I had been Menander, and like unto Saul, I became Paulus.

All that Menander loved--baths, feasts, theatres, horses and chariots, games in the arena, anointed limbs, roses and garlands, purple-garments, wine and the love of women--lie behind me like some foul bog out of which a traveller has struggled with difficulty.

Not a vein of the old man survives in the new, and a new life has begun for me, mid-way to the grave; nor for me only, but for all pious men.

For you too the hour will sound, in which you will die to--" "If only I, like you, had been a Menander," cried Hermas, sharply interrupting the speaker: "How is it possible to cast away that which I never possessed?
In order to die one first must live.

This wretched life seems to me contemptible, and I am weary of running after you like a calf after a cow.