LIVES

OF

ST. CLEMENS, ST. IGNATIUS, AND ST. POLYCARP.

ST. CLEMENS.

Mattidia, a woman of prime family in Rome. He was the youngest of three sons, his two elder [THE learned author of the "Lives of the Apos- brothers being Faustinus and Faustus, who after tles" having completed his design in respect to changed their names for Nicetas and Aquila. His the history of those chosen vessels of divine grace, mother, a woman it seems of exquisite beauty, found it expedient to enlarge his plan, and to write was by her husband's own brother strongly solithe memoirs of the other holy men who labored cited to unchaste embraces. To avoid whose troublesome importunities, and yet loth to reveal in the same remarkable season of heavenly dis-it to her husband, lest it should break out to the pensations. These later productions of his pen disturbance and dishonor of their family, she display the same erudition, the same good sense found out this expedient: she pretended to her and candor as the "Lives of the Apostles;" and husband that she was warned in a dream, tothe most accomplished scholar in ecclesiastical gether with her two eldest sons to depart for some history may view, with profound interest and re-time from Rome. He accordingly sent them to spect, the admirable zeal which they exhibit in the cause of truth. We have selected from the "Apostolici," the memoirs of the three Fathers whose names are most familiar to the general reader. They were men on whom the Spirit of God rested in the power and glory of holiness; they show in their whole conduct, what manner of persons they ought to be who should sit in the seats of the apostles: and by this, their example, we learn, how convincing were the evidences of the gospel, when they might best be examined, to the purest and most elevated minds.]-ED.

reside at Athens, for the greater conveniency of their education. But hearing nothing of them, though he sent messengers on purpose every year, he resolved at last to go himself in pursuit of them; which he did, leaving his youngest son, then twelve years of age, at home, under the care of tutors and guardians. St. Clemens grew up in all manly studies, and virtuous actions, till falling under some great dissatisfactions of mind concerning the immortality of the soul, and the state of the other life, he applied himself to search more narrowly into the nature and the truth of things. After having baffled all his own notions, he betook himself to the schools of the philosophers, where he met with nothing but fierce contentions, endless disputes, sophistical and uncer

sult the Egyptian hierophantæ, and to see if he could meet with any who by arts of magic was able to fetch back one of those who were departed to the invisible world, the very sight of whom might satisfy his curious inquiries about this matter. While he was under this suspense, he heard of the Son of God's appearing in the world, and the excellent doctrine he had published in Judæa, wherein he was further instructed by the ministry of St. Barnabas, who came to Rome. Him he followed first to Alexandria, and thence, after a little time to Judæa. Arriving at Cæsarea he met St. Peter, by whom he was instructed and baptized, whose companion and disciple he continued for a great part of his life.

It makes not a little for the honor of this venera-tain arts of reasoning; thence he resolved to conble apostolical man, (for of him all antiquity understands it,) that he was "fellow-laborer" with St. Paul, and one of those "whose names were written in the book of life." He was born at Rome, upon Mount Cœlius, as, besides others, the Pontifical, under the name of Damasus, informs us. His father's name was Faustinus, but who he was, and what his profession and course of life, is not recorded. Indeed, in the book of the Recognitions and the ra sλnperia (mentioned by the ancients and lately published) we have more particular accounts concerning him; books which however falsely attributed to St. Clemens, and liable in some cases to just exception, yet being of great antiquity in the church, written not long after the apostolic age, (as we shall show hereafter,) we shall thence derive some few notices to our purpose, though we cannot absolutely engage for the certainty of them. There we find St. Clemens brought in, giving this account of himself.

