if any one, therefore, proceeds to such fornication or murder,
he cannot be clean. Moreover, the law enjoins, that after the
man and wife have lain together in a regular way, they shall
bathe themselves; for there is a defilement contracted
thereby, both in soul and body, as if they had gone into
another country; for indeed the soul, by being united to the
body, is subject to miseries, and is not freed therefrom again
but by death; on which account the law requires this
purification to be entirely performed.

26. Nay, indeed, the law does not permit us to make festivals
at the births of our children, and thereby afford occasion of
drinking to excess; but it ordains that the very beginning of
our education should be immediately directed to sobriety. It
also commands us to bring those children up in learning, and
to exercise them in the laws, and make them acquainted with
the acts of their predecessors, in order to their imitation of
them, and that they might be nourished up in the laws from
their infancy, and might neither transgress them, nor have
any pretense for their ignorance of them.

27. Our law hath also taken care of the decent burial of the
dead, but without any extravagant expenses for their funerals,
and without the erection of any illustrious monuments for
them; but hath ordered that their nearest relations should
perform their obsequies; and hath showed it to be regular,
that all who pass by when any one is buried should
accompany the funeral, and join in the lamentation. It also
ordains that the house and its inhabitants should be purified
after the funeral is over, that every one may thence learn to