(5) "Wherefore thus saith the Lord, Every alien son is uncircumcised in heart, and uncircumcised in flesh" (that is, unclean in body and soul): "there shall not enter one of the strangers into the midst of the house of Israel, but the Lerites." He calls those that would not believe, but would disbelieve, strangers. Only those who live purely being true priests of God. Wherefore, of all the circumcised tribes, those anointed to be high priests, and kings, and prophets, were reckoned more holy. Whence He commands them not to touch dead bodies, or approach the dead; not that the body was polluted, but that sin and disobedience were incarnate, and embodied, and dead, and therefore abominable.

(14) Moses therefore gave unto you circumcision (not because it is of Moses, but of the fathers); and ye on the sabbath day circumcise a man. If a man on the sabbath day receive circumcision, that the law of Moses should not be broken; are ye angry at me, because I have made a man every whit whole on the sabbath day?

(36) But this I say, according to my Knowledge, (and not out of any Command,) that if the Parents are wicked, and indeed in the Kingdom of the Devil, and that they have thus begotten their Fruit out of their false [or evil] Essences (in which [Parents] there is no Faith, but only a false Hypocrisy, and yet will in an apish Mockery be counted Christians; and as the Devil oftentimes changes himself into the Likeness of an Angel, so they also send their Children with the like trimmed false Angels before the Covenant of Christ;) such Doing is very dangerous, which also instantly shows itself in the Growing of the Tree; indeed the Covenant continues still, but there must be Earnestness in avoiding of the Devil. It may be, that very many are baptized in the Anger of God, because they do but contemn the Covenant; and many Times wicked drunken Priests use it, who even stick in Hell-fire over Head and Ears; and therefore the Covenant of Grace stands as a Testimony against the Congregations of the Wicked. And that which they see and know (and do not perform it with earnest Sincerity) that shall judge and condemn them.

(33) But thou must not omit Baptism notwithstanding; for when the Child is born into the World, then it is severed from its Tree, and is in this World, and then itself must pass into the Covenant, and thou must with thy Faith present it, and with thy Prayer give Or in. it to God, in his Covenant; there needs no Pomp about it, that does dishonour the Covenant; it is an earnest Thing.

(99) A eunuch, then, does not mean a man who has been castrated, nor even an unmarried man, but a man who is un- productive of truth. Formerly he was "dry wood," but if he obeys the word and observes the sabbaths by abstaining from sins and keeps the commandments, he will be in higher honour that those who are educated in word alone and fail to do what is right. "Little children," says our teacher, "a little while longer I am with you." That is why Paul also instructs the Galatians in these words: "My little children, with whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you." And again he writes to the Corinthians: "For though you may have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet you have not many fathers. For in Christ I have begotten you through the gospel." On this account a eunuch shall not enter into God's assembly," that is, the man who is unproductive and unfruitful both in conduct and in word; but blessed are those who have made themselves eunuchs, free from all sin, for the sake of the kingdom of heaven by their abstinence from the world.

(98) To both the same Lord gives the corresponding promises by the prophet Isaiah in the following words: "Let not the eunuch say, I am dry wood. To eunuchs the Lord says this, If you keep my sabbaths and do all that I command you, I will give you a place better than sons and daughters." For a eunuch is not justified merely because he is a eunuch, and certainly not because he observes the sabbath, if he does not keep the commandments. And for the married he goes on to say, "My elect shall not labour in vain nor bear children to be accursed; for they are a seed blessed by the Lord." For him who begets children and brings them up and educates them in the Lord, just as for him who begets children by means of the true teaching, a reward is laid up, as also for the elect seed. But others hold that procreation is a curse and do not understand that the Scripture speaks against them. Those who are in truth the Lord's elect neither teach doctrines nor beget children to be accursed, as the sects do.

(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.

(53) His disciples said to Him, "Is circumcision beneficial or not?" He said to them, "If it were beneficial, their father would beget them already circumcised from their mother. Rather, the true circumcision in spirit has become completely profitable."

(104) 10. When the Patriarch Abraham had comprehended the great truths, meditated upon them, and understood them perfectly, the Lord of the Universe (the Tetragrammaton) appeared to him, called him His friend, kissed him upon the head, and made with him a covenant. First, the covenant was between the ten fingers of his hands, which is the covenant of the tongue (spiritual); second, the covenant was between the ten toes of his feet, which is the covenant of circumcision (material); and God said of him, "Before Abraham bound the spirit of the twenty-two letters (the Thora) upon his tongue and God disclosed to him their secrets. God permitted the letters to be immersed in water, He burned them in the fire and imprinted them upon the winds. He distributed them among the seven planets and gave them to the twelve zodiacal signs.

(31) For the Testator stands in the Covenant, and says, Come; and whosoever does not desire to come, goes not in to him. Therefore it lies not in our high Knowledge, for he stands in his Covenant; and the Child that is newly born is as acceptable to him, as an old sinful Man that repents and steps into his Covenant. For it laid not in us that he became Man, and received us into his Love, but it laid in his Love, in his i Mercy; for we knew nothing of him, nor did we know whether we could be helped or no; but he alone chose us, and came to us out of Grace, kin our Humanity, and took Pity on us; and so also the Covenant of his Promise was a Covenant of Grace and not of our Foreknowing or Merit. And therefore whosoever teaches otherwise is in Babel, and confounds the Covenant of Christ.