Pseudo-Clementine Homilies
Home > Apocrypha > Pseudo-Clementine Homilies Pseudo-Clementine Homilies At a Glance Treatise Genre: (5/5) ***** Reliability of Dating: (5/5) ***** Length of Text: Greek Original Language: Ancient Translations: Modern Translations: English Estimated Range of Dating: 300-320 A.D. Chronological List of Early Christian Writings Discuss this text on the Early Writings forum. Text Clementine Homilies Clementine Recognitions (similar text) Kerygmata Petrou (source) Resources Catholic Encyclopedia: Clementines Offsite Links for the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies Clementine literature Pseudo-Clement The Pseudo-Clementine Homilies and the Challenges of the Conversion of Families The Pseudo-Clementine Homilies and the Antiochene Polemic Against Allegory The use of Scripture in the Clementine Homilies Books Donald H.
Carlson, Jewish-Christian Interpretation of the Pentateuch in the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies Wilhelm Schneemelcher, New Testament Apocrypha, Vol. 2, pp. 483-496 Recommended Books for the Study of Early Christian Writings Information on the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies Georg Strecker writes, "The Epistula Petri and the Contestatio were placed in front of one of the source documents of the Pseudo-Clementines - the Kerygmata Petrou. According to the statements of the Epistula Petri, Peter sends the books of his Kerygmata to 'bishop' James, with a request for special circumspection in handing them on, to prevent the falsification of his teaching by the adherents of the 'hostile man'.
The following Contestatio describes the making known of the latter before the seventy presbyters and the appointing of the required precautions, and then follows the text of the engagement pledge. The Epistula Clementis provides an introduction to the Clement romance, and reports on Clement's ordination by Peter as bishop of Rome." (New Testament Apocrypha, vol. 2, pp. 484-485) Concerning the text's history, Strecker writes, "the Clementines have not come to us as they were originally composed. Today the view is widely entertained that they go back to a basic document (B. Rehm, Entstehung 155ff.). The basic document has not survived, but its main features can be deduced from the recensions derived from it.
The decisive components of the Clement romance already belong to it. Its main attitude is the rationalismus of the age of the apologists. Just conduct on earth is the guarantee of a successful undergoing of the last judgment; rationabiliter vivere is the demand that results from such practical philosophy. Belief plays only a subordinate role; the death of Jesus has no religious significance; the Christological problem scarcely exists. The guarantor of the metaphysical notions is the true prophet, whose call has to be proved by the coming true of his predictions. The basic document belongs to Coele-Syria, where it may have come into existence in the middle of the 3rd century (Waitz, Pseudoklementinen, 72ff.; Strecker, Judenchristentum, 255-267; cf.
also below, pp. 492f.). It certainly was not widely disseminated, and underwent a first revision at the hands of an Arian theologian, the Homilist. To a profound ethical interest he joined one that was metaphysical, which permitted him to develop a 'doctrinal system' (Unlhorn, Homilien, 153-230) entirely his own, but this, it is true, he was not able to press home everywhere in an entirely consistent way upon the material that already lay before him. The doctrine of the syzygies, the opposite pairs, which the Homilist finds everywhere in the world, even in the being of God, provides a foundation for that opposition of Peter to Simon which becomes the leading motif of the story. The critical position which the Homilist occupies in reference to the OT is noteworthy (Rehm, Entstehung 159).