Cain and Abel

5. Cain and Abel as Types of Synagogue and Church

I, however, in this place understand rather, according to Scripture, the mystery of two peoples, in that God, by adding to His Church the faith of the pious people, took away the treachery of the transgressing people; since the very words seem to signify this, God saying: Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples shall come forth from your belly. This figure of the Synagogue and the Church went before, in the persons of these two brothers, Cain and Abel. By Cain is understood the parricidal people of the Jews, who persecuted the blood of the Lord and their own author and, according to the birth from the Virgin Mary, their brother, so to speak. By Abel, however, is understood the Christian who adheres to God, as David also says: But it is good for me to adhere to God; that he might attach himself to heavenly things, and separate himself from earthly ones.

Elsewhere he says: My soul has fainted for your word; because he had placed the order and practice of his life not in earthly pleasures, but in the knowledge of the word. From which it is known that it was not written idly, but with careful consideration, what we read in the books of Kings: And he was laid with his fathers. For it is given to be understood that he was like his fathers in faith. Whence it is clear that this refers not to the burial of the body, but to fellowship in life.

6. Isaac Laid with His Kindred

Again, it is thought that it was not written perfunctorily of Isaac, that when seeking the appearance of that body which was joined to his soul, he was laid with his kin; because he had adhered to the ways of his father. And it is beautifully said "with his kin," not "with his people," as elsewhere. For we read in other places that men were laid with their people, but these were not so eminent: more eminent, however, is he who was like the few, not the many; for there are more in a "people" than in a "kindred," and it is reckoned more excellent to be like the few than like the many. He, therefore, who was begotten by the promise of God, who was chosen for a sacrifice to prove his piety, who was content with the society of one wife—that is, of wisdom alone—of that supernal kindred which is one and ever consistent with itself, was not to be reckoned by the testimony of divine Scripture as an imitator of plebeian commonness.

For where there is labor, teaching, and meditation, there is a common assembly and a kind of popular fellowship with many. For most people make progress by hearing, and these he called "the people." But where discipline is attained not by human tradition, but by an ingenious gathering-together without the exercise of labor, there is the incorrupt sincerity of a sublime kindred. And therefore Isaac is read to have been laid, as a gift of God, with his kindred rather than with his people, that you may recognize him as being rather zealously an imitator of things divine than of things human.

7. Moses as a Type of the Coming Teacher

Blessed too is that mind which, surpassing both kind and species themselves, deserves to hear what was said to Moses, when he was set apart from the people: But stand you here with Me!

For just as in Isaac the type of the Lord's incarnation, surpassing the custom of human generation, prevailed over those who came before, so that in him it was not a common and popular grace, but a special prerogative that excelled, as the reading teaches: For the promises were made to Abraham and to his seed: it does not say "and to seeds," as of many, but as of one, that is, "to your seed," which is Christ: so also in Moses, in the figure of the Teacher to come, who would teach the law, preach the Gospel, fulfill the Old Testament, establish the New, give the peoples heavenly food, he exceeded the dignity of the human condition to such a degree that he was granted the name of God, as we have it written, the Lord saying: I have set you as a god to Pharaoh.

For, as victor over all passions, and captured by none of the world's enticements, he who had clothed all this bodily habitation with the purity of a heavenly manner of life, ruling his mind, subjecting his flesh, and chastising it with a certain royal authority, was called by the name of God, to whose likeness he had formed himself by the abundance of perfect virtue.

8. The Death and Hidden Burial of Moses

And therefore we do not read of him, as of the others, that he died as one failing: but he died through the word of God. For God suffers neither failing nor diminishment, nor does He admit of increase. Whence Scripture also added: For no one knows his burial place to this day, so that you may understand a transfer rather than his death. For death is a certain separation of soul and body. He died, then, "through the word of God," as Scripture says, not "according to the word," so that you might notice that no message of death is meant, but a gift of grace expressed, in that he was transferred rather than abandoned, whose burial place no one has known. For who could have found his remains among earthly things, whom the Son of God showed to be with Him in the Gospel? Moreover, was not Elijah too seen there, who was carried up by a chariot, and is not read to have been buried nor to have died?

For he lives who is with the Son of God. But Moses, indeed, is read to have died, yet died through the word of God, through whom all things were made. Now by the word of God the heavens were established. Therefore, through the word of God there was not the collapse of his work, but its establishment. He is not, then, found as one fallen back into the earth by the dissolution of the body, but as one endowed and gifted by the working of the heavenly word; so that his flesh received rest rather than a tomb.

9. Christ's Burial Revealed, Moses' Concealed

Well is the distance between master and servant preserved. That you may understand the prerogative of the Master and the favor granted the servant, of Moses it is read that no one knows his burial place: but of Christ, His burial has been taken up from the earth; because the former, according to the mystery of the law, was awaiting redemption, that he might rise again; the latter, according to the gift of the Gospel, was not awaiting redemption, but granting it. And therefore His burial was not unknown, but taken up, which the creature could not for long retain; because through Him every creature hastened to be raised up from the servitude of corruption. No one, then, knows the burial of Moses, because all knew his life: but the burial of Christ we have seen; yet now we no longer know it, since we have recognized His resurrection.

For His tomb had to be known, that the resurrection might be manifested; and therefore in the Gospel the tomb is described with the utmost precision: in the law it is not sought after; because although the law announced His resurrection, yet it was the course of the Gospel that proved it most fully to us.

10. Abel's Birth as the Correction of Eve's Error

Therefore, that we may complete what we proposed: She went on, it says, to bear Abel, that is, Eve, who had before gravely sinned, brought forth from herself a better judgment, that it might abolish the error of the former judgment. I would be lying were this not confirmed in all cases. For we are so born, that at first there is in us the weak sense of infancy, then only the knowledge belonging to the care of the body in childhood, having no worship, no observance whatever of things divine. Whence, in order to prove the birth of Jesus Christ from a virgin by the evident novelty of nature, the prophet says: Behold, the Virgin shall conceive in her womb, and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel: butter and honey shall he eat, that before he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good: he shall not trust in malice, so as to choose what is good.

And below: Before the child knows how to call father or mother, he shall receive the strength of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria against the king of the Assyrians. For He alone was the one who was not caught up in the vanity and carnal swelling of this age; inasmuch as He humbled Himself, being made obedient unto death, far unlike each one of us, since we are vainly puffed up, inflated by the mind of the flesh. Whence also no one is without sin, not even an infant of one day; but He did no sin. And therefore in us Cain is born first, preferring himself; afterward Abel is begotten, in whom is reverence for the Godhead. First, then, creeps in what is evil, afterward is recognized what is good. But where there is good, there is justice; where there is justice, there is holiness—that is, Abel, who adheres to God.

11. Why Abel the Shepherd Is Named Before Cain

And it came to pass, it says, that Abel was a shepherd of sheep, but Cain tilled the earth. It is not without purpose that, although Cain was born first, as the reading teaches, Abel is set before him in this place; nor is the order of the names the same as the order of nature. What does this change of order mean, that mention is first made of the younger, when the state of life and use of occupation is described? Let us inquire into the difference of their duties, that we may gather the reason of the preference. To till the earth is prior in usage, but lower in grace, than to feed sheep. For this is a kind of type of a teacher and a ruler, and the elder rightly began with the more ancient things, while the younger preferred the more recent things, which brought forth no thorns, no thistles, and were subject to no sentence of condemnation. Finally, Adam, guilty of sin, was sent forth from the paradise of delight, to till the earth.

Rightly, then, where the birth of these brothers is set forth, the order of nature is also preserved: but where the discipline of living is expressed, the younger is preferred to the elder; because, although younger in time, he is more excellent in virtue. For innocence is later in time than malice, and of nearly the same age, but more ancient in the nobility of its merits. For old age is venerable, not hoary with years, but with character. And, it says, the age of old age is a life unspotted. Where, then, birth is expressed, let Cain come first: where the proclamation of disciplines is made, let Abel go before. Who then would deny that adolescence, and youth itself in its beginnings, burns with the enticements of various passions: but when a more mature age has succeeded, is it not true that, as it were, the storm of budding wantonness having been dispelled, tranquility is poured back, and the weary soul draws its vessel into certain quiet harbors?

And so the grave commotions of our adolescence are calmed by the faithful anchorage of old age.

12. Esau's Birthright and the Reward of Virtue

Do not doubt, then, being admonished by such examples of nature, that malice goes before in time, but is youthful in weakness. It has the wages of that age: but virtue has the prerogative of glory, whereby the wicked man very often yields to the just man. A faithful witness of this matter is the divine Scripture, which teaches that Esau, a man surnamed for his folly, patiently yielded his birthright to his brother Jacob; so that he said: To what purpose is the birthright to me? But the things which he set at a lower value, this man, endowed with the surname of exercise, sought to earn as his due. Does it not seem to you that Esau, as though defeated in a contest, and judging himself unequal because of the weakness of his own mind, yielded the crown to the victor, whom he saw bent by no enticements of passions, whose very dust he himself could not endure? To what purpose, he says, is the birthright to me?

For among the slothful there are no marks of virtue; among the wise, the first places are held; for pursuits of virtue are, as it were, certain instruments. And so, just as a warrior cannot be without arms, so neither can virtue be without exercise. Whence also the Lord says in the Gospel: From the days of John the Baptist the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away. And elsewhere: Seek ye the kingdom of God, and behold all things shall be added unto you. Rewards are promised not to the sleeping nor to the idle, but to the watchful and the laboring: and for labor a reward is prepared, which, although it be not sweet to grace, is nevertheless fruitful unto reward.

13. The Law of Two Wives Allegorized as Pleasure and Virtue

This the word of the law teaches, as we find it written: If a man have, it says, two wives, one beloved and another hated, and they have borne him children, both the beloved and the hated, and if the firstborn son be hers that was hated; on the day that he causes his sons to inherit that which he has, he cannot give the right of the firstborn to the son of the beloved wife, passing over the son of her that was hated: but he shall acknowledge the firstborn, the son of the hated wife, to give him a double portion of all that he has; for he is the beginning of his children, and to him belongs the birthright. How deeply hidden lie the secrets of mysteries in the letter! Recognize, O soul, your own offspring, and seek the mystery of this hated woman. You will find it within yourself, if you inquire. Recall your thoughts, review your feelings, and you will know to whom the birthright is owed.

