 The popes began early to issue canon laws as well for the entire Church as for individuals, in the form of letters which popes sent either on their own initiative or when application was made to them by synods, bishops or individual Christians.Apart from the Epistles of the Apostle Peter, the first example of this is the Letter of Pope Clement I (90-99) to the Corinthians, in whose community there was grave dissension.Only a few papal letters of the first three Christian centuries have been preserved in whole or part, or are known from the works of ecclesiastical writers.