(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.

(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,

A woman bore many children in succession, but none of them lived beyond the age of three or four months. In great distress she cried to God, and then beheld in a vision the beautiful gardens of Paradise, and many fair mansions therein, and upon one of these mansions she read her own name inscribed. And a voice from heaven informed her that God would accept the sorrows she had endured in lieu of her blood shed in holy war, as, owing to her sex, she was unable to go out to battle like the men. On looking again, the woman beheld in Paradise all the children she had lost, and she cried, "O Lord ! they were lost to me, but were safe with Thee!" This story is followed by anecdotos of Hamza going out to battle without his coat-of-mail, of the Prophet advising a man who complained of being cheated in his bargains to take time before completing them, and of the death of Bilal, Muhammad's crier, and by illustrations of the illusive nature of the world, of the difference between things self-evident and mere matters of inference, and between knowing a thing through illustrations and on the authority of others and knowing it as it really is in its essence. The difference between knowing a thing merely by similitudes and on the authority of others, and knowing the very essence thereof.

(4) She became a poor desolate widow, helpless. In her affliction she had no food. From them she had gathered nothing but the defilements when they coupled with her. Her offspring from the adulterers are mute, blind, and sickly. They are disturbed. But when her father who is above looked down on her and saw her sighing, suffering and in disgrace, and repenting of her prostitution, then she began to call on him for help with all her heart, saying, "Save me, my father. Look, I will report to you, for I left my house and fled from my woman's quarters. Restore me to yourself."

(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.

(28) And on account of all this Rachel envied Leah, for she did not bear, and she said to Jacob : " Give me children " ; and Jacob said : " Have I withheld from thee the fruits of thy womb? Have I forsaken thee? "

(69) Yet Men cannot say, that Mary was born out of a barren Womb, although the Body of Anna was unfruitful, which was from the Council of God; in that they were honest [virtuous] People, fearing God, that their Tincture might not be defiled, because they were to generate that which the Lord would highly bless. God knew how to open it in due Time, and that in old Age, when the wanton Lust of this World from the Elements was extinguished, as in Sarah, Abraham's Wife.

(18) Fifthly, she should not be barren. "A piece of old matting lying in the corner of the house is better than a barren wife.'' (3)

(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."

(22) Be thou ware, my son Jacob, of taking a wife from any seed of the daughters of Canaan ; For all his seed is to be rooted out of the earth.

(1) I CAN scarce write for Grief, but seeing it cannot be otherwise, therefore we will for a While wear the Garment of the Woman, but yet live in the Virgin; and although we receive [or suffer] much Affliction in the [Garment of the] Woman, yet the Virgin will recompence it well enough. And thus we must be bound with the Woman till we send her to the Grave, and then she shall be a Shadow and a Figure; and the Virgin shall be our Bride and precious Crown. She will give us her Pearl and Crown, and cloath us with her Ornaments, for which we will give the Venture for the Lily's sake. And though we shall raise a great Storm, and though Antichrist tear away the Woman from us, yet the Virgin must continue with us, because we are married to her; let every one take its own, and then I shall have that which is mine.

(7) When the soul leaves her perfect husband because of the treachery of Aphrodite, who exists here in the act of conception, then the soul will suffer harm. But if she sighs and repents, she will be restored to her house.

(4) And yet they are outsiders, without power to inherit from the male, but they will inherit from their mother only. Whenever, therefore, the soul wishes to inherit along with the outsiders - for the possessions of the outsiders are proud passions, the pleasures of life, hateful envies, vainglorious things, nonsensical things, accusations [...] for her [...] prostitution, he excludes her and puts her into the brothel. For [...] debauchery for her. She left modesty behind. For death and life are set before everyone. Whichever of these two they wish, then, they will choose for themselves.

(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.

On account of this it is said concerning her that she said, I am part of my mother, and I am the mother. I am the wife, I am the virgin. I am pregnant. I am the midwife. I am the one who comforts during labor pains. My husband produced me, and I am his mother, and he is my father and my lord. He is my potency; what he desires he speaks with reason. I am becoming, but I have borne a lordly man. Now these things were revealed by the will of Sabaoth and his Christ to the souls who will come to the fashioned bodies of the authorities. Concerning these the holy voice said, “Multiply and flourish to rule over all the creatures.” And these are the ones who are taken captive by the chief creator according to their destinies, and thus they were locked in the prisons of the fashioned bodies until the consummation of the age.

Now, afterward she bore Cain, their son, and Cain cultivated the land. Thereupon he knew his wife. Again becoming pregnant, she bore Abel, and Abel was a herdsman of sheep. Cain brought in from the crops of his field, but Abel brought in an offering from among his lambs. God looked upon the votive offerings of Abel, but he did not accept the votive offerings of Cain. And fleshly Cain pursued Abel his brother. God said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” He answered, saying, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” And Adam knew his partner Eve, and she became pregnant and bore Seth to Adam. And she said, “I have borne another man through god, in place of Abel.” Again Eve became pregnant, and she bore Norea. And she said, “He has produced for me a virgin as an assistance for many generations of human beings.” She is the virgin whom the forces did not defile. Then humankind began to multiply and improve.

(39) This Figure does not (as many judge) go into the Abyss, but as the Parents were, so is also their Figure; for this Figure is the Parent's, till the Kindling of its Life, and then it is no more the Parent's, but its own. The Mother affords but a Lodging, and the Nutriment; and therefore if she destroys it willingly in her Body, she is a Murderer, and the divine Law judges her to the temporal Death.

(5) All the seed of the females which issues beforehand, takes a place within the womb, and the seed of the males will remain above it, and will fill the space of the womb; whatever refrains therefrom becomes blood again, enters into the veins of the females, and at the time any one is born it becomes milk and' nourishes him, as all milk arises from the seed of the males, and the blood is that of the females.

(1) As long as the soul goes on running around everywhere sleeping with whomever she meets and defiling herself, she will suffer her deserved punishment. But when she perceives the troubles she is in, weeps before the father, and repents, then the father will pity her and make her womb turn from the external and turn inward again, and she will recover her proper character. It is not like this for a woman. The body's womb is inside the body like the other internal organs, but the soul's womb is turned to the outside like the male genitalia, which are external.

(3) In her body she became a whore and gave herself to everyone, seeing each one she hugged as a husband. After she let herself be taken by lecherous, unfaithful adulterers, she sighed deeply and repented. But even when she turned her face from the adulterers, she ran to others, and they compelled her to live with them and make love with them on their beds as if they were her masters. Then, out of shame, she no longer dared leave them, while they double-crossed her, pretending to be faithful, true husbands, as if they respected her. After all these acts, they took off, abandoning her.