Codex 126

[Clement of Rome, Letters to the Corinthians -Polycarp,Letter to the Philippians]

Read the little book containing Clement’s two Epistles to the Corinthians.The first accuses them of having disturbed the peace and harmony proper to civil life by sedition, disturbance, and schism, and exhorts them to desist from such evil ways. The style is simple and clear, in its absence of elaboration approaching that of ecclesiastical writers. The author, however, deserves censure for putting certain worlds beyond the ocean, for using the phoenix as an incontrovertible argument, for calling our Lord Jesus Christ chief priest and president, not even using the loftier terms that befit God, although he nowhere openly blasphemes Him. The second letter, containing advice and exhortation to a better life, at the beginning proclaims Christ as God, although certain foreign expressions, from which even the first letter is not altogether free, are introduced as if from Holy Writ. Certain passages are strangely interpreted. The sentiments are somewhat poor and at times inconsistent.

In the same little work also read Polycarp’s Epistle to the Philippians,full of good advice, combined with clearness and simplicity, after the ecclesiastical method of interpretation. The author also says that he sent the letters of the God-inspired Ignatius to them, asking to be informed if they had heard anything of him.