Notes on the Pseudo-Clementines

[Thomas]

Dualism in the pseudo-Clementine Homilies (pCH) I

Adam and Eve play a dualistic role in the Homilies. They are associated with the doctrine of syzygiae, a standard element of gnostic literature. In the Homilies, Peter explains that everything in human history comes in opposed pairs, with the primordial couple determining later syzygiae (2.15–18). Adam represents the line of truth, whereas Eve, that of falsehood and error.

From them every new generation brings forth a pair, of which the first member is inferior and stands in the line of Eve, while the second is superior and stands in the line of Adam. This seems paradoxical, for Adam was created before Eve, but in the Homilies there is a difference between God’s order of creation and the order of human events.

Adam and Eve, as God’s creatures, belong to the first order, but the next generation, Cain and Abel, to the lower, human order. Although each pairing is ascribed to Eve and Adam respectively, they all consist of two men: Cain and Abel, Esau and Jacob, Aaron and Moses, John the Baptist and Jesus, Simon Magus and Peter, and eventually the Antichrist and Christ. This is echoed in the Recognitions – Pharaoh v Abraham, Egyptian wizards v Moses (3.61.1), but the syzygiae receive their own distinct development in the Homilies.

One of the important subjects is Adam’s innocence. Peter states that Adam did not sin (2.52.2). He possesses true foreknowledge, which enabled him rightly to name all the creatures and his sons (3.21.1/Genesis 2:19), and he is, moreover, the first incarnation of the True Prophet immortal by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit of Christ (3.20.2).

This Homilistic figure recurs throughout human history and is linked to characters like Adam and Jesus. Peter ascribes to him foreknowledge and sinlessness (2.6.1). Adam’s full knowledge prevents him from sinning. Peter rejects as false the passages in Genesis that suggest that Adam might
sin. Because God created Adam in his own image, he had foreknowledge and did not need to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (3.18, 3.21,42 3.42–43). Simon Magus, on the contrary, insists on Adam’s sinfulness, God’s ignorant mistakes, and Adam’s exile from Eden.

 

[Thomas]

Dualism in the pseudo-Clementine Homilies (pCH) II

Justin Martyr and Clement of Alexandria saw Greek mythology as sometimes foreshadowing Christian truth. The Hellenic world was the social and intellectual background to an emerging Christianity.

From the standpoint of the Homilies, however, the Jewish-Christian outlook is the only correct worldview. Neither Greek paideia nor allegorical hermeneutics are well received. While the Homilies displays knowledge of Greek myth, it interprets them allegorically only in order to attack them.

This attack is aimed not at the myths as such, but rather as a refutation of the hermeneutical approach itself, which Clement refutes as inherently impious (6.17–19). The reality behind the myths is that the gods and heroes are nothing more than ordinary magicians who deceived their contemporaries.

The refutation of allegoresis is implicit in the Homilies and in the references to Achilles. Clement presents Achilles as an anti-Adam, drawn inexorably to the flawed and false female line of Eve, whom Polyxena embodies.

Likewise, Simon Magus represents the Eve side of the syzygiae, having chosen the wrong side. Peter asserts that Simon does not possess any truth according to the syzygetical logic (2.18.1–2). He is Peter’s deceitful precursor. His 'truth' is represented by a woman: the infamous Helen, Simon's companion (2.25.2), over whom Greeks and barbarians fought although they had before their eyes but an image of the truth. Thus the continuance of the fallen Eve line in Polyxena/Achilles and Helen/Simon.

In Clement’s allegoresis of the Judgement of Paris (6.15:50), Paris gives the victory to lust alone by choosing Aphrodite ('pleasures') instead of Hera ('dignity') or Athena ('manliness'). Achilles, Simon, and Paris are all examples of men who have lusted after the 'wrong' woman. According to Clement, Greek education is a terrible invention of an evil demon (4.12.1). Young people are corrupted by myths in which gods and demi-gods exhibit every kind of passion. The educators (grammarians and sophists) take them as an excuse to practice indecencies freely (4.17.2). Appion the grammarian, an expert in myth, is himself a perfect example of sexual incontinence (akrasia) having once used magic to gratify his infatuation (4.3).

