Institutionalization
The Social Setting of the Ministry Summary In this section we have attempted to show that by focusing on household leadership we are able to account for some directions of sectarian development in the Corinthian Church. By adopting household forms for the ordering of the community Paul prepared the way for formal leadership divisions within the church. As in contemporary sects, the secular arrangements surrounding the Pauline church during its period of emergence had an impact on the shaping of community life. We have attempted to show how house church arrangements may have contributed to the development of leadership structures after Paul's death. We have further noted a development toward "established" sectarianism, begun while the apostle was alive and continued after his death. There is evidence in 1 Clement that the Corinthian, as indeed the Roman, community was in the process of settling into existence in the world. Finally, we suggested that household forms contributed to the shaping of group ideals and norms.
Ins titu tionaliz ation In the preceding section we focused on a general process of development in the Corinthian community. In this section we shall attempt to define this process more closely by the use of Berger and Luckmann's model of institutionalization.
Terms such as "institution" and "institutionalization" were frequently employed in the preceding discussion to describe developments in 1 Clement.
Interpreters of this Roman epistle who attempt to understand early church development as the result of the straightforward application of ideas also employ these terms in their analyses of 1 Clement. Their studies, however, reveal a superficial understanding of the processes of institutionalization which results in distorted interpretations of evidence of development in Clement's epistle.
Thus Campenhausen writes that in contrast to the period when the apostle was alive, Clement's letter represents a new institutional stage in which official elders are given formal leadership.
It is no longer a question of individuals, chosen on a particular occasion, and entrusted by the apostles with a function or task within the Church, but of an institution, which has to be preserved as such, and which must be respected in the persons ofits representatives.136
Similarly, in a more recent study Brunner argues that 1 Clement represents a shift toward an institutionalized church which was necessary if the Christian church was to survive.
Die Gemeinden miissten über einen engen, familiären Rahmen hinauswachsen. Das Christentum musste eine rechtlich verfasste Körperschaft werden, wenn es nicht zerfallen wollte, sondern zur Kirche werden, die doch auch und gerade als Reichskirche die Kraft hatte, dem Staat und staatlicher Willkür die Stirn zu bieten.
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Damit hat sich aber die Ausrichtung auf die organisierte Kirche mit institution-alisierter Autorität als die theologische Grundthematik des ersten
Klemensbriefes ergeben.137
While these references are in a certain sense valid, they are ultimately misleading. These scholars are correct when they state that î Clement is evidence of new developments in the Corinthian church, but they fail to identify evidence of institutionalization in the period when Paul was alive. Campenhausen is a good example of a scholar who applies a two-stage model of church development to the period stretching from Paul to Clement's letter. He contrasts the later period with the earlier one by analysing ideas thought to be the determining sources of social development. Thus, in the case of the period when the apostle was alive he argues Paul develops the idea of the Spirit as the organizing principle of the Christian congregation. There is no need for any fixed system with its rules and regulations and prohibitions. Paul's writings do as little to provide such things for the individual congregation as for the Church at large. The community is not viewed or understood as a sociological entity, and the Spirit which governs it does not act within the framework of a particular church order or constitution It is love which is the true organizing and unifying force within the Church, and which creates in her a paradoxical form of order diametrically opposed to all natural systems of organization.138
Having established these concepts as the ideas governing leadership m the community he goes on to assert
Paul mentions helpers, controllers and administrators, whose activity he includes among the 'spiritual gifts'; and he is plainly concerned that these people should not be despised, and that nothing should be done to make their work more difficult.... Nevertheless, the imprecise terminology which Paul uses can hardly be taken to imply a fixed 'office'. Paul has in mind anyone who comes forward in one way or another within the congregation to take on its problems and to provide material or spiritual help.139
Even in the case of the titles of bishops and deacons presented by Paul in Phil. 1:1
Campenhausen argues, "[TJhere is... no question of offices in the strict sense, and absolutely none of sacral offices on the lines of the later 'hierarchy'."140 For Campenhausen offices "in the strict sense" belong to a second stage of church development. In I Clement (as in other roughly contemporary documents)
"'bishop' is an official designation. It refers to a particular position and function, in fact that 'episcopal office' which is permanently undertaken by specific members of the congregation."141 In 1 Clement " . . the patriarchal element has taken precedence over the pneumatic."142 Thus stage one (when Paul was alive) is characterized by a church governed by pneumatic ideas; stage two is ruled by patriarchal ones; the first stage is office-free, the second marks the advent of officialdom.
