Library Pseudo-Clement Recognitions

Book 9, Chapter 34: The Other Side of the Story.

Then I Clement, understanding that he perchance was my father, was drowned in tears, and my brothers also were ready to rush forward and to disclose the matter; but Peter restrained them, saying: Be quiet, until I give you permission. Therefore Peter, answering, said to the old man: What was the name of your younger son? And he said: Clement. Then Peter: If I shall this day restore to you your most chaste wife and your three sons, will you believe that a modest mind can overcome unreasonable impulses, and that all things that have been spoken by us are true, and that Genesis is nothing? Then said the old man: As it is impossible for you to perform what you have promised, so it is impossible that anything can take place apart from Genesis . Then says Peter: I wish to have all who are here present as witnesses that I shall this day hand over to you your wife, who is living most chastely, with your three sons. And now take a token of these things from this, that I know the whole story much more accurately than you do; and I shall relate the whole occurrences in order, both that you may know them, and that those who are present may learn.

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.