In the third book,^[1] then, when I was solving the question of how it was possible for Joseph to have two fathers,^[2] I indeed said that he was begotten by one and adopted by the other. But I should have mentioned too the kind of adoption, for what I said sounds as if another living father had adopted him. The law, however, also adopted the children of the deceased by ordering that a brother marry the wife of his childless, deceased brother and raise up seed by the same woman for his deceased brother. In this way the explanation of this matter of the two fathers of one man is indeed made clearer.

The role of holy women was different in the times of the prophets. Obedience, not concupiscence, impelled women to marry for the propagation of the people of God, among whom the forerunners of Christ were sent in advance. For this people, by the things that happened to them as a type, whether they recognized these types or not, were indeed prophetic of Christ, from whom Christ was to take flesh. Hence, in order that this race might be multiplied, the man who did not raise up seed in Israel was held accursed by sentence of the law. That is why holy women were animated by the pious desire of offspring rather than by desire. We may rightly believe that they would not have sought the marriage union if children could have been obtained in any other way.

These are evidently symbolic—hands, of action; heart, of deliberation; mouth, of speech. There is an excellent text on the subject of the penitent: You have chosen God today to be your God, and the Lord has chosen you today to be his people. God makes his own the person who is eager to serve truth and reality and comes as a suppliant. Even if he is only one in number, he is honored on equal terms with the whole people. He is a part of the people. He becomes the complement of the people once he is reestablished out of his previous position, and the whole in fact takes its name from the part.