(4) Then she will begin to rage at herself like a woman in labor, writhing and screaming in the hour of delivery. But since she is female, she is powerless by herself to inseminate a child. So the father sent her from heaven her man, her brother, the firstborn. The bridegroom came down to the bride. She gave up her former whoring and cleansed herself of the pollution of adulterers, and she was renewed to be a bride. She cleansed herself in the bridal chamber. She filled it with perfume and sat there waiting for the true groom. She no longer goes about the marketplace, copulating with whomever she desires, but she waits for him, saying, "When will he come?" And she feared him, not knowing what he looked like. She no longer remembers, since she fell from her father's house long ago.

(74) She became not pregnant save after sexual pleasure, Can a garden bloom without the spring? Pregnant women and their teeming wombs So every tree which nurtures its fruits Has been, like Mary, impregnated by the Unseen King. Though fire's heat be hidden in the midst of water, Though the heat of the fire be working unseen, In like manner, the members of those enjoying "union" Become big with child, viz., with forms of "states" and "words." Gazing on the beauty of these forms they stand agape,

(6) Now, the woman whom one may desire with the thought, 'May she conceive!'— after coming together with her and joining mouth with mouth, he should first exhale, then inhale, and say: * With power, with semen, I deposit semen in you! ' Thus she becomes pregnant.

(1) When the soul had adorned herself again in her beauty, she enjoyed her beloved. He also loved her. And when they made love, she got from him the seed which is the life-giving spirit. By him she has good children and brings them up. Such is the great and perfect marvel of birth. This marriage is made perfect by the will of the father.

(16) And<she bare a son in the third month and in the middle of the month. at the time ol which the Lord had spoken to Abraham, on the festival of the first- fruits of the harvest, Isaac was born.

(6) Now, the woman whom one may desire with the thought, with her and joining mouth with mouth, he should first inhale, then exhale, and say: c With power, with semen, I reclaim the semen from you! ' Thus she comes to be without seed.

(32) As above said, the visions of males and females in union will appear. If, at that time, one entereth into the womb through the feelings of attachment and repulsion, one may be born either as a horse, a fowl, a dog, or a human being.

(3) And for this reason the com- mandment is written on the heavenly tables6 in regard to her that giveth birth : " if she beareth a male, she shall remain in her uncleanness seven days accord- ing to the first week of days, and thirty and three days shall she remain in the blood of her purifying, and she shall not touch any hallowed thing, nor enter into the sanctuary, until she accomplished these days which (are enjoined) in the case of a male child. ii. But in the case of a female child she shall remain in her uncleanness two weeks of days, according to the first two weeks, and sixty-six days in the blood of her purification, and they will be in all eighty days."

(4) As far as respects human nature, the woman does not possess one nature, and the man exhibit another, but the same: so also with virtue. If, consequently, a self-restraint and righteousness, and whatever qualities are regarded as following them, is the virtue of the male, it belongs to the male alone to be virtuous, and to the woman to be licentious and unjust. But it is offensive even to say this. Accordingly woman is to practise self-restraint and righteousness, and every other virtue, as well as man, both bond and free; since it is a fit consequence that the same nature possesses one and the same virtue. We do not say that woman's nature is the same as man's, as she is woman. For undoubtedly it stands to reason that some difference should exist between each of them, in virtue of which one is male and the other female. Pregnancy and parturition, accordingly, we say belong to woman, as she is woman, and not as she is a human being. But if there were no difference between man and woman, both would do and suffer the same things. As then there is sameness, as far as respects the soul, she will attain to the same virtue; but as there is difference as respects the peculiar construction of the body, she is destined for child-bearing and housekeeping. "For I would have you know," says the apostle, "that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man: for the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man. I For neither is the woman without the man, nor the man without the woman, in the Lord." For as we say that the man ought to be conti-nent, and superior to pleasures; so also we reckon that the woman should be continent and practised in fighting against pleasures. "But I say, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh," counsels the apostolic command; "for the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. These, then, are contrary" (not as good to evil, but as fighting advantageously), he adds therefore, so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are, fornication uncleanness, profligacy, idolatry, witchcrafts, enmities, strifes, jealousies, wrath, contentions, dissensions, heresies, envyings, drunkenness, revellings, and such like; of which I tell you before, as I have also said before, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, temperance, goodness, faith, meekness." He calls sinners, as I think, "flesh," and the righteous "spirit." Further, manliness is to be assumed in order to produce confidence and forbearance, so as "to him that strikes on the one cheek, to give to him the other; and to him that takes away the cloak, to yield to him the coat also," strongly, restraining anger. For we do not train our women like Amazons to manliness in war; since we wish the men even to be peaceable. I hear that the Sarmatian women practise war no less than the men; and the women of the Sacae besides, who shoot backwards, feigning flight as well as the men. I am aware, too, that the women near Iberia practise manly work and toil, not refraining from their tasks even though near their delivery; but even in the very struggle of her pains, the woman, on being delivered, taking up the infant, carries it home. Further, the females no less than the males manage the house, and hunt, and keep the flocks: "Cressa the hound ran keenly in the stag's track."

