The Pseudo-Clementine Writings and Shem-Tob's Hebrew Matthew

Abstract

In his History of Dogma, Adolph Harnack wrote that the ‘Pseudo-Clementines contribute absolutely nothing to our knowledge of the origin of the Catholic Church and doctrine.’ Hans Lietzmann, Harnack's successor in Berlin, concluded similarly in his assessment of these writings. He wrote that the Clementines are ‘fictions without historical basis, and valueless for the study of the early Christian and Judaistic period’.