We suggest that this model of church development is too crude. The idea of an office-free stage of Christian origins is inaccurate and it leads Campenhausen to a miscalculated estimation of the evidence of institutionalization in î Clement and what he regards as a lack of institutions during Paul's lifetime. Campenhausen's theory does not successfully explain how the church passed from
The Social Setting of the Ministry this early stage to officialdom. This occurs, in our view, because he does not have a proper understanding of institutionalization. Campenhausen's dichotomy between an office-free or institution-free period of Christian origins and an official institutionalized one has the effect of obscuring the processes which resulted in the developments outlined in the previous sections. Such a dichotomy arises because he regards theologies as the primary determining factors of the social structures of the early church. He does isolate certain social factors to account for the development of centralized authority such as distance from the church's beginnings, the emergence of heretical ideas, the growth in numbers, and a lessening of Christian zeal.143 But his general treatment reveals that he perceives the more determinative factor to be a shift in the early Christian concept of the church.144 He thus uses Paul's idea of Spirit as put forward in 1 Cor.
12-14 and Rom. 12 as an interpretive category to determine which social structures existed when Paul was alive; because the idea of office, in his view, is opposed to this concept of Spirit he argues that offices did not exist. But in arguing this way he misinterprets data which are better understood as evidence of the existence of offices during Paul's lifetime.145
In order to understand more fully the development of institutions of leadership and of offices in the Corinthian church it is necessary to have a more accurate understanding of institutionalization and a clearer perception of the focuses of institutional development in the early church. Berger and Luckmann's model of institutionalization provides us with a clearer understanding of this process.
Rather than treating institutions as static phenomena, their model presents institutionalization as a dynamic process inherent in human interaction.146 Their model helps us to see that the development of institutions cannot be relegated to a second generation of Christianity; as a process inherent in community life, it was present from the start.
Berger and Luckmann's Model of Institutionalization Institutionalization, according to Berger and Luckmann, is a dialectical process in which humans and their social world interact with each other. Humans externalize patterns of action which are then regarded as being independent objective realities. In the course of socialization, this social world is internalized and humans again interact with the institutional order.147 Thus the process is brought full circle. Berger and Luckmann describe various levels of objectified meaning which are created by this process. The final level forms what they call a "symbolic universe."
The symbolic universe is conceived of as the matrix of all socially objectivated and subjectively real meanings; the entire historic society and the entire biography of the individual are seen as events taking place within this universe.148
The symbolic universe is created in the course of institutionalization, a process which "occurs whenever there is a reciprocal typification of habitualized actions by types of actors. Put differently, any such typification is an institution."149 This is a broad model of institution building, but it is justified by its usefulness in the analysis of basic human processes.150 "Habitualization" occurs when a frequently repeated action becomes cast into a pattern recognizable to
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both the performer and an observer and which can be repeated in the future in the same way.151 Typifications of habitualized actions occur when a pattern is imposed on an individual on the basis of his or her recurring behaviour.152
Reciprocal typifications arise when two parties act toward each other on the basis of performed typifications and modify their behaviour accordingly. The most basic social interactions are governed by such "typifactory schemes";153 they create "types of actors," i.e., roles which individuals occupy and which are regarded as being separate from themselves.154 Berger and Luckmann state, tcWe can properly begin to speak of roles when this kind of typification occurs in the context of an objectified stock of knowledge common to a collectivity of actors."155 In institutional typifications not only actions but also actors or roles are typified.156 "The institution posits that actions of type X will be performed by actors of type X."157 "Institutions are embodied in individual experience by means of roles."158 While it is the case that on the level of habitualization actors enjoy a flexibility which allows them to modify their behaviour in accordance with new experiences, institutions create predefined, or "crystallized,"159 patterns of conduct which channel human activity and are thereby instances of social control.
Role expectations take on a new significance with the appearance of a third party, or the equivalent to a second generation.
