Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VIII/Pseudo-Clementine Literature/The Clementine Homilies/Homily XX/Chapter 12

by Anonymous

Chapter XII.—Faustus Appears to His Friends with the Face of Simon.

Now all of us who were with Peter asked each other questions the whole of the night, and continued awake, because of the pleasure and joy we derived from what was said.  But when at length the dawn began to break, Peter, looking at me and my brothers, said:  “I am puzzled to think what your father has been about.”  And just as he was saying this, our father came in and caught Peter talking to us of him; and seeing him displeased, he accosted him, and rendered an apology for having slept outside.  But we were amazed when we looked at him:  for we saw the form of Simon, but heard the voice of our father Faustus.  And when we were fleeing from him, and abhorring him, our father was astonished at receiving such harsh and hostile treatment from us.  But Peter alone saw his natural shape, and said to us:  “Why do you in horror turn away from your own father?”  But we and our mother said:  “It is Simon that we see before us, with the voice of our father.”  And Peter said:  “You recognise only his voice, which is unaffected by magic; but as my eyes also are unaffected by magic, I can see his form as it really is, that he is not Simon, but your father Faustus.”  Then, looking to my father, he said:  “It is not your own true form that is seen by them, but that of Simon, our deadliest foe, and a most impious man.”^[1]

Footnotes

1. There are some blanks here, supplied from the Epitome.