"I think of all the souls that have been lost through these false gods!"
Hilarion. "Dost thou not think that they ... sometimes ... bear much resemblance to the True?"
Anthony. "That is but a device of the Devil to seduce the faithful more easily. He attacks the strong through the mind, the weak through the flesh."
Hilarion. "But luxury, in its greatest fury, has all the disinterestedness of penitence. The frenzied love of the body accelerates the destruction thereof,—and proclaims the extent of the impossible by the exposition of the body's weakness."
Anthony. "What signifies that to me! My heart sickens with disgust of these beautiful bestial gods, forever busied with carnages and incests!"
Hilarion. "Yet recollect all those things in the Scripture which scandalize thee because thou art unable to comprehend them! So also may these Gods conceal under their sinful forms some mighty truth. There are more of them yet to be seen. Look around!"
Anthony. "No, no!—it is dangerous!"
Hilarion. "But a little while ago thou didst desire to know them! Is it because thy faith might vacillate in the presence of lies? What fearest thou?"
(The rocks fronting Anthony have become as a mountain. A line of clouds obscures the mountain half way between summit and base; and above the clouds appears another mountain, enormous, all green, unequally hollowed by valleys nestling in its slopes, and supporting at its summit, in the midst of laurel-groves a palace of bronze, roofed with tiles of gold, and supported by columns having capitals of ivory.