Homilies 12.4–12.31

When they had gone, I, Clement, rejoiced greatly that he had ordered me to be with him. And I said in answer: “I thank God that you have not sent me away like the others, since I would have died of grief.” But he said: “What then? If there is ever need for you to be sent somewhere for the sake of instruction, will you die because you are separated from me for a little while for a good purpose? Will you not rather reason with yourself and cheerfully bear what is laid on you by necessity? Or do you not know that friends are together in memory even when they are apart in body? Just as some who are together in body are away from their friends in soul through forgetfulness.”

And I answered: “Do not think, then, lord, that I was going to feel grief foolishly; rather, it was from quite sound reasoning. For since I have you, my lord, in place of all, father and mother and brothers and relatives, you who became for me, through God, the cause of the saving truth, I find in having you in place of all the greatest consolation. Besides, fearing also the natural desire of my youth, I was anxious lest, if I were left without you, being a younger man, I should be overcome by desire; whereas now I am so resolved that, unless through some wrath of God, it is impossible for me to leave you. But since it is much better and safer for me to be with you, whom my mind has rightly come to revere, I therefore pray to be with you always. Besides, I remember that you said in Caesarea: ‘If anyone wishes to travel with me, let him travel piously.’ By ‘piously’ you meant that no one should grieve anyone in a way contrary to God, for example by leaving parents, or a like-minded wife, or any others devoted to godliness. So I am in every way a suitable travelling companion for you; and if you would grant me the greatest favour, allow me to do for you the services of a slave.”

When Peter heard this, he laughed and said: “What then do you think, Clement? Will you not be put in the place of my slaves by sheer necessity? For who will look after my many fine linen garments, together with my rings and shoes? And who will prepare the sweet and costly dishes, which, being varied, need many skilled cooks, and all those things that are procured with all greed and prepared for effeminate men, for their desire as for a great beast? But such a wish has crept into you, perhaps because you do not understand and do not know my way of life: that I use only bread and olives, and rarely vegetables; and that I have one garment and a worn cloak, this very one I have on, and I need no other, nor anything else. For in these I have even more than enough. For my mind, seeing all the eternal good things there, looks at none of the things here. Still, I accept your good intention, and I praise it with wonder: how you, a man from costly habits, have easily changed your life to what is necessary. For from childhood, I and Andrew, my brother by blood and also my brother according to God, were not only brought up as orphans but, through poverty and hardship, were also accustomed to labour; so now we easily bear the fatigues of the roads. So if you would listen to me, you would allow me, a working man, to perform the part of a slave for you.”

When I heard this I began to tremble and weep, that such a word should be spoken by a man to whom all men of the present generation are inferior in the word of knowledge and piety. When he saw me in tears, he asked the reason for my tears. And I said: “What great sin have I committed that you should say such a thing to me?” And Peter answered: “If I have spoken wrongly in saying I would serve you, you sinned first, in asking me to do this.” And I said: “It is not the same. It is very fitting for me to do this; but for you, the herald of God who saves our souls, to do this for me is a grievous thing.” And Peter answered: “I would have agreed with you, except that our Lord, who came for the salvation of the whole world, and who alone is noble above all, submitted to slavery, in order to persuade us not to be ashamed to do the services of slaves for our brothers, even if we are very nobly born.” And I said: “If I think I can overcome you in argument, I am a fool; but I give thanks to the providence of God that I have been counted worthy to have you in place of parents.”

And Peter asked: “Do you really have no one of your family?” And I answered: “There are indeed many great men, relatives of Caesar. Hence Caesar himself gave my father, as one who had been brought up with him, a wife who was his own kinswoman. From her we were born three sons, two before me, who were twins and were very like one another, as my father himself told me. For I do not really know either them or the mother who bore me, but I recall their appearance dimly, as in dreams. My mother was called Mattidia, my father Faustus, and of my brothers one was called Faustinus and the other Faustinianus. After I, the third, was born to them, my mother saw a dream, as my father related, that unless she took her twin sons away with her and left the city of Rome to live abroad for ten years, she and they would die by a death of utter destruction.”

“My father, who loved his children, provided them amply with male and female slaves, put them on a ship, and sent them to Athens to be educated together, but kept me, his only remaining son, with him for his consolation. And for this I give much thanks, that the dream had not ordered me too to leave the city of Rome with my mother. When a year had passed, my father sent money to Athens for his family, and at the same time to learn how they were doing. But those who went did not come back. In the third year my father, downcast, sent others likewise with provisions, who came back in the fourth year reporting that they had seen neither my mother nor my brothers, that they had never even arrived in Athens, and that they had found not so much as a trace of any of those who had gone with them.”

