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 CLEMENTINES

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CLEMENTINES

Marcionite respectively. Baur placed the completed fonn, H., soon after the middle of the second century, and Schliemann (1S44) agreed, placing R., as a revis- ion, between 211 and 230. This writer sums up the opinions of liis predecessors thus:

R. 2nd century: Slxtus Senensis, Blondellus, Nourri, Cotelerius, Natalis Alexanc^er, Cave, Oudin, Heinsius, Rosenmiiller, Fliigge, (iieseler, Tholuck, Bretschneider, Engelhardt, (Ifrorer.

R. 2nd or 3rd century: Schrock, Stark, Lumper, Krabbe, Locherer, Gersdorf.

R. 3rd century: Strunzius (on Bardesanes, 1710), Weismann (171S), Mosheim, Kleuker, Schmidt (Kirchengesch.).

R. 4th century: Corrodi, Lentz (Dogmengesch.).

H. 2nd centui-y (beginning): Credner, Bretschnei- der, Kern, Rothe.

H. 2nd centurj': Clericus, Beausobre, Fliigge, Munscher, Hoffmann, DuUinger, Hilgers; (middle of 2nd) Hase.

H. end of 2nd century: Schrock, Ciilln, Gieseler (3rd ed.), Schenkel. (ifrorer, Lucke.

H. .3rd centurj-: Mill, Mosheim, Gallandi, Gieseler (2nd ed.).

H. 2nd or 3rd century: Neander, Krabbe, Baur, Ritter, Paniel, Dahne.

H. 4th century: Lentz.

Uhlhom in his valuable monograph (1854) placed the original document, or Qrutidschrift, in East Syria, after 150; H. in the same region after 160; R. in Rome after 170. Lehmann (1869) put the source (Preacliing of Peter) very early, H. and R. i-ii before 160, the rest of R. before 170. In England Salmon set R. about 200, H. about 218. Dr. Bigg makes H. the original, Syrian, first half of second century, R. being a recasting in an orthodo.x sense. H. was orig- inally written by a Catholic, and the heretical parts belong to a later recension. Dr. Headlam, in a very interesting article, considers that the original form was rather a collection of works than a single book, yet all products of one design and plan, coming from one writer, of a curious, versatile, unequally devel- oped mind. While accepting the dependence on the Book of Elchasai, Dr. Headlam sees no antagonism to St. Paul, and declares that the writer is quite ignorant of Judai.sm. Under the impression that the original work was known to Origen, he is obliged to date it at the end of the second century or the beginning of the third. In 1883 Bestmann made the Clementines the basis of an unsuccessful theory which, as Harnack puts it, "claimed for Jewish Christianity the glory of having developed by itself tlic wlmle doctrine, wor- ship, and constitution of Cat holicisin, and of having transmitted it to Gentile Christianity as a finished product which onlv required to be divested of a few Jewish husks" (H'i.-it. of Dogma, I, 310).

Another popular theory based upon the Clemen- tines has been that it was the Epi.stle of Clement to James which originated the notion that St. Peter was the first Bishop of Rome. This has been asserted by no les.ser authorities than Lightfoot, Salmon, and Bright, and it has been made an important point in the controversial work of the Rev. F. W. Puller, "Primitive Saints and the Roman See". It is ac- knowledged that in St. Cyprian's time (c. 2.50) it was universally believed that St. Peter was Bishop of Rome, and that he was looked upon as the type and origin of episcopacy. Modern criticism has long .since put the letter of Clement too late to allow this theory to be tenable, and now Wailz places it after 220, and Harnack after 260. We shall presently .see that it probably belongs to the fourth centurj'.

The "Old Catholic" Professor Langen in 1890 elaborated a new theory. Until the destruction of Jerusalem in 135, he says, that city was the centre of the Christian Church. A new pivot was then needed. The Church of the capital made a bold bid for the

vacant post of pre-eminence. Shortly after 135 was published the original form of the Clementine ro- mance. It was a Roman forgery, claiming for the Church of Peter the succession to a part of the head- ship of the Church of James. James indeed had been "bishop of bishops", and Peter's .successor could not claim to be more than Peter was among the Apostles, prim us inter parcx. The Roman attempt was eventu- ally successful, but not without a struggle. Csesarea, the metropolis of Palestine, also claimed the succes- sion to Jerusalem. The monument of this claim is H., a recension of the Roman work made at Cssarea before the end of the second century in order to fight Rome with her own weapons. Cfhe intention must be admitted to have been closely veiled.) In the beginning of the third century the metropolis of the Orient, Antioch, produced a new edition, R., claiming for that city the vacant primacy. Langen 's view has found no adherents.

Dr. Hort com])lained that the Clementines have left no traces in the eighty years between Origen and Eusebius, but he felt obliged to date them before Origen, and placed the original c. 200 as the work of a Syrian Helxaite. Harnack, in his "History of Dogma", .saw that they had no influence in the third century; he dated R. and H. not earlier than the first half of that century, or even a few decades later. All the foregoing writers presupposed that the Clemen- tines were known to Origen. Since this has been showii to be not proven (1903), Waitz's elaborate study has appeared (1904), but his view was evi- dently formed earlier. His view is that H. is the work of an Aramaean Christian after 325 (for he uses the word o/xooiio-ios) and earlier than 411 (the Syriac MS.), R. probably after 3.50, also in the East. But the (irunttschrift, or archetype, was written at Rome, perhaps under the syncretistic system of cult in favour at the court of Alexander Severus, probably between 220 and 2.50. Harnack, in his "Chronol- ogie" (II), gives 260 or later as the date, but he thinks H. and H. may be ante-Nicene. Waitz sup- poses two earlier sources to have been emjilnyed in the romance, the "Preachings of Peter" (origin in first century, but used in a later anti-llarcionite recension) and the "Acts of Peter" (written in a Catholic circle at Antioch c. 210). Harnack accepts the existence of the.se sources, but thinks neither was earlier than about 200. They are carefully to be dis- tinguished from the well-known second-century works, tlic "Preaching of Peter" and "Acts of Peter", of which fragments still exist. These are quoted by many early writers, whereas the supposed sources of the Clementines are otherwise unknown, and therefore probably never existed at all. A long passage from Pscudo- Bardesanes' " DeFato" occurs in R. ix, 19 sqq. Hilgenfeld, RitschI, and some earlier critics characteristically held that Bardesanes u.sed the Clementines. Merx, Waitz, and most others hold that R. cites Bardesanes directly. Nau and Harnack are certainly right, that R. has borrowed the citation at second hand from Euscbivis (Praep. Evang., vi, 10, 11-48, A. D. 313).

Puon.VIlLE D.XTE OP THE CLEMENTINES. — We nOW

know t hat the Clementine writer need not have lived before Origen. Let us add that there is no reason to think he was a Judn'o-Christian, an Elchasaite, or anti-l'auline, or anti-Marcionite, that he employed ancient sources, that he belonged to a secretive sect. We are free, then, to look out for indications of date without prejudice.

R. is certainly post-Nicene, as Waitz has shown. But we may go further. The curious passage R. iii, 2-11, which Rufinus omitted, and in which he .seemed to hear Eunomius himself speaking, gives in fact the doctrine of Eunomius so exactly that it frequently almost cites the " Apologeticus" (c. .302-3) of that heretic word for word. (The Eunomian doctrine is