It is not a stretch. The analogy to Aaron and Moses is an important part of the letter and its purpose is to establish the principle of there being an authority over other bishops.
It is true that the sacerdotal heredity in Christendom is spiritual and not biological like in Judaism, but that is also true of the Church replacing the ethnic community of Ancient Israel spiritually and not biologically.
“The analogy to Aaron and Moses is an important part of the letter and its purpose is to establish the principle of there being an authority over other bishops.”
No. It is to show the people are to be under THEIR Bishop, or more correctly, elder. It is NOT an attempt or a claim to Rome being the ‘Bishop of Bishops’.
Chapter 43 has Moses stilling dissension with a miracle. I doubt Clement did that from Rome...
Chapter 44 has this: “We are of opinion, therefore, that those appointed by them, or afterwards by other eminent men, with the consent of the whole church, and who have blamelessly served the flock of Christ, in a humble, peaceable, and disinterested spirit, and have for a long time possessed the good opinion of all, cannot be justly dismissed from the ministry. For our sin will not be small, if we eject from the episcopate those who have blamelessly and holily fulfilled its duties.”
That is an appeal to their reason, sense of fairness, and to accept someone over them they know...not an imposition of Clement’s will to require anything. It would also have justified Luther’s Reformation, since the Popes of the time were NOT men “who have blamelessly served the flock of Christ, in a humble, peaceable, and disinterested spirit, and have for a long time possessed the good opinion of all”!
The letter is about Christian leadership, and obeying those who serve honorably. It is NOT an imposition of the Bishop of Rome over any other Bishop.
There was no lording of (any) one Apostle over other Apostles. There was no Petrine "juridsiction" over the Church, because Peter was first in Antioch and it was not the center of Christendom then.
As successors to the Apostles, the bishops do not have "jurisdiction" over other bishops except as regards ecclassial structure, which is not divinely delegated, but entirely man-made.
It is true that the sacerdotal heredity in Christendom is spiritual and not biological like in Judaism, but that is also true of the Church replacing the ethnic community of Ancient Israel spiritually and not biologically
It is not necessarily "true," but it is what the Christians communities believe.