First Christian Voices: Practices of the Apostolic Fathers

Chapter 8: Warnings Against Division and the Demonic

179

I wish for everyone with whom I have spoken to not allow what I have said to become a testimony against them. For though some people would want to deceive me according to the flesh, yet the Spirit is not deceived because He is from God. For He knows both from where He comes and where He goes, and He uncovers secrets. For when I was among you I cried with a loud voice, God’s voice, “Pay attention to the bishop, and to the elders and deacons.” Now, some suspected that I spoke from knowing the division caused by some among you. But He is my witness, for whose sake I am in chains, that I did not learn this from anyone. Rather the Spirit proclaims these words, “Do nothing without the bishop. Keep your bodies as the temples of God. Love unity, avoid divisions. Be followers of Jesus Christ, even as He is of His Father.” Danger of Envy F irst C lement 3–4: Every kind of honor and happiness was given to you. But then what was written was fulfilled, “My beloved ate and drank, and was enlarged and grew fat, and kicked” ( Deut 32:15 ). Hence flowed rivalry and envy, strife and sedition, persecution and disorder, war and captivity. So, the worthless rose up against the honored, those of no reputation against such as were renowned, the foolish against the wise, the young against those advanced in years. For this reason, righteousness and peace are now far away from you. Everyone has abandoned the fear of God and has become blind in faith. No one walks in the laws of His commandment, nor acts as becoming a Christian. Instead, they walk after their own wicked lusts, resuming the practice of an unrighteous and ungodly envy, by which death itself entered into the world.