This volume deals with the encounter of Early Christianity with Hellenistic culture, particularly with the question of ancient rhetorical influence on the First Letter of Clement. It contains reprints of two classical studies by A. von Harnack and W. Jaeger, which were seminal for the understanding the letter against a Hellenistic background, furthermore it makes an important essay of the Dutch scholar W.C. van Unnik on the literary and rhetorical genre of First Clement (genos symbouleutikon) for the first time available in English. The editors also present two new studies: Breytenbach...

First Clement responds to a crisis in the Corinthian church by enjoining an ethic of subordination especially to the presbyteroi and episkopoi. Welborn examines the letter's deliberative rhetoric, its blending of citations from the Old Testament and Paul's letters, and its reliance on topoi from Greco-Roman civic discourse.