Clement on the Scriptures

In the Outlines, to put it briefly, he has given condensed accounts of all the Scripture of the covenant, not passing over even the disputed writings — I mean Jude and the other general letters, and the Letter of Barnabas, and the so-called Apocalypse of Peter. [a] He says that the Letter to the Hebrews is Paul’s, and that it was written to Hebrews in the Hebrew language, but that Luke zealously translated it and published it for the Greeks; that is why the same coloring of style is found in the translation of this letter and in Acts. [b] He says that the words “Paul an apostle” were naturally not set at its head; “for,” he says, “in writing to Hebrews who had formed a prejudice against him and were suspicious of him, he very wisely did not turn them away at the start by putting his name.” Then, a little further on, he adds: “But now, as the blessed presbyter used to say, since the Lord, being the apostle of the Almighty, was sent to the Hebrews, Paul, out of modesty, did not write himself down as apostle of the Hebrews, since he had been sent to the Gentiles. He did this both out of honor for the Lord and because he wrote to the Hebrews too as something over and above his task, being the herald and apostle of the Gentiles.” [c]

Again, in the same books, Clement sets down a tradition of the earliest presbyters about the order of the Gospels, as follows. [d] He said that the Gospels containing the genealogies were written first, and that the Gospel according to Mark came about in this way. When Peter had preached the word publicly in Rome and proclaimed the gospel by the Spirit, those present, who were many, urged Mark, since he had followed Peter for a long time and remembered what had been said, to write down what Peter had spoken. Mark did so, and gave the Gospel to those who had asked him for it. When Peter learned of this, he neither forbade it nor urged it on. But John, last of all, seeing that the bodily facts had been made plain in the Gospels, and urged on by his acquaintances, being borne along by God in the Spirit, made a spiritual Gospel. So much for Clement. [e]

Again, the Alexander already mentioned refers to Clement, and to Pantaenus with him, in a letter to Origen, as men who had been his own acquaintances. He writes as follows: “For this, as you know, has been the will of God, that the friendship handed down to us from our forebears should remain inviolable, or rather grow warmer and firmer. For we know as fathers those blessed men who went on ahead of us, with whom we will be before long: Pantaenus, the truly blessed man and lord, and the holy Clement, who was my lord and did me good, and any other like them. Through them I came to know you, who are best in all things, my lord and brother.” [g]

So much for that. Adamantius — for this too was Origen’s name — visited Rome at this time, when Zephyrinus led the church of the Romans, as he himself writes somewhere, “praying to see the most ancient church of the Romans.” [h] After staying there a short time, he went back to Alexandria, where he carried out his usual work of instruction with all zeal, Demetrius, who was still bishop there, urging him on and all but begging him to work tirelessly for the good of the brothers.