CLEMENT OF ROME
"Let a person be faithful, let him be able to speak forth knowledge, let him be wise in his discernment of words, let him be pure in deeds. For the more he appears to be great, the more he should be humble, striving for the good of all, not just of himself."
CLEMENT OF ROME
Bishop Clement is considered one of the first fathers and leaders of the church in the late first century. Credible ancient authors Eusebius and Tertullian wrote that Clement knew Jesus’s original twelve apostles who followed Jesus while he was living. They also recorded that Clement was discipled by Paul and Peter. Clement’s letter to the church at Corinth is one of the earliest documents about Christianity outside of the New Testament. His influence was great in the early church alongside the other apostles.
Clement was a devout follower of Jesus and wrote that Jesus lived, that Jesus claimed to be God, and that Jesus’s followers worshiped him as God from the beginning of the Christian movement. Even when he was imprisoned by Emperor Trajan, Clement witnessed to other prisoners about the death and resurrection of Jesus. Clement was executed for his faith and belief in Jesus.
CENTERED ON CHRIST
Clement wrote, “The apostles have preached the gospel to us from the Lord Jesus Christ; Jesus Christ [has done so] from God. Christ therefore was sent forth by God, and the apostles by Christ. Both these appointments, then, were made in an orderly way, according to the will of God.”
In writing about Jesus’s followers, Clement said, “Having been fully assured through the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ and confirmed in the word of God... they [the first Christians] went forth with the glad tidings that the kingdom of God should come.”
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