Again a story about Clement, the disciple of Simon Cephas, and about his parents and his brothers, how they also have been evangelized.

There was in the city of Rome a rich man called Faustinianus, and the name of his wife was Mitrodora. They openly worshipped idols, and though they did not know God, they served Him truly and justly. They gave alms to the poor from their riches, like Job, and received the strangers and the poor like Abraham. The word of the Scripture was fulfilled in them, which says: “He who fears God behaves justly,” and “Abraham believed in God, when still pagan, and He gave him the reward of his justice”. And this just Faustinianus received the reward of his justice at the end of his life. And as Abraham and Sarah have been tested through Isaac, so (Faustinianus and Mitrodora) were without an heir, in order that justice might be performed in them, and righteousness might increase through them.

If the hired man does not work, he cannot claim his salary, because it is not written that just people received any reward except after they had worked, and wicked people any chastisement till they had sinned. If Adam had not transgressed, he would not have been driven out of Paradise; and if Cain had not committed murder, trepidation would not have dwelt in his limbs; and the robber did not enter into Paradise till he confessed. So is the case with these just people, Faustinianus and his wife, whose rewards are according to their toil; and since I have narrated the nature of their work, I will now relate their exploits. He who has the clean ears of the words of love, let him approach and hear a pleasant account and delight in it.

These righteous people were deprived of posterity, and for a long time they were distressed. After a certain time, God wished to comfort them and to show them that He had not kept back their reward from them. Mitrodora, then, had two babes in her womb, as Rebecca had Esau and Jacob. She gave them names, to the elder Faustinus and to the younger Faustus. She brought forth also another child, and she called him Clement.

Then the Evil One, the enemy of justice, wished to make them stumble by his craftiness, and to insinuate himself to these good people. The Lord promised to Eve and Adam the paradise of Eden, and the Evil One degraded them from their ranks, and God sent His Only Begotten, and saved them and made them go up to a place higher than the first. The Devil suggested to the brothers of Joseph to sell him, and God made him a redeemer to them, in the day of distress. (The Devil) wished, too, to dishonour Mitrodora by a detestable adultery, and this motive distracted her, and she returned to God.

Faustinianus had a brother, and the Evil One insinuated to him to conceive a passion for the wife of his brother; and though he repeatedly solicited her, the faithful (woman) never wronged her husband, and she thought of a means to vanquish the Evil One. She made a false pretence, as if she had dreamt it, to take her boys and to go away from her husband, in order that by her absence the fire surrounding that violent man might be extinguished.