The Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians

The Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians

Witless, unintelligent, foolish, and uninstructed persons mock and sneer at us because they have a haughty opinion of themselves. Really, what can a mortal do? Or what strength is there in an earth-born creature? For the Scripture says: “There was no shape before my eyes; but only a breath and sound I heard. How could it be otherwise? Can a mortal be pure in the sight of the Lord, or a man blameless in his actions?”

For haughtiness destroys the witless man, and passion slays the wayward one.

I have seen the foolish taking root, but suddenly seen his abode be consumed.

Since, therefore, this is evident to all of us, and we have explored the depths of the divine knowledge, we are obliged to carry out in fullest detail what the Master has commanded us to do at stated times.

He has ordered the sacrifices to be offered and the services to be held, and this not in a random and irregular fashion, but at definite times and seasons. He has, moreover, Himself, by His sovereign will determined where and by whom He wants them to be carried out. Thus, all things are done according to Godly fear, acceptable to His good pleasure, dependent on His will.

Those, therefore, that make their offerings at the prescribed times are acceptable and blessed; for, since they comply with the ordinances of the Master, they do not sin.

Special functions are assigned to the high priest; a special office is imposed upon the priests; and special ministrations fall to the Levites. The layman is bound by the rules laid down for the laity. Each of us, brethren, must in his own place endeavour to please God with a good conscience, reverently taking care not to deviate from the established rule of service.

Not everywhere, brethren, are sacrifices offered--be they perpetual offerings, or votive offerings, or sin offerings, or trespass offerings--but at Jerusalem only; and their offerings are not made in every place, but in front of the sanctuary in the forecourts of the temple, where the gift to be offered is inspected for blemishes by the high priest and the aforesaid ministers.

Those, therefore, that do anything contrary to what conforms to His will suffer death as the penalty. You see, brethren, that the greater the knowledge promised to us, the greater the risk we incur.

The apostles preached to us the Gospel received from Jesus Christ.

Jesus, who was the Christ, was sent by God. So, Christ from God and the apostles from Christ. Both these orderly arrangements, therefore, originate from the will of God. And so, after receiving their instructions and being fully assured through the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, as well as confirmed in faith by the word of God, they went forth, equipped with the fulness of the Holy Spirit, to preach the good news that the Kingdom of God was close at hand.

From land to land, accordingly, and from city to city they preached, and from among their earliest converts appointed men whom they had tested by the Spirit to act as elders and ministers in the church for the future believers.

And this was no new innovation.

For, a long time before the Scripture had spoken about elders and ministers.

For somewhere it says: “I will establish their overseers in observance of the law and their ministers in faithfulness.”

What wonder, pray, if those entrusted by God through Christ with such an office have appointed the above-mentioned officials, seeing that also the blessed Moses, “the faithful servant in all the house,” has recorded in the sacred books all the injunctions given him; and the other Prophets followed his example and joined him in bearing testimony to the laws given by him.

For, when the priesthood had become an object of jealousy and the tribes were quarrelling as to which of them had been honoured with that glorious dignity, he ordered the leaders of the twelve tribes to bring him each a rod with the name of his tribe written upon it.

And he took the rods and bound them together and sealed them with the rings of the tribe leaders. And then he deposited them on the table of God in the Tabernacle of Testimony. He then shut the Tabernacle and sealed the keys just as he had done the rods, and said to them: “Brethren, God has chosen for His priestly service that tribe the rod of which will bud.” When day broke, he called a meeting of all Israel, six hundred thousand men in all, showed the seals to the leaders of the tribes, opened the Tabernacle and produced the rods.

It was found that the rod of Aaron had not only put forth buds but also borne fruit.

What do you think, brethren? Did not Moses know the outcome beforehand? He certainly did know it.

But he acted in this manner to prevent any insubordination in Israel, so that the name of the true and only God might be glorified. To Him be the glory forever and evermore. Amen.

Our apostles, too, were given to understand by our Lord Jesus Christ that the office of the bishop would give rise to intrigues. For this reason, equipped as they were with perfect foreknowledge, they appointed the men mentioned before, and afterwards laid down a rule once and for all to this effect: when these men die.

Other approved men later, with the consent of the whole Church, by other men held in high repute and who have ministered to the flock of Christ faultlessly, humbly, quietly and unselfishly, and have moreover, over a long period of time, earned the esteem of all. We do not believe that these men can be rightfully ousted from their positions.

Indeed, it will be no small sin for us if we oust men who have irreproachably and piously offered the sacrifices in holiness to the elders.

Happy the elders who have before now completed life’s journey and taken their departure from this world at a mature age and laden with fruit! They, surely, do not have to fear that anyone will dislodge them from the sure place now appointed them.

Yes, we see that you removed some, their good conduct notwithstanding, from the sacred ministry which they fulfilled blamelessly and with honour, without this being mentioned by anyone.

Are you given to infighting, brethren, and are there jealousies among you in matters pertaining to our salvation.

You have looked deep into the sacred writings, which tell the truth and proceed from the Holy Spirit.

You know that nothing unjust or fraudulent is written in them.

You will not find righteous men were ever repudiated by Godly men.

Righteous men were persecuted, of course, but only by lawless men. They were put in prison, but only by unholy men. They were stoned to death by contemners of the law. They were killed by men animated by unjust and abominable jealousy.

Under such ill-treatment they bore up gloriously.

What shall we say, brethren?

Was Daniel thrown into the lion’s den by God-fearing men? Or were Ananias, Azarias, and Misael shut up in the fiery furnace by men devoted to the glorious and exalted worship of the Most High? Far from it!

