The Recognitions of Clement

ISBN: 978-0-6151-8002-1

Now in print again for the first time since the mid 19th Century.
Any Christian or Bible Scholar who reads this book will be profoundly blessed.

 The “Recognitions of Clement” is a captivating text dating back to the early Christian church and referenced by early church fathers Origen and Eusebius. The narrative is addressed to James the Just, the Bishop of Jerusalem, and is recorded by one Clement, a Greek, who chronicles a series of discourses by the apostle Peter, which he is witness to while accompanying Peter in his travels. Clement begins his account by detailing his own religious search before hearing of Christ. While in Rome , Clement hears the preaching of Barnabas who testifies of the miracles and teachings of Jesus. Clement, being moved by the words of Barnabas, defends him from a mob and ends up following after him to Palestine where he meets up with Peter. A large portion of the text is devoted to an intriguing disputation between Peter and Simon the Sorcerer before an audience of onlookers. Peter invites Clement to accompany him in his travels from city to city, creating an opportunity for Clement to be instructed more perfectly concerning the faith.

Purchase the book here: http://www.lulu.com/content/885490

Here is a small sample of text from the book, if you are interested: http://www.hopeofzion.com/clement/clement_sample.pdf

Though the Clementine literature was in use at a much earlier date, it was reintroduced to the world around 360 AD, being revised and abridged in Homilies, and again in Recognitions, and translated into Latin. At the time they were reintroduced, Clement’s writings served as a useful weapon against the resurrection of polytheism, mythology, sorcery, and idolatry.

The authorship, date of origin, and doctrinal character of this writing have been the subject of debate since the 19th Century, but the importance attached to it by theologians has compelled men of divers belief to examine the subject. After all their investigations, differing opinions continue to prevail regarding these books.

I personally became aware of the Recognitions of Clement nearly a decade ago while browsing the Internet. It has since had a very profound effect upon me. For years I sought to discover where I might obtain a published copy of this work for my own library, but could not find one available anywhere. Worse, there were very few places on the Internet where an electronic copy of it could be found, and those copies were often fraught with numerous errors due to inaccuracies in the scanning software. I feared that the text was in danger of being lost to the general public, should those websites cease to exist. With the advent of inexpensive self-publishing sites, such as Lulu.com, I have, with great delight, taken it upon myself to publish this work, not only for my own personal use, but in hopes that it may be a blessing to others.

I am not a scholar. I hold no doctorate, and I am not an expert in the Clementine literature, or its history. What I am is someone who has greatly benefited from this work and developed a very deep affection for it. With that said, I would like to write just a few words regarding the legal status and rights of this document, and explain the changes I have made to the text.

The original text is public domain, and it remains that way with the printing of this book. The last known published copy of this text in the English language, as best as I have been able to determine, was in the mid 19th Century in a book by Philip Schaff that, along with the Clementine literature, included works by other early Church Fathers. It is from this publication that I derived the original text.

The changes I have made are relatively minor. The English translation of Clement’s work made use of some words that are rarely used in our modern vocabulary anymore. Some of those words would no doubt send even well educated persons scrambling to locate their dictionary. In these cases, and by no other method than to simply do what seemed right to me, I have, whenever a suitable and more common word could be found to replace it, substituted the more obscure terminology with the more common one.

Wherever I have done this, I have placed a footnote that can be found at the bottom of the page for quick reference, informing you as to what the original word was. In other cases, where no one perfectly suitable word could be found to replace it, I have placed instead a footnote at the bottom of the page denoting the word’s definition for your convenience. In cases where I have either replaced a particular word, or noted its definition, I did not place any additional notes on any reoccurrence of that same word in the text, but simply made the same identical word replacement, or I have made the assumption that you now understand the definition of the word from its earlier notation. As I say, this method was not a scientific or scholarly one. But in all cases, I put forth considerable effort to remain true to the original intent of the text.   

I have also footnoted encyclopedic information for some of the nations, peoples, or terminology used in the text, wherever I felt it would be beneficial. I did not provide this service where I either felt the terms or names were common enough, or in cases where I could find no reference for the name or place, in which case I leave it to you to investigate the mystery.

Any suggestions, corrections, or comments are welcome. You can contact me at: hopeofzion@hotmail.com 

Sincerely,

Douglas F Hatten

Purchase the book here: http://www.lulu.com/content/885490

Here is a small sample of text from the book, if you are interested: http://www.hopeofzion.com/clement/clement_sample.pdf