Letter C

C

THE STONE, or the white pebble, inscribed with a new name. Of this Jesus Christ, the Son of God, in the second chapter of the Apocalypse, ¹ says: TO THE CONQUEROR I will give a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no one knows, except him who receives it. Which words Arethas, bishop of Caesarea, expounding, in the commentaries on the Apocalypse, writes thus: TO THE CONQUEROR of the devil God promises a white stone — that is, [a reward] shining with reward, honor, and fame. And he put in this place the white stone, because it was known to those who contended in the theatres and stadiums, and was given to the victors. But the new name is the reward of eternal beatitude, which in the present life is unknown: since those goods which God has prepared for those who love him, the eye has not seen, nor has the ear heard, nor have they ascended into the heart of man; ² but they are new to us, when, after this life, we enter into their possession. Thus Arethas. It is also known that among the ancient Ethnics [pagans] the days of victories, engraved in the public tablets of the fasti, were wont to be marked beforehand with a white pebble, that they might more clearly be discerned from the other days. ³ To which custom alluding, Zoenzonius [so printed — the poet’s name is uncertain], a Christian poet, sang the triumphal day of our Saviour in this hendecasyllable:

O day festal to the peoples, and white day, who, returning, makest us blessed — this [day], O Muse, mark every year with a snowy pebble.

CALLIMACHVS the Cyrenean, among the Greeks a noble poet, who lived from [the time of] Ptolemy Philadelphus down to Euergetes, attained every kind of poem. Against an adversary he wrote a most bitter poem, whom, under a feigned name, he called IBIS; whence Ovid the poet borrowed the name and argument of the work in his Ibis. ⁴ He published elegies, epigrams, and hymns to the gods. Chanting the praises of Jove, he accuses the Cretans, and, as vain and lying, refutes them — because they boasted that they had among them the sepulcher of Jove, who is an immortal God. ⁵ The sentence of these verses, as Origen is witness, Paul (against the Cretans, in the epistle to Titus) turned [to his own use]. See below, in [the entry] Epimenides.

CAMBYSES, whom Esdras names Ahasuerus and Artaxerxes, son of Cyrus king of the Persians, wrote to Rheum Beelthee[m] [Rehum Beelteem], and the other prefects of Samaria, a letter, by which he ordered the building of the Jewish temple to be entirely hindered. See the first book of Esdras, chapter four.

THE WISDOM OF THE CHALDEANS, in Hebrew חכמת כשדים Chochemath Chasceddim — which is called also Aramaean, and Assyrian, and Syriac, and Babylonian — in which Daniel the prophet writes that he, together with his three companions, was made learned among the Babylonians, ⁶ in these words: AND the king commanded Asphenez [Ashpenaz], that he should bring in, of the sons of Israel and of the royal seed, boys in whom was no blemish, comely in form, and apt to be instructed in all wisdom, and docile in all discipline, that he might teach them the letters and the tongue of the Chaldeans. ⁷ And after a few things he adds: But to these boys God gave knowledge and discipline in every book, and wisdom; and every word of wisdom and of understanding which the king inquired of them, he found in them tenfold above all the soothsayers and magi who were in his whole kingdom. ⁸ These things Daniel; who, in the same volume testifies that there were then, among the Babylonians, several diversities of wise men, and reports that all these were summoned by the kings Nebuchadnezzar and Balthasar for the interpretation of difficult dreams, saying: THE king Nebuchadnezzar therefore commanded that the soothsayers, magi, malefics, and Chaldeans should be called together, to declare to the king his dreams. ⁹ And below: THEN there came in to king Nebuchadnezzar the soothsayers, magi, Chaldeans, and haruspices. ¹⁰ And in the fifth chapter: THE king Balthasar therefore cried out mightily, that they should bring in the magi, Chaldeans, and haruspices. ¹¹ From which words it appears that the wisdom of the Assyrians, or Chaldeans, was at that time distinguished into five orders of wise men; whose names, written in Chaldee in the book of Daniel, are these: כשדים Chascedim, that is, Chaldeans; אשפים Asaphim, that is, Magi; חרטמים Chartumim, that is, Soothsayers; מכשפים Mecasphim, that is, Malefics; גזרים Gazarim, that is, Augurs, or Haruspices. Concerning which, those things which I have read among various writers, I thought should be here annexed.

CHASCEDDIM, that is, the name of the Chaldeans ¹² (under whose appellation sometimes either all, or the several sects of the Babylonian wise men, are designated), properly and particularly in Daniel — as Jerome says — signifies the kind of men whom the common sort calls Mathematicians and Genethliacs [astrologers]. These, Pliny says, had their beginning from Belus Jove [Bel], father of Ninus king of the Assyrians, ¹³ the first inventor of the sidereal science. ¹⁴ These most diligently observed the motions of the heavens, and were occupied about the reckonings of astronomy, and the predictions which are made from the observation of the stars. Of these Philo, in the book On Abraham, makes mention in this manner: THE CHALDEANS, exercised among the first in the sidereal science, attributed all things to the motions of the stars, from which they believed the powers of the world to be dispensed — [powers] which consist of numbers and their proportions. These venerated visible things, not perceiving the invisible and intelligible, but following only their order; and so, from the circuits of the Sun, the Moon, the wandering and the fixed stars, and the distinction of the year into four seasons, and the consensus of celestial and terrestrial things, they thought the world itself to be God — by a profane opinion making the creature like to the creator. These things Philo, concerning the Chaldeans; whom Jerome, in the epistle to the Hebrews [ad Paulinum], says asserted that the matter of this visible world is eternal, and produced by none. ¹⁵

ASAPHIM, ¹⁶ who by the ancient interpreter of the Latin edition [are called] Philosophers, by the LXX μάγοι, and by Jerome likewise Magi, philosophized concerning the causes of all things, as well divine as human. Origen thinks their author was Balaam, son of Beor, ¹⁷ whom Balac, king of Moab, summoned to execrate the people of the Hebrews with his dire imprecations; by whose vaticination-writings the Magi, admonished after many ages, set out from the east into Judaea, about to adore Christ. Diogenes Laertius, in the first book On the philosophers, writes that Zoroaster the Persian was prince of the Magi; ¹⁸ and that the Magi, as priests of the gods, were free for [their] worship, ¹⁹ and were wont to offer to them prayers, vows, and sacrifices, as if [the gods] would be heard [entreated] from these alone. Their dress was white, their bed the ground, their food herbs, cheese, and bread; they used a reed for a staff, on whose top a cheese fixed they applied to the mouth and ate.

Now their Dogmas and tenets were these: ²⁰ first of all, that there is One God, the first of all and eternal. And that Zoroaster taught this, Eusebius, in the first book of the Evangelical Preparation, asserts in these words: ZOROASTER the Magus, in the sacred book in which he collected Persian matters, writes thus word for word: GOD is the first of incorruptibles, eternal, unbegotten, without parts, most like to himself, the origin of all goods, expecting no rewards, best, most prudent, the father of right, thoroughly taught justice without instruction, perfect by nature, wise, the sole inventor of the sacred nature. Thus Eusebius. They also posited other second gods, or genii, whose substance they said was either fiery, or watery, or earthy. They reprehended the images and statues of the gods, and reproved the error of those who say that males and females are gods. They said that souls are immortal after this life, and that all things which are here endure by their [the gods’] prayers, and that men shall rise again; and that [it is] wicked and impious to burn the bodies of the dead with flames. Concerning justice also, and the other virtues, they disputed much. They interdicted the use of gold and silver. Philo, in the book Of special laws, thus speaks concerning the wisdom of the Magi: ²¹ THAT true Magic indeed — that is, the speculative science, by which the works of nature are discerned more clearly — as honorable and to be sought, not only common men follow, but even the greatest kings of kings, especially the Persians, [who are] so curious of these arts that it is not lawful [for one] to reign unless he have dealt familiarly with the Magi. ²² To which subscribing, Jerome, in the interpretation of this place, says: MAGI are those who philosophize concerning individual things. But common custom takes “Magi” for malefics; who are held otherwise among their own nation, in that they are philosophers of the Chaldeans — and to the science of this art the kings also and princes of that nation direct all things. Whence they themselves first, at the nativity of the Lord Savior, understood his rising [birth], and, coming to Bethlehem, adored him.

