Clement of Rome: The Apostle Peter's Bestest Pal

"F is for friends who do stuff together"

-St. Peter, about Clement, probably

You know what we love about the early church? 

That with a couple of history books and a number 2 pencil, you can sketch a nice, neat line right from the Book of Acts to the first wave of church fathers. Apostolic succession is a heck of a drug. 

And chief of these early church leaders was Clement of Rome, author of some neat epistles, and widely revered bishop of Rome. 

Join the fellas today as we talk about our boy Clem, Father's Day, and Taylor shares about a saint you've probably never heard of before. 

Thanks for listening!

IG: churchhistory4chumps

(Banter ends: 10:28) 

Buy us a coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/chumphistory

Transcript

Speaker Hey, everybody, welcome to Church History for chumps. My name is John, and happy father's day. Happy. Happy father's day. Yeah, they got that in stereo. That was good. That was like a, like, you guys harmonized for a second. Now only one of us, of the three of us hosts, is a father. Listener I want you to take a few seconds and think. Who is it, father? Reveal yourself. It's Thomas, it's Thomas, it's me, it's me. Because these guys are my sons. No. And Thomas, you're like a seasoned father. You have like, you have a you have like. Yeah. Don't you have a tchami six kids. I don't have six. My brother's got his sixth on the way. Adam's got six. Oh, nice. Congratulations. How many are you at, Tommy? I got three kids. Trey. Yeah. Wow. Mhm. It's almost charming. They made me cute little crafts this morning that said I love you on them. And they made my day. Are you comfortable saying their names over the air? Um, yeah, I can say their names. Uh, what about. What about their Social Security numbers? Oh, yeah. I legit would have to look that up. Did you remember? I was glad you didn't ask me their birthdays. Oh, no. You don't know? It would probably take you a minute. It take you a minute, right? Yeah. I called. Okay. So, um, one of our kids had a our our second born, who's only two. They were two at the time. Uh, had, like, a weird, like, medical thing. Like we needed to schedule a quick appointment with. Hold on. You just said I'm comfortable saying their names and then straight up used a they pronoun to be even more obscure. Yeah, I guess I'm being obscure. Thomas was about to get into that because. Uh, so we schedule. We schedule an appointment for the two year old she. Uh, there we go. I went to, uh. So I go to schedule an appointment at our pediatrician. And they're like, what's her birthday? And I got it wrong. Um, and they're like, well, we have to have the birthday to make the appointment. And I'm like, you know, it's me. It's it's me, it's Thomas. Like, I, I'm like like, we don't know anything. Here's the full name. Like. Like really like you can't just, like, go ahead and know we need that. And I'm like, here's here's the thing, Thomas. Thomas, I'm gonna fight. I'm gonna fight for the doctor's office real quick. There are hours of Thomas Dowell's voice online for anyone to hear. And if they wanted to bring your daughter in for some crooked backhanded doctor's appointment, all they had to do is plug all of our podcast episodes into some AI voice generator and be like, hey, it's me, Thomas. I don't know her. I don't know her date of birth. But, uh, no no no no no no no no no no. What happened was what? This receptionist doesn't understand why or how any of these rules exist and just blindly enforces them. I'm with Thomas. That is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. No, that's how the world operates. No, no, no, I will die on that hill. If you've worked in healthcare for it for 30 minutes, you know date of birth is like. Is like. It's a precious thing. If you don't know your date of birth, don't you dare call me bro. Like I stand by that. You can find people's data. It's not hard. You plug your date of birth when you. You plug your date of birth in when you're trying to get a free Chili's appetizer. What are you talking about? That's why it was so embarrassing when I didn't know it. That's fine, I didn't. I had the same thing happen to me. Scheduling something for Brandy, I couldn't remember. That's way worse, bro. She forgives me. Tommy's talking. One of three kids. You've only got one wife. How close were you? Were you, like, a day or two off? Oh, yeah. I was like, within a day. I was like, I was off by, like, a day. Yeah, yeah, I do. I get in the. How far off were you, Taylor? Like 1 or 2 days. I can't remember if it was an odd number. Even number. Hey, I have a I have a story for you guys. You ready? I don't want to hear it. Usually Taylor has stories. No, I want to tell a story. Gosh dang it. I'm telling a story this time. So I preached today at a at a church. Yeah. It was. I was shaking off the rust. It was nice. It was actually, uh, the oasis here in Tucson church that, uh, all you both. You guys know Taylor better than Thomas because Taylor and mister, uh, Pastor Gainey are close buds, So, um. Yeah, he's a great guy. Shout outs to Pastor David and, uh, his kids, mostly faith. Faith school. Um, hey. So I preached there this morning, and Annie wasn't there, and Annie used to go to this church for, like, ten years before she and I got married, and then she left. Um, so Annie's always like. She's like my interpreter. Because these are people that Annie knows super well. But I only see them, like, once every year. And they are so sweet and so friendly. Just nice Baptist suburbanites. And I never remember their names. Amen, brother. And I never remember their names. And when Annie is with me, I can always, like, shake somebody. Hey, brother. Good to see. Oh, it's so good to see you, man. It's so good. And then, Annie, who was that? She'd be like, oh, that's, uh, that's Steve. And I'll be like, hey, Steve, one more thing. Just so he knows that I had it locked in, even though I didn't. It's lying in church. So here's what happened. Annie he wasn't here today. She's out of town on a trip. And so when I'm getting ready to preach, I say, hey, funny thing. I don't have any with me. And usually I use her to remind me. Your guys's names. Oh, and and and I feel bad about that because some of you guys were at my wedding, and you're all very sweet, but I apologize if I don't remember your name. Guys, I've never had a joke flop so hard. That's not a joke. No one laughed. No one laughed. It's like confession time. Oh, I feel for you, man. Bro. It was so painful. And I had to, like, I had to jump from that, like painful silence to open your Bibles to Deuteronomy. And it was just a nightmare. It was a nightmare. I had a I had something similar. So, uh, in the last month, I preached at a PCA church and an OPC church. And I did the same sermon in both churches. Yeah. And, uh, the things that PCA people laugh at, OPC people just stare at you with a, with a with a dark expression. I didn't either. I think people had a sense of humor. No no no, no. I think it's worse than that. I