For two women dwell together with each one of us, at variance in enmities and discords, filling, as it were, the house of our soul with certain jealous contentions. One of them is for us a matter of sweetness and love, a flattering procuress of favor, who is called pleasure. Her we suppose to be our companion and intimate: the other, harsh, rough, and wild, we believe her to be, whose name is virtue.

14. The Harlot Pleasure Described from Proverbs

She, then, harlot-like, with insolent motion, with broken gait through delicacies, with wavering eyes, and casting her nets with playful eyelids, by which she catches the precious souls of young men (for the eye of the harlot is the snare of the sinner), whomsoever she sees passing by with wavering mind at the corner of the passage of her house, she assails with gracious words, making the hearts of young men fly, restless at home, wandering in the streets, lavish of kisses, cheap in modesty, rich in attire, painted in cheek. For indeed, because she cannot have the true comeliness of nature, with adulterous dyes she plays the flatterer to an affected beauty, showing appearance, not truth. Girded about with the retinue of vices, and surrounded by a certain chorus of wickednesses, the leader of crimes, with such engines of words she assaults the wall of the human mind: A sacrifice of peace is mine, today I pay my vows: for this cause I have come forth to meet you, desiring to find your face.

I have woven my bed with cords, and spread it with tapestries from Egypt. I have sprinkled my bed with saffron, and my house with cinnamon. Come, let us enjoy love until the dawn: come, let us wrestle together in desire. This is the appearance of the harlot which we see expressed through the mouth of Solomon. For what is so harlot-like as worldly pleasure, which enters from the window of its house, playing its first temptations upon the eyes; and quickly penetrates if you, looking into the street—that is, into the public ways of those passing by—do not direct the gaze of your mind into the inner mysteries of the law. This surely is she who, with stronger bonds, weaves for us a kind of couch of shared fellowship, so that whoever reclines upon it is bound; and she covers the couch of her body with the veil of shameful deceit, alleging, to entice the minds of young men, the absence of her husband, that is, the neglect of the law.

For the law is absent to those who sin, for if it were present, there would be no transgression; and therefore she says: For my husband is not at home: he has gone a very long journey, having taken a bag of money in his hand. What shall I say this is, unless perhaps that the rich think there is nothing that does not yield to their money, and wish the law to be venal for their own favor? Pleasure scatters its perfumes, because it does not have the fragrance of Christ; it displays treasures, promises kingdoms, pledges unceasing loves, promises untried embraces, teachings without a tutor, discourses without a monitor, a life without anxiety, soft sleep, insatiable desire. Seducing him, it says, with much flattery of speech, and binding him with the snares of her lips, she drew him on into her house. And he, following her, is entrapped. The royal hall shone, splendid with the luxury of carved walls, and the pavements swam moist with wine.

The ground reeked with unguent, strewn with fish-bones, and slippery with fading flowers. There was the tumult of revelers, the shout of the contending, the slaughter of the quarreling, the concert of banqueters, the noise of dancers, the laughter of those laughing, the applause of the wanton, all things confused, nothing in the order of nature. Dancing girls close-cropped, and boys with curling hair, the erudition of the feasters, the belching of the eaters, the thirst of the drunk, yesterday's debauch, today's intoxication, the cups of the drinkers filled with vomit, with a greater reek of drunkenness than if only fresh wines were flowing. She herself, standing in the midst: Drink, she says, and be drunk, that each one may fall and not rise again. He is first with me who is most lost of all. He is mine, who is not his own. He is more pleasing to me, who is more wicked to himself.

The golden cup of Babylon is in my hand, making all the earth drunk; all nations have drunk of my wine. Whoever, then, is more foolish, let him turn aside to me, and to those who lack wisdom I give command, saying: Enjoy sweetly the hidden loaves, and drink stolen water, for it is sweeter. Let us eat and drink; for tomorrow we shall die. Our life shall pass away like the traces of a cloud, and shall be dispersed like a mist. Come, then, let us enjoy the good things that are, and let us use the creature quickly, as in youth. Let us fill ourselves with precious wine and ointments, and let not the flower of the season pass us by. Let us crown ourselves with roses before they wither. Let there be no meadow which our luxury does not pass through: everywhere let us leave signs of gladness. All these things are left behind; no one shall carry anything with him, except what he has taken in bodily pleasure.

In short, I have established this Philosophy; nor is there any truer one, except that which asserts the good to be that which is sweet and pleasant. Believe, then, either Philosophy or the wisdom of Solomon.

15. Virtue's Warning Against the Deceitful Woman

Having heard these things, like a deer pierced through the liver, he sticks fast, wounded. Virtue, taking pity on him, and seeing that he will soon fall, meets him unexpectedly, fearing lest amid the delays the human mind be captured by soothing enticements. Openly, she says, I have appeared to you, though you sought me not. Let not the unwary man be deceived, and let not that unbridled and luxurious woman entrap you, who knows not shame: she sits at the door of the house in a chair, calling openly in the streets to those passing by. Now therefore, my son, hear me, attend to the words of my mouth. Let not your heart decline into her ways. For she has wounded and cast down many, and those whom she has slain are without number. The ways of hell are her house, leading down into the retreat of death. Take away therefore from yourself a perverse mouth, and put unjust lips far from you. Let your eyes look straight ahead: do not gaze upon the deceitful woman.

For honey drips from the lips of the harlot woman, who for a time fattens your throat, but afterward you will find her more bitter than gall. The day would fail me sooner than I could set forth her vices, which nevertheless are described and expressed in the Proverbs by the mouth of wisdom. Let not the desire of beauty conquer you. It is adulterous, smeared with dyes, in no way shining with true and sincere comeliness. Neither be captured by the eyes; for nets are spread all around (Song of Songs ii, 8 and 9). Be rather like him, and follow him who leaps upon the mountains, and bounds over the hills, looking through the windows, standing forth above the nets. Evil are the bonds of pleasure. It delights the eyes, it soothes the ears, but it defiles the mind: it lies much, it adds falsehoods, it withdraws truths, it promises money, it offers gold; but it takes away discipline. But do you rather receive discipline than money, and rather than other things, the harmony of singers.

And knowledge above tried gold. For it is better than precious stones. I will not conceal from you the chief things that are told of her, lest I seem to hide what displeases in pleasure, and to overshadow what pleases. For she raises up and lifts up the mind with persuasive words, she shows all the kingdoms of the earth, saying: all these I will give you, if falling down you shall worship me. There beware lest you be carried away by things fleeting and impermanent, in which there is great temptation.

16. Christ's Threefold Temptation by the Devil

The Lord Jesus surely taught you how to resist temptations of this kind. The devil had first set the snare of gluttony, saying: If you are the Son of God, tell this stone that it be made bread. The Lord answered: Not by bread alone does man live, but by every word of God. He loosed the snare by this saying. The devil set again the second snare, of vainglory, which is wont to strangle even a good mind running in prosperous paths: And he led him, it says, into Jerusalem, and set him upon the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him: If you are the Son of God, cast yourself down from here. For it is written that he has given his angels charge concerning you, that they should keep you, for in their hands they shall bear you up, lest perhaps you dash your foot against a stone.

And so, although the Lord Jesus could, without any danger, cast himself down, having at his command spiritual flight; yet lest it be a kind of vainglory, he answered the devil: You shall not tempt the Lord your God. At the same time he taught us to beware of doing the will of the devil. If, then, vainglory is truly to be shunned, how much more ought no one to boast of false things as if true? There remains a third snare, of avarice and ambition. He showed, from a mountain, all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. Well does he say "in a moment," because they cannot be lasting. Wait but a little, and they quickly pass away. And so those who pursue them seem to themselves to be upon a mountain: but they are not lasting, as you have it written: I have seen the wicked highly exalted, and lifted up like the cedars of Lebanon, and I passed by, and behold he was not.

But he who values these things most highly seems to worship the devil, whose god is the belly, and whose glory is in shameful things. But do you seek glory in God, who says to you: You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve, from whom you may receive eternal things, not temporal.

17. The Devil's Kingdoms Held Only by Permission

Yet if these things delight anyone, let them be sought more moderately from him who is the true fountain of all. For even those particular things which the devil seems to himself to possess are another's, just as he himself said: To thee will I give all this power, and the glory of them; for they have been delivered unto me. Hope therefore in him, although for a short life a long provision for the journey need not be sought; nevertheless hope in him who founded all creation, who delivered these things to the devil for a time, not that he might possess them, but that he might tempt with them. For there could be no crown without a contest. Those in doubt had to be tested, that the just might be crowned.

18. Gluttony and Drunkenness Condemned

Thus he gave these things to the devil, because in these very things there is punishment for the receiver, if he does not know how to use them. For what is a treasure to the debauched man, except the expense of debauchery? Whence it is proved that one is not debauched, but thrifty. And therefore use what is set before you as a thrifty man would, so that you do not become hateful by eating much: For watchings and torments belong to a gluttonous man. And below: If thou hast been forced to eat much, arise, go vomit, and it shall refresh thee, and thou shalt not bring infirmity upon thy body. Gluttony has thus killed very many; frugality has killed none: wines have harmed innumerable people, parsimony no one. Very many have poured out their souls amid feasting, and filled their tables with their own blood. In some, indigestion has snatched away both voice and sense at once; and if indigestion has not harmed some, drunkenness has brought ruin to them.

For drunkenness has driven some into crime; even though it is itself a crime, it has reduced others to poverty. Finally, hear whom Christ excludes: When the master of the house, he says, shall have gone in, and shall have shut the door, you shall begin to stand without, and knock at the door, saying: Open to us. And he answering shall say: I know you not whence you are, depart from me, all you workers of iniquity. Then you shall begin to say: We have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets. And he shall say to you: I know not whence you are. You have heard what he said of those who eat. Hear now what he says of those who fast: Blessed are they that hunger and thirst now, for they shall be filled. And below: Woe to you that are filled, for you shall hunger.

19. The Banquet of Wisdom and the Church

But do you wish to eat, do you wish to drink? Come to the banquet of wisdom, which invites all with great proclamation, saying: Come, eat my bread, and drink the wine which I have mingled for you. Do songs delight, songs that soothe the feaster? Hear the Church exhorting, hear her singing, not only in songs, but even in the Song of Songs: Eat, O friends, and drink, and be inebriated, my beloved. But this drunkenness makes sober; this drunkenness is of grace, not of intemperance. It generates gladness, not staggering. And do not fear that at the banquet of the Church either pleasant odors, or sweet foods, or diverse drinks, or noble guests, or fitting attendants might be lacking. What is nobler than Christ, who at the banquet of the Church both serves and is served?

