Ott Pecsuk*: The Traces of Anti-Paulinism in the Pseudo-Clementine

literature

It is hard to take the expression anti-Paulinism literally, since we cannot find any direct
reference to Apostle Paul in the pseudo-Clementine literature. The situation narrated by the
authors of either the Recognitions or the Homilies dates is to be dated if we want to adjust it to
the chronology of the Acts (cf. 8,9-24; 9,1-9) around the conversion of Paul (unless we accept
that this Simon is not the Simon of the Acts), and the authors were careful to avoid any
anachronisms. At the same time, they make extensive use of the canonical NT writings, mostly
the four gospels and the Pauline letters.
Yet, as early as the 4th century A. D.C.E. Epiphanius, bishop of Salamis in his treatise Adversus
omnes haereses (30.16.7-9) accused the writer of the Recognitions of harshly attacking the
Apostle.1 In modern scholarship the followers of the Tbingen School saw the pseudoClementines as excellent examples of Jewish Christian literature. They argued that these
documents showed how much hated Paul was in the eyes of the pillars of the Jerusalem
Church.2 According to this interpretation, Simon the Magician is only a symbol of the law-free
Gentile mission of early Christianity i.e. the apostle Paul himself. This view still exists today,
hence the frequent allusions to the so called anti-Paulinist tendencies of the ps.-Clementines.
On the other hand, it is true that some passages are rather hard to interpret without this
assumption. It is worth taking a look at these passages generally regarded as containing hidden
anti-Paulinism. To what extent do they reflect either the person or the teaching of the historical
Paul as we know him from his extant letters and the canonical Acts of the Apostles? What are the
different pieces of evidence (grammatical, historical or theological) that compel us to see a
critique towards Paul in the ps.-Clementines? And last but not least, what kind of reconstruction
do they suggest, in terms of the community situation behind the text?
1

* Theologian. Docent Assistant Professor atof the Kroli Gspr Reformed University of the Reformed Church in
Hungary, Department of Biblical Theology. His rResearch area: Pauline Studies, History of Early Christianity,
Greco-Roman religions, NT Translation Studies - krlek, egsztsd ki
.
The source for this attack must have been a certain Jewish Christian writing called Anabathmoi Jakobu see in
Anchor Bible Dictionary I. Ed. David Noel Freedman,. New York: Doubleday, 1999. 1062.
2
See Ferdinand Christian Baur, The Church History of the First Three Centuries I. Trans. by Allan Menzies. London:
Williams and Norgate, 1878.. 44-183.

Obviously we cannot cover all the loci that possibly reflect such tendency, but generally three
major literary blocks are mentioned in this respect. 1. The supposed written source of the
dialogues between Peter and Simon the Magician, namely the Krygmata Petru (Preachings of
Peter) preserved best in the Homilies: II.16-17; XVII.13-19. 2. The Epistle of Peter to James,
which is prefixed to the Homilies. 3. various passages scattered throughout the narrative,
especially in the first and second books of the Recognitions: I.19; II.70-72; I.39; I.70-71.
Testimony of the Krygmata Petru
H II.16-17.
In this passage Peter is teaching Clement and argues that God always brought forth the good
things first and the bad things only afterwards, in the second place. Thus God created first heaven
and then the earth. Among men (in Salvation history) the order is just the opposite: from Adam
first came the unrighteous Cain, and then the righteous Abel; Noah (whom Peter - for the sake of
his Roman disciple - calls Deucalion) first sent out of the ark an impure black raven and a pure
white dove; from Abraham first Ishmael was born and then Isaac; from Isaac first the profane
Esau and then the pious Jacob; Aaron the high priest was the firstborn and his younger brother,
the lawgiver Moses came only after him. Although the examples were somewhat forced, Peter
continues with an even more problematic conclusion:
It were possible, following this order, to perceive to what series Simon belongs, who came before
me to the Gentiles, and to which I belong who came after him, and have come in upon him as
light upon darkness, as knowledge upon ignorance, as healing upon disease. 3

Peter even broadens the perspective and says that the false prophet is followed by the true Gospel
and the Antichrist must precede the second coming of Christ. Unless we see a hidden critique of
Pauls teaching of the divine order of salvation in this argumentation where Christ as the
second or last Adam (1Cor 15:45 egeneto ho prtos anthrpos Adam eis psychn zsan, ho
eschatos Adam eis pneuma zopoiun) is in every sense a good second after a bad first it is
not easy to understand where the Apostle Paul is attacked in this text. The enigmatic reference to
Simon who came before me to the Gentiles can by no means refer to Paul who was clearly
second after Peter in the Gentile-mission of the Church (cf. Acts 10). If the tradition is
3

