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 the throne of Satan, i.e. the temple of Rome and Augustus, is'" (ii. 13).

The peculiar partiality of the Emperor Domitian for this especial form of idolatry, in which he personally was adored as a god, has been already alluded to.

,  95-6

About the year of grace 95-6, Clement, bishop of Rome, wrote his letter to the Christian congregation of Corinth—generally known as his 1st Epistle. From the days of Irenæus downwards this letter has ever been considered a work of the highest importance, and its genuineness as a writing of Clement of Rome has never been disputed. Its importance consists in its record of the traditional interpretation of the apostolic teaching which was held in the great congregation of the metropolis from the first days. The immediate reasons of the Bishop of Rome writing to the Church of Corinth were the disastrous internal dissensions which were harassing the Corinthian congregation, disputes which not only marred its influence at home, but were productive of grave scandal abroad, and which, unless checked, would seriously affect the work of the Church in cities far distant from Corinth.

It was a gentle loving letter of remonstrance; but its value to the Church at large in all times consists in its being an authoritative declaration of the doctrine taught in the great Church in Rome in the closing years of the first century, somewhat more than a quarter of a century after the deaths of SS. Peter and Paul.

Clement in his Epistle to the Church of Corinth had no intention of writing a history of his Church. The object of his writing was a very different one. There are, however, a few notices scattered here and there in the course of his long letter, which bear upon the subject now under discussion, i.e., the continuous nature of the persecution under which the Christian folk lived from the year 64 onward.

Clement begins by explaining the reason of his delay in taking up the questions which vexed the Corinthian congregation. "By reason of the sudden and repeated calamities