Clement of Rome and the Trinity Doctrine, by Alvan Lamson 1865
In treating of the lives and opinions of some of the Fathers of the Church, down to the time of the Council of Nice, the question may possibly occur, Why begin with Justin Martyr? Were there none before him? The reply is, most of those who went before are to us little else than shadows seen through the dim mist of antiquity, — their outlines too imperfectly defined to admit of accurate description or analysis. They are bloodless phantoms, well-nigh formless and void. The record of their lives has perished, or is so blended with fable, that it is impossible to separate fact from fiction. If we inquire for their writings, we encounter darkness and uncertainty at every step. Some curiosity, however, may be felt to know which, if any, of the writings ascribed to those fathers are entitled to respect as probably, or possibly, genuine; and what, genuine or forged, they teach on topics particularly discussed in the present, volume. Our purpose in this preliminary chapter is to say something on these subjects. The writings to which we refer are those generally which pass under the name of the Apostolic Fathers, so called from having been, as tradition says, hearers, or, at least, contemporaries of the Apostles. We begin with Clement Of Rome.
Clement presided over the Church of Rome at an early period, and is called its bishop. Whether he was the Clement mentioned by St. Paul in his Epistle to the Philippians (iv. 3) as his fellow-laborer, is uncertain. The genuineness, in the main, of the first Epistle to the Corinthians, attributed to him, — written in the name of the church at Rome, — though not established beyond dispute, has no slight external evidence in its favor. It may be accepted as, for the most part, genuine, though it has come down to us only in a single manuscript, and, as Mr. Norton observes, "this copy is considerably mutilated; in some passages the text is manifestly corrupt, and other passages have been suspected of being interpolations." [Genuineness of the Gospels, vol. i., Additional Notes, p. ccxli., 2d edit.] This opinion Mr. Norton shares with many learned and judicious critics, who have been unwilling to acknowledge the whole piece to have been a pure fabrication. Neander asserts that it is "not exempt from important interpolations," and that we find in it a "possible contradiction," showing that if genuine in part, it is not wholly so. [Hist. of the Christian Religion and Church, i. 658, Torrey's translation.]
The Epistle, which was written in Greek, was, according to the testimony of Eusebius, publicly read in many churches before his time, and in his own day. In some places it continued to be read in public, it would seem, down to the time of Jerome, who lived in the latter part of the fourth and early in the fifth century. Neither of these writers expresses any doubt of its genuineness.
But whether genuine or not, it is undoubtedly an early document, supposed to have been written near the end of the first century. If that be the date of the composition, it was in existence from a third to half a century before Justin Martyr— in whose works, still extant, no mention of it occurs — wrote his first Apology. Independently of the position of its reputed author, its antiquity, if nothing else, entitles it to notice in the inquiry in which we are now engaged. What traces, then, does it contain of the modern doctrine of the Trinity? It contains not the faintest trace of the supreme divinity of the Son or of the Spirit.
The contents of the Epistle are almost entirely practical, and it has very little to do with speculative theology of any sort, quotations from the Old Testament constituting a large portion of it. Speaking of the Christology of Clement, Bunsen, as above referred to, says, "It is preposterous to ask him after the three Persons of the Pseudo-Athanasian creed." Nor, we add, does Justin's doctrine of the Logos, as a great preexistent power, a hypostatized attribute, by whom, as his instrument or minister, God performed the act of creation, appear in the Epistle. God made all things by a direct exertion of his power. "By his almighty power he established the heavens, and by his incomprehensible wisdom he adorned them. He also divided the earth from the water, .... and the living creatures that are upon it he called into being by his command With his holy and pure hands he also formed man, the most excellent of all, and in intellect the most exalted, the impress of his own image." f "Let us make man in our own image, after our own likeness," etc., is quoted, but no intimation is given that the author supposed it addressed to the Son. God is sole, infinite, and supreme Creator of the material universe, using no instrument or artificer (rational power or Logos) to execute his commands. The doctrine of Philo and the Alexandrians is not found in the Epistle. Its language is far more simple than that of Philo and the Platonizing fathers.
