ƒ Vessel. 10 For the day is at hand in which all things shall be destroyed, together with the wicked one. The Lord is near, and his reward is with him. 11 I beseech you therefore again, and again, be as good lawgivers to one another; continue faithful counsellors to each other: remove from among you all hypocrisy. 12 And may God, the Lord of all the world, give you wisdom, knowledge, counsel, and understanding of his judgments in patience. 13 Be ye taught of God; seeking what it is the Lord requires of you, and doing it; that ye may be saved in the day of judgment. 14 And if there be among you any remembrance of what is good, think of me; meditating upon these things, that both my desire and my watching for you may turn to a good ac count. 15 I beseech you; I ask it as a favour of you, whilst you are in this beautiful tabernacle of the body, be wanting in none of these things; but without ceasing seek them, and fulfil every command: for these things are fitting and worthy to be done. 16 Wherefore I have given the more diligence to write unto you, according to my ability, that you might rejoice. Farewell children of love and peace. 17 The Lord of glory, and of all grace, be with your spirit. Amen. The end of the Epistle of Barnabas, the Apostle, and fellow-traveller of St. Paul, the Apos tle. Of the Second epistle of St. Clement: that it it is not of equal repu tation with the former: by some denied to be St. Clement's. It is most probable that it was written by St. Clement, and has many excellent things, and worthy of that holy man, in it. These two pieces now the first time translated into our own language. cles. lib. iii. 1. That this second epistle was not of so great a reputation among the Primitive Fathers, as the foregoing, Eusebius not only tells us, P but gives us this testimony? Hist. Ecof it, that he could not find it quoted, as the other was, c. 38. by any of them. But St. Jerome is more severe; 4 he? De Script. represents it to us as rejected by them: and Photius af r in Clemente. 112, 113. ter him, calls it a spurious piece. And not to mention Phot. Cod. any more, our most reverend Bishop Usher not only concurs in the same censure, but offers several arguments in proof of it." but Dissert. de Script Ignat. cap. 10. 2. And yet, when all is done, it does not appear that St. Clement was indeed the author of this, as well as of the other epistle before spoken of; though it was not so much esteemed, nor so generally known to the ancients as that. In the manuscript of St. Theclat we Vid. Catal. find this set forth under the same title with the other. Bevereg. Codex cast non. vindi And in all the other catalogues of the ancients, where- cat. 289. cles. lib. 3. c. 38. V Hist. Ec- 3. Nor does Eusebius deny this epistle to be St. Clement's but only says that it was not so celebrated as the other. And it is true we do not find it either so of ten or so expressly mentioned as that. But yet if the to Devinat. conjecture of Wendeline, w approved by a very learned man of our own country, may be admitted; EusebiCod. Canon. us himselfy will afford us an instance of one who not de Epist. Clem. * Bevereg. Vindic. lib. p. 286. y Duseb. Hist. Eccles. ii. c. 9. 10, only spake of it, but spake of it as wont to be publicly read in the church of Corinth. For discoursing of lib. iv. c. 23. the epistles of Dionysius, Bishop of that See, he tells us, that in one of them which he wrote to the Romans, he took notice of St. Clement's epistle in these words: to day have we kept the Lord's day with all holiness; in which we have read your epistle, as we shall always continue to read it for our instruction, together with the former written to us by Clement. What that epistle was of which Dionysius here speaks, as written by the church of Rome to that of Corinth, and publicly read in the congregation there, does not appear. Bishop Beveridge, after Wendeline, conceives it to have been that which Clement wrote in the name of that church to them; and so the former epistle spoken of by Dionysius, will be this second, written in his own name to the Corinthians, not by authority of the Roman Church. But this, others will by no means allow; they supcileg. tom. 1. pose the letter which Dionysius says was read that day among them, to have been some other epistle, either of Soter, or of the church of Rome; and make use of this very passage, to prove that they had received but one epistle from St. Clement, nor knew of any other that had been written by him. * See Dr. Grabe's Spi p. 265. a Hæres. 27. num. 6. 4. And yet Epiphanius a expressly tells us, that this epistle, no less than the foregoing, was in his time wont to be publicly read in the congregation. And though St. Jerome and Photius speak indeed but meanly of it in those places where they seem to deliver the judgment of Eusebius rather than their own opinion; yet upon ron. adv. Jo other occasions they make no exception against the See He authority of it, but equally ascribe it to St. Clement vin. tom. iii. with the other, of which there is no doubt. fol. 12. Photius Cod. 126. in 5. Having said thus much concerning these two last Clem. pieces, with which the present collection is concluded; I have but this to add, that they are both of them now first of all given in our own language, and presented to the perusal of the English reader: the former from the old Latin version, which is by some much complained Barthius of, though by others d as strongly defended: the latter ler. not in from the original Greek, as it was published by Mr. & Cotelerius Patrick Young from the Alexandrian manuscript, the only copy that, for aught appears, does at this day remain of it. apud. Cote Herm. p. 44. ibid. Notes upon p. 94. 6. If any one shall ask how it came to pass that our learned countryman, Mr. Burton, when he set out the former epistle of St. Clement in English, did not subjoin this to it; the answer which himselfe warrants Burton's us to return, is this: that taking what has been said by St. Clement. the ancients before mentioned, in the strictest sense, he looked upon this epistle as a spurious piece, which though it carried the name of St. Clement, was yet truly no more his, than those constitutions and recognitions, which are also published under the same name, but are generally acknowledged to be none of his, as in the prosecution of this discourse I shall take occasion more fully to shew. 7. As for the epistle itself, I have concluded it somewhat sooner than the Greek, which yet remains of it, does. But that which I have omitted is only an imper fect piece of a sentence, which would have made the conclusion much more abrupt than it is now: I chose rather to add what followed here, than to continue it there. And to make the reader the better amends for this liberty, I have not only subjoined what remains of St. Clement, but have endeavoured to make out the sense f Clem. Rom. ex. of what is wanting in our copy from the other Clement, who seems to have followed this original. "For the Lord himself being asked by a certain person, f when his kingdom should come, answered, when ms. Regio. two shall be one; and that which is without as that which is within; and the male with the female, neither male nor female. Now two are one, when we speak the truth to each other; and there is, (without hypocrisy,) one soul in two bodies. And that which is without as that which is within; he means this; he calls the soul that which is within, and the body that which is without. As therefore thy body appears, so let thy soul be seen by its good works. And the male with the feEx. Clem. male, neither male nor female;- He means: g he calls our anger the male, our concupiscence the female. When therefore a man is come to such a pass, that he is subject neither to the one nor the other of these; both of which through the prevalence of custom, and an evil education, cloud and darken the reason; but rather having dispelled the mist arising from them, and being full of shame, shall by repentance have united both his soul and spirit in the obedience of reason; then, as Paul says, there is in us neither male nor female. Alexaudria. |