When it was absolutely necessary he showed himself in church with us; but our daily life, our pleasures, our pastimes were heathen, and when life began for us in earnest we offered a bleeding sacrifice to the gods.

It was impossible to retract honestly, since a renegade Christian returning to the worship of the old gods is incapacitated by law from making a will.

You know this; and when you ask me why I am content to live alone, without either wife or child--and I love children, even those of other people--a solitary man dragging out my days and nights joylessly enough--I tell you: I am openly and honestly a worshipper of our old gods, and I will not go to church because I scorn a lie.

What should I do with children who, in consequence of my retractation, must forfeit all I might leave them?
It was this question of inheritance only that induced my father to have us baptized and to make a pretense of Christianity.

He set out for Petra with his Lucretius in his satchel--I packed it with my own hands into his money-bag--to put in a claim to supply grain to the 'Rock city.' He was slain on his way home; most likely by his servant Anubis, who certainly knew what money he had with him, and who vanished and left no trace.