Friday, November 23, 2012 - Litany Lane Blog:
Ordain, Revelation 10:8-11, Psalm 119, Luke 19:45-48, St Clement of Rome, Clementine LiteratureWishing everyone a Blessed Week!
Year of Faith - October 11, 2012 - November 24, 2013
P.U.S.H. (Pray Until Serenity Happens). It has a remarkable way of producing solace, peace, patience and tranquility and of course resolution...God's always available 24/7.
We are all human. We all experience birth, life and death. We all have
flaws but we also all have the gift knowledge and free will as well,
make the most of it. Life on earth is a stepping to our eternal home in
Heaven. Its your choice whether to rise towards eternal light or lost to
eternal darkness. Material items, though needed for sustenance and
survival on earth are of earthly value only. The only thing that passes
from this earth to Purgatory and/or Heaven is our Soul, our Spirit...it's God's perpetual
gift to us...Embrace it, treasure it, nurture it, protect it...
"Raise not a hand to another unless it is to offer in peace and goodwill." ~ Zarya Parx 2012
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November 02, 2012 Message From Our Lady of Medjugorje to World:
"Dear children, as a mother I implore you to persevere as my apostles. I am praying to my Son to give you Divine wisdom and strength. I am praying that you may discern everything around you according to God’s truth and to strongly resist everything that wants to distance you from my Son. I am praying that you may witness the love of the Heavenly Father according to my Son. My children, great grace has been given to you to be witnesses of God’s love. Do not take the given responsibility lightly. Do not sadden my motherly heart. As a mother I desire to rely on my children, on my apostles. Through fasting and prayer you are opening the way for me to pray to my Son for Him to be beside you and for His name to be holy through you. Pray for the shepherds because none of this would be possible without them. Thank you."
October 25, 2012 Message From Our Lady of Medjugorje to World:
"Dear children! Today I call you to pray for my intentions. Renew fasting and prayer because Satan is cunning and attracts many hearts to sin and perdition. I call you, little children, to holiness and to live in grace. Adore my Son so that He may fill you with His peace and love for which you yearn. Thank you for having responded to my call." ~ Blessed Virgin Mary
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Today's Word: ordain or·dain [awr-deyn]
Origin: 1250–1300; Middle English ordeinen < Old French ordener < Latin ordināre to order, arrange, appoint. See ordination
verb (used with object)
1. to invest with ministerial or sacerdotal functions; confer holy orders upon.
2. to enact or establish by law, edict, etc.: to ordain a new type of government.
3. to decree; give orders for: He ordained that the restrictions were to be lifted.
4. (of God, fate, etc.) to destine or predestine: Fate had ordained the meeting.
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Today's Old Testament Reading - Psalms 119
14 In the way of your instructions lies my joy, a joy beyond all wealth.
24 Your instructions are my delight, your wishes my counsellors.
72 The Law you have uttered is more precious to me than all the wealth in the world.
103 How pleasant your promise to my palate, sweeter than honey in my mouth!
111 Your instructions are my eternal heritage, they are the joy of my heart.
131 I open wide my mouth, panting eagerly for your commandments.
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Today's Epistle - Revelation 10:8-11
8 Then I heard the voice I had heard from heaven speaking to me again. 'Go', it said, 'and take that open scroll from the hand of the angel standing on sea and land.'9 I went to the angel and asked him to give me the small scroll, and he said, 'Take it and eat it; it will turn your stomach sour, but it will taste as sweet as honey.'
10 So I took it out of the angel's hand, and I ate it and it tasted sweet as honey, but when I had eaten it my stomach turned sour.
11 Then I was told, 'You are to prophesy again, this time against many different nations and countries and languages and kings.'
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Today's Gospel Reading - Luke 19:45-48
Jesus went into the
Temple and began driving out those who were busy trading, saying to
them, 'According to scripture, my house shall be a house of prayer but
you have turned it into a bandits' den.' He taught in the Temple
every day. The chief priests and the scribes, in company with the
leading citizens, tried to do away with him, but they could not find a
way to carry this out because the whole people hung on his words.
Reflection
•
Context. Luke after having described the journey of Jesus going up to
Jerusalem (11-19, 28) now presents him while he is carrying out his
activity in the context of the Temple. After the entrance of the one
sent by the Lord into Jerusalem passing through the door on the East
(19, 45), the Temple becomes the first place where Jesus carries out his
activity: the controversies that are narrated take place in this place
and they refer to this. Jesus’ going to the Temple is not only a
personal fact but also concerns the “multitude of his disciples” (v. 37)
on their relationship with God (vv. 31-34). Luke above all, presents a
first episode in which are presented the preparations for the entrance
of Jesus into the Temple (vv. 29-36) and their realization (vv. 37-40);
then follows a scene where we find the passage of today’s liturgy: his
installation in the Temple and driving out the sellers from the Temple
(vv. 45-48).
