the same penalty more than once, when it hath pleased my Father to send it upon a man.[1] In the same moment when it cometh forth it seeth the command descending to it out of heaven, and it saith, I will go forth against that man to cause him great trouble. Then without delay an assault is made upon the soul, and death ruleth over it, doing with it as it will. For because Adam did not the will of my Father, but transgressed his commandment, my Father, being provoked to anger against him, devoted him to death, and for this cause death entered the world.[2] But if Adam had kept the precept of my Father, death would never have befallen him. Think ye that I can seek from my good Father that he would send me a fiery chariot,[3] to receive the body of my father Joseph, and remove it to a place of rest, to dwell with spiritual beings? But for the prevarication of Adam, this affliction and violence of death descended upon the whole human race; and this is the reason why it behoveth me to die according to the flesh, namely, for my work, or men whom I created, that they may obtain favour.
CHAPTER XXIX.
Having said thus I embraced the body of my father Joseph, and wept over it; but the others
