Since the deeds of several emperors have been treated, from Tyberio, Octauiani’s successor, down to Trayanum, the fourteenth emperor, we must now treat the supreme pontiffs who came after Peter, the first vicar of Jesus Christ and supreme pontiff.
Although Peter, before his own passion and in an assembly of the faithful, appointed Clement as his successor, the faithful, instructed by the Holy Spirit, decreed together with Clement that another should be created bishop of the city: namely Linus, Blessed Peter’s disciple and assistant in the ministry. They did this lest other supreme pontiffs, following Peter’s example, should choose their own successors—not a man like Clement, singular in holiness and wisdom, but someone unlike Clement according to their own pleasure.
Although Haymo seems to say that Linus and Cletus were not themselves supreme pontiffs but Peter’s assistants, and that they are therefore numbered among the pontiffs, it is nevertheless said more truly and commonly that they were supreme prelates: Linus after Peter, Cletus after Linus, and Clement after him, as is found in Si Petrus, Cause 8, Question 1, with the gloss on the canon.
Linus, therefore, a Tuscan by birth, held the Roman cathedral see after Peter for fifteen years, four months, and thirteen days. He ordained that a woman should enter a church with her head veiled, and he was crowned with martyrdom in the time of Emperor Domitian.
He was succeeded by Cletus, a Roman by birth, who sat for eleven years, one month, and eleven days. He is found to have been the first to place the words “Health and apostolic blessing” in apostolic letters, and he was crowned with martyrdom.
Cletus left Peter’s see to Clement, who governed the Church for nine years and two months. Clement divided the city into seven regions among notaries who were diligently to record the deeds of the martyrs. He also ordained that the episcopal chair should stand in a more elevated place in the church, so that the bishop might be seen by everyone and might himself see everyone, as in Episcopus, Distinction 95; and that a baptized person should be confirmed more promptly with chrism by a bishop. He was crowned with martyrdom under Trayano.
After him Anacletus undertook the government of the Roman Church, which he governed for nine years, two months, and ten days. The pontificate was vacant for thirteen days. He ordained that a cleric should grow neither long hair nor a beard, and he was crowned with martyrdom under Trayano.
Eusebius is silent about this Anacletus in the Chronicle and says that Anacletus is Cletus. But Damasus, following Jerome in the chronicle of the Roman pontiffs, says that they are two different men, for Cletus was a Roman and Anacletus a Greek. In many other matters also the chronicle of Eusebius seems to differ from those of others.
§ I: Returning to Clement’s Deeds
Many noteworthy things are related concerning Clement’s conversion and his recognition of his parents and brothers in the book called The Itinerary of Peter. Because that book is numbered among the apocryphal writings in Sancta Romana, Distinction 15, I shall touch only upon its principal points, which Vincent pursues at length in the Historical Mirror.
Clement was born of a noble Roman family. His father was named Faustinus and his mother Mathidiana. His brothers, born before him, were Faustus and Faustinus.
Faustinus’s brother was drawn by Mathidiana’s beauty into desire for her, though she was his brother’s wife, and repeatedly solicited her to wickedness. She resisted as a most chaste woman. At last Mathidiana, unwilling to reveal the kinsman’s crime to her husband lest she cause dissension between the brothers, but wishing both to provide against danger to her own chastity and to remove from the other man an occasion of temptation, pretended that a certain divinity had revealed to her in a dream that she should go with her sons Faustus and Faustinus to distant lands, or else she would incur death together with them.
Believing this, Faustinus, lest he lose at once his wife and his dearest sons, sent the boys with their mother to Athens, so that in the meantime they might at least be educated there in learning.
While they were sailing over the sea, however, they were battered by a marvelous storm and suffered shipwreck. When the ship broke apart, Mathidiana was cast upon a plank onto the shore of an island. Her sons, carried far away by the waves of the sea upon other timbers, were taken up by certain people in another ship.
Tormented by excessive grief, Mathidiana uttered pitiable cries over the loss of her children, looking this way and that in case the wave of the sea might cast even her sons’ corpses onto the land. Deprived of any hope of seeing them again, she lacerated her hands and arms with bites and admitted no consolation from the comfort offered by others.
One woman among the others came to her and, for her own consolation, related that her husband had perished in the sea while still a young man, that she had borne it with equanimity, and that for love of him she had afterward married no other. Out of compassion the woman offered Mathidiana her house in which to live with her. Mathidiana went to dwell with her and sought her livelihood by the work of her own hands.
Not long afterward, however, Mathidiana’s hands and arms became incapable of work and almost devoid of feeling. The widow also fell into paralysis. Therefore, lest they perish from hunger, Mathidiana was obliged to procure food for herself and her companion.
Her sons Faustus and Faustinus had been taken into a little ship by pirates, who saw them floating upon planks among the waves of the sea. The pirates sold them to an honorable widow named Justina, who reared them as sons and had them educated in the liberal arts. She changed their names, calling the first Aquila and the second Nicetas. In the course of time they adhered to Simon Magus, but when Peter exposed his deceits, they abandoned Simon and became Peter’s disciples.
