Of imperial family and eventually Peter's heir as bishop of Rome, Clement relates here how he happened to become a Christian and how Peter instructed his companions as he refutes the arch-heretic Simon Magus in a series of debates. Clement also recounts the astonishing recovery of his long-lost family. All these events occur in the year of Christ's death. The Pseudo-Clementines were popular reading throughout the Middle Ages in a Latin translation and reemerged in early modern times via vernacular versions and especially the Faust-legend. Often considered the first and only ancient Christian novel, the Pseudo-Clementines originated in Syrian Jewish-Christianity in the early third century. Two ancient Syriac translations from the fourth century reflect Greek texts no longer preserved; they contain the essence of Clement's biographical account and of Peter's teachings and debates with Simon. Of particular interest is Peter's detailed review of the origins of Christianity, which apparently seeks to rebut the canonical Acts of the Apostles and lays the blame for the unbelief of the Jews squarely at the feet of Paul. This volume presents the first complete translation of the Syriac into any modern language and thereby opens the door for a new stage of historical research and literary appreciation.

A postmodern masterpiece about fraud and forgery by one of the most distinctive, accomplished novelists of the last century. The Recognitions is a sweeping depiction of a world in which everything that anyone recognizes as beautiful or true or good emerges as anything but: our world. The book is a masquerade, moving from New England to New York to Madrid, from the art world to the underworld, but it centers on the story of Wyatt Gwyon, the son of a New England minister, who forsakes religion to devote himself to painting, only to despair of his inspiration. In expiation, he will paint nothing but flawless copies of his revered old masters—copies, however, that find their way into the hands of a sinister financial wizard by the name of Recktall Brown, who of course sells them as the real thing. Dismissed uncomprehendingly by reviewers on publication in 1955 and ignored by the literary world for decades after, The Recognitions is now established as one of the great American novels, immensely ambitious and entirely unique, a book of wild, Boschian inspiration and outrageous comedy that is also profoundly serious and sad.

In recent years the so-called apocryphal literature has increasingly drawn the attention of scholars interested in early Christianity, ancient history and the ancient novel. New editions of the most important texts have already appeared or are being prepared. We are therefore pleased to announce a new series, Studies on Early Christian Apocrypha (formerly called Studies on the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles). The editors welcome contributions on individual aspects of the main texts, be it proceedings of conferences or monographs. Jan N. Bremmer is Professor of Religious Studies at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen and a well-known expert on Greek and Roman religion as well as Early Christianity.

The Syriac Clementine Recognitions and Homilies is the first ever complete translation into a modern language of this important historical document relating to the origins of Judaism and Christianity. Found within the pages of the world's oldest-dated manuscript, in any language, The Syriac Clementine Recognitions and Homilies tells the first-century story of a young Roman philosopher, Clement. Leaving his native land, Clement travels to the Middle East to meet the Apostles and records details of the original teachings of Jesus' earliest followers. Clement also relays the travels of the Apostle Peter in his attempt to stop a false version of Christianity from being spread throughout the Roman Empire by an insidious deceiver. The narrative concludes with an amazing life story retold by the author. This astonishing document, having been suppressed for nearly two millennia, contains revelations about the formative years leading up to the split between Jews and Christians, and has the potential to revolutionize modern understandings of religion and philosophy. The text is written in Syriac, a dialect of the Aramaic language spoken by Jesus and his Apostles. The Clementine Recognitions and Homilies has previously only been available through altered Greek and Latin recensions and has become a topic of great controversy among Biblical scholars for the past five centuries. Now, for the first time, the oldest form of the text is made accessible to the public in a complete English translation.

This study examines how early Christian writers drew on ancient Jewish and Greco-Roman traditions to develop their own ideas about purity, purification, defilement, and disgust.

The Pseudo-Clementines are best known for preserving early Jewish Christian traditions, but have not been appreciated as a resource for understanding the struggles over identity and orthodoxy among fourth-century Christians, Jews, and pagans. Using the work of sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, Nicole Kelley analyzes the rhetorical strategies employed by the Recognitions . These strategies discredit the knowledge of philosophers and astrologers, and establish Peter and Clement as the exclusive stewards of prophetic knowledge, which has been handed down to them by Jesus. This analysis reveals that the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions is not a jumbled collection of earlier source materials, as previous interpreters have thought, but a coherent narrative concerned primarily with epistemological issues. The author understands the Recognitions as a reflection of complex rivalries between several types of Christian and non-Christian groups such as that found in fourth-century Antioch or Edessa.

This collection of articles analyzes the formation of antique and early medieval religious identities and ideas in rabbinic Judaism, early Christianity, Islam, and Greco-Roman culture. The authors question the artificial disciplinary and conceptual boundaries between these traditions.

The Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage (GEDSH) is the first major encyclopedia-type reference work devoted exclusively to Syriac Christianity, both as a field of scholarly inquiry and as the inheritance of Syriac Christians today. In more than 600 entries it covers the Syriac heritage from its beginnings in the first centuries of the Common Era up to the present day. Special attention is given to authors, literary works, scholars, and locations that are associated with the Classical Syriac tradition. Within this tradition, the diversity of Syriac Christianity is highlighted as well as Syriac Christianity's broader literary and historical contexts, with major entries devoted to Greek and Arabic authors and more general themes, such as Syriac Christianity's contacts with Judaism and Islam, and with Armenian, Coptic, Ethiopian, and Georgian Christianities.