Attach yourself to the side of this reclining guest, and join yourself to God; do not disdain the table which Christ chose, saying: I am come into my garden, O my sister spouse, I have gathered my myrrh with my aromatical spices: I have eaten the honeycomb with my honey, I have drunk my wine with my milk. In the garden, that is, in paradise, is the banquet of the Church, where Adam was before, before he committed sin. There Eve reclined before she created and bore guilt. There you will gather myrrh, that is, the burial of Christ; that being buried together with him through baptism into death, just as he rose from the dead, you too may rise. There you will eat the bread which strengthens man's heart. You will taste honey, by which the passage of your throat may grow sweet.

You will drink wine with milk, that is, with splendor and sincerity: whether because it is pure simplicity; or because it is unblemished grace, which is taken for the remission of sins; or because it suckles the little ones with the breasts of its consolation, so that, weaned in delights, they may grow up into the fullness of perfect age. Go up, then, into this banquet. Or do you fear lest too narrow a house and a small place for the banquet should press upon you? O Israel, how great is the house of God, and how vast the place of his possession! Great, and hath no end: high, and immense. There were those giants, who from the beginning were of great stature, knowing war. The Lord did not choose these. And rightly he did not choose them, because they knew war, not peace. Therefore learn peace, that you may be chosen by God.

But lest by chance you think the greatness of the house unadorned, and lest columned lodgings delight you: wisdom hath built herself a house, she hath hewn her out seven pillars. The Lord Jesus himself also recalls that there are many mansions with his Father. In this house, therefore, you will feast on the foods of the soul, and the drinks of the mind; so that afterward you may never hunger, nor ever thirst. For he who eats, eats unto satiety; and he who drinks, drinks unto intoxication.

20. The Drunkenness of Grace Against the Fire of Lust

But this drunkenness is the guardian of chastity: that drunkenness of wine is the tinder of lust, whereby through the flesh the inner organs are made to steam, the mind catches fire, the soul is burned up. Lust is a savage spur of crimes, which never allows the affection to remain quiet. It seethes by night, pants by day, rouses from sleep, draws away from business, calls back from reason, takes away counsel, disquiets lovers, bends down the fallen, lies in wait for the chaste, inflames by possessing, and is kindled by use. There is no measure to sinning, and an insatiable thirst for crimes which cannot be quenched except by the death of the lover. And therefore the Apostle says: Flee fornication; that by swift flight we may be able, as it were, to escape the savagery of a maddened mistress, and to go out from foul servitude.

21. Avarice and the Pursuit of True Riches

For what should I say of avarice, that insatiable desire for money, and a certain lust for wealth, which believes itself the poorer, the more it has taken away? Envious of all, cheap in its own eyes, poor amid the greatest riches, it makes thin by desire what abounds in wealth. There is no measure to plundering, where there is no measure to desiring. It so inflames the mind, it so feeds it with its own fire, that in this it differs from that other lust, that the one is an adulteress of forms, this one of lands. It shakes the elements, furrows the sea, digs up the earth, wearies heaven with vows, pleased neither with fair weather nor with cloud, condemns the yearly yields, and finds fault with the fruits of the earth. But this is a sickness of the soul, not health. Finally Ecclesiastes says: There is also another evil, which I have seen under the sun, riches kept to the hurt of the owner. And above: He that loveth riches shall reap no fruit from them.

And: Neither is there any end of their getting. If you seek treasures, receive the invisible and hidden ones which you should seek in the heights of heaven, not those in the veins of the earth. Be poor in spirit, and you will be rich with whatever wealth; because man's life does not consist in the abundance of riches, but in virtue and faith. These riches will make you truly rich, if you are rich toward God.

22. Faith, Zeal, and Works as the Soul's Duties

You have heard the mysteries of pleasure, you have also heard the gifts of our own resources, which I thought should not be draped with any superficial covering, but demonstrated by no words other than those of Scripture; that they might shine by their own light, and of themselves send forth a voice, one to another in turn. For neither the sun nor the moon need an interpreter. They have as interpreter the brightness of their own light, with which the whole world is filled. For them, illumination is a faith without witness, a certain, so to speak, unattested testimony that needs no foreign witness, since it at once pours itself forth before the eyes of all. Our works, therefore, are not reported, but they cry out, and announce themselves. Yet, that I may not pass over even this, that what is regarded as laborious in our matters, faith is required, zeal is desired, deeds are sought.

For by these three the Lord Jesus defined the duties of human devotion, saying: Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and you shall find: knock, and it shall be opened to you. And below: Every one therefore that heareth these my words, and doth them, shall be likened to a wise man.

23. Jacob and Isaac as Heirs of the Blessing

He who has zealously pursued these things will receive the primacy of blessing, just as the patriarch Jacob, who by continence and faith supplanted the footsteps of human passions. He said: God hath had mercy on me, and I have all things. Let us, then, merit this mercy by faith, zeal, and works, by which disciplines Israel found the grace of God, and through it, all things. For he rejoiced that he had at his disposal not the abundance of this world, but the disciplines of the virtues. Let us set these up for ourselves as heirs, just as holy Abraham set up his son Isaac as heir for himself, assigning the whole inheritance of his works to the wise and just man, and leaving no hereditary right to the maidservants or to the sons of maidservants, but only the gifts of donation. For perfect virtues receive the whole patrimony of glory; on ordinary and mediocre ones something cheap is sprinkled. And therefore Hagar, who is called in Latin "stranger" and "sojourner," and Keturah, who signifies "fragrant," are not heirs.

For he who makes use of middling disciplines is a sojourner, not an inhabitant of wisdom. Sprinkled with fragrance, he is not filled with fruit. But it is food, not fragrance, that brings health, because the fragrance of fruits is merely its herald. Thus we acknowledge that the principal disciplines are to be preferred to those that merely follow them, and the native-born to sojourners.

24. Jacob the Shepherd as a Model of Self-Rule

This according to the natural sense. But indeed according to the mystery, Abraham, father of the nations, conferred the whole inheritance of his faith upon his lawful seed, which is Christ, he who was in this land as it were a sojourner; so that he might carry back the fragrance of this life rather than its fruit. When the mind hears these things, it turns itself away from pleasure, and attaches itself to virtue, admiring the grace of true beauty, pure affection, simple judgment, moderate dress, that is, not in the persuasiveness of speech, but in the manifestation of the Spirit, such as is the form of the apostolic sentence, the garment of wisdom and piety, shining more precious than any gold; then receiving the chorus of prudence, temperance, fortitude, and justice, which breathed forth the fragrance of the disciplines, instilling reverence, pouring in grace. Moved therefore by such things, it chose the pursuits of virtue, upon which Jacob, a man full of exercise, fixed his mind.

And therefore he is introduced as a shepherd of sheep; because to command the body and its senses and pleasures, and to keep the measure of one's desire, lest one wander uncertainly like a sheep, is judged more excellent than to rule peoples, or to preside over cities. For it is more difficult for anyone to rule himself than another. To conquer the mind, to restrain anger, and to bring the warring laws of flesh and mind into one, is the mark of a certain immortal man whom the gate of hell has not seized. Finally the Lawgiver himself claimed this office for himself; that he should feed the sheep of Jethro, who is called "superfluous," and lead them into the desert: because he compelled the unreasonable and superfluous and vulgar loquacity of speech into certain discrete mysteries of sober doctrine. And therefore shepherds of sheep were an abomination to the Egyptians.

For all who are given over to the passions of the body, and indulge their own pleasures, shun with a certain execration the disputer of the word, and the teacher of virtue. And therefore Moses taught through enigmas that sacrifices pleasing to God are those which every fool flees, that is, the works and precepts of virtue. And therefore Abel is read as a shepherd, but Cain a tiller of the earth, who as a foolish man could not bear the form and appearance of virtue expressed in his brother.

25. The Twofold Fault in Cain's Delayed Offering

And it came to pass, after some days, Cain offered, of the fruits of the earth, gifts to the Lord. A twofold fault: one, that he offered after days; the other, that it was of the fruits, not of the first fruits. Now a sacrifice is commended both by promptness and by grace. Whence it is commanded: If thou hast vowed a vow, defer not to pay it. For it is much better not to vow, than after a vow not to perform it. For when you delay, you do not pay. Now a vow is the asking of good things from God, with a promise of rendering a gift. And therefore, when you have obtained what you asked, it is a mark of ingratitude to delay the promise. But sometimes forgetfulness of things obtained creeps in upon the negligent, or upon the swollen and puffed up.

It is the mark of a dull heart to claim results for oneself, and to vindicate for one's own virtues the good which one does or which one obtains from God, and not to attribute it to the grace of its author, but to consider oneself the author of one's own goods. There is a third kind of sin, indeed lesser, but of a similar arrogance, namely of those who do not deny that God is the giver of good things, but think that what has happened to them has been justly bestowed on them on account of their own prudence, and the merits of their other virtues. On this account also they have been held worthy of divine grace, because they would in no way seem unworthy to whom such things came by divine benefits.

26. The Law's Warning Against Forgetting God's Benefits

Lest, therefore, anything of this kind happen, whereby your vow may become a sin for you, the law has informed and instructed you, the Lord who gave the law saying: Take heed to yourself, lest you forget the benefits of the Lord your God, and lest you fail to keep his commandments and judgments and statutes which I command you this day; lest, when you have eaten and are filled, and when you have built good houses and begun to dwell in them, and your sheep and your cattle have multiplied, and when you are filled with bronze, silver and gold, and have begun to possess all things, and your barns are full, you exalt your heart and forget the Lord your God. Then, therefore, you will forget the Lord, when you have forgotten yourself. But if you recognize that you are weak, you will recognize that God is above all things, and you will not be able to be forgetful; so that you may render him the reverence due.

