The distance of sepulchres from cities.

Burying-places "were not near the cities." They are the words of the Glosser upon Kiddushin in the place quoted; and that upon this tradition: "For all the thirty days he is carried in his mother's bosom, and is buried by one woman and two men; but not by one man and two women." The sense is this, An infant dying before the thirtieth day of his age hath no need of a bier, but is carried in his mother's bosom to burial, two men accompanying; but he is not carried by two women, one man only accompanying. And this reason is given; because when the burying-places were a good way distant from the city, it might happen that two women might be enticed by one man to commit whoredom, when they were now out of the sight of men; but two men would not so readily conspire to defile one woman.

They produce examples: "A certain woman (say they) carried out a living infant as though it were dead, to play the whore with him who accompanied her to the place of burial."--And, "Ten men took up a living woman as though she were dead, that they might lie with her." Certainly thou forgettest thyself, O Jew, when while thou sayest that two men would scarcely conspire together for the defiling the same woman, and other while that ten men did.

The burying-places were distant two thousand cubits from the Levitical cities; from all other cities a great space, if not the same. How far Jerusalem agreed with these in this matter, or not agreed, we must observe elsewhere.