The Clementine Recognitions, as we have already remarked, are only known to us through the Latin translation of Rufinus; and from a comparison of the evangelical quotations occurring in that work with the same in the Homilies, it is evident that Rufinus has assimilated them in the course of translation to the parallel passages of our Gospels. It is admitted, therefore, that no argument regarding the source of the quotations can rightly be based upon the Recognitions, and that work may, consequently, be entirely set aside,(1) and the Clementine Homilies alone need occupy our attention.
We need scarcely remark that, unless the date at which these Homilies were composed can be ascertained, their value as testimony for the existence of our Synoptic Gospels is seriously affected. The difficulty of arriving at a correct conclusion regarding this point, great under almost any circumstances, is of course increased by the fact that the work is altogether apocryphal, and most certainly not held by any one to have
been written by the person whose name it bears. There is in fact nothing but internal evidence by which to fix the date, and that internal evidence is of a character which admits of very wide extension down the course of time, although a sharp limit is set beyond which it cannot mount upwards. Of external evidence there is almost none, and what little exists does not warrant an early date. Origen, it is true, mentions [------],(1) which, it is conjectured, may either be the same work as the [------], or Recognitions, translated by Rufinus, or related to it, and Epiphanius and others refer to [------];(2) but our Clementine Homilies are not mentioned by any writer before pseudo-Athanasius.(3) The work, therefore, can at the best afford no substantial testimony to the antiquity and apostolic origin of our Gospels. Hilgenfeld, following in the steps of Baur, arrives at the conclusion that the Homilies are directed against the Gnosticism of Marcion (and also, as we shall hereafter see, against the Apostle Paul), and he, therefore, necessarily assigns to them a date subsequent to a.d. 160. As Reuss, however, inquires: upon this ground, why should a still later date not be named, since even Tertullian wrote vehemently against the same Gnosis.(4) There can be little doubt that the author was a representative of Ebionitic Gnosticism, which had once been the purest form of primitive Christianity, but later, through its own development, though still more through the rapid growth around it of Paulinian doctrine, had