“... 1. The Epistle of Barnabas, a Christian theological tract thought to stem from about the end of the first century C.E., contains the following interpretation of the red cow ritual: But what do you think it typifies, that the commandment has been given to Israel that the men in whom sin is complete offer a heifer and slay it and burn it, and that boys then take the ashes and put them into vessels and bind scarlet wool on sticks (see again the type of the Cross and the scarlet wool) and hyssop, and that the boys all sprinkle the people thus one by one in order that they all be purified from their sins? A comparison of the details of this description with the halakah found in the Mishnah and Tosefta was already initiated by an historian of the rabbinic age, Gedalia Alon. The following is the perhaps somewhat embellished description of the procedure preserved in m. Parah 3:2: There were courtyards in Jerusalem built upon rock, with hollow space under them (thus avoiding the concern) for underground graves. They would bring pregnant women and they would give birth there and rear their sons there. They would bring oxen with doors upon their backs, and the children would sit upon them, with cups of stone in their hands. When they arrived at the Siloam, they descended and filled them. After they mixed ashes kept from previous red cow rites with the water, the children would sprinkle it upon the priest who was to perform the current rite (m. Parah 3:1). The ostensible aim of these precautions and the use of children reared in purity was to eliminate the possibility that those preparing the water and the ashes might themselves be carriers of corpse impurity. ...”