Only at this point does it become possible to speak of a social world at all, in the sense of a comprehensive and given reality confronting the individual in a manner analogous to the reality of the natural world.160
As long as routine or institutionalized activity remains confined to the interaction of two individuals the routine, although persistent once established, is relatively susceptible to alteration by the actors. With the appearance of a third party or new generation the necessity arises to communicate and pass on the institution to another. "The objectivity of the institutional world 'thickens1 and 'hardens'";161 by communicating and passing on the institution to a third party it acquires an opaque quality which confronts both the initiators and the recipients as something "out there" — an objective "social world" which is normative both for the initiators and the recipients. "A world so regarded attains a firmness in consciousness; it becomes real in an ever more massive way and it can no longer be changed so readily."162 By the act of transmission the patterns of interaction or institutions become more solid for the creators themselves, a part of the binding normative order by which their own actions are patterned.
But the appearance of a third party or new generation means that the institutional world requires legitimation. Because the recipient has not shared in the formulation of the institution it is not understood or accepted in the same way as it was comprehended by its creators and is therefore in need of legitimation, that is, a process by which the institutional world "can be 'explained' and justified."163 Legitimation is a means of explaining and justifying the prominent elements of the institutional tradition.164 Since the original meaning of the institution is not available to the recipient by means of memory it is necessary to interpret its meaning by various legitimating formulas. In order to be convincing these formulas must be consistent with the institutional order. Berger and Luckmann argue
The Social Setting of the Ministry It follows that the expanding institutional order develops a corresponding canopy of legitimations, stretching over it a protective cover of both cognitive and normative interpretation. These legitimations are learned by the new generation during the same process that socializes them into the institutional order.165
As groups grow and the institutional order becomes segmented with a corresponding series of types of actors, it becomes crucial that the order provide an integration of the meanings which encompass the society and that the institutional activities of one type of actor vis-à-vis other types are legitimated.166
The Death of Paul and the Desire to Preserve Sect Ideals If the model of institutionalization described above is accurate, it is imprecise to speak of the advent of the institutionalized church one or two generations after the death of Paul. Clement was indeed involved in a process of institution building, but he did not invent institutionalization nor did he introduce institutionalization to the early church. Institutionalized authority was not the creation of an early Christian author but a process which was inherent in social interaction in the early church from its inception.
What gave rise to the patriarchal structure described in the preceding discussion? Bultmann argues that "the incipient regulation of the local congregations is determined by the congregation's understanding of itself as an eschatalogical community ruled by the Spirit."167 And he agrees, with Käsemann, that "nascent
Catholicism was the historically necessary outcome of an original Christianity whose apocalyptic expectation had not been fulfilled."168 Does not Clement, when putting the hope of the future resurrection before his readers, cite scripture which quotes the sceptic as saying, "We have heard these things even in the days of our fathers, and behold we have grown old, and none of these things has happened to us" (23:3)? It is indeed true that the continuation of a sect is an important element which contributes toward the development of centralized organization. But it is not the only one. Nor is it sufficient to refer to a continuation unanticipated by the original founder. There are more specific reasons for this development.
A factor which these scholars overlook is the impact on communities as a result of the absence of the apostolic community founder, Paul. We noted above that while Paul was still alive community life was overshadowed by his presence. Holmberg, commenting on the reason for lack of development in Paul's churches, argues The decisive reason is . . . the personage of Paul himself. The founder has not left the scene, but is fully and energetically active in his churches (especially in Corinth). His letters show that he had full control over the life and development of his churches and regarded himself as having a permanent responsibility for them. Even if he aimed at fostering maturity and independence in his churches the letters do not give the impression that he gave them the reins. And it is just this 'potential accessibility' of the apostle, the fact that he
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is still actively present and his authority fully accessible, that prevents the full
(social legal and theological) development of those beginnings of an office structure we observe in the Pauline letters. This aspect of local church life does not really start to develop until after the apostle's death.169
What impact would the death of such a person have had on the community?
What kept the community from disintegrating? For not all sects persist; they sometimes perish with the death or discrediting of their leader. Was there a relationship between the death of the apostle and the increased importance of patriarchal structures? These are questions which are rarely raised by scholars who attempt to account for the development of early church structure and, as far as this writer is aware, have never been asked by interpreters of 1 Clement. So far we have argued that it was the wealthy householder who became the focus of leadership in the absence and finally after the death of the apostle. We have placed the emergence of a formal group of leaders in a framework of sect development in order to highlight important social developments in the early church.
But we have not yet fully answered the more important question of the social reasons for this particular direction of development.
Bengt Holmberg in his work cited above employs Berger and Luckmann's model of institutionalization to describe the whole process of interaction between Paul and his followers and the forms and structures which arose from it. Holmberg's discussion helps to shed light on institutional developments subsequent to Paul's death and places ί Clement in a social matrix which is better defined than that proposed by scholars such as Campenhausen and Brunner.
