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RECOGNITIONS OF CLEMENT.
Book vii

go abroad with my two twins, and when I left this my son Clement alone to be a comfort to his father. For if two were scarcely enough for me, how much more would it have saddened their father, if he had had none at all? For he was wretched through his great affection towards our sons, so that even the authority of the dream could scarce prevail upon him to give up to me Faustinus and Faustus, the brothers of this Clement, and that himself should be content with Clement alone."


Chap. XXXI.Too much joy.

While she was yet speaking, my brothers could contain themselves no longer, but rushed into their mother's embrace with many tears, and kissed her. But she said: "What is the meaning of this?" Then said Peter: "Be not disturbed, O woman; be firm. These are your sons Faustinus and Faustus, whom you supposed to have perished in the deep; but how they are alive, and how they escaped in that horrible night, and how the one of them is called Niceta and the other Aquila, they will be able to explain to you themselves, and we also shall hear it along with you." When Peter had said this, our mother fainted, being overcome with excess of joy; and after some time, being restored and come to herself, she said: "I beseech you, darling sons, tell me what has befallen you since that dismal and cruel night."

Chap. xxxii.—"He bringeth them unto their desired haven."

Then Niceta began to say: "On that night, O mother, when the ship was broken up, and we were being tossed upon the sea, supported on a fragment of the wreck, certain men, whose business it was to rob by sea, found us, and placed us in their boat, and overcoming the power of the waves by rowing, by various stretches brought us to Cæsarea Stratonis. There they starved us, and beat us, and terrified us, that we might not disclose the truth; and having changed our names, they sold us to a certain widow, a very honourable woman, named Justa. She, having bought us, treated us as sons, so that she carefully educated us in Greek literature and liberal