Library Pseudo-Clement Recognitions

Chapter 36: Altercation

Then said Simon: Do not repeat again and again your talk of peace, but expound briefly what it is that you think or believe. Peter answered: Why are you afraid of hearing frequently of peace? For do you not know that peace is the perfection of law? For wars and disputes spring from sins; and where there is no sin, there is peace of soul; but where there is peace, truth is found in disputations, righteousness in works. Then Simon: You seem to me not to be able to profess what you think. Then Peter: I shall speak, but according to my own judgment, not under constraint of your tricks. For I desire that what is salutary and profitable be brought to the knowledge of all and therefore I shall not delay to state it as briefly as possible. There is one God; and He is the creator of the world, a righteous judge, rendering to every one at some time or other according to his deeds. But now for the assertion of these things I know that countless thousands of words can be called forth.

English translation by Thomas Smith, in Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. VIII (eds. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe; Buffalo: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1886). Public domain. Digital text via New Advent Church Fathers.