Holmberg identifies Paul sociologically as a charismatic leader. Here he employs Weber's ideal type of charismatic authority. And Stark brings out Paul's unique charismatic position when he calls the apostle a "minor founder," who succeeds "the Founder" Jesus.170 We shall discuss Weber's notion of charisma in greater detail when we discuss Ignatius of Antioch.171 It is enough to state here that Weber conceived of charismatic authority as a type of leadership arising from personal devotion to an individual believed to possess extraordinary, heroic, or divinely conferred qualities. Holmberg correctly identifies Paul as a charismatic authority by arguing that the apostle mediated "a closer contact with the vital, sacred center of existence through his articulation of their needs and aspirations, of the new goals and norms, and through his guidance to a new order and a new life."1 2 Weber's ideal type belongs to a model which he describes as the "routinization of charisma."173 He argued that routinization is a process which arises after the death of a charismatic leader as a result of the attempts of the leader's followers, especially his staff, to preserve the benefits which accrued to them while he was alive. They do this by creating and perpetuating agencies and institutions designed to continue the order which their leader established. Weber was perhaps unduly influenced by Rudolph Sohm, from whom he borrowed the term "charisma," for he is justly criticized for distinguishing too sharply between charisma and routinization. He did not adequately treat processes of institutionalization inherent in both phases.174 In short, by contrasting too sharply between charisma and routinization he overlooked the possible state of affairs in which a charismatic leader contributes to institution building in the community gathered around him.175 This final criti-
The Social Setting of the Ministry cism has important implications for an accurate assessment of institutionalization and the routinization process during Paul's lifetime.
Holmberg modifies Weber's model by applying to it Berger and Luckmann's model of institutionalization. He distinguishes between institutionalization and "cumulative institutionalization." This latter phrase describes the process by which institutionalization and legitimation work together on already existing institutions to produce increasingly complex and more developed social orders.176 Within this cumulative category he distinguishes between two kinds of institutionalization. The first (primary institutionalization) refers to the process by which the authority thought to reside in a charismatic leader's person spills over into his instructions, characteristic ethos, and the institutions formed by interaction with him. This occurs while the leader is still alive. The second kind (secondary institutionalization) arises after a charismatic leader's death. It is the latter form which we shall use to analyse the development of centralized authority structures after Paul's death. In this period the institutional structures which developed while the leader was still alive acquire an independent authority of their own.
The leader's words, his message and example, the rituals and institutions he created now enjoy more authority than before, as he is not there to complete, interpret or change them. But all these authoritative parts of the charismatic group life need to be unified and placed in relation to one another so as to be accessible to the group. This is done by means of a secondary institutionalization which transforms unconsolidated verbal tradition into a body of normative texts, ways of living and a typical ethical 'atmosphere' into a formulated code of behaviour and a paraenetical teaching tradition, community rites into organized forms of worship. The most important change is that the former staff of assistants become new leaders of the group, responsible for teaching, decision-making and development.177
The staff does not consciously introduce fundamentally new goals and norms or invent new forms of group life, but attempts to preserve the original group through the conservation, exposition, development, and systematization of what is provided by the order established by the leader. Holmberg notes that this institutionalization of charismatic authority results in the mediation of charisma through such representatives as offices, holy traditions, and rituals.178 This process of cumulative institutionalization is necessary if the group is to survive.
What picture do we discover if we analyse the development of the Corinthian community toward formal centralized authority with the model of institutionalization described above? A useful way to understand the developments in this church is to analyse them as examples of cumulative institutionalization. Holmberg places Paul's churches in a schema of secondary institutionalization. Paul is actively engaged in or oversees the process of institution building in the churches he founded; while there are a variety of options open to the communities for development, the formulation of structures is guided by and placed in the context of a corporate tradition. Paul fits them into the framework of the common stock of knowledge of the Christian group and by doing so he legitimates them. If need arises, he also corrects institutional developments which he thinks are inappropriate, such as the assertion of preeminence by pneumatic
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Christians (1 Cor. 12-14), again by reference to the knowledge of the community. By means of these institutional developments and their legitimations the symbolic universe is formed, expanded, solidified and transformed.
