Is Clement of Rome’s Salvation Tridentine? 1 Clement and Trent
Quick Facts
Question: Does 1 Clement, written around 95 to 96 A.D., teach the Tridentine (Council of Trent) view of justification, as Catholic Answers argues?
Short answer: No. 1 Clement places faith at the start of salvation (32:4) and works in remaining justified (30:3). Trent places the sacrament of baptism at the start, and 1 Clement never mentions baptism.
Author: Traditionally said to be Clement of Rome, though this article argues the attribution is dubious. The letter is written in the name of the church of Rome.
The Catholic argument: Catholic Answers reads 32:4 as initial justification and 30:3 as remaining justified, and concludes that Clement was “Catholic, through and through.”
Key texts: 1 Clement 7:1–7, 12:7–8, 30:3, and 32:4; Council of Trent, Session VI, Chapter VII and Canons IX and XIV; Session VII, Canon V on Baptism.
Main claim: Even granting the Catholic Answers distinction between initial and continuing justification, 1 Clement puts faith where Trent puts baptism, so the distinction does not make Clement Tridentine.
Closest later parallel: John Wesley’s conditional security, where initial salvation comes by believing and asking, and continuing in it depends on holiness.
Clement of Rome’s Salvation Isn’t Tridentine
To steelman this, I will show what one of the world’s premier Catholic apologetics ministries says on this matter.
This is a Catholic Answers Facebook post:
“Some Protestant apologists think they have a slam-dunk prooftext for sola fide from the early Church in this quote from St. Clement of Rome. The quote is genuine; however, just a few paragraphs earlier in section 30, St. Clement says, ‘Let us clothe ourselves with concord and humility, ever exercising self-control, standing far off from all whispering and evil speaking, being justified by our works and not our words.’
So did Clement just blatantly contradict himself? Did he deny sola fide in one paragraph only to turn around and affirm it two sections later?
No, because early Christians describe justification in very different ways than later Protestants do. Early Christians don’t think of justification as a one-time event; justification is about being alive in Christ. And so we can distinguish between initial justification and remaining justified.
If this sounds overly technical, consider the analogy of bodily life:
How are you made alive? Not through anything you did; it was just a gift of God. Your birth was not something you had any control over. Your conception was a gratuitous gift. There was nothing you could have possibly done to earn it.
But once you receive that gift, it’s not like you simply do nothing and remain alive. You have to do things like eat, drink water, sleep, and the like to constantly maintain being alive. You wouldn’t just say, ‘I can’t do any works, this was a gift.’ That would be insane.
Again, if someone gives you a car, you don’t say, ‘I can’t put gas in it. That would be reducing the gratuity of the gift.’ No, it’s an unmerited gift and you still need to maintain it.
And so, justification—being alive in Christ—is a gratuitous gift from God. There is nothing we can possibly do to earn that. In fact, Christ says we must be born again, and as we just saw, our birth is not something we earned!
But once we are made righteous before God—once that initial justification has happened—then you cooperate with it and you have to do works to remain justified.
So this is why St. Clement can say, in 1 Clement 32, that justification is apart from works, but also say in 1 Clement 30 that it is by works. God does the initial justification without you, but that process of maintaining justification is something God will not do without you. You did nothing to merit being born again in Christ, but you must do works to maintain that new life.
None of this matches the Protestant doctrine of sola fide. St. Clement of Rome was Catholic, through and through.”
First, let me provide the full verses, in Greek and in J. B. Lightfoot’s translation.
1 Clement 30:3
Κολληθῶμεν οὖν ἐκείνοις οἷς ἡ χάρις ἀπὸ τοῦ Θεοῦ δέδοται. ἐνδυσώμεθα τὴν ὁμόνοιαν, ταπεινοφρονοῦντες, ἐγκρατευόμενοι, ἀπὸ παντὸς ψιθυρισμοῦ καὶ καταλαλιᾶς πόρρω ἑαυτοὺς ποιοῦντες, ἔργοις δικαιούμενοι καὶ μὴ λόγοις.
“Let us therefore cleave unto those to whom grace is given from God. Let us clothe ourselves in concord, being lowlyminded and temperate, holding ourselves aloof from all backbiting and evil speaking, being justified by works and not by words.”
