Kirsopp Lake

“ The actual name of the writer is not mentioned in the letter itself: indeed, it clearly claims to be not the letter of a single person but of a church. Tradition, however, has always ascribed it to Clement, who was, according to the early episcopal lists, the third or fourth bishop of Rome during the last decades of the first century. There is no reason for rejecting this tradition, for though it is not supported by any corroborative evidence in its favour there is nothing whatever against it. ”

“ He was put to death and his wife, Domitilla, was banished. There is no proof that he was really a Christian, but one of the oldest catacombs in Rome is supposed to have belonged to Domitilla, and certainly was connected with this family. It is not probable that T. Flavius Clemens was the writer of I. Clement, but it is an attractive and not improbable hypothesis that a slave or freedman of the Flavian family had the name of Clemens, and held a high position in the Christian community at Rome. ”

“ The relations subsisting between these authorities for the text have not been finally established, but it appears clear that none of them can be regarded as undoubtedly superior to the others, so that any critical text is necessarily eclectic. At the same time there is very little range of variation, and the readings which are in serious doubt are few, and, as a rule, unimportant. ”