w in one
temple, and now in another, according to the needs of the moment; my
father took part in the high festivals, but he laughed at the belief of
the multitude, and my brother talked of the 'Primaeval Unity,' and dealt
with all sorts of demons, and magic formulas. He accepted the doctrine
of Iamblichus, Ablavius, and the other Neoplatonic philosophers, which
to my poor understanding seemed either superhumanly profound or else
debasingly foolish; nevertheless my memory retains many of his sayings,
which I have learned to understand here in my loneliness. It is vain to
seek reason outside ourselves; the highest to which we can attain is
for reason to behold itself in us! As often as the world sinks into
nothingness in my soul, and I live in God only, and have Him, and
comprehend Him, and feel Him only--then that doctrine recurs to me. How
all these fools sought and listened everywhere for the truth which was
being proclaimed in their very ears! There were Christians everywhere
about me, and at that time they had no need to conceal themselves, but
I had nothing to do with them. Twice only did they cross my path; once
I was not a little annoyed when, on the Hippodrome, a Christian's horses
which had been blessed by a Nazarite, beat mine; and on another occasion
it seemed strange to me when I myself received the blessing of an old
Christian dock-laborer, having pulled his son out of the water.

"Years went on; my parents died. My mother's last glance was directed at
me, for I had always been her favorite child. They said too that I was
like her, I and my sister Arsinoe, who, soon after my father's death,
married the Prefect Pompey. At the division of the property I gave up
to my brother the manufactories and the management of the business, nay
even the house in the city, though, as the elder brother, I had a right
to it, and I took in exchange the land near the Kanopic gate, and filled
the stables there with splendid horses, and the lofts with not less
noble wine. This I needed, because I gave up the days to baths and
contests in the arena, and the nights to feasting, sometimes at my own
house, sometimes at a friend's, and sometimes in the taverns of Kanopus,
where the fairest Greek girls seasoned the feasts with singing and
dancing.

"What have these details of the vainest worldly pleasure to do with my
conversion, you will ask. But listen a while. When Saul went forth to
seek his father's asses he found a crown.

"O