• The gesture of Jesus. This does not have a political
value but a prophetic significance. The reader thinks that the great
purpose of Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem is the entrance into the Temple.
To recall the prophecy of Malachi is evident that is fulfilled at the
entrance of Jesus into the Temple: “And suddenly the Lord whom you seek
will come to his Temple...” (3, 1). The gesture of driving out the
sellers from the Temple is accompanied by Jesus with two references to
Scripture. Above all, Is 56, 7: “My house will be a house of prayer”.
The Temple is the place in which Jesus turns back to the Father. The
commercial and business activity has made the Temple a den of bandits
and has deprived it of its only and exclusive function: the encounter
with the presence of God. The second reference from Scripture: is taken
from Jeremiah 7, 11: “Do you look on this Temple that bears my name as a
den of bandits?” The image of the den of bandits serves Jesus to
condemn the material traffic on the one side and not only the dishonest
traffic of trade or business that in a hidden and illegal way was
carried out in the Temple. Jesus demands a complete change: to purify
the Temple from all that human negative things and to bring it back to
its original function: to render an authentic service to God. And
driving out those impostors of the trade and business the prophecy of
Zechariah is fulfilled: «There will be no more traders in the Temple of
Yahweh Sabaoth, when that Day comes” (14, 21). These words of Jesus on
the Temple are not directed to a restoration of the purity of the cult
or worship, as was the intention of the Zelots. The intention of Jesus
goes beyond the purity of the cult; it is more radical, intransigent:
the Temple is not a work done by human efforts; the presence of God is
not bound to its material aspect; the authentic service of God is
carried out by Jesus through his teaching. Because of this preaching
“the high priests and the Scribes together with the leading citizens
tried to do away with him” (v. 47). Within this temporary place of the
Temple Jesus carries out a highly significant teaching, in fact, it is
precisely in this place that is so fundamental for the Jews that his
teaching reaches the summit and it will be from here that the words of
the Apostles will begin also (Act 5, 12.20.25.42). The diffusion of the
Word of grace of which Jesus is the only bearer extends itself like an
arch that begins with his opposition, when he was still only twelve
years old in the Temple among the doctors of the Law; it is prolonged
with his teaching when going across Galilee and during his journey to
Jerusalem; until he entered the Temple where he takes possession of the
house of God. The bases for the future mission of the Church are placed
in this place: the diffusion of the Word of God. The heads of the people
do not intend to suppress Jesus for having ruined the progress of the
economic affairs of that time, but the reasons go back to all his
previous activity of teaching and now these act in his discourse against
the temple. Jesus claims something and this causes the reaction of the
high priests and of the Scribes to break out. In contrast with this
hostile behaviour one can see the positive one of the people who “are
hanging from his words”. Jesus is considered as the Messiah who gathers
around him with his Word of grace the people of God.
Personal questions
•
Does your prayer to the Lord consist in a simple relationship of father
to son in which to find all the strength to communicate with God, or
rather is it accompanied by uses and practices to gain over his
goodness?
• When you listen to the Word of Jesus do you feel seized
by his teaching like the crowds who hung from his words? Or rather are
you sufficiently attentive to listen to the Gospel and do you adhere to
Christ?
Reference: Courtesy of Order of Carmelites, www.ocarm.org.
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Featured Item of the Day from Litany Lane
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Saint of the Day: Saint Clement of Rome
Feast Day: November 23
Patron Saint: marble workers
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| St Clement of Rome, Tiepolo |
Few details are known about Clement's life. According to Tertullian, Clement was consecrated by Saint Peter, and he is known to have been a leading member of the church in Rome in the late 1st century. Early church lists place him as the second or third bishop of Rome after Saint Peter. The Liber Pontificalis presents a list that makes Pope Linus the second in the line of bishops of Rome, with Peter as first; but at the same time it states that Peter ordained two bishops, Linus and Pope Cletus, for the priestly service of the community, devoting himself instead to prayer and preaching, and that it was to Clement that he entrusted the Church as a whole, appointing him as his successor. Tertullian too makes Clement the immediate successor of Peter. And while in one of his works Jerome gives Clement as "the fourth bishop of Rome after Peter" (not in the sense of fourth successor of Peter, but fourth in a series that included Peter), he adds that "most of the Latins think that Clement was second after the apostle". Clement is put after Linus and Cletus/Anacletus in the earliest (c. 180) account, that of Irenaeus, who is followed by Eusebius of Caesarea. The meaning of these early reports is unclear, given the lack of evidence for monarchical episcopacy in Rome at so early a date.
Clement's only genuine extant writing is his letter to the church at Corinth (1 Clement), in response to a dispute in which certain presbyters of the Corinthian church had been deposed. He asserted the authority of the presbyters as rulers of the church, on the grounds that the Apostles had appointed such. It was read in church, along with other epistles, some of which later became Christian canon; and is one of the oldest extant Christian documents outside the New Testament. This important work was the first to affirm the apostolic authority of the clergy.
