How was it that Irenaeus and others came to
believe that there had been a traceable succession of bishops from the time of
the Apostles? And here I think the role of Clement and the other “foreign
correspondents” becomes crucial. It is clear that from very early times the
Roman Church exercised a ministry of care and material help to the other
Churches of the Mediterranean, sending encouragement, money, advice and on
occasion rebuke to other Christian communities, a ministry valued and accepted
by other Churches as a continuation of the Apostolic presence within the Roman
Church. It is not difficult to see how the presbyters responsible for
sustaining these external contacts, and with them, what rapidly came to be
recognised as the distinctive Apostolic charism of the Roman community as a
whole, would come to occupy a central and indeed defining role in the life of
that community. As episcopacy became the normative mode of government
throughout the Christian Diaspora, it would be perfectly intelligible if the
senior position among the presbyters of Rome should have become associated with
the specifically ecumenical character of the Clementine office and succession,
and if Clement and his predecessors and successors should have been identified
as the transmitters of the episcopal line in Rome. (Eamon Duffy, “Was there a Bishop of Rome in the
First Century?,” New
Blackfriars 80, no. 940 [June 1999]: 307-8)