If we turn to the new moral or spiritual creation, we shall find, that, whenever God and Christ are spoken of in connection with it, the author makes a broad distinction between the supreme, infinite One, the fountain of all peace and love, and Jesus Christ, through whom the benefits of his mercy were conveyed to the world. Of this we have an example at the very commencement of the Epistle. Thus, "by the will of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord"; and again, "Grace and peace from Almighty God, through Jesus Christ, be multiplied unto you." And this distinction is observed throughout the Epistle. Prayer is mentioned as addressed to God and not to Christ. God "sends"; Jesus is "sent." "The Apostles preached to us from our Lord Jesus Christ; Jesus Christ from God. Christ therefore was sent from God, the Apostles from Christ; both being fitly done according to the will of God." Jesus Christ is "the high priest of our offerings....Through him we look up to the heights of heaven.... Through him the eyes of our hearts were opened....Through him would the Sovereign Ruler (hO DESPOTHS) have us to taste the knowledge of immortality." So all is of God. Referring to the resurrection the author says, God has "made our Lord Jesus Christ the first fruits, raising him from the dead." He is mentioned as the "chosen" of the Father, but nothing is said of his nature, nor is his preexistence distinctly asserted in any part of the Epistle, though some have professed to find an intimation of it in certain expressions employed by the writer, which, however, prove nothing to the point. He is called "the sceptre of the majesty of God," language which implies instrumentality, not identity or equality of person. The term God is not once applied to him. But he is clearly distinguished from the one only God in the following passages, in addition to those already given. "Have we not one God, and one Christ, and one spirit of grace (or love) poured out upon us?" Again, the writer speaks of "the true and only God"; the "great artificer and Sovereign Ruler of all"; "the all-seeing God and Ruler of spirits and Lord of all flesh, who chose our Lord Jesus Christ." In what different language the Son is spoken of has been already seen.
We have quoted, we believe, the highest expressions applied to Christ in the Epistle. Certainly his supreme divinity is nowhere taught in this relic of Christian antiquity. That he is a distinct being from the Father, and altogether subordinate, is the prevailing idea of the whole composition. Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople in the ninth century, complains that the writer of the Epistle, though "he calls our Lord Jesus Christ our high priest and leader, yet does not ascribe to him the divine and higher qualities." [Biblioth., cod. 126; tom. i. p. 95, ed. Bekker.] That is, says Lardner, "in modern language, it is a Socinian Epistle." Certainly the language of Photius is very significant, coming from such a source.
[An argument for the deity of Christ, founded on the misconception of a passage in Clement's Epistle, is thus disposed of by a writer in the Christian Examiner for May, 1860: — "Nor does Clement anywhere use the expression 'the passion of God,' or anything like it. The passage referred to is cap. 2 of his genuine Epistle to the Corinthians, where we have the expression PAQHMATA AUTOU— TOU QEOU indeed being the nearest antecedent. If we insist that he wrote with strict grammatical accuracy, and reject the conjectural emendation of Junius (Young), a Trinitarian, of MAQHMATA for PAQHMATA, (the Epistle being extant in but a single manuscript,) we simply make Clement a Patripassian; for the term QEOS in every other passage of the Epistle unquestionably denotes the Father. But even Dorner, in his great work (Lehre von der Person Christi, i. 189), says that he 'does not venture to use this passage as a proof that Clement calls Christ God.' He adopts the easy supposition of a negligent use of the pronoun AUTOS, referring to Christ in the mind of the writer, though not named in the immediately preceding context. The same view of the passage is taken by Bunsen, Hippolytus and his Age, i. 46, note, 2d ed.; by Martini, Versuch, etc., p. 24, note; and by Reuss, Theologie Chretienne, ii. 326. Of this use of AUTOS we have another remarkable example in Clement, c. 86, and it is not uncommon in the New Testament, especially in the writings of John; see Winer, Gram. § 22. 3. 4, 6th ed., and Robinson's N.T. Lex., article AUTOS, 2.b. ad fin. This passage is the sole straw to which those can cling who maintain that Clement of Rome believed in the deity of Christ; a notion in direct contradiction to the whole tenor of his language in every other part of bis Epistle." — pp. 466,467.]
