Abstract

This review article discusses Dominique Côté’s innovative insights into Pseudo-Clementine scholarship over the past 25 years. These insights have recently been collected in his edited volume, "Pseudo-Clément et Vrai Prophète. Itinéraire d’Athènes à Jérusalem". My brief discussion is not so much a discussion of his "Itinéraire d’Athènes à Jérusalem" as such, but rather a reconsideration of the original aspects of Côté’s own itinerary in Pseudo-Clementine scholarship. In the past century, much attention has been paid to complex source-critical theories and hypotheses of second-century, even first-century, (Jewish)Christian sources that potentially, but implausibly, underlie the various traditions. These possible reconstructions did not reveal much of the extant Pseudo-Clementines as such, but were rather quests to uncover the earliest but hypothetical foundations of Christianity that scholars believed were hidden in the supposedly less original extant versions. The original voices of the various Pseudo-Clementine traditions have still not been fully heard, especially in the fields of rhetorical, literary, and philosophical studies. It is precisely here that Côté has laid a strong foundation for future scholarship on the Pseudo-Clementines, especially with regard to late ancient Neoplatonic philosophy in dialogue with Jewish and Christian philosophical and religious voices.