Recognitions is a captivating text dating back to the early Christian church and referenced by early church fathers Origen and Eusebius. The narrative is addressed to James the Just, the Bishop of Jerusalem, and is recorded by one Clement, a Greek, who chronicles a series of discourses by the apostle Peter, which he is witness to while accompanying Peter in his travels. Clement begins his account by detailing his own religious search before hearing of Christ. While in Rome, Clement hears the preaching of Barnabas who testifies of the miracles and teachings of Jesus. Clement, being moved by the words of Barnabas, defends him from a mob and ends up following after him to Palestine where he meets up with Peter. A large portion of the text is devoted to an intriguing disputation between Peter and Simon the Sorcerer before an audience of onlookers. Peter invites Clement to accompany him in his travels from city to city, creating an opportunity for Clement to be instructed more perfectly concerning the faith.

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.

"The Sacred Writings Of ..." provides you with the essential works among the Early Christian writings. The volumes cover the beginning of Christianity until before the promulgation of the Nicene Creed at the First Council of Nicaea. Every single volume is accurately annotated, including * an extensive biography of the author and his life The name "Pseudo-Clementine Literature" (or, more briefly, "Clementina" ) is applied to a series of writings, closely resembling each other, purporting to emanate from the great Roman Father. But, as Dr. Schaff remarks, in this literature he is evidently confounded with "Flavius Clement, kinsman of the Emperor Domitian." These writings are two in number: (1) the Recognitions, of which only the Latin translation of Rufinus has been preserved; (2) the Homilies, twenty in number, of which a complete collection has been known since 1853. Other writings may be classed with these; but they are of the same general character, except that most of them show the influence of a later age, adapting the material more closely to the orthodox doctrine.

Forgery and Counter-forgery: The Use of Literary Deceit in Early Christian Polemics is the first major contemporary work on forgery in early Christian literature. It examines the motivation and function behind Christian literary forgeries.

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.