Clement of Rome

Worth knowing

• Bishop of Rome at the end of the first century. Irenaeus lists him third in succession from the apostles.
• The letter he sent to Corinth around A.D. 96 is the earliest Christian writing outside the New Testament that can be dated with any confidence.
• Its occasion was small and very human: the Corinthians had deposed their presbyters, and Rome wrote to say that this was not reform but sedition.
• The attribution is traditional rather than stated in the letter itself, which never names its author — it writes as the church at Rome.

The book

1 ClementClement of Rome, First LetterEcclesiology

Who else was alive

Clement of Rome against everyone else in the game.