A second epistle, 2 Clement, was attributed to Clement although recent scholarship suggests it to be a homily by another author. In the legendary Clementine Literature, Clement is the intermediary through whom the apostles teach the church. According to a tradition not earlier than the 4th century, Clement was imprisoned under the Emperor Trajan but nonetheless led a ministry among fellow prisoners. He was then executed by being tied to an anchor and thrown into the sea.
Clement is recognized as a saint in many Christian churches. He is commemorated on 23 November in the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Communion, and the Lutheran Church. In Eastern Orthodox Christianity his feast is kept on 24 or 25 November.
Life
Starting in the 3rd and 4th century, tradition has identified him as the Clement that Paul mentioned in Philippians 4:3 as a fellow laborer in Christ. While in the mid-19th century it was customary to identify him as a freedman of Titus Flavius Clemens, who was consul with his cousin, the Emperor Domitian, this identification, which no ancient sources suggest, then lost support. The 2nd-century Shepherd of Hermas mentions a Clement whose office it is to communicate with other churches; most likely, this is a reference to Clement I.The Liber Pontificalis, which documents the reigns of popes, states that Clement had known Saint Peter. It also states that he wrote two letters (though the second letter, 2 Clement, is no longer ascribed to him) and that he died in Greece in the third year of Emperor Trajan's reign, or 101 AD.
A large congregation existed in Rome c. 58, when Paul wrote his Epistle to the Romans. Paul arrived in Rome c. 60 (Acts). His Captivity Epistles, as well as Mark, Luke, Acts, and 1 Peter were written here, according to many scholars. Paul and Peter were said to have been martyred here. Nero persecuted Roman Christians after Rome burned in 64, and the congregation may have suffered further persecution under Domitian (81–96). Clement was the first of early Rome's most notable bishops.
Clement is known for his epistle to the church in Corinth (c. 96), in which he asserts the apostolic authority of the bishops/presbyters as rulers of the church. The epistle mentions episkopoi (overseer, bishops) or presbyteroi (elders, presbyters), as the upper class of minister, served by the deacons, but, since it does not mention himself, it gives no indication of the title or titles used for Clement in Rome. It has been cited as the first work to establish Roman primacy, but most scholars see the epistle as more fraternal than authoritative, and Orthodox scholar John Meyendorff sees it as connected with the Roman church's awareness of its "priority" (rather than "primacy") among local churches.
In the epistle Clement uses the terms bishop and presbyter interchangeably for the higher order of ministers above deacons. The letters of Ignatius of Antioch (c. 35 – c. 107) indicate the several congregations were headed by individual bishops but that Rome's congregation was not. In some congregations, particularly in Egypt, the distinction between bishops and presbyters seems to have become established only later. But by the middle of the second century all the leading Christian centres had bishops.
11th-century fresco in the Basilica of San Clemente, Rome: Saints Cyril and Methodius bring Saint Clement's relics to Rome
This miracle resulted in the conversion of large numbers of the local pagans and his fellow prisoners to Christianity. As punishment, Saint Clement was martyred by being tied to an anchor and thrown from a boat into the Black Sea. The legend recounts that every year a miraculous ebbing of the sea revealed a divinely built shrine containing his bones. However, the oldest sources on Clement's life, Eusebius and Jerome, note nothing of his martyrdom.
The Inkerman Cave Monastery marks the supposed place of Clement's burial in the Crimea. A year or two before his own death in 869, Saint Cyril brought to Rome what he believed to be the relics of Saint Clement, bones he found in the Crimea buried with an anchor on dry land. They are now enshrined in the Basilica di San Clemente. Other relics of Saint Clement, including his head, are claimed by the Kiev Monastery of the Caves in Ukraine.
Early succession lists name Clement as the first, second, or third successor of Saint Peter. However, the meaning of his inclusion in these lists has been very controversial. There were presbyter-bishops as early as the 1st century,but there is no evidence for a monarchical episcopacy in Rome at such an early date. There is also, however, no evidence of a change occurring in ecclesiastical organization in the latter half of the 2nd century, which would indicate that a new or newly-monarchical episcopacy was establishing itself.
Writings
Epistle of Clement
Clement writes to the troubled congregation in Corinth, where certain "presbyters" or "bishops" have been deposed (the class of clergy above that of deacons is designated indifferently by the two terms). Clement calls for repentance and reinstatement of those who have been deposed, in line with maintenance of order and obedience to church authority, since the apostles established the ministry of "bishops and deacons". He mentions "offering the gifts" (a reference to the Eucharist) as one of the functions of the higher class of clergy. The epistle offers valuable insight into Church ministry at that time and into the history of the Roman Church. It was highly regarded, and was read in church at Corinth along with the Scriptures c. 170.
