Of these the chief was the Old Testament, whose importance to the majority of early Christians can hardly be exaggerated. The ceremonial legislation of the Pentateuch was, to be sure, no longer regarded as binding on Christians; the Pauline controversies had settled this principle, even though a dissenting minority did not disappear until late in the second century. But acceptance of the principle did not debar endless debate as to the principle’s precise extent: just what Mosaic precepts should be classed as “purely ceremonial”? St Paul, for instance, saw no inherent objection to eating things sacrificed to idols,[6] but in the decree of Acts 15. 28-29 abstinence from such food is regarded as axiomatically “necessary”,[7] and Christians during the next three centuries generally took the same view. The duty of Christian liberality was defined more closely by the adoption of the Jewish law of tithing, and this law was even extended to include not only agricultural produce but income of any kind.[8] Or, even when the literal force of an Old Testament precept was recognized as superseded, a transferred sense might be discovered that revived the rule for Christianity. So the command that tithes should be paid to the priests was construed to give the church’s ministers a right to the Christian payments.[9] Or the fact that the Old Testament ministry was strictly regulated led to the argument that divine regulations of equal strictness must hedge about the Christian ministry as well.[10] Since so much permanent value was detected in the older ceremonial legislation, it was only natural that the obligation of the “moral” laws should usually be treated as absolute. This led to a true moral legalism; that is, these laws were conceived to demand obedience not because of a higher principle contained in them but simply because they were “written”. Such, for instance, is the assumption throughout Clement’s letter to the Corinthians, where almost every argument is made to rest ultimately on an Old Testament precept. Nor does it occur at all to Clement that the Corinthians may find anything amiss in his method; he takes for granted that, no matter how much other parts of the Old Testament may have lost their meaning, God’s moral statutes will remain in immutable force for ever. And, we can scarcely doubt, such was a common opinion in Christianity from the very beginning, outside of Pauline and a few other circles; it was an attitude very like Clement’s that St Paul combated in his Epistle to the Romans.