Commenting on the ecclesiology of the late first/early second
centuries of the Christian era, Michael Kruger wrote that:
[T]here are no
indications that any one bishop/church was in a position of authority over
another bishop/church in a different locale. For example, while the author of 1 Clement makes his appeal to the church
at Corinth regarding the improper removal of presbyters, there is no indication
that the church has any jurisdictional authority over the latter. 1 Clement is not crafted as a directive
but instead is designed to persuade—a common reason why letters were written
between churches in this period. As Chadwick observes: ‘while each local church
felt itself to be self-sufficient . . . yet the independence and autonomy of
this local community is limited by the mutual care of the local churches must
have for each other’ (H. Chadwick, ‘The Role of the Christian Bishop in Ancient
Society’, Protocol of the Colloquy of the
Center for Hermeneutical Studies in Hellenistic and Modern Culture 35 [1980],
1-14, at 1). (Michael J. Kruger, Christianity
at the Crossroads: How the Second Century Shaped the Future of the Church
[London: SPCK, 2017], 92)
This contradicts popular Catholic apologetic works that point to 1
Clement as “proof” of the ultimate jurisdiction of the Church of Rome over
other churches at the end of the first century. The argument goes is that the
church in Corinth wrote to Rome for a definitive answer to the issues they were
facing.
While still attempting to maintain the historical basis of the
Roman Catholic papacy, as dogmatically defined in 1870 during Vatican I,
Catholic apologist Steve Ray admits that there is no evidence that the church
in Corinth wrote to Rome requesting an authoritative answer to their problems:
There is no
evidence of an appeal by the Corinthian Church to Rome for help. (Steve Ray, Upon This Rock: St. Peter and the Primacy of
Rome in Scripture and the Early Church [San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1999],
125 n. 23)
For a solid historical analysis of 1 Clement and how it refutes,
not supports, Roman Catholic dogmatic teachings on the papacy, see:
In this post, I reproduce Denny’s discussion of this epistle from
his magisterial volume, Papalism: A
treatise on the claims of the papacy as set forth in the encyclical Satis
Cognitum (1912)