think the deacons will beat you if you laugh at an OPC church. What do you think? We're here to just tell jokes and pal around. They're both very, very. Comedy central, were you were you at a little different? Were you at covenant OPC? That wasn't covenant. No. It was a church in Phoenix. Oh, okay. Okay, cool. Yeah. Because there's not too many opc's out here. That's cool. Okay. Was there anything else to your tail? No, that was it. Just different. Different blends of the PCA. Folks like to chuckle a little bit more. See, I've noticed, like Baptists, they love a good heart. Like Baptists. When I make jokes at Baptist churches, compared to the Nandanam church I used to preach at bro. I felt like a rock star at a Baptist church. Non-denominational millennial hipster churches, bro. They will crucify you for making a pun, or for or for having all of your points. Start with the same letter, like they're just looking for something to rip you apart for. Yeah, you are kind of the pun master dude. SBC. Spiritual gift bro. Baptist churches are a good audience. You could get up and deliver the worst sermon of your life. But if you're like, if the pastor like, introduces you, it's like, this is so-and-so. He's a seminary student. 1500 old people will swarm you after and say, that was the most wonderful thing I've ever heard, and I and they will just, like, flood you with love. It's the Baptist version of, uh. So like when, um, when, when a priest is ordained in, uh, the Roman Catholic Church, it's like an extra special deal if you can be there to receive a blessing, like on their ordination day. That's like the Baptist equivalent. When the pastor gets up and says, this guy's in seminary. I mean, you got to go tell that dude that that was the best sermon you ever heard in your life. Like, I want him to remember me if he ever becomes one of them famous preachers. Yeah, yeah, I feel like an OPC church if you. That's. I would not want to preach. Uh, I would not want to preach a subpar sermon at an OPC church. You gotta be more like a yeah, yeah yeah yeah yeah. How did they how did they respond to your sermon, Thomas? It was good. Laughter. Yeah, a lot, a lot of, uh, a lot of good feedback. It's just they weren't, you know, chumming it up with me during the during the sermon. You know, the best audience is charismatics, dude. Not wrong. Black church also. Well, in in the in black culture, like in black church culture. It's like rude to be silent. Oh, yeah, they're they're preaching the sermon with you. It's like it's a collective thing. No. It's real. It's great. Oh, man. Yeah, I gotta get back. I've also preached at, uh. I've preached at a a bilingual church where I had a translator, uh, translate my every couple sentences into Spanish. That was a blast. That was a good time. That's the best, because you can say, uh, you can think very clearly about your next. Oh, dude, every sentence is just poetry because I have so much time to think. And then I've got, like, a partner up there preaching with me. It's great. That's right. Yeah. Highly recommend. Well, what are we. What are we on today? Tay? Tay? Well, we're gonna go way back as you, dear listener. No, not that far back as you, dear listener, know, we have been hanging out in the mostly late fourth, early fifth centuries. We've sort of circled around there. We kind of touched back on Tertullian and Origin, but now we're going all the way back, not as far as Moses, but we're going back to essentially right after the apostles. I'm going going back, back to essentially right after the apostles. What? Taylor doesn't. Taylor doesn't know. I guess I'm a OPC audience. You live in California, dude. You live in California. I live in Ontario. That's. We have warehouses, trains and Chinese restaurants. I don't. All right. The man we are talking about today. News. News. Knew some of the apostles. Going. Going back. Back to Cali. Cali. Okay. Yeah. Oh, this is a rap song. Shut up John. Shut up man. I'm just trying. I'm trying to. I'm trying to solve it. All right. Anyways, Clement, who are we talking about? Clement. I didn't drop his name yet. You've just stolen. You sucked. You sucked everything out of this. You guys are vampires. Taylor gets an episode for the first time in, like, six weeks, and you guys just ruin it. All right, listeners, just pretend James is trying to do a cold open. This I have. Jamie, cue the music. Cue the music. Here we go. Today, dear listeners, we are going back about as far back as you can go. Actually, the man we're talking about today knew some of the apostles. He was writing and working when John was still alive, and he is considered to not just be an early church father, but the early church father. We've done a good job of presenting the lives of the Church Fathers fairly coherently, with an understanding that some of the history is biased and or exaggerated. But for our man today, we are afforded no luxuries. There are varying accounts of his life from multiple sources. We have one surviving written work, a possible second. He was a bishop of Rome. He's the first apostolic father. Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for Clement of Rome. Bam bam bam bam bam bam bam! Whoop whoop whoop whoop whoop. That was good. Thanks. I hope he plays the music. Whoo! So I'd like to try something new for the show, boys, if that's okay. No. Not quiz. We'll do the quiz later. Just listeners, John has a fun jump talk where he just wants hey hey, hey, hey, let me live my life, dude. Carry on. There's something good. That's my episode. You know, you've already blown enough things for me this episode anyways. Early the listeners, five seconds listeners, you don't have time to protest this decision. So, Thomas and John, you got to really you're have been elected to represent them. I want us to look quite a lot of protesting happening in your neck of the woods. Oh my God. Let me do my episode. No king but Christ. Amen. Amen. I want to look at what the different early church historians say about Clement, because there's so many varying takes. It's it's hard to actually know for sure. Okay. So we're going to like look at what different people said. Let's do it. All right. So the first one we have is Saint Jerome. Saint Jerome who's there's a couple Jerome's that are famous. This is the Saint Jerome who was writing around the late fourth and early fifth century. Is this the Vulgate Jerome, the Latin Vulgate writer? When was the Vulgate written? Probably fourth or fifth century. You know what it might be. Jamie, look it up. I'm not gonna ask. I'm sorry. I'm doing the thing that you hate. I'm sorry. I'm gonna make history for chumps. It's called on illustrious men. Ooh. Is what he wrote in Latin. It's, uh, de viris illustribus, because we always gotta pronounce the Latin. Anyway, this is what he wrote on Pope Clement. Clement of whom the Apostle Paul, writing to the Philippians, says, with Clement and others of my fellow workers, whose names are written in the book of life. So he's referencing Philippians four two and three, where Paul