2.  And what is the end of all this?  My ears are wounded by a charge of adultery, flying swifter than an arrow, and piercing my heart with a sharper sting.  What crafty wiliness of wizard has driven you into so deadly a trap?  What many-meshed devil’s nets have entangled you and disabled all the powers of your virtue?  What has become of the story of your labours?  Or must we disbelieve them?  How can we avoid giving credit to what has long been hid when we see what is plain?  What shall we say of your having by tremendous oaths bound souls which fled for refuge to God, when what is more than yea and nay is carefully attributed to the devil? cf. Matt. v. 37.  You have made yourself security for fatal perjury; and, by setting the ascetic character at nought, you have cast blame even upon the Apostles and the very Lord Himself.  You have shamed the boast of purity.  You have disgraced the promise of chastity; we have been made a tragedy of captives, and our story is made a play of before Jews and Greeks.  You have made a split in the solitaries’ spirit, driving those of exacter discipline into fear and cowardice, while they still wonder at the power of the devil, and seducing the careless into imitation of your incontinence.  So far as you have been able, you have destroyed the boast of Christ, Who said, “Be of good cheer I have overcome the world,” John xvi. 33. and its Prince.  You have mixed for your country a bowl of ill repute.  Verily you have proved the truth of the proverb, “Like a hart stricken through the liver.” cf. Prov. vii. 22, 23, LXX.