The source of quotations from the ps.-Clementines is the Ante-Nicene Fathers series.

trustworthy (R II.7; Justin Martyr Apol. I. 26.1-3) and Simon the Magician was of Samaritan
origin, performing miracles in the highly Hellenized Samaria (Sebaste was mainly inhabited by
Greeks) the reference must be correct. In short, the only vague connection between Peters
sarcastic words and the Apostle Paul could be the term Gentile which is not enough to prove
the anti-Pauline nature of the passage.4
H XVII. 13-19.
When I earlier referred to some passages that are difficult to understand without a presumed antiPaulinism behind them, I meant this one. First, Peter denies Simons claims that he can see Jesus
incorporeal form in vision (horamati) or apparition (optasia). 5 He makes a strong statement over
these visions: But if one sees an apparition (optasian), he should know that this is the apparition
of an evil demon (kaku daimonos tautn einai noeit). The words evoke the scenario of Pauls
vision on the Damascus road, even more so if we look at the fact that in Acts 26,19 Luke uses the
same word (optasia) when Paul tells the story of his conversion to King Agrippa. Moreover If this
was not enough, in 2Cor 12,1 Paul himself boasts of the visions and revelations of the Lord
(kauchasthai dei: eleusomai de eis optasias kai apokalypseis kyriu). In Gal 1,12 Paul proudly
confesses the same thing of which Peter here accuses Simon: I did not receive it (i.e. the Gospel)
from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through a revelation of Jesus Christ (oude gar eg
para anthrpu parelabon auto ute edidachthn alla di apokalypses Isu Christu). According to
Peter, only the statements of wrath are made through visions (di horamatn) and dreams
(enypnin)as to an enemy (hs pros echthron). Peter asks Simon if any one can be rendered
fit for instruction through apparitions? He continues if you will say It is possiblehow are
we to believe your word, when you entertain opinions contrary to His teaching?... if you were
seen and taught by him, and became His apostle for a single hour, proclaim His utterances,
interpret His sayings, love His apostles This reminds us how often Paul claims himself to be
an apostle of Christ, equal to the others. 6 Peters accusations echo how often Paul put an

The Gentile-mission played a prominent part in the theology of the community behind the ps.-Clementine literature:
cf. R I.42.
5
Is the theology of Paul accused here behind the accusations against Simon? Cf. From now on, therefore, we regard
no one from a human point of view; even though we once regarded Christ from a human point of view, we regard
him thus no longer (2Cor 5,16).
6
1Cor 9,,1; 15,9; 2Cor 11,5; 1Tim 2,7 etc.

emphasis on the fact that he had not preached the message of the earthly Jesus Christ but the
Gospel of the crucified and risen Lord.7
There is one further expression that shows a direct parallel with Pauline literature: Peter warns
Simon that if you say that I am condemned (ei kategnsmenon me legeis), you bring an
accusation against God Paul uses exactly the same word (Gal 2,11) when he gives an account
of his meeting with Peter in Antioch: when Cephas came to Antioch I opposed him to his
face, because he stood condemned (hoti kategnsmenos n). These lexical parallels seem to be
more than mere coincidence. It is hard to believe that they have nothing to do with Paul and his
letters. While the narrative itself is perfectly arranged around the controversy between Simon and
Peter, the underlying vocabulary still remind us of Peters original reflections on the Antioch
scene.8 Once more we can take Streckers statement about the complicated stratification of the psClementines proven.9
Testimony of the Epistle of Peter to James
This pseudonymous letter was probably attached to the whole corpus of literature as an
explanation of the late appearance of the Homilies.10 Peter warns James to be careful when
communicating the books of Peters homilies with anyone not yet worthy of them. He reminds
James of the way Moses delivered his books to the seventy elders who were so successful in
preserving them that his countrymen keep the same rule of monarchy and polity everywhere,
being unable in any way to think otherwise (ch. I.). After his general advice, Peter reveals his
fear concerning the present situation and what the future may bring:
some from among the Gentiles have rejected my legal preaching, attaching themselves to
certain lawless and trifling preaching of the man who is my enemy. And these things some have
attempted while I am still alive, to transform my words by certain various interpretations, in order
to the dissolution of the law () if, while I am still alive, they dare thus to misrepresent me, how
much more will those who shall come after me dare to do so!

