the episcopate, as clearly involved him in a contradiction of
the other theory--which he also never gave up--viz., that the bishops,
as the class which transmits the rule of faith, are an apostolic
institution and therefore necessary to the Church[154].

From the disquisitions of Clement of Alexandria we see how vigorous the
old conception of the Church, as the heavenly communion of the elect and
believing, still continued to be about the year 200. This will not
appear strange after what we have already said as to Clement's views
about the rule of faith, the New Testament, and the episcopate. It is
evident that his philosophy of religion led him to give a new
interpretation to the original ideas. Yet the old form of these notions
can be more easily made out from his works than from those of
Irenaeus.[155] Up to the 15th Chapter of the 7th Book of his great work,
the Stromateis, and in the Paedagogus, Clement simply speaks of the
Church in the sense of the Epistle to the Ephesians and the Shepherd of
Hermas. She is a heavenly formation, continued in that which appears on
earth as her image. Instead of distinguishing two Churches Clement sees
one, the product of God's will aiming at the salvation of man--a Church
which is to be on earth as it is in heaven, and of which faith forms the
subjective and the Logos the objective bond of union. But, beginning
with Strom. VII. 15 (see especially 17), where he is influenced by
opposition to the heretics, he suddenly identifies this Church with the
single old Catholic one, that is, with the visible "Church" in
opposition to the heretic sects. Thus the empirical interpretation of
the Church, which makes her the institution in possession of the true
doctrine, was also completely adopted by Clement; but as yet he employed
it simply in polemics and not in positive teachings. He neither
reconciled nor seemingly felt the contradiction in the statement that
the Church is to be at one and the same time the assembly of the elect
and the empiric universal Church. At any rate he made as yet no
unconditional acknowledgment of the Catholic Church, because he was
still able to attribute independent value to Gnosis, that is, to
independent piety as he understood it.[156] Consequently, as regards the
conception of the Church, the mystic Gnosis exercised the same effect as
the old religious enthusiasm from which in other respects it differs so
much.[157] The hierarchy has still no significance as fa