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, men, 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!"
Ætius—"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; Ætius 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.