(7) And in the twenty-eighth a.m. jubilee Noah began to enjoin upon his sons' sons the ordinances and commandments, and all the judgments thathe knew, and he exhorted his sons to observe righteousness, and to cover the shame of their flesh, and to bless their Creator, and honour father and mother, and love their neighbour, and guard their souls from fornication and uncleanness and all ini- quity. Si. For owing to these three things • came the flood upon the earth, namely, owing to the forni- cation wherein the Watchers against the law of their ordinances went a whoring after the daughters of men, and took themselves wives of all which they chose : T and they made the beginning of uncleanness.

(20) And if any woman or maid commit fornication amongst you, burn her with fire,* and let them not commit fornication with her after their eyes and their heart ; and let them not take to them- selves wives from the daughters of Canaan ; for the seed of Canaan will be rooted out of the land.

(25) I swear' before thee, mother, that all the days of my life I will not take me a wife from the daughters of the seed of Canaan, and I will not act wickedly as my brother hath done.

(25) For I remember, 1 With this section also compare xxvii. of our Bot>k. '' mother, the words of Abraham, our father, for he commanded me not to take a wife of the daughters of Canaan, but to take me a wife from the seed of my father's house and from my kindred.

(71) The demonstration of these matters being concluded, let us - now quote all the Scriptures which oppose these heretical sophists, and show the right rule of continence that is preserved on grounds of reason. The man of understanding will find out the particular Scripture which deals with each individual heresy, and at the right time will quote it to refute those who teach doctrines contrary to the commandments. Right from the beginning the law, as we have already said, lays down the command, "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife," long before the Lord's closely similar utterance in the New Testament, - where the same idea is expressed in his own mouth: "You have heard that the law commanded, Thou shalt not commit adultery. But I say, Thou shalt not lust."9 That the law intended husbands to cohabit with their wives with self-control and only for the purpose of begetting children is evident from the prohibition which forbids the unmarried man from having immediate sexual relations with a captive woman. If the man has conceived a desire for her, he is directed to mourn for thirty days while she is to have her hair cut; if after this the desire has not passed off, then they may proceed to beget children, because the appointed period enables the overwhelming impulse to be tested and to become a rational act of will.

(8) "Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge."

(41) And do thou command the children of Israel that there be no uncleanness amongst them, for every one who lieth with his daughter-in-law or with his mother-in-law hath wrought uncleanness ; with fire let them burn the man who hath lain with her, and likewise the woman, and He will turn away wrath and punishment from Israel.

(13) And it came 1 Corrupt. Read probably Canaan. that He should be with him and not forsake him all the days of his life.

(7) ¶ Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.

(20) That they should circumcise their sons, according to the covenant which He had made with them, and not deviate to the right hand or the left of all the paths which the Lord had cmmanded us ; and that we should keep ourselves from all fornication and uncleanness, [and renounce from amongst us all fornication and un- cleanness].*

(90) And indeed he entirely approves of the man who is husband of one wife, whether he be presbyter, deacon, or layman, if he conducts his marriage unblameably. "For he shall be saved by child-bearing." Again when the Saviour calls the Jews "a wicked and adulterous generation" he teaches that they did not know the law as the law intended; by following the tradition of the elders and the commandments of men, they were committing adultery against the law, as they did not accept "the husband and lord of their virginity." But perhaps he also knew that they were enslaved by alien desires, on account of which they were in continual bondage to their sins and were sold to foreigners, since among the Jews at least no public harlots existed and adultery was forbidden. But he who said, "I have married a wife and therefore I cannot come" to the divine supper was an example to convict those who for pleasure's sake were abandoning the divine command; for if this saying is taken otherwise, neither the righteous before the coming of Christ nor those who have married since his coming, even if they be apostles, will be saved. And if they again bring forward the point that the prophet also said, "I have become old among all my enemies," by "enemies" they ought to understand sins. It is not marriage that is a sin but fornication, since otherwise they must say that birth and the creation of birth are sinful. CHAPTER. XIII

(27) " Do not take thee a wife of any of the daughters of Canaan ; arise and go to Mesopotamia, to the house of Bethuel, thy mother's father, and take thee a wife from thence of the daughters of Laban, thy mother's brother.

(19) ¶Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: but I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

(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.

(9) And thus the sons of Noah divided unto their sons in the presence of Noah their father, and he bound them all by an oath, imprecating a curse on every one that sought to seize the portion which had not fallen (to him) by his lot.

(50) Concerning the words, "Not all can receive this saying. There are some eunuchs who were born so, and some who were made eunuchs by men, and some who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven; let him receive it who can receive it," they do not realize the context. After his word about divorce some asked him whether, if that is the position in relation to woman, it is better not to marry; and it was then that the Lord said: "Not all can receive this saying, but those to whom it is granted." What the questioners wanted to know was whether, when a man's wife has been condemned for fornication, it is allowable for him to marry another. It is said, however, that several athletes abstained from sexual intercourse, exercising continence to keep their bodies in training, as Astylos of Croton and Crison of Himera. Even the cithara-player, Amoebeus, though newly married, kept away from his bride. And Aristotle of Cyrene was the only man to disdain the love of Lais when she fell for him.

(10) And one of us He commanded that we should teach Noah all their medicines ; for He knew that they would not walk in uprightness, nor strive in righteousness, n. And we did according to all His words : all the malignant evil ones we bound in the place of condemnation, and a tenth part of them we left that they might be subject before Satan * on the earth.

(107) "Go into no way of the heathen and enter no city of the Samaritans," says the Lord, to keep us away from society contrary to his will. "For the end of the lawless man is evil. And these are the ways of all those who do lawless deeds." "Woe to that man," the Lord says, "it were well for him if he had never been born, than that he should cause one of my little ones to stumble. It were better for him that a millstone were hung about him and he cast into the sea than that he should pervert one of my elect." "For the name of God is blasphemed because of them." Therefore the apostle nobly says, "1 wrote to you in my letter to have no company with fornicators," as far as the words "but the body is not for fornication but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body." And to show that he does not regard marriage as fornication he goes on: "Do you not know that he Who is joined to a harlot is one body with her?" Or who will assert that before she is married a virgin is a harlot? " And do not deprive one another," he says, "except by agreement for a time," indicating by the word "deprive" the obligation of marriage, procreation, which he has set forth in the preceding pas- sage where he says: "Let the husband give the wife her due and likewise also the wife to the husband."

(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.

(34) Because of this certain other depraved and worthless fellows have been impelled to assert that man was formed by various powers, and that down as far as the navel his body shows the work of godlike craftsmanship, but his lower parts indicate inferior workmanship. In consequence of the latter man has a sexual impulse. They fail to observe that the upper parts also want food and in some men are lustful. And they contradict Christ when he said to the Pharisees that the same God made both our outer and our inner man. Moreover, desire is not a bodily thing, though it occurs because of the body. Certain others, whom we may call Antitactae [i.e., opponents ], assert that the God of the universe is our Father by nature, and all that he has made is good. But one of the beings made by him sowed tares and so caused the origin of evils. He involved us all in them and so made us opponents of the Father. Therefore even we ourselves are set in opposition to him to avenge the Father, and act contrary to the will of the second. Since, then, the latter has said, "Thou shalt not commit adultery," Let us, say they, commit adultery to abolish his commandment.