2. He was descended of a noble race, sprung from the family of the Cæsars, his father Faustinianias, or Faustus, being near akin to the emperor, (I suppose Tiberius,) and educated together with him, and by his procurement matched with

3. This is the sum of what I thought good to borrow from those ancient writings. As for his relations, what various misadventures his father and mother, and his two brothers severally met with, by what strange accidents they all afterwards met together, were converted and baptized into the Christian faith, I omit, partly as less proper to my purpose, partly because it looks more like a dramatic scene of fancy, than a true and real history. As to that part of the account of his being related to the imperial family, though it

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be more than once and again confidently asserted | settled foundation of a Gentile church at Rome; by Nicephorus, (who transcribes a good part of the further care and presidency whereof St. Paul the story,) and by others before him, yet I cannot might devolve upon Linus, (whom the interpolated but behold it as an evident mistake, arising from Ignatius makes his deacon or minister,) as St. no other fountain than the story of Flavius Cle- Peter, having established a church of Jewish conmens, the consul, who was cousin-german to the verts, might turn it over to St. Clemens; of emperor Domitian, and his wife Flavia Domitilla, whom Tertullian expressly says that Peter or near akin also to the emperor, concerning whose dained him bishop of Rome. Accordingly, the conversion to, and martyrdom for, the faith of compiler of the Apostolic Constitutions, makes Christ, we have elsewhere given an account from Linus to be ordained bishop of Rome by St. Paul, the writers of those times. Probable it is, that St. and Clemens, by St. Peter. He says, indeed, Clemens, for the main, attended St. Peter's mo- that Linus was the first; and so he might very tions, and came with him to Rome, where he had well be, seeing St. Paul (whatever the modern at last the government of that church committed writers of that church say to the contrary) was to him. Dorotheus tells us, that he was the first some considerable time at Rome, before St. Peter of the Gentiles that embraced the Christian faith, came hither. Linus dying, was probably suc and that he was first made bishop of Sardica, a ceeded by Cletus or Anacletus (for the Greeks, city in Thrace, afterwards called Triaditza, and and doubtless most truly, generally make him the then of Rome. But herein I think he stands same person) in his distinct capacity. At which alone: I am sure he has none of the ancients to time Clemens, whom St. Peter had ordained to join with him; unless he understands it of another be his successor, continued to act as presiClemens, whom the Chronicon Alexandrinum also dent over the church of Jewish converts: and makes one of the seventy disciples, but withal thus things remained till the death of Cletus, seems to confound with ours. That he was bishop when the difference between Jew and Gentile of Rome, there is an unanimous and unquestiona- being quite worn off, the entire presidency and ble agreement of all ancient writers, though they government of the whole church of Rome might strangely vary about the place and order of his devolve upon St. Clemens, as the survivor; and coming to it. The writers of the Roman church, from this period of time, the years of his episcohow great words soever they speak of the con- pacy, according to the common computation, are stant and uninterrupted succession of St. Peter's to begin their date. By this account, not only chair, are yet involved in an inextricable labyrinth that of Optatus and the Bucherain catalogue may about the succession of the four first bishops of be true, which make Clemens to follow Linus; that see, scarce two of them of any note bringing but also that of Baronius and many of the anin the same account. I shall not attempt to ac- cients, who make both Linus aud Cletus to go becommodate the difference between the several fore him, as we can allow they did as bishops and schemes that are given in, but only propose what pastors of the Gentile church. As for a more I conceive most likely and probable. distinct and particular account of the times, I thus compute them:-Peter and Paul suffered martyrdom in the Neronian persecution, (as we have elsewhere probably showed,) ann. 65. After which Linus sat twelve years, four months, and twelve days: Cletus twelve years, one (but as Baronius, seven) months, and eleven days, which between them make twenty-five years, and extend to ann. Chr. 90; after which, if we add the nine years, eleven months, and twelve days, wherein Clemens sat sole bishop over that whole church, they fall in exactly with the third year of Trajan; the time assigned for his martyrdom, by Eusebius, Jerome, Damasus, and many others. Or if, with Petavius, Ricciolus, and some others, we assign the martyrdom of Peter and Paul, ann. 67, two years later, the computation will still run more smooth and easy, and there will be time enough to be allowed for the odd months and days assigned by the different accounts, and to make the years of their pontificate complete and full. Nor can I think of any way, considering the great intricacy and perplexity of the thing, that can bid fairer for an easy solution of this matter. For granting Clemens to have been ordained by St. Peter for his successor, (as several of the ancients expressly affirm,) and yet withal (what is evident enough) that he died not till ann. Chr. 100, Traj. 3, it will be very difficult to find any way so proper to reconcile it. As for that fancy of Epiphanius, that Clemens might receive imposition of hands from Peter, but refused the actual exercise of the episcopal office, so long as Linus and Cletus