27. Ascribing All Strength and Success to God

Learn now how each one is warned, lest he think himself the author of his own good things. Do not say, it says, in your heart: My strength and my power have made for me this great might: but you shall have the Lord your God in your mind; for it is he who gives strength, that you may perform mighty deeds. Whence rightly the Apostle, as it were an interpreter of the law, did not boast in his own virtue: but said that he was the least of the Apostles, and that whatever he was, it was of divine grace and not of his own merit, and that we have nothing which we have not received. For what, he says, do you have that you have not received? But if you have received it, why do you boast as though you had not received it? You have learned, therefore, to follow humility rather than arrogance; to embrace diligence rather than power.

You have received salutary precepts; do not neglect the useful instruments of medicine, by which every fiber of the deadly wound is cut away.

28. The Covenant of Grace Not of Human Righteousness

He also who justifies himself, let him not be puffed up by the swelling of his own heart; he too has received a salutary command, in an oracle resounding to this sentence: Do not say in your heart, when the Lord your God has begun to destroy those nations from before your face, saying: Because of my righteousness the Lord has brought me in to possess this land: but because of the iniquities of these nations the Lord has rooted them out from before your face. Not because of your righteousness, not because of your goodness, nor because of the equity of your heart do you enter to possess this land: but because of the iniquity of the nations the Lord will destroy them from before your face, and he will fulfill the Covenant which he swore to your fathers. The Covenant is the perfect grace of God; for God gives nothing imperfect: but virtue is perfect, and the works of virtue. It is called a Covenant, moreover, by which the inheritance of good things is conveyed.

Rightly it is called both a covenant and divine, since those things which are truly good are conferred by the attestation of heavenly commandments. And it is called a Covenant, since it was dedicated by blood: the old in type, the new in truth. By this Covenant we hold the pledge of divine grace; for so God loved this world, that he gave his only-begotten Son for us all. Whence, proclaiming the perfection of grace, the Apostle says: How has he not also with him given us all things?

29. Abraham's Prompt Obedience in Offering Isaac

The first grace of a vow, then, is the swiftness of its fulfillment. Thus Abraham, when bidden to offer his son as a holocaust, did not do so after days, as Cain offered: but rising early in the morning he saddled his ass, and took with him two servants and Isaac his son; and having cut wood for the holocaust, he arose and went to the place which God had told him, on the third day. Note first the mature and hastening zeal of one about to sacrifice; so that there was no delay of waiting, except until the oracle was heard: then, that he himself saddled his ass, undertaking every service himself, and prepared what was necessary for the sacrifice, with the two virtues of faith and hope also accompanying him, he led his victim, certain of the power of God, and secure of his goodness.

30. The Third Day and the Vision of the Trinity

Now as to what it says, on the third day: it may be that devotion ought to be continuous and perpetual. For time is threefold, past, present and future. By which we are admonished that no forgetfulness ought to creep in either of past benefits of God, or of present, or of future, but that a tenacious memory of grace should persevere, and obedience should not be lacking. Or it may be because he who sacrifices ought to believe in the one splendor, the one light of the Trinity. For to him who sacrifices faithfully, day shines, there is no night. So also in Exodus Moses says: We will go a three days' journey, and we will sacrifice to the Lord our God. But also elsewhere, when God appeared to Abraham at the oak of Mamre: Abraham, it says, looking up with his eyes saw, and behold three men stood over him.

And seeing them he ran to meet them at the door of his tent, and worshipped upon the ground, and said: Lord, if I have found favor before you. He sees three, he worships one. He offers three measures of fine flour. For although God is immeasurable, yet he holds the measure of all things, as it is written: Who has measured the water in his hand, and heaven with a span, and the whole earth enclosed in his hand? To the perfect Trinity, therefore, in each single person, with the inner secret of the mind, that is, of spiritual fine flour, the holy Patriarch offered his sacrifice. This is the fine flour which that woman in the Gospel grinds, who shall be taken up: For one, it says, shall be taken, and the other shall be left. The Church shall be taken up, the Synagogue shall be left. Or the good mind is taken up, the wicked one is left behind.

But that you may know that Abraham too believed in Christ: Abraham, it says, saw my day, and rejoiced. And he who believes in Christ, believes also in the Father. And he who believes perfectly in the Father, believes in the Son and the Holy Spirit. Three measures, therefore, one fine flour, that is, it was one sacrifice which was offered to the venerable Trinity, with a certain equal measure of devotion, and a fitting fullness of piety.

31. Zacchaeus and the Haste of the Passover

Further, recognize the zeal of swift devotion: He ran, it says, and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to the servant, and hastened to prepare it. Everywhere untiring devotion, and therefore his gift was acceptable to God. You have elsewhere too, that you should anticipate the rising of the sun with prayer: Meet him, it says, at the rising of the sun. You have in the Gospel the Lord Jesus saying: Zacchaeus, make haste and come down. And he, because he had obtained what he wished, to see Christ; and had obtained more, to be seen and called by Christ, hastened down, and received him rejoicing; and therefore the Lord approved his affection, and rewarded him with a swift recompense, saying: Because today salvation has come to this house. For the Lord too hastened to bestow the benefit; and therefore he did not wait to promise and afterward fulfill; but he acted first, and afterward declared it. For he said: Salvation has come: which was surely the act of one who anticipates, not of one who promises.

The just man, therefore, commends his vow by swiftness. And our fathers, hastening, ate the Passover, girded at the loins, and their feet shod with the bonds of sandals, and as it were laying aside a bodily burden, that they might be ready for the crossing; for the Passover of the Lord is a crossing from sufferings to the exercises of virtue. And therefore it is called the Lord's Passover; since both then in that type of the lamb the truth of the Lord's passion was announced, and now its grace is celebrated.

32. The Swiftness and Presence of God's Word

Seek this quickly, then, O soul; that you may also quickly hear, just as Jacob heard: What is this, that you have found so quickly, my son? And he answered according to the teaching: Because the Lord your God delivered it into my hands. God gives quickly; for he spoke, and things were made: he commanded, and they were created. For the Word of God is not, as someone says, a work, but working, as you have it written: My Father works until now, and I work. He anticipates all things and serves, he does not merely promise. All things; for he is before all things as the Father, and in all things as that same Father, penetrating all things. For he is strong and sharp, and sharper than any sword, penetrating even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow. Anticipating the thoughts of all, of whom God the Father says: Now you shall see whether my Word overtakes you, or not.

For where God is, there also is the Word, as he said: We will come and make our dwelling with him. And just as you have it read elsewhere concerning God: I stood here before you: so also the Word says: Before you stood under the fig tree, I saw you. And of that Word itself, that is, of the Son of God, it was said: There stands in your midst one whom you do not know. For wherever the saints are, there in their midst is the Word of God, filling seas and lands in the hearts of each. And when he is here, he is also elsewhere; not by change of place, but by being filled indeed with his presence. For he is everywhere, who is through all things and in all things, leaving no place void of himself. And where he is present, he was; and where he was, he is present. And therefore he who knows the Word of God to be swift, asks quickly, and quickly obtains.

33. Pharaoh's Delay and the Plague of Frogs

But Pharaoh, who bestowed his zeal on empty and vain opinions (Egypt being filled with frogs, which gave forth an empty sound and a vain din of things), when Moses said to him: Appoint for me a time when I should pray for you, and for your servants, and for your people, that the Lord may destroy the frogs; though placed in such great necessity he ought to have asked that he might pray at once and not delay, answered: Tomorrow; idle and negligent, about to pay the penalty of delay by the destruction of Egypt. And so this man, whenever he obtained what he sought, became forgetful of the favor; and exalted in the mind of his flesh, he forgot God.

34. Humility in the Publican and the Grateful Samaritan

Humility, moreover, commends prayer. Indeed that Pharisee too was reproved, who enumerated his fasts as though they were benefits, and as it were cast them in God's face, and recounted himself exempt from crimes. But the Publican was praised, who, standing afar off, would not so much as lift up his eyes to heaven, but struck his breast, saying: Lord God, be merciful to me a sinner. And therefore the divine sentence preferred him, saying: Because this publican went down justified rather than the Pharisee. For he is justified who confesses his own sin, as the Lord himself said: Declare your iniquities, that you may be justified. And David says: The sacrifice to God is a contrite spirit. And again: A contrite and humbled heart God does not despise. Jeremiah also says: A soul in anguish, and a spirit in distress cries out to you.

Therefore both Pharaoh, and the king of Assyria who said: Which of the gods of these nations shall deliver his land out of my hand; that the Lord your God should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand? Were cast down by their own exaltation. But the just man, like Jacob, refers whatever good he has obtained to God as its author, saying of all things whatsoever he knew to prosper for him: Because the Lord God delivered them into my hands. This, therefore, is the better fulfillment of one's vows, as David also says: Offer to God the sacrifice of praise, and pay your vows to the Most High. To praise God is to commend and to pay one's vow. Whence also that Samaritan is preferred above the others, who, when along with nine other lepers he was cleansed of leprosy according to the Lord's command, alone returned to Christ, magnifying God and giving thanks.

Of whom Jesus said: There was none of them found to return and give thanks to God, except this stranger. [lacuna] And he said to him: Rise, and go; for your faith has made you whole.

35. The Hidden Cakes and the Command to Pray in Secret

There is also that discipline of commending prayer and vow, that we should not divulge our prayer, but keep the mysteries hidden, just as Abraham kept them, who made cakes baked under ashes. The fathers too kept this, who baked the dough which they had brought out from Egypt, making unleavened cakes under ashes, which in Greek are called ἐγκρύφια, because they are hidden in the ashes; signifying that leaven which that woman of the Gospel hid in three measures of meal, until the whole was leavened, likewise hinting that the teaching of the mysteries must be kept pressed down. This the Lord taught more openly in the Gospel, saying: But thou, when thou shalt pray, enter into thy chamber, and having shut the door, pray to thy Father in secret, and thy Father who seeth in secret will repay thee: and when praying, do not speak much. And below: For your Father knoweth what is needful for you before you ask him. Thy chamber is the secret place of the mind, the hidden recess of the soul.

Enter into this thy chamber, that is, enter into the deep recesses of the heart, withdraw wholly from the outer vestibule of thy body, and shut thy door.

