Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VIII/Pseudo-Clementine Literature/The Clementine Homilies/Homily V/Chapter 9

Chapter IX.&#8212;A Love-Letter.

&#8220;Then Appion said:&#160; &#8216;I am all the more hopeful to be able to persuade her, as you wish, provided only we be able to converse with her.&#8217;&#160; &#8216;That,&#8217; said I, &#8216;is impossible.&#8217;&#160; Then Appion asked if it were possible to send a letter to her.&#160; Then I said:&#160; &#8216;That indeed may be done.&#8217;&#160; Then Appion said:&#160; &#8216;This very night I shall write a paper on encomiums of adultery, which you shall get from me and despatch to her; and I hope that she shall be persuaded, and consent.&#8217;&#160; Appion accordingly wrote the paper, and gave it to me; and I thought of it this very night, and I remembered that fortunately I have it by me, along with other papers which I carry about with me.&#8221;&#160; Having thus spoken, I showed the paper to those who were present, and read it to them as they wished to hear it; and having read it, I said:&#160; &#8220;This, O men, is the instruction of the Greeks, affording a bountiful licence to sin without fear. &#160; The paper was as follows:&#8212;