Capital Corinthians

First Letter to the Corinthians (c.95)
Pope St. Clement I (Harvard University Press, 1952; trans. Lake)
65 p. First reading.

Pope St. Clement I was Bishop of Rome in the closing years of the first century. He was the fourth person to hold that position, and according to some sources he had met St. Peter personally. Two letters in his name survive, both written to the church in Corinth, and preserved in their archives. The second letter, much the shorter of the two, is now thought to date from the second century, and is no longer attributed to Clement.

The First Letter is pastoral in nature, written in response to dissension among Corinthian Christians. Some members of the congregation had, it seems, forcibly removed their leaders from office. Pope Clement writes to reprimand them and urge reconciliation. He stresses the need for the Christian virtues of humility, forgiveness, and love. He even quotes at length from St. Paul’s famous encomium on love (1 Cor. 13), reminding them of the teachings to which they are heirs and according to which they should try to live. He reminds them that the privileges of Christians are accompanied by the duty to reject sin and strife.

The nature of the problem he was attempting to correct makes the letter an interesting source for early Christian theology of the Church and the priesthood. Clement makes clear that the Church is inherently hierarchical in structure, but that this hierarchy is at the service of unity and mutual help. He draws repeatedly on St. Paul’s image (also from 1 Corinthians) of the Church as a body. He is explicit in making a distinction between the laity and the “presbyters” (later, priests), and emphasizes that the laity may not simply depose their presbyter. He connects the role of the presbyter to the Levite priesthood of the Old Testament, and reminds his readers of the Apostolic foundation of Church authority. An unspoken point of interest, of course, is the nature of the letter itself: the fact that it is the Bishop of Rome who intervenes to discipline and exhort speaks to the Church’s nascent understanding of his role in her life.

At the time of writing, the documents that would eventually form the New Testament had all been written, but the canon of Scripture was still taking shape. The letter is thick with quotations and allusions to Scripture. Most of these are drawn from the Old Testament, but it is interesting to note which New Testament documents are also referenced. There are St. Paul’s letters to the Corinthians, of course, and also St. Matthew, St. Luke, Acts, Ephesians, and Hebrews. (This list is not exhaustive.) There are also numerous citations of those books now called Deutero-canonical (Tobit, Wisdom, Baruch), and even several quotations from documents now lost to us.

The letter closes with a lengthy and beautiful prayer.