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Clement of Rome

First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians

Chapter 46

Let us cleave to the righteous: your strife is pernicious.

Such examples, therefore, brethren, it is right that we should follow;1 since it is written, “Cleave to the holy, for those that cleave to them shall [themselves] be made holy.”2 And again, in another place, [the Scripture] saith, “With a harmless man thou shalt prove3 thyself harmless, and with an elect man thou shalt be elect, and with a perverse man thou shalt show4 thyself perverse.”5 Let us cleave, therefore, to the innocent and righteous, since these are the elect of God. Why are there strifes, and tumults, and divisions, and schisms, and wars6 among you? Have we not [all] one God and one Christ? Is there not one Spirit of grace poured out upon us? And have we not one calling in Christ?7 Why do we divide and tear in pieces the members of Christ, and raise up strife against our own body, and have reached such a height of madness as to forget that “we are members one of another?”8 Remember the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, how9 He said, “Woe to that man [by whom10 offences come]! It were better for him that he had never been born, than that he should cast a stumbling-block before one of my elect. Yea, it were better for him that a millstone should be hung about [his neck], and he should be sunk in the depths of the sea, than that he should cast a stumbling-block before one of my little ones.”11 Your schism has subverted [the faith of] many, has discouraged many, has given rise to doubt in many, and has caused grief to us all. And still your sedition continueth.

Notes

  1. Literally, “to such examples it is right that we should cleave.”↩
  2. Not found in Scripture.↩
  3. Literally, “be.”↩
  4. Or, “thou wilt overthrow.”↩
  5. Ps. xviii. 25, 26.↩
  6. Or, “war.” Comp. James iv. 1.↩
  7. Comp. Eph. iv. 4-6.↩
  8. Rom. xii. 5.↩
  9. This clause is wanting in the text.↩
  10. This clause is wanting in the text.↩
  11. Comp. Matt. xviii. 6, xxvi. 24; Mark ix. 42; Luke xvii. 2.↩

Translation by Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson and Frederick Crombie: The Ante-Nicene Christian Library, vol. 1: The Apostolic Fathers (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1870).
Text from Project Gutenberg eBook #77576, proofread by Distributed Proofreaders from Internet Archive scans. Public domain.