he lake; and
he answered that yesterday a shepherd told him that many brothers had
left the settlement. We did well, Caleb said, to cherish our celibacy,
and the price of living on this rock was not too high a price for it.
But tell us what thou hast heard, Eleazar. Eleazar had heard that
troubles were begun, but he hoped children would bring peace to all. But
all women aren't fruitful, Caleb said, and Benjamin was vexed with
Eleazar because he hadn't asked how many women were already quick. And
they fell to talking scandal, putting forward reasons why some of the
brethren should separate themselves from their wives.

Perhaps we shall never know the why and the wherefore, Eleazar said, it
being against our rules to absent ourselves without permission from the
cenoby, and if we were to break this rule, Hazael might refuse to
receive us again. We should wander on the hills seeking grass and roots,
for our oaths are that we take no food from strangers. Yet I'd give much
to hear how our brethren, for they are our brethren, fare with their
wives.

And when they met on the balcony, the elder members of the community,
Hazael, Mathias, Saddoc and Manahem, like the younger members conferred
together as to whether any good could come to those that had taken wives
to themselves for their pleasure. Not for their pleasure, Hazael said,
but that holiness may not pass out of the world for ever. But as
holiness, Mathias was moved to remark, is of the mind, it cannot be
affected by any custom we might impose upon our corporeal nature.
Whereupon a disputation began in which Manahem urged upon Mathias that
if he had made himself plain it would seem that his belief was that
holiness was not dependent upon our acts; and if that be so, he asked,
why do we live on this ledge of rock? To which question Mathias
answered that the man whose mind is in order need not fear that he will
fall into sin, for sin is but a disorder of the mind.

A debate followed regarding the relation of the mind to the body and of
the body to the mind, and when all four were wearied of the old
discussion, Saddoc said: is it right that we should concern ourselves
with these things, asking which of the brothers have taken wives, and
how they behave themselves to their wives? It seems to me that Saddoc is
right, these matters don't concern us who have no wives and who never
will have. But, said Manahem, though this question has been decided so
far as our bodies are con