But if Paul was part of a process in which the message, example, rituals, and institutions given by Jesus were integrated into a more systematic code for community life, this is not to deny that Paul also was a charismatic leader. As a charismatic "minor founder," Paul was believed by his churches to be in vital contact with the sacred centre of the Christian movement. Just as the communal benefits surrounding the disciples' relationship with Jesus were perpetuated through the verbal tradition of his teachings, ethos, and customs, so too with Paul, the benefits which were present when he was still alive continued after his death by the preservation of the institutional order, teaching, code of conduct, and rituals which the apostle either initiated himself or passed on. As after the founder's death the staff assumed positions of leadership, so after the minor founder's disappearance his staff assumed similar positions. The character of such institutionalization was probably different after the death of a figure like
Paul than it was after that of someone like Clement. Both were involved in processes of progressive institutionalization, but they did not have the same impact on the movement. Stark illustrates this distinction well when he differentiates between those whom he calls "the second" and the minor founder. The second's primary role is to conserve what the founder or minor founder initiates.179 He is primarily an administrator and his activity is crucial if the community is to survive.180 This distinction will be useful in our attempt to understand the authority structures which arose after Paul's death.
How did institutionalization arise in Paul's churches? The model outlined above cannot fill in gaps where we lack information, but it can suggest a possible course of development which allows us to place the evidence of institutions in ί
Clement in a wider context. What follows is put forward as one possible way of placing the evidence contained within ί Clement in a developmental scheme of institutionalization. If we are correct in our estimation of the apostle as a charismatic leader, then it seems probable that as different institutions began to arise from interaction with the apostle and take shape in the community, his authority flowed into them. Examples of this include the exhortation to be subject to Stephanas and his household (1 Cor. 16:15) as well as the προϊστάμενοι of Thessalonicà (1 Thes. 5:12), Paul's recognition of Prisca and Aquila's co-workmanship, which probably included the oversight of the church which met in their house (Rom. 16:3-5), his regard for Philemon (Phlm. v. 2) and Gaius
(Rom. 16:23) who probably oversaw house churches, and his recommendation of the minister Phoebe, patroness of Paul and perhaps the church at Cenchreae
(Rom. 16:1).181 And by connecting the activities which these individuals carried out for the community (1 Cor. 12; Rom. 12: 4-8) with his spiritual instruction,
Paul established for them a legitimate place in the symbolic universe of the group.
Such members as these formed a recognized body of co-workers sharing in the apostle's mission. They formed part of his staff and inasmuch as they occupied roles which were regarded by Paul and fellow members as furthering the aims of the apostle's mission they were "enveloped in the vague and powerful
The Social Setting of the Ministry nimbus of the authority of the entire institution."182 Or, differently stated, because the roles they occupied as house-church patrons and leaders ensured the smooth operation of the community and encouraged the growth of the church, they were placed in a privileged point of contact with the "serious" — God's will in the establishment and expansion of the church. Their roles were enhanced because of the important contributions they made to the common life of the church.
It is reasonable to suppose that with the death of the apostle this staff took on a position similar to that of the staff surrounding a charismatic leader. The authority which the apostle and the community conferred on them while the minor founder was still alive probably did not evaporate; instead it continued to assert itself in the institutions which local staff such as house-church patrons embodied. In Clement's letter, the institutional order includes not only certain individual roles, but also the places of worship. The advantages which the community enjoyed while Paul was alive were perpetuated through the institutions which formed while he was still available to the community. One may infer that the relatively wide variety of institutional expressions open to communities while the apostle was alive, subject to modifications as the apostle and those acting out certain roles interacted with one another, became more rigidly channelled when those structures were challenged or adaptation was required to carry out new tasks. We shall argue that 1 Clement provides evidence of precisely this type of channelling. As institutionalization continued after the apostle's death and new institutional needs arose in the community, the order established by the apostle and implied in his writings required the kind of further reflection found in ί Clement.
But the further institution building which may be adduced from Clement's letter was a variation on a theme rather than the creation of something radically new. In our view 1 Clement is evidence of a "thickening" and "hardening" of the institutional order after the death of Paul; it is evidence of a social world handed on to succeeding generations and confronting them as a normative order.
