Behold with what companions I walked the streets of Babylon, and
wallowed in the mire thereof, as if in a bed of spices and precious
ointments. And that I might cleave the faster to its very centre,
the invisible enemy trod me down, and seduced me, for that I was
easy to be seduced. Neither did the mother of my flesh (who had now
fled out of the centre of Babylon, yet went more slowly in the
skirts thereof as she advised me to chastity, so heed what she had
heard of me from her husband, as to restrain within the bounds of
conjugal affection (if it could not be pared away to the quick) what
she felt to be pestilent at present and for the future dangerous.
She heeded not this, for she feared lest a wife should prove a clog
and hindrance to my hopes. Not those hopes of the world to come, which
my mother reposed in Thee; but the hope of learning, which both my
parents were too desirous I should attain; my father, because he had
next to no thought of Thee, and of me but vain conceits; my mother,
because she accounted that those usual courses of learning would not
only be no hindrance, but even some furtherance towards attaining
Thee.
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