aorta. And thus the
breath passing through the side doors towards the heart produces
the movement of the embryo. For as long as the babe is being
fashioned in the Garden, it neither takes nourishment through the
mouth, nor breathes through the nostrils. For seeing that it is
surrounded by the waters (of the womb), death would instantly
supervene, if it took a breath; for it would draw after it the
waters and so perish. But the whole (of the foetus) is wrapped up
in an envelope, called the amnion, and is nourished through the
navel and receives the essence of the breath through the dorsal
duct, as I have said.

15. The river, therefore, he says, which goes out of Eden, is
divided into four channels, four ducts, that is to say; into four
senses of the foetus: sight, (hearing),[26] smelling, taste and
touch. For these are the only senses the child has while it is
being formed in the Garden.

This, he says, is the law which Moses laid down, and in accordance
with this very law each of his books was written, as the titles
show. The first book is _Genesis_, and the title of the book, he
says, is sufficient for a knowledge of the whole matter. For this
_Genesis_, he says, is sight, which is one division of the river.
For the world is perceived by sight.

The title of the second book is _Exodus_. For it was necessary for
that which is born to travel through the Red Sea, and pass towards
the Desert--by Red the blood is meant, he says--and taste the
bitter water. For the "bitter," he says, is the water beyond the
Red Sea, inasmuch as it is the path of knowledge of painful and
bitter things which we travel along in life. But when it is changed
by Moses, that is to say by the Word, that bitter (water) becomes
sweet. And that this is so, all may hear publicly by repeating
after the poets:

"In root it was black, but like milk was the flower. Moly the Gods
call it. For mortals to dig it up is difficult; but Gods can do all
things."[27]

16. Sufficient, he says, is what is said by the Gentiles for a
knowledge of the whole matter, for those who have ears for hearing.
For he who tasted this fruit, he says, was not only not changed
into a beast by Circe, but using the virtue of the fruit, reshaped
those who had been already changed into beasts,