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 suddenly and, almost agape,
stood gazing into his father's face, reading therein a great perplexity,
for Dan was asking himself for what good reason had God given him so
strange a son. He would have been content to let the story pass into
another, but Joseph was waiting for him to speak, and speaking
incontinently he said he had heard that in the Temple of Astoreth the
Phoenician youths often castrated themselves with shards of shells or
pottery and threw their testicles in the lap of the goddess crying out:
art thou satisfied now, Astoreth? But he did not know of any text in
their Scriptures that counselled such a practice; and the introduction
of it seemed to savour of borrowing from the heathen. Whereupon Joseph
averred that whereas the wont of the Phoenician youths is without
reason, the same could not be said of Jesus' device to save a soul. To
which Dan rejoined that the leaving of the knife for the man to mutilate
himself with, seemed to him to be contrary to all the rumours of Jesus
that had come to his ears. I have heard that he would set the law aside
and the traditions of our race, declaring the uncircumcised to be
acceptable to God as the Jew; that he sits down to food with the
uncircumcised and lays no store on burnt offerings. Nor did Isaiah,
Joseph interrupted, and circumcision is itself a mutilation. I do not
contest its value, mark you; but if thou deny'st that Jesus was right to
leave a knife whereby the sinner might free himself from sin thou must