\"Pseudo-Clementines\" LBD (2015)

Pseudo-Clementines Pseudo-Clementines. A series of noncanonical writings incorrectly attributed to the church father Clement of Rome. The term Pseudo-Clementines is usually applied to two sets of texts:Recognitions and Homilies (including two letters that act as a preface to Homilies). The Pseudo-Clementines were never widely authoritative during the early church period.

Text and Dating The primary Pseudo-Clementines are:

 

the Homilies, consisting of 20 sermons the Recognitions, consisting of 10 books

Both works emerged in Syria in the fourth century AD and were initially written in Greek. The original Greek version of the Homilies is extant in two manuscripts dated to the 11th–14th centuries. The Greek version of the Recognitions does not survive, apart from small fragments quoted in writings of the early church fathers. Around AD 406, Rufinus of Aquila translated the Recognitions into Latin; this translation survives in many manuscripts, the earliest of which date to the fifth century AD (Kelley, Knowledge, 15). There are also partial Syriac translations of the Pseudo-Clementine literature. One Syriac manuscript dated by a scribe to AD 411 contains portions of both works, copied by two different scribes; portions of the Recognitions also survive in a ninth-century manuscript (Kelley, Knowledge, 13–16; Hatch, Album, 52).

Source The Homilies and the Recognitions have much material and wording in common. Such literary interdependence has led to speculation that the source of these writings was a hypothetical document calledGrundschrift (Basic Writing), which would date between AD 220–260 (Jones, “Pseudo-Clementines,” 8–14). Two fictional letters appear as prefaces to the Homilies in the surviving Greek manuscripts and are also counted as part of the Pseudo-Clementine corpus. These are the Letter of Peter to James and the Letter of Clement to James; the latter is also found in some Latin manuscripts of the Recognitions.

Genre and Content The Homilies and the Recognitions are the first known Christian-influenced adaptations of the “romance of recognitions” genre, wherein characters identify their long-lost family members (Kelley, Knowledge, 7). They relate the fictive story of the life of Clement, including his separation from his family, his conversion to Christianity, his missionary journeys with Peter,

their clashes with Simon Magus, and Clement’s eventual recovery of his long-lost and scattered family.

Theology The Homilies are generally considered dogmatic, and the Recognitions are often considered literary. Yet both works are quite theological in the sense that they emphasize the oneness of God and His role as creator. Arguably, this theological feature is understood in the light of the Arian controversy in the fourth century AD, with the Pseudo-Clementines showing an Arian Christology (which church fathers like Athanasius opposed).

Related Articles For further details on pseudepigraphy, see this article: Pseudepigraphy in the Early Christian Period. For information on the process of canonization, see this article: Canon, New Testament.

Bibliography Bremmer, Jan N. “Pseudo-Clementines: Texts, Dates, Places, Authors and Magic.” Pages 1–23 in Pseudo-Clementines. Edited by Jan N. Bremmer. Leuven: Peeters, 2010 Chilton, Bruce. “Homilies and Recognitions.” Pages 163–164 in Encyclopedia of Religious and Philosophical Writings in Late Antiquity: Pagan, Judaic, and Christian. Edited by Jacob Neusner and Alan J. Avery-Peck. Leiden: Brill, 2007 Jones, F. Stanley. An Ancient Jewish Christian Source on the History of Christianity: PseudoClementine Recognitions 1.27–71. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995 ———. “The Pseudo-Clementines: A History of Research.” Second Century 2 (1982): 1–33, 63– 96. Kelley, Nicole. Knowledge and Religious Authority in the Pseudo-Clementines: Situating the Recognitions in Fourth Century Syria. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006 Hatch, William Henry Paine. An Album of Dated Syriac Manuscripts. Boston: American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1946. —Sung Uk Lim