Writings formerly attributed to Clement
Second Epistle of Clement
The Second Epistle of Clement is a homily, or sermon, likely written in Corinth or Rome, but not by Clement. Early Christian congregations often shared homilies to be read. The homily describes Christian character and repentance. It is possible that the Church from which Clement sent his epistle had included a festal homily to share in one economical post, thus the homily became known as the Second Epistle of Clement.While 2 Clement has been traditionally ascribed to Clement, most scholars believe that 2 Clement was written in the 2nd century based on the doctrinal themes of the text and a near match between words in 2 Clement and in the Greek Gospel of the Egyptians.
Epistles on Virginity
Two "Epistles on Virginity" were traditionally attributed to Clement, but now there exists almost universal consensus that Clement was not the author of those two epistles.False Decretals
A 9th-century collection of church legislation known as the False Decretals, which was once attributed to Saint Isidore of Seville, is largely composed of forgeries. All of what it presents as letters of pre-Nicene popes, beginning with Clement, are forgeries, as are some of the documents that it attributes to councils;[25] and more than forty falsifications are found in the decretals that it gives as those of post-Nicene popes from Pope Sylvester I (314–335) to Pope Gregory II (715–731). The False Decretals were part of a series of falsifications of past legislation by a party in the Carolingian Empire whose principal aim was to free the church and the bishops from interference by the state and the metropolitan archbishops respectively.Clement is included among other early Christian popes as authors of the Pseudo-Isidoran (or False) Decretals, a 9th century forgery. These decrees and letters portray even the early popes as claiming absolute and universal authority. Clement is the earliest pope to whom a text is attributed.
Clementine Literature
St Clement is also the hero of an early Christian romance or novel that has survived in at least two different versions, known as the Clementine literature, where he is identified with Emperor Domitian's cousin Titus Favius Clemens. Clementine Literature portrays Clement as the Apostles' means of disseminating their teachings to the Church.Recognition as a Saint
St. Clement is the only Roman Pope to have a Russian Orthodox church dedicated in his name
Saint Clement of Rome is commemorated in the Synaxarium of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria on the 29th of the month of Hatour [25 November (Julian) – equivalent to 8 December (Gregorian) due to the current 13-day Julian-Gregorian Calendar offset]. According to the Coptic Church Synaxarium, he suffered martyrdom in AD 100 during the reign of Emperor Trajan (98–117). He was martyred by tying his neck to an anchor and casting him into the sea. The record of the 29th of the Coptic month of Hatour states that this saint was born in Rome to an honorable father whose name was Fostinus and who was a member of the Roman senate and that his father educated him and taught him Greek literature.
Symbolism
St Clement's cross
References
- Clarke, W. K. Lowther, ed. (1937). The First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians. London: Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge.
- Grant, Robert M., ed. (1964). The Apostolic Fathers. New York: Nelson.
- Loomis, Louise Ropes (1916). The Book of Popes (Liber Pontificalis). Merchantville, NJ: Evolution Publishing. ISBN 1-889758-86-8.
- Lightfoot, J.B. (1890). The Apostolic Fathers. London: Macmillan. http://books.google.com/books?id=TkYtAAAAYAAJ.
- Meeks, Wayne A. (1993). The origins of Christian morality : the first two centuries. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press. ISBN 0-300-05640-0.
- Richardson, Cyril Charles (1943). Early Christian Fathers. The Library of Christian Classics. Philadelphia: Westminster Press.
- Staniforth, Maxwell (1968). Early Christian writings. Baltimore: Penguin
- Pope St. Clement I". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913.
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Today's Snippet I: Clementine Literature
Clementine literature (also called Clementina, Pseudo-Clementine Writings, The Preaching of Peter, Kerygmata Petrou, Clementine Romance etc.) is the name given to the religious romance which purports to contain a record made by one Clement (whom the narrative identifies as both Pope Clement I, and Domitian's cousin Titus Flavius Clemens) of discourses involving 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.
Overview
This romance has come down to us in two forms: one form is called the Clementine Homilies, which consists of 20 books and exists in the original Greek; the other is called the Clementine Recognitions, for which the original Greek has been lost, but exists in a translation made by Tyrannius Rufinus (died 410). Two later epitomes of the Homilies also exist, and there is a partial Syriac translation, which embraces the Recognitions (books 1–3), and the Homilies (books 10–14), preserved in two British Library manuscripts, one of which was written in the year 411. Some fragments of the Clementines are known in Arabic and in Slavonic.Large portions of the Homilies (H) and Recognitions (R) are almost word for word the same, and larger portions also correspond in subject and more or less in treatment. However, other parts contained only in one appear to be referred to or presupposed in the other. The two works are roughly of the same length, and contain the same framework of romance. H was considered to be the original by Neander, Baur, Schwegler, and others. Lehmann thought the first three books of R to be original, and H for the remainder. Gerhard Uhlhorn argued that both were recensions of an earlier book, Kerygmata Petrou (Preachings of Peter), R having best preserved the narrative, H the dogmatic teaching. Whiston, Rosenmüller, Ritschl, Hilgenfeld, and others held R to be the original. It is now almost universally held (after F. J. A. Hort, Harnack, Hans Waitz) that H and R are two versions of an original Clementine romance, which was longer than either, and embraced most of the contents of both. Sometimes H, sometimes R, is the more faithful to the archetype.
