The Clementine Gospel

is counted among the lost gospels, but it probably never existed in the first place; rather it is likely to be a reference to Clement's listing of the correct order in which the Gospels were written, in the way that we might invent the phrase "The Dewey Gospel" as an explanation of his library cataloguing system.

Clement tells us that "the first written of the gospels were those having the genealogies", from which it is understood that Matthew came first, followed by Luke, Mark and finally John; he explains that Mark published two editions, the first before Luke appeared, which is why you who just read this sentence thought that this commentary, or Clement, had the order wrong. Actually it was Jerome, creating the Vulgate, who had the order wrong, and admitted this to Pope Damasus I, who had commissioned it. Augustine of Hippo later claimed that Mark had simply borrowed, and often incorrectly, from Matthew and Luke, though Clement had written that "while Peter was publicly preaching ...the audience, which was numerous, begged Mark ... to write down the things he had said. And he did so." The order of the gospels according to Clement is still followed in the liturgies of some churches.

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