CHARTVMMIM, ²³ who by the LXX interpreters [are called] ἐπαοιδοί, that is, Incantators [enchanters], and by Jerome are named Harioli, [being] given to the excantations of demons, took their origin (as Pliny, Justin, and Augustine hand down) from Zoroaster, the other [a second Zoroaster], king of the Bactrians and a Magus, the first corruptor of true Magic; ²⁴ who alone among all mortals laughed on the day on which he was born, ²⁵ and whose brain so palpitated that it repelled a hand placed upon it — a presage, namely, of his future madness, by which he first drew down that admirable wisdom of the Magi, received from his elders, to the deliriums of incantations. Whence, by the just judgment of God, he was conquered in war by Ninus, king of the Assyrians, and expelled from his kingdom. Those, therefore, who followed him posited two principles (as Laertius reports), ²⁶ the one good, the other evil: [saying] that the good God is [God] of heaven, from whom all goods proceed, but the evil [one is] god of the lower regions, whence they judged all evils [to come]; which dogma the Manichaeans afterward divulged among the Christians. They said that the air is full of demons, which appear to them thinly, and as it were like evaporations; they professed divinations and predictions out of the colloquies of demons; and they thought it just that [a man] be mingled with mother and with daughter.

MECASPHIM, ²⁷ who by the LXX interpreters [are called] φαρμακοί, that is, are called Venefics [poison-workers]. Jerome calls them Malefics; and thinks them to be those who use blood and vic-[tims] and often touch the bodies of the dead, and divine from these.

GAZARIM, ²⁸ which the LXX interpreters rendered Γαζαρηνούς, that is, Gazarenes; Jerome, Haruspices — there are [those] who divine by inspecting the intestines of victims. Others by Gazarim understand Augurs, namely those who foretell future things either from the flight and song, or from the feeding of birds.

THESE, THEREFORE, were, under king Nebuchadnezzar, the parts and species of Babylonian Wisdom; in which, although the Prophet Daniel was most fully instructed by his Babylonian preceptors — as also of old Moses had been learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians — nevertheless, as Justin Martyr, in the book of the questions objected by the gentiles, rightly admonishes, he neither ever used these nor ever approved [them], ²⁹ but especially four parts of this wisdom he shuddered at, as contrary to the laws of his God; for which he did not fear to be cast to the lions once and again. There was also another wisdom divinely infused among the Chaldeans, by whose gift the Sibyl of Cumae, daughter of Berosus the Babylonian priest, ³⁰ put forth many prophetic oracles concerning the events of future times, and especially concerning Christ our Savior. Of which thou hast [more] below, in the entry Sibylla.

CHAM [Ham], the Scripture of the son of Noah, is a work of prodigious and malefic impiety, containing the elements and the practice of the necromantic art. ³¹ Ciccus Asculanus [Cecco d’Ascoli] makes mention of this volume in the commentaries which he published on the Sphere; which, without any doubt, was fabricated by most iniquitous men, and by the same inscribed and divulged under the title of the Scripture of Cham — occasion being taken from those things which Serenus the Abbot reports, concerning the magic arts invented and written by Cham, in John Cassian, in the eighth Conference, chapter 21, in these words: THE SEED of Seth, receiving the science of all natures through the successions of the generations, by paternal tradition even from Adam himself — so long as it remained divided from the sacrilegious stock of Cham — as it had holily received it, so also exercised it, either for the worship of God or for the utility of the common life. But when it had been mingled with the impious generation, it derived, by the instinct of demons, to profane and noxious uses those things which it had piously learned; and curious arts of malefices, and prestiges [illusions], and magic superstitions, it audaciously instituted, teaching its posterity that — that sacred worship of the divine name being forsaken — they should venerate and worship either these elements, or fire, or the aerial demons. This knowledge, therefore, of curious things — how it did not perish in the flood, and became known to the succeeding ages — I think ought to be briefly touched. ³² As far as the ancient traditions report, Cham, son of Noah, who was infected with these superstitions and sacrilegious arts, knowing that he could by no means carry any memorial book about these things into the ark (into which he was to enter together with his just father and his holy brothers), engraved the wicked arts and profane inventions upon plates of divers metals, which forsooth could not be corrupted by the injury of the waters, and upon the hardest stones; which — the flood being over — seeking out again with the same curiosity with which he had hidden them, he transmitted to posterity as a seed-bed of sacrileges and of perpetual wickedness. And by this reasoning, therefore, that opinion of the vulgar, by which they believe that angels delivered malefices to men, is in truth fulfilled [in Cham]. Thus far the words of Cassian. Peter Comestor, in the Scholastic History, writes that Cham, son of Noah — whom he thinks was called Zoroaster by the ancients — ³³ when he reigned in Thracia [so printed; Comestor has Bactria], invented the magic art and the seven liberal arts, which he wrote upon fourteen columns: seven of bronze against the floods of the waters, and seven of brick against the burnings of fire. There was also of old another work, entitled THE PROPHECY OF CHAM, from which Isidorus, the disciple of Basilides, received testimonies, as Clement, in the sixth [book] of the Stromata, is author. See below, in the entry Seth.

THE CHARACTER OF THE BEAST is had in the Apocalypse, chapter thirteen, ³⁴ under these words: AND HE MAKES all, small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to have characters [marks] on their right hand or upon their forehead; that no one may be able to buy or sell, save he who has the character of the beast. And chapter fourteen: ³⁵ THEY HAVE no rest, day and night, who adore the beast and its image, and whosoever receives the character of its name. And in the sixteenth chapter: ³⁶ THERE WAS MADE a grievous sore upon the men who had the character of the beast. And in the Apocalypse, chapter twenty: ³⁷ THEY WHO received not the character of the beast on the forehead and in their hand, lived and reigned with Christ. Arethas, bishop of Caesarea, expounding these, says: THE BEAST is the devil; the Image of the beast is Antichrist; the Character of the beast is the note, sign, and demonstration of the imitation of the devil and of Antichrist in reprobate men — such as those have not who have the sign of the living God upon their foreheads, and who have faces signed with the light of the divine countenance. But that the impious bear the character of the beast impressed upon their hands and foreheads, ³⁸ signifies that their hands are full of evil works; but the forehead — which is above the eyes — [is] encompassed with mist and darkness, so that they see nothing that is right and honest. Or, the Character of the beast upon the hands designates their diabolical actions; but on the forehead, the shameless impudence of the same, when without any concealment or shame they openly show forth what they are, preaching their sins, and esteeming iniquity [to be] glory and praise.