“When my father heard this, he was stunned with great grief, and not knowing where to turn to search for them, he took me and went down to Portus, and asked many people again and again where each of them had seen or heard of a shipwreck in the last four years. One said one place, another another. He asked in turn whether they had seen the body of a woman with little children cast up by the sea. When many said they had seen corpses in many places, my father groaned as he heard it; yet, troubled in his heart, he kept asking unreasonably, as if he were trying to search the vastness of the sea. But he was to be forgiven, since through his affection for those he was seeking he fed himself on empty hopes. And at last he placed me under guardians and left me in Rome, twelve years old, and went down in tears to Portus, boarded a ship, put to sea, and went on the search. From that time to this day I have received no letters from him, nor do I know for certain whether he is alive or dead. Rather, I suspect that he too has died somewhere, either overcome by grief or overtaken by shipwreck. A sign of this is that it is now the twentieth year since then, during which I have heard nothing true about him.”

When Peter heard this, he wept for sympathy, and at once said to the faithful companions who were with him: “If some godly man had suffered what this man's father has suffered, people would at once have attached the cause to the doctrine of godliness, blaming the evil one. So it happens that the wretched Gentiles suffer such things too, and we godly people do not know it. And I have rightly called them wretched, because here they wander, and they do not obtain the hope there. For those who suffer afflictions in godliness suffer them for the payment of their transgressions.”

When Peter had said this, one of our number took courage and asked him on behalf of all to sail over early the next morning to Aradus, the island opposite, less, I think, than thirty stadia away, to see the two vine-wood columns there, which are of very great girth. The obliging Peter agreed, saying: “When you get out of the boat, do not go many of you together to see what you desire; for I do not want the citizens' eyes turned toward us.” And so we sailed and in a short hour landed on the island. Getting out of the boat, we went in to where the vine-wood columns were, and at the same time one looked at one and another at another of the works of Phidias.

Peter alone did not think it necessary to go and look at the sights there. But noticing a woman who sat outside before the doors and kept begging for food, he said: “Woman, which of your limbs is lacking, that you have accepted such a disgrace, I mean begging, and do not rather work with the hands God has given you and earn your daily food?” She groaned and answered: “Would that I had hands able to work! But now they keep only the shape of hands; they are dead, tortured by my own biting.” And Peter asked: “What is the reason you have suffered this dreadful thing?” She answered: “Weakness of soul, and nothing more. For if I had had a man's courage, there was a cliff or a deep sea from which I could have thrown myself and put an end to the evils that torment me.”

And Peter said: “What then? Do you think, woman, that those who kill themselves are altogether freed from punishment? Are not rather the souls of those who die in this way punished in Hades with a worse punishment for their self-murder?” She said: “Would that I were persuaded that souls really are found alive in Hades! Then I would gladly die, despising the punishment, so that I might see my beloved ones even for one hour.” And Peter said: “I would like to learn, woman, what it is that grieves you. For if you tell me, in return for this favour I will fully convince you that souls live in Hades, and instead of a cliff or a deep sea I will give you a remedy, so that you may be able to pass from this life without torment.”

The woman, not understanding what had been said ambiguously, and pleased with the promise, began to speak thus: “If I told you my family and country, I do not think I could ever convince anyone. Besides, what difference does it make to you to learn that, rather than only the reason why in my anguish I have deadened my hands with biting? Still, I will tell you my story, so far as it is possible for you to hear it. I was of very noble birth, and by the order of a certain ruler I became the wife of a man who was his relative. After twin children I had another son. But my husband's brother fell madly in love with me, wretched woman that I am, though I greatly loved chastity. Not wishing either to consent to my lover or to disclose to my husband his brother's love for me, I considered how I might neither defile myself by committing adultery, nor dishonour my husband's bed, nor set brother at war with brother, nor expose the whole family, which is a great one, to the reproach of all. As I said, I decided to leave the city with my twin children for a time, until the foul love of the man who flattered me to my dishonour should cease. The other son, however, I left with his father, to stay with him for his comfort.”