1 Clement 32:4
καὶ ἡμεῖς οὖν, διὰ θελήματος αὐτοῦ ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ κληθέντες, οὐ δι’ ἑαυτῶν δικαιούμεθα οὐδὲ διὰ τῆς ἡμετέρας σοφίας ἢ συνέσεως ἢ εὐσεβείας ἢ ἔργων ὧν κατειργασάμεθα ἐν ὁσιότητι καρδίας, ἀλλὰ διὰ τῆς πίστεως, δι’ ἧς πάντας τοὺς ἀπ’ αἰῶνος ὁ παντοκράτωρ Θεὸς ἐδικαίωσεν· ᾧ ἔστω ἡ δόξα εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων. ἀμήν.
“And so we, having been called through His will in Christ Jesus, are not justified through ourselves or through our own wisdom or understanding or piety or works which we wrought in holiness of heart, but through faith, whereby the Almighty God justified all men that have been from the beginning; to whom be the glory for ever and ever. Amen.”
The problem with the Catholic argument is that it commits a category error, and it is contrary to Catholic teaching itself.
First, the authorship. Allow me to establish that the attribution of 1 Clement to Clement is dubious at best and erroneous at worst. There is nothing in the text to indicate that Clement wrote it. The entire epistle uses “we” pronouns, and it opens as a letter from the church of Rome, not from a single person: “The Church of God which sojourneth in Rome to the Church of God which sojourneth in Corinth” (1 Clement, opening address). Or in Koine Greek: Ἡ ἐκκλησία τοῦ Θεοῦ ἡ παροικοῦσα Ῥώμην τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ τοῦ Θεοῦ τῇ παροικούσῃ Κόρινθον
Second, the argument makes a category error about initial justification. In Catholic teaching, a person is not initially justified by faith alone without the sacrament of baptism. The Council of Trent names baptism as the instrumental cause of justification, and it anathematizes anyone who says baptism is not necessary for salvation (both quoted below).
Let’s assume for the sake of argument (and I have written articles in defense of this) that 1 Clement teaches that initial salvation is by faith alone, and that ongoing salvation has to be maintained by works.
On that reading, 1 Clement 32:4 is about initial salvation, and 1 Clement 30:3 is about life after initial salvation.
That does not support the Catholic argument at all! It puts faith alone at the start of salvation, exactly where Trent puts baptism.
1 Clement 7
1 Clement 7 is, I would argue, the Church of Rome’s clearest soteriological statement in the letter, so let’s analyze it.
1 Clement 7:1
Ταῦτα, ἀγαπητοί, οὐ μόνον ὑμᾶς νουθετοῦντες ἐπιστέλλομεν, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἑαυτοὺς ὑπομιμνῄσκοντες· ἐν γὰρ τῷ αὐτῷ ἐσμὲν σκάμματι, καὶ ὁ αὐτὸς ἡμῖν ἀγὼν ἐπίκειται.
“These things, dearly beloved, we write, not only as admonishing you, but also as putting ourselves in remembrance. For we are in the same lists, and the same contest awaiteth us.”
1 Clement 7:2
Διὸ ἀπολείπωμεν τὰς κενὰς καὶ ματαίας φροντίδας, καὶ ἔλθωμεν ἐπὶ τὸν εὐκλεῆ καὶ σεμνὸν τῆς παραδόσεως ἡμῶν κανόνα,
“Wherefore let us forsake idle and vain thoughts; and let us conform to the glorious and venerable rule which hath been handed down to us;”
1 Clement 7:3
καὶ ἴδωμεν τί καλὸν καὶ τί τερπνὸν καὶ τί προσδεκτὸν ἐνώπιον τοῦ ποιήσαντος ἡμᾶς.
“and let us see what is good and what is pleasant and what is acceptable in the sight of Him that made us.”
1 Clement 7:4
ἀτενίσωμεν εἰς τὸ αἷμα τοῦ Χριστοῦ καὶ γνῶμεν ὡς ἔστιν τίμιον τῷ πατρὶ αὐτοῦ, ὅτι διὰ τὴν ἡμετέραν σωτηρίαν ἐκχυθὲν παντὶ τῷ κόσμῳ μετανοίας χάριν ὑπήνεγκεν.