says, I entreat you, dear, and I entreat Syntyche to agree in the Lord. Yes, I also, or I ask you also, true companion, help these women who have labored side by side with me in the gospel, together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers whose names are in the book of life. First off, let's talk about verse two. How bad do you have to be behaving to get a shout out over your fight from Apostle Paul that then gets cemented into church history forever? It's pretty bad. Feels bad, pretty bad. But anyway, so Jerome is says that this is the same Clement that Paul is writing about. So they're pretty cool. Yes. So here's the big thing, though. The He labels him as the fourth Bishop of Rome, after Peter, if indeed the second was Linus and the third Anacletus. And then here's here's the thing. So Jerome was a good historian. It's a little frustrating for the reader, because we just want to be told what's true. But this is where he says, although most of the Latins think that Clement was second after the apostle, it's interesting because I've heard I've heard both. Yep. So that explains why. That's right. I've heard I've heard him refer to as Peter's successor. But there's a pretty big gap between when he starts his bishopric and, um, and when Peter would have died because Peter died, I think in what, like 69 or 68 or something like that. Maybe it was under Nero's persecution. So I think that that sounds right. Yeah. Yeah. So we'll get into the papal succession in a little bit, but. Okay. Yes. This is all you guys are all correct. So, uh, but this is Jerome. So, like he said, uh, the he calls him the fourth bishop after Peter, and then he says Linus was the immediate successor, and then Anacletus, but then he like I said, he says, though the Latins seem to think that Clement was the immediate successor. So. And Jerome, since he was writing so long after Clement was alive, he's probably pulling from some other historians himself. Right? Yes. Jerome actually merits his own episode. Um, he's super fascinating. Um, and he kind of went all over Christendom gathering information. So he, he deserves his own episode in and of itself. But this. Oh, go ahead, Tommy, I've got I've got this really, like, novice theory here that's not really based on anything other than just my own observation and lack of knowledge. But I'm wondering if maybe because Clement actually has stuff written and, and like good stuff that we have record of. I'm wondering if, uh, like, I've never hear anybody talking about Linus or Anacletus. Um, and I'm, I don't know, maybe they just don't have stuff written. Or maybe they're they're, uh, they're their bishoprics were short. I'm not sure, but maybe that's why it seems like we just always jump to Clement. If those guys didn't really have anything well left in the record. Yeah, there's some legends that also make Clement more famous. So we have one letter, Jerome. This is the next thing Jerome writes and it goes into what you're saying. He wrote on the part of the Church of Rome an especially valuable letter to the Corinthians, which in some places is publicly read and which seems to me to agree in style with the Epistle to the Hebrews, which passes under the name of Paul. But it differs from the same epistle not only in many of its ideas, but also in respect of the order of words and its likeness in either respect is not very great. So this is super fascinating. We don't have time to go down this rabbit trail, but you basically have like biblical studies going on already, like you have Jerome reading and comparing. Right? So he says Hebrews is generally attributed to Paul. And then he's saying, but some people might say that Clement wrote it, but I disagree. And then he gives reasons why, which I think is super fascinating. And then here we go. Here's, here's here's the little, little tidbit. There's also a second epistle under his name which is rejected by earlier writers, and additionally a disputation between Peter and Appian written out at length, which Eusebius in the third book of his Church History rejects. So second Clement you have Jerome in late fourth century saying is not legitimately his. So for the listeners, to the listeners, um, to to think about, there's so many letters circulating in early church times and we haven't really gotten to talk about this much because the Bible, for the most part, had been settled by the time that we, for the people that we've already been talking about. But these guys are having to think through who wrote what, and they're having to look at tradition and notice how Jerome even says that Clement's letter, which in some places is publicly read. Um, so he's saying I don't he's not saying it's authoritative, but the point is he's saying this is useful in the teaching of the church. Well, another interesting thing I think, too, is this is so early in the church's history. Like this is not long after a period of persecution. Uh, this is when the church is small. This is when the church probably has a very limited amount of resources as far as maintaining these historical documents compared to the fourth century, especially. So that could probably be a big factor, too, as to why we're not really sure what to ascribe to who. Yeah. Were you, um, I had a comment on the letter. Are you planning on talking about the first Clement later? Oh, yeah. Yeah, we're getting into that. Okay, I'll wait. I'll wait on that, then carry on. So Jerome finishes his section on Clement. He says he died in the third year of Trajan, and a church built at Rome preserves the memory of his name until this day. So, unfortunately, we know nothing of Clement's early life. Um. We know there's a good chance he was Jewish. Uh, we know that because of his knowledge in the Hebrew text, which will you'll see in first Clement. It's vast and thorough. Could he have been educated? Uh, outside of it? Sure. But, uh, some Catholic historians think that, um, Clement was either a freedman or a son of a freedman in, uh, Caesar's. Not in but in Caesar's in, you know, the the the the emperor, uh, in in that household, in the emperor's household. This would make him a Jewish pope. The I think the the fact that he might be Jewish. I think there's a really strong case to be made for that, especially if, um, if he is the Clement mentioned in, uh, the letter to the Philippians. Um, because even though there's a lot of Greeks joining the church at this time, a lot of Romans, um, I think if you take a snapshot of like kind of mid first century church anywhere, probably pretty good chance that a good chunk of them, if not the majority of them, are Jewish converts. So I'm I'm down with that theory. Yeah. So that's what we have from Jerome. Um, if we head back in time, Tertullian actually talks a little bit about Clement. Oh, so he wrote in The Prescription Against Heretics. He has a brief mention of Clement. So, uh, Tertullian Julian wrote this work around 197 and it's it was written in Latin as I might. I'm going to butcher this, but I'm going to try de it's de descriptionibus