Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| His Behaviour in Places Where There Were Christians of Both Sexes.
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP 
Chapter II.—His
Behaviour in Places Where There Were Christians of Both
Sexes.
And if, moreover, it chance that we are distant
from our homes and from our neighbours, and the day decline and the
eventide overtake us, and the brethren press us, through love of the
brotherhood and by reason of their affection for strangers, to stay
with them, so that we may watch with them, and they may hear the holy
word of God and do it, and be fed with the words of the Lord, so
that they may be mindful of them, and they set before us bread and
water and that which God provides, and we be willing and consent to
stay through the night with them; if there be there a holy
man,439
| 439 i.e., one who has
taken the vow of celibacy. | with him we turn in and lodge, and that
same brother will provide and prepare whatever is necessary for us; and
he himself waits upon us, and he himself washes our feet for us and
anoints us with ointment, and he himself gets ready a bed for us, that
we may sleep in reliance on God. All these things will that
consecrated brother, who is in the place in which we tarry, do in his
own person. He will himself serve the brethren, and each one of
the brethren who are in the same place will join with him in rendering
all those services440
| 440 Lit. “will
with him minister all those things.” | which are requisite
for the brethren. But with us may no female, whether young maiden
or married woman, be there at that time;441
| 441 [The minuteness of all
these precepts is of itself suspicious. The
“simplicity” of the earlier age had evidently passed when
these prohibitions were penned.—R.] | nor
she that is aged,442
| 442 ***,
Beelen’s conjecture for ***, “rich.” Zingerle
proposes ***, “about to be married.” | nor she that has
taken the vow; not even a maid-servant, whether Christian or heathen;
but there shall only be men with men. And, if we see it to be
requisite to stand and pray for the sake of the women, and to speak
words of exhortation and edification, we call together the
brethren and all the holy sisters and maidens, and likewise all
the other women who are there, inviting them with all modesty
and becoming behaviour to come and feast on the truth.443
And those among us who are skilled
in speaking speak to them, and exhort them in those words which God has
given us. And then we pray, and salute444
| 444 Lit.
“ask of the peace of.” |
one another, the men the men. But the women and the maidens will
wrap their hands in their garments; and we also, with
circumspection and with all purity, our eyes looking upwards, shall
wrap our right hand in our garments; and then they will come and give
us the salutation on our right hand wrapped in our garments. Then
we go where God permits us.
E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
