Indeed, Eusebius’ scholarly method, which developed out of his
researches into biblical texts, led him to quote extracts from
earlier writers that supported the arguments he himself sought to
advance (Barnes 1981). As a result, his works contain extensive
extracts not only from scripture but also from early Christian liter-
ature that would otherwise be irretrievably lost. His Ecclesiastical
Historyin particular is a mine of such fragments: from it, for
example, we have samples (not all of them complete) of letters
written by Irenaeus (Ecclesiastical History5.20, 23, 24).
Even where works do survive there are problems of authen-
ticity similar to those that confront interpreters of the New
Testament. We have already noted the existence of the First
Epistle of Clement, but its text nowhere gives its author’s name,
which appears only in titles in the manuscripts. There exists,
moreover, a Second Epistle of Clement– but it is a homily, not
a letter, and its style is so wholly different from that of the First
Epistlethat it must surely have been written by another author.
Other works too have come down to us under Clement’s name,
but none of them seems to be authentic either. The reason for this
circumstance is not difficult to fathom. In the centuries before the
canon of Christian scripture was closed, the First Epistle of
Clementwas read to Christian gatherings (Eusebius, Ecclesias-
tical History3.16; 4.23.11). Within the church, then, the name of
Clement was associated with a certain authority, and any work
that had his name attached to it could share in that authority, much
in the same way that the deutero-Pauline letters were regarded as
important texts because they were believed to have been written
by Paul.
Like the New Testament and the apocrypha, the writings of
subsequent generations of Christians were produced in contexts
of lively debate. Any effort to interpret them as historical sources
must be mindful of this factor. Indeed, the very fact that many
modern histories of early Christianity are for the most part
accounts of disputes over doctrine and practice neatly reflects the
character of the surviving ancient Christian literature.
SOURCES AND THEIR INTERPRETATION1
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1711
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