[528:1] 2 John 1.
[528:2] 3 John 1.
[528:3] Epist. ci. "Ad Evangelum."
[528:4] Period II. sec. iii. chap. 5. p. 500.
[528:5] Sec. 1.
[528:6] The reader may find the quotations in the preceding chapter, pp. 501, 502.
[528:7] Thus Milner says that "so far as one may judge by Clement's Epistle," the Church of Corinth, when the letter was written, had Church governors "only of two ranks," presbyters and deacons.—Hist. of the Church, cent. ii. chap. 1.
[528:8] As the letter supplies no trace whatever of the existence of a bishop in the Church to which it is addressed, Pearson is sadly puzzled by its testimony, and gravely advances the supposition that the bishop of Philippi must have been dead when Polycarp wrote! "Vindiciae Ignatianae," pars ii. cap. 13. Rothe is equally perplexed by the Epistle of Clement. He says that "in the whole Epistle there is never any reference to a bishop of the Corinthian community," and he admits that, when the letter was written, "the Corinthian community had no bishop at all;" but, to support his favourite theory, he contends, like Pearson, that the bishop of Corinth must also have been dead! "Die Anfange der Christlichen Kirche," pp. 403, 404. Strange that the bishop of Corinth and the bishop of Philippi both happened to be dead at the only time that their existence would have been of any historical value, and that no reference is made either to them or their successors!
[529:1] See Euseb. iv. c. 11.
[529:2] Euseb. in. 32, and iv. 22.