ABSTRACT
The term ‘fiction’ poses many challenges to the student of literature because of its vagueness and the different use to which it is put by each scholar. Hagiographic narratives exist that are in dialogue with the ancient novel, drawing on its themes, whether directly or indirectly, and some even borrow its literary strategies. Thematic similarities between the novel and hagiography are more prominent in the hagiographic production of the early period, especially down to the seventh century, for all that common thematic conventions can be identified in later vitae, especially in collections of beneficial tales but also in some saints’ Lives. The story of Clement survives in two versions that have the same plot but differ greatly in theological outlook. These are the Homilies and the Recognitiones. In their Greek form, the Homilies seem to have been written at the beginning of the fourth century and are based on material.
