Insofar as scholars have busied themselves with the Pseudo-Clementine writings, made up of the Homilies and the Recognitions, it has often been with a view to detecting earlier sources concealed within both works and assumed by most to originate in an earlier work, usually designated the Grundschrift. More recently, and here on the basis of a few dissident voices from an earlier period of research, some have come to question this particular approach to these works. Some of these criticisms have been technical – there just is not sufficient evidence, in particular linguistic evidence, to support such detailed pieces of scholarly dissection. Others have been of a more literary and contextual kind. Would it not be better, such scholars have argued, to read the Pseudo-Clementines as a whole and to place them within their wider cultural and social environment? A recent work that does this is D. Coté's analysis of the presentation of the opposition between Peter and Paul in the Pseudo-Clementines (Le Thème de l'opposition entre Pierre et Simon dans les Pseudo-Clémentines, reviewed this Journal lv [2004], 330–2). In broad terms the present work falls into the same camp. It is Nicole Kelley's aim in this published version of a Harvard dissertation ‘to attempt to show how, in Rufinus' early fifth-century Latin translation of the Recognitions, philosophical and astrological materials that have often been artificially separated by source criticism are used together in a single discourse about true knowledge’ (p. 27). It will be her contention that such a work was of special relevance to the Syrian Christian community of the middle and later fourth century. The book divides itself into five chapters. In the introductory chapter Kelley sets out her aims and purposes against the backcloth of previous research into the Pseudo-Clementines, seeking to justify both her approach and to lay out her method. In respect of the latter she places particular emphasis upon Bourdieu's idea of ‘field’ understood as ‘an area, a playing field, a field of objective relations among individuals or institutions competing for the same stakes’. According to Kelley, if we look upon the Recognitions as describing or participating in a field, we begin to get a clearer picture of the players involved, and these are not Gnostics, Arians, Jewish Christians etc. but just two sides grouped according to their source of knowledge. These sources of knowledge are bound up with philosophy and astrology. Chapter ii examines the presentation of the philosophical side of the debate. Two points emerge. The Christian protagonists in the debate, in particular Clement and his brothers, are presented as expert in philosophical discourse and leading a properly philosophical life whereas their opponents emerge as sophists who debate for debate's sake. But also asserted is the idea that philosophical inquiry is not an adequate source for true knowledge precisely because the former depends upon human conjecture. These apparently contradictory claims are aimed at ‘undermining the institutions of the field, and challenging the participants' notions of capital within the field’ (p. 81). Chapter iii looks at the presentation of astrology by examining the well-known astrological debates of Recognitions 9. Kelley argues strongly that there is evidence for the redactional activity of the author of Recognitions, not least on the basis of what she perceives to be his treatment of Bardaisan's Books of the laws of the countries (in contrast to the Homilist and apparently the Grundschrift, all positive views of astrology are excluded). Not dissimilar points about expertise and subversion of the field of discourse in the previous chapter are made here, too. ‘By suggesting that astrological expertise does not really count as knowledge of heavenly and earthly realities, the Recognitions makes it possible for the field itself to be taken over by the protagonists who have unique access to a superior and more legitimate form of capital: prophetic knowledge’ (p. 134). But in this discussion, the origin of the expertise is not human but demonic. Chapter iv, ‘The followers of the true prophet’, takes up the implications of the final sentence of the previous chapter (just quoted), and investigates the manner in which the author of the Recognitions presents the idea that prophetic knowledge is superior to all other forms of knowledge, and how Peter is presented as Jesus' true follower, and Clement as Peter's true follower: ‘The line of transmission runs from the True prophet to Peter to Clement, and then directly to the readers and hearers of the text’ (p. 178). The final chapter is taken up with examining the place of the Recognitions in fourth-century Syria. Kelley is frank in admitting that any attempt to outline the context of the Recognitions is fraught with almost unimaginable difficulties: ‘The redactional history of the Pseudo-Clementines involves two fourth-century Syrian spin-offs of a third-century Syrian novel, which itself relies on a number of earlier sources that clearly derive from yet other times and places’ (p. 179). But, following the conventional view that the Recognitions is Syrian in origin, she seeks to elucidate this context. With the help of much previous scholarship, Kelley portrays fourth-century Syria as a hotbed of conflicting religious opinions. Bardesanites, Manicheans, Marcionites, Arians and others propagated their views in a highly competitive religious ‘marketplace’, and Ephrem and others are quoted to illustrate this point. While Kelley discusses these various groups separately, she goes on to assert, and this in line with her overarching argument, that ‘these religious communities were participating in a single discourse about belief, practice and authority’. Interestingly, Kelley goes on to add a section on Julian, showing how issues raised specifically by this emperor are reflected in the Recognitions. In addition, and amongst other things, Kelley argues that the decision of the writer of Recognitions not to name the opposition in terms of different groups is rhetorical: ‘In this way the text redescribes the field of competition, so that it ceases to be a bewildering array of rival religious claimants and becomes something more manageable: a choice between prophetic and false knowledge, and ultimately a choice between salvation or damnation’ (p. 207). Correct opinion is associated with Peter and what could be construed as a line of succession reflecting the fourth century's new interest in questions of apostolicity.

This is an interesting and well-informed monograph which casts fresh light on a much-studied text. Its insistence on reading the Recognitions in relation to a mooted fourth-century Syrian context makes sense, allowing the reader better to understand some of its emphases; and its elucidation of the strategies of what one assumes is the final author is helpful and challenging. Kelley also makes interesting remarks on the ongoing relevance of second-century issues for those Christians who lived in the fourth century – the need to reengage with the Grundschrift must in part have been suggested by a sense that aspects of its content seemed especially relevant to its later redactor; and she provides an intriguing explanation for the apparently haphazard structure of the text – the incorporation of sources is the author's way of helping the reader re-situate familiar but competing religious texts and truth claims.

Scholars may, of course, wonder whether Kelley's decision to view the themes of philosophy and astrology as central to the aims of Recognitions is entirely justified. Kelley implies that ‘philosophy’ covers a wide spread of issues and can probably be applied to figures like Marcion but that is not completely clear; and she is never able to show that philosophy as such was a concept of major significance in Syria at the period under discussion (see esp. pp. 194–6). While her decision to take a redactional approach to the text is justified, given the complex character of Recognitions, so admirably expressed by Kelley herself, any precise comments in this regard are difficult to make. What sort of a text did our Syrian redactor inherit? To what extent is he responsible for the literary and argumentational strategies outlined by Kelley? And to what extent has Rufinus' translation, upon which we are almost wholly reliant, distorted the contents of the mooted fourth-century Syrian author? In a sense there are no clear answers to these questions precisely because we know so little about the circumstances which led to the production of the Recognitions and its Latin translation (although Rufinus tells us a little about this in the preface to his translation, some of which is discussed by Kelley but only very briefly). This matter becomes more perplexing when we note the significance of much of the contents of Recognitions to the second and third centuries. Kelley does attempt to justify some of her redactional observations, in particular in relation to the Recognitions' attitude to the Bardaisan source but her comments remain necessarily speculative. Eschewing source and related questions is fine in principle but inevitably it impacts upon comments of a redactional kind, rendering them more speculative than might at first seem to be the case.

More could be said by way of questions and criticisms but that is to be expected in such a controverted field; and none of the questions relate to the author's competency as a scholar. She has provided us with an intriguing piece of work which should stimulate a lively debate in an ongoing discussion on a complex and multi-faceted text.