angelical composition. But such a statement
does not preclude the possibility of subsequent changes in the
documents to which it refers. The difficulties and restrictions of
local communication must have made it hard for an individual to
trace all the phases of literary activity in a society so widely
spread as the Christian, even if it had come within the purpose of
the writer or his informant to state the whole, and not merely the
essential part, of what he knew.

CHAPTER VI.

THE CLEMENTINE HOMILIES.

It is unfortunate that there are not sufficient materials for
determining the date of the Clementine Homilies. Once given the
date and a conclusion of considerable certainty could be drawn
from them; but the date is uncertain, and with it the extent to
which they can be used as evidence either on one side or on the
other.

Some time in the second century there sprang up a crop of
heretical writings in the Ebionite sect which were falsely
attributed to Clement of Rome. The two principal forms in which
these have come down to us are the so-called Homilies and
Recognitions. The Recognitions however are only extant in a Latin
translation by Rufinus, in which the quotations from the Gospels
have evidently been assimilated to the Canonical text which
Rufinus himself used. They are not, therefore, in any case
available for our purpose. Whether the Recognitions or the
Homilies came first in order of time is a question much debated
among critics, and the even way in which the best opinions seem to
be divided is a proof of the uncertainty of the data. On the one
side are ranged Credner, Ewald, Reuss, Schwegler, Schliemann,
Uhlhorn, Dorner, and Luecke, who assign the priority to the
Homilies: on the other, Hilgenfeld, Koestlin, Ritschl (doubtfully),
and Volkmar, who give the first place to the Recognitions [Endnote
162:1]. On the ground of authority perhaps the preference should
be given to the first of these, as representing more varied
parties and as carrying with them the greater weight of sound
judgment, but it is impossible to say that the evidence on either
side is decisive.

The majority of critics assign the Clementines, in one form or the
other, to the middle of the second century. Credner, Schliemann,
Scholten, and Renan give this date to the Homilies; Volkmar and
Hilgenfeld to the Recognitions; Ritschl to both recensions alike
[Endnote 162:2]. We shall assume hypothetically that the Homilies
are righ