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174 who had been the cause of dissension to withdraw for peace' sake, it is possible that Fortunatus might have so withdrawn and found a welcome at Rome. Another conjecture identifies him with the Fortunatus mentioned in St. Paul's Ep. to the Corinthians.

However precarious this identification may be, internal evidence shews that the epistle is not so far from apostolic times as to make it impossible. None of the apostles are spoken of as living, but the deaths of Peter and Paul, described as men of their own generation, are referred to as then recent, and some of the presbyters appointed by the apostles are spoken of as still surviving. The early date thus indicated is confirmed by the absence of allusion to controversial topics of the 2nd cent., and by the immaturity of doctrinal development on certain points. Thus "bishop" and "presbyter" are, as in N.T., used convertibly, and there is no trace that in the church of Corinth one presbyter had any very pronounced authority over the rest. The deposition of certain presbyters is not spoken of as usurpation of the authority of any single person, but of that of the whole body of presbyters. Again, to the writer the "Scriptures" are the books of the O.T.; these he cites most copiously and uses to enforce his arguments. He expressly mentions St. Paul's Ep. to the Corinthians; and twice reminds his hearers of words of our Lord. The way in which he uses the quotations implies the existence of written records recognized by both parties. Besides these, without any formal citation he makes unmistakable use of other N.T. books, chiefly of Heb., but also of Rom. and other Pauline, including the Pastoral epistles, Acts, James, and I. Peter. Still, their authority is not appealed to in the same manner as is that of the O.T. It may be mentioned here that Clement's epistle contains the earliest recognition of the Book of Judith. He quotes also from O.T. apocryphal books or interpolations not now extant.

To fix more closely the date of the epistle, the principal fact available is, that in the opening an apology is made that the church of Rome had not been able to give earlier attention to the Corinthian disputes, owing to the sudden and repeated calamities which had befallen it. It is generally agreed that this must refer to the persecution under either Nero or Domitian. A date about midway between these is that to which the phenomena of the epistle would have inclined us; but having to choose between these two we have no hesitation in preferring the latter. The main argument in favour of the earlier date, that the temple service is spoken of as being still offered, is satisfactorily met by the occurrence of a quite similar use of the present tense in Josephus. Indeed the passage, carefully considered, suggests the opposite inference; for Clement would Judaize to an extent of which there is no sign elsewhere in the epistle, if, in case the temple rites were being still celebrated, he were to speak of them as the appointed and acceptable way of serving God. All the other notes of time are difficult to reconcile with a date so close to the apostles as the reign of Nero.

As to whether the writer was a Jew or a Gentile, the arguments are not absolutely decisive; but it seems more conceivable that a Hellenistic Jew resident at Rome could have acquired the knowledge of Roman history and heathen literature exhibited in the epistle, than that one not familiar from his childhood with the O.T. could possess so intimate an acquaintance with it. This consideration, of course, bears on the question whether Flavius Clemens could have written the letter.

The letter does not yield any support to the theory of 1st cent. disputes between a Pauline and an anti-Pauline party in the church. No such disputes appear in the dissensions at Corinth; and at Rome the Gentile and Jewish sections of the church seem in Clement's time to be completely fused. The obligation on Gentiles to observe the Mosaic law does not seem a matter of concern. The whole Christian community is regarded as the inheritor of the promises to the Jewish people. Clement holds both SS. Peter and Paul in the highest (and equal) honour.

The epistle was known until 1875 only through a single MS., the great Alexandrian MS. brought to England in 1628, of which an account is given in all works on the criticism of the N.T. One leaf, containing about the tenth part of the whole letter, has been lost. In this Greek Bible of the 5th cent. the two letters of Clement to the Corinthians are books enumerated among N.T., not with the apostolic epistles, but after the Apocalypse. Hence the ecclesiastical use of Clement's letter had probably not ceased when this MS. was copied. The ep. was first ed. by Patrick Young (Oxf. 1633), and often since, among the most important edd. being Cotelier's in his Apostolic Fathers (Paris, 1672); Jacobson's; Hilgenfeld's in his N.T. extra Canonem Receptum; Lightfoot's (Camb. 1869, and in his great ed. of the Apostolic Fathers, 1890); Tischendorf's (Leipz. 1873); and Gebhardt and Harnack's (Leipz. 1875). A photograph of this portion of the MS. was pub. by Sir. F. Madden in 1856. An Eng. trans. of the ep. (and of those on Virginity) is in the ''Lib. of Ante-Nicene Fathers.''

An entirely new authority for the text of the epistle was gained by the discovery in the library of the Holy Sepulchre at Fanari, in Constantinople, of a MS. containing an unmutilated text of the two epistles ascribed to Clement. The new authority was announced, and first used in establishing the text, in a very careful and able ed. of the epp. by Bryennius, metropolitan of Serrae, pub. in Constantinople at the end of 1875. The MS., which is cursive and dated A.D. 1056, is contained in a small octavo volume, 7½ inches by 6, which has, besides the Epp. of Clement, Chrysostom's synopsis of the O.T., the Ep. of Barnabas, the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles (occupying in the MS. less space by one fourth than the second Ep. of Cement), and a collection of Ignatian epistles. It gives a very good text of the Clementine letters, independent of the Alexandrian MS., but, on the whole, in tolerably close agreement with it, even in passages where the best critics had 