THE HANDWRITING OF THE DECREE, or, as it is read in the Greek exemplars, Χειρόγραφον τοῖς δόγμασι, that is, the Handwriting of the dogmas, ordinances, or decrees, is reviewed by Paul in the epistle to the Colossians in these words ³⁹: AND YOU, when you were dead in [your] sins, and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, he quickened together with him; forgiving you all sins; blotting out the handwriting of the decree which was against us, which was contrary to us: and this he took out of the midst, affixing it to the cross; and, despoiling the principalities and powers, he led [them] confidently, openly, triumphing over them in himself. Now there is a Handwriting of this kind, as concerns the Jews: that famous promise-bond by which the Jewish people had once bound itself to God in the worship of perpetual servitude. For when God, on Mount Sinai, proposed the law to the people, and promised that he would take up the nation of the Hebrews for his own peculiar [treasure] before the other nations of the earth, if it were willing to receive and to keep that law — the whole multitude of the sons of Israel cried out: ALL things which God has commanded us, we will do. ⁴⁰ Which accla-[mation] ⁴¹ mation, emitted by the common consent of all, as it were out of a bond [syngrapha], rendered the Jews debtors for the keeping of the whole law. And this bond, lest at any time hereafter the nation of the Jews should deny it to be its own, was noted more than once in the decrees of the divine law, but especially in the book of Exodus, chapter 19 and chapter 24. Again, there is also another Handwriting far more ancient, and binding the whole race of mortals ⁴² — namely that old decree which God had made to Adam, and had written in his heart: OF THE TREE OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL THOU SHALT NOT EAT; FOR IN WHATSOEVER DAY THOU SHALT EAT, THOU SHALT DIE THE DEATH. ⁴³ This decree, when Adam had violated it by his disobedience, he made himself and all his posterity obnoxious to sin and to death. And the devil, out of this handwriting, urged the whole race of mortals, and showed them guilty of everlasting punishment, bringing forth against us the handwriting of the divine decree, written by the hand of God in the heart of our first parent. Christ, therefore, pitying our calamity, whatsoever could be exacted from us out of this handwriting, he himself paid on the cross; on which, undergoing punishment for us, he cut apart and tore in pieces that handwriting which was against us; and, lest it should thereafter have any power over us, he utterly took it out of the midst; and Satan — who by this handwriting of the law was making us guilty, and threatening death — that we might no further fear his accusations and threats, he destroyed, dying on the cross; and all the satellites of his principate, and the tartarean powers, he routed and broke, openly triumphing over them, and bearing off rich spoils; of which he suspended a magnificent trophy on the cross, a perpetual monument of his victory, that it might be the more conspicuous to all from on high. Chrysostom, expounding this place of Paul somewhat differently, ⁴⁴ thus reads: ἐξαλείψας τὸ καθ’ ἡμῶν χειρόγραφον, that is, The handwriting which was against us being blotted out; and then, a comma being set, he adds τοῖς δόγμασιν, that is, by the Decrees — finding by this distinction that Christ cut apart that old handwriting by the new decrees promulgated, namely the evangelical pacts and promises, which confer on us the remission of sins and the inheritance of the celestial kingdom. Thou shalt also observe that which is read in Greek in the dative case, χειρόγραφον τοῖς δόγμασι, that is, the Handwriting to the decrees, is to be rendered the Handwriting of the decrees, in the genitive case. For it is an idiom customary to the Hebrews that they frequently use the dative for the genitive: ⁴⁵ as in the inscriptions of the psalms, in which they put מזמור לדוד, that is, A PSALM TO DAVID HIMSELF, for A PSALM OF DAVID; and as in the second [epistle] to the Corinthians, chapter 12, where Paul says, ἐδόθη μοι σκόλοψ τῇ σαρκί, that is, There was given to me a sting to the flesh, for of the flesh. This phrase I find used also by Cato, who, in the books Of country matters, often wrote Ornaments to the oxen [Ornamenta bobus] for Ornaments of the oxen; and Instruments to the rustics for Instruments of the rustics.

CENSVS, ⁴⁶ or the Book of the Census of the sons of Israel, is a catalog which Nehemias found in Jerusalem, containing in itself the names, surnames, and number of those who, first dismissed from the captivity of Babylon by king Cyrus, returned under the leader Zorobabel into Judaea; whom it is agreed were chiefly of the two tribes of Juda and Benjamin, besides the priests and Levites who were mingled with these. But thou shalt observe the names of the twelve chiefs, who in this catalog are narrated to have led the people back, to be reviewed somewhat differently in the catalog which is had in 1 Esdras, chapter 2; yet they are the same. For those who here are named Azarias, Raamias, Belsar, Mespharath, Beggoni, and Naum, in the catalog of Esdras are called Saraia, Rahelia, Belsan, Mesphar, Begnai, Reum. But Naamin, who here is numbered among the twelve, is excluded by Esdras, who reviewed only eleven. Moreover, in that enumeration of families and census of heads which follows, so great is the diversity both of the men and of the calculation, that it must be confessed either that the catalog of Nehemias is diverse from the catalog of Esdras, or, if it be the same, that it was vehemently corrupted by the carelessness and unskillfulness of the copyists — which Origen frequently complains to have happened in the other catalogs of divine scripture also. See the catalog of Nehemias, chapter seven.

CEPHAS, who is also Martialis, bishop of Limoges [Lemovicensis], and Apostle of the Gauls. Him Clement of Alexandria, in the fourth book of the Dispositions [Hypotyposes], says was one of the seventy disciples, ⁴⁷ having a surname the same as Peter the Apostle; and asserts that this is that Cephas of whom Paul, writing to the Galatians, ⁴⁸ says: BUT WHEN Cephas had come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was reprehensible. He is reported to be the author of two epistles, which lately, the Lord revealing, were found in the sacrarium of the Basilica of Saint Peter in the city of Limoges [Lemovica], where they had hitherto lain hidden, buried in a stone chest under the earth, which, from their exceeding antiquity, could scarcely be read: of which one is to the Bordelais [Burdegalenses], the other to the Toulousans [Tolosani] — each redolent of the veneration and piety of antiquity. But whether this Cephas be that one reprehended by Paul, see below, in the sixth book, in the annotations on the second chapter of the epistle to the Galatians.

CHOZAI חוזי, a most faithful writer of Hebrew antiquities, wrote concerning the repentance and liberation of Manasses, king of Jerusalem, one book. The author of the sacred annals recalls this work in the 2nd book [of Paralipomenon], chapter 33 ⁴⁹, thus writing: BUT THE REST of the deeds of Manasses, his prayer also, and its hearing, and all his sins, and [his] contempt, the places also in which he built high places, and made groves and statues before he did penance, are written in the words of Chozai. There still remains, from the monuments of this prophet, a small fragment, containing the prayer of king Manasses; which in certain Bibles is wont to be set immediately after the two books of Paralipomenon. The author of the annotations on Paralipomenon which are attributed to Jerome reports that it has been handed down to memory by some that this prophet Chozai was Esaias himself; who, his name being changed, was called Chozai, that is, My Vision [Visio mea].

CLAVDIVS Caesar, under whose empire Lucas, in the Acts, reports that great famine to have been foretold by Agabus the prophet, ⁵⁰ and, a few years after, all the Jews to have been driven from Rome by his command ⁵¹, wrote in the Greek tongue:

• THE BOOKS OF HISTORIES, twenty-eight ⁵² — that is, twenty books of Tyrrhenica [Etruscan history], eight books of Carchedoniaca [Carthaginian history]: for whose sake a new [Museum] was added to the old Museum of Alexandria added [Museum] from his own name; and it was appointed that every year, in the one [Museum] the books of the Tyrrhenica, in the other the Carchedoniaca, on set days, as in a public auditorium, should be recited entire by individuals in turn.

HE ALSO WROTE, in Latin eloquence, forty-three books: that is, of the things from the murder of Caesar to the civil peace, two volumes; from the civil peace to his own times, one-and-forty books.

HE ALSO COMPOSED, of his own life, eight volumes — more ineptly than inelegantly.

LIKEWISE a defense of Cicero against the books of Asinius Gallus, sufficiently learned.

OF THE THREE LETTERS added by himself to the Latin alphabet, one book.

OF THE DICING ART [Ars Aleatoria], one book. [So] Suetonius, in [the life of] Claudius.

CLAVDIVS LYSIAS, tribune of the Roman soldiery in Jerusalem, wrote to Felix, prefect of Judaea, an apologetic epistle for the Apostle Paul. See the Acts of the Apostles, chapter twenty-three.

