Theological Term of the Week: Clement of Rome

Clement of Rome
“[A] presbyter (elder) or bishop of the church of Rome,”1 author of the Letter of Clement, and an apostolic father. He was active from 90-100 AD. 

• From 2000 Years of Christ’s Power by N. H. Needham, page 58-59: 

He wrote the [Letter of Clement] to try to settle a dispute in the Corinthian church. In a conflict between the older and younger generations, the Corinthian Christians has dismissed all their presbyters and replaced them by new youthful leaders. Clement’s response was to emphasise the need for good order in the Church. He argued that God’s purpose of salvation revealed a sort of “chain of command”: God the Father sent the Lord Jesus Christ, Christ sent the apostles, the apostles appointed bishops (or presbyters) and deacons in the churches, and they in turn appoint their successors. A church must not disturb this chain of command by dismissing its officers without just cause, which did not exist in the case of the Corinthian presbyters. Clement therefore entreated the Corinthians to restore their deposed leaders back into office.

• From The First Epistle of Clement, chapter 32: 

WE ARE JUSTIFIED NOT BY OUR OWN WORKS, BUT BY FAITH

All [the Old Testament saints], therefore, were highly honoured, and made great, not for their own sake, or for their own works, or for the righteousness which they wrought, but through the operation of His will. And we, too, being called by His will in Christ Jesus, are not justified by ourselves, nor by our own wisdom, or understanding, or godliness, or works which we have wrought in holiness of heart; but by that faith through which, from the beginning, Almighty God has justified all men; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

Learn more:

1. Got Questions: Who was Clement of Rome?
2. Theopedia: Clement of Rome
3. EarlyChurch.org: Clement of Rome
4. Chrisitan Classics Ethereal Library: Philip Schaff’s Introductory Note to the First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians 
5. 5 Minutes in Church History: Clement

Related terms:

• apostolic fathers
• Justin Martyr

Filed under Christian History

1From 2000 Years of Christ’s Power by N. R. Needham.

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Theological Term of the Week: Apostolic Fathers

apostolic fathers
“[T]he authors of the earliest Christian writings which came next after the New Testament.”1

• From 2000 Years of Christ’s Power by N. H. Needham, page 58: 

The name [apostolic fathers] was invented in the 17th Century, when scholars believed that these early Christian writers all had direct personal contact with the apostles; most historians today think that only a few of them did… The age of the apostolic fathers stretched only from about AD 95 to 140.

Learn more:

1. Got Questions: Who were the Apostolic Fathers?
2. Theopedia: Apostolic Fathers

Related terms:

• Ambrose of Milan
• Apollinarius
• Athanasius
• Augustine of Hippo
• Basil of Caesarea
• Cappadocian fathers
• Columba
• Cyril of Alexandria
• Gregory of Nanzianzus
• Gregory of Nyssa
• Gregory the Great
• Hilary of Poitiers
• Irenaeus of Lyons
• Jerome
• John Chrysostom
• Justin Martyr
• Maximus the Confessor
• Monica
• Nestorius
• Origen
• Patrick
• Pelagius
• Sabellius
• Tertullian
• Venerable Bede, The

Filed under Christian History

1From 2000 Years of Christ’s Power by N. R. Needham.

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Clicking on the Theological Terms button will take you to an alphabetical list of all the theological terms.

Theological Term of the Week: The Venerable Bede

The Venerable Bede
A presbyter-monk who wrote a complete history of the Church in England up to his own time. He lived from 673–735.1

• From 2000 Years of Christ’s Power by N. H. Needham, page 320: 

[Bede’s Church History of the English People] … is our main source of information about the Christian faith in England from its origins until the 8th Century. Bede was on of the most highly educated Western Europeans of his day. He knew all three of the Church’s great languages, Latin, Greek and Hebrews (a rare achievement for any Westerner at that time). A dedicated follower of Augustine of Hippo, Bede was also well-versed in the writings of other early Church fathers, especially Ambrose, Jerome, and Gregory the Great, and in the ancient pagan literature of Greece and Rome.As well as his English Church history, Bede wrote many sermons, biographies (including a life of Cuthbert), letters, poems, and commentaries on books of the Bible, and translated John’s Gospel into English.

• From Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of England: 

CHAP. X. How, in the reign of Arcadius, Pelagius, a Briton, insolently impugned the Grace of God. [395 AD]



In the year of our Lord 394, Arcadius, the son of Theodosius, the forty-third from Augustus, succeeding to the empire, with his brother Honorius, held it thirteen years. In his time, Pelagius, [Pelagius, the founder of the heresy known as Pelagianism, was probably born in 370 A.D., and is said to have been a Briton. His great opponent, St. Augustine, speaks of him as a good and holy man; later slanders are to be attributed to Jerome’s abusive language. The cardinal point in his doctrine is his denial of original sin, involving a too great reliance on the human will in achieving holiness, and a limitation of the action of the grace of God] a Briton, spread far and near the infection of his perfidious doctrine, denying the assistance of the Divine grace, being seconded therein by his associate Julianus of Campania, who was impelled by an uncontrolled desire to recover his bishopric, of which he had been deprived. St . Augustine, and the other orthodox fathers, quoted many thousand catholic authorities against them, but failed to amend their folly; nay, more, their madness being rebuked was rather increased by contradiction than suffered by them to be purified through adherence to the truth … .

Learn more:

1. Christian History: The Venerable Bede
2. 5 Minutes in Church History: The Venerable Bede
3. Christian Classics Ethereal Library: The Venerable Bede
4. Christian Classics Ethereal Library: Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of England

Related terms:

• Ambrose of Milan
• Apollinarius
• Athanasius
• Augustine of Hippo
• Basil of Caesarea
• Cappadocian fathers
• Columba
• Cyril of Alexandria
• Gregory of Nanzianzus
• Gregory of Nyssa
• Gregory the Great
• Hilary of Poitiers
• Irenaeus of Lyons
• Jerome
• John Chrysostom
• Justin Martyr
• Monica
• Nestorius
• Origen
• Patrick
• Pelagius
• Sabellius
• Tertullian

Filed under Christian History

1From 2000 Years of Christ’s Power by N. R. Needham.

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Do you have a a theological term you’d like to see featured as a Theological Term of the Week? Email your suggestion using the contact button in the navigation bar above. 

Clicking on the Theological Terms button will take you to an alphabetical list of all the theological terms.