4. Evident it is both from Irenæus and Epiphanius, as also before them from Caius, an ancient writer, and from Dionysius, bishop of Corinth, that Peter and Paul jointly laid the foundations of the Church of Rome, and are thereby equally styled bishops of it; the one as "apostle of the Gentiles," (as we may probably suppose,) taking care of the Gentile Christians, while the other as "the apostle of the circumcision," applied himself to the Jewish converts at Rome. For we cannot imagine, that there being such chronical and inveterate prejudices between the Jews and Gentiles, especially in matters of religion, they should be suddenly laid aside, and both enter together into one public society. We know that in the church of Jerusalem, till the destruction of the temple, none were admitted but Jewish converts: and so it might be at first at Rome, where infinite numbers of Jews then resided; they might keep themselves for some time in distinct assemblies, the one under St. Paul, the other under Peter. And some foundation for such a conjecture there seems to be even in the apostolic history, where St. Luke tells us, that St. Paul, at his first coming to Rome, being rejected by the Jews, turned to the Gentiles, declaring to them the salvation of God, who gladly heard and entertained it; and that he continued thus preaching the kingdom of God, and receiving all that came in unto him for two years together.* This I look upon as the first

"Acts xxviii. 23-25, 23-31.

lived; he only proposes it as a conjecture, founded merely upon a mistaken passage of Clemens, in his epistle to the Corinthians, and confesses it is a thing wherein he dare not be positive, not being confident whether it were so or no.

Mosaic institution. To me it seems most probable to have been written a little after the persecution under Domitian, and probably not long before Clemens's exile. For excusing the no sooner answering the letters of the church of Corinth, he tells them it was by reason of those calamities and sad accidents that had happened to them. Now plain it is, that no persecution had been raised against the Christians, especially at Rome, from the time of Nero till Domitian. As for Mr. Young's conjecture from this place, that it was written in the time of his banishment; he forgot to consider that the epistle was written not in Clemen's own name, but in the person of the church of Rome. A circumstance that renders the place incapable of being particularly applied to him.

5. Might the ancient epistle written to St. James, brother of our Lord, under the name of our St. Clemens, be admitted as a competent evidence, there we find not only that Clemens was constituted bishop by St. Peter, but with what formality the whole affair was transacted. It tells us, that the apostle, sensible of his approaching dissolution, presented Clemens before the church as a fit person to be his successor; the good man, with all imaginable modesty, declined the honor which St. Peter, in a long discourse, urged upon him, and set out at large the particular duties both of ministers in their respective orders and capacities, as 6. By a firm patience and prudent care he weaalso of the people; which done, he laid his hands thered out the stormy and troublesome times of upon him, and compelled him to take his seat. Domitian, and the short but peaceable reign of How he administered this great but difficult pro- Nerva. When, alas! "the clouds returned after vince, the ecclesiastical records give us very little rain," and began to thicken into a blacker storm account. The author of the Pontifical, that fa- in the time of Trajan, an excellent prince indeed, thers himself upon Pope Damasus, tells us, that he of so sweet and plausible a disposition, of so mild divided Rome into seven regions, in each of which and inoffensive a conversation, that it was ever he appointed a notary, who should diligently in- after a part of their solemn acclamation at the quire after all the martyrs that suffered within his choice of a new elected emperor, MELLOR TRAdivision, and faithfully recorded the acts of their JANO, "better than Trajan." But withal he was martyrdom. I confess, the credit of this author zealous for his religion, and upon that account a is not good enough absolutely to rely upon his sin- severe enemy to Christians. Among several laws gle testimony in matters so remote and distant; enacted in the beginning of his reign, he published though we are otherwise sufficiently assured, that one (if Baronius, which I much question, conjecthe custom of notaries taking the speeches, acts, ture the time aright; for Pliny's epistle, upon and sufferings of the martyrs did obtain in the which he seems to ground it, was probably writearly ages of the church. Besides this, we are ten at least nine or ten years after,) whereby he told by others, that he despatched away several forbad the Heteria, the societies or colleges erectpersons to preach and propagate the Christian re-ed up and down the Roman empire, whereat men ligion in those countries whither the sound of the gospel had not yet arrived. Nor did he only concern himself to propagate Christianity where it wanted, but to preserve the peace of those churches where it was already planted. For an unhappy schism having broken out in the church of Corinth, they sent to Rome to inquire his advice and assistance in it; who in the name of the church, whereof he was governor, wrote back an incomparable epistle to them, to compose and quell, μiapav k avadiov oтaoia, as he calls it, "that impious and abominable sedition" that was risen among them. And, indeed, there seems to have been a more intimate and friendly intercourse between these two churches in those times, than between any other mentioned in the writings of the church. The exact time of writing this epistle is not known, the date of it not being certainly determinable by any notices of antiquity, or any intimations in the epistle itself. The conjecture that has obtained with some of most note and learning is, that it was written before the destruction of Jerusalem, while the temple and the Levitical ministration were yet standing. Which they collect, I sup pose, from a passage where he speaks of them in the present tense. But whoever impartially considers the place, will find no necessary foundation for such an inference, and that St. Clemens's design was only to illustrate his argument, and to show the reasonableness of observing those particular stations and ministries which God has appointed us, by alluding to the ordinances of the