“Let us fix our eyes on the blood of Christ and understand how precious it is to God and His Father, because being shed for our salvation it won for the whole world the grace of repentance.”
1 Clement 7:5
διέλθωμεν εἰς τὰς γενεὰς πάσας καὶ καταμάθωμεν ὅτι ἐν γενεᾷ καὶ γενεᾷ μετανοίας τόπον ἔδωκεν ὁ δεσπότης τοῖς βουλομένοις ἐπιστραφῆναι ἐπ’ αὐτόν.
“Let us review all the generations in turn, and learn how from generation to generation the Master hath given a place for repentance unto them that desire to turn to Him.”
1 Clement 7:6
Νῶε ἐκήρυξεν μετάνοιαν, καὶ οἱ ὑπακούσαντες ἐσώθησαν.
“Noah preached repentance, and they that obeyed were saved.”
1 Clement 7:7
Ἰωνᾶς Νινευίταις καταστροφὴν ἐκήρυξεν, οἱ δὲ μετανοήσαντες ἐπὶ τοῖς ἁμαρτήμασιν αὐτῶν ἐξιλάσαντο τὸν Θεὸν ἱκετεύσαντες καὶ ἔλαβον σωτηρίαν, καίπερ ἀλλότριοι τοῦ Θεοῦ ὄντες.
“Jonah preached destruction unto the men of Nineveh; but they, repenting of their sins, obtained pardon of God by their supplications and received salvation, albeit they were aliens from God.”
Let’s break it down.
1 Clement 7:4 says that the basis of salvation (not the object of faith, as Robert Breaker would teach) is the blood of Jesus Christ, and that the blood, “being shed for our salvation,” won “for the whole world the grace of repentance.” This is the writers using an appeal to ethos with the Corinthians: they write as fellow saved people who are “in the same lists” (7:1).
The writers then reflect on how every generation was given a chance to repent (7:5), and they do this to tell the Corinthians that they also have a chance to repent.
Noah preached repentance, and those who obeyed were saved (7:6).
The Ninevites repented of their sins and “obtained pardon of God by their supplications,” that is, by praying to God (7:7). And notice the phrase “albeit they were aliens from God.” It echoes Ephesians 2:12–13: “That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world: But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.”
Here lies the problem for the Catholic reading. The writers start this entire reflection on how every generation was given the chance to repent right after saying that the blood of Jesus Christ was shed to give the whole world the grace of repentance (7:4). And the capstone of the argument is the Ninevites, who obtained salvation through what? Praying. The writers then describe them in language that echoes a passage specifically about the blood of Jesus Christ making you nigh to God. So 1 Clement 7:7 is a callback to 1 Clement 7:4; it is the capstone, the conclusion of 7:4.
The writers are saying that the Ninevites obtained salvation through believing and praying.
1 Clement also connects the basis of repentance, the blood, to believing in other verses.
1 Clement 12:7–8
καὶ προσέθεντο αὐτῇ δοῦναι σημεῖον, ὅπως ἐκκρεμάσῃ ἐκ τοῦ οἴκου αὐτῆς κόκκινον, πρόδηλον ποιοῦντες ὅτι διὰ τοῦ αἵματος τοῦ Κυρίου λύτρωσις ἔσται πᾶσιν τοῖς πιστεύουσιν καὶ ἐλπίζουσιν ἐπὶ τὸν Θεόν. Ὁρᾶτε, ἀγαπητοί, ὅτι οὐ μόνον πίστις ἀλλὰ καὶ προφητεία ἐν τῇ γυναικὶ γέγονεν.
“Moreover, they gave her a sign to this effect, that she should hang forth from her house a scarlet thread. And thus they made it manifest that redemption should flow through the blood of the Lord to all them that believe and hope in God. You see, beloved, that there was not only faith, but prophecy, in this woman.”
