by
law, you shall despise everything, including virtue itself. As for us,
the Pure, we must avoid sorrow, after the example of Kaulakau."

_Antony_--"What! and the Cross?"

The Elkhesaites, in hyacinthine robes, reply to him:

"The sadness, the vileness, the condemnation, and the oppression of my
fathers are effaced, thanks to the new Gospel. We may deny the inferior
Christ, the man-Jesus; but we must adore the other Christ generated in
his person under the wing of the Dove. Honour marriage! The Holy Spirit
is feminine!"

Hilarion has disappeared; and Antony, pressed forward by the crowd,
finds himself facing the Carpocratians, stretched with women upon
scarlet cushions:

"Before re-entering the centre of unity, you will have to pass through a
series of conditions and actions. In order to free yourself from the
Powers of Darkness, do their works for the present! The husband goes to
his wife and says, 'Act with charity towards your brother,' and she will
kiss you."

The Nicolaites, assembled around a smoking dish:

"This is meat offered to idols; let us take it! Apostacy is permitted
when the heart is pure. Glut your flesh with what it asks for. Try to
destroy it by means of debaucheries. Prounikos, the mother of Heaven,
wallows in iniquity."

The Marcosians, with rings of gold and dripping with balsam:

"Come to us, in order to be united with the Spirit! Come to us, in order
to drink immortality!"

And one of them points out to him, behind some tapestry, the body of a
man with an ass's head. This represents Sabaoth, the father of the
Devil. As a mark of hatred he spits upon it.

Another discloses a very low bed strewn with flowers, saying as he does
so:

"The spiritual nuptials are about to be consummated."

A third holds forth a goblet of glass while he utters an invocation.
Blood appears in it:

"Ah! there it is! there it is! the blood of Christ!"

Antony turns aside; but he is splashed by the water, which leaps out of
a tub.

The Helvidians cast themselves into it head foremost, muttering:

"Man regenerated by baptism is incapable of sin!"

Then he passes close to a great fire, where the Adamites are warming
themselves completely naked to imitate the purity of Paradise; and he
jostles up against the Messalians wallowing on the stone floor
half-asleep, stupid:

"Oh! run over us, if you like; we shall not budge! Work is a sin; all
occupation is evil!"

Behind those, the abject Paternians, me