Clement's argument in 42:1-4 and 44:lf. shows that the order which developed around the apostle has become part of the normative state of affairs. He was probably not inventing anything new when he stated that the apostles appointed bishops and deacons in the churches they founded (42:4; 44:2). Evidence in roughly contemporary literature (Acts 14:23; Tit. 1:5) suggests that the belief may have been relatively widespread. The common judgment that these descriptions are purely fictional must be treated with caution.184 If our argument concerning the emergence of local authority structures "from below" when Paul was alive is correct, then Clement's description (as that of his contemporaries) is better interpreted as ascribing to the apostle structures which had developed through the course of one or two generations, but which were continuous with the community's initial pattern of organization.185 This is a more satisfactory explanation than Campenhausen's "fusion theory" of a welding together of Jewish-Christian and Pauline forms.186 Placed within the model of cumulative institutionalization described above, we may state that the normative order which confronted the Corinthian community was an instance of the
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expansion of institutions which arose around Paul and which took on a new significance after his death.
Elders and Institutionalization The rise of the importance of elder Christians or presbyters to which both Hermas and Clement give testimony is further evidence of a cumulative institutionalization. We noted above that household relationships were imported by Paul into the group when he baptized households. While it is true that passages such as 1 Cor. 7:29-31 reveal that Paul attached only a relative importance to household arrangements, other passages such as I Cor. 11:3-16 shows that he did regard them as valid structures. Patriarchal arrangements were part of the apostle's teaching and, as in other structural arrangements which were recognized by Paul, they gained importance after the apostle's death.
There is a slight difficulty in determining to which members of the community the term πρεσβύτερος refers. It may be interpreted to refer either to seniority in age or seniority in the faith. While reverence for age was a norm in the Graeco-Roman world, the possible importance of the length of time one had been a Christian should not be ignored, especially in a period of institutional consolidation. Ernst von Dobschütz notes the importance of these members for the protection and preservation of the group's values in the period directly following Paul's death.187
It is reasonable to assume that acquaintance with these values and experience in the Christian life conferred authority on these members. In some cases there may also have been members who had had some connection with the apostle's founding work or the period when he was alive.
The respect accorded to elder members is seen in 63:3 where a qualification of the Roman church's emissaries is their seniority in the Christian faith. This, together with their moral purity, puts them in positions of authority. While
Clement does not state dircctly that the other elders of the community have authority conferred upon them for the same reason, this is a reasonable inference. Seniority in the faith was probably one criterion for distinguishing Christians in Pauline churches from the start. Paul includes in his exhortation to be subject to Stephanas and his household the fact that they were the first converts of Achaia (1 Cor. 16:15) and it may be that this conferred upon them a special place in the community. In Rom. 16:5 he also singles out for special greeting
Epaenetus, the first convert in Asia. When Clement states in 42:4, therefore, that the apostles appointed their first converts (άπαρχαί — the same term used in 1
Cor. 16:15 and Rom, 16:5) to be bishops and deacons, there is probably a kernel of historical truth present. The importance attached to the criterion of seniority suggests a degree of development toward more formal leadership over the period of time between Paul's presence in Corinth and the composition of 1
Clement Still, it is a reasonable but obviously tentative conclusion to draw from these facts that seniority in the faith continued to distinguish members as suitable candidates for leadership in the community after the death of the apostle.
The Social Setting of the Ministry Clement's Contribution to the Institutionalization of the Corinthian Church So far we have attempted to determine what were some of the focal points of institutionalization in the first generations of the church; we have argued that the leadership provided by house-church patrons was an important one in the Corinthian church. In the quotation taken from Brunner above it is stated that the creation of institutions was necessary if the church was to survive. We have tried to show that, stated in this way, Brunner's observation is misleading. Institutionalization cannot be treated adequately as the application of an idea or concept without fundamental distortion. But Β runner's argument is correct in a sense perhaps unintended by him: Clement was engaged in a form of institution building. To understand this properly it is necessary to place the process of institution building in the early church in a context more precise than Brunner presents. It is to Clement's contribution to the institutionalization of the church that we now turn.
