soon as Jesus raised his hands and
stepped towards the cave, and began to breathe his spirit against the
lust that possessed the man's flesh. We must return here, he said, with
oil and linen cloths. At which all wondered, not knowing what meaning to
put upon his words, but they believed Jesus, and came at daybreak to
meet him at the edge of the forest and followed the path as before till
they came to the hillside. The man was no longer hidden in his cave, but
sat outside by the rock on which Jesus had laid the knife, and Jesus
said: happy is he born into the world without sting, and happy is he out
of whom men have taken the sting before he knew it, but happier than
these is the man that cuts out the part that offends him, setting the
spirit free as this man has done.

Joseph ceased speaking suddenly and stood waiting for his father to
admire the miracle he had related, but Dan's tongue struggled with
words; and Joseph, being taken as it were with another flux of words,
and like one apprehensive of the argument that none shall undo God's
handiwork, set out on the telling that the cause of man's lust of women
was that God and the devil had a bet together--the devil saying that if
God let him sting a man in a certain part of his hide he would get him
in the end despite all that God might do to save him from hell. To which
God, being in the humour, consented, and the sting was put into nearly
all men. A few the devil overlooked, and these have much spared to them,
and those out of whom the sting is taken in childhood are fortunate, but
those who, like the wild man of the wood, cut the sting out of their own
free will are worthy of all praise; and he cited the authority of Jesus
that man should mutilate his body till it conform perforce to his piety.
But the story of man's fall is told differently in the Book of Genesis,
my son. The admonition that he was laying violent hands on a sacred book
startled Joseph out of his meditations, and in some confusion of words
and mind he began to prevaricate, saying that he thought he had made
himself clear: the release of pious souls from the bondage of the flesh
was more important than the continuance of the impious. Moreover in the
days of Moses, Israel was not steeped in as many iniquities as she is
now, and the Day of Judgment was not so close at hand. More men meant
more sins, and sin has become so common that God can endure the torture
no longer.... Again Joseph ceased speaking su