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(13) Further, husbandmen derived advantage from the law in such things. For it orders newly planted trees to be nourished three years in succession, and the superfluous growths to be cut off, to prevent them being loaded and pressed down; and to prevent their strength being exhausted from want, by the nutriment being frittered away, enjoins tilling and digging round them, so that [the tree] may not, by sending out suckers, hinder its growth. And it does not allow imperfect fruit to be plucked from immature trees, but after three years, in the fourth year; dedicating the first-fruits to God after the tree has attained maturity.

(25) Its fruit shall be for food to the elect: it shall be transplanted to the holy place, to the temple of the Lord, the Eternal King.

(15) For in the fourth year, since there is need of time to him that is being solidly catechized, the four virtues are consecrated to God, the third alone being already joined to the fourth, the person of the Lord. And a sacrifice of praise is above holocausts: "for He," it is said, "giveth strength to get power." And if your affairs are in the sunshine of prosperity, get and keep strength, and acquire power in knowledge. For by these instances it is shown that both good things and gifts are supplied by God; and that we, becoming ministers of the divine grace, ought to sow the benefits of God, and make those who approach us noble and good; so that, as far as possible, the temperate man may make others continent, he that is manly may make them noble, he that is wise may make them intelligent, and the just may make them just.

(5) We must conceive, that there was then a very pleasant Habitation upon the Earth; for all the Fruits did grow [spring and bud] out of the hidden Element, through the Fierceness of the four Elements; and although the four Elements had also their Fruits, yet Man should not (but the Beasts of the Field should) have eaten thereof. But now when the Lord cursed the Earth, then the Element withdrew from the Root of the Fruit, for God's Cursing is nothing else, but this Flying from a Thing; and thus God's Holiness is flown from the Root of the Fruit, and so the Root [of the Fruits] remains in the four Elements, in the Out-Birth; and Adam and Eve were also fallen thereinto. And thus now like came to like; his Body also was become earthly, and must turn to Earth again.

(60) In the year five hundred, in the seventh month, on the fourteenth day of the month in the life of †Enoch†. In that Parable I saw how a mighty quaking made the heaven of heavens to quake, and the host of the Most High, and the angels, a thousand thousands and ten thousand times ten thousand, were disquieted with a great disquiet.

(29) But that the Fruits upon the Body are much pleasanter, more lovely, sweeter and milder, and with a good Taste and Relish, that is even the third Birth out of the Earth, according to which the Earth shall be purged and cleaned at the End of this Time, and shall be set or put again into its first Place, but the Wrath will abide in Death. The richly joyful Gate of Man.

(80) And in those times the fruits of the earth shall be backward, And shall not grow in their time, And the fruits of the trees shall be withheld in their time.

(6) It was only, then, when a father and mother, a son and daughter died, that the priest was allowed to enter, because these were related only by flesh and seed, to whom the priest was indebted for the immediate cause of his entrance into life. And they purify themselves seven days, the period in which Creation was consummated. For on the seventh day the rest is celebrated; and on the eighth he brings a propitiation, as is written in Ezekiel, according to which propitiation the promise is to be received. And the perfect propitiation, I take it, is that propitious faith in the Gospel which is by the law and the prophets, and the purity which shows itself in universal obedience, with the abandonment of the things of the world; in order to that grateful surrender of the tabernacle, which results from the enjoyment of the soul. Whether, then, the time be that which through the seven periods enumerated returns to the chiefest rest, or the seven heavens, which some reckon one above the other; or whether also the fixed sphere which borders on the intellectual world be called the eighth, the expression denotes that the Gnostic ought to rise out of the sphere of creation and of sin. After these seven days, sacrifices are offered for sins.