This book is one of the hidden books of Saint Clement the Apostle, disciple of Simon Cepha, which Saint Clement commanded to be kept secret from the laity. Some of them were called “The Book of the Rolls,” and there are the glorious genealogies and mysteries which our God and Saviour Jesus the Christ committed to his disciples Simon and James, and what things will happen at the end of time, and how the second coming of our Lord the Christ from heaven to the world will happen, and what will become of sinners and such like. This is the sixth of Clement’s books, treasured up in the city of Rome since the time of the Apostles.
Saint Clement said, When our God Jesus the Christ went up to heaven and the disciples were scattered in the regions of the world to evangelize, and to call mankind to the faith and to immersion by baptism, they took disciples, whom they chose and selected to be with them, and to travel about to the countries in the faith of the Christ. Wherefore Simon Cepha took me for a disciple to himself; I believed in him, and in Him that sent him, with a true faith; I recognized that he was chief of the Apostles, to whom were given the keys of heaven and earth, on whom was built the Catholic Apostolic Church of God, which p. 2 the gates of Hell shall not destroy, as our God Jesus the Christ said in the holy Gospel. After a long time he took also my brothers Constans and Constantinus to be his disciples.
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