adversus haereticos. And, uh, it's actually it was a key piece of early Christian literature defending against very various heresies. And so chapter 32 is about none of the heretics claimed succession from the apostles, which is like one of his points. Right. He's he's like walking through points and, uh, he says, like, let them produce the original records of their churches, let them unfold the role of their bishops running down in due succession from the beginning in such a manner that Bishop shall be able to show for his ordainer and predecessor some of the apostles, or of apostolic men, a man, moreover, who continued steadfast with the apostles. He's essentially saying, for if your heresies go all the way back to Christ's teaching, you should be able to prove it. And then this is where he mentions Clement. He says, for this is the manner in which the Apostolic church is to transmit their registers as the church of Smyrna, which records that Polycarp was placed therein by John, as also the church of Rome, which makes Clement to have been ordained in like manner by Peter. Oh, dude. That's interesting. Okay. So he's basically saying, just as Polycarp is to John, which Polycarp, also an OG of the first episode, his episodes coming up. Yeah, well, his episodes behind us. Well, actually, I guess, yeah, we didn't do we only really focused on his death. Uh, we could do one on his life. Yeah. Is there. Oh, sorry. Sorry, John. Go ahead. No, no, no. You're good. I was just curious. Is there anything in that Tertullian quote that would, uh, let us not take that as could be, that maybe Peter ordained him as like a presbyter and he just became bishop later? Or was he specifically saying he was ordained as a bishop? Um, well, was Polycarp was a bit was bishop of Smyrna. I think the context of this section of his letter really seems to be referencing apostolic succession. Yeah. And like the ordaining of men who the apostles saw fit to lead. And so he says, Polycarp ordained by John Clement. Ordained by Peter. Okay. So we also. Either way, that's really cool. We even we have Clement on Clement. Clement was ordained by Peter. Does that imply that he was Peter's direct successor. Yes. Okay. That's interesting. That's the implication from these guys. Interesting. Even though. But but you know, like he he said, uh, Jerome said the Latins say this, but I say Linus came next. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So now we're moving on to we have Irenaeus writing about Clement. And this is 190. So similar dating to Tertullian. So he writes this in his Against Heresies. The blessed apostles, then, having founded and built up the church, committed into the hands of Linus, the office of the episcopate. Of this Linus Paul makes mention in the epistles to Timothy. To him succeeded Anacletus. So that's what I was talking about, right? So you have Peter, Linus, Anacletus, and after him in the third place from the apostles. Clement was allotted the bishopric. This man, Irenaeus, is saying he's he's, uh, he's fourth. Fourth place. That's right. This man, as he had seen the blessed apostles and had been conversant with them, might be said to have the preaching of the apostles still echoing in their traditions before his eyes. So he speaks highly of him, but he does say he came fourth. Can I ask, can I ask like I okay, I'm the way I'm gonna ask this. I might answer my own question. If I had to answer based on guessing, I would say it's because everyone wants to be as closely connected with the apostles as possible. But my question is, what's the big deal if he's Peter's direct successor or the successor of his successors successor? Like, is it that big of a of a of a quandary, or is it just because everybody wants to be close to Jesus's buddies? Yeah, that's what it is. Everybody wants to be close to Jesus, buddies, I think. Okay. Clement having his letter remain made him more popular. Um, I think with some of the legends about him is, uh, I'm going to get into in his death near the end, some of the legends made him more of a superhero. So it's like he's the known name. So people want to do that for the Catholics? The the Roman Catholics don't really think Clement was number two. And they. Oh, really? Yes. So I, I wrote this out because I wanted to make sure I was fair, but um, so I said the lists of papal succession are ridiculous. I stumbled on an entire academic I know. Very. Hey, I wanted to be fair. This is trash. No, no, no, it's not trash. It's ridiculous because it's very complicated. Okay, okay, I see, I see, so I stumbled upon an entire academic minefield while researching for this episode. I'm not nearly informed enough to have a discussion on this because one. It's a complete mess. Very complicated. There are 4 or 5 different lists. None of them place Clement as immediate successor. It's always Linus as the immediate successor to penis. Penis. Wow. Jamie! Cut that. I'm here. He's gonna leave it in. Peter. Jamie. Thank you. Jamie, Linus and Peter. Oh. Oh. That sucks. Yeah. He he. Pete. Dude, I almost said it right now. Peter and Linus. That's that's that's not that's not okay. That's so funny. I'm not the first person to do that in church history. There's no way. Maybe I am. Maybe I just made church history. Lord, Lord, forgive me for besmirching your saints. All right. None of them place Clement as immediate successor. It's always Linus and the immediate successor as the immediate successor to Peter. And then, number two, it needs to be stated that it's not clear if the early church saw the office of the Pope as a thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it was probably I mean, again, I'm probably going to answer my own question. I think it was Leo. Leo the Great was one of the first big dudes to talk about the whole, uh, um, the, the theology of the Pope and the bishop of Rome being the one who inherits Jesus's, uh, word over Peter. Yeah. So, dude, when Leo's not for a while. When I did my little academic flyby for this episode. I'm not kidding. I'm not being hyperbolic when I'm like, it's a minefield. There is so much. It goes so deep, so fast. Because every single list has extensive arguments for why it is the correct list. So I'm like sitting there thinking like, this is somebody's PhD dissertation. Yeah. Somebody spent 20 years researching this. Yeah. Well, no, like hundreds of historians throughout time have spent many, many years of their lives kind of fighting for this. Which makes sense because the office of the Pope is such a big deal to the Catholic Church. Well, when we we're undoubtedly going to end up with some Roman Catholics in our comments on this episode. But I feel like for for all of our listeners, Roman Catholics and Protestants listening, they they need to know that it is just a fact. John already alluded to it. The way that the Roman Catholic Church views the Pope today certainly has not been the same throughout history. In fact, even like like one of the big things that always gets pointed, pointed to like the the doctrine of papal infallibility, for