First Epistle of Clement

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The First Epistle of Clement (Ancient Greek: Κλήμεντος πρὸς Κορινθίους, romanized: Klēmentos pros Korinthious, lit. 'Clement to Corinthians') is a letter addressed to the Christians in the city of Corinth. The work is attributed to Clement I, the fourth bishop of Rome and almost certainly written by him.^[1] Based on internal evidence some scholars say the letter was composed some time before AD 70,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} but the common time given for the epistle's composition is at the end of the reign of Domitian (c. AD 96).^[7][8] As the name suggests, a Second Epistle of Clement is known, but this is a later work by a different author.

The letter is a response to events in Corinth, where the congregation had deposed certain elders. The author called on the congregation to repent, to restore the elders to their position, and to obey their superiors. He said that the Apostles had appointed the church leadership and directed them on how to perpetuate the ministry. In Corinth, the letter was read aloud from time to time. This practice spread to other churches, and Christians translated it from the original Greek into Latin, Syriac, and other languages. The work was lost for centuries, but since the 1600s various copies or fragments have been found and studied. It has provided valuable evidence about the structure of the early church.

Part of the Apostolic Fathers collection, some early Christians treated the work as a sacred text. It was included in some Bibles, such as the Codex Alexandrinus and Codex Hierosolymitanus, but not in the 27-book New Testament canon that is shared across most modern Christian churches. Such works are known as New Testament apocrypha, and 1 Clement ranks Didache as one of the earliest, if not the earliest, of those that still exist.