The ascription of "glory," or "glory, dominion," etc., occurs six times in the Epistle. In four of these cases God is expressly, clearly, and unequivocally the object. Thus, "the omnipotent God, .... to whom be glory forever and ever." [Cap. 32.] Again, "the Most High,.... to whom be glory forever and ever." [Cap. 45.] Again, "God who chose our Lord Jesus Christ,...through whom be glory and majesty, power, honor unto Him both now, and forever and ever." [Cap. 58] Once more, in the ascription at the close of the Epistle, we have, "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you and with all that are anywhere called by God through him; through whom be unto him (God) glory, honor, might, and majesty, and eternal dominion, from everlasting to everlasting." In these passages the "glory, dominion," etc., are expressly ascribed to God, either absolutely and without reference to Christ, as in the first and second instances, or through Jesus Christ, as in the last two. In one of the remaining instances we have simply, " Chosen by God, through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom be glory forever and ever"; [Cap. 50.] and in the other a similar construction. [Cap. 20.] If the ascription here is to be referred to the nearer, and not, as is possible, to the remoter antecedent, by a negligence of syntax of which there are known examples in the New Testament and in the writings of Christian antiquity, there is no difficulty in reconciling it with the supremacy of the Father, so strongly asserted, or necessarily implied, in the current language of the Epistle. The Scriptures ascribe glory and dominion to Christ, but a derived glory and dominion, God having "made him both Lord and Christ," and "given him a name above every name." [See Acts, ii. 33, 36; Philippians, ii. 9; Ephesians, i. 20-22; 1 Peter, i. 21.] With this the language of the Epistle is throughout consistent.
We repeat, in conclusion, one searches in vain, in the Epistle ascribed to this Apostolic Father, for those views of the Logos, as a personified attribute of the Father, which are so prominent in the writings of the philosophical converts to Christianity. The language employed is more scriptural, the thoughts less subtle and metaphysical, the author being content to represent God as the fountain of all power and blessing, and Jesus Christ as his Son, sent by him to be the Saviour of men. The Father is above all; his glory and majesty are underived; the Son derives from him his power and dignity, his offices and dominion. Such are the teachings of this old relic of the primitive ages. The personality of the Spirit is not one of its doctrines.
What is called Clement's Second Epistle to the Corinthians, or the fragment of it which is preserved, has no title, as the best critics agree, to be received as genuine. Eusebius says that it was quoted by no ancient writer. There are other compositions which have been ascribed to Clement, but they are all by competent critics now rejected as spurious.
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In treating of the lives and opinions of some of the Fathers of the Church, down to the time of the Council of Nice, the question may possibly occur, Why begin with Justin Martyr? Were there none before him? The reply is, most of those who went before are to us little else than shadows seen through the dim mist of antiquity, — their outlines too imperfectly defined to admit of accurate description or analysis. They are bloodless phantoms, well-nigh formless and void. The record of their lives has perished, or is so blended with fable, that it is impossible to separate fact from fiction. If we inquire for their writings, we encounter darkness and uncertainty at every step. Some curiosity, however, may be felt to know which, if any, of the writings ascribed to those fathers are entitled to respect as probably, or possibly, genuine; and what, genuine or forged, they teach on topics particularly discussed in the present, volume. Our purpose in this preliminary chapter is to say something on these subjects. The writings to which we refer are those generally which pass under the name of the Apostolic Fathers, so called from having been, as tradition says, hearers, or, at least, contemporaries of the Apostles. We begin with Clement Of Rome.
Clement presided over the Church of Rome at an early period, and is called its bishop. Whether he was the Clement mentioned by St. Paul in his Epistle to the Philippians (iv. 3) as his fellow-laborer, is uncertain. The genuineness, in the main, of the first Epistle to the Corinthians, attributed to him, — written in the name of the church at Rome, — though not established beyond dispute, has no slight external evidence in its favor. It may be accepted as, for the most part, genuine, though it has come down to us only in a single manuscript, and, as Mr. Norton observes, "this copy is considerably mutilated; in some passages the text is manifestly corrupt, and other passages have been suspected of being interpolations." [Genuineness of the Gospels, vol. i., Additional Notes, p. ccxli., 2d edit.] This opinion Mr. Norton shares with many learned and judicious critics, who have been unwilling to acknowledge the whole piece to have been a pure fabrication. Neander asserts that it is "not exempt from important interpolations," and that we find in it a "possible contradiction," showing that if genuine in part, it is not wholly so. [Hist. of the Christian Religion and Church, i. 658, Torrey's translation.]
