Saturday, April 21, 2012

PG001(col. 194): On the Two Epistles of the Roman Clement. Section VI.

(From the "Works of the apostolic Fathers" of Karl Josef von Hefele, <published> at Tubingen, 1842, in octavo)
Googlebooks PDF: PG001


     VI.  Learned men of recent times all <unanimously> acknowledge both the authority and integrity of the first epistle of Clement, and no rather serious doubting is now moved regarding this matter.  For whom would <escape> the primeval simplicity with which it is adorned, the evangelical wisdom, with which excels the apostolic preaching which this epistle of Clement sounds?  <Does it not surely> present itself as most worthy of an apostolic man?  Clearly, all indications of authority are present to it.  Hear <Henry> Wotton[[34]]: He says, "In it the reason of the age is not violated, nothing against the" (ancient) "discipline of the Church is established; nothing against Christian doctrine is taught; the style and method of speaking most closely accedes to the New Testament, nor is anything found in it that is not most worthy of an apostolic man."  And <in> another passage[[35]]: "That force and divine energy everywhere shines out in him" (Clement), "which <things> by their own splendor strike the soul of the reader; such that I might almost say you would think the Spirit of God, not man, is speaking in him."
     Hugo Grotius[[36]], argues that indications of not feigned antiquity are found in out epistle: "About Christ he always speaks not Platonically as later <writers>, but quite simply, and as Paul the Apostle is accustomed.  Also, other dogmas, later rather subtly explained, he treats rather simply, and he uses the words 'calling', 'called', 'elect'[[A]] with the plainly Pauline meaning.


Notes
34. Preface, page 206.

35. In the Dedication.

36. In the Epistle to Bignon, in Cotelier's edition of "Apostolic Fathers", tome 1, page 134.  (Above <at> column 47)


My Notes
A. Grotius lists these words in the genitive case in line with the Latin idiom, which would literally read, "he uses the words of X, Y, Z"

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