In the Tripolis discourses (8–11) Peter refers to the actual sin (of ingratitude and lust) of later generations of men, linked with the Enochian theme of angels (the 'sons of God') falling prey to their lust for the 'daughters of men' (Genesis 6:2). As Peter explains further, the union of these angels with women caused the birth of cannibalistic giants who lived on after the deluge as Greek gods still subject to desire (8.13).

The Homilist’s theory of a sinless Adam, and his presenting Adam and Jesus as two embodiments of one and the same True Prophet, the Homilist also rejects the Pauline Adam-Christ typology of Romans 5:12–21. In this way, the Homilies become multi-layered and serve for attacking diverse groups and ideas. Achilles is not only the representative of the Greek corrupt world, he has made the wrong choice; he is also a type of the Adam rejected in the Homilies but adopted by many Christian authors.

Which leads on to a third reading ...

 

[Thomas]

Dualism in the pseudo-Clementine Homilies (pCH) III

In her essay "Jewish Christianity" as Counter-history? Annette Yoshiko Reed subtitles her offering with "The Apostolic Past in Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History and the Pscudo-Clementine Homilies"

Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History (313-324CE) delineates the "apostolic period" (apostolikén chronén) as encompassing the years
from Christ's ascension to the reign of Trajan (98-117CE). He describes this era as a bygone age of miracles and wonders (V.7.6) in which the light of truth shone so brightly that even heresy posed no real threat (II.14.3). It was then, in his view, that Christianity spread throughout the known world, while Judaism fell into its deserved decline (III.5.3).

The Pseudo-Clementine Homilies and Recognitions (H&R) present a picture of the apostolic age that differs radically from that in Acts. For Luke, the story of the rise of Christianity is the tale of the conversion of the Gentiles and the spread of the gospel beyond Judaea. By contrast, the Homilies and Recognitions offer a different vision: the Jerusalem church of Peter and James is central, and ethnic Jews play a leading role in the life of the church.

Throughout the H&R Peter is depicted as the defender of the true teachings of Jesus, and the criterion for proper belief and practice is coherence with the Jerusalem church and its leader James. Where Luke describes the apostolic age as one of harmony between the apostles and downplays any conflict between Peter and Paul (cf. Galatians 2), the H&R promote Peter and contain traces of anti-Pauline polemics. Affixed to the Homilies, moreover, is a letter that purports to be written by Peter himself, bemoaning the popularity of antinomian teachings among Jesus' Gentile followers and counters the misrepresentation of his own teachings as negating the need for Torah-observance (cf. Acts 15).

Could this reflect an historical reality? Might the Pseudo-Clementine literature preserve a lost Petrine perspective that was hostile to Paul, suppressed by Luke and forgotten by the Gentile Christians who embraced Pauline and Lukan writings as normative?

Rather than a direct conflict between Jewish- and Gentile-Christianity, recent scholars look at the debate over authority and epistemology in the context of competing claims, Jewish, Christian and 'pagan', in 4th century Syria, where the text arose.

Reed believes the Homilies preserves earlier sources. Whatever the precise scope and character of these sources, however, the authors/redactors of the Homilies have clearly reworked their received material in ways that speak to their own time. The language regarding Jesus, for example, betrays an engagement with Christological debates of the Nicene age.

The story of Clement is an extended defense of apostolic succession and an assertion of the antiquity and necessity of ecclesiastical offices. Throughout the novel, Peter’s travels are punctuated by his ordination of bishops. The Homilies also asserts Clement's close relationship with Peter and, by extension, the connection between Rome and Jerusalem.

If nothing else, the H&R are an important piece of 4th century evidence for the variety of voices in the late antique Christian discourse about 'orthodoxy,' – about Judaism, Christianity and paganism and gnosticism.