9. The Clementine Literature.—(i.) Documents. These are three in number. (a) The Homilies in Greek. Two MSS only are known to exist—the one at Paris, the other at the Vatican. (5) The Recognitions. The Greek original has perished. The Latin rendering by Rufinus, preserved in a large number of MSS, a Syriac translation of part of the work, and an Arabic abridgment printed in Studia Sinaitica v., form the extant authorities for the text. Rufinus, in the preface to his transla- tion, notes incidentally that the Greek original was extant in two forms. He further tells us that, while he had restated omitted some pas- sages as obscure, he had aimed at a close, if bald, pondering. It may be added that a comparison between his version and the Syriac version gener- ally confirms his statement. (c) Of far less import- ance than the two documents just mentioned is the Epitome—a late abridgment of the Homilies. The three Clementine works may be conveniently studied in Migne’s Patrologia Greca, vols. i., ii.
(1. Substance. The romance of Clement’s life --his early separation from his family and his ultimate discovery of them—need not detain us. Peter is the great opponent of Simon Magus, and long discourses aires to his own disciples or to inquirers, or directed against Simon, are put intohis mouth. The story in regard to Peter is, in outline, as follows. In the seventh year after the Passion, Clement finds Peter at Cxesarea, where the latter, having been sent thither by James, is about to hold a disputation with Simon Magus. After three days’ discussion Simon is driven away by the populace. Peter follows Simon to Tripolis, accord- ing to the Recognitions ; according to the Homilies, to , and thence to Sidon, Berytus, Byblus, and so to Tripolis. At Antioch Simon meets with great success, but is at length driven thence by a report that Cornelius the centurion had arrived armed with an imperial commission to destroy all sorcerers. Simon flies to the neighbouring town of Laodicea, where in the Homilies the scene of the great disputation between Peter and Simon is laid. In the Homilies the story ends with Peter's departure for Antioch; in the Recognitions, with his enthusiastic reception by the people there after the expulsion of Simon.
(iii.) Date and character. The documents which we possess exhibit different forms of a religious romance, written in the interests of a_philo- sophical Ebionitism. The anti-Pauline element is strong in the Homilies. Under the character of Simon Magus, St. Paul is attacked (e.g. xvii. 19). The same tone of hostility to the work and teach- ing of St. Paul dominates the letter of Peter to James, § 2, which is prefixed to the Homilies. In the Recognitions this controversial element is omitted or softened down, the invective dealing only with St. Paul’s action before his conversion
The doctrine of the Homilies is akin to the Elchasaite sect, which, according to
(i. 70f.). that o
PETER (SIMON) 775 Hippolytus (Ref. Her. ix. 13), established itself at Rome during the episcopate of Callistus. The Recognitions is quoted by Origen (Comm. in Genesim ap. Philoc. xxiii. 21, and Comm. in Matth. xxvi. 6f., ed. Lommatzsch iv. p. 401). The evi- dence, though slight, points to the first quarter of the 3rd cent. as the period to which the Clemen- tine literature as we possess it should probably be assigned. From what place did it emanate? The claim of Rome is negatived by the almost entire absence of any reference to a visit of Simon to the city, and his conflict with the apostle there. The allusions to Rome as the final scene of the controversy (Ztecog. i. 13, 74, iii. 64; Hom. i. 16) are so incidental in character that they may well be the interpolation of a later editor, the writer, for example, who composed the Epistle of Clement to James, préfixed to the Homilies, in which an account of Clement’s ordination at Rome as bishop by Peter is given. The scene of the story is confined within the boundaries of Syria, and it is therefore antecedently probable that Syria was the region in which the Ἐπ Ὁ literature had its first home. This conclusion is confirmed by the character of the NT quotations, which appear to be derived from a Semitic document, whether an Aramaic Gospel or a Syriac version of the Gospels. One point, however, seems clear, viz. that the Recog- nitions and the Homilies are independent recastings of a common original, or of (closely related) common original documents. The relation of thisdocument or these documents to the Periodi Clementis, to which Jerome (adv. Jovin. i. 26; in Gal. i, 18) refers for details about Peter which are not found in our Clementines, and to the κήρυγμα Πέτρου (see below), must remain with our present evidence an unsolved problem. The question of primary interest is: What did the original story or document on which the Clementines are based include? Was its subject the conflict between Peter and Simon in Syria only? Or did it relate an earlier conflict in Syria and a final conflict at Rome? In other words, do the Clementines and the Petrine Acts respectively depend on independent documents, the one narrating the conflict between Peter and Simon in the East, the other dealing with their final meeting in the West! or do they severally elaborate two parts of one common history! The former is the opinion of Salmon (Dict. Chr. Biog. iv. p. 685), the latter that to which Lipsius in- clines (Apokr. Apostelg. τι. i. p. 38f.). It may be noticed that, while there are in the Clementines (see above) a few references to the Roman episode, on the other hand allusions are to be found in the Petrine Acts (Actus Petr. cum Simone v., Martyr. Petri et Pauli 17) to the Syrian conflict; but all these allusions are too slight to bear the weight of any conclusions. The Apostolic Constitutions (vi. 8, 9) contains the whole story of Peter and Simon, —the story of a conflict in Syria with points of contact with the Clementine history, and the pond of a conflict in Rome with points of contact with that of the Acts. It seems less unlikely that here we come upon a relic of a complete story than that we have here a piecing together of two stories, which were originally independent. Of the precise doctrinal position of the original document it is vain to speculate. If the original story did follow St. Peter to Rome, there is a doctrinal reason why the Ebionite Clementine writers should refuse to acquiesce in the tradition that St. Paul and St. Peter worked at Rome together. That the original romance was early, there can be no doubt. Bishop Lightfoot held (Clement i. 361) that it ‘cannot well be placed later than the middle of the 2nd century.’