So, to recap. The writers of 1 Clement teach that to be saved, you have to believe and then pray to God, and then the redemption that comes through the blood of Jesus Christ is obtained. And yes, the letter does teach that ongoing salvation has to be maintained by works (30:3), but initial salvation is by faith alone. That is contrary to the Catholic view that initial justification begins with the sacrament of baptism.
The Tridentine View
Let’s look at the Tridentine view on this. The Council of Trent, Session VI (1547), Chapter VII, names the causes of justification and says that “the instrumental cause is the sacrament of baptism, which is the sacrament of faith, without which (faith) no man was ever justified.”
From the canons of the same session:
“CANON IX.-If any one saith, that by faith alone the impious is justified; in such wise as to mean, that nothing else is required to co-operate in order to the obtaining the grace of Justification, and that it is not in any way necessary, that he be prepared and disposed by the movement of his own will; let him be anathema.”
“CANON XIV.-If any one saith, that man is truly absolved from his sins and justified, because that he assuredly believed himself absolved and justified; or, that no one is truly justified but he who believes himself justified; and that, by this faith alone, absolution and justification are effected; let him be anathema.”
And from Session VII (1547), On Baptism:
“CANON V.-If any one saith, that baptism is free, that is, not necessary unto salvation; let him be anathema.”
The Clementine idea that initial salvation is by faith alone without water baptism (the writers never mention baptism anywhere in the epistle) completely contradicts the Tridentine view of initial justification.
It is a complete category error to conflate the two views.
Closer to Wesley
If anything, 1 Clement is closer to Wesleyan conditional security, where initial salvation is by believing and asking, but ongoing salvation is by works.
“‘The just,’ the justified person, ‘shall live by faith,’ even now shall he live the life which is hid with Christ in God; and if he endure unto the end, he shall live with God for ever. ‘But if any man draw back,’ saith the Lord, ‘my soul shall have no pleasure in him;’ that is, I will utterly cast him off; and accordingly the drawing back here spoken of is termed, in the verse immediately following, ‘drawing back to perdition.’ ‘But the person supposed to draw back is not the same with him that is said to live by faith.’” – John Wesley, Serious Thoughts Upon the Perseverance of the Saints
“By no means. God is unchangeably holy: Therefore, he always ‘loveth righteousness and hateth iniquity.’ He is unchangeably good: Therefore he pardoneth all that ‘repent and believe the gospel.’ And he is unchangeably just: Therefore, he ‘rewardeth every man according to his works.’ But all this hinders not his resisting, when they are proud, those to whom he gave grace when they were humble. Nay, his unchangeableness itself requires, that, if they grow high-minded, God should cut them off; that there should be a proportionate change in all the divine dispensations toward them.” – John Wesley, Serious Thoughts Upon the Perseverance of the Saints
“all who desire the grace of God are to wait for it in the way of prayer” – John Wesley, Sermon 16, The Means of Grace
Sources
Catholic Answers, Facebook post on 1 Clement and sola fide https://www.facebook.com/catholicanswers/posts/some-protestant-apologists-think-they-have-a-slam-dunk-prooftext-for-sola-fide-f/1488473189979200/
1 Clement in Greek
https://blogs.crossmap.com/stories/1-clement-greek-text-complete-koine-greek-chapters-165-uwXCEU3IcO3V8fmr6Clfn
J.B. Lightfoot's translation of 1 Clement
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1_Clement_(Lightfoot_translation)
I changed J.B. Lightfoot's translation of 1 Clement 7:4, as his was based upon a textual variant.
Council of Trent, Session VI, On Justification https://history.hanover.edu/texts/trent/ct06.html
Council of Trent, Session VII, On the Sacraments and On Baptism https://history.hanover.edu/texts/trent/ct07.html
John Wesley, Serious Thoughts Upon the Perseverance of the Saints https://www.google.com/books/edition/Serious_Thoughts_Upon_the_Perseverance_o/PQJgAAAAcAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Serious+Thoughts+Upon+the+Perseverance+of+the+Saints&printsec=frontcover
John Wesley, Sermon 16, The Means of Grace https://wesley.nnu.edu/john-wesley/the-sermons-of-john-wesley-1872-edition/sermon-16-the-means-of-grace/
