The "Secret Books" of Clement, the Author of the List of the Apostles, in the Ethiopic Tradition

The reason why the prescriptions of the Apostles have remained hidden for so long is traditionally explained as being the nature of the content of these works consisting of profound secrets which could not be revealed to anyone except the highest ecclesiastical authority. This formula about "hidden book" is found in the Greek recension of the ApCan. Among the biblical canoaical boots, the "8 books of Clement", that is the ApCst, are also inserted. Probably, the formula bas its immediate origin in a pseudo-clementine text, the Letter of Peter to The Greek fathers founded this tradition on the example of Moses; and we could follow up this Leitmotiv to at least as far as St. John Damascene. [Alessandro Bausi]

The same author notes a confusion between "Clement of Alexandria" and "Clement of Rome" is likely to have occurred in the List of the Apostles itself. From his:Bausi, Alessandro. “Una ‘lista’ etiopica di apostoli e discepoli.” Pages 43–67 in vol. 1 of Æthiopica et Orientalia: studi in onore di Yaqob Beyene. Edited by Allesandro Bausi, et al. 2 vols. Studi Africanistici, Serie Etiopica 9. Naples: Napoli Univ. degli Studi di Napoli “L’Orientale,” 2012 (Ethiopic text and facing Italian translation, pp. 54–67): 

The Ethiopic list can be analyzed in six distinct sections, A, B, C, D, E, and F.

Section (A), §§ 1–17 in the edition, consists of brief numbered notices (nos. 1–14), in order, on: (1) Peter, (2) Andrew, (3) James son of Zebedee, (4) John the Evangelist, (5) Philip, (6) Bartholomew, (7) Thomas, (8) Matthew, (9) Mark, (10) James son of Alphaeus, (11) Thaddaeus, (12) Simeon son of Cleopas, (13) Matthew (Matthias), (14) Paul. Since, by comparison with other recensions, the long notice on Mark is very likely the result of an insertion, the notices prior to Mark have been assigned to a subsection (Aa), §§ 1–10; the notice on Mark to a subsection (Ab), §§ 11–12; and the notices following Mark to a subsection (Ac), §§ 13–17.

Section (B), §§ 18–19, contains brief numbered notices (nos. 15–16) on Titus, Crescens, and the eunuch of Queen Candace.

Section (C), §§ 20–22, to which only one number is assigned (no. 17), names some of the disciples: Clement (with a probable confusion of Clement of Alexandria with Clement of Rome), Sosthenes, Cephas, Matthew (Matthias), Matthew, Barnabas (confused with Barsabbas), Linus (in the Ethiopic text, erroneously, Qilinos), Timothy, Thaddaeus, and Cleopas. Outside the list itself, section (C) also appears sporadically among the various and diverse texts that sometimes precede the text of the Gospels.

Section (D), §§ 23–27, concerns the composition and translation of the Gospels. Like section (C), section (D) also appears sporadically among introductory texts to the Gospels.

Sections (E) and (F) have no correspondence with lists known in other traditions: section (E), §§ 28–29, contains a concise summary of Jesus’ life; section (F), § 30, probably contains the explicit (closing) of a festal letter for Easter (Fāsekā). This last detail provides a clue to the likely immediate provenance of the Ethiopic text as thus assembled: it may have been inserted into a festal letter from an Alexandrian milieu, given the evident prominence the list accords to the notice on Mark (section Ab). This is, of course, only a very preliminary hypothesis to be tested and developed elsewhere, by clarifying more precisely the text’s textual-critical and historical-cultural context.

That said, the single external datum of the traditional context is enough to indicate that the Ethiopic list belongs—together with the Acts of Mark—to the extremely small group of Ethiopic apostolic apocrypha attributable to the Aksumite period and presumably based on a Greek Vorlage. The resulting structurally archaic character (before the 7th century, more probably 5th–6th century) of the original text is confirmed by specific internal features: the Ethiopic list shares significant textual peculiarities with a particular archaic recension-form identified by Dolbeau in Greek and Latin witnesses, within earlier editions and studies where it had not been clearly singled out. This recension-form is attested by two Greek manuscripts: Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Graecus 1506 (formerly Grottaferrata 47), here indicated by the siglum A; Mount Athos, Vatopedi Monastery, 853 (formerly 657), here indicated by the siglum V; and by a Latin version transmitted in the manuscript Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Lat. 4886.

