(_A third, who holds a cup of glass, utters an invocation;--blood suddenly appears in the cup_:)
"Ah! behold it! behold it!--the blood of Christ!"
(_Anthony withdraws, but finds himself be-spattered by water splashed from a cistern._)
(_are flinging themselves into it head foremost, muttering_:--)
"The man regenerated by baptism is impeccable!"
(_Then he passes by a great fire at which the Adamites are warming themselves--all completely naked in imitation of the purity of Paradise; and he stumbles over_)
(_wallowing upon the pavement, half-slumbering, stupid_:)
"Oh! crush us if thou wilt! we shall not move! Work is crime; all occupation is evil."
(_--men, women, and children lying pell mell upon a heap of filth, lift their hideous faces, wine-besmeared, and they cry aloud_:)
"The inferior parts of the body, which were created by the Devil, belong to him! Let us eat, drink, and sin!"
ÆTIUS. "Crimes are necessities beneath the notice of God!"
A MAN (--_clad in a Carthaginian mantle, bounds into their midst, brandishing a scourge of thongs in his hand; and strikes violently and indiscriminately at all in his path_:)
"Ah! imposters! simonists, heretics and demons!--vermin of the schools!--dregs of hell! Marcion, there, is a sailor of Sinopus excommunicated for incest;--Carpocrates was banished for being a magician; Ætius stole his concubine; Nicholas prostituted his wife; and this Manes, who calls himself the Buddha, and whose real name is Cubricus, was flayed alive with the point of a reed, so that his skin even now hangs at the gates of Ctesiphon!"
ANTHONY (_recognizing Tertullian, rushes to join him_): "Master! help! help!"
"Break the images! veil the virgins! Pray, fast, weep and mortify yourselves! No philosophy! no books! After Jesus, science is useless!"
(_All have fled away; and Anthony beholds, in lieu of Tertullian, a woman seated upon a bench of stone._
_She sobs; leaning her head against a column; her hair is loose; her body, weakened by grief, is clad in a long brown simar. Then they find themselves face to face and alone, far from the crowd; and a silence, an extraordinary stillness falls--as in the woods when the winds are lulled, and the leaves of the trees suddenly cease to whisper._