Specially interesting from an historical point of view in this connexion of the testimony of the “Apocalypse” of S. John with the sleepless persecution to which the sect was subjected, is Professor Ramsay’s exegesis of the words, “And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him (the beast) whose names are not written in the Book of Life of the Lamb” (xiii. 8), and “as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed” (xiii. 15). “It is here implied that the persecutor is worshipped as a God by all people[96] except the Christians, and that the martyrs are slain because they do not worship ‘the beast’--_i.e._ the Roman Emperor. Hence their refusal to worship ‘the beast’ and their witness to their own God, are united in one act; and this implies that the worship of ‘the beast’ (the Emperor) formed a test, the refusal of which was equivalent to a confession and witness.... “The importance attached during this persecution to the worship of the Emperor, and the hatred of this special form of idolatry as the special enemy, have dictated the phrase addressed to the Church of Pergamos, ‘Thou dwellest where the throne of Satan, _i.e._ the temple of Rome and Augustus, is’” (ii. 13). The peculiar partiality of the Emperor Domitian for this especial form of idolatry, in which he personally was adored as a god, has been already alluded to. S. CLEMENT OF ROME, FIRST EPISTLE, _CIRCA_ A.D. 95-6 About the year of grace 95-6, Clement, bishop of Rome, wrote his letter to the Christian congregation of Corinth--generally known as his _1st Epistle_. From the days of Irenæus downwards this letter has ever been considered a work of the highest importance, and its genuineness as a writing of Clement of Rome has never been disputed. Its importance consists in its record of the traditional interpretation of the apostolic teaching which was held in the great congregation of the metropolis from the first days. The immediate reasons of the Bishop of Rome writing to the Church of Corinth were the disastrous internal dissensions which were harassing the Corinthian congregation, disputes which not only marred its influence at home, but were productive of grave scandal abroad, and which, unless checked, would seriously affect the work of the Church in cities far distant from Corinth. It was a gentle loving letter of remonstrance; but its value to the Church at large in all times consists in its being an authoritative declaration of the doctrine taught in the great Church in Rome in the closing years of the first century, somewhat more than a quarter of a century after the deaths of SS. Peter and Paul.