It was requisite to draw out the full statement of the transmission of Spiritual Power, as recorded in the Scriptures of the Church, before passing to its historical fulfilment. How exactly the fulfilment corresponded to the promise is attested for us by an unexceptionable authority, almost at the end of the first century. This witness was given just before the closing of the Canon of the New Testament itself. It is to be deplored that almost all the early letters of the Sovereign Pontiffs have been lost, but one of the first is extant in the letter of St. Clement of Rome to the Corinthian Church. It belongs to the year 95 or 96, and was written during or immediately after Domitian's persecution, when St. John the Evangelist was the sole survivor of the Apostolic College. Its occasion was an attempt to depose the Bishop of Corinth by a party in that Church. The matter was referred to the Roman Church, and the Pope gives his judgment in words which we will quote later. St. Irenæus,[41] about eighty years after this letter was written, referred to it in these terms: "The blessed Apostles (Peter and Paul), having founded and built up the (Roman) Church, delivered up the administration of it to Linus; this is the Linus of whom Paul has made mention in his letter to Timothy. His successor was Anacletus, and in the third degree from the Apostles Clement received the bishopric, who had both seen the blessed Apostles and lived with them, having their preaching yet sounding in his ears, and their tradition before his eyes; not alone in this, for there were still many left at that time who had been taught by the Apostles. In the time then of this Clement, no slight dissension having arisen among the brethren at Corinth, the Church in Rome sent a most authoritative letter to the Corinthians, drawing them together into peace, and renewing their faith, and recording the tradition recently derived by it from the Apostles." The nature of the dissension which he sought to appease was a violation of the due succession in the episcopate. This fact led St. Clement to give an account of its origin. This account, be it observed, dates sixty-six years, or just two generations after the Day of Pentecost. It is an historical narration of what had intervened, exhibiting the manner in which the Apostles and their immediate successors had understood the commission given them by our Lord, the terms of which we have just been considering. There can be nothing more authentic or more valuable than such a statement coming from such a source. It is a summary at the end of the first century,[42] giving the order according to which the Church was propagated, and it has the peculiarity of being issued by the authority which stood at the head of all.