In Part I we considered the uncertainties about the meaning of authentic Christianity in the decades around AD 400, and the varieties of response to them. In the course of these decades new images of the Christian life, personal and communal, came into being. The Roman matron Gregoria was hankering after the freedom of wealthy virgins in the seclusion of their family palaces; her spiritual mentor urged her to shoulder the responsibilities of a Christian wife and the mistress of an upperclass household. Augustine's imprint on the development of the religious life in the West was making itself felt. It shows very clearly in a remarkable letter addressed by an unknown author to the virgin Demetrias. Demetrias was now no longer the young girl dedicating herself to the ascetic life whom Pelagius and Jerome had addressed (above, ch. 4, pp. 41–2), but a mature virgin of wide reputation and prestige. The author had learnt his lesson from Augustine well: his picture of the religious life as a life of peace and concord is full of echoes of Augustine's prescriptions for his monastic community.