At the same time it is clear that Clement is very sensible of the importance of the position of [p.40] the bishops or presbyters, though it is not quite clear whether these are wholly distinct offices. Apparently the Church at Corinth was trying, in the spirit of Greek democracy, to dispense with its church officers. Clement tells them [4] how the Apostles went about setting up bishops and deacons amongst the first fruits of their converts in different cities; these offices had even been foreseen ages before, he notes, by the prophet Isaiah (Ix. 17). [5] <#_edn5>
It was not right, he urges, that men who had been appointed by the apostles and afterwards by other men of renown, with the consent and approval of the whole Church, who had fulfilled their duties without blame, should now be cast out of their offices.
If we turn to another group of letters, written some twelve years later by Ignatius of Antioch, on his way to martyrdom at Rome, we find, again, that the only references to prophets and prophecy deal with old Testament days, but that the greatest importance is set by Ignatius upon the relations of the Church to its Bishop: "Do all of you," he bids the Church of Smyrna, [6] "follow the Bishop, as Jesus Christ the Father, and follow the College of Presbyters as the Apostles, and give heed to the deacons as God's commandment. Let no man do anything of those things that appertain to the Church apart from the Bishop. Let that Eucharist be accounted valid that is under the authority of the Bishop or of him to whomsoever he himself entrusts it. Wheresoever the Bishop appeareth there let the multitude be, even as wheresoever Christ Jesus is there is the Catholic Church. It is not lawful apart from the Bishop either to baptise or to hold an Agape, but whatsoever he approves that is also well pleasing to God; that all that is done may be safe and valid." (According to present Catholic doctrine even a woman may validly baptize.)
We see at once that it would not be easy to fit into such an ordered Church as this prophets like those of the earliest Church in Corinth.
But while in most of the larger towns the churches had been developing along lines like these it would seem that at the same time there were out of the way places in which a much more primitive tradition was preserved.