1 Clement

An early Roman Christian letter copied in some biblical manuscripts but not retained in the later 27-book New Testament.

1 Clement is a letter from the church at Rome to the church at Corinth, from the late first century, at medium confidence. Some biblical manuscripts copy it. The later twenty-seven-book New Testament does not include it. Copying in a pandect is preservation, the same kind of fact Sinaiticus supplies for Barnabas and Hermas. It is not evidence that every church held 1 Clement as Scripture, and it is not the Ethiopian book sometimes called Clement, which is a different church-order work. This entry is the Roman letter.

Presence in a pandect manuscript is preservation, not later universal canonical status.

Date

Late 1st century CE (medium confidence)

Confidence

medium

Languages

Greek

Traditional authorship

Clement of Rome

Authorship note

Clement, bishop of Rome, writing for the Roman church (early church tradition)

• A · Codex Alexandrinus

  5th century CE · Greek · After the New Testament

  Codex Alexandrinus is a fifth-century Greek parchment Bible, shelfmark Royal MS 1 D V–VIII in the British Library. Its Old Testament is Septuagint-shaped and includes books that later Western lists call deuterocanonical, among them Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, the Letter of Jeremiah, 1 Esdras, and 1–4 Maccabees, plus the Prayer of Manasseh among the Odes. The New Testament includes Jude. After the biblical books the codex copies 1 Clement. A fifth-century binding shows what one scriptorium copied. It is not the Council of Trent and not the Westminster Confession.

• H · Codex Hierosolymitanus

  1056 CE · Greek · With the Didache

  Codex Hierosolymitanus was copied in 1056 by a scribe named Leo. It is the only complete Greek copy of the Didache, and it also contains 1 Clement, 2 Clement, and other early Christian writings. The Didache itself is much older than 1056. This codex is a medieval witness to an early book, found again for Western scholarship in the nineteenth century. 1 Clement is also copied at the end of the fifth-century Codex Alexandrinus, which is the older biblical pandect. Hierosolymitanus is still the manuscript that preserves the full Didache.

• lists noncanonical

  Jewish canon

  1 Clement is not a book of the Tanakh. Josephus, near the end of the first century, describes twenty-two Jewish books his people trust and sets later writings in a lower rank. The later rabbinic Bible, counted as twenty-four books, likewise leaves 1 Clement outside Torah, Nevi'im, and Ketuvim. 1 Clement is a letter from the church at Rome to the church at Corinth, written around the end of the first century. It is not a Jewish biblical book. Jewish copying or quotation, where it exists, is reception. It is not the same fact as a place in the Hebrew canon, and it is not a Christian council’s decision.

• preserves

  Codex Alexandrinus and Eusebius

  Alexandrinus copies 1 Clement after the New Testament, which shows fifth-century preservation in a biblical pandect. Eusebius knows the letter as widely read and still not universally counted with the acknowledged books. Early reception is honor and copying, not a settled place in the twenty-seven.

• ProtestantRelated literature

  1 Clement is not one of the Protestant 27 New Testament books.

• CatholicRelated literature

  1 Clement is not in the Catholic New Testament.

• OrthodoxRelated literature

  1 Clement is not in the 27-book Eastern New Testament.

• EthiopianRelated literature

  1 Clement is not identified as a separate EOTC 81 New Testament unit in the list used here.

• TanakhNot applicable

  Christian writing, not Tanakh.

• LXXNot applicable

  Not an Old Testament book.

• Early ChristianEdifying, noncanonical

  1 Clement was read or copied by some early Christians and generally classed as useful rather than among the later 27.

• Second TempleNot applicable

  Early Christian writing.

No council, confession, or canon list in this dataset names 1 Clement. Tradition status is recorded in the section above.

• Strong parallel · 1 Clement 4 ↔ Cain and Abel

  High confidence — strong primary or manuscript support.

  1 Clement 4 retells Cain and Abel from Genesis while exhorting the Corinthian church. The letter uses Genesis. It is not a book of the Torah.

No dated canon event in this dataset is tied to 1 Clement.

• Westminster Confession I.2–3 names the 66-book Protestant canon and says the books commonly called Apocrypha are not of divine inspiration and are not part of the canon of Scripture.
• Council of Trent, Session IV (8 April 1546), lists the Catholic canonical books including the deuterocanonical writings received in the Vulgate.
• Athanasius, Festal Letter 39 (367), lists 22 Old Testament and 27 New Testament books and names some other writings as useful but not canonical.
• The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church publishes an 81-book list that includes 1 Enoch, Jubilees, and the Meqabyan books.
• Josephus, Against Apion 1.8, speaks of 22 Jewish books and distinguishes later writings as not equally trusted.
• Brenton’s public-domain Septuagint translation includes Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, the Additions, and Maccabees as part of the Greek Old Testament corpus.
• Eusebius reports earlier Christian opinions on disputed books, including the Shepherd of Hermas and some apocalypses, without treating every quoted work as universally canonical.
• Codex Alexandrinus is a fifth-century Greek Bible. It includes a Septuagint-shaped Old Testament, the New Testament, and 1 Clement.
• Codex Hierosolymitanus (1056) preserves the Didache together with 1 Clement and other early Christian writings.