Chapter XL.—Argument:  Then Cæcilius Exclaims that He is Vanquished by Octavius; And That, Being Now Conqueror Over Error, He Professes the Christian Religion.  He Postpones, However, Till the Morrow His Training in the Fuller Belief of Its Mysteries.

While, therefore, I was silently turning over these things in my own mind, Cæcilius broke forth:  “I congratulate as well my Octavius as myself, as much as possible on that tranquillity in which we live, and I do not wait for the decision.  Even thus we have conquered:  not unjustly do I assume to myself the victory.  For even as he is my conqueror, so I am triumphant over error.  Therefore, in what belongs to the substance of the question, I both confess concerning providence, and I yield to God;124    Otherwise read, “and I believe concerning God.” and I agree concerning the sincerity of the way of life which is now mine.  Yet even still some things remain in my mind, not as resisting the truth, but as necessary to a perfect training125    [i.e., he will become a catechumen on the morrow.] of which on the morrow, as the sun is already sloping to his setting, we shall inquire at length in a more fitting and ready manner.”

CAPUT XL.

0358B ARGUMENTUM.---Caecilius vero exclamavit se ab Octavio victum, nunc erroris esse victorem christianamque religionem jam tum profiteri; dilata interim in diem crastinum pleniore fidei mysteriorum institutione.

Dum isthaec igitur apud me tacitus revolvo, Caecilius erupit: Ego Octavio meo plurimum quantum eadem tranquillitate qua vivimus, sed et mihi gratulor, 0359A nec exspecto sententiam. Vicimus, et ita ut improbe usurpo victoriam: nam, ut ille mei victor est, ita ego triumphator erroris. Itaque, quod pertineat ad summam quaestionis, et de providentia fateor, et Deo cedo, et de sectae, jam nostrae, sinceritate consentio. etiam nunc tamen aliqua consubsidunt non obstrepentia veritati, sed perfectae institutioni necessaria: de quibus crastino, quod jam sol occasui declivis est, ut de toto, congruentius, promptius requiremus.