genuine Epistle of Clement (see CLEMENT I.), both (3) and (4) were
due to this idea as operative on Syrian soil; (5) is a secondary
formation based on (3) as known to the West.

(1) _The "Second Epistle of Clement."_--This is really the earliest
extant Christian homily (see APOSTOLIC FATHERS). Its theme is the duty
of Christian repentance, with a view to obedience to Christ's precepts
as the true confession and homage which He requires. Its special charge
is "Preserve the flesh pure and the seal (i.e. baptism) unstained"
(viii. 6). But the peculiar way in which it enforces its morals in terms
of the Platonic contrast between the spiritual and sensuous worlds, as
archetype and temporal manifestation, suggests a special local type of
theology which must be taken into account in fixing its _provenance_.
This theology, the fact that the preacher seems to quote the _Gospel
according to the Egyptians_ (in ch. xii. and possibly elsewhere) as if
familiar to his hearers, and indeed its literary affinities generally,
all point to Alexandria as the original home of the homily, at a date
about 120-140 (see _Zeit. f. N. T. Wissenschaft_, vii. 123 ff). Neither
Corinth (as Lightfoot) nor Rome (as Harnack, who assigns it to Bishop
Soter, c. 166-174) satisfies all the internal conditions, while the
Eastern nature of the external evidence and the homily's quasi-canonical
status in the Codex-Alexandrinus strongly favour an Alexandrine origin.

(2) _The Two Epistles to Virgins_, i.e. to Christian celibates of both
sexes. These are known in their entirety only in Syriac, and were first
published by Wetstein (1752), who held them genuine. This view is now
generally discredited, even by Roman Catholics like Funk, their best
recent editor (_Patres Apost._, vol. ii.). External evidence begins with
Epiphanius (_Haer._ xxx. 15) and Jerome (_Ad Jovin._ i. 12); and the
silence of Eusebius tells heavily against their existence before the 4th
century, at any rate as writings of Clement. The Monophysite Timothy of
Alexandria (A.D. 457) cites one of them as Clement's, while Antiochus of
St Saba (c. A.D. 620) makes copious but unacknowledged extracts from
both in the original Greek. There is no trace of their use in the West.
Thus their Syrian origin is manifest, the more so that in the Syriac MS.
they are appended to the New Testament, like the better-known epistles
of Clement in the Codex Alexandrinus. Indeed, judging from another
Syriac MS. of earli