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176 to be regarded as, like the first, an epistle to the Corinthians.

The Two Epistles on Virginity.—These are extant only in Syriac, and only in a single MS. purchased at Aleppo c. A.D. 1750, for Wetstein. He had commissioned a copy of the Philoxenian version of the N.T. to be bought, and this MS. proved to be only a copy of the well-known Peshito. But the disappointment was compensated by the unexpected discovery of these letters, till then absolutely unknown in the West. After the Ep. to the Hebrews, the last in the Peshitta canon, the scribe adds a doxology, and a note with personal details by which we can date the MS. A.D. 1470, and then proceeds, "We subjoin to the epistles of Paul those epistles of the apostles, which are not found in all the copies," on which follow II. Peter, II., III. John, and Jude, from the Philoxenian version, and then, without any break, these letters, with the titles: "The first epistle of the blessed Clement, the disciple of Peter the apostle," and "The second epistle of the same Clement." The MS. is now preserved in the library of the Seminary of the Remonstrants at Amsterdam. The letters were published, as an appendix to his Greek Testament, by Wetstein, who also defended their authenticity. The last editor is Beelen (Louvain, 1856). The letters, though now only extant in Syriac, are proved by their Graecisms to be a translation from the Greek, and by the existence of a fragment containing an apparently different Syriac translation of one passage in them. This fragment is contained in a MS. bearing the date A.D. 562. The earliest writer who quotes these letters is Epiphanius. In a passage, which until the discovery of the Syriac letters had been felt as perplexing, he describes Clement as "in the encyclical letters which he wrote, and which are read in the holy churches," having taught virginity, and praised Elias and David and Samson, and all the prophets. The letters to the Corinthians cannot be described as encyclical; and the topics specified are not treated of in them, while they are dwelt on in the Syriac letters. St. Jerome, though in his catalogue of ecclesiastical writers he follows Eusebius in mentioning only the two letters to the Corinthians as ascribed to Clement, yet must be understood as referring to the letters on virginity in his treatise against Jovinian where he speaks of Clement as composing almost his entire discourse concerning the purity of virginity. He may have become acquainted with these letters during his residence in Palestine. The presumption against their genuineness, arising from the absence of notice of them by Eusebius and every other writer anterior to Epiphanius, and from the limited circulation which they appear ever to have attained in the church, is absolutely confirmed by internal evidence. Their style and whole colouring are utterly unlike those of the genuine epistle; and the writer is evidently one whose thoughts and language have been moulded by long and early acquaintance with N.T., in the same manner as those of the real Clement are by his acquaintance with the Old. The Gospel of St. John is more than once cited, but not any apocryphal N.T. book. Competent judges have assigned these epistles to the middle of the 2nd cent., but their arguments hardly suffice to exclude a somewhat later date.

The Epistles to James our Lord's Brother.—In the article Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature to the End of the Sixth Century/Clementine Literature is given an account of the letter to James by Clement, which relates how Peter, in immediate anticipation of death, ordained Clement as his successor, and gave him charge concerning his ministry. After the trans. of this letter by Rufinus, some Latin writer added a second, giving instruction as to the administration of the Eucharist and church discipline. These two letters had considerable currency in the West. In the forged decretals both were much enlarged, and 3 new letters purporting to be Clement's added. James is in the original Clementines the head of the church, but in the later epistle receives instruction and commands from Peter's successor Clement. There must have been yet other letters ascribed to Clement in the East if there be no error in the MS. of Leontius (Mai, Script. Vet. Nov. Coll. vii. 84), who cites a passage not elsewhere extant as from the ninth letter of Clement. Discourses concerning Providence and the righteous judgment of God are cited by Anastasius of Antioch; and a 13th-cent. writer (Spicilegium Acherianum, viii. 382) reports having seen in a Saracen MS. a book of Revelations of Peter, compiled by Clement. The highest, and probably the final, authority on St. Clement of Rome is now the great work of Bp. Lightfoot, forming, in 2 parts, pub. 1890, vol. i. of his ed. of the Apostolic Fathers. See also Harnack, ''Chronol. der Altchr. Lit.'', 1897, pp. 251 ff., 438 ff.; an ed. by A. Jacobson of Clement's works in 2 vols. in ''Apost. Patr.'' (Clar. Press); an Eng. trans. of the Epistle of Clement, by J. A. F. Gregg (S.P.C.K.). [G.S.]  Clement of Alexandria. i. Life.—His full name, Titus Flavius Clemens, is given by Eusebius (H. E. vi. 13) and Photius (Cod. 111) in the title of the Stromateis (Τίτου Φλανίου Κλήμεντος [Photius adds πρεσβυτέρου Ἀλεξανδρείας] τῶν κατὰ τὴν ἀληθῆ φιλοσοφίαν γνωστικῶν ὑπομνημάτων στρωματεῖς). The remarkable coincidence of the name with that of the nephew of Vespasian and consul in 95 cannot have been accidental, but we have no direct evidence of Clement's connexion with the imperial Flavian family. Perhaps he was descended from a freedman of the consul; his wide and varied learning indicates that he had received a liberal education, and so far suggests that his parents occupied a good social position. The place of his birth is not certainly known. Epiphanius, the earliest authority on the question, observes that two opinions were held in his time, "some saying that he was an Alexandrian, others that he was an Athenian" (ὅν φασί τινες Ἀλεξανδρέα ἕτεροι δὲ Ἀθηναῖον, Haer. xxxii. 6). Alexandria was the principal scene of his labours; but there was no apparent reason for connecting him with Athens by mere conjecture. The statement that he was an Athenian must therefore have rested upon some direct tradition. Moreover, in recounting his wanderings he makes Greece the starting-point and Alexandria the goal of his search (Strom. 1, § 11, p. 322); and in the 2nd cent. Athens was still 