A noble Roman, harassed by his doubts and eager for truth, travels to the east, and there learns Christian truth, which makes him happy. It is the former part of the narrative, viz. the doubts of Clemens before becoming a Christian, which is alluded to in the text, and is adduced by Neander, Kirchengeschichte, i. pp. 54-56, as an instance of the preparation for the reception of Christianity made by a sense of want in many hearts. But it is the latter part which is valuable in a literary point of view, on account of the light which the exposition of Christian doctrine contained in it throws upon the Judaizing Gnostics, being an attempt to reconcile Ebionitism with the teaching of St. Paul. Its interest in this point of view has caused it to be made the subject of several monographs by German theologians. A list of them, with an account of the phases of doctrine described, is given in Kurtz's Church History, E. T. § 48, and in Hase's Church History, § 35, 75, and 80. One of the most important of them is Schliemann's Die Clemetinen, 1844.
Note 12. p. [48]. The Absence Of References To Christianity In Heathen Writers Of The Second Century.
Tzchirner has investigated this subject in an interesting dissertation, Græci et Romani Scriptores cur rerum Christianarum raro meminerint; Opusc. Acad. p. 283. Lips. 1829, (translated in the Journal of Sacred Literature, Jan. 1853;) and has discussed the passages where mention is made of Christianity. The following is the substance of his inquiries.
Though the notices concerning Christianity in heathen writers are scanty, the silence of Eusebius gives good ground for inferring, that not many further notices existed concerning it in the works which are lost, than have been preserved to us. Perhaps a few passages may have been erased in which Christianity was blasphemed, even in that which is preserved.
The silence concerning Christianity during the first century is not surprising; because the Christians, if known at all, would be regarded as a Jewish sect, as in Acts xviii. 15; xxiii. 29; xxv. 19. In the third century they are both noticed and attacked. The inquiry therefore with regard to the silence about them, refers only to the period from about A.D. 80-180.
During this period, among the Greek writers who omit all mention of Christianity, are Dio Chrysostom; Plutarch (for the passage, Quæst. iv, 4. § 3, about happiness consisting in hope, probably does not refer to them); Œnomaus, who wrote expressly to ridicule religion; Maximus Tyrius; and Pausanias: and among Latin ones, Juvenal, who several times mentions the Jews, but only indirectly refers to the Christians (Sat. i. 185-7), Aulus Gellius, and Apuleius; (for the opinion of Warburton, Div. Leg. [pg 401] b. ii. § 4, that an allusion is intended, is now rejected,[1063] unless one perhaps exists in Met. ix. ed. Panck. ii. 195.)
Among those who name Christians we find,—
In Trajan's reign, Tacitus, who describes their persecution by Nero (Ann. xv. 44); Suetonius, who names them, Vit. Neron. ch. 16, and describes them as seditious, Vit. Claud. 25, if indeed the word Chresto in the paragraph is intended for Christo; and Pliny the younger, in the well-known letter to Trajan (Ep. x. 96).
In the reign of Hadrian we find, in a fragment of Hadrian's works in Vopiscus's Life of Saturninus (ch. viii.) a mention of them, comparing them with Serapid worshippers; and one quoted by Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. iv. 9, addressed to a proconsul of Asia. Also Arrian names them in two passages, in one describing them as obstinate, Diss. Epictet. b. iv. ch. vii. and in the other speaking either of them or of the Jews as βαπτισταί (b. ii. ch. ii.)