was also identical with the Clement named by the apostle Paul (Phil. 4:3), is a question that we may well leave undecided.  The epistle was written shortly after some persecution (chap. 1), which Grabe, Hefele, and others suppose to have been that under Nero; Lardner, Cotelerius, and others, that under Domitian.  Upon the former supposition it was written about A.D. 68—­a supposition apparently favored by the way in which he refers to the temple and service at Jerusalem as still in existence (chaps. 40, 41); upon the latter, about A.D. 96 or 97.

3.  The occasion of the epistle, which Clement writes in the name of the church at Rome, is easily gathered from its contents.  As in the days of Paul, so now, the Corinthian church was troubled by a “wicked and unholy sedition,” fomented by “a few rash and self-willed men,” who had proceeded so far as to thrust out of their ministry some worthy men.  Chap. 44.  It would seem, also, from chaps. 24-27 that there were among them those who denied the doctrine of the resurrection.  To restore in the Corinthian church the spirit of love and unity is the grand scope of the epistle.  The author commends them for their orderly and holy deportment before their present quarrel arose, traces it to its true source in the pride gendered by the honor and enlargement granted them by God, and urges them to lay aside their contentions by every motive that the gospel offers—­the mischiefs that strife occasions, the rules of their religion, the example of the Saviour and holy men of all ages, the relation of believers to God, his high value of the spirit of love and unity, the reward of obedience and punishment of disobedience, etc.  Comparing the church to an army, he insists earnestly on the necessity of different ranks and orders, and the spirit of obedience.  Comparing it again to the human body, he shows that all the particular members, each in his place, should conspire together for the preservation of the whole.

Clement’s style has not the merit of compactness and conciseness.  He is, on the contrary, diffuse and repetitious.  But a thoroughly evangelical spirit pervades the present epistle, and it is, moreover, characterized by a noble fervor and simplicity.  “It evinces the calm dignity and the practical executive wisdom of the Roman church in her original apostolic simplicity, without the slightest infusion of hierarchical arrogance.”  Schaff, Hist.  Christ.  Church, vol. 1, p. 460.  In its internal character, as in the time of its composition, it approaches the canonical writings of the New Testament more nearly than any other remains of antiquity.