Church Fathers: From Clement of Rome to Augustine

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Saint Clement, Bishop of Rome

WEDNESDAY, 7 MARCH 2007

Paul VI Audience Hall

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

In these past months we have meditated on the figures of the individual Apostles and on the first witnesses of the Christian faith who are mentioned in the New Testament writings. Let us now devote our attention to the Apostolic Fathers, that is, to the first and second generations in the Church subsequent to the Apostles. And thus, we can see where the Church’s journey begins in history.

Saint Clement, Bishop of Rome in the last years of the first century, was the third Successor of Peter, after Linus and Anacletus. The most important testimony concerning his life comes from Saint Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons until 202. He attests that Clement had seen the blessed Apostles, had been conversant with them, and might be said to have the preaching of the Apostles still echoing [in his ears], and their traditions before his eyes (Adversus Haereses 3, 3, 3). Later testimonies which date back to between the fourth and sixth centuries attribute to Clement the title of martyr.

The authority and prestige of this Bishop of Rome were such that various writings were attributed to him, but the only one that is certainly his is the Letter to the Corinthians. Eusebius of Caesarea, the great archivist of Christian beginnings, presents it in these terms: There is extant an Epistle of this Clement which is acknowledged to be genuine and is of considerable length and of remarkable merit. He wrote it in the name of the Church of Rome to the Church of Corinth, when a sedition had arisen in the latter Church. We know that this Epistle also has been publicly used in a great many Churches both in former times and in our own (Hist. Eccl. 3, 16). An almost canonical character was attributed to this Letter. At the beginning of this text—written in Greek—Clement expressed his regret that the sudden and successive calamitous events which have happened to ourselves (1, 1) had prevented him from intervening sooner. These calamitous events can be identified with Domitian’s persecution: therefore, the Letter must have been written just after the Emperor’s death and at the end of the persecution, that is, immediately after the year 96.

Clement’s intervention—we are still in the first century—was prompted by the serious problems besetting the Church in Corinth: the elders of the community, in fact, had been deposed by some young contestants. The sorrowful event was recalled once again by Saint Irenaeus, who wrote: In the time of this Clement, no small dissension having occurred among the brethren in Corinth, the Church in Rome dispatched a most powerful Letter to the Corinthians exhorting them to peace, renewing their faith, and declaring the tradition which it had lately received from the Apostles (Adversus Haereses 3, 3, 3). Thus, we could say that this Letter was a first exercise of the Roman primacy after Saint Peter’s death. Clement’s Letter touches on topics that were dear to Saint Paul, who had written two important Letters to the Corinthians, in particular the theological dialectic, perennially current, between the indicative of salvation and the imperative of moral commitment. First of all came the joyful proclamation of saving grace. The Lord forewarns us and gives us his forgiveness, gives us his love and the grace to be Christians, his brothers and sisters. It is a proclamation that fills our life with joy and gives certainty to our action: the Lord always forewarns us with his goodness, and the Lord’s goodness is always greater than all our sins. However, we must commit ourselves in a way that is consistent with the gift received and respond to the proclamation of salvation with a generous and courageous journey of conversion. In comparison with the Pauline model, the innovation added by Clement to the doctrinal and practical sections, which constituted all the Pauline Letters, is a great prayer that virtually concludes the Letter.

The Letter’s immediate circumstances provided the Bishop of Rome with ample room for an intervention on the Church’s identity and mission. If there were abuses in Corinth, Clement observed, the reason should be sought in the weakening of charity and of the other indispensable Christian virtues. He therefore calls the faithful to humility and fraternal love, two truly constitutive virtues of being in the Church: Seeing, therefore, that we are the portion of the Holy One, he warned, let us do all those things which pertain to holiness (30, 1). In particular, the Bishop of Rome recalls that the Lord himself has fixed by his own supreme will where and by whom he desires these things to be done, in order that all things, being piously done according to his good pleasure, may be acceptable unto him. . . . For his own peculiar services are assigned to the high priest, and their own proper place is prescribed to the priests, and their own special ministries devolve on the Levites. The layman is bound by the laws that pertain to laymen (40, 1-5: it can be noted that here, in this early first-century Letter, the Greek word "laikós appears for the first time in Christian literature, meaning a member of the laos, that is, of the People of God").