1Cor 1,,23; 2,2; 2Cor 5,16ff; Gal 6,14.

Georg Strecker, Das Judenchristentum in den Pseudoklementinen. TU 70 (1958): 187 ff.
9
In Walter Bauer, Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity. Transl. by Robert A. Kraft and Gerhard Kroedel.
Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971. 268.
10
Ante-Nicene Fathers 8. Ed. by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson. Peabody: Hendrickson, 1994. 215. n. 1.
8

The catchwords of this passage are unmistakable: Gentiles, legal preaching, lawless
preaching and the man who is my enemy. The latter (echthros) seems to be a recurring noun
(cf. H XVII. 13-19), which may easily denote the same person as in the Krygmata Petru. This
enemy can hardly be Simon the Magician since it is not probable that at the time of the
compilation of the ps.-Clementines Simons false teachings could have any effect on the tradition
of Peters Gospel. But what about Pauls teachings? Even if we accept that certain allusions to
him in the original Krygmata Petru might have survived the subsequent editions, as we saw it
earlier, how could he represent the arch-enemy of a Jewish Christian community in the third or
fourth centuries? One possible answer is that the different layers of the ps.-Clementine literature
are signs of a gradually self-isolating Jewish Christian community. The Epistle of Peter to James
was probably written at the final stage of this process perhaps in Armenian Syria 11 , when this
isolated community faithfully preserved an otherwise quite absurd anti-Pauline heritage as part of
their self-identity regardless of what was happening at that time in the broader context, in the
Catholic Church, which has already chosen between Pauls Gentile Christianity and the
Jewish models of Christianity.12
Testimony of the Recognitions Narrative
R I.19. and R II. 70-72.
In the first passage we can read of how separatist Peters behaviourbehavior towards Clement
was: after the instruction, Peter retired to take food with his friends but he ordered Clement to
eat by himself. Having finished the evening meal and the singing of praise to God, he explained
that the baptized cannot eat with the catechumeni. Although it would be easy for us to refer
to the Antioch scene as a parallel of this type of behaviourbehavior (cf. Gal 2,11-14), the two are
so different in terms of their religious background that it would be of no help at all. With a little
exaggeration we can say that the ps.-Clementine Peter seems to belong to another religion: the
problem of circumcision is already forgotten and the new factor of distinction within the
11

Cf. Bauer, Orthodoxy, 265.

This scenario is not far from Brandons reconstruction who argued that the Jerusalem Church and Jewish
Christianity as a whole disappeared after 70 A.D. and reappeared only in the late second century as a more or less
ebionite community (Samuel Georg Frederik Brandon, The Fall of Jerusalem and the Christian Church. London:
S.P.C.K., 1978.). Another possible reconstruction is that of Schoeps who claimed that the Jerusalem Church survived
the siege of Jerusalem and reorganized itself in Pella (Hans Joachim Schoeps, Theologie und Geschichte des
Judenchristentums. Tbingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1949.). Both claim that the ps.-Clementine literature comes from this
community.
12

Christian community is baptism. In the second passage Peter makes clear that the cause of
separation is the ritual uncleanness of the catechumeni:
every one who has any time worshipped idols, and adored those whom the pagans call gods, or
has eaten of the things sacrificed to them, is not without an unclean spirit

Paul in 1Cor 10,14-33 wrestles with a similar dilemma: he warns against idolatry and things
connected to idolatry for the sake of the weak. In order to protect the strong from breaking
the fellowship with Christ he orders: I do not want you to be partners with demons (v. 20).
Similarly to Peters understanding of Baptism in Recognitions, Baptism in Pauls theology was
also the a means of purification from sin (cf. Rm 6,4-7) as well as the a seal of unity:
maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spiritone Lord,
one faith, one baptism (Eph 4,4-5). Pauls concept of baptism fostered unity endangered by
ritual separatism (i.e. circumcised vs. uncircumcised) within Jewish Christians. In the ps.Clementines we can observe a later development in the situation of Jewish Christians. After the
fall of Jerusalem, Jewish ritual requirements among Jewish Christians must have been weakened
to such an extent that circumcision was eventually replaced by baptism. 13 R I.39. supports this
view. Here we find the communitys understanding of the new paradigm: when the Prophet
came who was promised by Moses, he warned the Jews to give up the sacrifices and receive
baptism instituted by him (so that they should not think there was no forgiveness of sins after the
abolition of sacrifices: ne forte putarent cessantibus hostiis remissionem sibi non fieri
peccatorum). This baptism had a twofold role: a) the forgiveness of sins (ab omnibus peccatis
solverentur) and b) the sign of eternal election (perfectam vitam sequentes in immortalitate
durarentsapientiae Dei purificatione purgati).
In summary: these passages show no sign of anti-Paulinism, although a comparison of religious
phenomena with early Pauline practice can help us fix the date of the community behind the text
(surely several decades after 70 A. D.).
R I.70-72.

