Before Jerusalem Fell

178 BEFORE JERUSALEM FELL
effectiveness of the reference to 1 Clement 41 as a tool for undermining
the establishment of the above Temple argument in Revelation.
The first line of evidence regards an ex sihztio matter. If the letter
were written after A.D. 90 – when Clement was appointed the bishop
of Rome – then an unusual ecclesiastical silence in the letter must
be accounted for.
Even the very existence of a bishop of Rome itself could nowhere be
gathered from this letter. Authority indeed is claimed for the utterances
of the letter in no fidtering tone, but it is the authority of the
brotherhood declaring the mind of Christ by the Spirit, not the
authority of one man, whether bishop or pope. 57
Robinson is persuaded by the silence: “At no point in the epistle is
appeal made to episcopal authority. . . . Not only is the author not
writing as a bishop, but the oflice of bishop is still apparently synonymous
with that of presbyter (42.4f; 44.1, 4f.; 54.2; 57.1), as in the
New Testament and all the other writings we have examined. . . .
If this is really the state of affairs in Rome in 96, then we are faced
with a very remarkable transition within less than 20 years to that
presupposed by the epistles of Ignatius. . . . It is easier to believe
that 1 Clement, like the Shepherd of Hermas, reflects an earlier
period.”5 8
The point is well-taken. The evidence, such as it is, is
more suggestive of a pre-bishopric era than for a later era.
Second, it would seem that in Clement’s letter the internal evidence
is suggestive of a more primitive Christian era.
In the organisation of the Church only ‘bishops and deacons’ are
mentioned, exactly as they are in St. Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians,
while the title ‘bishop’ is to the same extent interchangeable with that
of ‘presbyter’ as it is in the Acts and Pauline epistles, and the word
‘rulers’ has the same sense as in the Epistle to the Hebrews.59
We can also note reference to Christ as the “child of God,” the
primitive form of Scripture quotations, the reference to the phoenix
(which had been exhibited in Rome under Claudius), and other such
matters, all of which lend themselves to the earlier period more
57. Lightfbot, Apostolic Fathm, Part I, p. 352.
58. Robinson, Redating, p. 328.
59. Edmundson, Church in Rem, p. 192.