Coustant, Monitum in epistolam I (decretalem)

THE DECRETAL LETTERS OF SAINT CLEMENT I, ROMAN PONTIFF

(Mansi, Concilia, I, 107.)

DOM COUSTANT'S ADMONITION ON THE FOLLOWING LETTER.

(Epistolae Romanorum Pontificum, vol. I, Appendix, p. 1.)

I. Jean-Baptiste Cotelier, among the pieces which he entitled Clementina, published the following letter in Greek and in Latin. A version of the same we already possessed, received from Rufinus, which Isidore Mercator adopted and set at the head of his collection with no small addition. Now since we are going to present this collection of Isidore in its own place, it will perhaps seem superfluous to some either to reproduce here the letter inserted in it, or to reprint it there. But it is fitting neither to publish this letter without the Greek in which it was first written, nor to add to the pure collection of Isidore the Greek which it lacked. And we the more readily set the original Greek text, together with Cotelier's version, here in front, because everyone knows how free and careless are Rufinus's renderings from Greek into Latin. But let him who desires that man's version go to the collection of Mercator, in which it will hold the place that belongs to it.

II. Rufinus, in his preface to the published books of Clement's Recognitions, supposes this letter to be later than those books. Photius, however, in codices CXII and CXIII, judges it to be the dedication of the work which comprised the acts of Peter and his disputations with Simon, as well as the recognition of Clement and of his father and brothers; and Cotelier subscribes to this opinion, especially since at the foot of the letter Clement is made to send to James, at Peter's bidding, a work with this title, Clement's Epitome of the Preachings of Peter on his Journeys, or, as Rufinus preferred, the Itinerary of Peter. Having said this, the pseudo-Clement immediately adds, and closes the letter with, these words: For the rest, I shall begin to set forth as I have been bidden; by which words some work that is to follow directly is plainly promised. Moreover the opening of Clement's Recognitions fits so aptly with the end of this letter, as we shall point out in the last note, that we have almost no doubt that it is this work which is promised here.

III. From this we think it follows that this letter and the Itinerary just mentioned have one and the same parent. Now since the Church rejects that Itinerary as stuffed with trifles and fables, and it was for that reason cast among the apocrypha by the judgement of Gelasius and his council, we are taught by the same judgement what is to be thought of this letter also. The same judgement is further confirmed by its manifest agreement with the Clementine homilies, which we have ascertained with the help of Cotelier's marginal notes. Nor indeed will anyone who has compared the places cited with our letter deny that both works came out of one workshop.

IV. Rufinus too perceived that it tells against the genuineness of this letter that Clement is proclaimed in it to have succeeded Peter immediately; and he does not conceal that it is objected to him how, since Linus and Cletus were bishops in the city of Rome before this Clement, Clement himself, writing to James, can say that the chair of teaching was handed over to him by Peter. He for his part answers: Of which matter we have received this to be the explanation, that Linus and Cletus were indeed bishops in the city of Rome before Clement, but while Peter was still living, namely so that they might bear the care of the episcopate, while he himself fulfilled the office of the apostolate; and that hence it came about both that they are counted as bishops before Clement, and that Clement nevertheless took up the seat of teaching after the death of Peter. But that this explanation is worthless we have already shown, both by other considerations and by the catalogues of the Roman pontiffs which the ancient Fathers composed. For in these Linus and Cletus are reckoned before Clement not only as Roman bishops, but also as the immediate successors of Peter.

V. But the falsity of this letter is also certain and established from this, that Clement is made to write it after the passion of Peter to James, who is known from undoubted records to have died before Peter. For it is agreed that James was killed by the Jews in the year of Christ 62; whereas some think that Peter suffered in the year 65, more in the year 66, others in either 67 or 68, and certainly none before 65. Moved by this difficulty, Heriger, abbot of Lobbes, who flourished in the eleventh century, in our Edmond Martène's Thesaurus Anecdotorum, vol. I, p. 117, concerning the decretal letters of James and Clement sent to one another, in which Clement speaks thus of Peter, as of one who has already suffered, asks how this can be reconciled. Therefore, he says, it is manifest that he did not write while Peter was living; and (yet) it is manifest that James departed eight years before the passion of Peter. But after the passion of Peter, Linus for twelve years, and Anacletus (that is, Cletus) for as many, were the fellow workers of Clement, who had truly succeeded Peter. Much less, therefore, could he have written back to James in their time. And after their departure, when Clement alone presided over the Roman Church for nine years, much less still is it to be believed that he could have written back, when a space of thirty-two years from the passion of James had been completed. In these words it is to be noted in passing that this writer unfolds a certain third system concerning the succession of blessed Peter. For he holds it as certain that Clement truly succeeded Peter, and nevertheless does not doubt that after Peter's death both Linus for twelve years and Cletus for as many governed the Roman Church, not indeed as successors of Peter, but as fellow workers of Clement; so that Clement began to rule the Roman Church alone only twenty-four years after the death of Peter. The fact is that after Rufinus a twofold opinion on this matter had arisen and commonly prevailed, which Photius records in codex CXIII in these words: Some assert that Clement was the second bishop of the city of Rome from Peter, but others the fourth; for Linus and Anacletus came between the two as pontiffs. Hence some writers, while they heedlessly follow now the one opinion, now the other, have fallen into a manifest conflict of words, as may be seen in the Liber pontificalis, whose author, under Peter and under Clement, makes Clement himself the immediate successor of Peter; but under Linus and Cletus he reckons how many years Linus sat after Peter, and how many Cletus after him. So too the writer of the martyrology published among Bede's works has this, at the fourth day before the Kalends of December, concerning Saint Clement: He received the pontificate of the Church by the command of blessed Peter. Linus and Cletus are written before him for this reason, that they were ordained bishops for the priestly ministry by the Prince of the apostles himself. Yet just before this he prefaces of the same man: He was ordained the fourth bishop of Rome after Peter, and he does not remember that at the sixth day before the Kalends of May Anacletus had been said by himself to have ruled the Church as the fourth after blessed Peter; or that at the sixth day before the Kalends of December he had declared of Saint Linus, He was the first after the apostle Peter to hold the Roman Church, for twelve years, three months, twelve days. From this conflict of words the Martyrology likewise ascribed to Bede, which Bolland published at the beginning of the second volume for the month of March, is free.

VI. After this letter was given a Latin dress by Rufinus, it was also inserted in several ancient collections of canons, and in particular in certain copies of the codex published by Paschasius Quesnel. Hence it is not at all surprising that it was cited under Clement's name in the year 442 by the first Council of Vaison, canon 16, and afterwards by Nicholas I, John VIII, and others.