On the Date of the Clementines. 147

Dom John Chapman, On the date of the Clementines. 147 On the date of the Clementines. By Dom John Chapman O. S. B., Erdington Abbey, Birmingham, u.' 5. The Clementines have no "Sources". It seems to me that Dr. Headlam speaks veiy sound sense vvhen he says of the Clemen- tines: "They are all products of one design and plan, coming from one writer or group of writers, and we have no need to enquire about older sources, which in all probability did not exist".2 Waitz has since published his elaborate monograph, in which he traces sources, and sources of sources, which lead him back into the first Century. He thinks Pseudo-Bardesanes is directly quoted, and not at second hand from Eusebius. Another source is the "Dialogues of Appion", which according to Waitz was a Western work of the end of the second or beginning of the third Century, in spite of Eusebius's testimony in 325 that it was then "newly brought forward". But the principal sources are said to be the TTpaHeic Πέτρου, written in a Catholic circle at Antioch about 210, and. the Κηρύγματá Πέτρου, an early work, used by the Clementines in an anti-Marcionite recension. Harnack has accepted Waitz's demonstration of these two sources, but is not inclined to date either of them earlier than 200. The Κηρύγματá are supposed to be the work in 10 books of which the Contents are described in Recogn. iii 75. This work is described s the report, written down by Clement and sent by him to James, of Peter's public discourses at Caesarea, which the Apostle delivered by day, and repeated in private to Clement every night This would be a most unnatural way of introducing a book which had been embodied by the author s one of his sources. If such a work in ten books had really ever existed, it would have been a previous work by the Clemen- S. O. S. 21 ff. Journal of Tkeol. Sfttd. vol. i , p. 50, (Oct. 1901). Brought to you by | New York University Bobst Library Technical Services Authenticated Download Date | 6/24/15 10:23 AM 148 Dom John Chapman, On the dato of the Clcmentincs. t ine writer; but it is surely obvious that the whole chapter is merely a part of the giganlic fraud; it is calculated to assist the verisimilitude which the writer is so anxious to introduce and maintaini The letter of Peter to James1 and the accompanying Adjuration are taken by Waitz to belong to this early work, and really to express the secresy enjoined by some obscure sect. The inventor of these documents was a clever man, for he has imposed on a good many modern critics äs well äs upon many of the ancients. I know people simple-minded enough to be caught by the deceitful introductions which my friend the Rev. R. H. Benson has prefixed to his clever romances Richard Raynal and The Sentimentalists. One might äs well believe in Sir Walter Scott's Captain Clutterbuck and Dr. Dryasdustl How anyone could read through such documents äs the letter of Peter and what follows it, and not see that the writer is romancing, I do not know. The way the agony is piled on in the Adjuration is amusing; the terror of the pres- byters when they hear it read, and the reassuring remarks of James are all quite in the style of the clever author "of the romance that follows. But Waitz believes that he has discovered convincing internal evidence for the existence of the "Preachings of Peter'7: the contents of the ten books, äs enumerated in Recogn. iii 75 can be recognized in the preceding portions of that work and in the corresponding parts of the Homilies. Naturally. It is presumed that Peter continued during the three months he remained at Caesarea the same subjects he had enlarged upon in the discourses given in Recogn. i—iii. But the passages to which Waitz can point are short, some of them very short: they cannot possibly summarise even in the most general manner the matter of ten books. Waitz, however, urges that these passages which he has picked out have a special character: they include the passages which attack i I suggested in my formet article tliat \ve have in the letter of Peter and the Adjuration a reply to the dangerous criticism of Eusebius, viz. that the long "Dialogues of Peter and Appion" were "wholly unknown to the ancients". In publishing the yet larger work, the Clementine romance, (in which no doubt the Dialogues of Peter and •Appion were embodied), the author explains why the work had been unknown for three hundred years, — it had been imparted only to a select few, under a promise (ratified by blood-curdling imprecations) of absolute secresy. And this with regard to a book which is obviously wholly exoteric and intended for enquiring heathens! The absurdity of preiixing an adjuration of secresy to such a book did not strike the odd person who wrote it; but it is amazing that it has been passed over by modern critics. Brought to you by | New York University Bobst Library Technical Services Authenticated Download Date | 6/24/15 10:23 AM Dom john Chapman, On the date'of the Clementines. 