Then later: 

§ 20 — the notice about Clement, Qalamēnṭos, originally referring to Clement of Alexandria in the Greek and Latin tradition, shows in the Ethiopic a wholly original development: the Clement who “preached and wrote the law of the church for the ṗāṗās, the presbyters, and for every perfection of ecclesiastical ordination” is certainly (Pseudo-)Clement of Rome, the central figure of the canonical–liturgical literature. 

The entire notice reads as follows in English: 

History of the apostles: how they preached, who translated each one’s words, how they died, and where they were buried.

1. Semʿon, who was called Peter, preached in the land of Pontus, the land of Galatia, the land of Cappadocia, the land of Bithynia, the land of Italy, and the land of Asia. He preached the Gospel and died in the land of Rome in the days of King Nero. He died in this way: with his head downward, and he begged the king, saying to him, “Do not crucify me like my Lord,” and so he crucified him upside down and buried him in the land of Rome.

2. Enderyās (Andrew) preached in the land of Asqatiyā, among the peoples of Sagadiyān, and he preached among the people of Saqis; he died in the land of Paṭrā of Akāyeyā (Achaia).

3. Yaʿqob (James) son of Zabedēwos preached to the twelve Hebrew tribes, and King Herod killed him with the sword in the city of Aqi of Marmāreqē.

4. Yohannes, whom our Lord loved, the evangelist, died in the land of Ephesus.

5. Filepos (Philip) died in the city of Phrygia, and they buried him in the city of Hieropolis in the land of Asia, with his four virgin daughters.

6. Bartalomēwos (Bartholomew) preached among the people of Endakē; he preached the Gospel and died in the city of Albania, in the land of Armenia.

7. Tomās preached the Gospel in the city of Fārs to the people of Paratayā, to the people of Fārs, to the people of Mādāy, to the people of Qarmānus, to the people of Warqānes, to the people of Baquṭures, and he died in the city of Ḥellat of Endakē.

8. Matēwos preached the Gospel in the language of the Hebrews, and he died in the city of ʾIyaruyā in the land of Fārs.

9. Mārqos preached the Gospel in the land of Alexandria (ʾElakasanderyā) and in the land of Egypt (Gebṣ), and he died at Alexandria in the place of Qāpiton. They buried him in the place whose name is Baqulu, in the chapel that he built for himself together with the martyr ʾIquṭor, which was in the city of Laqon. King ʾElaksenderos found his bones in the city of Luqon, had his bones brought down to the city of Alexandria, and buried him with the patriarch Tēwonā.

10. Yaʿqob son of ʾElfyo(s) (James son of Alphaeus) died, killed by the Jews by stoning at Jerusalem, and in his city they buried him near the Temple.

11. Tādēwos, who was called Yehudā, in the city of Edessa, in the land of Mesopotamia, preached the Gospel in the days of Awgāros king of Edossa, and they buried him at Biretos.

12. Simon son of Qalēwopā(s) (Cleopas), after Yaʿqob the Just, was appointed pāpās for Jerusalem; and all the days of his life were [—] years; they crucified him in the days of King Trajan in the city of Jerusalem.

13. Matēwos (Matthias), one of the seventy disciples of our Lord, who was appointed in place of Yehudā ʾAsqorotāwi (Iscariot), died and was buried in the city of Jerusalem.

14. Pāwlos the apostle preached from the city of Jerusalem as far as the land of Jericho (ʾIyariko), the land of Rome, and the land of Spain (ʾAspānyā). In the days of King Nero they killed him with the sword, and they buried his bones in the land of Rome.

15. Ṭiṭon (Titus), in the land of Crete (Qretis), on the coast of the island, preached the Gospel, and on that island he died.

16. Qiresqis was in the land of Galatia. The eunuch of Kandake, queen of Ethiopia, was in the land of Arabia, which is the land of Egypt (Gebṣ), and in ʾAprobānē, on the island, in the region of Ethiopia; there he was martyred.

17. Among the apostles of our Lord and the disciples, of the number of seventy, are Qalamēnṭos, who preached and wrote the law of the church for the pāpās, the presbyters, and for every perfection of ecclesiastical ordination; and Barnābās; Sostēnos; Qefās, whose name is like that of Peter, head of the apostles; Matēwos, who was numbered with the eleven apostles; Matēwos; Barnābās; Qilinos, who wrote to Timotēwos, disciple of Pāwlos; Tādēwos and Qalēwopās.