36. Guarding the Door of the Lips in Prayer

Learn what thy door is: Set, O Lord, a watch before my mouth, and a door round about my lips. And Paul asks that prayer be made for him: That a door of utterance may be opened to me, he says, to speak the mystery of Christ. But he, as one chosen for the preaching of the Gospel, rightly desired for himself that the door of the word be opened; for from his mouth went forth the salvation of the nations, from his mouth proceeded the life of the peoples. But let us shut the door, lest guilt enter in, lest some slip of speech go out. Guilt enters, if a slip has gone out. Hear how guilt enters. In much speaking, it says, thou shalt not escape sin. Much speaking went out, sin entered in; because in much speaking the word that goes forth is by no means weighed, it slips unwarily, although it is a great sin in itself to speak anything beyond measure.

37. Abel's Blood and the Secrecy of the Heart

And therefore beware lest thou speak unwarily; for the lips of the imprudent lead him into evils. Beware lest in prayer thou exalt thyself; for the prayer of one who humbles himself will pierce the clouds. Beware lest thou incautiously divulge the mysteries of the Creed or of the Lord's Prayer. Dost thou not know how grave a thing it is to contract sin in prayer, where thou hopest for remedy? Surely the Lord taught through the Prophet that this is a grave curse, saying: And let his prayer become sin; unless perhaps thou thinkest this to be a small matter. For it is a lack of trust in the power of God, to think that thou wilt not be heard unless thou cry aloud. Let thy works cry out, let thy faith cry out, let thy affection cry out, let thy sufferings cry out, let thy blood cry out, as did that of holy Abel, of whom God said to Cain: The voice of thy brother's blood cries to me.

For he who cleanses in secret hears thee in secret. We cannot hear anyone unless he speaks; but before God it is not words that speak, but thoughts. And that thou mayest know this to be true, the Lord Jesus said to the Jews: Why do you think evil in your hearts? This is not the voice of one asking, but of one who knows. Which the Evangelist makes plain to thee, saying: But Jesus knew their thoughts. As therefore the Son knows, so also does the Father know. Thou hast learned that the Son knows; that the Father knows, hear the counselor and witness of the Father saying: For your Father knows what you need before you ask him. Bake therefore thy ash-cake in the vapor of the Holy Spirit; cook also the passions of the soul in the heat of the word.

And if thy passions are somewhat raw, perhaps just having come out of Egypt, cover them, and cook them over a slow heat; lest they be unable to bear a stronger fire, and be half-scorched rather than cooked. For there are very many things which displease raw, but delight when cooked. Cherish therefore other mysteries in thy breast; lest by premature speech thou commit them, as it were uncooked, to faithless or weak ears, and the hearer turn away and recoil with horror, who, if he tasted them better cooked, would perceive the sweetness of spiritual food.

38. The Manner and Spirit of True Prayer

The Lord Jesus in a divine manner taught thee also the goodness of the Father, who knows how to give good things; that thou mayest ask good things from the Good One: and He earnestly and frequently exhorted that we should pray; not that prayer be continued tediously, but that it be poured forth assiduously and often. For most often vain glory creeps far into prolonged prayer, while carelessness altogether creeps into prayer that is interrupted. Then He warns that when thou askest pardon for thyself, then especially thou shouldst know that it must be granted to others, so that thou mayest commend thy prayer by the voice of thy own deed. The Apostle also teaches that we should pray without anger and disputing, that thy prayer be not disturbed, not interrupted. He teaches also that we should pray in every place, since the Savior says: Enter into thy chamber.

But understand not a chamber enclosed by walls, in which thy members are shut up: but the chamber which is within thee, in which thy thoughts are enclosed, in which thy senses dwell. This chamber of thy prayer is with thee everywhere, and is everywhere secret, of which there is no judge but God alone.

39. The Duty of Praying for the Whole People

Thou art taught, moreover, that thou must pray especially also for the people, that is, for the whole body, for all the members of thy mother, in which is the token of mutual charity. For if thou pray only for thyself, thou alone wilt pray for thyself. And if each pray only for himself, the grace of one who intercedes is greater than that of a mere sinner praying for himself. But now, since each one prays for all, all also pray for each one. Therefore, to conclude, if thou pray only for thyself, thou alone, as we have said, wilt pray for thyself. But if thou pray for all, all will pray for thee. Since indeed thou too art included in all. So great is the recompense, that by the prayers of individuals the suffrages of the whole people are gained for each individual. In which there is no arrogance, but rather greater humility, and more abundant fruit.

40. Seeking God's Help Before Human Remedies

But now it is time to pass to another matter, since we have fully spoken of what Cain offered after some days. It was made a sign of one lying back, since the very asking of a vow ought to be ripe; lest we seem to have hoped for remedy more from human arts, that is, from the skill of healing and the juices of herbs, than to have besought help from God. For recourse must first be had to Him who can heal the sufferings of our soul. But indeed certain men, in a preposterous order, first seek aid for themselves from men; and only when human helps have failed, then do they think the grace of the divine favor must be sought.

41. The Firstfruits of the Soul Over the Body

Cain's crime having thus been concluded and proven, let us discuss the other fault of the offering. He offered, it says, from the fruits of the earth, not first-fruits from the first fruits, to God. This means claiming the first-fruits for himself first, and offering the leftovers to God. And so, since truly the soul ought to be preferred to the body as mistress to servant, we ought to offer its first-fruits, that is, of the soul, before those of the body. The first-fruits of the soul are the primacy of good disciplines. Which, although they are later in time than the first-fruits of the body—which are food, growth, sight, hearing, and touch, smell, voice (but mind and sense are part of the soul) part of the body—are nevertheless prior to the disciplines. Of these the first offering is thanksgiving offered to God with a pure heart and simple speech.

42. Abel's Firstlings and the Allegory of the Chananites

These gifts Abel offered, and therefore God had regard for his gifts, because he offered from the first-fruits. It follows, then, that it was from the firstlings of the sheep, and from their fat. Consider that he offered not of insensible things, but of living creatures. For that which is animal is more than that which is earthly; since indeed what is animal is nearer to the spiritual. For that which is spiritual is not first, but that which is animal, then that which is spiritual. What is animal breathes, has a vital spirit: not so what is of the fruits of the earth. Then he offered not the second-best, but the first; not meager things, but fat ones: for the law approved such and commanded them to be offered, as it is written: And it shall be, it says, when God shall bring thee into the land of the Chananites, as He swore to thy fathers, and shall give it to thee; thou shalt set apart every male that opens the womb to the Lord.

Every male that opens the womb of thy herds and flocks, whatever male shall be born to thee, sanctify to the Lord. Every firstling of an ass that opens the womb thou shalt exchange for a sheep; but if thou wilt not exchange it, thou shalt redeem it. What depth of mystery, what lofty and hidden wisdom, that in certain veins of simple words thou mayest perceive and draw forth the abundance of spiritual grace! For the Chananites are fickle and restless. When, therefore, thou hast entered into their land, whom thou perceivest to have been cast out of their possession on account of their levity, restlessness, and instability of character, do thou hold fast to constancy. Let no cheap reasoning, no light word disturb thee; for this is the Chananite: fickle speech, unstable affection, and restless contention: but rather calmly preserve tranquility of heart and serenity of mind; so that, as in the swell of the sea, thou mayest offer to ships a safe anchorage, a kind of harbor of thy mind.

43. Why God Swears an Oath to Confirm His Promise

This possession the Lord promises thee, and promises by a certain bond of oath, that He might confirm thy constancy. For God does not swear because He needs the faith of the believer, or because, lacking the confirmation of witnesses, He requires the support of an oath, as men do who win credit for themselves by an oath, and therefore swear, that they may be believed to have spoken the truth. But God is faithful even when He speaks, whose word is itself an oath. For it is not on account of the oath that almighty God is faithful, but on account of God the oath itself is faithful. For what reason, then, does Moses represent God as swearing? Because we are bound by a certain custom of mortals, and wrap ourselves, as it were, in the shell of common opinion, like sea-urchins, or like snails which cannot breathe unless within the covering of their shell, nor take in or endure the free air: so we too dwell only within certain hiding-places of earthly human custom.

Hence, because we are accustomed to believe more readily that which is confirmed by an oath; lest our faith should limp, God is described as swearing, who Himself does not swear, but is the judge of those who swear and the avenger of those who swear falsely. Finally it is written: The Lord has sworn, and will not repent: Thou art a priest for ever. He indeed kept what He swore, He gave us an eternal high priest: that thou too mayest know that what thou hast sworn must likewise be kept; that since thou swearest by Him who does not lie, thou mayest know that He will be an avenger, if thou shouldst lie.

44. Uprooting Restless Thoughts Like the Chananites

Once, then, the restless and fickle thoughts have been driven out, God will give thee an empty possession of heart and mind; that thou mayest cultivate it with a certain tranquility, and reap fruit from it, and not permit the Chananites to return into it, that is, turbid feelings; that thou mayest root out every conception of the vices of the gentiles; that thou mayest tear down their groves, by which the truth is overshadowed, and by which something of the free heavenly view of thought is hidden by the horror of dark disputation.

45. Holy Thoughts as the True Offering to God

But this thou canst not accomplish unless granted by divine gift; therefore it says: God will give thee, that is, the best thoughts, peaceful counsels, tranquil discoveries. When He has given these, thou shalt set apart every male that opens the womb, and thou shalt sanctify it to the Lord. God does not demand the whole from thee, He who has given the whole. For He bestows many things for the use of human substance, and this cannot be a divine sacrifice, where it is merely the use of nature. To eat, to drink, to sleep, and other services of the body also, are gifts bestowed on thee, not offerings brought back by thee to God. But whatever holy thing thou hast thought, this is the gift of God, the inspiration of God, the grace of God: just as, on the contrary, those things which, though they be in the use of human nature, do not defile a man; but what proceeds out of the mouth—thefts, false witnesses, sacrileges—these are the things that defile a man.

46. The Distinct Offices of the Sexes in Sanctification

Let us therefore cleanse our inward parts, that our offering may be able not to displease. There let us seek every male that opens the womb, that is, that which is just and principal, which we ought to sanctify to the Lord. For it is not these bodily unions, conceptions, and childbirths that sanctify us, by which the female womb is opened when the flower of virginity is deflowered. For although the woman sanctifies the man, and the man the woman; yet it often happens that a virgin's womb is opened even without the sanctity of marriage. Nor again is grace confined to the male sex alone, with the woman a stranger to sanctification, nor is the nature of each sex confused, so that both are founded upon bodily childbirths. Men have their own functions, women have the offices proper to their own sex, kept distinct. This generation belonging to human succession befits the woman, being impossible for the man.