(99) And barrenness has not been given to the woman, But on account of the deeds of her own hands she dies without children.

(101) Now behold! When the seed is generated, it stands in the centre or midst of the body in the heart; for there the mother catcheth the Ternary or Trinity.

(44) And so now there is a vehement Desire in the Creatures. The Spirit of the Male seeks the loving Child in the Female, and the Female in the Male; for the Irrationality of the Body in the unreasonable Creatures knows not what it does; the Body would not, if it had Reason, move so eagerly towards Propagation; neither does it know any Thing of the Impregnation [or Conception,] only its Spirit does so burn and desire after the Child of Love, that it seeks Love, (which yet is paradisical) and it cannot comprehend it; but it makes a P Semination only, wherein there is again a Center to the Birth. And thus is the Original of both Sexes, and their Propagation; yet it does not attain the paradisical Child of Love, but it is a vehement Hunger, and so the Propagation is acted with great Earnestness.

(64) It is probably therefore with reference to the consummation that Salome says: "Until when shall men die?" The Scripture uses the word "man" in two senses, the outward man and the soul, and again of him who is being saved and him who is not; and sin is said to be the death of the soul. That is why the Lord gave a cautious answer-" As long as women bear children," that is, as long as the desires are active. "Therefore, as through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin death came to all men, in that all sinned, and death reigned from Adam to Moses," says the apostle. By natural necessity in the divine plan death follows birth, and the coming together of soul and body is followed by their dissolution. If birth exists for the sake of learning and knowledge, dissolution leads to the final restoration. As woman is regarded as the cause of death because she brings to birth, so also for the same reason she may be called the originator of life.

(1) 'For this reason is water in the fifth oblation called Man. This germ, covered in the womb, having dwelt there ten months, or more or less, is born.

(41) And she said unto him : " Give them to me until thou dost send me my hire " ; and he said unto her : " I will send unto thee a kid of the goats " ; and he gave them to her, (and he went in unto her,) and she conceived by him.

(3) For if thou should’st regard that supreme [point] of time when . . . the one nature doth pour forth the young into the other one, and when the other greedily absorbs [it] from the first, and hides it [ever] deeper [in itself]; then, at that time, out of their common congress, females attain the nature of the males, males weary grow with female listlessness. And so the consummation of this mystery, so sweet and requisite, is wrought in secret; lest, owing to the vulgar jests of ignorance, the deity of either sex should be compelled to blush at natural congress,—and much more still, if it should be subjected to the sight of impious folk. XXII

(16) And in the middle of_the_sixth monlh the Lord visited Sarah and did unto her as He had spoken, and she conceived. 980 a.m.

(28) And when Leah saw that she had become sterile and did not bear, she envied (Rachel) and she also gave her handmaid Zilpah to Jacob to wife, and she conceived, and bare a son, and Leah called his name Gad, on the twelfth of the eighth month, in the third year of the fourth week.

(31) O nobly-born, at this time thou wilt see visions of males and females in union. When thou seest them, remember to withhold thyself from going between them. Regarding the father and mother as thy Guru and the Divine Mother, meditate upon them and bow down; humbly exercise thy faith; offer up mental worship with great fervency; and resolve that thou wilt request [of them] religious guidance.

(3) Therefore, there was ordained regarding her who beareth a male or a female child the statute of those days that she should touch no hallowed thing, nor enter into the sanctuary until these days for the male or female child are accom- plished.