Their father, Mathidiana’s husband, heard nothing about what had happened to his wife and sons after they left the city. He sent many different messengers to Athens and other regions to inquire about them, but could obtain no information from anywhere. At last, leaving the boy Clement under the care of kinsmen as guardians, he himself departed from the city to search for them. He too suffered shipwreck at sea and became poor, being ashamed to return home.
Clement, who had been left at Rome, devoted himself to philosophy and attained its summit. He greatly desired and diligently sought to discover how the soul’s immortality might be proved to him. For this reason he frequented the schools of the philosophers. If an argument establishing that the soul was immortal prevailed, he rejoiced; if one concluded that it was mortal, he went away sad.
[Running head: Chapter Two, Folio 218.]
Barnabas the Apostle came to Rome for the sake of preaching and publicly announced the mysteries of Christ and of the life to come. The philosophers thought him insane because they were hearing unfamiliar things. Clement was nevertheless moved by his words and, desiring his friendship, brought him into his house.
After Barnabas had instructed him in many matters, Clement heard that Peter, the chief teacher of this doctrine, which he confirmed by miracles, was at Antioch. Clement went there to him. Peter instructed him fully in the faith and baptized him, and Clement followed him everywhere.
When Peter questioned Clement about his family, Clement related what he believed had happened to his mother and brothers and then to his father—namely, that they had perished in the sea—and set everything out in order. On hearing this, Peter could not restrain his tears.
On one occasion Peter, together with his disciples Clement and others, came to the island where Mathidiana, Clement’s mother, lived. Seeing her begging, he reproved her for not seeking her livelihood with her own hands and for begging idly.
She explained the incapacity of her hands and its cause, namely the danger she had undergone and the loss of her sons. Because of this she had, as though in despair, lacerated her hands and arms with her teeth. She then narrated the sequence of events.
Peter said to her, “There is among us”—for Clement was not then present—“a certain young man named Clement who reports that these things happened to his mother and brothers.” Hearing this, she begged to be brought to him so that she might see him. When this was done, they recognized each other and embraced one another with joyful tears.
Meanwhile Aquila and Nicetas, who were then absent, returned. When they saw Mathidiana speaking with Peter, they asked who this woman was. Clement said to them, “She is my mother, whom our master Peter has caused me to find.” When Peter related the manner of the recognition, they clearly understood from what they had heard from Peter and from the reports of others that she was also their mother and Clement their brother. Once they recognized this, and after the stupefaction of their minds had passed, they fell into mutual kisses and pious tears, each embracing the other.
At another time Peter, Nicetas, Aquila, and Clement went to a certain secluded place for the sake of prayer. A venerable but poor old man began to address them, saying: “I pity you, brothers, because I perceive that under the appearance of piety you are gravely mistaken. There is no God and no providence in the world. Rather, a person’s nativity in the constellation and fortuitous chance govern everything, as I myself have learned, being more educated than others in mathematical learning. Therefore, whether you pray or do not pray, what your nativity contains will happen.”
Clement, Aquila, and Nicetas disputed with him for a long time about divine providence and demonstrated with clear arguments that no one was compelled or driven by fate to good or evil.
At last the old man said: “From your words I would believe that providence exists, but my own knowledge forbids me to assent to this matter. I know my own nativity and that of my wife, and I know that events befell each of us just as it declared. Hear, therefore, the configuration of my wife. She had Mars with Venus above the center, but the moon toward its setting in the house of Mars and in the bounds of Saturn. This configuration produces adulterers, causes a man’s own servants to love his wife, and causes her to die during travel and at sea.
“This is what happened. My wife fell in love with a servant and, fearing danger and disgrace, fled with him and entrusted herself to the sea. As my brother related, she first loved him. But because he refused to consent, she redirected the love of her lust toward his servant. Yet this should not be imputed to her, because her nativity compelled her to it.”
He also related how she had feigned the dream so that she might go to Athens, but had perished at sea.
Peter said: “So that you may know your opinion—that people are subject to their nativity or to the fate of the stars—to be false, behold your wife, the chaste and modest Mathidiana; behold your sons Faustus and Faustinus, and Clement.”
When he recognized them all and they recognized him, they fell into mutual embraces and kisses, casting all who were present into amazement. Their father Faustinus himself also, once instructed in the faith, received baptism. Mathidiana and the widow who had received her into her house had already been healed.
§ II: Clement’s Exile and Martyrdom
After Cletus, Clement was created supreme pontiff by the faithful. He excelled so greatly in the adornments of character that he was loved by everyone, not only by worshipers of Christ but also by Jews capable of understanding and by Gentiles.
When he had consecrated Domicilla, Aurelian’s betrothed, with the sacred veil, and had persuaded Theodora, wife of Syſimius, a prominent citizen, to remain chaste, Syſimius was moved by jealousy. One day he entered the church in which Clement was celebrating the divine rites for the faithful, wishing to learn why his wife frequented the church so much.
