other · 96 · Rome
Corinth had thrown out presbyters who had done nothing wrong, and the church at Rome wrote to say so. The letter names no author — it is from the church of God sojourning at Rome to the church of God sojourning at Corinth — and it is Dionysius of Corinth, writing seventy years later, and then Eusebius, who name Clement as the one who wrote it. Its argument runs through creation, through the apostles, and then to the point: the apostles preached, appointed their first converts to be bishops and deacons, and knowing there would be strife over the office, provided that when these should fall asleep other approved men should succeed to their ministry. That sentence is the earliest surviving statement of apostolic succession, and it is why a letter about a local quarrel over presbyters is the oldest Christian document outside the New Testament that anyone still argues about.
To restore presbyters a faction at Corinth had deposed, and to say by what right they held their office.
Order restored, and a sentence the second century would build on: that the apostles provided for the succession before they died.