worthy that in the earliest document
outside the canon which we can securely date, the church in the imperial
city comes forward as a peacemaker to compose the troubles of a church
in Greece. Nothing is known of the cause of the discontent; no moral
offence is charged against the presbyters, and their dismissal is
regarded by Clement as high-handed and unjustifiable, and as a revolt of
the younger members of the community against the elder. After a
laudatory account of the past conduct of the Corinthian Church, he
enters upon a denunciation of vices and a praise of virtues, and
illustrates his various topics by copious citations from the Old
Testament scriptures. Thus he paves the way for his tardy rebuke of
present disorders, which he reserves until two-thirds of his epistle is
completed. Clement is exceedingly discursive, and his letter reaches
twice the length of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Many of his general
exhortations are but very indirectly connected with the practical issue
to which the epistle is directed, and it is very probable that he was
drawing largely upon the homiletical material with which he was
accustomed to edify his fellow-Christians at Rome.

This view receives some support from the long liturgical prayer at the
close, which almost certainly represents the intercession used in the
Roman eucharists. But we must not allow such a theory to blind us to the
true wisdom with which the writer defers his censure. He knows that the
roots of the quarrel lie in a wrong condition of the church's life. His
general exhortations, courteously expressed in the first person plural,
are directed towards a wide reformation of manners. If the wrong spirit
can be exorcised, there is hope that the quarrel will end in a general
desire for reconciliation. The most permanent interest of the epistle
lies in the conception of the grounds on which the Christian ministry
rests according to the view of a prominent teacher before the 1st
century has closed. The orderliness of nature is appealed to as
expressing the mind of its Creator. The orderliness of Old Testament
worship bears a like witness; everything is duly fixed by God; high
priests, priests and Levites, and the people in the people's place.
Similarly in the Christian dispensation all is in order due. "The
apostles preached the gospel to us from the Lord Jesus Christ; Jesus
Christ was sent from God. Christ then is from God, and the apostles from
Christ. . . . They app