2

Besides the patristic quotations more especially those in Clement of Alexandria, and in some later fathers, the text is mainly due to three sources.

(1) The famous Alexandrian uncial MS of the New Testament [A] in the British Museum, belonging to the fifth century, to which it is added as a sort of appendix together with the spurious so-called Second Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians. This MS is mutilated at the close of both Epistles besides being torn or illegible in many passage of the first. From this was published the Editio princeps of Patrici Junius (1633).

(2) The Constantinopolitan or Hierosolymitan MS [C] belonging to the library of the Greek Patriarch of Jerusalem, whose chief resident is at Constantinople. From this the two Epistles of Clement (the Genuine and the Spurious) were first printed in full (1875) by Bryennic then Metropolitan of Serræ, but now Patriarch of Nicomedia. The MS is dated A.D. 1056.

(3) The Syriac translation discovered a few years ago and now the possession of the Cambridge University Library. This is not yet published, but all the various readings were given in Lightfoot’s Clement of Rome Appendix, London, 1877. This Syriac Version bea a date corresponding to A.D. 1170.

The relations of these authorities are fully discussed in the large edition of Clement. Here it is sufficient to say that A, as being the most ancient, is likewise far the best authority; but owing to the lacunae in it and other reasons the two other authorities are of the highest value in different ways.

Wherever the text is taken from any one or any combination of these three authorities, no notice is given of a various reading. But where the authority is patristic it is mentioned in the notes, and occasionally a reading is either adopted into the text, or recorded as highly probable in the footnote on conjecture, in which case the narrate of its author is given.

The square brackets [ ] throughout the book denote that a word so included is of doubtful authority and ought perhaps to be neglected corruptions in the text are indicated by daggers †† placed on each side of the corrupt passage. A full list of symbols and abbreviations employed in dealing with the text is given at the end of the volume.