Page:Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature (1911).djvu/201

Rh chief is one which purported to contain a record made by Clement of discourses of the apostle Peter, together with an account of the circumstances under which Clement came to be Peter's travelling companion, and of other details of Clement's family history. This work assumed a variety of forms. The Ebionitism with which the original work had been strongly coloured was first softened, then removed. Changes were also made with a view to improvement of the story; and as time went on far more interest was felt in the framework of narrative than in the discourses themselves. In the latest forms of the work, several of the discourses are omitted, and the rest greatly abridged. In early times, even when the work was rejected as heretical, it yet seems to have been supposed to rest on a groundwork of fact, and several statements passed into church tradition which appear primarily to rest on its authority. Afterwards, in its orthodox form, it was accepted as a genuine work of Clement and a trustworthy historical authority. On the revival of learning the disposition was to disregard the book as a heretical figment quite worthless to the student of church history. Later it was seen that even if no more than a historical novel composed with a controversial object towards the end of the 2nd cent., such a document must be most valuable in shewing the opinions of the school from which it emanated; and accordingly the Clementine writings play an important part in all modern discussions concerning the history of the early ages of the church.

The work has come down to us in three principal forms. 1. The Homilies (in. the MSS. τὰ Κλημέντια), first printed by Cotelier in his edition of the Apostolic Fathers 1672, from one of the Colbertine MSS. in the Paris Library. This manuscript is both corrupt and defective, breaking off in the middle of the 19th of the 20 homilies of which the entire work consists. The complete work was first pub. by Dressel, 1853, from a MS. which he found in the Ottobonian Library in the Vatican. Notes on the homilies by Wieseler, which were intended to have formed part of this publication, only appeared in 1859 as an appendix to Dressel's ed. of the Epitomes (see below). The two MSS. mentioned are the only ones now known to exist.

II. The Recognitions (ἀναγνώσεις, ἀναγνωρισμοί) bears in the MSS. a great variety of titles, the most common being Itinerarium S. Clementis (corresponding probably to περίοδοι Κλημέντος or περίοδοι Πέτρου). The original is lost, but the work is preserved in a translation by Rufinus, of which many MSS. are extant. Rufinus states in his preface that there were then extant two forms differing in many respects. He adds that he had omitted certain passages common to both, one of which he specifies, as being, to say the least, unintelligible to him; and elsewhere expresses his opinion that those passages had been interpolated by heretics. He claims to have aimed at giving rather a literal than an elegant translation; and there seems reason to regard this translation as more faithful than some others by him. We can test his work in the case of fragments of the original preserved by quotation, and, moreover, we have a Syriac trans. of the first three books, which is in the main in fair agreement with the Latin. For one of the most important variations see Lightfoot On the Galatians, 4th ed. p. 316. The trans. of Rufinus was first pub. by Sichardus (Basle, 1526). The most important later edd. are by Cotelier in his Apostolic Fathers (Paris, 1672) and by Gersdorf (Leipz. 1838). A new ed., founded on a better collation of MSS., is much to be wished for. The Syriac trans., an ed. of which was pub. by de Lagarde, 1861, is preserved in two MSS. in the British Museum. The older of these claims to have been written at Edessa, A.D. 411, and exhibits errors of transcription, which shew that it was taken from a still earlier MS. It contains the books i. ii. and iii. of the Recognitions and part of c. i. of book iv., at the end of which is marked "the end of the first discourse of Clemens." Then follow the 10th homily headed "the third against the Gentiles"; the 11th homily headed "the fourth"; the 12th and 13th homilies, the former only as far as c. xxiv., with the heading "from Tripoli in Phoenicia"; and the 14th homily headed "book xiv.," after which is marked "the end of the discourses of Clemens." The other MS. is some four centuries later, and contains only the first three books of the Recognitions, the note at the end being "the ninth of Clemens who accompanied Simon Cephas is ended." Eng. trans. of both the Homilies and the Recognitions are given in the Ante-Nicene Lib. (T. & T. Clark).

III. The Epitome, first pub. by Turnebus, 1555, is an abridgment of the first form (i.e. the Homilies), and contains also a continuation of the story, use being made therein of the martyrdom of Clement by Simeon Metaphrastes, and of a tale by Ephraim, bp. of Chersonesus, of a miracle performed at the tomb of Clement. The Epitome is given in forms of varying fulness in different MSS. The edition by Dressel (Leipz. 1859), besides giving a fuller version of the Epitome as previously pub., contains also a second form considerably different. There must have been at least one other form not now extant, called by Uhlhorn the orthodox Clementines, which retained the discourses, but completely expurgated the heresy contained in them. This is inferred from the citations of the late Greek writers (Nicephorus Callisti, Cedrenus, and Michael Glycas); and the Clementines so amended were so entirely accepted by the later Greek church, that a Scholiast on Eusebius is quite unable to understand the charge of heresy which his author brings against them. In what follows we set aside the Epitomes as being manifestly a late form, and confine our attention to the other two forms, viz. the Homilies and Recognitions, to which, or to their writers, we shall refer as H. and R. Of these the Homilies contain all the characteristics of Ebionitism in much the harsher form; but before discussing the doctrine, we will compare the narratives as told in either form. The following is an abstract of the Recognitions. The form is that of an autobiography addressed by Clement to James, bp. of Jerusalem. The work divides itself into three portions, probably of different dates.

I. Clement, having stated that he was born 