Clement (d. c.100), pope and martyr. Bishop of Rome after Peter, Linus, and Cletus, Clement is known today mainly for his Epistle to the Corinthians of c.96. an exceptionally early witness to the function and authority of the ministers of the Christian Church. It shows for the first time a bishop of Rome intervening effectively in the affairs of another church, calling for repentance and restoring unjustly deposed presbyters. It also provides evidence for the residence and martyrdom of Peter and Paul at Rome. Other writings ascribed to Clement, including the so-called Second Epistle to the Corinthians are spurious. Although his genuine epistle was read at the Liturgy at Corinth in c.170 and a copy of it was added to the Codex Alexandrinus of the New Testament, it was less well known in the Middle Ages. Then Clement was thought of primarily as an early martyr. His Acta (of the 4th century) are of slight historical value, although they abound in picturesque detail. According to this source, Clement was exiled to the Crimea for the skill and extent of his apostolic activities in Rome. While in exile he was compelled to work in the mines, he opened a miraculous supply of water, he preached with such effect that again he made innumerable converts so that there was need for seventy-five churches. He was killed by being thrown into the sea with an anchor round his neck: angels were said to have made him a tomb on the sea-bed, which was uncovered once a year by an exceptionally low tide.

Seven centuries later, the missionary brothers Cyril and Methodius, who were apostles of the Slav countries, ‘miraculously recovered’, they claimed, the body of Clement, piece by piece, together with the anchor. These relics were translated to Rome c.868 and buried in the fine church of San Clemente, built on the site of the titulus Clementis, a pastoral centre of the 3rd century which grew out of a place of worship of the 1st century in the house of one Clement, probably different from the saint. Fine frescoes of the 9th century survive at San Clemente, depicting the Legend and Translation of the saint. His usual emblem in art is an anchor; sometimes he is represented with a tiara and a cross with three branches. Representations of him survive at Chartres, Cologne, and Stara Boleslav in Bohemia, but also in England, especially on painted screens in East Anglia. The most famous of the forty-three churches dedicated to him in this country is St. Clement Danes, London, whose parish emblem is an anchor. Clement is also patron of the Guild of the Glorious and Undivided Trinity of London, i.e. Trinity House, the authority responsible for lighthouses and lightships. Feast in the West: 23 November; in the East, 24 November.

Bibliography
Click here for a list of abbreviations used in this bibliography.

• C.M.H., pp. 615–16
• J. B. Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, part i, vol. I, pp. 148–200, with Eng. version of the epistle, also in K. Lake, The Apostolic Fathers (1930), and J. A. Kleist in The Epistle of St. Clement and St. Ignatius (1946)
• H. Delehaye, Étude sur le Légendier romain (1936), pp. 96–116
• L. Boyle, St. Clement's Rome (pamphlet, 1960)

The Oxford Dictionary of Saints. Copyright © David Hugh Farmer 1978, 1987, 1992, 1997, 2003, 2004. All rights reserved.