were wont to meet, and liberally feast, under a pretence of more convenient despatch of business, and the maintenance of mutual love and friendship; which yet the Roman state beheld with a jealous eye, as fit nurseries for treason and sedition. Under the notion of these unlawful combinations, the Christian assemblies were looked upon by their enemies; for finding them confederated under one common president, and constantly meeting at their solemn love-feasts, and especially being of a way of worship different from the religion of the empire, they thought they might securely proceed against them as illegal societies, and coutemners of the imperial constitution; wherein St. Clemens, as head of the society at Rome, was sure to bear the deepest share. And indeed it was no more than what himself had long expected, as appears from his letter to the Corinthians; where having spoken of the torments and sufferings which the holy apostles had undergone, he tells them, that he looked upon himself and his people as set to run the same race, and that the same fight and conflict was laid up for them.

7. Simeon the metaphrast, in the account of his martyrdom, (nearly the same with that life of St. Clement, said to be written by an uncertain author, published long since by Lazius, at the end of Abdias Babylonius,) sets down the beginning of his troubles to this effect. St. Clemens having converted Theodora, a noble lady, and afterwards her husband Sisinnius, a kinsman and favorite of the late emperor Nerva, the gaining so great a man

quickly drew on others of chief note and quality to embrace the faith. So prevalent is the example of religious greatness to sway men to piety and virtue; but envy naturally maligns the good of others, and hates the instrument that procures it. This good success derived upon him the particular odium of Torcutianus, a man of great power and authority at that time in Rome, who by the inferior magistrates of the city, excited the people to a mutiny against the holy man, charging him with magic and sorcery, and for being an enemy and blasphemer of the gods, crying out, either that he should do sacrifice to them, or expiate his impiety with his blood. Mamertinus, præfect of the city, a moderate and prudent man, being willing to appease the uproar, sent for St. Clemens, and mildly persuaded him to comply; but finding his resolution inflexible, he sent to acquaint the emperor with the case, who returned this short rescript, that he should either sacrifice to the gods, or be banished to Cherson, a disconsolate city beyond the Pontic Sea. Mamertinus having received the imperial mandate, unwillingly complied with it, and gave order that all things should be made ready for the voyage; and accordingly he was transported thither, to dig in the marble-quarries, and labor in the mines. Damnatio ad metella is a punishment frequently mentioned in the Roman laws, where it is said to be proxima morti pana, the very next to capital punishments. Indeed the usage under it was very extreme and rigorous: for besides the severest labor and most intolerable hardship, the condemned person was treated with all the instances of inhumanity, whipped and beaten, chained and fettered, deprived of his estate, which was forfeited to the exchequer, and himself perpetually degraded into the condition of a slave, and consequently rendered incapable to make a will. And not this only, but they were further exposed to the most public marks of infamy and dishonor, their heads half shaved, their right eye bored out, their left leg disabled, their foreheads branded with an infamous mark, a piece of disgrace first used in this case by Caligula, (and the historian notes it as an instance of his cruel temper,) and from him continued till the times of Constantine, who abolished it by a law, ann. Ch. 315, not to mention the hunger and thirst, the cold and nakedness, the filth and nastiness, which they were forced to conflict with in those miserable places.

