Library Pseudo-Clement Recognitions

Chapter 72: More Than Ten Thousand Baptized

Meantime I shall remain with you three months, as I promised. Be constant in hearing the word; and at the end of that time, if any are able and willing to follow us, they may do so, if duty will admit of it. And when I say if duty will admit I mean that no one by his departure must sadden any one who ought not to be saddened, as by leaving parents who ought not to be left, or a faithful wife, or any other person to whom he is bound to afford comfort for God's sake. Meantime, disputing and teaching day by day, he filled up the time appointed with the labour of teaching; and when the festival day arrived, upwards of ten thousand were baptized.

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.