example, like that, doesn't that? They didn't say that was a thing until 1870. Like this is that's a relatively new doctrine. I think that they treated it like that for a while before, but yeah. Um, but yeah, I mean, there was the early church viewed the bishop in Rome as like a first among equals, like they gave special, um, like attention to, uh, to that role. I think because the church in Rome had been so vital. Um, but yeah, the notion of, in particular the notion of like the bishop in Rome being like the capital t h e vicar of Christ on earth, uh, is not something that I have found in the early church writings at all. Well, I think I think it's, it's there's a lot of political factors because the pope of Rome or because the bishop of Rome, Like was the seat of the Western church, which means that often he was at at at odds or not necessarily at odds, but certainly in a different demographic compared to like, the Bishop of Alexandria. But, I mean, I think there's plenty of times in church history that we've covered where the Bishop of Alexandria is clearly the more impactful of the of the bishops of the major sees, even even more so than than the Roman bishop. So but that's neither here nor there. So yeah, like I said, it gets extremely complicated and it's kind of a mess. But let's dive in to first Clement, which we have. Um, I am using the translation that was free because there are modern translations that I did not want to pay $10 for. So we are going to read chapter 44. If you want to know the context of this letter. The church of Corinth seemed to have done a 180. It looks like they listened to Paul's second letter, while his third. Right, right. Because we're missing the real second or whatever. So this is like third Corinthians. Well, fourth, you think fourth Corinthians. There's like the missing letter to the church of Corinth. Was that by Paul? Yeah. People argue that. Oh yeah. He like references it in the second one. Anyway, man, I'm learning so much. So the the the the second Corinthian, the church at Corinth seemed to have done a 180 and was doing so well. And so Clement starts this letter with like what? You guys were so wonderful. And he's very flowery about how wonderful they are. And he writes lines and lines about how great they are. And then he just proceeds then to be like, but you just threw it all away. So what had what see what had happened was they. They they like, kicked out their leaders. They, like, deposed their leaders. And Clement is riding them. Yeah. Clement is writing to them saying, no, no, no, these are qualified men that we left in charge, that you guys did not have a good reason to kick them out, so you need to receive them back. So this is chapter 44. This is the one we're going to read 4044 chapters. Oh it's longer than that. You guys should read first. Clement listeners, if you haven't read first Clement, read it boys. If you haven't read it, read it. I bet Clement would have been the second Bishop of Rome if he didn't take 20 years to write a freaking letter. 44 chapters, I read it, I read it one time. It's been a long time, but I think it actually is about the length of a regular epistle in the in our in our Bible. I think it's shorter chapters. lot of breaks. Yes. And remember, this is the same. It's the same thing. We added the verses in the chapters, right? I just I just assumed we had the same rubric. But you're you're right. We did. They they didn't write them with chapters. Right. They just wrote them in all capital capitalized Greeks with capital letters. Yeah. All capital letters with no spacings or apostrophes or anything. So okay. Anyway, I can follow along. I concur that it should be listeners should read it. Uh, it reads just it feels like you're reading your New Testament. It's really it's really nice. Well, what's interesting is that it it's written, though, as if Clement knows that he's not writing with apostolic authority because he he references the authority of Scripture and of the teachings of the apostles. So you have basically one of the earliest works like post apostles, post apostles. We have one of the earliest works and they knew that they were not writing. He knew he wasn't writing authoritatively. So interesting, which is really fascinating. Internal evidence when we're considering the claims of the Church of Rome and what the office is. Oh my gosh, leave the Catholics and alone, Thomas. Know what? No, I'm. I'm out for blood. Tommy's always reading between the lines. He's like, which is very interesting, I know. Listen, we're trying to be ecumenical here, man, all right? But here's the thing. Uh, Catholics don't listen to our podcast. They're they're watching Mark Wahlberg on the on the Halo app. Oh, wow. Okay. Into pints with Aquinas. Let's be honest. Chapter 4444, verse one, Our apostles two by the instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ knew that strife would arise concerning the dignity of a bishop. And on this account, having received perfect foreknowledge, they appointed the above mentioned as bishops and deacons, and then gave a rule of succession, in order that when they had fallen asleep, other men who had been approved might succeed succeed to their ministry. That's so interesting. Wait, so I got a couple questions about that. Um, first of all, it sounds like the way they were running the churches was they would have guys basically, like, waiting, waiting in the in the in the dugout. In the dugout. Uh, and when somebody died, they'd bring someone up from the dugout. Yep. Wow. Because they knew it's a heck of a succession plan. As he said, they knew that strife would arise. Oh, dude. That's wise. Yeah. This is pre Diocletian. Diocletian stuff, bro. I know, it's like already having someone set up, to be fair. This is like Nero. Guys. We should have someone who we plan to replace us as podcast hosts if one of us dies. I nominate my wife. I nominate my wife, Thomas. I nominate my wife. If she ever listens to this, she's gonna be like, I can't believe you said that. Um, so my other question was, you said the above mentioned names. So does he literally just list the names of like, hey guys, this is who actually is supposed to be pastoring in Corinth right now. Here's their names. Is that what he does? I'm pulling it up. Oh, that's a good question. That's a really good question. Um. I'm. While you look it up, I'll. I'll say if that's actually how it was working, I'll throw a bone to the Episcopalians and the Roman Catholics right now by saying, like, this is one of the benefits of having a bishop is that if something wonky goes on at the local level, where the whole congregation just fired guys that they shouldn't have, uh, the bishop can come in and be like, actually, no, uh, you don't get to do that. Which I could see how, at least in this scenario, that would be helpful. Um, Thomas, to answer your question, no, I don't think he does. Names, I, I have I did read the letter, but I didn't remember names, but I wanted to make sure before I spoke. He just says in like verse two of chapter 