CLEMENS (concerning whom the Apostle, writing to the Philippians ⁵³, says: WITH CLEMENT, and the rest of my fellow-workers, whose names are written in the book of Life) was by country a Roman, son of Faustinus, from the region of the Coelian mount. He, when first he had been made bishop of Sardica, and afterward [was] second in the Apostolic chair — or, as some prefer, fourth after Peter — when he had held [it] nine years, at length, after the relegation of exile, crowned with martyrdom, fell in the third year of the emperor Trajan; that is, in the year from the advent of Christ our Savior 103. ⁵⁴ His writings are said to be these:

• EPISTLE, canonical, to the Corinthians, the first.
• EPISTLE, canonical, the second.
• TO JAMES, the brother of the Lord, epistle the first.
• TO JAMES, the brother of the Lord, epistle the second.
• TO ALL fellow-bishops, one epistle.
• TO JULIUS and Julianus, one epistle.
• TO THE BRETHREN of Jerusalem, dwelling with James, one epistle.
• THE TRANSLATION of the epistle of Paul to the Hebrews, from Hebrew into Greek.
• OF THE APOSTOLIC liturgy, one book.
• OF THE APOSTOLIC canons, one book.
• THE RECOGNITIONS of the former [set], to James the brother of the Lord, ten books.
• THE RECOGNITIONS of the latter [set], to James the brother of the Lord, ten books.
• THE ITINERARIES of Clement, ten books.
• THE EPISCOPAL PRECEPTIONS, eight books.
• THE DISPUTATIONS of Peter with Apion, one book.
• THE RESPONSES of Peter to the interrogations of the Tripolitans, several books.
• HISTORIES, six books.
• OF THE PREACHINGS and Acts of Peter, one book.
• OF APOSTOLIC ACTIONS, one book.
• THE LIFE of Clement, one book.

THESE, inscribed with the name of CLEMENT, I found among divers authors; concerning which, what we think, we shall indicate as briefly as we can.

CLEMENT’S first canonical Epistle to the Corinthians ⁵⁵ — although it is little known in our times, yet there is no doubt that it is Clement’s, who wrote it in the person of the Roman church, as Jerome, Damasus, and especially Irenaeus attest; who, in the third book against the heresies, explains the occasion and argument of the epistle in these words: THEREFORE, under Clement, no small dissension having arisen among those who were brethren at Corinth, the church which is at Rome wrote most powerful letters to the Corinthians, gathering them into peace, and repairing their faith, and announcing the tradition which it had lately received from the Apostles — announcing one omnipotent God, maker of heaven and earth, former of man, who brought on the cataclysm and called Abraham, who led the people out of the land of Egypt, who spoke with Moses, who set forth the law and sent the prophets, who prepared fire for the devil and his angels; and that this is the father of our Lord Jesus Christ, &c. Eusebius, in the 4th book of the Ecclesiastical History, chapter 38, reports that Clement in this epistle made mention of Paul’s epistle to the Hebrews, and used its testimonies also. Jerome, in the Catalog of ecclesiastical writers, indicating the style of this epistle, adds: CLEMENT wrote, in the person of the Roman church, to the church of the Corinthians, a very useful epistle, which seems to me to agree with the character of the epistle which is carried under the name of Paul to the Hebrews. And in many senses of the same epistle it even makes use [of it] according to the order of the words. Altogether there is great similitude in each. The same [Jerome] also, in the commentaries on the fourth chapter of the epistle to the Ephesians, citing a testimony from this epistle, says: IT IS BETTER, if we say “the prisoner of the Lord,” [to say] “bound in the charity of Christ.” Of which thing Clement also, to the Corinthians, is witness, writing: THE BOND of the charity of God — who shall be able to declare it? Clement of Alexandria, in the first, fourth, and sixth volumes of the Stromata, recites many fragments of this epistle.

CLEMENT’S second canonical [epistle]. That this was written by Clement after the first canonical epistle, Pope Damasus testifies in the Pontifical Book: HE, he says, made two epistles, which are called canonical. Epiphanius also, writing against the Ebionites, in the first volume of the Panarion, hands down that not one only, but several encyclical — that is, orbicular, or universal — epistles were written [by him] ⁵⁶, which in his time were read in the holy churches. Although Eusebius, in the book which we cited a little before, reports that the second epistle of Clement was unknown to him, and Jerome affirms the same to have been reproved by the ancients. I suspect that Jerome, either from this or from the former epistle, brought forth that opinion of Clement concerning the plurality of worlds, when, in the second book of the commentaries on the epistle to the Ephesians ⁵⁷, he thus wrote: WE INQUIRE what it is that Paul says, ACCORDING TO THE AGE OF THIS WORLD — whether there be also another age which pertains not to this world, but to other worlds; concerning which Clement also, in his Epistle, thus writes: THE OCEAN, and the worlds which are beyond it, &c. Which opinion Origen, long before Jerome, explained no less piously than learnedly, in the second book Periarchon, in these words: ⁵⁸ *CLEMENT indeed, the disciple of the apostles, makes mention of those whom the Greeks name ἀντίχθονας [Antichthones], and of that part of the globe of the earth to which none of ours can approach, nor can any of those who are there cross over to us — which he also called worlds *

[lauit → (signature E)] washed, when he says: THE OCEAN is impassable to men, and those worlds which are beyond it, which are governed by these same dispensations of the Lord God. Concerning this epistle likewise, and the former, I judge Jerome to have been of [the same] opinion, when in the first book against Jovinian he said: CLEMENT, successor of the Apostle Peter, whom Paul the Apostle mentions, writes epistles, and wove together almost his whole discourse on the purity of virginity. ⁵⁹

CLEMENT’S first Epistle to James, the brother of the Lord, Damasus commemorates in the Pontifical Book, in the life of Clement — without, however, indicating the name of its author. Anacletus the Pope, alleging a testimony out of it, says its author is Clement, his predecessor. Yet concerning this [epistle] it has been doubted by many, because that seemed absurd which is written in it concerning Clement — namely, that he received the see of the Roman episcopate from Peter ⁶⁰, before whom it is agreed that Linus and Cletus were bishops of the city of Rome. Wishing to remove this inconsonance, Rufinus, the interpreter of this epistle, in the preface to the Recognitions of Clement addressed to Gaudentius, wrote thus: CERTAIN [persons] inquire how, since Linus and Cletus were bishops in the city of Rome before Clement, Clement himself, writing to James, says that the chair of teaching was delivered to him by Peter. Of which matter we have received this to be the reason: that Linus and Cletus were indeed bishops in the city of Rome before Clement, but while Peter yet survived; that is to say, that they might bear the charge of the episcopate, while he himself fulfilled the office of the Apostolate — as is found to have been done also at Caesarea, where, though he himself was present, he yet had Zachaeus, ordained by himself, for bishop. And in this manner both will appear true: that they too are numbered bishops before Clement, and that Clement nevertheless received the chair of teaching after the death of Peter. Thus Rufinus. John, patriarch of Antioch, in the book On the power of a general council above the Pope, endeavors to show that the Roman pontiff can be deposed by the universal church even apart from the cause of schism and of heresy, alleging the words of Clement — who in this epistle brings in Peter thus speaking to him: FOR IF thou shalt be occupied with mundane cares, thou wilt both deceive thyself and those who hear thee; for thou wilt not be able to distinguish more fully those things which pertain to salvation to whomsoever [needs them]. And from this it comes to pass that thou, as one who hast not taught the things that pertain to the salvation of men, art deposed. Meeting these words, John Torquemada [Turrecremensis], presbyter Cardinal, in the second volume of the Ecclesiastical Summa, chapter 110, rejects utterly the whole authority of this epistle, as obscure and doubtful, denying that it could at all be that Clement wrote this epistle to James — published after the death of Peter — the brother of the Lord, whom Eusebius in the Chronicles testifies to have fallen, stoned by the Jews, nearly ten years before the death of Peter. He adds also that the word Deponaris [thou art deposed] is corruptly had in this epistle, for which puniaris [thou art punished] should be read; yet in such wise that thou understand the pontiff to be punished not by men, but by God alone.

CLEMENT’S four Epistles. Concerning these there is nothing whereof I should here admonish the reader, save that out of that which is the second to James, and that which is directed to the fellow-bishops, and out of the last, which is inscribed to the dwellers of Jerusalem, many things word for word have been excerpted in the decretals of the pontiffs — especially in the distinctions the second, the fifth, the twenty-third, and the thirty-eighth; and in the Causes, the second, question first and seventh; and in the eleventh, question third; and in the twelfth, question first; and in the sixteenth, question seventh. Which surely is no small indication of the antiquity of these epistles.

