Pope Clement I

Clement led the Roman church near the end of the first century, close enough to the apostles that Tertullian claimed Peter ordained him and Irenaeus called him a personal acquaintance. Early lists disagreed on his exact place in the succession — second, third, or fourth — but all agreed he mattered. When presbyters in Corinth were ousted, he wrote to assert their God-given authority, an argument that became the earliest articulation of apostolic succession. That letter, 1 Clement, was read alongside epistles that would become scripture. Later tradition, recorded from the fourth century on, sai…