“But so that this might be done, I thought of inventing a dream, as though someone had stood by me at night and said: ‘Woman, leave the city at once with your twin children for a time, until I tell you to come back here; otherwise you will suddenly die a miserable death together with your husband and all your children.’ And so I did. For as soon as I had told my husband the false dream, he became very afraid and sent me by sea to Athens with my two sons, with male and female slaves and plenty of money, to educate the sons, ‘until,’ he said, ‘the one who gave the oracle decides that you should come back to me.’ But as I, wretched woman, was sailing with my children, I was driven by the violence of the winds to these parts; the ship broke up at night, and I was shipwrecked. When all the rest had died, I alone, unhappy one, was struck by a violent wave and thrown onto a rock. Sitting on it, miserable as I was, in the hope of finding my children alive I did not throw myself into the deep then, when, with my soul drunk with the waves, I could easily have done it.”

“But when morning came, crying loudly and wailing bitterly, I looked all around, seeking the dead bodies of my poor little ones. The local people took pity on me, seeing me naked; they first clothed me, and then searched the deep, looking for my children. And when they found nothing of what they sought, some of the hospitable women came to comfort me, each telling her own misfortunes, so that I might find comfort in the like calamity of others; but that grieved me the more. For I said I was not so wicked as to find comfort in the misfortunes of others. And when many were asking to take me into their homes, a certain poor woman of this place pressed me hard and made me come to her dwelling, saying to me: ‘Take courage, woman. My husband too, a sailor, died at sea while he was still young; and since then, though many have asked me in marriage, I have chosen to remain a widow, out of longing for my husband. What we can both earn with our hands we shall share.’”

“Not to lengthen my story with unnecessary words, I lived with her because of her love for her husband. Not long afterwards my hands, wretched woman that I am, became paralysed from my biting, and the woman who took me in was completely bound up by some disease and lies helpless in the house. So since the pity of the women of former days has faded, and both I and she at home are disabled, I have sat here begging for a long time, as you see, and what I obtain I take to my fellow sufferer for our food. Let this be enough said about my affairs. Now what hinders you from fulfilling your promise to give me the remedy, so that I may give it also to her, who wishes to die, and so I too may be able to pass from life, as you said?”

When the woman had said this, Peter seemed to stand lost in many thoughts. I came up and said: “I have been going around looking for you for a long while; and now what are we to do?” Peter ordered me to go ahead and wait for him at the boat. Since it was not possible to contradict him when he gave an order, I did what I was told. But Peter, his heart throbbing with a slight suspicion, as he himself afterwards told me everything, questioned the woman, saying: “Tell me, woman, your family and your city and the names of your children, and I will give you the remedy at once.” She, under pressure and unwilling to tell, yet eager to receive the remedy, cleverly said one thing for another. So she said that she was an Ephesian and her husband a Sicilian, and she likewise changed the names of her three children. Peter, thinking she spoke the truth, said: “Alas, woman! I thought I would celebrate a great joy this day, suspecting that you were someone I thought of, whose affairs I have heard and know exactly.” But she adjured him, saying: “Please tell me, so that I may know whether there is any woman more wretched than I.”

Peter, not knowing that she was lying, out of pity for her began to tell the truth: “A certain young man now accompanies me, eager for the doctrines of godliness, a Roman citizen, who tells me how he has a father and two twin brothers but sees none of them. ‘For my mother,’ he says, ‘as my father told me, saw a dream and left the city of Rome for a time with her twin children, so as not to die an evil death; and having gone away with them she cannot be found. And her husband, his father, himself also went in search of them and cannot be found.’”

When Peter had said this, the woman, who had been listening intently, fainted as if from shock. Peter went up, held her, and urged her to recover herself, persuading her to confess what it was that she was feeling. She, like one whose body is limp after drunkenness, collected herself so as to be able to bear the greatness of the joy she hoped for, and, rubbing her face, said: “Where is this young man?” Peter, who now understood the whole matter, said: “You tell me first; otherwise you cannot see him.” She said hastily: “I am the young man's mother.” And Peter said: “What is his name?” She said: “Clement.” And Peter said: “It is he, and he was the one who spoke to me a little while ago, whom I ordered to wait for me at the boat.” She fell at Peter's feet and begged him to hurry to the boat. And Peter said: “If you keep our agreement, I will do this too.” She said: “I will do everything; only show me my only child. For through him I shall think I see my two children who died here.” And Peter said: “When you see him, keep quiet until we leave the island.” She said: “I will do so.”

