Today, June 30th, as our Church celebrates the Memorial of the First Martyrs of the Church of Rome, we are invited to first read and reflect on a passage from the letter of the Apostle Paul to the Romans (8:18-39), entitled "Nothing is able to separate us from the love of God which comes to us through Jesus Christ". Our treasure, which follows, is from a letter to the Corinthians by Clement I, pope.
The First Martyrs of the Church of Rome were martyred Christians in the city of Rome during Nero's persecution in 64. The event is recorded by both Tacitus and Pope Clement I, among others. These first Christian martyrs in the city of Rome are remembered and honored by the Church today. Saints Peter and Paul were among them, but numerous unknown others also gave their lives. Some of them were sewn into the bellies of animals while still alive and then fed to wild dogs to be torn to pieces. Others were coated with wax and lit on fire at night as torches in Nero's gardens while he entertained guests. Still others were crucified like our Lord. These persecutions went beyond mere execution for a crime. They manifested an evil of the most diabolical nature.
Though these martyrdoms were expected to eliminate Christianity from the Roman Empire, those expectations were never realized. Instead, the courageous witness of these men and women planted and watered the seeds of faith that would continue to grow, blossom, and produce an abundance of good fruit.
Saint Clement of Rome is primarily known for being the fourth Pope and one of the Apostolic Fathers, a group of early Church leaders who personally knew the apostles. He is also famous for writing a letter to the Church in Corinth, known as "1 Clement". This letter is one of the oldest surviving Christian writings outside the New Testament and is a valuable piece of early Christian literature. It addressed a dispute within the Corinthian community and emphasized the importance of unity and obedience to church leadership.
St. Clement is considered one of the earliest Christian leaders who had a direct connection to the apostles, particularly St. Peter. He served as the fourth Pope, succeeding St. Peter, St. Linus, and St. Cletus. Tradition holds that St. Clement was martyred during the reign of Emperor Trajan in the year 100 by being thrown into the sea with an anchor tied around his neck.
Saint Clement's letter to the Corinthians is one of the earliest documents of Christianity that we have, after the Epistles and the Acts, to show us how the Church was developing. It was written shortly after Apostolic times, the scholars put it at between 80 and 100 AD. Its main subject - Clement's answer to a problem that the church of Corinth had raised with him - shows the relationship of the local churches to each other. The church of Corinth had obviously written to the bishop of Rome for advice, and the latter answered admonishing them, using references to the letter of Paul to those same Corinthians, written some decades earlier and obviously still familiar to them, as well as other passages from various writings of the Apostles that are now part of the New Testament (which was not compiled yet.) The letter shows us two things: (1) the local churches were in unity with each other, and the Bishop of Rome had enough authority to be asked for advice by the community in Corinth (Greece) and for his advice to be followed. (2) that various writings of the Apostles - later to be "canonized" in the New Testament - were already circulating among the churches and known by all of them.
Of all the letters of Paul, that to the Christians at Rome has long held pride of place. It is the longest and most systematic unfolding of the apostle's thought, expounding the gospel of God's righteousness that saves all who believe; it reflects a universal outlook, with special implications for Israel's relation to the church. Yet, like all Paul's letters, Romans too arose out of a specific situation, when the apostle wrote from Greece, likely Corinth, between A.D. 56 and 58.
Paul at that time was about to leave for Jerusalem with a collection of funds for the impoverished Jewish Christian believers there, taken up from his predominantly Gentile congregations. He planned then to travel on to Rome and to enlist support there for a mission to Spain. Such a journey had long been on his mind. Now, with much missionary preaching successfully accomplished in the East, he sought new opportunities in the West, to complete the divine plan of evangelization in the Roman world. Yet he recognized that the visit to Jerusalem would be hazardous, and we know from Acts that Paul was arrested there and came to Rome only in chains, as a prisoner.
