Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VIII/Pseudo-Clementine Literature/The Clementine Homilies/Homily XIV/Chapter 6

by Anonymous

Chapter VI.—The Old Man Opposes His Personal Experience to the Argument of Peter.

“And the old man answered:^[1]  ‘You have spoken truly,^[2] and yet, notwithstanding all your incomparable demonstration, I am prevented from yielding assent by my own personal knowledge.  For I was an astrologer, and dwelt first at Rome; and then forming a friendship with one who was of the family of Cæsar, I ascertained accurately the genesis of himself and his wife.  And tracing their history, I find all the deeds actually accomplished in exact accordance with their genesis, and therefore I cannot yield to your argument.  For the arrangement^[3] of her genesis was that which makes women commit adultery, fall in love with their own slaves, and perish abroad in the water.  And this actually took place; for she fell in love with her own slave, and not being able to bear the reproach, she fled with him, hurried to a foreign land, shared his bed, and perished in the sea.’

Footnotes

1. [With chaps. 6–9, there is a general correspondence in Recognitions, ix. 32–37.  The arrangement is quite different.  The old man’s representation, that the story he tells is that of a friend, is peculiar to the Homilies.—R.]
2. One ms. adds “greatly,” and an Epitome “great things.”
3. That is, the position of the stars at her birth.