T h e Role o f Conflict in Institution Building Obviously Clement's letter was written to end the conflict in the Corinthian community. But less obvious is the role conflict played in the process of institution building in this church. A number of sociologists and anthropologists have focused their attention on the phenomenon of conflict in order to determine how disagreement between and within groups contributes positively to the development of community structures. We shall concern ourselves primarily with Coser's reflections on Georg SimmePs seminal work, entitled Conflict,188
Coser defines conflict as "a struggle over values or claims to status, power, and scarce resources, in which the aims of the conflicting parties are not only to gain the desired values but also to neutralize, injure, or eliminate their rivals."189 But in the attempt to be rid of one's opponents or the threat they present, Coser argues, conflict contributes in a positive way to society by giving rise to new norms and rules for new situations, or by bringing into awareness certain norms and rules that were dormant before the particular conflict arose.190
These are called the "law-creating aspects" of conflict,191 and Coser notes further that the application of new rules which arise out of conflicts leads to the growth of new institutional structures centring on the enforcement of the rules and norms which are created or discovered as a result of conflict.192
But solutions to conflicts do not always occur of their own accord. The role of specialists in the creation of solutions in intra-group conflicts has been noted by Hoebel, who has conducted several anthropological studies into the processes at work in the creation of law among so-called primitive peoples.193
Hoebel has observed that in the case of intra-group conflict where there are no explicit laws determining the rights of individuals or punitive measures, specialists, that is certain authoritative members of the group, are called upon to determine what the appropriate norms are which govern given situations of discord and to show how these norms fit into what he calls the culture's "basic postulates" — what we have chosen to call the symbolic universe.194
Obviously legal problems represent a highly sophisticated and formal
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instance of conflict resulting in increased group structure. But specialists are no less important on more basic levels. And it is here that we begin to come closer to the significance of conflict for institution building in the early church. EisenStadt notes that any institutional differentiation which arises through the process of institutionalization can become the object of conflict.195 Unless these conflicts are solved through further differentiation or the creation of facilities to deal with them, the group or institution may collapse.196 For example, the differentiation introduced and legitimated by Paul when he encouraged members to be subject to the heads of certain households created the possibility that other households might separate themselves and create a schism. This perhaps painfully obvious observation has been completely overlooked by most scholars who wish to see in î Clement a purely ideological struggle between gnostic, pneumatic or some other form of deviant group and "orthodox" Christians. Eisenstadt notes the importance of those whom he calls "elites" or "entrepreneurs"
"who are able to articulate new goals, set up new organization, and mobilize the resources necessary for their continuous functioning" in the creation of institutions.197 By implication, we add that such elites are also important when conflicts arise within the institutional framework and that they have a central role to play in further institution building when existing structures are threatened.
Institution Building and the Corinthian Conflict These observations help us to assess more accurately than in previous studies
Clement's intervening role in the Corinthian conflict. If we see him as an "entrepreneur" who was engaged in institution building in the Corinthian community we shall see how the conflict in this church contributed to the process of institutional development. By presenting the rejection of the authority of the deposed leaders as a rejection of divinely established community structures,
Clement made those structures explicit and by showing how the group's beliefs committed them to support for the leaders, he strengthened the normative character of those structures. We may describe Clement as involved in institution building, or better, institution strengthening activity. In 7:2-3 Clement urges, "Let us put aside empty and vain cares, and let us come to the glorious and venerable rule of our tradition, and let us see what is good and pleasing and acceptable in the sight of our Maker." While this exhortation has perhaps a limited reference in the context of this chapter, in the rest of the letter Clement's efforts may be described as an attempt to identify the proper norms and values of the group, to show how they fit in with the community's tradition, and to apply them to the conflict in an effort to bring division within the group to an end.
The Corinthian conflict focused the attention of the group on existing institutional arrangements and Clement's role as a mediator in the conflict was to show how those structures were expressions of the group's beliefs and how certain values held by the group implied a commitment to its organization. In chapters 40-44, where Clement is less indirect in his description of the conflict, the Roman writer attempts to place the community's leadership structures in a sacred context by presenting the various roles associated with it as analogies of other sacral arrangements. In this section he connects the church's practices and
The Social Setting of the Ministry arrangements with the will of God (40:1; 41:1; 44:1-2). By drawing on themes associated with the sacral arrangements in Jerusalem, which also issued from the will of God (40:5; 41:2-4), and by casting church practices in a similar light
(40:2-5), leadership structures are connected with the group's vital and inspiring symbols and are thereby given inviolability. Thus by developing certain themes of the group's beliefs, Clement integrated existing social arrangements into the group's symbolic universe and thereby contributed to the strength and permanence of the established institutional order.
The segmentation of the institutional order in the Corinthian community led to the problem which arises in the process of institutional differentiation, of providing integrative meanings that encompass society and place each member of society in his or her proper context vis-à-vis differing roles and responsibilities. The conflict within the institutional order of the church at Corinth brought this problem into greater relief and by demanding solution, through the creation of legitimations which related institutions to one another and located them in a proper context, the group's structural arrangements were further strengthened. The Corinthian conflict therefore served to enhance the institutional order by focusing energies on its maintenance. A result of the conflict was to identify the values and historical events or interpretations of them which were normative for the proper functioning of community life.