cution, and that this day's martyrs did but prepare others for to-morrow's torments, he gave over contending with the multitude, and resolved to single out one of note above the rest, whose exemplary punishment might strike dread and terror into the rest. To this purpose St. Clemens is pitched on, and all temptations being in vain tried upon him, the executioners are commanded to carry him aboard, and throw him into the bottom of the sea, where the Christians might despair to find him. This kind of death, was called Karanovτiepos, and was in use not only among the Greeks, as appears by the instance mentioned by Diodorus Siculus, but the Romans, as we find in several malefactors condemned to be thrown into the sea, both by Tibe rius and Avidius Cassius. To this our Lord has respect, when in the case of wilful scandal, he pronounces it better for the man that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the bottom of the sea. Where, though St. Jerome tells us that this punishment was usual among the ancient Jews, in case of more enormous crimes, yet do I not remember that any such capital punishment ever prevailed among them. Ishall not here relate what I find concerning the strange and miraculous discovery of St. Clemen's body, nor the particular miracle of a little child preserved in the church erected to him in the middle of the sea, for a whole year together, (though solemnly averred by Ephram, bishop of the place,) as despairing they would ever find a belief wide enough to swallow them, nor those infinite other miracles said to be done there: it shall only suffice to mention one; that upon the anniversary solemnity of his martyrdom the sea retreats on each side into heaps, and leaves a fair and dry passage for three miles together, to the martyr's tomb, erected within a church, built (as it must be supposed, by angels) within the sea; and the people's devotions being ended, the sea returns to its own place; Tμvros TU ĐEN, Kavтavda Tov papropa, says one of my authors, God by this means doing honor to the martyr. I only add, that these traditions were current before the time of Gregory, bishop of Tours, who speaks of them with great reverence and devotion. St. Clemens died, (as both Eusebius and St. Jerome witness, for I heed not the account of the Alexandrin Chronicon, which places it four years after the seventh of Trajan, though the consuls, which he there assigns, properly belong to the fourth of that emperor,) in 8. Arriving at the place of his uncomfortable the third year of Trajan, a little more than two exile, he found vast numbers of Christians, con-years after his banishment, after he had been sole demned to the same miserable fate, whose minds were not a little erected under all their pressures, at the sight of so good a man; by whose constant preaching, and the frequent miracles that he wrought, their enemies were converted into a better opinion of them and their religion; the inhabitants of those countries daily flocking over to the faith, so that in a little time Christianity had beaten pa. ganism out of the field, and all monuments of idolatry thereabouts were defaced and overturned. The fame whereof was quickly carried to the emperor, who despatched Aufidianus, the president, to put a stop to this growing sect; which by methods of terror and cruelty he set upon, putting great numbers of them to death. But finding how readily and resolutely they pressed up to exe

bishop of Rome nine years, six months, and so many days, say Baronius and others, though Bucherius's catalogue, more to be trusted, (as being composed before the death of Pope Liberius, ann. 354,) nine years, eleven months, and twelve days. His martyrdom happened on the 24th of November, according to Baronius and the ordinary Roman computation, but on the ninth of that month, says the little martyrology published by Bucherius, and which unquestionably was one of the true and genuine calendars of the ancient church. He was honored at Rome by a church erected to his memory, yet standing in St. Jerome's time.

9. The writings which at this day bear the name of this apostolic man, are of two sorts, genuine or supposititious. In the first class is that famous