Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VIII/Pseudo-Clementine Literature/The Clementine Homilies/Homily XIV/Chapter 10

by Anonymous

Chapter X.—Faustus Explains His Narrative to Peter.

Peter seeing this, said:  “Are you Faustus, the husband of this woman, and the father of her children?”  And he said:  “I am.”  And Peter said:  “How, then, did you relate to me your own history as if it were another’s; telling me of your toils, and sorrow, and burial?”  And our father answered:  “Being of the family of Cæsar, and not wishing to be discovered, I devised the narrative in another’s name, in order that it might not be perceived who I was.  For I knew that, if I were recognised, the governors in the place would learn this, and recall me to gratify Cæsar, and would bestow upon me that former prosperity to which I had formerly bidden adieu with all the resolution I could summon.  For I could not give myself up to a luxurious life when I had pronounced the strongest condemnation on myself, because I believed that I had been the cause of death to those who were loved by me.”^[1]

Footnotes

1. Lit., “Having judged the greatest things in regard to those who were loved by me, as having died.”  The text is doubtful; for the first Epitome has something quite different.