47. The Soul's Masculine and Feminine Offspring

Therefore, if this sense does not fit the use of the flesh, let us examine the functions of the soul. This indeed I find to be distinguished by no sex: and although it has no sex, it represents the offices of both sexes—it marries, it conceives, it gives birth. And just as nature gave women a womb, in which the generation of each living being is formed through the monthly ages: so there is a certain power of the soul which, as it were by a certain secret of a genital womb, is accustomed to receive the seeds of our thoughts, to foster conceptions, and to bring forth births. For Isaiah would not otherwise have said: "We have conceived in the womb, and have brought forth the spirit of salvation" (Isaiah 26:18), unless he had known a womb of the soul. Of these generations some are feminine: malice, petulance, luxury, intemperance, shamelessness, and other vices of this kind, by which a certain manliness of our souls is enervated.

The masculine ones are chastity, patience, prudence, temperance, fortitude, justice, by which our mind, and the flesh itself, is strengthened, and is raised up to fulfill zealously the duties of virtue. These births that prophetic womb brought forth. And therefore he says: "We have conceived in the womb and have brought forth the spirit of salvation." He therefore both conceived and gave birth to a male, who poured forth the spirit of salvation.

Let our soul conceive these offspring, and not only conceive, but also bring them forth, and bring them forth when the days are fulfilled; lest the day of judgment should overtake immature births. For concerning these births the Lord Jesus said: "Woe to them that are with child, and that give suck in those days!" Let this birth, therefore, be completed the sooner, and let our thoughts be unfolded through the processes of good works; so that our end may find nothing unfinished, that the term of our life may encounter nothing unfulfilled, that the use of our work may leave nothing lying, as it were, on the anvil. Hasten, therefore, O soul, to form your offspring, to finish them more speedily, to nourish more quickly those you have begotten. 2. Of what shape this birth should be, the Apostle shows, saying: "My little children, of whom I am in labor again, until Christ be formed in you" (Galatians 4:19).

Into this form let the whole inward parts of our mind grow together, and in that generative womb of our soul let Christ shine forth. Let our offspring be faith; let our nourishment be the precepts of doctrine. By these let the infancy of our heart be imbued, its childhood be instructed, its youth grow young, its old age grow gray. For the age of old age is a life unstained. Therefore that alone is a good old age of the soul, which no stains of faithlessness have defiled. And therefore Paul defends his offspring from this stain, saying: "I have begotten you through the gospel"; lest the savage whispering of anyone should tempt the infancy of untried faith. He therefore was begetting masculine offspring, he who longed that the peoples he taught should come together into a perfect man in the unity of faith, and hold, in the knowledge of the Son of God, the perfect measure of the fullness of Christ (Ephesians 4:13).

For he knew that this sacrifice was acceptable to God, concerning which it is written: "Every male that opens the womb you shall set apart to the Lord" (Exodus 13:11). And let us consider what he added, that it may have no obscurity: "Everything that opens the womb, of the herds and of the flocks, which are yours, you shall sanctify to the Lord, the male".

3. Taming the Irrational Senses Like Beasts of Burden

He had spoken of the principal generations, that is, of those full and capable of reason: he added also concerning the flocks, that is, the remaining as it were plebeian senses, which are compared to irrational beasts of burden. These, however, when governed by some ruler, easily grow tame; and they are accustomed to carry out what is commanded, and to submit to the yoke, and to hasten their step at the voice of the master, or to stop, or to turn aside, or to perform, by a certain human servitude, whatever tasks of their labor are commanded. So much does training avail, that it overcomes nature! Thus those things which have no fellowship of our substance nevertheless acknowledge the command of our voice: and although they have no reasoning of their own nature, they seize upon our reason, and acquire it, as it were, transfused into them. We see horses roused by the enthusiasm of the crowd, rejoicing in applause, delighted by the flattery of their master.

We see grim lions changing their natural fierceness for a commanded tameness, laying aside their rage, adopting our manners; and although they are themselves terrible, they learn to fear. The dog is beaten, that the lion may take fright: and he who is provoked by his own injury is restrained by another's, and broken by another's example. How often, though prey is at hand and food ready to their mouth, do they prefer to endure hunger, while fearing to offend their master? How often, driven by a sudden impulse, do they open their jaws for biting, and yet, when bidden, relax them? Thus, while they obey our will, they forget their own. Not so those wild beasts, or those herds of horses, or every kind of cattle, which wander without any ruler, and, deprived of all governance of a tamer, grow wild. And therefore herdsmen, shepherds, and all other keepers of flocks have been appointed, certain masters shaping their duties according to the condition of each of the animals entrusted to them.

4. The War Between the Law of Mind and Flesh

It appears, then, that there is also a certain kind of our senses, one tamed and gentle, the other untamed, which, with a certain herd-like impulse of a mind as it were idle and slack, rushes forth to the irrational pleasures of the body: while the tame kind is that which submits and subjects itself, as it were, to some guide, the moderation of the mind. Whatever, therefore, is ruled by that nature is masculine and perfect: but whatever, without any guide, dominates by a certain plebeian presumption—like some city deprived of the counsel of a king and of its nobles—so effeminates, by a certain womanish dissolution, the whole state and manly vigor of its own body. From these comes that law of the flesh, which, warring against the law of the Apostle's mind, was leading it captive under a certain law of sin. And therefore, that he might be freed from that body of death, Paul placed all his hope not in his own virtue, but in the grace of Christ (Romans 7:25).

Whence it is clear that those movements which are according to the law of the mind proceed from divine favor, while the other senses proceed from bodily pleasure.

5. The Threshing Floor of Pure and Vain Thoughts

Those things, therefore, which are holy, are the firstfruits of our senses: these others are, as it were, of some herd, and of plebeian baseness—which Moses seems to have signified by various different names. This is also declared by that mystical threshing-floor of the law, of which he says: "The firstfruits of your threshing-floor and of your winepress you shall not delay to offer. The firstborn of your sons you shall give me" (Exodus 22:29). The holy movements of our senses, which are according to the virtues, are themselves the firstfruits of the spiritual threshing-floor: for this reason also they are compared to the rural threshing-floor, in which the grains are winnowed.

For just as in this rural threshing-floor the wheat and barley are threshed out, and, being winnowed again and again, are separated from the chaff—because the chaff and other refuse of the harvest are scattered in different directions by the light breath of the breeze, while those grains that are more solid fall back, their dust shaken off, into the same place—so the fruits of our thoughts which are solid and best provide a pure and sincere nourishment of virtue, as it is written: "Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word of God": but those which are useless and empty are scattered like smoke and clouds; because as smoke is to the eyes, so is iniquity to those who practice it. And rightly is iniquity compared to smoke, which, as it were with a certain worldly darkness, overspreads the keen sight of the mind.

6. The Firstfruits of Our Composite Nature

And therefore the Lord says: "When you shall have entered into the land into which I am bringing you, and when you shall begin to eat of the bread of that land, you shall offer up a separated oblation to the Lord, the firstfruits of your dough, bread as an oblation from the threshing-floor: so shall you offer the firstfruits of your minglings, and give them to the Lord" (Numbers 15:2). We ourselves are a mingling, composed by a certain mixture of diverse elements: cold is mixed with hot, and moist with dry, in us. This mingling has many enticements of the flesh, and very many pleasures: but these are not the firstfruit senses of this body, because we consist of soul and body and spirit.

This is the principal mingling, in which the Apostle desires us to be sanctified, as he says: "And may the God of peace himself sanctify you in all things; that your whole spirit, and soul, and body may be preserved blameless in the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Thessalonians 5:23). The firstfruits of this mingling are spiritual, that is, the discoveries and generations of the senses which proceed from the vigor of the soul. But not all senses are firstfruits, only those which are free from malice and wickedness and every error. There are, however, necessary pleasures of the body, such as sleeping, eating, drinking, walking, and other such senses; but the firstfruits are not in these. And therefore the sacrament of the Lord is not in these, but in those where there is chastity, piety, where faith and devotion are.

Of this matter there is a manifest and evident example, the offering of the patriarch Isaac, whom his father offered in the manner of a sacrifice, bent by no movement of human passion, offering to God a pure victim, void of dread and free from bodily desire, when the very piety of the father yielded to the devotion of the one sacrificing.

7. Firstfruits Measured by Holiness Not Birth

Now let us consider what is the force of the firstfruits, and whether the firstfruits are reckoned by time, or by holiness, that is, whether all firstborn have the sanctification of firstfruits. For the firstfruits of the produce are holy according to the law (Numbers 18:8); because in these is the best sacrifice of prompt faith: but they become holy through devotion, not through time; because it is not the yield that sanctifies, but devotion. Indeed, where there is a swift yield, if devotion is delayed, offense is incurred. Not all firstborn, therefore, are holy: but all that are holy are also firstborn. Thus Cain was the firstborn, but not holy. Israel too, the people of God, is holy, but not first in age; and yet is called firstborn, as it is written in the prophets: "Israel is my firstborn" (Exodus 4:22).

Levi too is holy, but not firstborn; for he is read to be the third son of Leah (Genesis 29:34): and yet the Levites are called firstborn, from whom the name has been derived to them. For it is written in Numbers: "Behold, I have taken the Levites from among the sons of Israel instead of every firstborn that opens the womb among the sons of Israel; and they shall be mine, the Levites; for every firstborn is mine. On the day I struck every firstborn of Egypt, I sanctified every firstborn of Israel" (Numbers 3:12-13). Therefore the Levites are called firstborn, who were preferred to the other sons of Israel by sanctification. By what reasoning they are firstborn, hear the Apostle saying: "But you have come to Mount Sion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to the company of many thousand angels, and to the church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven" (Hebrews 12:22).

He made four orders: of Mount Sion, of the city of Jerusalem, of the festival gathering of angels, and of the churches of the firstborn. The Lord God therefore took the Levites from the midst of the people of Israel; because he wished them to be sharers not in human cares, but ministers of divine religion. And he made his own firstborn those who open the spiritual womb; and therefore they were not so from the womb of nature, as sinners of various crimes are; but, their worldly attachments destroyed, they are chosen. Hence they have no fellowship with plebeian possession, nor are they numbered in the midst of the people; because they possess the word of God in their midst, as it is written in the Gospel: "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them" (Matthew 18:20). And elsewhere: "There stands one in the midst of you, whom you know not".

