3. A second Epistle is also ascribed to his name, which has not been accepted by the ancients,8 and a Disputation of Peter and Apion,9 written in a prolix style, which Eusebius rejects in the third book of his Ecclesiastical History .10 4. He died in the third year of Trajan’s reign,11 and a church built in Rome preserves to this day the memory of his name. notes 1. J. Colson, Clément de Rome (Église d’hier et d’aujourd’hui) (Paris, 1960). 2. Phil 4.3, quoted in Eus., h.e. 3.15.1. 3. h.e. 3.4.9, 3.15.1, 3.21.1, 5.6.1–2; Irenaeus, Adv. haer. 3.3.3. This makes Clement the Bishop of Rome in the years 92–101. On Linus see h.e. 3.2, 3.4.8, 3.13.1, 5.6.1; Kelly, ODP, 6–7; B. Dümler, LThK 63 , 946. See also M. Guerra Gomes, “El obispo de Roma y la regula fidei en los tres primeros siglos de la Iglesia,” Burgense 30 (1989): 355–432. 4. See Q 1, 42. 5. h.e. 3.16.1, 5.6.3. Text in SC 31, ed. G. Bardy. See B. E. Bowe, A church in crisis. Ecclesiology and paraenesis in Clement of Rome, Harvard Dissertations in Religion 23 (Minneapolis, 1988); E. Peretto, “Clemente Romano ai Corinti. Sfida alla violenza,” VetChr 26 (1989): 89–114; K. Erlemann, “Die Datierung des ersten Klemensbriefes—Anfragen an eine Communis Opinio,” NTS 44 (1998): 591–607; Q 1, 42–43. ON ILLUSTRIOUS MEN 31 ...