y the exercise of bad instincts,
since the flesh proceeded from demons. St. Augustine himself confesses
to have taken part in various phallic ceremonies before his conversion.
"I myself," he says, "when a young man used to go sometimes to the
sacrilegious entertainments and spectacles; I saw the priests raving in
religious excitement, and heard the choristers; I took pleasure in the
shameful games which were celebrated in honour of gods and goddesses, of
the Virgin Coelestia, and of Berecynthia, the mother of all gods. And
on the day consecrated to her purification, there were sung before her
couch productions so obscene and filthy to the ear--I do not say of the
mother of the gods, but of the mother of any senator or honest man--nay,
so impure that not even the mother of the foul-mouthed players
themselves could have formed one of the audience."[130]

The Carpocratians, who claimed to be a branch of the Gnostics, taught
that faith and charity were alone necessary virtues: all others were
useless. There is nothing evil in itself, and life only becomes complete
when all so-called blemishes are fully displayed in conduct. Their
leader "not only allowed his disciples a full liberty to sin, but
recommended a vicious course of life as a matter of obligation and
necessity; asserting that eternal salvation was only attainable by those
who had committed all sorts of crimes.... It was the will of God that
all things should be possessed in common, the female sex not
excepted."[131]

A little later we have the sect of the Agapetae. They rejected marriage
as an institution, and permitted unrestrained intercourse between the
sexes. St. Jerome, alluding to this sect, says: "It is a shame even to
allude to the true facts. Whence did the pest of the Agapetae creep into
the Church? Whence is this new title of wives without marriage rites?
Whence this new class of concubines? I will infer more. Whence these
harlots cleaving to one man? They occupy the same house, a single
chamber, often a single bed, and call us suspicious if we think anything
of it. The brother deserts his virgin sister, the virgin despises her
unmarried brother, and seeks a stranger, and since they pretend to be
aiming at the same object, they ask for the spiritual consolation of
each other that they may enjoy the pleasures of the flesh."[132]

This form of extravagance does not appear to have been limited to a
single sect. It was more or less general during the asce