n, women, and children,
pell-mell, on a heap of filth, lift up their hideous faces, besmeared
with wine:

"The inferior parts of the body, having been made by the Devil, belong
to him. Let us eat, drink, and enjoy!"

_AEtius_--"Crimes come from the need here below of the love of God!"

But all at once a man, clad in a Carthaginian mantle, jumps among them,
with a bundle of thongs in his hand; and striking at random to right and
left of him violently:

"Ah! imposters, brigands, simoniacs, heretics, and demons! the vermin of
the schools! the dregs of Hell! This fellow here, Marcion, is a sailor
from Sinope excommunicated for incest. Carpocras has been banished as a
magician; AEtius has stolen his concubine; Nicolas prostituted his own
wife; and Manes, who describes himself as the Buddha, and whose name is
Cubricus, was flayed with the sharp end of a cane, so that his tanned
skin swings at the gates of Ctesiphon."

Antony has recognised Tertullian, and rushes forward to meet him.

"Help, master! help!"

_Tertullian_, continuing--"Break the images! Veil the virgins! Pray,
fast, weep, mortify yourselves! No philosophy! no books! After Jesus,
science is useless!"

All have fled; and Antony sees, instead of Tertullian, a woman seated on
a stone bench. She sobs, her head resting against a pillar, her hair
hanging down, and her body wrapped in a long brown simar.

Then they find themselves close to each other far from the crowd; and a
silence, an extraordinary peacefulness, ensues, such as one feels in a
wood when the wind ceases and the leaves flutter no longer. This woman
is very beautiful, though faded and pale as death. They stare at each
other, and their eyes mutually exchange a flood of thoughts, as it were,
a thousand memories of the past, bewildering and profound. At last
Priscilla begins to speak:

"I was in the lowest chamber of the baths, and I was lulled to sleep by
the confused murmurs that reached me from the streets. All at once I
heard loud exclamations. The people cried, 'It is a magician! it is the
Devil!' And the crowd stopped in front of our house opposite to the
Temple of AEsculapius. I raised myself with my wrists to the height of
the air-hole. On the peristyle of the temple was a man with an iron
collar around his neck. He placed lighted coals on a chafing-dish, and
with them made large furrows on his breast, calling out, 'Jesus! Jesus!'
The people said, 'That is not lawful! let us stone him!'