THE CLEMENTINE RECOGNITIONS.
The Clementine Recognitions. By Fenton J. A. Hort, D.D. (Macmillan and Co. 4s. 6d.)—This volume contains the lectures delivered by Dr. Hort as Hulsean Professor in the October term, 1884. We should recommend any reader who may not be studying the whole subject systematically to begin with the section Pp. 13342, "The Doctrine of the Recognitions." We could wish that this had been longer. But Dr. Hort was addressing an audience whom he had strongly advised to make themaelvea acquaintedWith the "Recognitions" by reading them through, and whom be evidently supposed• to have followed his advice. Still, there is u -ancient in the section to give the reader a general idea of the an led, and this will lend a greater interest to the detailed, as d often technical, discussion as to the origin of the book. 'The conclusion at which Dr. Hort arrived was that It was written by a Helzaite —i.e., an Essen° Ebionite—about 200 A.D. Origen was acquainted with it, but refers to it only in his later works. Of course the most important element in the question is the hostility shown by the writers of the Clementine books to St. Paul. The Judaising party in the Church maintained a long struggle, and this literature is the most articulate expression of its feelings. In process of time it suffered what may be called a transmigration. The Judaising and the Evangelical tendencies of Christian belief can be easily recognised in the present divisions of Christendom. It is, indeed, this that gives the real value to those elaborate studies of ecclesiastical antiquity of which this volume is an admirable example.
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