11. That the Prodigal Son desired _to eat of Husks_ given unto Swine, will hardly pass in your apprehension for the Husks of Pease, Beans, or such edulious Pulses; as well understanding that the textual word Κεράτιον or _Ceration_, properly intendeth the Fruit of the _Siliqua_ Tree so common in _Syria_, and fed upon by Men and Beasts; called also by some the Fruit of the Locust Tree, and _Panis Sancti Johannis_, as conceiving it to have been part of the Diet of the _Baptist_ in the Desart. The Tree and Fruit is not onely common in _Syria_ and the Eastern parts, but also well known in _Apuglia_, and the Kingdom of _Naples_, growing along the _Via Appia_, from _Fundi_ unto _Mola_; the hard Cods or Husks making a rattling noise in windy weather, by beating against one another: called by the Italians _Carobe_ or _Carobole_, and by the French _Carouges_. With the sweet Pulp hereof some conceive that the Indians preserve Ginger, Mirabolans and Nutmegs. Of the same (as _Pliny_ delivers) the Ancients made one kind of Wine, strongly expressing the Juice thereof; and so they might after give the expressed and less usefull part of the Cods, and remaining Pulp unto their Swine: which being no gustless or unsatisfying Offal, might be well desired by the Prodigal in his hunger. [Sidenote: _Cucumbers_ etc. _of_ Ægypt.] 12. No marvel it is that the Israelites having lived long in a well watred Country, and been acquainted with the noble Water of _Nilus_, should complain for Water in the dry and barren Wilderness. More remarkable it seems that they should extoll and linger after the Cucumbers and Leeks, Onions and Garlick in _Ægypt_: wherein notwithstanding lies a pertinent expression of the Diet of that Country in ancient times, even as high as the building of the Pyramids, when _Herodotus_ delivereth, that so many Talents were spent in Onions and Garlick, for the Food of Labourers and Artificers; and is also answerable unto their present plentifull Diet in Cucumbers, and the great varieties thereof, as testified by _Prosper Alpinus_, who spent many years in _Ægypt_. [Sidenote: _Forbidden Fruit._ Gen. 2. 17. etc.] 13. What Fruit that was which our first Parents tasted in Paradise, from the disputes of learned men seems yet indeterminable. More clear it is that they cover'd their nakedness or secret parts with Figg Leaves; which when I reade, I cannot but call to mind the several considerations which Antiquity had of the Figg Tree, in reference unto those parts, particularly how Figg Leaves by sundry Authours are described to have some resemblance unto the Genitals, and so were aptly formed for such contection of those parts; how also in that famous Statua of _Praxiteles_, concerning _Alexander_ and _Bucephalus_, the Secret Parts are veil'd with Figg Leaves; how this Tree was sacred unto _Priapus_, and how the Diseases of the Secret Parts have derived their Name from Figgs. [Sidenote: _Balsam. Oil._ Luke 10. 34.]