The exposure of infants

As for us, we have been taught that exposing newborn children belongs to wicked people, so that we may neither wrong anyone nor act impiously. First, we see that nearly all who are exposed—not only girls but also males—are brought up for prostitution. Just as the ancients are said to have raised herds of cattle, goats, sheep, or grazing horses, so now children are raised simply to be used shamefully. In the same way, throughout every nation a multitude of females, androgynous persons, and people who practice acts too shameful to name are maintained for this pollution. You receive their fees, assessments, and taxes, though you ought to cut this practice out of your inhabited world. And whoever uses such persons, besides engaging in godless, impious, and uncontrolled intercourse, may happen to have intercourse with his own child, relative, or brother. Some even prostitute their own children and wives; some are openly castrated for sexual exploitation and refer these mysteries to the Mother of the Gods; and beside every one of those whom you regard as gods, a serpent is depicted as a great symbol and mystery. Yet the things openly practiced and honored among you, as though the divine light had been overturned and were absent, you attribute to us. This does no harm to us, since we keep ourselves from doing any of these things; rather, it harms those who do them and falsely testify against us.