these men be wholly consumed as offerings! A man who does such things reduces the entire Bible to useless allegories; indeed they trifle with, and pervert all the commandments in order to make the yoke of their burden lighter unto themselves. Their reports terrify us, and all who arrive here tell us new things. Truth has stumbled in the street, for some of them say that all that is written from the section of _Bereshit_ as far as the giving of the Law is nothing more than an allegory. May such men become a proverb and a by-word, and may they have no stay and no staff. Indeed they show that they have no faith in the plain meaning of the commandments; they inscribe on their hearts and on the walls of their altars that they have no portion in the God of Israel, nor in the Torah which their fathers had received on Sinai. They are more estranged than the Gentiles; for the latter fulfil some of the commandments in the proper form, while they (may they have no remnant in the land!) strongly desire to uproot all. The chief reason of all this is because they are infatuated with alien sciences, Zidonian and Moabitish, and pay homage to the Greek books. They mingle with strangers, and bear them children. The children that are consecrated unto heaven from their birth and from their mothers’ womb are drawn away from the breasts, and are taught the books and the language of the Chaldeans, instead of rising early to study the Jewish faith in the house of their teachers. Now a boy born upon the knees of natural science, who sees Aristotle’s sevenfold proofs concerning it, really believes in it, and denies the Chief Cause; if we refute him, he becomes all the more impious. They only read the Law, but their heart is not right inwardly, and they pervert it in seven ways. For thus says one of their sages, who is esteemed as the chief of the heads of their sects: ‘It is good that the study of the Law should be combined with secular sciences; it is a good thing, but without the wisdom of the Greeks a man is called _a wild ass used to the wilderness_. They that study the Law, what manner of wisdom is in them? for they themselves are but as beasts.’ They are therefore ashamed when they speak and lecture; they speak with their mouths, and point with the fingers that it is impossible to change nature, and they thereby declare to all that they do not believe in the creation of the universe, nor in any of the miracles that are recorded in the Torah. Lo, these are but the outskirts of their ways; were we to relate the rest of their words and deeds as they actually are, the ink would not suffice. We have thus explained enough here. They have nearly caused God’s people to forget His name; they went forth from His land, so that His place (God forfend!) no longer knows them. They that make a covenant with God, and surname themselves by the name of Israel, shall not their heart grow hot at that? Can those heretics put fire into our bosoms, and their flame