So Peter took her by the hand and led her to the boat. When I saw him leading a woman by the hand, I laughed, and coming up, out of respect for him, I tried to lead her by the hand in his place. As soon as I touched her hand, she cried out loudly, as a mother would, embraced me, and kissed me warmly, her son. But I, knowing nothing of the matter, shook her off as a madwoman, but out of respect for Peter I held myself back.

But Peter said: “Stop! What are you doing, my son Clement, shaking off your own mother?” When I heard this I burst into tears, and falling down beside my mother, who had fallen, I kissed her. For as soon as this was said to me, I somehow dimly recalled her face. Great crowds ran together to see the beggar woman, saying to one another that her son, a distinguished man, had recognized her. When we wanted to leave the island at once with my mother, my mother said: “My dear child, it is right that I should take leave of the woman who took me in, who is poor and completely paralysed and lies helpless in her house.” When Peter heard this, he admired the woman's good disposition, as did all the crowds standing around. And at once Peter ordered some to go and bring the woman on a bed. When the bed had been brought and set down, Peter said in the hearing of all the crowds: “If I am a herald of the truth, then for the faith of those standing by, that they may know that there is one God, who made the world, let her rise up at once healed.” As soon as Peter had said this, the woman rose up healed and fell at Peter's feet; and kissing her old friend, she asked what this meant. She told her briefly the whole story of the recognition, and those who heard were astonished. Then my mother too, seeing that her hostess had been healed, begged that she also might obtain healing. And he laid his hand on her and healed her too.

Then Peter spoke to them about God and the worship due to him, adding at the end: “If anyone wishes to learn these things exactly, let him come to Antioch, where I have decided to stay for many days, and learn what concerns his salvation. For if you know how to leave your native lands for the sake of trade or military service and go away to distant places, surely you will not refuse to travel even a three days' journey for eternal salvation.” After Peter's address I gave the healed woman, in the presence of the whole crowd, a thousand drachmas for her support, entrusting her to a good man, the first man of the city, who by nature was glad to do this. I also distributed money to many others, and thanked the women who had once comforted my mother; then I sailed across to Antaradus with my mother, Peter, and the rest of our companions; and so we went on to our lodging.

When we had arrived, had taken food, and had given thanks as usual, while there was still time I said to Peter: “My mother, my lord Peter, has done a work of love for humanity in remembering the woman who took her in.” And Peter answered: “Do you really think, Clement, that your mother did a work of love for humanity in repaying the woman who took her in after the shipwreck? Or did you say this as a great compliment to your mother? If you said it not as a compliment but as the truth, you seem to me not to know what the greatness of love for humanity is: it is affection toward anyone whatever, simply because he is a human being, without anything that naturally induces it. Indeed, I do not yet dare to call even the hostess who received your mother after the shipwreck a lover of humanity. For she was moved by pity and persuaded to become the benefactress of a woman who had suffered shipwreck, who was mourning her children, a stranger, naked, alone, and bitterly lamenting her calamities. When she was in so many calamities, who, even among the ungodly, would not have pitied her on seeing her? So not even the hostess appears yet to have done a work of love for humanity; she was moved to kindness by pity at countless calamities. How much more is it true that your mother, who has become well off and has repaid her hostess, did a work not of love for humanity but of friendship! There is a great difference between friendship and love for humanity: friendship arises from exchange, while love for humanity, without anything that naturally induces it, loves and does good to every human being simply as a human being. If, then, the hostess who showed pity had done good even to enemies who had wronged her, showing them pity, she would have been a lover of humanity. But one who is a friend or an enemy for some reason is the friend or enemy of that reason, not of the human being.”

And I answered: “Then does not even the hostess seem to you a lover of humanity, since she did good to a stranger whom she did not know?” And Peter said: “I can call her merciful, but I do not dare call her a lover of humanity, just as I would not call a mother a lover of her children; for she is led to love them by her birth-pangs and by rearing them. As the lover is won by familiarity and the marriage bed, and the friend by exchange, so the one who pities is won by misfortune. Yet the merciful person is close to the lover of humanity, because he is persuaded to do good without seeking to receive anything; but he is not yet a lover of humanity.” And I said: “By what deeds, then, can someone be a lover of humanity?” And Peter answered: “Since I see that you long to hear what the work of love for humanity is, I will not hesitate to tell you. A lover of humanity is one who does good even to his enemies. Hear why this is so. Love for humanity is male and female: its female part is called mercy, and its male part is named love toward one's neighbour. And a human being's neighbour is every human being, not just one particular person; for the bad and the good, the enemy and the friend, are all human beings. So one who practises love for humanity must be an imitator of God, doing good to the just and the unjust, as God himself provides his sun and his rains to all in the present world. But if you want to do good to the good and no longer to the bad, or even to punish them, you are undertaking to do the work of a judge, not striving to have love for humanity.”

