(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.

(461) Certainly, he said, both in men and women those years are the prime of physical as well as of intellectual vigour. Any one above or below the prescribed ages who takes part in the public hymeneals shall be said to have done an unholy and unrighteous thing; the child of which he is the father, if it steals into life, will have been conceived under auspices very unlike the sacrifices and prayers, which at each hymeneal priestesses and priest and the whole city will offer, that the new generation may be better and more useful than their good and useful parents, whereas his child will be the offspring of darkness and strange lust. Very true, he replied. And the same law will apply to any one of those within the prescribed age who forms a connection with any woman in the prime of life without the sanction of the rulers; for we shall say that he is raising up a bastard to the State, uncertified and unconsecrated. Very true, he replied. This applies, however, only to those who are within the specified age: after that we allow them to range at will, except that a man may not marry his daughter or his daughter’s daughter, or his mother or his mother’s mother; and women, on the other hand, are prohibited from marrying their sons or fathers, or son’s son or father’s father, and so on in either direction. And we grant all this, accompanying the permission with strict orders to prevent any embryo which may come into being from seeing the light; and if any force a way to the birth, the parents must understand that the offspring of such an union cannot be maintained, and arrange accordingly. That also, he said, is a reasonable proposition. But how

(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."

(3) And they had no son till the first jubilee, and after this he knew her.

(3) In the first week was Adam created, and the rib — his wife : in the second week He showed her unto him : and for this reason thej commandment was given to keep in their defilement, for a male seven days, and for a female twice seven days.

(1) Then they decided to go to the east, thinking thus to fulfill the command of their fathers which they had not forgotten. It had been a long time since their fathers had died, when the tribes gave them their wives, and thus they acquired many relatives-in-law, when the three took wives.

(55) Therefore God established the State of Wedlock with Adam and Eve, and bound it fast with a strong Chain, in that he said; A Man shall leave Father and Mother, and cleave to his Wife, and they two shall be one Flesh. And God tolerates their as one Body and its Members, and must aim (in the Fear of God) at the Getting of Children; or else the Wantonness [or Lust] in itself (without that true Love of the State of Wedlock) is continually a bestial Lust, [Infection,] and Sin. And if you (in the State of Wedlock) seek nothing but the Lust and Lechery, then in such a Condition, thou art not a Jot better than a Beast, And do but consider it rightly, that without this, thou standest [already] in a bestial Birth [or Generation,] contrary to the first Creation, like all Beasts. For the holy Man in Adam was not predetermined to have propagated so, but in great modest Love out of himself.

(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.

(30) And to this law there is no limit of days,,and no remission, nor any atonement : but the man who hath defiled his daughter shall be rooted out in the midst of all Israel, because he hath 1 Notice the passionate denunciation of mixed marriages. The burning of the woman with fire, according to the Mosaic Law (Lev. xxi. ), was reserved for the priest's daughter who played the harlot, given of his seed to Moloch, and wrought impiously so as to defile it. II. And do thou, Moses, command the children of Israel and exhort them not to give their daughters to the Gentiles, and not to take for their sons any of the daughters of the Gentiles, for this is abominable before the Lord.

(11) With respect to generation also, the Pythagoreans are said to have made the following observations. In the first place, they thought it necessary to guard against what is called untimely [offspring]. For neither untimely plants, nor animals, are good; but prior to their bearing fruit, it is necessary that a certain time should intervene, in order that seeds and fruit may be produced from strong and perfect bodies. It is requisite, therefore, that boys and virgins should be accustomed to labors and exercises, and appropriate endurance, and that food should be given to them adapted to a life of labor, temperance, and endurance. But there are many things of this kind in human life, which it is better to learn at a late period, and among these is the use of venery.

It is necessary, therefore, that a boy should be so educated, as not to seek after such a connexion as this, within the twentieth year of his age. But when he arrives at this age, he should use venery rarely. This however will be the case, if he thinks that a good habit of body is an honorable and beautiful thing. For intemperance and a good habit of body, are not very much adapted to subsist together in the same person. It is also said, that those laws were praised by the Pythagoreans, which existed prior to their time in Grecian cities, and which prohibited the having connexion with a woman who is a mother, or a daughter, or a sister, either in a temple, or in a public place.

For it is beautiful and advantageous that there should be numerous impediments to this energy. These men also apprehended, as it seems, that preternatural generations, and those which are effected in conjunction with wanton insolence, should be entirely prevented from taking place; but that those should be suffered to remain, which are according to nature, and subsist with temperance, and which take place in the chaste and legal procreation of children.

(33) For this reason it is written and ordained on the heavenly tables that a man should not lie with his father's wife, and should not uncover his father's skirt, for this is unclean : they shall surely die together, the man who lieth with his father's wife and the woman also, for they have wrought unclean- ness on the earth. II. And there shall be nothing unclean before our God in the nation which He hath chosen for Himself as a possession.

(25) And then spake Jacob to Rebecca, his mother, and said unto ner : " Behold, mother, I am nine weeks * of years old, and I neither know nor have I touched any woman, nor have I betrothed myself to any, nor even think of taking me a wife of the daughters of Canaan.

(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.

(17) And in the first year of the ffifth l week 1982 Isaac was weaned in this jubilee, and Abraham made a great banquet in the third month, on the day his son Isaac was weaned. "*

(24) And from them arose seven pairs, male and female, and each was a brother and sister-wife; and from every one of them, in fifty years, children were born, and they themselves died in a hundred years.

(32) And in those days Rachel became pregnant with her son Benjamin. And Jacob counted his sons from him upwards and Levi fell to the portion of the Lord, and his father clothed him in the garments of the priesthood and filled his hands.

(1) On the nature of generation it says in revelation, that a woman when she comes out from menstruation, during ten days and nights, when they go near unto her, soon becomes pregnant.

(28) And Laban said to Jacob : "It is not so done in our country, to give the younger before the elder." And it is not right to do this ; for thus it is ordained and written in the heavenly tables,* that no one should give his younger daughter before the elder — but the elder one giveth first and after her the younger —and the man who doeth so, they set down guilt against him in heaven, and none is righteous that doeth this thing, for this deed is evil before the Lord. 1 ♦. #. seven years. For cf. Gen. xxix. , 20.

The heavenly person has more children than the earthly person. If the children of Adam are numerous but die, how much more numerous are the children of the perfect human, who do not die but are continually being born. A father produces children but a child cannot produce children. One who has just been born cannot be a parent. Rather, a child gets brothers and sisters, not children. All who are born in the world are born of nature, and the others [are nourished] from where they are born. People [are] nourished from the promise of the heavenly place. [If they would be]…from the mouth, from which the word comes, they would be nourished from the mouth and would be perfect. The perfect conceive and give birth through a kiss. That is why we also kiss each other. We conceive from the grace within each other.

(48) And in the sixth year of the third week 2372 AM. of the forty-ninth jubilee thou didst depart and dwell in the land of Midian l five weeks and one year. And thou didst return into Egypt in the second week in the second year in the fiftieth jubilee.