149 St. Paul; they do not know the fourth gospel; they probably use only that of St. Matthew. This is ingenious, but not convincing. The passages are too short and too much concerned with one subject for their Scripture quotations to be important.1 I do not believe they attack St. Paul Two a priori considerations make Waitz's view quite im- possible. 1. These kerygmata Petri are otherwise entirely unknown. No writer, early or late, quotes them. Yet they are supposed to have been a large and early work in no less than ten books. 2. If (per absurdum) the Adjuration was to be taken seriously, it would be the guard set round the secret doctrines of some obscure sect. But the supposed kerygmata will have contained no secret doctrines at all, according to the Contents given of the ten books. They will have been elementary instructions on the Unity of God, the true Prophet, etc., with nothing even distinctively Christian except the necessity of Baptism! They will have been, like the Clementines, intended for enquiring heathenj only they represent the most elementary part of the doctrines of the Clementines. It is ridiculous to suppose that such entirely exoteric books should not have been intended for the widest possible publicati n. To the initiated they must be useless; they were intended precisely for the uninitiated. So much for the "Preachings of Peter". For the other source, "the Acts of Peter'' Waitz has yet weaker arguments. I cannot accept the supposed anti-Martionite character of this source, for I fail to discover anything anti-Marcionite in the Clementines from beginning to end. It is sufflcient to observe that such a work was quite unknown to the ancients. But the ancients knew well enough two works of which fragments yet remain to us, the Κήρυγμα Πέτροõ and the 2d Century TTpageic Πέτρου. Waitz asks us to believe besides in his much longer Κηρύγματá and in' another set of HpaHeic, which instead of being frequently quoted and exerting much influence upon many later documents, s their homonyms have done, were used exclusively by the Clementine forger. This seems to me a hopeless theory, hovever ingeniously and laboriously worked out. 6. The Clementines are not Ebionite. This is certain of their i Besides one cannot get rid of the idea that Waitz has selected these passages just with a view to the star ing results he gains by analysing them! Brought to you by | New York University Bobst Library Technical Services Authenticated Download Date | 6/24/15 10:23 AM 15Ï Dom John Chapman, On thc date of the Clementines. prcsent state. The writer is a kind of Arian, who beiieves in the pre- existence of the Son, setting Mim above and before all creation; that He was incarnate in Christ; pcrhaps that His conception was miraculous (Hom. iii 17, see Bigg, p. 167). It is difficult to believe that such a writer could bring himself to use Ebionite documents, if he knew any.1 There is no trace of Judaeo-Christianity anywhere in the Clemen- tine writings. It is true that St. James says, in introducing the adjuration, that the Preachings of Peter are to be entrusted to no one who is not circumcised: "μηδενι... ή άγαθφ τινé êáé εύλαβεΐ, τø êáé διδάςκειν αίρουμένø έμττεριτόμø τε δντé πιστφ. But the letter of Peter had made this demand: The book was to be given to no Gentile, and to Jews only after trial. There is evidently no question of Gentiles being circumcised, but simply the number of those who know the book is to be . s small s possible. Apparently we are intended to conceive of the book s precariously saved by secret handing down among presumed Judaeo-Christians, having remained unknown to the Catholic Church (of the Gentiles) until it is suddenly discovered and published c. 330. For the rest, Jewish customs are simply ignored, doubtless because the writer knows nothing of them, and cares less. "He has never been a Jew or brought in contact with Jews", says Dr. Headlam.2 But, it is said, he opposes St. Paul. The original theory of the T bingen school was that Simon Magus never existed, and that the name covered an attack apon St.

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