The Epistle, which was written in Greek, was, according to the testimony of Eusebius, publicly read in many churches before his time, and in his own day. In some places it continued to be read in public, it would seem, down to the time of Jerome, who lived in the latter part of the fourth and early in the fifth century. Neither of these writers expresses any doubt of its genuineness.
But whether genuine or not, it is undoubtedly an early document, supposed to have been written near the end of the first century. If that be the date of the composition, it was in existence from a third to half a century before Justin Martyr— in whose works, still extant, no mention of it occurs — wrote his first Apology. Independently of the position of its reputed author, its antiquity, if nothing else, entitles it to notice in the inquiry in which we are now engaged. What traces, then, does it contain of the modern doctrine of the Trinity? It contains not the faintest trace of the supreme divinity of the Son or of the Spirit.
The contents of the Epistle are almost entirely practical, and it has very little to do with speculative theology of any sort, quotations from the Old Testament constituting a large portion of it. Speaking of the Christology of Clement, Bunsen, as above referred to, says, "It is preposterous to ask him after the three Persons of the Pseudo-Athanasian creed." Nor, we add, does Justin's doctrine of the Logos, as a great preexistent power, a hypostatized attribute, by whom, as his instrument or minister, God performed the act of creation, appear in the Epistle. God made all things by a direct exertion of his power. "By his almighty power he established the heavens, and by his incomprehensible wisdom he adorned them. He also divided the earth from the water, .... and the living creatures that are upon it he called into being by his command With his holy and pure hands he also formed man, the most excellent of all, and in intellect the most exalted, the impress of his own image." f "Let us make man in our own image, after our own likeness," etc., is quoted, but no intimation is given that the author supposed it addressed to the Son. God is sole, infinite, and supreme Creator of the material universe, using no instrument or artificer (rational power or Logos) to execute his commands. The doctrine of Philo and the Alexandrians is not found in the Epistle. Its language is far more simple than that of Philo and the Platonizing fathers.
If we turn to the new moral or spiritual creation, we shall find, that, whenever God and Christ are spoken of in connection with it, the author makes a broad distinction between the supreme, infinite One, the fountain of all peace and love, and Jesus Christ, through whom the benefits of his mercy were conveyed to the world. Of this we have an example at the very commencement of the Epistle. Thus, "by the will of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord"; and again, "Grace and peace from Almighty God, through Jesus Christ, be multiplied unto you." And this distinction is observed throughout the Epistle. Prayer is mentioned as addressed to God and not to Christ. God "sends"; Jesus is "sent." "The Apostles preached to us from our Lord Jesus Christ; Jesus Christ from God. Christ therefore was sent from God, the Apostles from Christ; both being fitly done according to the will of God." Jesus Christ is "the high priest of our offerings....Through him we look up to the heights of heaven.... Through him the eyes of our hearts were opened....Through him would the Sovereign Ruler (hO DESPOTHS) have us to taste the knowledge of immortality." So all is of God. Referring to the resurrection the author says, God has "made our Lord Jesus Christ the first fruits, raising him from the dead." He is mentioned as the "chosen" of the Father, but nothing is said of his nature, nor is his preexistence distinctly asserted in any part of the Epistle, though some have professed to find an intimation of it in certain expressions employed by the writer, which, however, prove nothing to the point. He is called "the sceptre of the majesty of God," language which implies instrumentality, not identity or equality of person. The term God is not once applied to him. But he is clearly distinguished from the one only God in the following passages, in addition to those already given. "Have we not one God, and one Christ, and one spirit of grace (or love) poured out upon us?" Again, the writer speaks of "the true and only God"; the "great artificer and Sovereign Ruler of all"; "the all-seeing God and Ruler of spirits and Lord of all flesh, who chose our Lord Jesus Christ." In what different language the Son is spoken of has been already seen.
We have quoted, we believe, the highest expressions applied to Christ in the Epistle. Certainly his supreme divinity is nowhere taught in this relic of Christian antiquity. That he is a distinct being from the Father, and altogether subordinate, is the prevailing idea of the whole composition. Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople in the ninth century, complains that the writer of the Epistle, though "he calls our Lord Jesus Christ our high priest and leader, yet does not ascribe to him the divine and higher qualities." [Biblioth., cod. 126; tom. i. p. 95, ed. Bekker.] That is, says Lardner, "in modern language, it is a Socinian Epistle." Certainly the language of Photius is very significant, coming from such a source.