Narrative
Within the elaborate philosophical and dogmatic discourse which forms the bulk of both works is interwoven a story which, when we consider its date, may be described as positively exciting and romantic. It differs slightly in the two books. The narrative is addressed to James the Just, the Bishop of Jerusalem, and is related in the voice of Clement himself. He begins by detailing his religious questionings, his doubts about immortality, his love for celibacy, and so on. Clement hears at Rome the preaching of a man of Judea who relates the miracles of Christ. R identifies this man as Barnabas; H does not provide a name. Clement defends this speaker from the mob, and follows him to Palestine.- Arrival in Palestine
So far H 1 and R 1.1–21; then the two versions differ. The original order may have been as follows: Clement arises at dawn (H 2.1) and finds Peter, who continues to instruct him (2–18, compare R 2.33 and 3.61). Peter sends for two of his disciples, Nicetas and Aquila, whom he describes as foster-sons of Justa, the Syrophoenician woman who was healed by Christ. They had been educated from boyhood by Simon Magus, but had been converted by Zacchaeus, another disciple of Peter (19–21).
- Aquila
He can make himself visible or invisible at will, can pass through rocks as if they were clay, throw himself down from a mountain unhurt, loose himself when bound; he can animate statues, make trees spring up; he can throw himself into the fire without harm, can appear with two faces: "I shall change myself into a sheep or a goat. I shall make a beard to grow upon little boys. I shall ascend by flight into the air, I shall exhibit abundance of gold. I shall make and unmake kings. I shall be worshipped as God, I shall have divine honors publicly assigned to me, so that an image of me shall be set up, and I shall be adored as God." (R 2.9.) Next day at noon, Zacchaeus announces that Simon has put off the promised dispute (H 2.35–7; R 2.20–1). Peter instructs Clement into the evening (H 2.38–53).
- Probable lacuna
- Caiphas and Peter
- James preaches
- Debate between Peter and Simon
- Tyre
- Clement's life story
They had been beaten and starved, and finally sold at Caesarea Stratton to Justa, who had educated them as her own sons. Later they had adhered to Simon, but were brought by Zacchaeus to Peter. Upon hearing this, Mattidia is baptized, and Peter discourses on the rewards given to chastity (H 12; R 7.24–38).
- The old man
- Faustus
- Clement's letter
A form of promise (not an oath, which is unlawful) is prescribed for the reader, by heaven, earth, water, and air, that he will take extraordinary care of the writings and communicate them to no one; he invokes upon himself terrible curses in case he should be unfaithful to this covenant. The most curious passage is: "Even if I should come to acknowledge another God, I now swear by him, whether he exist or not." After the adjuration he shall partake of bread and salt. The elders, on hearing of this solemnity, are terrified, but James pacifies them.
Early references
It was long believed that the early date of the Clementines was proved by the fact that they were twice quoted by Origen. One of these quotations occurs in the Philokalia of Sts. Gregory of Nazianzus and Basil (c. 360). Dr. Armitage Robinson showed in his edition of that work (1893) that the citation is an addition to the passage of Origen made by the compilers, or possibly by a later editor. The other citation occurs in the old Latin translation of Origen on Matthew. This translation is full of interpolations and alterations, and the passage of Pseudo-Clement is apparently an interpolation by the translator from the Arian Opus imperfectum in Matt.Omitting Origen, the earliest witness is Eusebius. In his Ecclesiastical History, III, xxxviii (AD 325) he mentions some short writings and adds:
- "And now some have only the other day brought forward other wordy and lengthy compositions as being Clement's, containing dialogues of Peter and Appion, of which there is absolutely no mention in the ancients."
