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.