Who, then, were those that committed such acts? Hateful men and the scum of the earth, full of evil, carried their love of strife to such a degree of fury that they subjected to indignities men who were serving God with holy and irreproachable steadfastness; they did not realize that the Most High is the champion and shield of those who, in perfect good faith, worship His most holy name. To Him be the glory forever and evermore. Amen.

But those who confidently persevered inherited honour and glory: they were exalted and had their names engraved by God in His memory forever and evermore. Amen.

It is our duty, then, my brethren, to follow examples such as these. For the Scripture says: “Follow the saints for such as follow them shall be sanctified.”

And again, in another passage, it says: “With an innocent man You will be innocent and with an elect You will be elect, and with one perverted You wilt deal perversely. Let us, therefore, associate with the innocent and righteous.”

But these are God’s elect.

Why are quarrels and outbursts of passion, divisions and schisms and war in your midst? Or do we not have one God, one Christ, one Spirit of grace and one calling? And is there not one calling in Christ? Why do we tear apart and disjoint the members of Christ and revolt against our own body, and go to such extremes of madness as to forget that we are mutually dependent members? Remember the words of Jesus our Lord.

For He said: “Utterly wretched is that man; it would be better for him not to have been born than to lead one of my elect astray; it would be better for him to lie at the bottom of the sea with a millstone hung round his neck than to lead one of my little ones astray.” Your divisive schisms have led many astray; many have been thrown into discouragement, many have been bewildered, and to all of us have been brought sorrow—and your schisms persist!

Take up the epistle of the blessed Apostle Paul.

What is the most important thing he wrote to you in the early days of gospel preaching? He was truly inspired when he wrote to you regarding himself and Cephas and Apollos, because already at that time you had engaged in factious agitation.

But that display of factiousness involved you in less guilt, for you took the part of the apostles, men of attested merit, and of a man in good repute with them.

But now consider who those are that have led you astray and vilified the venerable character of your celebrated brotherly love.

Disgraceful, beloved, indeed, exceedingly disgraceful and unworthy of your training in Christ, is the report that the well-established and ancient Church of the Corinthians is, thanks to one or two individuals, in revolt against the elders.

And this report has reached not only us, but also people who oppose us, with the result that, owing to your folly, you heap blasphemy upon the name of the Lord and withal create a danger to yourselves.

Let us, then, quickly blot out this blemish and fall on our knees before the Master, and with tears implore Him to have mercy on us and to be reconciled to us and restore us to the venerable and holy practice of brotherly love.

For this is the gate of observance of the law, which opens out into life, as the Scripture says: “Open to me the gates of righteousness:

I will go in through them and praise the Lord.

This is the gate of the Lord:

The righteous will enter in through them.”

Of the many open gates, therefore, this gate of righteousness is the gate of Christ: blessed are all those who enter by it and walk the straight path in holiness and in righteous observance, performing all their duties without disturbance.

Let a man be a man of faith, let him be able to utter knowledge, let him be skilled in the discernment of discourses, let him be pure in his conduct; surely, he must think all the less of himself the higher he apparently ranks, and seek the common good and not his personal advantage.

He who has love in Christ must observe the commandments of Christ.

The binding power of the love of God, who is able to describe it? The radiance of His beauty--who can voice it to satisfaction? The sublimity to which love leads up is unutterable.

Love unites us with God.

Love covers a multitude of sins; love endures all things, is long-suffering to the end.

There is nothing vulgar, nothing conceited in love.

Love creates no church schisms.

Love does not quarrel; love preserves perfect harmony.

In love all the elect of God reached perfection,

apart from love nothing is pleasing to God.

In love the Master took us to Himself.

Because of the love which He felt for us, Jesus Christ Our Lord gave His Blood for us by the will of God, His body for our bodies, and His soul for our souls.

You see, beloved, how great and wonderful love is, and there is no way to describe its perfection.

Who is able to possess it, except those to whom God grants this privilege? Let us, therefore, earnestly beg of His mercy, that we may be found to possess a love unmixed with human partiality and above reproach.

All the generations from Adam down to this day have passed away.

But those who are perfected in love in the measure of God’s grace, have a place among the saints.

And they will be made manifest when the Kingdom of Christ comes to visit us.

For the Scripture says: “Enter the chambers for a little while, until My anger and fury pass away.

Then will I remember the good day

and will raise you from your graves.”

Happy are we, beloved, if we observe the commandments of the Lord in the unity of love; for in this way our sins will be forgiven through love.

For the Scripture says: “Happy those whose iniquities have been forgiven, and whose sins have been covered up; happy the man to whom the Lord will not impute his sin, and on whose lips, there is no guile.”

This blessing was pronounced on those chosen by God through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom be the glory forever and evermore. Amen.

Let us, then, ask pardon for our waywardness and for what we have done yielding to any wiles of the adversary.

But those, too, who were the ringleaders in this quarrel and sedition, ought, for their part, to ponder the common nature of our hope.

Surely, those who live in fear and love prefer that they themselves should suffer indignities rather than their neighbours.

They prefer to have reproach cast on themselves rather than on that traditional unity so well and justly established among us.

It is better for a man to make a clean breast of his failings than to harden his heart in imitation of those who, after rebelling against God’s servant Moses, hardened their hearts, and whose condemnation was brought to light: alive they went down to Hades, where death shall be their shepherd.

Pharaoh and his army and all the leaders of Egypt, including the chariots and their riders, were swallowed up by the Red Sea and perished for no other reason than that their foolish hearts were hardened after striking wonders of power had been performed in Egypt by God’s servant Moses. In need of nothing, brethren, stands the Master of the universe.

Nothing does He ask of anyone, except that confession should be offered Him; for David the chosen says: “I will confess to the Lord, and it will please Him better than a calf with budding horns and hoofs.”

(To be cont.)