Library › St Clement of Rome › First Epistle to the Corinthians

First Epistle to the Corinthians

St Clement of Rome, Lake, Loeb 1912

Chapter 46

Exhortation against schism

We also, brethren, must therefore cleave to such examples.

For it is written, “Cleave to the holy, for they who cleave to them shall be made holy.”¹

And again in another place it says, “With the innocent man thou shalt be innocent, and with the elect man thou shalt be elect, and with the perverse man thou shalt do perversely.”²

Let us then cleave to the innocent and righteous, for these are God’s elect.

Why are there strife and passion and divisions and schisms and war among you?

Or have we not one God, and one Christ, and one Spirit of grace poured out upon us? And is there not one calling in Christ?

Why do we divide and tear asunder the members of Christ, and raise up strife against our own body, and reach such a pitch of madness as to forget that we are members one of another? Remember the words of the Lord Jesus;

for he said, “Woe unto that man: it were good for him if he had not been born, than that he should offend one of my elect; it were better for him that a millstone be hung on him, and he be cast into the sea, than that he should turn aside one of my elect.”

Your schism has turned aside many, has cast many into discouragement, many to doubt, all of us to grief; and your sedition continues.

Previous · Contents · Next