Origin and date hypotheses
In Schneemelcher's NTA
The traditionally standard edition of the New Testament Apocrypha edited by Wilhelm Schneemelcher includes a translation and commentary of the Pseudo-Clementines by Johannes Irmscher and Georg Strecker. Strecker places the Homilies as 3rd Century, the Recognitions as 4th Century.Theories of Baur
Ferdinand Christian Baur, the founder of the Tübingen School of New Testament Higher criticism, based some of his theories about the New Testament on the Clementines. In turn, his ideas about the Clementines were based on descriptions by St. Epiphanius of Salamis (c. 310–320 – 403), regarding the beliefs and writings of Christian Ebionites in the 4th century. This Judeo-Christian sect, which thought themselves to be the authentic remnant of the earliest disciples of Jesus, rejected St. Paul as both a false apostle of Christ and an apostate from Torah-observant Judaism. Ebionites asserted that their position also represented the Christianity of the Twelve Apostles. "Paulinism," asserting salvation by faith alone without works of the law, was thus regarded as a heresy. This Pauline gospel thus caused a schism from the authentic apostolic "Jewish" or Torah-observant Christianity originally headed by James the Just (Jesus' brother or stepbrother or half-brother) and Saint Peter.An early and aggressive champion of "Paulism" was Marcion in the 2nd century. He favored the church using only Pauline epistolary writings and the Gospel of Luke, regarded as the most harmonious with Paul's teachings, and rejected the Gospel of Matthew, more closely associated with the Twelve Apostles.
The Clementine literature polemicizes against Paul and his sect, for example, by applying the name of the notorious Samaritan sorcerer Simon Magus (see Acts 8:9-24) as a nickname for Paul; some scholars suppose that Luke, the author of The Acts of the Apostles, took the story of Simon Magus from the Clementines.
In Baur's historical theory, Roman Catholicism resulted from the eventual accommodation necessitated between the Petrine and Pauline factions of the Church, beginning in the late 2nd century. The tradition that Peter and Paul co-founded Rome's Church in the mid-1st-century and were martyred together, is regarded as a fiction. The Gospel of John is regarded as a 4th century work produced to show more harmony than actually existed.
Contrary view
Throughout the middle of the 19th century this theory, in many forms, was dominant in Germany. The demonstration, mainly by English scholars, of the impossibility of the late dates ascribed to the New Testament documents (four Epistles of St. Paul and the Apocalypse were the only documents generally admitted as being of early date), and the proofs of the authenticity of the Apostolic Fathers and of the use of St. John's Gospel by Justin, Papias, and Ignatius gradually brought Baur's theories into discredit. Of the original school, Adolf Hilgenfeldmay be considered the last survivor (died 1907). He was induced many years ago to admit that Simon Magus was a real personage, though he persists that in the Clementines he is meant for St. Paul. To a priori critics it counts as nothing that Simon holds no Pauline doctrine and that the author shows no signs of being a Judæo-Christian. In 1847 Hilgenfeld dated the original nucleus (Kerygmata Petrou) soon after the Jewish war of 70; successive revisions of it were anti-Basilidian, anti-Valentinian, and anti-Marcionite respectively. Baur placed the completed form, H, soon after the middle of the 2nd century, and Schliemann (1844) agreed, placing R, as a revision, between 211 and 230. Other writers dated both H and R to between the 2nd and 4th centuries:
- R. 2nd century: Sixtus Senensis, Blondellus, Nourri, Cotelerius, Natalis Alexander, Cave, Oudin, Heinsius, Rosenmüller, Flügge, Gieseler, Friedrich Tholuck, Bretschneider, Engelhardt, Gfrörer.
- R. 2nd or 3rd century: Schröck, Stark, Lumper, Krabbe, Locherer, Gersdorf.
- R. 3rd century: Strunzius (on Bardesanes, 1710), Weismann (17l8), Mosheim, Kleuker, Schmidt (Kirchengesch.)
- R. 4th century: Corrodi, Lentz (Dogmengesch.).
- H. 2nd century (beginning): Credner, Bretschneider, Kern, Rothe.
- H. 2nd century: Clericus, Beausobre, Flügge, Münscher, Hoffmann, Döllinger, Hilgers; (middle of 2nd) Hase.
- H. end of 2nd century: Schröck, Cölln, Gieseler (3rd ed.), Schenkel, Gfrörer, Lücke.
- H. 3rd century: Mill, Mosheim, Gallandi, Gieseler (2nd ed.).
- H. 2nd or 3rd century: Neander, Krabbe, Baur, Ritter, Paniel, Dähne.
- H. 4th century: Lentz.
Other opinions
Uhlhorn in his valuable monograph (1854) placed the original document in East Syria. after 150; H in the same region after 160; R in Rome after 170. Lehmann (1869) put the source (Kerygmata Petrou) 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 2nd century, R being a recasting in an orthodox sense. H was originally written by a Catholic, and the heretical parts belong to a later recension. A. C. Headlam 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 developed mind. While accepting the dependence on the Book of Elchasai, Headlam sees no antagonism to St. Paul, and declares that the writer is quite ignorant of Judaism. Under the impression that the original work was known to Origen, he is obliged to date it at the end of the 2nd 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 the whole doctrine, worship, and constitution of Catholicism, and of having transmitted it to Gentile Christianity as a finished product which only required to be divested of a few Jewish husks".Another popular theory based upon the Clementines has been that it was the Epistle of Clement to James which originated the notion that St. Peter was the first Bishop of Rome. This has been asserted by no lesser authorities than J. B. Lightfoot, George 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 acknowledged that in St. Cyprian's time (c. 250) 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 Hans Waitz places it after 220, and Harnack after 260. We shall presently see that it probably belongs to the 4th century.
