[3] The charges against Clement were first, that he had a wife—although Boniface calls her a concubine—and two children; more than this, that he justified marriage with a deceased brother's wife, in conformity with the Jewish law.
[4] He had in fact brought into collision with the rigour of Latin Christianity those freer usages and more speculative habits of thought which prevailed in the Church of Ireland, at this time the fountain-head of literary culture and missionary enterprise for the west of Europe.
When the matter was brought before a synod at Rome, on 25 Oct. 745 (not 746 or 748, as was formerly supposed),[6] Deneard, Boniface's representative, stated that the archbishop was powerless to close his mouth.
[8] The outcome of the affair is not known; but it is probable that Clement's case from the beginning was prejudiced by the fact that his opinions were mixed up in all the proceedings with those of a certain Adelbert, who held views of a very fanatical character.
Clement, on the other hand, to judge even from the meagre and distorted accounts of his doctrine which we possess, seems to represent in some ways the free characteristics of Irish theology expressed in the writings of his countryman, John Scotus, a century later.