Knowledge and Religious Authority in the Pseudo-Clementines: Situating the Recognitions in Fourth Century Syria (review)

Scholars interested in the Pseudo-Clementines have been largely concerned with source-critical issues and with parsing and categorizing elements of the collection into a variety of earlier sources. This approach, by and large, uses the classifications of heresiologists to isolate and match redacted material to an "original" (often Jewish-Christian) source or group. In this book, however, Nicole Kelley is interested in the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions as a final product of redaction. She hopes to demonstrate how the redacted text, which places philosophical and astrological sources side by side (sources that are separated according to a source-critical approach), illuminates the multifaceted rivalries over "true" knowledge in the world of its editor. Over against this epistemic competition, the Recognitions attempts to establish a particular vision of the orthodox production of knowledge, i.e., prophetic knowledge.

To this end, Kelley utilizes Pierre Bourdieu's notion of field as the theoretical lens through which to analyze the Recognitions. According to Bourdieu, a field is any environment in which different groups compete for scarce (symbolic or cultural) capital; established players attempt to maintain their capital through "conservation strategies" while newcomers attempt to undermine the latter's stronghold through "subversion strategies," which both participate in the organizing principles of the field and simultaneously attempt to redefine and appropriate those principles for themselves. Kelley argues that the author of the Recognitions participates in just such a contest over epistemic authority.

In Chapters 2 and 3, Kelley analyzes how the Recognitions uses philosophical and astrological sources as counterpoints to its own position, which privileges prophetic knowledge. Kelley argues that philosophy and astrology were epistemological rivals of Christianity; for both groups, "knowledge involves a proper understanding of how the world works, correct interpretation of past and present events, as well as accurate predictions of future occurrences" (85). Moreover, both of these disciplines held sway in the field since their knowledge was specialized and authenticated (according to institutional backing and public perception) and their practitioners were regarded as experts. In order to demonstrate Christianity's—the "newcomer's"— superiority over these rivals, the author of the Recognitions utilized two primary "subversion strategies." First, the Christian protagonists are shown to possess the same specialized knowledge as their rivals, being trained in a range of philosophical and astrological traditions and skills. This positioning of the protagonists, who share their rivals' epistemic capital, allows them to criticize their rivals from within. Second, after undermining the epistemic capital of traditional philosophical and astrological expertise, the field is taken over by the protagonists, who propose a superior path to "true" knowledge. Although the author of the Recognitions utilizes different rhetorical strategies against philosophical and astrological knowledge (clearly outlined by Kelley in these two chapters), in both cases the overall goal is to "divorce knowledge from expertise . . . recognized by the field" in order to provide space for Christianity to assert its own epistemic authority (81).

In Chapter 3, Kelley argues that the Recognitions proposes a unique and superior alternative to philosophical and astrological knowledge, i.e., prophetic knowledge, which derives from the True Prophet. The Recognitions posits that prophetic knowledge is the rare commodity of Christian specialists and is distinct in that such knowledge can only be handed down by the True Prophet and not acquired through the honing of particular modes of intellection. The protagonist of the Recognitions, Peter, need not cultivate any special skills but could claim unique access to prophetic knowledge because he was a witness to Jesus' teaching, and by extension Clement, the disciple of Peter, could make the same claim. Peter's teaching, in turn, is not based on innovation but rather is a faithful transmission of the words of the True Prophet. In this chapter Kelley demonstrates how the text establishes and authenticates Peter's personal acquaintance with Jesus so as to refute not only rival apostolic claimants (such as...