While Clement was praying, Syſimius became so blind and deaf that he could see or hear nothing. He therefore signaled to his servants to carry him outside. They went round and round with him but could not find the church door. Understanding what had happened, Theodora prayed for him, and by God’s power he was permitted to depart.
When he returned home, however, he remained blind and mute. On hearing this after Mass, Theodora prostrated herself at Clement’s feet. She explained what had befallen her husband and asked Clement to pray for him.
After a common prayer had been offered by everyone, Clement went with Rheodora [read: Theodora] to Syſimius’s house and, praying over him, restored his sight and hearing. When Syſimius saw Clement, he thought that Clement had deluded him by magical art and ordered his servants to bind and drag him. They instead bound and dragged a column standing there, while they and Syſimius imagined that they were binding and dragging Clement.
Leaving that place, Clement admonished Theodora not to cease praying until the Lord visited her husband with his light. While she prayed, Blessed Peter appeared to her and said: “Through you your husband Syſimius will be saved, so that what my brother Paul said may be fulfilled: ‘The unbelieving husband is sanctified through the faithful woman.’”
Not long afterward Syſimius, illuminated by God, called Theodora and asked her to cause Clement to come to him. Filled with the greatest joy, she did so immediately. Clement came, instructed Syſimius and his household in the faith, and at the following Easter baptized 424 people from his household. Through this Syſimius the Lord also led to the truth of the faith many nobles and friends of Emperor Nerva.
Finally Publius Tarquinius, count of the sacred largesses, gave money to many people and stirred up a very great sedition against Saint Clement. But when the prefect Mamertinus had Clement brought before him and tried with many words to bend him, Clement answered those words prudently and reasonably. Mamertinus reported to Emperor Trayano that the people had accused Bishop Clement in this way although he had done no wrong. Trayanus sent word back that Clement must either sacrifice or be sent into exile overseas.
[Running head: Seventh Title.]
When this decree had been confirmed by the senate, God gave Saint Clement such grace that even Mamertinus wept on his account and dismissed him by providing him with a ship and all necessities, while many of the clergy and people accompanied him.
Upon reaching his place of exile, Clement found there more than five thousand Christians who had already been condemned to cut marble. When they saw Saint Clement, they burst into tears. He comforted them in the Lord, saying: “God has sent me not for my merits but in answer to your prayers, so that I may become a sharer in your crowns.”
When he heard that water was carried to them from six miles away, he prayed with the people that God would open a spring of water for his confessors. Looking around after the prayer, he saw a lamb standing and indicating a place by raising its right foot. Saint Clement then understood that what he had seen was divine. He alone had seen it, but he approached the place with everyone and commanded them to dig there.
When they failed to reach the place where the lamb had stood and found nothing, Saint Clement dug beneath the lamb’s foot with a small hoe. Immediately a living and abundant spring flowed forth. At the report of this miracle and through the saint’s teaching, more than five hundred people were baptized in one day, and within a year seventy-five churches were built.
After three years Trajan heard of these things through a malicious report by the Gentiles and sent a certain commander there to take charge of the matter. When the commander perceived that everyone wished to die, he spared the multitude. He commanded that Saint Clement alone be submerged in the sea with an anchor bound to his neck.
When this had been done and the Christian people wept at the sight, Clement’s disciples Cornelius and Ephebus, standing on the shore, exhorted everyone to pray to God that he would reveal the body of his martyr. The sea immediately receded for three miles. They entered over dry ground and found a dwelling prepared by God in the form of a marble temple. In a chest lay the body of Saint Clement, Peter’s disciple, with the anchor beside him.
It was revealed to the disciples that they should not remove him from that place. Every year, on the anniversary of his passion, the sea receded for seven days and provided those coming near Gersona with a dry road for three miles. When the feast was over, the waters returned.
On one occasion a woman went there with her little son. After the feast, when everyone was returning, the woman in her forgetfulness and haste left the child there, for he had fallen asleep in the temple. When she returned home, she believed that he had been submerged and remained in great mourning throughout the whole year.
Returning to the place at the feast of the following year, however, she found him sleeping where she had left him. Awakened and questioned by his mother, he said that he thought he had slept sweetly for only one night.
In the course of time, however, because of the sins of the inhabitants, that miracle of the sea waters’ withdrawal ceased. Owing to an incursion of barbarians, the temple had been destroyed, and the chest containing the body had been carried away from there and its location in the sea was unknown.
A certain priest called Philosophus, however, was sent by Pope Nicolao to preach to certain nations. When he reached those regions and diligently inquired about this body, the inhabitants did not know where it was. After prayers were offered concerning it by the clergy and the people, its location was revealed to him. He had the body brought out from there and carried to Rome, and it rests in the church dedicated in Clement’s name.
As was said above, Clement was succeeded in the papacy by Anacletus, and Anacletus by Evaristus, a Greek by birth. Evaristus sat for nine years, six months, and two days, and the episcopate was vacant for eighteen days. He divided the titular churches in the city among the priests and appointed seven deacons to guard the bishop while he preached.