In this way, referring to the liturgy of ancient Israel, Clement revealed his ideal Church. She was assembled by the one Spirit of grace poured out upon us, which breathes on the various members of the Body of Christ, where all, united without any divisions, are members of one another (46, 6-7). The clear distinction between the lay person and the hierarchy in no way signifies opposition, but only this organic connection of a body, an organism with its different functions. The Church, in fact, is not a place of confusion and anarchy where one can do what one likes all the time: each one in this organism, with an articulated structure, exercises his ministry in accordance with the vocation he has received. With regard to community leaders, Clement clearly explains the doctrine of Apostolic Succession. The norms that regulate it derive ultimately from God himself. The Father sent Jesus Christ, who in turn sent the Apostles. They then sent the first heads of communities and established that they would be succeeded by other worthy men. Everything, therefore, was made in an orderly way, according to the will of God (42). With these words, these sentences, Saint Clement underlined that the Church’s structure was sacramental and not political. The action of God who comes to meet us in the liturgy precedes our decisions and our ideas. The Church is above all a gift of God and not something we ourselves created; consequently, this sacramental structure guarantees not only the common order but also this precedence of God’s gift which we all need.

Finally, the great prayer confers a cosmic breath to the previous reasoning. Clement praises and thanks God for his marvelous providence of love that created the world and continues to save and sanctify it. The prayer for rulers and governors acquires special importance. Subsequent to the New Testament texts, it is the oldest prayer extant for political institutions. Thus, in the period following their persecution, Christians, well aware that the persecutions would continue, never ceased to pray for the very authorities who had unjustly condemned them. The reason is primarily Christological: it is necessary to pray for one’s persecutors as Jesus did on the Cross. But this prayer also contains a teaching that guides the attitude of Christians toward politics and the State down the centuries. In praying for the authorities, Clement recognized the legitimacy of political institutions in the order established by God; at the same time, he expressed his concern that the authorities would be docile to God, devoutly in peace and meekness exercising the power given them by [God] (61, 2). Caesar is not everything. Another sovereignty emerges whose origins and essence are not of this world but of the heavens above: it is that of Truth, which also claims a right to be heard by the State.

Thus, Clement’s Letter addresses numerous themes of perennial timeliness. It is all the more meaningful since it represents, from the first century, the concern of the Church of Rome which presides in charity over all the other Churches. In this same Spirit, let us make our own the invocations of the great prayer in which the Bishop of Rome makes himself the voice of the entire world: Yes, O Lord, make your face to shine upon us for good in peace, that we may be shielded by your mighty hand . . . through the High Priest and Guardian of our souls, Jesus Christ, through whom be glory and majesty to you both now and from generation to generation, for evermore (60-61).

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Saint Ignatius of Antioch

WEDNESDAY, 14 MARCH 2007

Saint Peter’s Square

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

As we already did last Wednesday, we are speaking about the figures of the early Church. Last week we spoke of Pope Clement I, the third Successor of Saint Peter. Today, we will be speaking of Saint Ignatius, who was the third Bishop of Antioch from 70 to 107, the date of his martyrdom. At that time, Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch were the three great metropolises of the Roman Empire. The Council of Nicaea mentioned three primacies: Rome, but also Alexandria and Antioch participated in a certain sense in a primacy. Saint Ignatius was Bishop of Antioch, which today is located in Turkey. Here in Antioch, as we know from the Acts of the Apostles, a flourishing Christian community developed. Its first Bishop was the Apostle Peter—or so tradition claims—and it was there that the disciples were "for the first time called Christians" (Acts 11:26). Eusebius of Caesarea, a fourth-century historian, dedicated an entire chapter of his Church History to the life and literary works of Ignatius (cf. 3, 36). Eusebius writes: The Report says that he [Ignatius] was sent from Syria to Rome and became food for wild beasts on account of his testimony to Christ. And as he made the journey through Asia under the strictest military surveillance (he called the guards ten leopards in his Letter to the Romans 5, 1), he fortified the parishes in the various cities where he stopped by homilies and exhortations and warned them above all to be especially on their guard against the heresies that were then beginning to prevail and exhorted them to hold fast to the tradition of the Apostles. The first place Ignatius stopped on the way to his martyrdom was the city of Smyrna, where Saint Polycarp, a disciple of Saint John, was Bishop. Here, Ignatius wrote four letters, respectively to the Churches of Ephesus, Magnesia, Tralli, and Rome. Having left Smyrna, Eusebius continues, Ignatius reached Troas and wrote again: two letters to the Churches of Philadelphia and Smyrna and one to Bishop Polycarp. Thus, Eusebius completes the list of his letters, which have come down to us from the Church of the first century as a precious treasure. In reading these texts, one feels the freshness of the faith of the generation which had still known the Apostles. In these letters, the ardent love of a saint can also be felt. Lastly, the martyr traveled from Troas to Rome, where he was thrown to fierce wild animals in the Flavian Amphitheater.