8. The Full and Undivided Sacrifice

From this, then, we learn that faith above all should commend us to God. When we have had faith, let us labor that our works may be perfect. Since this is a full and perfect sacrifice, as the Lord himself teaches us, saying: "Of your gifts and offerings you shall observe to offer to me on my feast days, taking nothing away, nor dividing anything; but offering full and whole and perfect gifts." Now the feast day of the Lord is where there is the grace of perfect virtues. These are then perfect, if the soul, victorious over worldly anxieties and bodily allurement, excludes the enticements of pleasure, free from the world, given over to God, diminishing nothing from the path of a direct intention, nor dividing the times of its affection now to indulgence, now to labor. Only the wise man, therefore, celebrates this solemnity, no other. For it is difficult to find a soul free from passions of this kind.

Divide, therefore, the principal and the subject parts of the soul according to reason, and then you will discern what is masculine and what is feminine. For there is no virtue without labor, because labor is the advance of virtue. This the very words of the law also signify, which say: "Every firstling that opens the womb of an ass you shall exchange for a sheep" (Exodus 13:13).

For the law separated unclean animals from sacrifice, and commanded that clean ones be offered instead of them. Of the ass, therefore, he commands that the offspring, that is, the unclean, be exchanged for a sheep, which is clean and fit for sacrifice (Leviticus 27:27). This is according to the letter. But if anyone should more deeply pursue the spiritual sense of the law, it is worth considering that the ass is a laborious animal, the sheep a fruitful one. He says, therefore, that labor is to be exchanged for fruit, so that the end of one's work may be its fruit. Or certainly in this way: all your labor, all your industry, you shall commend with a pure and simple affection.

9. Redeeming the Soul from Fruitless Labor

But if you will not exchange it, he says, you shall redeem it. It is therefore commanded according to the letter, that another animal be offered in place of the unclean animal, or its price; lest among the tithes of the fruits either something inferior, or something unclean, should seem to be offered. But the deeper understanding teaches that your soul is to be freed, so that it may desist from those things which have no fruit. For he who redeems himself, sets himself free and is stripped, as it were, of a certain debt. Those works must be abandoned which cannot have true fruit and good outcomes; such as are these worldly things whose use cannot be lasting. In these things a man is himself made naked and empty of truth; and although he has sought them with the utmost labor, it profits his soul nothing. For those things which bring servitude upon the soul are all useless, even if the effect is not lacking.

Great seems the victory of those who fight, great the glory of those who triumph: but often we see those very ones who have conquered again subjected to the uncertainties of war, and transferred to the enemy by the outcome of battle, and made more wretched by the very fact that they had before been victors. It is necessary, therefore, that you direct your works toward God, and that his favor breathe upon you. The athlete himself, who contends by his own and not by another's strength, whenever he engages in combat, believes that he undergoes uncertain outcomes. And when he has attained the crown, he understands that this glory of the world withers more quickly than the very leaves of that crown. The pilot, when he has brought the ship into port, scarcely thinks an end has been set to his labor, and immediately seeks the beginning of another labor. The soul is loosed from the body, and after the end of this life is still suspended in the uncertainty of the judgment to come.

Thus there is no end where an end is thought to be. Wherefore let us cling to our God with vows and a pure conscience and a spirit of charity, and let us win for ourselves the divine favor: praying that we may be released and stripped from worldly cares as from harsh and rustic masters, and go forth from worldly servitude, called into the liberty of that supernal knowledge which is the true and only liberty.

10. The Exodus as a Figure of Redemption

And that we may confirm the precept of the law by an example: when the Egyptians pressed down the people of the Jews with various works, and with mud and stone, the children of Israel groaned, and provoked the mercy of the Lord toward themselves. And he said to Moses: I have heard the groaning of the children of Israel, how the Egyptians press them down into servitude, and I have remembered my Covenant. Go and say to the children of Israel, I am the Lord, and I will lead you out from the power of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from their servitude, and I will free you with an outstretched arm and great judgment, and I will take you to myself as a people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who leads you out from the power of the Egyptians, and I will bring you into the land over which I have stretched out my hand.

Behold how the people of the Hebrews changed the fruit of their labor, so that he who was working in mud, might labor in the hope of an eternal kingdom. And therefore the Lord in the Gospel, pitying the vain labor of the peoples of the Gentiles, who were making bricks for a muddy superstition, and given over to bodily pleasure, could not build the solid wall of faith, spoke as it were to certain offspring of a she-ass, saying: Come to me, all you who labor, and I will refresh you. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart, and you shall find rest for your souls.

By this calling I seem to myself more fully to recognize the words and mysteries of the law: because it taught that the ass's foal should either be exchanged for a sheep, or redeemed with money; so that not only might we exchange the offspring of the ass for a sheep, that is, the unclean for the clean, but also redeem it. This seems to be expressed, if first, by the sacrifice of purification and the mystery of baptism, we wash away the stains of our offenses; and also redeem our crimes with good works, and the price of faith, and mercy.

11. Christ the True Levite and Redeemer

Our price is the blood of Christ. Whence also the apostle Peter says: You were redeemed not with gold or silver, but with precious blood. And Paul says: You were bought with a price, do not become the servants of men. Whence not without reason do we marvel in the Gospel that the Lord Jesus sat upon the colt of an ass; because the Gentile people began to be Christ's sacrifice, since according to the law it was held to be unclean. Whence also concerning the Levites it is written that they are their redemptions; because both by the sanctity of their life and by prayer they washed away the sins of the people. In them the figure of the lamb went before the mysteries as a sign of the true Levite who was to come, who by the passion of his own body would take away the sin of the world.

"Levite" signifies one taken up for me, or one who is himself light for me; for he has, of perfect virtue, the token of health to be imparted to the people. He, therefore, who came as the one awaited for the salvation of all, was brought forth from the Virgin's womb for me, offered for me, tasted death for me, and rose again for me. In him the redemption of all men was undertaken, the resurrection was assumed. He is the true Levite; that he might make us Levites cling to God, pour out continual prayers to him, hope for salvation from him, flee worldly affairs, and be numbered among the possessions of God, as it is written: Lord, possess us. For that alone is possession which is subject to no storms, and bears the fruit of perpetual grace. The Redeemer is a Levite, because a wise man is the redemption of the foolish.

As a physician he nurses the foolish mind of the sick, and sprinkles certain more solid medicines of prudence upon the mind, having been anointed by that physician who came from heaven, to show men the ways of prudence, and to reveal to the little ones the paths of wisdom. For he saw that those who labored could not be saved without remedy, and therefore he gave medicine to the sick. Therefore he brought the help of health to all; so that whoever should perish, might ascribe to himself the causes of his own death, since he refused to be cured when he had a remedy by which he could have escaped: but let the manifest mercy of Christ toward all be proclaimed; because those who perish, perish by their own negligence: but those who are saved, are freed according to the sentence of Christ, who wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

Finally, Sodom too, if it had had fifty just men, would not have been overthrown, and if it had had ten, it would have been redeemed; because the word of the remission of sins strips the soul of servitude, and the fullness of perfect discipline does not allow the mind to be consumed by the devouring heat of lusts.

12. The Just as a City's Support

Yet it matters greatly, and builds up a moral disposition, if we also take simply the number of the just as profiting the salvation of the peoples. It restrains and cuts back envy, confounds wickedness, incites virtue, increases grace. For no one ought to envy another the praise which benefits himself: and every wicked man, while he receives his redeemer, often imitates him; certainly he reveres him, and very often even loves him. He himself too, if he knows he will profit others, is increased in zeal, and by that grace he binds peoples together, heaps up the charity of citizens, and the glory of cities. How blessed is that city which has very many just men, how celebrated on everyone's lips: how it is blessed wholly on account of a part, and how blessed and perpetual its state is judged to be!

How I rejoice when I see some gentle and wise men living long, when I look upon chaste virgins, and grave widows grown old, like a certain hoary senate of the Church, which sets forth by its very countenance and appearance of gravity something to be revered, something to be imitated, by which we may be colored unto every grace of morals! For I do not rejoice for their own sake, since by living they undergo many hardships of this age, but because they profit the many. Likewise, when someone of this sort passes away, though laid down in a long old age, I am affected; because the flock of young men is deprived of an elderly wall. Finally, of a perishing city, or of impending evils, or of a future collapse, this is the first indication of decline, if wiser men, or even graver women, depart. Hence first the gate of impending evils is opened.

Just as, therefore, a whole city is made solid and sustained by an assembly of the wise, or is weakened by their death: so a grave discourse, and indeed one full of the prudence of old age, is accustomed to establish the soul of each one, and to strengthen the mind. Now if there be added the practice of much reading, a certain senate, as it were, of very many precepts and counsels produces a lasting state, like that of a city, within the hearts of each individual.

13. Cities of Refuge and the Levites' Redemption

Therefore Moses called the firstborn and the redeemers of the rest Levites; because men of riper and useful judgment, in one respect present a certain old age of the soul, in another confer redemption. Whence also Moses signified that the cities of the Levites in the old Testament were cities of redemption; because he who flees for refuge to that soul, in which the Word of God dwells, which is fortified and entrenched after the manner of a city, acquires for himself perpetual liberty.

For just as in the cities of the Levites there was remission of punishments; so that if anyone fled to them, who had not committed the killing of a man voluntarily, no one was permitted to kill him, as long as he was placed within the cities of the Levites: so he who repents of his own sin, which he committed either imprudently or unwillingly, if he cleaves to the dwelling of the Levites, and does not think he should depart from those teachers who dispense the commands of God, the law itself frees him from all penalty and punishment of the crime committed.

14. The Levite's Flight from Worldly Passion

Nor should you think it absurd that the guilty dwell together with the pious, and the stained with the consecrated. For those who are polluted by some contagion of sins need to be purified. And in a certain manner, from a different kind of cause, the matter comes together. For just as the Levite, renounced to worldly pleasures, is an exile from guilt, so the man guilty of blood is a fugitive from his homeland. But this is the difference, that the latter deserts his own out of fear of the law: whereas the minister of God renounces the fellowship of human passions, and renounces the necessity of carnal enticement for the sake of the pursuit of virtue. Nor is it far from the truth that this one too lays, as it were, certain hands upon himself; that he may slay the pleasures of his body, and work a certain destruction of his own flesh. For indeed Moses slew the Egyptian, and became a fugitive from the land of Egypt, that he might avoid the tyrant of that land.

