Clement of Rome was a Christian leader traditionally regarded as an early bishop of Rome in the late 1st century CE. The primary source for his life is the "First Epistle of Clement," a letter from the Roman church to the church in Corinth dated to around 96 CE. While the letter itself is anonymous, early Christian tradition identifies Clement as its author and as a successor to the apostles. The exact nature of his leadership role is uncertain, as the structure of the early church in Rome may have been more collective than later accounts suggest.

Beyond this authentic letter, a large body of "Clementine Literature" was produced between the 2nd and 4th centuries CE, falsely attributed to him. This includes the "Second Epistle of Clement," an early Christian sermon, and the lengthy "Pseudo-Clementine" writings. These later works are novelistic stories featuring the apostle Peter and are valuable for understanding the diversity of early Christian thought.

Clement’s significance rests largely on 1 Clement, one of the earliest Christian documents outside the New Testament. It provides crucial evidence for the developing concepts of church authority and established a precedent for the intervention of the Roman church in other communities. According to modern scholars, the later Pseudo-Clementine literature is equally important for preserving traces of early Jewish-Christian theology and apocryphal traditions about the apostles, offering a window into the debates and diversity of the early church.