No Church Father has expressed the longing for union with Christ and for life in him with the intensity of Ignatius. We therefore read the Gospel passage on the vine, which according to John’s Gospel is Jesus. In fact, two spiritual currents converge in Ignatius, that of Paul, straining with all his might for union with Christ, and that of John, concentrated on life in him. In turn, these two currents translate into the imitation of Christ, whom Ignatius several times proclaimed as my or our God. Thus, Ignatius implores the Christians of Rome not to prevent his martyrdom since he is impatient to attain to Jesus Christ. And he explains, It is better for me to die on behalf of Jesus Christ than to reign over all the ends of the earth. . . . Him I seek, who died for us: him I desire, who rose again for our sake. . . . Permit me to be an imitator of the Passion of my God! (Romans 5-6). One can perceive in these words on fire with love the pronounced Christological realism typical of the Church of Antioch, more focused than ever on the Incarnation of the Son of God and on his true and concrete humanity: Jesus Christ, Saint Ignatius wrote to the Smyrnaeans, "was truly of the seed of David, he was truly born of a virgin and was truly nailed [to the Cross] for us" (1, 1).

Ignatius’ irresistible longing for union with Christ was the foundation of a real mysticism of unity. He describes himself: I therefore did what befitted me as a man devoted to unity (Philadelphians 8, 1). For Ignatius unity was first and foremost a prerogative of God, who, since he exists as Three Persons, is One in absolute unity. Ignatius often used to repeat that God is unity and that in God alone is unity found in its pure and original state. Unity to be brought about on this earth by Christians is no more than an imitation as close as possible to the divine archetype. Thus, Ignatius reached the point of being able to work out a vision of the Church strongly reminiscent of certain expressions in Clement of Rome’s Letter to the Corinthians. For example, he wrote to the Christians of Ephesus: It is fitting that you should concur with the will of your Bishop, which you also do. For your justly renowned presbytery, worthy of God, is fitted as exactly to the Bishop as the strings are to the harp. Therefore, in your concord and harmonious love, Jesus Christ is sung. And man by man, you become a choir, that being harmonious in love and taking up the song of God in unison you may with one voice sing to the Father . . . (4, 1-2). And after recommending to the Smyrnaeans: Let no man do anything connected with Church without the Bishop, he confides to Polycarp:

I offer my life for those who are submissive to the Bishop, to the presbyters and to the deacons, and may I along with them obtain my portion in God! Labor together with one another; strive in company together; run together; suffer together; sleep together; and awake together as the stewards and associates and servants of God. Please him under whom you fight and from whom you receive your wages. Let none of you be found a deserter. Let your Baptism endure as your arms; your faith as your helmet; your love as your spear; your patience as a complete panoply. (Polycarp 6, 1-2)

Overall, it is possible to grasp in the Letters of Ignatius a sort of constant and fruitful dialectic between two characteristic aspects of Christian life: on the one hand, the hierarchical structure of the Ecclesial Community and, on the other, the fundamental unity that binds all the faithful in Christ. Consequently, their roles cannot be opposed to one another. On the contrary, the insistence on communion among believers and of believers with their Pastors was constantly reformulated in eloquent images and analogies: the harp, strings, intonation, the concert, the symphony. The special responsibility of Bishops, priests, and deacons in building the community is clear. This applies, first of all, to their invitation to love and unity. Be one, Ignatius wrote to the Magnesians, echoing the prayer of Jesus at the Last Supper: one supplication, one mind, one hope in love. . . . Therefore, all run together as into one temple of God, as to one altar, as to one Jesus Christ who came forth from one Father and is with and has gone to one (7, 1-2).