42, Christ, therefore was sent out from God and the apostles from Christ. And both these things were done in good order according to the will of God. So he's he's just speaking vaguely. So when he says, like the above mentioned guys, he's just saying, like the people I've referenced already. Okay, okay. So here we go. Let's keep moving. So this is verse three. Now those who were thus appointed by them are afterwards by other men of good repute, with the consent of the whole church. Congregationalism right there. First century. Who have blamelessly ministered to the flock of Christ with humility, quietly and without illiberal ill liberality, and who for a long time have obtained a good report from all these we think have been unjustly deposed from the ministry. Taylor, what's the name of your church's bishop? It's al Mohler, pastor Anthony. I'm my own bishop. Okay, we we can get into the whole thing about, like, presbyter and bishop and elder and pastor or. Don't poke at me, John. Simon. You you literally brought it up. You scolded Thomas for reading between the lines, then immediately waived your own banner. I do, I know, I know. I'm the worst. I'm a Baptist man. Okay. For it will be no small sin in us if we depose from the office of bishop. Those who blamelessly and piously have made the offerings. Happy. This is brutal. What he's about to say. Happy are the presbyters who finish their course before and died in mature age, after they'd borne fruit. For they do not fear, lest anyone should remove them from the place appointed for them. Oh, he's just like, man, wouldn't it be nice to be dead and not have to deal with you guys? Exactly. This is literally like the Dark Knight. Like it's better to die. Better to die a good bishop than to stick around and. Well, no. Dean. Stick around, stick around and be a good bishop and still get deposed. Yeah. For this is the last verse, for we see that ye have removed some men of honest conversation from the ministry which had been blamelessly and honourably performed by them. So he's like, we gave you qualified leaders that we put our seal on and you tossed them out. Hmm. You know, I do think, you know, you brought up the whole propaganda thing about congregationalism, which is interesting, but this is clearly a bishop intervening on behalf of elders and pastors who were deposed. He does speak on the consent of the congregation, which I think is solid. But there's there's a holistic picture kind of forming here. Well, I think it just goes to show that, um, we're all right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. This is why we do need to be ecumenical. That's our word for this podcast, because I think that this letter kind of points to both. Clement is writing with authority to them. I don't know if he's writing as like I explained a few episodes back with like a Dom is in the Baptist world, the director of missions. It's like all the responsibility of a bishop with no power. I don't know if if. Yeah, sounds terrible, I know, God bless our Dom's. I don't know if he's writing to them as, like a that or if he's writing, like, completely authoritatively. Um, you'd like to think that even if he has, even if he does have that authority, the best case scenario would always be him writing to them and them just responding to his exhortation and going, oh, shoot, we messed up. Let's let's, uh, reinstall these guys as opposed to him having to actually show up and do it whether they like it or not. Well, I mean, people are people are going to go where they want to go. You see that in the Johannine epistles. Well, first John, at least when he's writing to this congregation that went through a church split. Right. So so he's writing to these people that were like dealing with this early form of docetism, trying to encourage the believers that stayed in the true church and convince them that they are the true church. So people are just going to go where they want to go, man. Hmm. It's kind of rough. It's rough being a Christian church leader, whatever. Whether you want to be pastor Bishop, whatever, whatever you're. So this is going to feel it's going to feel a little unrelated, but it's going to it's going to connect back, I promise. I read this really fascinating book last week that was essentially, uh, early or maybe late 18th century, early 19th century. And the US has just claimed the American Southwest from Mexico. And Rome is realizing that there's only one gigantic diocese, and that there's no way to actually support all of the little parishes and churches out there. So they send out a missionary to be the bishop, to basically kind of shepherd all these churches and give them support and resources and whatnot. It's really, really fascinating. But one story that comes to mind that kind of reminds me of what you were just saying, Taylor was the bishop goes and meets with this pastor who is completely off the rails. He does not abide by the doctrine like he he's like not practicing celibacy. He's not practicing the vows of a priest or anything. Like he's just kind of comes across like a really scummy, rotten guy. And when the bishop kind of calls him on it and he's like, dude, I'm gonna check you for this. Like, I'll, I'll get you deposed. And the priest is basically like, yeah, you can do that. But the people are gonna follow me. They're not going to listen to what you have to say. So I think there's a great line, which is it's great because it's kind of hardcore, but not because I like it. Or he's basically like, uh, you can have the church bishop, like, I'll keep the people and that, but that's, that's literally it. It's like, uh, you've got this bishop with all good intention. But when the culture kind of rallies around a single individual, these kind of splits are almost impossible to, to mend. Yeah. But anyways, I mean, on a broader level, people follow false Christians. Antichrists is what John calls them. Follow the teachings of Satan, right? Like they follow bad teaching. So like that's it's it's part of their judgment upon them. And we want to pray and reason with them and try to point them to truth. But, you know, we talk about heresy so much, the allure of all these heresies. It's. Yeah, man. It's rough. So I have we love our legend, our legends on this podcast, don't we, boys? Oh, yeah we do. This is what we love. Even better than just, like, real history. Because this is, uh. This is just. Yeah, this is the lore of Clement and his death. So the acts of the martyrs. Are you guys familiar with that? No, vaguely. So the acts of the martyrs is. Why don't you explain what it is, John? Simon. I'm just. I'm just kidding. I won't do that to you. It's the, um. He probably heard it. It's been in the Catholic Church. It's like the tradition of, uh. It's so hard to describe it. I actually had to research it for a little while to even be able to understand it. I want you to think of, like, notarized, uh, statements of things that have been read in church. Okay. So, okay. So that's why it's like this vague kind of collection. This is what