Joseph Langen
The Old Catholic Professor Joseph 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 romance. It was a Roman forgery, claiming for the Church of Peter the succession to a part of the headship 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, primus inter pares. The Roman attempt was eventually successful, but not without a struggle. Caesarea, the capital of Roman Iudaea province, also claimed the succession to Jerusalem. The monument of this claim is H, a recension of the Roman work made at Caesarea before the end of the 2nd century in order to fight Rome with her own weapons. (The intention must be admitted to have been closely veiled.) In the beginning of the 3rd 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.Further scholarship
F.J.A. Hort complained 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 Heixaïte. Harnack, in his "History of Dogma", saw that they had no influence in the 3rd 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 Clementines were known to Origen. Since this has been shown to be not proven (1903), Hans Waitz's elaborate study has appeared (1904), but his view was evidently formed earlier. His view is that H is the work of an Aramaean Christian after 325 (for he uses the word homoousios) and earlier than 411 (the Syriac Manuscript). R probably after 350, also in the East. But the Grundschrift, 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 250. Harnack, in his "Chronologie" (II), gives 260 or later as the date, but he thinks H and R may be ante-Nicene. Waitz supposes two earlier sources to have been employed in the romance, the Kerygmata Petrou (origin in 1st century, but used in a later anti-Marcionite recension) and the Acts of Peter (written in a Catholic circle at Antioch c. 210). Harnack accepts the existence of these sources, but thinks neither was earlier than about 200. They are carefully to be distinguished from the well-known 2nd century works, the 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 De Fato of Bardesanes occurs in R ix, 19 sqq. Hilgenfeld, Albrecht Ritschl, and some earlier critics characteristically held that Bardesanes used the Clementines. Merx, Waitz, and most others hold that R. cites Bardesanes directly. François Nau and Harnack are certainly right, that R. has borrowed the citation at second hand from Eusebius.Eunomius
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. 362–3) of that heretic word for word. (The Eunomian doctrine is that the essence of God is to be unborn, consequently the Son Who is begotten is not God. He is a creature, the first-born of all creation and the Image of God. The Holy Ghost is the creature of the Son.) The agreement with Eunomius's ekthesis pisteos of 381–3 is less close. As the Eunomian passage was found by Rufinus in both the recensions of Clement known to him, we may suppose that the interpolation was made in the original work by a Eunomian about 365–70, before the abridgment R was made about 370–80. (The word archiepiscopus used of St. James suggests the end of the 4th century. It occurs in the middle of that century in some Meletian documents cited by Athanasius, and then not until the First Council of Ephesus, 431.)The generation of the Son
H has also a disquisition on the generation of the Son (xvi, 15–18, and xx, 7–8). The writer calls God autopator and autogennetos, and both Mother and Father of men. His idea of a changeable God and an unchangeable Son projected from the best modification of God has been mentioned above. This ingenious doctrine enables the writer to accept the words of the Nicene definition, while denying their sense. The Son may be called God, for so may men be, but not in the strict sense. He is homoousios to Patri, begotten ek tes ousias, He is not treptos or alloiotos. Apparently He is not ktistos, nor was there a time when He was not, though this is not quite distinctly enunciated. The writer is clearly an Arian who manages to accept the formula of Nicea by an acrobatic feat, in order to save himself. The date is therefore probably within the reign of Constantine (died 337), while the great council was still imposed on all by the emperor, about 330.But this is not the date of H, but of the original behind both H and R; for it is clear that the Eunomian interpolator of R attacks the doctrine we find in H. He ridicules autopator and autogennetos, he declares God to be unchangeable, and the Son to be created, not begotten from the Father's essence and consubstantial. God is not masculo-femina. It is clear that the interpolator had before him the doctrine of H. in a yet clearer form, and that he substituted his own view for it (R. iii, 2–11). But it is remarkable that he retained one integral part of H's theory, viz., the origin of the Evil One from an accidental mixture of elements, for Rufinus tells us (De Adult. libr. Origenis) that he found this doctrine in R and omitted it. The date of the original is therefore fixed as after Nicea, 325, probably c. 330; that of H may be anywhere in the second half of the 4th century. The Eunomian interpolator is about 365–70, and the compilation of R about 370–80.
