BANISHED POPE CLEMENT (CLEMENS ROMANUS) AND HIS “COLCHIAN” PROSELYTISM

Abstract

“He assembled the whole province by preaching; everyone coming to Clement was converted to his doctrine about the Lord; more than 500 persons used to be baptized by him daily and then – dismissed. 75 churches were built there in one year by the true faith, and all the idols – destructed, all the temples in neighbouring regions – demolished, 300 miles around everything being destroyed and leveled due to his permanent work.” This aggressive and obviously exaggerated proselytism is “apocryphal” deed of either the third, or the fourth Bishop of Rome (the Pope), Clement (92 - 101). Indeed, this is amalgam from apocryphal Greek acts of martyrdom, dated by the 4th c. Clement was banished from Rome to Chersonesus (Crimea) by Emperor Trajan (98 - 117) and set to work in a stone quarry. Still, he managed to go on with his Christian propaganda.Clement could really inspire a creation of Christian organizations in those regions. But nobody could have ever believed the story about destruction of the idols and the temples in the 1st c. A.D., stipulated by Clement. And under whose protection and by whose money could be those churchies built?! So, the whole story is to be believed only partly. Then, what is about 300 miles (Roman mile is equal to approximately 1480 m.) mentioned there?! If it is true, then Pitius, city in Colchis/Lazica, and its outskirts come within it. Still, there is the main problem to be solved for Clement – was he in Crimea, or is this again a fiction? The narrative of his martyrdom in Crimea is not older than the 4th c. (Trajan orders Clement to be thrown into the sea with an iron anchor). Even Eusebius writes nothing alike. But the lack of tradition that he was buried in Rome is in favour of him having died in exile.Mikhail Sabinin and Mikhail Tamarashvili thought of Clement’s converts working hard in Colchis/Lazica for the faith, both of them having in mind a proximity of Northern and Eastern Black Sea coasts, and not these 300 miles from the narrative. Very likely, the note about the exact distance is not to be ignored.History of Pitius provides more arguments. If not an existence of early Christian communities in the outskirts of Pitius, nobody would ever think to strengthen the Mithraistic propaganda among the soldiers of the local garrison (stationed from the 3rd c. A.D.), a priori, Mithra-worshippers, at the point when even pocket-money, distributed among them, was Mithra-type municipal copper of Trapezus. Municipal coins used for a payment first went to a local fiscus as a taxes from individuals, only then – to a camp ascribed to a province. Both, Pitius and Trapezus were the cities of Roman province of Cappadocia. Thus, Mithra-type municipal copper coins of Trapezus in the pockets of the Roman soldiers of Pitius could mean nothing, but money paid to the soldiers. Still, some providential measures are not to be denied. The place with strong Mithraistic propaganda is the same place for strong Christian propaganda, for Mithraism was destined to lure the lower classes to enter its well-cenzored ranks, and not the Christian communities. And Eparchy of Pitius is the first ever recorded one for Lazica.So, apocryphal acts of martyrdom show Clemet’s large-scale missionary labour.Appendix of the research is as follows: the Sanigs, Lazi people, dwelt in the outskirts of Pitius in the time of Trajan; at least, they are at the spot a bit later, in 131 (Arr. periplus. 11). Pitius itself was in ruins after attack of the Heniokhs towards the midst of the 1st c. A.D. (Plin. NH. VI. 16), restored only in the 3rd c. As to Chersonesus, the place of Clement’s banishment, it was ruled by local oligarchy under strict Imperial control.