CLEMENT’S Translation of the epistle to the Hebrews ⁶¹ Eusebius reviews in the fourth book of the Ecclesiastical History, chapter 38, in these words: IT IS AGREED that the Apostle wrote the epistle to the Hebrews — as being to be sent to Hebrews — in his native tongue; and, as certain hand down, that Luke the Evangelist, but as others [hold], this same Clement, translated it. Which is also the more true: because the very style of Clement’s [own] epistle concords with this, and the sense, forsooth, of each writing bears very great similitude. Thus Eusebius. Clement of Alexandria, in the fourth book of the Stromata, recites a fragment out of Clement’s epistle to the Corinthians not unlike those things which are had in the eleventh chapter of the epistle to the Hebrews.

CLEMENT’S Apostolic Liturgy. Concerning this, Proclus, Archbishop of Constantinople, in the booklet On the tradition of the divine Mass, engraved these words: MANY indeed, and other divine pastors, who succeeded the Apostles, and doctors of the church, expounding the reason of the mysteries of that divine Mass, delivered [it] to the Church committed to writings. Among whom the first and most illustrious is blessed Clement, the disciple and successor of that chief of the Apostles: who brought into the light those sacrosanct mysteries, revealed to him by the holy Apostles. ⁶² Nicolaus, bishop of Methone, in the book On the truth of the body of Christ in the sacrament of the altar, brings forth out of this liturgy a certain prayer which the Greeks use for the consecration of the sacrament of the Eucharist ⁶³; in which, after those dominical words, This is my body, and this is the chalice, &c. ^{64 65} (by which the Latin Church believes the bread and wine to be transmuted into the body and blood of Christ), these deprecatory words are added: Thou, who needest none, vouchsafe, O God, to send thy holy Spirit upon this sacrifice, that it may make this bread the body of thy Christ, and this chalice the blood of thy Christ. Amen. Which words Marcus, [a] Bishop, in the book On the sanctification of the divine gifts, and Nicolaus Cabasilas in the book On the interpretation of the Mass, ⁶⁶ would have to be so necessary to the form of consecration, that without them the words of Christ, uttered by the priest, would avail nothing to the consecration of the sacrament. Meeting these, Bessarion, patriarch of Constantinople, in the book On the sacrament of the Eucharist, says that the authority of Clement’s words could easily be eluded, as deduced from Apocryphal scripture; yet that it is not to be spurned, because the same words were used in their Liturgies by James, the brother of the Lord, [by] Basil, and especially [by] Chrysostom — who, after the dominical words of transmutation recited by the priest, adds: Make this bread the precious body of thy Christ, and that which is in this chalice the precious blood of thy Christ, changing [it] by thy holy Spirit. Amen. Which words indeed seem to contain the form and force of transmuting the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. For this cause therefore, that such hesitation may be taken away, It is to be known, he says, that the dominical body is twofold — to wit, the true, and the mysti- ⁶⁷ cal; and that the former indeed is confected by the words of the Lord himself, whose body it is; but this, which we ourselves are, is completed by the superadded words — whether of Clement, or of Basil, or of Chrysostom — and by the prayers by which, after the consecration of the mystery, the priests suppliantly pray that, through the worthy taking of the Eucharist, we may be made one body with Christ. Which is easy to understand, if one diligently observe the Masses set forth by the aforesaid fathers.* Thus Bessarion. Confirming whose opinion, Chrysostom, in the homily On Judas the traitor, manifestly confesses that the bread is turned into the dominical body by the virtue of this discourse of Christ, THIS IS MY BODY, uttered by the priest. Thou hast these things more copiously explained in the 6th book, annotation 3.

CLEMENT’S Apostolic Canons. Of these, some indeed are fabricated under the false title of Clement by heretics, [their] author uncertain, which Gelasius the Pope, in the decrees, distinction 15, utterly rejects; but others are 84 in number, which Clement, having received them from the Apostles, wrote in Greek, beginning with these words: ἐπίσκοπος χειροτονείσθω, that is, Let a bishop be ordained. These a certain Dionysius, an ancient interpreter, moved by the prayers of his brother Laurentius, made Latin [and dedicated] to Pope Stephen. Concerning these it is inquired among the skilled in pontifical law, whether they be canonical or Apocryphal ⁶⁸. Gratian, distinction 16, bringing forth divers opinions on this matter, establishes nothing certain. For he says they were approved by the judgment of Adrian the second in the epistle to Tharasius of Constantinople; of which matter, however, Adrian makes no mention in that epistle. For in the fourth Action of the seventh synod, those words by which the sixth synod is commended, and its canon, are Tharasius’s, and not Adrian’s. Yet at the end of the aforesaid fourth action, that very fourth action is confirmed by the council and by the legates of Pope Adrian — by which the canons of the sixth synod are approved, in the second of which the 85 canons of the Apostles are received ⁶⁹. The question here therefore is twofold: the one part concerns the authority of these Canons, the other the number. Now the part of the former assertion is most certain, namely that the authority of the Canons of the Apostles has been received and undoubted. For Athanasius enumerates them among the Hagiographa, and John Damascene, in the fourth book Of the orthodox faith, places them in the Canon of the divine scriptures. Epiphanius, in the third book against the heresies, confuting the Audians, cites the Institution of the Apostles, while he treats of the celebration of the Pascha — although this canon is not found among those which we have. Tertullian, against Praxeas, says these Canons of the Apostles were delivered by [their] hands. But the emperor Justinian also very often introduces mention of these in the Novels, and professes that he frames his laws according to them; and in express words he calls [them] the CANONS of the Apostles. Thus far concerning their authority; now of the number must it be spoken.

ISIDORE reviews only fifty; the sixth synod, in its second canon, approves 85 — although they are but 84; but the twelfth in the Latin is divided into two in the Greek codex. Zephyrinus, five hundred years prior to the fifth synod, admits sixty only. Leo the Ninth, nearly three hundred and fifty years later than the sixth synod, in the epistle to Michael the patriarch, enumerates just as many. In the last Canon of the Apostles the Gospel of John is received, which was written under Nerva. But the Canons are said to have been set forth while Peter was yet living — [Peter] who was slain long before, under Nero — as is gathered from the twenty-eighth Canon, in which it is written, BY ME PETER. This, however, seems very absurd, unless we say that that little clause concerning the approbation of the Gospel of John crept into the text out of the margin of the book, where it had been added by some smatterer [sciolus]. There are also in these sanctions certain [things] which do not agree with the present dogmas of the church — as in canon 52, in which it is commanded that those who eat flesh with the blood be deposed; and in canon 56, in which fasting is forbidden as well on the Lord’s day as on the Sabbath. There are [those] who think these canons were contaminated by the Nicolaitan heretics ⁷⁰, and besprinkled with many other Apocryphal [matters].

CLEMENT’S Recognitions, which are inscribed in Greek ἀνάγνωσις, or ἀναγνωρισμός, that is, Recognition, or ἀναθεώρησις [so read for the printed ἀναθεώρισμος], which is Revision — certain [persons] distinguish by a twofold partition, namely into ten Prior books and ten Posterior books. In the prior [ones], which are now wanting to us, Clement collected, at Peter’s precept, whatsoever Peter discoursed at Caesarea of Palestine through three continuous months, and transmitted [them] to James, the brother of the Lord. The several arguments of these are read ⁷¹, written in these very words, in the third volume of the posterior Recognitions which are now had:

• THE FIRST book of the Recognitions treats of the true Prophet, and of the property of the understanding of the law, according to that which the tradition of Moses teaches.
• THE SECOND, of the principle [beginning] — whether it be one, or many? and that the law of the Hebrews is not ignorant [of] what immensity is.
• THE THIRD, of God, and of those things which were instituted by him.
• THE FOURTH, that although many be called gods, there is only one true God, according to the testimonies of the scriptures.
• THE FIFTH, that there are two heavens: whereof one is this visible firmament, which shall also pass away; but the other eternal and invisible.
• THE SIXTH, of good and evil, and that all things are subjected to good by the Father; but evil — from what [cause], in what manner, and whence it be; and that it cooperates indeed with good, but not with good as its purpose; and what [are] the signs of good, and what of evil; and what is the difference of duality and of conjunction.
• THE SEVENTH, [of the things] which the twelve Apostles pursued among the people in the temple.
• THE EIGHTH, of the words of the Lord which seem to be contrary to themselves, and are not; and what is the resolution of these.
• THE NINTH, that the law placed by God is just and perfect, and that it alone can make peace.
• THE TENTH, of the nativity of carnal men, and of the generation which is through Baptism; and what is the succession of carnal seed in man; and what [is] the reckoning of his soul; and how in it there is liberty of will: which, because it is not inborn but was made, could not be immovable from good.