it's called, these acts of the martyrs. What are you laughing at, Tom? Tom I don't know. This is riveting. Imagine. Imagine. Like imagine like a journal of like of, like individual statements notarized. Did I mention notarized? Okay, it's the acts of the martyrs, though. This is where it gets good. So we have one for Clement. Mhm. Now we have an act of clement. Now it didn't, it did not come about till fourth century. So. Mhm. And when I tell you what it says you're going to go. Mhm. Even more. But it's good. It's juicy. So. All right. Clement was uh he converted he you know he's in Rome. He converted Verdict. Theodora, wife of Cineas, who was a courtier of Nerva, and he did some miracles, and Cincinnatus himself, and four and they and he converted 400. And they're very specific 23 other persons of rank. Good number. So this guy is in Rome converting people in the court, while Trajan doesn't like this. So he banishes him to Crimea, where he does another miracle and he gives water to 2000 Christian confessors so that just water out of the lake. Well, they were thirsty. They were thirsty. Okay. So they bring, like a big Gatorade container. Yep. Some plastic cups. And he hit a rock. Oh, nice. Nice. Anyway, I don't know how he did it. Big gulps from Seven-eleven. Food is impressive. Hee hee! Uh. Are you for real? Are you for real? Gonna read ahead of my narrative? Well, you said he hit a rock, and it seemed like you were gonna move on. I saw more details. Oh. Go ahead. It said that, uh, he saw a lamb on a hill, went to where the lamb had stood and struck the ground with his pickaxe. I'm wondering if, uh, any of the, like, pictures of Clement have, uh, his iconography of a pickaxe. That's pretty cool. That is cool. I'm gonna investigate that. Good, good. Extra information. Thomas. You want to keep going and ruin my narrative, or. Maybe. Oh my God. Okay, now, look, the people of the country get converted, and there's, like, 75 churches built. So Trajan, who's like, stop converting people. He orders Clement to be thrown into the sea with an iron anchor. Oh, yeah, this goes hard. There's some really cool iconography of this. So the tide recedes every year, about two miles, supposedly and supposedly where he was thrown into the sea. There was a divinely built shrine that contains the martyrs bones, like in the ocean. Yep. Like the tide recedes and reveals some temple or shrine that Jesus built. Being like, this is where one of my guys died, supposedly, right? So, uh, Saint Cyril, who we haven't gotten to yet because he comes way later in ninth century, but, uh, and he's in, uh, Crimea, and he dug up some bones in a mound, supposedly not in a tomb under the sea and found an anchor with the bones. And so he believed that those were the relics of Saint Clement. And he brought them to Rome. Uh, and essentially, I think that that that's still there to this day. Clements the only dude who ever died by anchor drowning. Yep. Thanks for listening, guys. That is cool, though, because, like, if you're a listener who has, like, one of those, like, anchor poppy tattoos, you can just tell people it's a shout out to Clement. And now you have a Christian tattoo. Dude, I'm looking at some of the some of his like, uh, like there's actually like the the Clement Cross, which is like an anchor with an extra bar in it so that it's a cross shape and some of them have like a stole draped over it. It's really cool looking. It would make a cool tattoo. I think getting a pickaxe in there. Yeah, that would be sick. So yeah. So that's that's Clement. My friends, I know there's mostly a discussion on papal secession. Dude, there's a, there's a kids book out there called A prayer and a pickaxe, a legend about Saint Clement of Rome. There you go. That looks pretty cool. I feel like that's not a lot of work to do. A children's book on a story that's, I don't know, your Protestant ways, but. Yeah, I bet it's a Catholic. So, Clement, like I said, there's guaranteed it is. There's not there's not a lot of information in the same way. Like we can, like, walk you through Athanasius's life, right? Or the Greg's or Basil Ambrose. Any of the people we've talked about, we we can be like they were born roughly here. This is what their childhood looked like. Here we go. And, uh, we don't really get to do that with Clement because he's just so close. He was like, alive and definitely heard the apostles teaching, right. Mhm. Mhm. Do we know much about like his theology. Like what he, what he contributed. Uh, because I guess we know about at least one of his epistles. So do we know like some like arching ideas that he furthered. Uh, well, that wasn't really the goal of that letter, but you can definitely see a very, very, very early testament to justification by faith alone. Hey, from somebody, from somebody coming from Peter's lineage. So I feel like that puts a whole further in the argument where people will say that Paul came along and corrupted the teachings, as far as we know, Clement didn't. I mean, maybe Clement ran into Paul occasionally, right? But do you think Clement kind of had beef with Paul because he was close with Peter. I wonder, I've always thought of Paul as like he is the edgy, like rough around the edges, like church planter and missionary who's like, I would rather be with pagans than talking to you people. Do you, do you know how many times I've been shipwrecked? Yes, Paul, you wrote it down. Yeah. You wrote. You literally sent it in the last letter that you wrote to us. And then Paul, Paul's like, you know, your church gets the greetings from Paul letter and you're like, oh, gosh. And then they're like, here we go. And then they're like, Peter. Paul was mean to us again. I could just imagine like a like a priest getting getting a letter from Paul and just being like, I'll read it in the morning, dude. Just put it on the table. And then it's like, and then it's like Philippians or Sonalika and they're like, they open it up. They're like, oh, wow, I should have run it last time. Good. This is pretty good. All right. Yeah. Dude, I would have ran through. I would have knocked on everybody's door, ran out to the fields where they were, and be like, Paul's happy with us. Oh my gosh, good team. We're doing good. High marks. High marks for our little town. Nine marks. Nine. Nine. Stupid. Oh, guys, I got to shake Albert Mueller's hand. How was his handshake? It was wonderful. I said, doctor, don't be weird. I saw him in the hallway and I said, hey, Doctor Mueller, my name is Taylor. I'm an MDiv student at gateway, and I just want to say I've listened to your podcast for a very, very long time, and it's been very formative. And I just want to thank you. And he said, Taylor, it is such a pleasure to meet you. And you sharing that with me has made my day better. I'm like, God. He leaned down and kissed you on the forehead. Right. That's way down. That's the that's the legend. That's how the legend. And then from that moment on, Taylor, like was, you know, the Baptist secession. Yeah. You walk. Yeah, yeah. You walked away