The Recognitions Of Clement

The Recognitions of Clement

Recognitions is a captivating text dating back to the early Christian church and referenced by early church fathers Origen and Eusebius. The narrative is addressed to James the Just, the Bishop of Jerusalem, and is recorded by one Clement, a Greek, who chronicles a series of discourses by the apostle Peter, which he is witness to while accompanying Peter in his travels. Clement begins his account by detailing his own religious search before hearing of Christ. While in Rome, Clement hears the preaching of Barnabas who testifies of the miracles and teachings of Jesus. Clement, being moved by the words of Barnabas, defends him from a mob and ends up following after him to Palestine where he meets up with Peter. A large portion of the text is devoted to an intriguing disputation between Peter and Simon the Sorcerer before an audience of onlookers. Peter invites Clement to accompany him in his travels from city to city, creating an opportunity for Clement to be instructed more perfectly concerning the faith.

The Clementine Homilies

The Recognitions

A postmodern masterpiece about fraud and forgery by one of the most distinctive, accomplished novelists of the last century. The Recognitions is a sweeping depiction of a world in which everything that anyone recognizes as beautiful or true or good emerges as anything but: our world. The book is a masquerade, moving from New England to New York to Madrid, from the art world to the underworld, but it centers on the story of Wyatt Gwyon, the son of a New England minister, who forsakes religion to devote himself to painting, only to despair of his inspiration. In expiation, he will paint nothing but flawless copies of his revered old masters—copies, however, that find their way into the hands of a sinister financial wizard by the name of Recktall Brown, who of course sells them as the real thing. Dismissed uncomprehendingly by reviewers on publication in 1955 and ignored by the literary world for decades after, The Recognitions is now established as one of the great American novels, immensely ambitious and entirely unique, a book of wild, Boschian inspiration and outrageous comedy that is also profoundly serious and sad.