THESE, therefore, are the arguments of the Recognitions, which Clement reports himself to have written in the city of Caesarea concerning those things which were discoursed by Peter in the same city. That these books were in great part contaminated by heretics ⁷², Rufinus is witness, who in the Apology of Origen left these things written: CLEMENT, the disciple of the Apostles, put forth books which are called in Greek ἀναγνωρισμός, that is, Recognition, in which, when out of the person of Peter the Apostle doctrine of the Apostle [Peter], as though truly apostolic, is in very many places expounded, in some [places] the dogma of Eunomius is so written [in] that he is believed to dispute nothing other than [what] Eunomius himself [would] — asserting the Son of God to have been created out of things not existing. Then also that adulterous kind [of teaching] is inserted, [namely] that a quality, [and] not the malice of a purposed will, produced the nature of the devil and of the rest of the demons, but [as] an excepted and separated creature. There are also some other [things] inserted in his books which the ecclesiastical rule by no means receives; which perverse men, for the assertion of their own dogmas, inserted under the name of holy men, as [being thereby] the more easily to be believed; which [things] he is to be believed neither to have thought nor to have written.* Thus Rufinus.

CLEMENT’S ten Posterior books of the Recognitions, which we now have under the title THE RECOGNITIONS OF CLEMENT TO JAMES, THE BROTHER OF THE LORD, and whose beginning is I, CLEMENT, BORN IN THE CITY OF ROME, are believed to be those which Gennadius testifies were translated by Rufinus; whose preface also is had at the beginning of the whole work, in which — whether Rufinus, or some other under the name of Rufinus — thus writes concerning the manner of his translation, to Gaudentius the bishop: IT IS SURELY fair to thee, who wilt read these things also in Greek, lest perchance thou think the order of translation in some places less kept by us, that I indicate the counsel of our interpretation. I think it does not escape thee that of this Clement’s [work] there are had, in the Greek of the same work — the ἀναγνώσεις [Recognitions], that is — two editions, and [that] there are two bodies of the books, in some things indeed diverse, in many nevertheless of the same narration. In fine, the last part of this work, in which the transformation of Simon is related, is had in the one body, in the other is not had at all. There are also certain [things] in each body disputed concerning the unbegotten God and the begotten [Son], and concerning some others; which — that I say nothing more — exceeded our understanding. These therefore, as being above my powers, I chose rather to reserve to others than to bring forth less full. But in the rest, as far as we could, we gave diligence to depart not only not from the sentences, but not even sufficiently from the discourses and locutions. Which thing, although it renders the eloquence of the narration less ornate, yet renders it more faithful. Thus Rufinus concerning the edition of these volumes; whose arguments it pleases [me] here to subjoin, that from the collation of them with the foregoing arguments of the Prior Recognitions it may appear how great is the difference of each work:

• THE FIRST book, ⁷³ then, contains the education of Clement in the city of Rome and his study of the truth; the coming of Barnabas out of Judaea into the city; the fellowship entered into by Clement with Barnabas; the navigation of both into Palestine, and the entrance of both into Caesarea to Peter the Apostle; likewise the colloquy of Peter with Clement — in which Clement testifies that he heard from Peter a few [things] concerning the true prophet, and committed them to letters in a single volume. There is added at the end a brief course of the histories of the Old Testament.
• THE SECOND, ⁷⁴ Nicea reporting [it], narrates the wisdom, eloquence, miracles, race, and parents of Simon Magus; likewise some [things] of the power of demons over men; then also the first disputation of Peter with Simon held in the same city — in which, in very few words, it is shown that there is one God, author of the world, and not many.
• THE THIRD ⁷⁵ relates the second meeting of Peter with Simon in the same city; in which some [things] are discussed concerning free will. It is inquired also why God did not make man impeccable; why heaven was made; why it must be dissolved by fire; whether they shall see the true God with the heart of the world [mundi corde]; and whether the soul be truly immortal. Lastly it describes the desertion of Simon by his own, and his flight out of Caesarea into Syria.
• THE FOURTH ⁷⁶ [narrates] the setting-out of Peter and Clement from Caesarea to Dora, Ptolemais, Tyre, Sidon, [and] Berytus, and their entrance into Tripolis — in which city Peter wintered. It recites also a sermon of Peter held in the same city, in which is a brief course of the ages of the world, from its creation even unto Christ.
• THE FIFTH ⁷⁷ has another sermon of Peter in the same city.
• THE SIXTH, ⁷⁸ likewise another sermon of Peter in the same city.
• THE SEVENTH, ⁷⁹ the departure of Peter out of Tripolis, and his setting-out first to Orthosias, then to Antaradus, then to the island Aradus, to see glass columns of immense magnitude. It reports also the mother of Clement to have been found by Peter in the same island, and then first recognized by her son Clement. Peter sails out again from the island Aradus to Antaradus; thence by a foot-journey he betakes himself to Balnea; thence he passes through Pathos and Gabala; at last he comes to Laodicea, where Clement first recognizes Faustus and Faustinianus, his brothers.
• IN THE EIGHTH book ⁸⁰ Peter, in a more secret place of the port of Laodicea, disputes against a certain old mathematician [astrologer] asserting that all things are governed by fate.
• THE NINTH ⁸¹ pursues the same disputation against the mathematicians, who say that all things come to pass by the impulses of the stars.
• THE TENTH ⁸² narrates the transmutation of Simon Magus into Faustinianus, the brother [so; father] of Clement. Then it adds some [things] concerning the genealogy of the gods of the gentiles. Lastly it sets in order the departure of Peter from Laodicea, and his coming to Antioch — in which city the people delivered to him the chair of teaching.

So many, therefore, are the volumes of the Posterior Recognitions; concerning which — that I may freely pronounce what I think — I suspect [them] not to be Clement’s ⁸³. For besides that many things in them, under the person of Peter the Apostle, are drawn from the inmost philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, two whole leaves also are recited under the person of Peter in the ninth book of this work, transcribed word for word out of the book On fate, against Abydas, of Bardesanes the Syrian astronomer — who, Epiphanius witnessing, flourished under the emperor Marcus, seventy years after the death of Clement ⁸⁴. Which same writing of Bardesanes, Eusebius, in the sixth book On the evangelical preparation, recites in the very same words, not one diction being changed. There are also in these books most things uncertain, many fabulous, some moreover repugnant to catholic dogmas. Out of which Jacobus, Archbishop of Genoa [Jacobus de Voragine], noted some [things] in the life of Clement, inserted by him in the book of annual festivities. Bede, however, in the tract On the reckoning of times, expounding the beginning of Genesis out of the words which are contained in the 6th volume of these recognitions, calls this work The books of the histories of St. Clement, Roman Pontiff, and confesses that he receives that exposition out of the 6th volume of these.

