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St Photius the Great, tr. Freese, 1920; selections

Codices 112–113: Clement of Rome, Apostolic Constitutions and Recognitions

Read two volumes of the works of Clement, bishop of Rome.¹ One is entitled The Apostolic Constitutions by Clement, containing the synodical canons ascribed to the assembled Apostles. The other, in the form of a letter, is dedicated to James the Lord’s brother and contains what are called The Acts of the Apostle Peter, His Conversations with Simon Magus, The Recognition of Clement and his Father and his two Brothers. Hence in some copies it is entitled The Recognition of Clement of Rome. As we have said, a letter is prefixed as sent to James the Lord’s brother, but not always the same nor from the same person, according to some copies being sent by Peter the apostle, according to others by Clement to James. In the first case, Peter would seem to have compiled an account of his own acts and sent it to James at his request; in the second, Clement compiled it by command of Peter and sent it to James, after Peter had passed to immortal life. It may be conjectured then that there were two editions of the Acts of Peter, and that when one in course of time perished that of Clement alone survived. For in all the copies which I have seen----by no means a few----after those different epistles and titles I have unvaryingly found the same treatise beginning, “I, Clement,” etc. The work is full of countless absurdities and of blasphemy against the Son in accordance with the Arian heresy. The Constitutions appear to be liable to censure on three counts: clumsy fiction, which it is easy to remove; the abusive charges against Deuteronomy, which can easily be met, and its Arianism, which can be refuted by a vigorous attack. But the book of the Acts of Peter, in its distinctness and earnestness, its purity, vehemence, its general linguistic excellences, and its great learning, is so superior to the Constitutions that, as far as language is concerned, no comparison between the two works is possible.

It is this Clement of whom St. Paul speaks in the Epistle to the Philippians, “With Clement also, and other my fellow-labourers, whose names are written in the book of life.”² He also wrote an important letter to the, Corinthians, which was so highly thought of that it was read in public. A second letter to the same is rejected as spurious, as also the lengthy discussion, a dialogue between Peter and Ap(p)ion.³ Some say that Clement succeeded Peter as bishop of Rome, others that he was the fourth bishop, Linus and Anacletus intervening, and that he died in the third year of Trajan’s reign.

Notes

Lived during the first century A.D. According to tradition he was one of the first successors of St. Peter as bishop of Rome. Numerous works, such as the Homilies and Recognitions, the Apostolic Constitutions, which are ascribed to him, are spurious, the only writing bearing his name which is admitted to be genuine being the First Epistle to the Church of Corinth (the second is spurious). On the whole question see edition (1890) by Bishop Lightfoot.
iv. 3. Clement being a very common name, this identification is by no means certain.
Apion, Alexandrine grammarian, commentator on Homer, flourished in the middle of the first century A.D. He was notorious for his hatred of the Jews and of Jewish Christianity.