Loading…

Clement and the Early Church of Rome: On the Dating of Clement’s First Epistle to the Corinthians is unavailable, but you can change that!

Clement of Rome’s First Epistle to the Corinthians is a supremely valuable historical document. One of very few noncanonical Christian texts to reach us from the first century, it’s an early example of the exercise of hierarchical—and Roman—authority in the Church. Disciplinary in nature, Clement’s epistle speaks volumes about the life of the early church. The early Christians guarded the letter...

that the Apostles appointed presbyters and therefore the local Church is not now authorized to oust the presbyters and alter the apostolic order. We may infer that the group pressing for the ouster succeeded, at least temporarily, and therefore must have had considerable sway in the community. It is impossible to say, however, how large the group was. First Clement seems to think they were small in number, one or two,6 but 1 Clement’s view may have been more rhetorical than real.7 Perhaps he wanted
Page 2
Buy this book at Logos.com