And I said: “Then is not God, who will one day judge, as you teach us, a lover of humanity?” And Peter said: “You are saying the opposite of the truth. It is because he judges that he is a lover of humanity. For, loving and pitying those who have been wronged, he punishes those who did the wrong.” And I said: “Then if I too do good to the good and punish the wrongdoers insofar as they have wronged human beings, am I not a lover of humanity?” And Peter answered: “If, together with foreknowledge, you also had authority to judge, you would do this rightly: because of having received the authority, you would condemn those whom God created; and because of the foreknowledge, you would judge without error, acquitting some as just and condemning others as unjust.” And I said: “You have spoken rightly and truly, for it is impossible for someone without foreknowledge to judge rightly. Sometimes some appear good while secretly committing unlawful deeds, and some good people are taken to be bad through the slander of enemies. And even if someone judges who has authority to torture and to examine, not even so would it come about that he judges entirely justly. For some who were murderers endured the tortures and were released as innocent, while others who were innocent could not endure the tortures, lied against themselves, and were punished as guilty.”

And Peter said: “These things too are fair enough; but hear the greater point. When some people sin or do well, some of the things they now do are their own and some are not their own. It is just that each should be punished for his own sins and rewarded for his own good deeds. But it is impossible for anyone except a prophet alone, who has foreknowledge, to know which of the things done by someone are his own and which were not; for all are seen as done through him.” And I said: “I would like to learn how, of wrongs and good deeds, some are one's own and others not one's own.”

And Peter answered: “The prophet of truth said: ‘Good things must come, and blessed,’ he says, ‘is he through whom they come; likewise evil things must come, but woe to him through whom they come.’ Now if evil things come through evil people, and good things are brought through good people, then to each must belong what is his own, being good or bad; and, because of what he did before, the later good or evil things come through him, which, being his own by his choice, have been arranged by God's providence to pass through him. This, then, is God's judgment: that, as in a contest, the one who has passed through every hardship and been found blameless is counted worthy of eternal life. For those who by their own will have advanced in good things are tested by those who by their own will have remained in wickedness: they are persecuted, hated, reviled, plotted against, struck, defrauded, slandered, pressed into forced service, insulted, suffering all those things by which it seems reasonable to become angry and to rush to retaliation.”

“But the Teacher, knowing that those who do these things unjustly are already condemned for earlier sins, and that the spirit of wickedness works these things through the condemned, counselled us to pity these people, insofar as they are human beings and have become instruments of wickedness through sin, as those who practise love for humanity; and, as far as it lies with those who are wronged, even to release the wrongdoers from their condemnation, so that, like the sober helping the drunk, they may help them with prayers, fastings, and blessings, not resisting, not retaliating, so as not to drive them to sin still more. For when someone has been altogether destined to suffer, it is not reasonable for him to be angry with the one through whom the suffering comes, but to reason that even if that man had not afflicted him, since he was altogether going to be afflicted, he would have suffered through another. Why then am I angry with the one who treated me so, when I was in any case destined to suffer? Moreover, if under pretext of retaliation we do the same as the wicked, then we the good, doing the same as the wicked second rather than first, differ from them only in that. And as I said, one should not be angry, knowing that by God's providence the wicked punish the good. So those who are harsh with those who punish them sin, as insulting the messengers of God; but those who honour those thought to do them wrong and treat them in the opposite way show piety toward God, who so decided.”

And I answered this: “Then those who do wrong are not guilty, since it is by the judgment of God that they wrong the righteous.” And Peter said: “Indeed they sin greatly, for they have given themselves up to sinning. Hence God, who knows all, chooses them to punish justly those who have repented of their former sins, so that for the righteous the evils committed before their repentance may be forgiven through such punishment. But to the ungodly punishers, who desire to afflict and are unwilling to repent, it has been permitted to afflict the righteous so as to fill up the measure of their own punishment. For without God's will not even a sparrow can fall into a snare; so too the hairs of the righteous are numbered by God.”