CLEMENT’S Odeporicon, or Itinerary — Athanasius, in the Synopsis, and Leo the Pope, in the epistle against Nicetas, number [it] among the Apocryphal writings ⁸⁵; and Gelasius, distinction 15, reviews [it] among the books reproved by the Church, saying: THE ITINERARY of Peter the Apostle, under the name of Clement, eight books, is apocryphal. This Trithemius divides into ten books, whose beginning is, WHEN IN THE CITY OF ROME, &c. I suspect this work to be the same as that which, among some authors, is inscribed The Peregrinations, or Circuitions, or Circuits, of Peter. Concerning which Epiphanius, in the first book of the Panarion, confuting the heresy of Ebion, says thus: THE EBIONITES use also other books — namely, those called the CIRCUITIONS OF PETER, written by Clement — corrupting many things in them, and leaving few [things] true; even as Clement himself refuted them throughout in the encyclical epistles which he wrote, which are read in the holy Churches; because his faith and his discourse have another character from those things which by them, under his name, were corrupted in the Circuitions. Thus Epiphanius concerning the Circuitions, or Itinerary — which indeed, unless my opinion deceive me, is the very same as the above-mentioned work of the POSTERIOR RECOGNITION, adorned by the copyists with such a title, and transformed by a Preface of Rufinus either fabricated or fetched from elsewhere; that they might render this volume, condemned under the name of Itinerary, commendable to buyers by this artifice — as well from the more gracious inscription of the RECOGNITIONS as from the authority of the interpreter Rufinus. Now that which makes me easily believe this is the very number and context of the books; in which, from head even to heel, almost nothing else is narrated than the peregrination of Peter and Clement out of Italy into Palestine, and from Palestine even into Antioch, through the several cities and places which are between Caesarea of Palestine and Antioch. To this is added that Jacobus, Archbishop of Genoa, who wrote this same peregrination in the life of Clement, testifies that he collected it summarily out of the Apocryphal Itinerary of Clement. Which surely indicates that the books of the Recognitions and the Itinerary of Clement are the same work ⁸⁶. This, in the last years, the Senate of the Holy Roman Inquisition commanded to be inscribed in the Index of the volumes condemned by the church.

CLEMENT’S book On the disputation of Peter against Apion Jerome cites in the Catalog, saying: THERE IS CARRIED [ABOUT] also a Disputation of Peter and Apion, composed in a long discourse, which Eusebius, in the third volume of the Ecclesiastical History, refutes ⁸⁷. Now this place cited by Jerome is had in Eusebius, chapter 38, book 3, in these words: BUT other little works of Clement, not the least [of them], are reported to be held by some — such as the Disputation of Peter and Apion; which is very little found to have been in use among the ancients, because the rule of Apostolic faith is not perceived to have remained pure and uncorrupted in them.

CLEMENT’S Episcopal Preceptions. Concerning these, at the end of the canons of Clement — where also the book of the ACTS OF THE APOSTLES, put forth by the same author, is commemorated — I found it thus written: Διαταγαὶ ὑμῖν τοῖς ἐπισκόποις δι’ ἐμοῦ Κλήμεντος ἐν ὀκτὼ βίβλοις προσπεφωνημέναι, ὡς οὐ δεῖ δημοσιεύειν ἐπὶ πάντων, διὰ τὰ ἐν αὐταῖς μυστικά; that is, Preceptions dedicated to you bishops through me, Clement, in eight books — these it behooves not to divulge to all, on account of the arcane things which are contained in them. These eight books of Apostolic Preceptions, or Constitutions, John, bishop of Osma [Ostuniensis], a man endowed with every kind of learning, lately turned into Latin and illustrated with scho-lia.

CLEMENT’S work On the responses of Peter to the interrogations of the Tripolitans. Of this I have nothing certain to report, save that in the fifth volume of the Posterior Recognitions it is written that Clement collected interrogations of this kind, together with the responses of Peter, in several books.

CLEMENT’S Epitome Κηρυγμάτων τοῦ Πέτρου, that is, Of the Preachings of Peter the Apostle. Of this work Clement of Alexandria makes mention in the sixth book of the Stromata, and Origen, his disciple, in the 13th tome on the Gospel of John — bringing forth from it certain fragments, which thou shalt be able to see below, in [the entry] Peter.

CLEMENT’S Life. Concerning this I have nothing clearly ascertained, besides that which Jacobus, Archbishop of Genoa, affirms in the life of Clement put forth by him — [that] the life of Clement is contained in the ITINERARY which is carried under his name.

THE GENERATION OF HEAVEN AND EARTH, or The Book of the generation of heaven and earth. ⁸⁸ Although of this book there be no mention in the sacred codices of the Hebrews, yet where, in the second chapter of Genesis, the Hebrew verity has אלה תולדות השמים והארץ, Elle tholdoth hascaimim ve haarez, that is, These are the generations of heaven and earth, the LXX interpreters rendered Αὕτη ἡ βίβλος Γενέσιος [so printed, for γενέσεως] οὐρανοῦ, καὶ γῆς — to wit, This is the book of the generation of heaven and earth. ⁸⁹ Which version indeed all the Greek expositors follow and expound in this place. Philo the Jew says that Moses by these words indicated what he wished to be the inscription of the first volume of the whole Pentateuch. Approving which, Chrysostom says it is not to be marveled at if Moses so inscribed the book, although besides the generation of heaven and earth so many [things] are contained in it concerning the lives of illustrious men, and concerning very many other matters; because under this general appellation of the generation of heaven and earth he willed to comprehend all creatures, as well celestial as terrestrial, together with their operations and events. The Rabbins of the Hebrews, inquiring the cause why in this place the word תולדות tholdoth, that is, Generations, is written perfectly — that is, by six letters ⁹⁰ — whereas everywhere in the divine volumes it is written imperfectly, that is, by five letters only, תולדת, except in the genealogy of David at the end of the book of Ruth ⁹¹ — answer that by this is mystically signified that the world was in the beginning perfectly produced by the Lord, but by the sin of Adam corrupted manifoldly, and [is] to be restored through the Messiah, son of David; in whose genealogy, as has already been said, this word Tholdoth is reintegrated to the pristine number of letters. Others of the Jews believe that Moses, by the six letters of this word, willed to express the number of the six days of the mundane generation.

THE EPISTLE OF THE THIRD COUNCIL OF JERUSALEM. ⁹² When the Christians out of the Jews and out of the gentiles, lately converted to the faith, gravely contended concerning the observance of the legal [precepts] — the Jews asserting that, together with the Gospel, the Mosaic law was necessarily to be kept, [and] the gentiles [asserting] that it was to be utterly rejected — the Apostles and the elders, gathered in the third council at Jerusalem, wrote to the brethren of Antioch, of Syria, and of Cilicia, converted to the faith out of the gentiles, an epistle; by which they pronounced them free from all observance of the legal [precepts], yet with these four excepted, that is, things offered to idols, blood and the strangled, and fornication — from which they decreed them to abstain ⁹³. This decree of the Apostles the interpreters expound in two ways ⁹⁴. Chrysostom and Oecumenius, because in the new law nowhere is an observance of legal [precepts] found to be commanded, think that by the Strangled and Blood the effusion of human blood, and homicide of whatsoever kind, is forbidden. But Augustine, in the 32nd book against Faustus, understands both according to the Jewish rite — that is, of the blood which Moses forbids to be eaten in the seventh chapter of Leviticus, saying: YE SHALL EAT THE BLOOD OF NO ANIMAL, AND OF THE FLESH OF SWINE, FROM WHICH THE BLOOD WAS NOT POURED OUT. For these things, although after the resurrection of Christ they could lawfully be eaten not by the gentiles only, but by the Jews also, were nevertheless interdicted by the Apostles, lest by this occasion there should be taken away, in that primitive Church, the peace and common life of the gentiles with the Jews — who, from the inveterate custom of the law, abhorred the eating of these things. Afterward, the splendor of evangelical preaching increasing, this manner of legal observance was abrogated ⁹⁵, which the Apostles had commanded for a short time for the mutual concord of each people. But the prohibition of fornication, which the gentiles esteemed no sin, remained unshaken; because by God’s command it had long before been interdicted in the Decalogue ⁹⁶. Nor is this to be passed over here, that Ambrose, in the commentaries on the epistle to the Galatians, judges this place to be corrupted, saying that by the Apostles three precepts only were [given], that is, abstinence from things offered to idols, from whoredom, and from blood; but the fourth, concerning the strangled, was added by certain rash Greeks. See the 6th book, annotation 273. This epistle was written in the fourteenth year of the conversion of Paul — that is, in the fourth year of Claudius Caesar, and the eighteenth from the ascension of Christ ⁹⁷.

