Few details are known about the life…

99 CE

Few details are known about the life of Clement, said to have been an early bishop of Rome.

According to Tertullian, Clement was consecrated by Saint Peter, and he is known to have been a leading member of the church in Rome in the late first century.

Early church lists place him as the second or third bishop of Rome after Saint Peter.

The Liber Pontificalis presents a list that makes Pope Linus the second in the line of bishops of Rome, with Peter as first; but at the same time it states that Peter ordained two bishops, Linus and Pope Cletus, for the priestly service of the community, devoting himself instead to prayer and preaching, and that it was to Clement that he entrusted the Church as a whole, appointing him as his successor.

Tertullian too makes Clement the immediate successor of Peter.

And while in one of his works Jerome gives Clement as "the fourth bishop of Rome after Peter" (not in the sense of fourth successor of Peter, but fourth in a series that included Peter), he adds that "most of the Latins think that Clement was second after the apostle".

Clement is put after Linus and Cletus/Anacletus in the earliest account from around 180, that of Irenaeus, who is followed by Eusebius of Caesarea.

The meaning of these early reports is unclear, given the lack of evidence for monarchical episcopacy in Rome at so early a date.

Clement's only genuine extant writing is his letter to the church at Corinth (1 Clement), in response to a dispute in which certain presbyters of the Corinthian church had been deposed.

He asserted the authority of the presbyters as rulers of the church, on the grounds that the Apostles had appointed such.

It was read in church, along with other epistles, some of which later became Christian canon; and is one of the oldest extant Christian documents outside the New Testament.

This important work is the first to affirm the apostolic authority of the clergy.

A second epistle, 2 Clement, was attributed to Clement although recent scholarship suggests it to be a homily by another author.

In the case of the first epistle the scholarly consensus is overwhelmingly in favor of its authenticity, whereas by contrast it is widely accepted that the second epistle is not to be attributed to Clement.

Many scholars believe 1 Clement was written around the same time as the Book of Revelation, around 95-97 CE.

Neither 1 nor 2 Clement is accepted in the canonical New Testament, but they are part of the Apostolic Fathers collection.

The First Epistle of Clement, (literally, Clement to Corinth; Greek, Klēmentos pros Korinthious) is a letter addressed to the Christians in the city of Corinth.

Dating from the late first or early second century, the letter ranks with the anonymous Didache as one of the earliest—if not the earliest—of extant Christian documents outside the canonical New Testament.

The First Epistle does not contain Clement's name, instead being addressed by "the Church of God which sojourneth in Rome to the Church of God which sojourneth in Corinth."

The traditional date for Clement's epistle, which has been elicited by the Epistle to the Hebrews' call for leadership from the church in Rome and is permeated with the earlier letter's influence, is at the end of the reign of Domitian, or c. 96 CE, by taking the phrase "sudden and repeated misfortunes and hindrances which have befallen us" for a reference to persecutions under Domitian.

An indication of the date comes from the fact that the church at Rome is called "ancient" and that the presbyters installed by the apostles have died (44:2), and a second ecclesiastical generation has also passed on (44:3).

The letter was occasioned by a dispute in Corinth, which had led to the removal from office of several presbyters.

Since none of the presbyters were charged with moral offenses, Clement charged that their removal was high-handed and unjustifiable.

The letter is extremely lengthy—it is twice as long as the Epistle to the Hebrews—and includes several references, as Scripture, to the Old Testament, of which the author demonstrates a knowledge.

The letter reveals contemporary church organization, belief, and practice and demonstrates the author’s familiarity with Greek Stoic philosophy and mythology.