THE FIRST EPISTLE O F CLEMENS ROMANUS TO THE CHURCH A T CORINT H. ABERDEEN: Printed by J. CHALMERS: Sold by J. CHATER, in King-Street, Cheapfide, London; A. DONALDSON, Edinburgh; W. COKE, Leith; OGILVY and LEIGHTON, Dundee, R. MoRISON, Perth; A. THOMSON, and A. ANGUS and SON, Aberdeen. MDCCLXVIII. ་་་་་་་་་ ནས་ར་ར 22 Jau 12-RBĄ. IT INTRODUCTION. T is almost universally believed, that The First Epistle of Clemens Romanus to the Church at Corinth is of very high antiquity, and bears the characters of primitive fimplicity. SOME learned men say that it was written in the fixty-fifth year after the birth of Chrift. From fome hints in the epiftle, there is rea fon to believe, that it was fent to the Corin thian church before Jerufalem was destroyed by Titus, A. D. 70. as Clement fpeaks of the worship of God in the temple, refers to the offerings of the priests at the altar, and mentions Peter and Paul as lately dead. REFERENCES to, and quotations from, this epiftle, are often to be found among the early writers for Christianity. As the following translation is not defigned for the critical inspection of the learned, but for the unlearned, among whom the greatest number of christians were, and still are found, it is therefore unneceffary to croud the margin with authorities from the writers of the fecond, third, and fourth centuries, to fhow the high efteem the first chriftian churches had for this epiftle; yea, fo great was it, as to be publickly read in many of the churches of Afia. THE only manufcript copy of this epiftle, which exifts in the world, as far as we know, is depofited in the British Museum. It is written on vellum, and bound up with the copy of the old and new teftaments, commonly called The Alexandrian Bible. It is faid to be written by Thecla, a noble woman, in the 4th century. This fhews how highly it was efteemed as far down as the council of Nice. WHEN Cyril Patriarch of Alexandria was tranflated to the patriarchate of Conftantinople, he brought with him out of Egypt a valuable collection of manufcripts, and among them this copy of the Bible and Clement's epistle, |