THE CHURCH OF THE CORINTHIANS, agitated by intestine seditions on account of certain rich and powerful [men] who were calling the common people away from the doctrine of Paul to the doctrine of the philosophers, as to those who taught more excellent [things] than the Apostle, wrote to Paul — through Fortunatus, Stephanas, and Achaicus — one epistle concerning the peril and cause of its own sedition; at the same time also consulting him concerning marriages and the choice of foods: that is, whether it behooved to abstain from matrimony, and whether the use of foods which had been immolated to idols was to be shunned. To these things Paul abundantly responded in the first epistle to the Corinthians, in the seventh chapter of which he makes mention of this epistle [written] to him by the Corinthians ⁹⁸.

THE BOOKS OF CURIOUS ARTS, or βίβλοι περίεργοι, that is, Curious Books. ⁹⁹ Concerning these it is read in the Acts of the Apostles, that when Paul at Ephesus was casting demons out of possessed bodies, many of those who had exercised curious arts brought together their books and burned them before all; and, the prices of them being reckoned, they found fifty thousand [pieces] of silver ¹⁰⁰. Chrysostom, Augustine, Oecumenius, and Bede, by the books of Curious arts, understand writings pertaining to magic arts — not of whatever kind, but only to those which are forbidden as well by divine as by human laws ¹⁰¹. For there is a twofold kind of Magic, the true and the false ¹⁰². True magic is that which, from the knowledge and the mutual application of natural virtues — of things acting and things being acted upon in turn — teaches [one] to work admirable things, which are called miracles of nature ¹⁰³. Concerning this Philo, in the book On the special laws, says: TRUE Magic — that is, the Perspective [contemplative] science, through which the works of nature are discerned more clearly — as honorable and to be sought, not the common sort only follow, but even the greatest kings of kings, especially the Persians, so curious of these arts that it is not lawful [for one] to reign unless he have dealt familiarly with the Magi. Jerome, on the second chapter of Daniel, says: THE MAGI are those who philosophize concerning individual things, and are not malefics, but philosophers of the Chaldeans; and to the science of this art the kings also and princes of that nation direct all things. Whence the Magi too, at the nativity of the Savior, first understood his rising, and, coming to Bethlehem, adored him. Justin Martyr, in the book Of the Questions propounded by the gentiles, questions 24 and 26, asserts that Apollonius of Tyana, a magician, worked many admirable [things] out of the skill of true magic ¹⁰⁴, writing thus: APOLLONIUS indeed, a man endowed with the science of natural faculties and of the consents and contrary affections which are in them, brought forth operations out of that art; for which cause, in all [his] operations there was necessary to him the assumption of accommodated matter, by whose help he accomplished that which was being effected. These things concerning true Magic. But false Magic, and the most fraudulent of all arts, is that which works, either truly or in appearance, out of commerce with demons ¹⁰⁵. The author of this Augustine reports to have been Zoroaster, king of the Bactrians. Pliny [reports] Zoroaster the Persian, who most diligently wrote two hundred thousand verses concerning this whole art ¹⁰⁶. Philo derives its origin from true magic, adulterated and depraved by malefic men. Pliny reckons it to have sprung from three arts, which it also drew back into itself — that is, from medicine, from mathesis (or divinatory astrology), and from religion. He enumerates also, out of Hostanes (who wrote in the times of Alexander the Great), several species of magic ¹⁰⁷: namely that which promises colloquies of shades and of the infernal [powers]; and that which teaches [one] to divine by water, by spheres, by air, by stars, by a basin, by lamps, by axes, and by many other ways. Augustine, in the tenth book Of the City of God, chapter nine, distinguishes this magic, out of the opinion of Porphyry, into Theurgy and Goetia: Theurgy is the invocation of beneficent demons for the effecting of some good, which is done through certain consecrations and sacrifices ¹⁰⁸. But Goetia, which is also Necromancy, is done by the constraint of the dead, and by invocation [of them] also. For it is so called from the wailing [planctus] which is made about the sepulchre ¹⁰⁹. Philo, in the book above cited, adds to these a third species also, which is called Pharmacy [Pharmacia] ¹¹⁰. This is done when something is offered to someone to be taken by mouth, which by certain incantations shall bring on love, or hatred, or madness, or death. All these things are condemned not only by the divine sayings, but also by the most ancient laws of the Romans ¹¹¹ — among whom many were arraigned for Magic, as Apollonius of Tyana before Domitian Caesar, and Apuleius before Claudius Maximus, prefect of Africa. There are [those] who by these books of Curious arts understand not only magical books, but all the volumes of judiciary astrology, which in the primitive church were no less forbidden than the magical ¹¹²; and they bring in as witnesses of this matter Epiphanius and Augustine — of whom the former, in the book On weights and measures, writes that Aquila, the first interpreter of the divine scripture, was cast out of the church by the fathers for no other cause than this — that he was given to the inspections of nativities and the divinations of birth-hours ¹¹³; but the latter [Augustine], as appears at the end of his exposition on the 91st psalm, does not receive a Mathematician [astrologer] into the Church, save a public and solemn penance being first performed ¹¹⁴. We are admonished, finally, by this example that the custom among Christians of burning books of nefarious doctrine is ancient, and no newly-found thing, as the heretics of our times iniquitously complain ¹¹⁵. For that this same thing was in use among the other nations also, the histories of the Greeks and Latins are witnesses; in which it is found — that I be silent of the rest — that the books of Diagoras and of Protagoras, who taught that there are no gods, were publicly burned by the Athenians ¹¹⁶; and likewise it was done by the Romans with the books of Numa, found in the field of Petilius, because they seemed to dissolve the worship of the Roman deities ¹¹⁷. See below, in the entry Sennacherib of this book, and book 4, in [the entry] Julian, bishop of Eclanum, and in the Annotations of the sixth book: where thou hast more concerning the not-reading of the books of heretics.

THE SCHEDULES OF THE GUARDS OF KING DARIUS. ¹¹⁸ Esdras, in the 3rd book, reports these writings, [their] words, and the occasion of the words, to have been of this kind. When Darius, son of Hystaspes, roused after a brief rest in his bed, could not recall sleep, he proposed to the three guards of his body a question ¹¹⁹: What thing among all human affairs is mightiest? — [decreeing] that whosoever should more prudently resolve it should obtain a reward, [namely] the second dignity after the king. Then they, when they had somewhat deliberated silently among themselves, offered their solutions to the king, briefly noted on three separate schedules.

• THE FIRST WAS: ΥΠΕΡΙΣΧΥΕΙ Ο ΟΙΝΟΣ, that is, WINE IS STRONGEST.
• THE SECOND: ΥΠΕΡΙΣΧΥΕΙ Ο ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΣ, that is, THE KING IS STRONGEST.
• THE THIRD: ΥΠΕΡΙΣΧΥΟΥΣΙΝ αἱ γυναῖκες, ὑπὲρ δὲ πάντα νικᾷ ἡ Ἀλήθεια, that is, WOMEN PREVAIL OVER ALL; BUT ABOVE ALL THINGS TRUTH CONQUERS — which [answer] Zorobabel, sprung of royal race among the Jews, had written.

When the king had read these before his wise men on the following day, it was acclaimed by all that the sentence of Zorobabel excelled the rest; which preferred Truth as the only thing, among all mortal things, immortal and perpetual, and obnoxious to no injuries of times nor mutations of fortune ¹²⁰. And to Zorobabel was delivered the power next to the royal, and at the same time the faculty of leading back the remnants of the Jewish captivity into Judaea, and of rebuilding the holy city and the temple. Read Esdras, book 3, chapter 3, and Josephus, book 5 of the Antiquities, chapter 3.

CYRUS, the first king of the Persians, is said to have written these [things] ¹²¹: Commentaries of daily actions (in which Esdras testifies was found the decree spoken by king Darius concerning the leading-back of the Jews into Palestine). To all the cities of Asia, an edict for the liberation of the Jewish nation and the restoration of the holy city; to Sisenes and Sarabasanes, satraps of Syria, one epistle of the same argument — whose copy Josephus brings in the eleventh book of the Antiquities, chapter 1.