Clement's Contribution as a Legitimator of Institutions H o w did Clement contribute to the process of the institutionalization of leadership in the Corinthian church? Campenhausen, following Sohm, argues that in ί Clement "for the first time the structures of canon law are included in the category of doctrines and dogma, and given a sacral and immutable character."198
He interprets 44:1-5 as "the famous passage in which he (Clement) lays down the legal status of the episcopate as an order and institution of the Church created by the apostles and valid for all time."199
Is this in fact the case? In our view, Clement's theory, put forward in 44:1-3, that the apostles appointed bishops and later added a "codicil" that appointed leaders should be succeeded in due course, does not signal the birth of canon law. It is more precise to state that Clement's contribution to institutionalization in the early church was to provide a formal legitimation of certain leadership structures. Clement's interest does not appear to be the establishment of a universal regulation of succession, although this may have been an unintended consequence of his argument, especially in so far as his letter itself became a more widely distributed authoritative writing. The focus of the argument is not on the so-called "codicil,"200 but rather on the apostles' foreknowledge that there would be strife over institutional arrangements established by them
(44:1-2). Clement's introduction of this theme of foreknowledge echoes and belongs to themes which he develops in earlier parts of his letter and to which he returns again at its conclusion. All order is established by God (20:1-12;
33:2-3; cf. 61:1-2) and demands obedience because of its sacred origin (37:1-38.4; 40:3; 41:1,3).
This is no less true of the order of church leadership established by the apostles. The notion of foreknowledge "through the Lord Jesus" (44:1) is intro-
ί Clement
duced to show that all structural arrangements have their origin with God (in 44:2 he writes that Christ is "from God" — από του θεού). In particular, the "codicil" that appropriate successors be appointed after the death of the first appointees is a direct consequence of God's ordering activity in the community.
The significance of Clement's argument for the situation to which he is addressing himself is that the Corinthian dispute was foreseen by the apostles.
By appealing to the apostles' foreknowledge, what Clement is engaged in is the legitimation of the authority of those who have been deposed, not the construction of certain formal structures of leadership as the Sohmian interpretation would have it. Campenhausen's assertion that in 44:1-4 we have the birth of canon law misinterprets what is a secondary reaction (Clement's theory of apostolic regulation as a legitimation of the contemporary order) to certain social phenomena in the Corinthian community (the exclusion of established leaders and the creation of alternative places of worship) as the primary structuring principle of the group.201 This is not to deny that when the need for further successions arose Clement's theory may have provided an already existing justification for a certain process of selection. But if we focus our attention on the institutional setting of the conflict we will notice that Clement is primarily concerned with an end to a particular dispute.
Similarly, Brunner's argument that ί Clement is addressed not only to the individual needs of the Corinthian community but to the whole church,202 misrepresents the primary purpose of Clement to bring an end to a particular social conflict. Although Clement hints that there is some social unrest in the Roman church also (7:1), one cannot generalize that Clement attempts to solve institutional problems present in the empire-wide church. This is to draw more from the text than is appropriate and to engage in unwarranted speculation.
Clement's contribution must therefore be assessed primarily on the local level. His letter does not signal a new stage of institutional development in the so-called universal church; he is engaged rather in the legitimation of an already existing order in a particular community which has been upset by certain individuals. In the process of this attempt he makes explicit the institutional order and shows how it is integrated in the group's symbolic universe. By integrating and connecting institutions with beliefs in an explicit way, Clement contributes to the process of cumulative institutionalization. In our estimation, von Campenhausen is probably correct in saying that Clement worked out more precisely and systematically beliefs regarding the origins of the institutional order that were already present in the Corinthian community;203 even the theory that the apostles made arrangements for succession after their first appointees (44:2) may have been a common belief in the Corinthian church. Clement's unique contribution is his connection of what seem to have been shared beliefs about the origins of the institutional order with the group's wider beliefs.
Summary Berger and Luckmann argue that an institution cannot be fully comprehended until the historical process by which it was produced is understood.
By accounting for institutional development by the straightforward application of ideas, we suggest that analysts of ί Clement have overlooked the signifi-