The tract Abodah Zarah, before alluded to, asserts (p. 4) that all the commandments kept by Jews[49] shall bear friendly and favourable witness in heaven before all the assembled souls of men, and to the confusion of every other faith. Hebrews dwelling out of the four Holy Cities are as idol-worshippers, but without blame. A Jew going to a Gentile marriage feast eats impure food, although the meats be cooked by Jews and served by Jews in the presence of Jews; he even commits a sin if he enters the house within thirty days of the coming ceremony (p. 8). Gentiles should be prevented as much as possible purchasing immovable property. It is not allowed to speak well of a Gentile, man or woman, and it is a sin to make a present to them (p. 20), to greet or to approach them; and the Jew becomes as ceremonially impure by handling anything touched by them, by drinking out of the same cup, or by sleeping under the same roof, as if eating with them. Hebrews should never tether their beasts in places not belonging to them, at least without locking them up, lest the heathen plunder or pollute them. Gentiles preferred the Jews’ beasts to their own women, because evil entered into Eve on the day when the serpent (demon) committed adultery with her. A Jewess may not live amongst the heathen, because possibly the latter do not hold adultery to be a sin; a Jew should also beware for fear of their killing him, as they probably will do. Israel was purified of every sin upon Mount Sinai; but the descendants of the peoples not present there preserve their perversity (p. 22). If a Hebrew wayfarer meet a Gentile armed with a sword (worn on the left), he should pass on the other’s right side, and _vice versa_ if the stranger has only a staff, so that the arm can be seized before the weapon can be used; he must also name a distant place when asked his journey’s end, in order that the Gentile may defer slaying him till too late (p. 25).[50] The better to prevent all intimacy, the Jew must not buy wine or vinegar from a Gentile, who also may perhaps have used it in pagan rites. If a Christian, a Muslim, or an idolater touch a cup containing wine, the Jewish owner must throw away the wine or sell it to the heathen, and cleanse the cup. The same is the case with grapes. The Law forbids the Israelites to marry the daughters of the Seven Tribes that held the land before the conquest--namely, the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. This, say the writers of and commentators on the Talmud, arose from the fact of these women being impure from their childhood upwards. Others, however, whilst including all Gentiles in these Seven Tribes, assert that the prohibition was not on account of any special impurity, such women being vermin or brute beasts not subject to the normal feminine infirmities. Thus the learned restrain their weaker brethren who might suppose that an impure Gentile woman is pure to them, and who