Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VIII/Pseudo-Clementine Literature/The Clementine Homilies/Homily XV/Chapter 1

by Anonymous

Homily XV.

Chapter I.—Peter Wishes to Convert Faustus.

At break of day our father, with our mother and his three sons, entered the place where Peter was, and accosting him, sat down.  Then we also did the same at his request; and Peter looking at our father, said:^[1]  “I am anxious that you should become of the same mind as your wife and children, in order that here you may live along with them, and in the other world,^[2] after the separation of the soul from the body, you will continue to be with them free from sorrow.  For does it not grieve you exceedingly that you should not associate with each other?”  And my father said:  “Most assuredly.”  And Peter said:  “If, then, separation from each other here gives you pain, and if without doubt the penalty awaits you that after death you should not be with each other, how much greater will your grief be that you, a wise man, should be separated from your own family on account of your opinions?  They too, must^[3] feel the more distressed from the consciousness that eternal punishment awaits you because you entertain different opinions from theirs, and deny the established truth.”^[4]

Footnotes

1. [In Recognitions, x. 1, after the father becomes known, the Apostle is represented as proposing delay in the attempt to convert him.—R.]
2. Lit., “there.”
3. We have inserted a δεῖ, probably omitted on account of the previous δέ.
4. The words are peculiar.  Lit., “eternal punishment awaits you thinking other things, through denial of the fixed dogma” (ῥητοῦ δόγματος).  The Latin translator gives:  “ob veri dogmatis negationem.”