Canonicity

The Book of Clement is included in the broader version of the New Testament canon of the Ethiopian Orthodox church, but not in its narrower version of the canon. This does not mean that its canonicity is a significant matter of debate today; the validity of the broader versus narrower versions of the canon is not a major contentious issue in the Ethiopian Orthodox church.

Historically, however, the authenticity and authority of the Book of Clement was debated in the Ethiopian Orthodox church. The Book of Mystery (Ethiopic Maṣḥafa Mëstir) of Giyorgis of Sagla, completed in 1424, rejects the book while affirming the authority of other books that today form part of the Ethiopian broader New Testament canon: the Ethiopian Didascalia and the Sinodos. Giyorgis denies that the contents of the Book of Clement come from Peter or were written down by Clement, and says that it is full of lies and was written by a Melkite (Bausi, Il Qalēmenṭos, 36–37; Ferenc, “Writing and Literature,” 277. In this context, “Melkite” is a term for members of churches that accepted the christological definition of the council of Chalcedon in 451, which by 1424 included both the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches; in this period, the Melkites were considered heretical by the Ethiopian Orthodox church).