Page:Ante-Nicene Christian Library Vol 3.djvu/435

Rh and how they had turned away from him when they saw him to be a magician and a deceiver, and had come to Zaccheus; and how subsequently they had been associated with himself: and how Clement also, setting out from the city for the sake of learning the truth, had, through his acquaintance with Barnabas, come to Cæsarea, and had become known to him, and had adhered to him, and how he had been taught by him the faith of his religion; and also how he had found and recognised his mother begging at Antaradus, and how the whole island rejoiced at his recognition of her; and also concerning her sojourn with her most chaste hostess, and the cure that he had wrought upon her, and concerning the liberality of Clement to those who had been kind to his mother; and how afterwards, when Niceta and Aquila asked who the strange woman was, and had heard the whole story from Clement, they cried out that they were her twin sons Faustinus and Faustus; and how they had unfolded the whole history of what had befallen them; and how afterwards, by the persuasion of Peter himself, they were presented to their mother with caution, lest she should be cut off by the sudden joy.

But while Peter was detailing these things in the hearing of the old man, in a narrative which was most pleasing to the crowd, so that the hearers wept through wonder at the events, and through compassion for sufferings incident to humanity, my mother, hearing (I know not how) of the recognition of my father, rushed into the middle of us in breathless haste, crying out, and saying: "Where is my husband, my lord Faustinianus, who has been so long afflicted, wandering from city to city in search of me?" While she shouted thus like one demented, and gazed around, the old man, running up, began to embrace and hug her with many tears. And while these things were going on, Peter requested the crowds to disperse, saying that it was unseemly to remain longer: but that opportunity must be afforded them of seeing one another