He gave way, and gave
in. And Alypius beginning to be my hearer again, was involved in the
same superstition with me, loving in the Manichees that show of
continency which he supposed true and unfeigned. Whereas it was a
senseless and seducing continency, ensnaring precious souls, unable as
yet to reach the depth of virtue, yet readily beguiled with the
surface of what was but a shadowy and counterfeit virtue.
He, not forsaking that secular course which his parents had
charmed him to pursue, had gone before me to Rome, to study law, and
there he was carried away incredibly with an incredible eagerness
after the shows of gladiators. For being utterly averse to and
detesting spectacles, he was one day by chance met by divers of his
acquaintance and fellow-students coming from dinner, and they with a
familiar violence haled him, vehemently refusing and resisting, into
the Amphitheatre, during these cruel and deadly shows, he thus
protesting: "Though you hale my body to that place, and there set
me, can you force me also to turn my mind or my eyes to those shows? I
shall then be absent while present, and so shall overcome both you and
them.
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