But the most striking feature in his statements concerning the ministry is that he uses eiriaKoiros and wpea^vrepos as interchangeable terms, denoting ditierent aspects of the same office. Twice he speaks of ' bishops and deacons ' as a summary description of the Christian ministry, where it is inconceivable that the 'presbyters' should not be mentioned if
* The reading is doubtful. Cod. A has iirivott-r^v ; O, eiriSo/xiyv ; Lat lex ; Syr. / i OQ-O ^\.L i.e. em SoKi/iy ; the Coptic paraphrases. None of these provides tolerable sense, and most editors adopt the conjectural emendation €iriju.oioj;> first sug- gested by Peter Turner in the 17th century.
they were recognized as a separate order (xlii. 4, 5) ; and once at least he applies both of the terms i-rrla- KOTTos and irpecr^vTepoi to men of the same rank (xliv. 1, 4, 5). In this he follows the usage of the Apostolic Age (Ac 20", 1 P 51- 2, i Ti S^-\ Tit p-^), according to which the words indicate ditierent functions of the same person (cf. Lightfoot, Phil.*, 1878, p. 97 ff. ; for a defence of the view that separate orders are meant cf. J. H. Bernard, Pastoral Epistles \Camb. Gr. Test., 1899], p. Ixiifl.).
5. Permanent value.— The history of the first beginnings of the Christian Church can easily be reconstructed from the data supplied by the NT writings. The stage of growth which it had reached towards the end of the 2nd cent, is amply illus- trated by the writings of Irenreus, TertuUian, and Clement of Alexandria. But for the intermediate period, the sub-apostolic age, the available sources of first-hand evidence are very slight. The primary value of the Epistle of Clement arises from the fact that it is one of them and the earliest. It helps us to characterize the sub-apostolic age, and hints at the reason why its literarj'^ remains are not more extensive. It suggests a period not of keen or original thought, but rather of scrupulous fidelity in preserving intact Christian doctrine and Chris- tian practice as they had been handed down by the apostles, a time of combining and co-ordinating different types of apostolic teaching rather than of assimilating their deepest meaning. The evidence supplied by such an Epistle is quite sufficient to dispose of the idea that the Church of the 2nd cent, was the product of a compromise between a Jewish and a Pauline party, who in the 1st cent, were wholly antagonistic.
Secondly, the Epistle throws important light upon the position occupied in the early Church by the See of Rome. The whole tone of the letter makes it quite clear that as yet no Roman sup- remacy de iure was recognized, even by the Church of Rome. But already it is possible to see the be- ginning of the process by which Rome ultimately gained a not unmerited supremacy de facto. Apos- tolic institutions were being disregarded at Corinth and the peace of the Church was threatened. No appeal was made by the contending parties either to Rome or elsewhere. Yet, as a matter of principle, it was the business of any Christian community to step in and try to heal the breach, and as a matter of fact it was the Church of Rome which actually did so. Such an act was characteristic of the early Roman Church, and it was a succession of such acts, combined with its central position, its own undoubted orthodoxy, and the prestige of the Im- perial city, which in the early Church gave the Roman See its position as 'primus inter pares.'
If the Epistle of Clement already displays some- thing of the Imperial mind of the later Roman Church, it also foreshadows the bent of later western theology. For the writer's regard for theo- logy is not for its own sake, but for its bearing on life and conduct. The questions which interest liim most are practical and moral. Perhaps it is not merely fanciful to suggest that the writings of Clement and Ignatius mark the point of divergence of the two great streams of Christian thought, the eastern primarily philosophical and speculative, and the western mainly ethical and practical.
Thirdly, the Epistle is a valuable witness on certain biblical questions. It contains the earliest known reference to the Book of Judith (Iv.). Its frequent quotations from the OT, which in the main are taken from the LXX, present some in- teresting problems to the student of the Greek versions of the OT.
' (a) Clement's text of the LXX inclines in places to that which appears in the NT, and yet presents sufficient evidence of independence ; (6) as between the texts of the LXX represented
220 CLEMEKT OF EOME, EPISTLE OF CLEMENT OF EOME, EPISTLE OF
by B and A, while often supporting A, it is less constantly opposed to B than is the NT ; and (c) it displays an occasional tendency to agree with Theodotion and even with Aquila against the LXX ' (Swete, Introd. to the OT in Greeh'^, 1902, p. 410).
To the student of the growth of the NT Canon, Clement's Epistle has both a positive and a negative value. Negatively, it shows that as yet the NT writings were not definitely counted amongst the Scriptures. Sayings of our Lord are indeed quoted as of equal weight with the writings of the OT, and in a form which resembles passages in the Synoptic Gospels (xiii. 2, xlvi. 8), but their authority is that of the speaker, not of the written word. (On the form of Clement's quotations see Sanday, Inspiration^, 1896, p. 299 tf. ; Stanton, op. cit. pt. i. p. 5fr.)