Chapter VIII.—Joseph and Potiphar's Wife; Of What Kind Love to Females Ought to Be.

There is Joseph, faithful, and intelligent, and wise, and who feared God in everything. Did not a woman conceive an excessive passion for the beauty of this chaste and upright man? And, when he would not yield and consent to gratify her passionate desire, ^[471] she cast the righteous man into every kind of distress and torment, to within a little of death, ^[472] by bearing false witness. But God delivered him from all the evils that came upon him through this wretched woman. Ye see, my brethren, what distresses the constant sight of the person of the Egyptian woman brought upon the righteous man. Therefore, let us not be constantly with women, nor with maidens. For this is not profitable for those who truly wish to "gird up their loins." ^[473] For it is required that we love the sisters in all purity and chasteness, and with all curbing of thought, in the fear of God, not associating constantly with them, nor finding access to them at every hour.