[An argument for the deity of Christ, founded on the misconception of a passage in Clement's Epistle, is thus disposed of by a writer in the Christian Examiner for May, 1860: — "Nor does Clement anywhere use the expression 'the passion of God,' or anything like it. The passage referred to is cap. 2 of his genuine Epistle to the Corinthians, where we have the expression PAQHMATA AUTOU— TOU QEOU indeed being the nearest antecedent. If we insist that he wrote with strict grammatical accuracy, and reject the conjectural emendation of Junius (Young), a Trinitarian, of MAQHMATA for PAQHMATA, (the Epistle being extant in but a single manuscript,) we simply make Clement a Patripassian; for the term QEOS in every other passage of the Epistle unquestionably denotes the Father. But even Dorner, in his great work (Lehre von der Person Christi, i. 189), says that he 'does not venture to use this passage as a proof that Clement calls Christ God.' He adopts the easy supposition of a negligent use of the pronoun AUTOS, referring to Christ in the mind of the writer, though not named in the immediately preceding context. The same view of the passage is taken by Bunsen, Hippolytus and his Age, i. 46, note, 2d ed.; by Martini, Versuch, etc., p. 24, note; and by Reuss, Theologie Chretienne, ii. 326. Of this use of AUTOS we have another remarkable example in Clement, c. 86, and it is not uncommon in the New Testament, especially in the writings of John; see Winer, Gram. § 22. 3. 4, 6th ed., and Robinson's N.T. Lex., article AUTOS, 2.b. ad fin. This passage is the sole straw to which those can cling who maintain that Clement of Rome believed in the deity of Christ; a notion in direct contradiction to the whole tenor of his language in every other part of bis Epistle." — pp. 466,467.]
The ascription of "glory," or "glory, dominion," etc., occurs six times in the Epistle. In four of these cases God is expressly, clearly, and unequivocally the object. Thus, "the omnipotent God, .... to whom be glory forever and ever." [Cap. 32.] Again, "the Most High,.... to whom be glory forever and ever." [Cap. 45.] Again, "God who chose our Lord Jesus Christ,...through whom be glory and majesty, power, honor unto Him both now, and forever and ever." [Cap. 58] Once more, in the ascription at the close of the Epistle, we have, "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you and with all that are anywhere called by God through him; through whom be unto him (God) glory, honor, might, and majesty, and eternal dominion, from everlasting to everlasting." In these passages the "glory, dominion," etc., are expressly ascribed to God, either absolutely and without reference to Christ, as in the first and second instances, or through Jesus Christ, as in the last two. In one of the remaining instances we have simply, " Chosen by God, through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom be glory forever and ever"; [Cap. 50.] and in the other a similar construction. [Cap. 20.] If the ascription here is to be referred to the nearer, and not, as is possible, to the remoter antecedent, by a negligence of syntax of which there are known examples in the New Testament and in the writings of Christian antiquity, there is no difficulty in reconciling it with the supremacy of the Father, so strongly asserted, or necessarily implied, in the current language of the Epistle. The Scriptures ascribe glory and dominion to Christ, but a derived glory and dominion, God having "made him both Lord and Christ," and "given him a name above every name." [See Acts, ii. 33, 36; Philippians, ii. 9; Ephesians, i. 20-22; 1 Peter, i. 21.] With this the language of the Epistle is throughout consistent.
We repeat, in conclusion, one searches in vain, in the Epistle ascribed to this Apostolic Father, for those views of the Logos, as a personified attribute of the Father, which are so prominent in the writings of the philosophical converts to Christianity. The language employed is more scriptural, the thoughts less subtle and metaphysical, the author being content to represent God as the fountain of all power and blessing, and Jesus Christ as his Son, sent by him to be the Saviour of men. The Father is above all; his glory and majesty are underived; the Son derives from him his power and dignity, his offices and dominion. Such are the teachings of this old relic of the primitive ages. The personality of the Spirit is not one of its doctrines.
What is called Clement's Second Epistle to the Corinthians, or the fragment of it which is preserved, has no title, as the best critics agree, to be received as genuine. Eusebius says that it was quoted by no ancient writer. There are other compositions which have been ascribed to Clement, but they are all by competent critics now rejected as spurious.
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