Leaving, however, the few and feeble analogies by which apologists vainly seek to establish the existence of the fourth Gospel and its use by the author of the pseudo-Clementine Homilies, and considering the question for a moment from a wider point of view, the results already attained are more than confirmed. The doctrines held and strongly enunciated in the Clementines seem to us to exclude the supposition that the author can have made use of a work so fundamentally at variance with all his views as the fourth Gospel, and it is certain that, holding those opinions, he could hardly have regarded such a Gospel as an apostolic and authoritative document. Space will not permit our entering adequately into this argument, and we must refer our readers to works more immediately devoted to the examination of the Homilies for a close analysis of their dogmatic teaching,(1) but we may in the briefest manner point out some of their more prominent doctrines in contrast with those of the Johannine Gospel.
One of the leading and most characteristic ideas of the Clementine Homilies is the essential identity of Judaism and Christianity. Christ revealed nothing new with regard to God, but promulgated the very same truth concerning him as Adam, Moses, and the Patriarchs, and in fact the right belief is that Moses and Jesus were essentially one and the same.(1) Indeed, it may be said that the teaching of the Homilies is more Jewish than Christian.(2) In the preliminary Epistle of the Apostle Peter to the Apostle James, when sending the book, Peter entreats that James will not give it to any of the Gentiles,(3) and James says: "Necessarily and rightly our Peter reminded us to take precautions for the security of the truth, that we should not communicate the books of his preachings, sent to us, indiscriminately to all, but to him who is good and discreet and chosen to teach, and who is circumcised,(4) being faithful."(5) &c. Clement also is represented as describing his conversion to Christianity in the following terms: "For this cause I fled for refuge to the Holy God and Law of the Jews, with faith in the certain conclusion that, by the righteous judgment of God, both the Law is prescribed, and the soul beyond doubt everywhere receives
the desert of its actions."(1) Peter recommends the inhabitants of Tyre to follow what are really Jewish rites, and to hear "as the God-fearing Jews have heard "(2) The Jew has the same truth as the Christian: "For as there is one teaching by both (Moses and Jesus), God accepts him who believes either of these."(3) The Law was in fact given by Adam as a true prophet knowing all things, and it is called "Eternal," and neither to be abrogated by enemies nor falsified by the impious.(4) The author, therefore, protests against the idea that Christianity is any new thing, and insists that Jesus came to confirm, not abrogate, the Mosaic Law.(5) On the other hand the author of the fourth Gospel represents Christianity in strong contrast and antagonism to Judaism.(6) In his antithetical system, the religion of Jesus is opposed to Judaism as well as all other belief, as Light to Darkness and Life to Death.(7) The Law which Moses gave is treated as merely national, and neither of
general application nor intended to be permanent, being only addressed to the Jews. It is perpetually referred to as the "Law of the Jews," "your Law,"—and the Jewish festivals as Feasts of the Jews, and Jesus neither held the one in any consideration nor did he scruple to shew his indifference to the other.(1) The very name of "the Jews" indeed is used as an equivalent for the enemies of Christ.(2) The religion of Jesus is not only absolute, but it communicates knowledge of the Father which the Jews did not previously possess.(3) The inferiority of Mosaism is everywhere represented: "and out of his fulness all we received, and grace for grace. Because the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ."(4) "Verily verily I say unto you: Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven."(6) The fundamental difference of Christianity from Judaism will further appear as we proceed.
The most essential principle of the Clementines, again, is Monotheism,—the absolute oneness of God,—which the author vehemently maintains as well against the ascription of divinity to Christ as against heathen Polytheism and the Gnostic theory of the Demiurge as distinguished from the Supreme God.(6) Christ not only is not God,
but he never asserted himself to be so.(1) He wholly ignores the doctrine of the Logos, and his speculation is confined to the [———], the Wisdom of Proverbs viii., &c., and is, as we shall see, at the same time a less developed and very different doctrine from that of the fourth Gospel.(2) The idea of a hypostatic Trinity seems to be quite unknown to him, and would have been utterly abhorrent to his mind as sheer Polytheism. On the other hand, the fourth Gospel proclaims the doctrine of a hypostatic Trinity in a more advanced form than any other writing of the New Testament. It is, indeed, the fundamental principle of the work,(3) as the doctrine of the Logos is its most characteristic feature. In the beginning the "Word not only was with God, but "the Word was God" [———].(4)