13

According to Schoeps, Jesus baptism was believed among the ebionites to bring salvation to people. Schoeps,
Theologie, 157.

The passage talks about an incredible story of a riot with fight and bloodshed, right in the yard of
the Temple and in the very centre of the riot unmistakably stands Saulus. 14 James has almost
convinced the multitude to accept baptism when the already mentioned echthros (homo
quidam inimicus) enters the Temple and instigates the people against James and his fellowChristians (Quid facitis, o viri Israelitae? Cur vobis tam facile subripitur? Cur praecipites
ducimini ab hominibus infelicissimis, et a Simone Mago deceptis?...cur non manibus nostris
invadimus et discerpimus omnes hos?). When he sees that James almost manages to silence the
people, Saulus attacks James himself and throws him down from the top of the steps and
assuming that he is dead, leaves him there. After the fight where the faithful believers for fear
of God (propter reverentiam Dei) only defend themselves they gathered in James house. In
the meantime Saulus receives a commission from Caiaphas that he should arrest all who believe
in Jesus and should go to Damascus with his letters in order to arrest Peter as soon as possible.
The fascinating story clearly tries to blame Saulus (the Pre-Christian name of Paul) for
everything that happened to the Christians in Jerusalem after the death of Stephen. Although
historically the whole thing is impossible15 it clearly shows how dangerous the religious-political
situation was in Jerusalem in the first decade after Jesus death and resurrection. The story itself
resembles a myth with all the necessary exaggerations, turmoil, black and white colors of the
characters, very positive and terribly negative roles, and the figure of the Apostle Paul stands in
the middle as the most sinister one.
It seems that Paul never really got rid of his past as a persecutor of the church (Phil 3,6). In the
collective memory of Jewish Christianity, even his outstanding missionary efforts and successes
could not wipe out his past crimes.
Summary
This short investigation has tried toIn the course of this short investigation we tried to justify the
commonly accepted notion that a strong anti-Paulinism is an important feature of the ps.Clementine literature. Among the most frequently cited passages carrying anti-Paulinism, there
14

This name is not mentioned except once on the margin of one of the manuscripts, but the sequence of events and
the pontifical commmission connected to the Damascus road make the allusion clear.
15
James was killed in 62 A. D. in Jerusalem, when Paul was most probably in Roman custody in Caesarea or on his
way to Rome. The role of the troublemaker was played by a certain Aranus at Josephus (Ant. 20.9.1) while at
Eusebius (HE 2.23) we can read a story (based on Hegesippus) very similar to that of the Recognitions except for the
fact that, according to Eusebius, the Scribes and the Pharisees throw James down from the Sanctuary parapet, they
start to stone him and finally an anonymous laundryman kills him with a club.

are some in which we did not find clear signs of anti-Paulinism. In these passages Simon the
Magician is the key figure, and there is no point in identifying him with someone else (Paul or
Marcion, Valentinus or Mani). In other passages we cannot rule out the possibility that Paul is
behind the depicted either in the character of Simon the Magician or at least he is alluded toby
simple allusion. These passages probably belong to the earlier strata of the literature and
represent the initial tensions between Paul the advocate of Gentile mission and the Jerusalem
Church. The last group of text is characterized by a fervent hatred towards Paul. It was not so
much his historical and theological role that triggered the hostility (these stories do not even try
to be accurate in a historical sense), it was more the simple fact of marginalization and isolation
of these Jewish Christian groups that needed a symbolic figure of the mainstream church to be
angry with.
The key figure of the pseudo-Clementine literature remains Simon the Magician, whoever he
really was. Just because there are a few instances when Pauls shadow is more or less
recognizable behind Simon, it is wrong to say that the Apostle Paul must be the key to understand
the life of the community writing and reading the pseudo-Clementines. Simon the Magician has
several features that cannot be reconciled with Paul, not even by his enemies. For example, in R
II. 39. he argues for polytheism on the basis of the Pentateuch, which is impossible to reconcile
with what we know about a former Pharisee, the Apostle of the Gentiles.