Chapter XXX.—“Who Can Forbid Water?”

Then she, when she heard this, said:  “And what hinders me to be baptized to-day?  For even before I saw you I was wholly alienated from those whom they call gods because they were not able to do anything for me, although I frequently, and almost daily, sacrificed to them.  And as to chastity, what shall I say, when neither in former times did pleasures deceive me, nor afterwards did poverty compel me to sin?  But I think you know well enough how great was my love of chastity, when I pretended that dream that I might escape the snares of unhallowed love, and that I might go abroad with my two twins, and when I left this my son Clement alone to be a comfort to his father.  For if two were scarcely enough for me, how much more it would have saddened their father, if he had had none at all?  For he was wretched through his great affection towards our sons, so that even the authority of the dream could scarce prevail upon him to give up to me Faustinus and Faustus, the brothers of this Clement, and that himself should be content with Clement alone.”