Abstract
This is an extremely useful volume that will be an indispensable resource for further research, especially on its main subject matter, the Pseudo-Clementines. This is a neglected and challenging corpus of early Christian literature written pseudonymously in the name of Clement of Rome that recounts his conversion and his travels with the apostle Peter. At its core is an ancient Christian novel that has been preserved in two forms, usually known as the Homilies and the Recognitions, behind which many scholars have postulated a source text or ‘basic writing’ in order to account for the similarities between the two narratives.
The majority of the book consists of essays, reviews or dictionary articles that have been published elsewhere: eight collected here under the heading Jewish Christianity (although one of them is devoted almost entirely to the Pseudo-Clementines), four on Elchasai (one of which also encompasses Bardaisan and Mani) and nineteen on the Pseudo-Clementines. Topics discussed include the literary relationship between the Pseudo-Clementines and the Acts of the Apostles, its witness to Marcionism, and the form of Jewish Christianity that it reflects. Thus the collection sheds light not only on the Pseudo-Clementines but also on other witnesses to early Christianity as it developed in ancient Syria.
Part One, on the Pseudo-Clementines, begins with an introductory section that prepares the way for the more detailed studies that follow, and provides a framework into which the reader may fit them. It begins with a short overview (four pages, including bibliography), originally published as an article in the Anchor Bible Dictionary, and ends with a 63-page history of research, first published as two journal articles, and covering the period up to about 1981. In between is a substantial introduction, originally completed in 1988 but not previously published, and now revised in the light of Jones’s more recent work. Thus it is published here in a form in which it draws on and synthesizes many of the details worked out more fully in the chapters that follow.
Jones’s clear and authoritative introduction runs to just over 40 pages, and treats (1) the text and its ancient witnesses, (2) the sources that the author of the basic writing might have used, (3) the content and character of that basic writing and the two later versions of the novel. It also (4) gives a bibliography of texts, translations, scholarly tools and secondary literature (including some references up to 2010, although not all recent work has been included; surprising omissions include the recent monographs of Côté [2001] and Kelley [2006], and the collection of essays edited by Bremmer [2010], which includes an essay by Jones, that is not included here). Readers who start with the introduction will be in a good position to tackle the more technical essays that follow; those who start with one or another of those essays, or with another way into the Pseudo-Clementines, will find that the introduction helps to place their particular interests within the context of modern study of these texts. The continuing lack of a modern English translation of the whole corpus, based on a modern critical text, may remain as an impediment for many readers who would otherwise engage with these writings, but the publication of Jones’s substantial introduction helps to make them more accessible than they were before.
As is inevitable, there is a certain degree of overlap between chapters, perhaps most notably between a 2005 survey essay on the Pseudo-Clementines, tucked away in the section on Jewish Christianity, and the introductory material at the beginning of the book. There are rich seams to be traced through different chapters, but the lack of any indexes means that the reader must mine them mainly by herself. It would be interesting to know what Jones would have added were he to have updated his previously-published material, especially the history of research, and a more comprehensive bibliography would have been a further bonus. Yet these are minor quibbles about a very distinguished body of work. It is extremely helpful to have this material gathered together in one collection, where the sum of the whole is clearly greater than that of the parts. Nevertheless, it would also be useful if Jones’s introduction could be made more widely available in an easily accessible and affordable format (perhaps a stand-alone short ebook, revised to include a fuller bibliography?) than the present volume. That would mean that this useful resource would be readily available to students and other readers besides those with access to the research libraries that will buy this important and learned book.