with your face aglow. That's right. Oh, man. I, I remember a buddy of ours met another famous pastor, and he was like. I was like, how was his handshake? And he was like, it was bad. It was a bad handshake. It was. It was like limp. And it was disrespectful. He didn't make eye contact. Was it Russell Moore? No, it was Mark Driscoll. Oh. Oh, wow. And honestly, looking back, I, I get it. I'm gonna throw I'm gonna throw. Absolute hail Mary. Here was the person who reported on the bad handshake, Ryan Reed. No, because I don't know when Ryan would have, uh, Ryan would definitely criticize somebody's handshake, but I don't know when on earth he would have met Mark Driscoll? No, it was it was our shout out Ryan. Yeah, shout out Ryan. So doing well, buddy. Anyway, we're we're back from SBC annual meeting, and, uh, Dallas is fine. I gotta tell you guys, as we enter post-show banter, I have to tell you, I heard so many comments, people coming up and being like, man, I'm just you guys are so brave just being out in California doing your thing in California. Like what? Their podcast, the podcast gateway. Sorry. Oh, okay. And, uh, all right. And I'm just like, there's this sentiment among the rest of the country that California is like some communist apocalyptic hellscape. And I'm like, I couldn't even walk from my hotel to the Dallas Convention Center, which was like half a mile because of how many drug addicts were laying in in the sidewalks. And they're like, they're like, God bless you guys for just putting up with all of that horrible stuff out in California. You're like, I can't wait to get back. Yeah. Wait, where was where was this at? Dallas, baby. Oh, Dallas. I've heard Dallas is is not a great city. I don't know, man. I don't want to, like, dump on a whole city. But like, every restaurant we went to. So the freeways, the freeways, the freeways were terrible. Like there was. Yeah. The freeways are, like, unbelievably confusing because you'd be, like, driving. I've heard that the Dallas metro area is probably the worst city to try to drive in. Yeah. Dude, I'm telling you, like people, even people from Texas, they do not mess with DFW. They they think it's like it's bottom tier Texas. And I'll say this about the food you'd expect, like, you know, Dallas is like some hipster Mecca in a lot of ways, right? You'd expect there to be like, lots of good food and like, everything was just like, fine or just not good. I've found I've found that, uh, growing up in Tucson, I think has ruined us for some of that, like, I, I have not had better barbecue than I've had in Tucson. Well, dude, even out here in the Inland Empire, which is like, you know, the quiet giant, you know, 10 million population suburb of LA. I don't know, man. There's just fire food, like, at every little hole in the wall down the street. Yeah. And you go out to Dallas and we're paying, like, 25 bucks for a plate of something. You'd expect it to be good. I ordered curry, I ordered curry shrimp with rice. What do you think? That's. What do you think's gonna come in that bowl? Gentleman curry shrimp rice. Yeah, it was just shrimp and rice. And I said, hey, where's the curry sauce? And they were like, oh, it's actually the curry is a spice on the shrimp. Oh, no, that dude that pissed me off, bro. They they thoughts and prayers that that curry right into. There was one. There was one Tex-Mex inspired. There was one Tex-Mex place we went to. And I just loved our. He brought me like, unlimited Arnold Palmer's. So shout out that guy. Yeah. Shout out! She's like, oh man, SBC's here. Mix up extra Arnold Palmer. That's right. Look, I need 2020 Arnold Palmer's 20 Shirley Temples, 20 sprites, 20 doctor peppers. There was a pizza. There's a pizza brewery place across the street from the convention center that was just unbelievably slammed. And I know for a fact they didn't sell like a drop of alcohol for a whole week. Our profit margins are off. Way off. What happened this weekend? We had some big boys coming through ordering two whole pizzas for themselves. Oh my gosh. All right. And a Diet Coke. Oh, some big dude. Some big boy. Some big Baptist. Baptists are hearty, bro. I love Baptists, man. You know what else I love? I love our listeners for for listening to us. We're getting another chump talk episode. It's going to be fun. Did you guys see that? We got some love for our last chump talk episode. Why don't you read the comments? Yeah, read them out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Here, I'll pull up. I'll pull up our group chat real quick. Um. I love how he's like. You have seen them because they're in the group chat. Let me pull up the thing that I sent you. Yeah, well, I asked you if you guys read it and you were like, oh, I don't know. Uh, someone just said the world needs more Jesus and chump talk. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was good. And I. Yeah, I noticed because you guys didn't respond to it. So maybe, maybe you maybe you needed me to read it aloud. Uh, you know, maybe something's wrong with your phones. Uh oh. Also. Oh, man. Also, our boy Jackson. Dude, I need to give. I need to give a shout out to Jackson and also the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Uh, because Jackson is a very loyal listener. He comments on a lot of our Spotify episodes. And, you know, I've never met a Jackson I didn't like, never been to a town named Jackson that I didn't like. Yeah. Um, he said glad Taylor survived the stinky food. Also, my vote for Taylor's next missions trip is Kyrgyzstan. Uh, I'm a little upset with Jackson about implying that Ethiopian food is stinky. I still think that's, I don't know, some kind of coded racial bigotry. Uh, I don't know, I kind of I kind of tasted like soda water. It wasn't soda water. Stop it! We've already went through this. I do love the idea. I have this like, you know, when you're laying in bed falling asleep and you're like, little dreams are popping up and you're like, what if. What if the podcast, like, blew up into a thing and I get 100%, see you guys being like, Taylor's just going to go on a short term mission trip every other month. And, uh, we're the listeners get to pick where it is. No, no, no. If we blow up, I want us to start a YouTube channel where we go to parts of the world together, and then we just talk the history of that country. Oh, that's so much better dream than, like, Taylor, go to Kyrgyzstan. Yeah, we'll we'll chat with you in a week. Go figure it out. Big dog. Your plane leaves in six hours. He comes back and he's like, let me tell you, bro, the food sucks. You know, I bet you like our version of Impractical Jokers is like, Ann Taylor lost this week's challenge. So he's. You're doing Mogadishu in Belarus. Oh my gosh. All right. Shout out Jackson. We appreciate you big dog. We really do. You seem like a cool guy. And shout out Pittsburgh go Steelers. Hope Aaron Rodgers works out for you. Oh man. All right. We've gone ten minutes too long. This has been fun. Um yeah. Thanks guys. Talk to you later. Later. God bless you. Bye bye.