Great uncertainty prevails as to the date at which the Epistle was written. Reference is supposed to be made to it by the so-called Epistle of Polycarp,(4) but, owing to the probable inauthenticity of that work itself, no weight can be attached to this circumstance. The first certain reference to it is by Hegesippus, in the second half of the second century, mentioned by Eusebius.(5) Dionysius of Corinth, in a letter ascribed to him addressed to Soter, Bishop of Rome, is the first who distinctly mentions the name of Clement as the author of the Epistle.(6) There is some difference of opinion as to the order of his succession to the Bishopric of Rome. Irenæus(7) and Eusebius(8) say that he followed Anacletus, and the latter adds the date of the twelfth year of the reign of Domitian (a.d. 91-92), and that he died nine years after, in the third year of Trajan's reign (a.d. 100).(9) Internal evidence(10) shows that the Epistle was written after some persecution {220} of the Roman Church, and the selection lies between the persecution under Nero, which would suggest the date a.d. 64-70, or that under Domitian, which would assign the letter to the end of the first century, or to the beginning of the second. Those who adhere to the view that the Clement mentioned in the Epistle to the Philippians is the author, maintain that the Epistle was written under Nero.(1) One of their principal arguments for this conclusion is a remark occurring in Chapter xli.: "Not everywhere, brethren, are the daily sacrifices offered up, or the votive offerings, or the sin-offerings and the trespass-offerings, but only in Jerusalem. But even there they are not offered in every place, but only at the altar before the Sanctuary, examination of the sacrifice offered being first made by the High Priest and the ministers already mentioned."(2) From this it is concluded that the Epistle was written before the destruction of the Temple. It has, however, been shown that Josephus,(3) the author of the "Epistle to Diognetus" (c. 3), and others, long after the Jewish worship of the Temple was at an end, continually speak in the present tense of the Temple worship in Jerusalem; and it is evident, as Cotelier long ago remarked, that this may be done with propriety even in the present {221}