Authorship
The original author shows a detailed knowledge of the towns on the Phoenician coast from Caesarea to Antioch. He was an Arian, and Arianism had its home in the civil diocese of the Orient. He uses the Praeparatio Evangelica of Eusebius of Caesarea (written about 313). In 325 that historian mentions the dialogues of Peter and Appion as just published — presumably in his own region; these were probably the nucleus of the larger work completed by the same hand a few years later. Citations of Pseudo-Clement are by the Palestinian Epiphanius, who found the romance among the Ebionites of Palestine; by St. Jerome, who had dwelt in the Syrian desert and settled at Bethlehem; by the travelled Rufinus; by the Apostolical Constitutions, compiled in Syria or Palestine. The work is rendered into Syriac before 411. The Arian author of the Opus imperfectum cited it freely. It was interpolated by a Eunomian about 365–70. All these indications suggest an Arian author before 350 in the East, probably not far from Caesarea.The author, though an Arian, probably belonged nominally to the Catholic Church. He wrote for the heathens of his day, and observed the stiff and often merely formal disciplina arcani which the 4th century enforced. Atonement, grace, sacraments are omitted for this cause only. "The true Prophet" is not a name for Christ used by Christians, but the office of Christ which the author puts forward towards the pagan world. He shows Peter keeping the evening agape and Eucharist secret from Clement when unbaptized; it was no doubt a Eucharist of bread and wine, not of bread and salt.
Iamblichus
The great pagan antagonist of the 3rd century was the neo-Platonic philosopher, Porphyry; but under Constantine his disciple Iamblichus was the chief restorer and defender of the old gods, and his system of defence is that which we find made the official religion by Julian (361–3). Consequently, it is not astonishing to find that Simon and his disciples represent not St. Paul, but Iamblichus. The doctrines and practices repelled are theurgy, astrology, divinations, miracles, and claims to union with the Divine, which characterized the neo-Platonism of 320–30. It is not against Marcion but against Plato that Pseudo-Clement teaches the supremacy of the Creator of all. He defends the Old Testament against the school of Porphyry, and when he declares it to be interpolated, he is using Porphyry's own higher criticism. The elaborate discussion of ancient history, the ridicule cast on the mythology of the Greeks, and the philosophical explanations of a higher meaning are also against Porphyry. The refutation of idolatry is against Iamblichus.Late 4th century
It is perhaps mere accident that we hear nothing of the Clementines from 330 until 360. But about 360–410 they are interpolated, they are revised and abridged in H, yet more revised and abridged in R, translated into Latin, translated into Syriac, and frequently cited. It seems, therefore, that it was the policy of Julian which drew them from obscurity. They were useful weapons against the momentary resurrection of polytheism, mythology, theurgy, and idolatry.References
Drawn from the 1908 Catholic Encyclopedia and 1911 Jewish Encyclopedia- 1804–1880
- BUSSELL, The Purpose of the World-Process and the Problem of Evil in the Clementine and Lactantian Writings in Studia Biblica (1806), IV;
- SCHLIEMANN, Die Clementinen (1844);
- HILGENFELD, Die Clem. Recogn. und Hom. nach ihrem Ursprung und Inhalt (Jena, 1848); Kritische Untersuchungen über die Evangelien Justins, der Clem. Hom. und Marcions (Halle, 1850);
- UHLHORN, Die Hom. und Recogn. des Clemens Romanus (Göttingen, 1854);
- LEHMANN, Die clementinischen Schriften (Gotha, 1869)
- An English translation of the Recognitions, by the REV. T. SMITH, D. D., will be found in the Ante-Nicene Library. III, and of the Homilies, ibid., XVII (Edinburgh, 1871–72).
- LIPSIUS, Quellen der römischen Petrussage (1872) and Apokr. Apostelgeschichte (1887), II;
- SALMON in Dict. Chr. Biog. (1877);
- 1881–1908
- LANGEN, Die Clemensromane (Gotha, 1890):
- FUNK in Kirchenlexikon. (1884);
- BIGG, The Clementine Homilies in Studia Biblica (Oxford, 1890), II;
- W. CHAWNER, Index of noteworthy words and phrases found in the Clementine writings in Lightfoot Fund Public. (London, 1893);
- HORT, Clementine Recognitions (lectures delivered in 1884; pub. London, 1901);
- MEYBOOM De Clemens Roman (1902);
- A. C. Headlam, The Clementine Literature in Journ. Theol. Stud. (1903), III, 41;
- CHAPMAN, Origen and Pseudo-Clement in JTS, III, 436;
- HILGENFELD, Origenes und Pseudo-Clemens in Zeitschr. für Wiss. Theol. (1903), XLVI, 342;
- PREUSCHEN In HARNACK, Gesch. der altchristl. Literatur (1893), I, 212; and II, Chronologie, 518;
- Waitz, H., Die Pseudoclementinen in Texte und Unters., New Series, X, 4;
- CHAPMAN, The Date of the Clementines in Zeitschr. für Neu-Test. Wiss. (1908).
- Modern sources
- Johann Irmscher and Georg Strecker The Pseudo-Clementines in Wilhelm Schneemelcher New Testament Apocrypha.
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