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, said Emperor Trajan exiled him, tied him to an anchor, and drowned him in the sea. The Liber Pontificalis places his death in Greece around the year 100.