But he would not have slain that Egyptian man, had he not first slain within himself the Egyptian of the spiritual wickedness, and renounced the luxury of royal honors, esteeming the reproach of Christ a greater inheritance than the treasures of Egypt. Which indeed seems reproach to the foolish: but to us that reproach of the Lord's cross is the power of God and wisdom.

15. God's Twin Ministries of Remission and Vengeance

To this it may be added, that there are, as it were, two principal kinds of virtues in God, one by which he remits, the other by which he avenges. Sins are remitted through the word of God, of which the Levite is the interpreter and indeed the executor: they are remitted also through the office of the priest, and the sacred ministry: they are also punished through men, as through judges, who make use of power for a time, as the Apostle teaches, saying: Do you wish not to fear power? Do good, and you shall have praise from it; for he is God's minister to you for good. But if you do evil, fear. For not without cause does he bear the sword; for he is a minister, an avenger in wrath against him who does evil. Sins are also punished through peoples, as we read (Isaiah XIII, 17); because often, by foreigners raised up at God's command on account of an offense against the divine majesty, the Jewish people were made subject.

Nor indeed is even he who has committed some homicide unwillingly outside of ministry. Since the law says of him: Because God delivered him into his hands. His hands, therefore, offered a ministry, like an instrument, to divine vengeance. The Levite, therefore, is the minister of remission: but the slayer who nevertheless committed homicide not by design but against his will, is a minister of divine vengeance.

16. Judas and Zacchaeus, Vice Expelled by Christ

Observe this also, that when the impious one is slain, Christ is poured in. And where abomination is abolished, sanctification is gathered; because the Lord said: On that day on which I slew every firstborn of Egypt, I sanctified to myself every firstborn of Israel. Which you should refer not to one day of Egypt's affliction, but to all time. For when wickedness is renounced, virtue is immediately taken up. For the going-out of malice works the entering-in of virtue; and by the same effort by which crime is excluded, innocence is joined. You have this in the Gospel; for where Satan cast himself into the heart of Judas, Christ withdrew from him, and at the very moment he received the one, he lost the other. Finally it is thus written: And after the morsel, Satan entered into him. Jesus therefore said to him: What you do, do more quickly. What is this? That because Satan had entered into him, he himself might depart from Christ.

He is therefore cast out and excluded, because he could no longer be with the Lord Jesus, since he had begun to be with the devil: for there is no communion of Christ with Belial. Whence, immediately driven out by command, he withdrew, as we read, the Evangelist saying: When he had received the morsel, he went out immediately; for it was night. Not only did he go out, but immediately, and by night he went out. Nor is it strange that he who was deserting Christ had the darkness of night. But just as he, received by the devil, was excluded from Christ, so Zacchaeus, renouncing avarice, received Christ. And rightly, seeing his zeal, that he had climbed into a tree to see Jesus passing by, the Lord says: Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must abide in your house. And he came down in haste, and received him joyfully. But by receiving Christ, he excluded avarice, banished perfidy, renounced frauds.

For Christ does not enter otherwise, except to exclude vices; because he does not dwell with errors. Finally he cast the moneychangers out of the temple, in which he himself wished to dwell. Whence Zacchaeus, understanding this, since he could not receive Christ with his old affection, ordered his former vices to depart from his lodging, so that Christ might enter. Rightly therefore, when the Pharisees murmured that the Lord Jesus had turned aside to lodge with a sinful man, he said to the Lord: Behold, Lord, half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken anything from anyone by fraud, I restore it fourfold. In this he answered those who said that a sinner ought not to have offered hospitality to Christ: This is to say, I am no longer a publican, I am not that Zacchaeus, not a robber, not a defrauder. I restore what I took, I restore because I was accustomed to take away.

Now I give to the poor, whom before I stripped bare; now I bestow my own goods, I who used to seize the goods of others. Crimes fled after Christ entered. All the blindness of carnal passions was dispelled, where the light of eternal life was poured in.

17. The Fatness of an Acceptable Sacrifice

We have spoken of firstborn; let us also speak of the fats, concerning which David teaches sufficiently, saying: As with fat and fatness may my soul be filled. And above he says: And may your holocaust become fat. Teaching by this that the sacrifice is acceptable which is fat, which is shining, and which is fattened by a certain nourishment of faith and devotion, and by the richer sustenance of the heavenly word. We frequently call a work "fat" when we wish it to be understood as substantial and laborious; and a victim is proclaimed rich which is not thin, is not meager.

Whence we rightly call a sacrifice "fat," which we wish to declare rich. But this too serves as instruction, that the fat cows were compared, in prophetic interpretation, to the fruitful years.

18. Cain's Sadness as a Sign of Guilty Conscience

Now let us consider what it is that the Lord says: If you offer rightly, but do not divide rightly, you have sinned; be at peace. This is an indication that God is not appeased by gifts offered, but by the disposition of the one offering. Finally Cain, the offerer of a gift, was condemned, because from the conscience of an insincere offering he understood that his sacrifice was not approved by God, and he became sad. For when the mind is conscious of what is right, it rejoices, and the spirit is filled with joy by a certain spiritual infusion, when someone's efforts or works are approved by God. The sadness of Cain, therefore, is a testimony of conscience, an indication of rejection. And although he offered a gift, yet because he did not divide rightly and justly, he incurred fault.

19. The Four Kinds of Acceptable Sacrifice

For there are four kinds by which sacrifices were commended: whether they were new of the new, or roasted, or divided, or continual. New of the new, at the first time of the year, which in kind were reckoned in the firstfruits; but now it has been revealed that these signify those who are renewed through the sacraments of baptism. For this is truly the primal sacrifice, when each one offers himself as a victim, and begins from himself, so that afterward he may be able to offer his gift. The new faith, then, of those renewed—vigorous, growing to maturity, gaining an increase of virtue, not slack, not weary, not withered by a certain old age, and sluggish in vigor—is fit for sacrifice, which sprouts with a certain green shoot of wisdom, and grows to maturity with youthful fervor of divine knowledge; yet let it have the sap of the old doctrine.

For just as of the new, so also the doctrine of the Old Testament ought to concur, because it is written: Eat the old of the old, and put away the old from before the new. Let the knowledge of the patriarchs be our food; let the mind feast on the oracles of the prophets: let the inner mind be fed with such fattening. But let it no longer be the form of the lamb, but the truth of the body of Christ. Let not the shadow of the law dim the eyes; but let the grace of the Lord's passion openly, and the splendor of the resurrection, illumine the keenness of the mind.

20. Faith Tested and Tempered by Fire

But if you offer a sacrifice of the firstlings of sheep, roasted in fire, roasted and fat, you shall offer the sacrifice of firstlings, as it is written: which signifies that faith ought to be tested as though by fire, and to be fervent with the Holy Spirit. Finally Jacob cooked lentils, and took from his brother the primacy of the blessing—things which surely a solid faith would attain. This one, therefore, robust and vigorous, grew stronger; but that one, who did not know how to cook his food, wearied and failing, wasted away. Let, then, the virtue of your soul be burned by the word of the Lord as by fire. See Joseph burned, as it is written: The word of the Lord burned him. Let your faith be scorched like the ears of the harvest. For then they display the ripeness of their fruits, when the summer sun's progress has first scorched them.

Much discourse of the Scriptures, therefore, strengthens the soul, and colors it with a certain vapor of spiritual grace; it also strengthens rational discoveries, and dissolves all the force of irrational passions. And for this reason Esau, having loosened the bonds of his own virtue, was dissolved. But those who, with loins girded, were bidden to eat the head of the lamb not raw, nor boiled in water, but roasted in fire, as you have it in Exodus, crossed the seas on foot with a strong and faithful spirit. In the Gospel too, the Lord Jesus ate roasted fish, as it is written, in which the fullness of the Holy Spirit overflowed. And perhaps Esau failed for this reason, because he desired food boiled in water, which Jacob, as though unsuited to himself, gave to his weak brother.

21. The Fourfold Division of Prayer and Virtue

The offering and the prayer ought not to be confused, but distinguished by a fitting division. For in every matter distinction is better than confusion; much more in prayer and in offering, which, unless it has definite divisions, becomes more obscure. For this reason the law commands that the members of the victim be generally divided, and that holocausts be offered; so that, without any admixture or covering, the sacrifice may be bare—because our faith ought to burn bare and stripped of all coverings, lest it be clothed with vague and deceptive opinions, but let the pure and sincere simplicity of the mind appear. Then let it be divided into fitting parts. For virtue is a genus, which is divided into many species: but the principal four are prudence, temperance, fortitude, justice.

Let your prayer, then, breathe of prudence toward the knowledge of God and the truth of faith; let it breathe of temperance, which the Apostle thought should be required even of spouses, saying: Do not defraud one another, except perhaps by consent for a time, that you may be free for prayer. And the law commands that those purified before yesterday and the day before approach the sacrifice. Let prayer hold fortitude, so that it be interrupted by no fear, fail by no weariness. For then ought the intention to pray be more vigorous, when we are pressed by adversities. Let prayer keep justice, which if Judas had kept, his prayer would not have become a sin. For when ought we more to abstain from unjust deeds and depraved pursuits than when we entreat the justice of God? And therefore the Lord, that justice might be dear to our hearts, said: Blessed are they who suffer persecution for justice' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

This was lacking in Judas; for if it had been present, he would not have betrayed the Lord, would not have betrayed his teacher. It was also lacking in the sacrifice of this Cain, who, if he had held justice, ought to have offered to the Lord the firstfruits, not later fruits. Division, therefore, was lacking to him, and therefore the answer was given: If you offer rightly, but do not divide rightly, you have sinned; be at peace. You see how great a fault this is. Where division is lacking, there the whole sacrifice is rejected.

22. The Discipline of Constant Prayer

It remains that we speak of continual and constant prayer, that we ought to linger and be at leisure for prayer. The Lord spent the night in prayer, not that it might profit himself, but that he might teach us. For frequent prayer works a certain discipline of praying; because use itself makes people teachable by God, while neglect makes them unteachable. Good, therefore, is exercise. Finally, bodily strength is increased by frequent exercise; but unexercised, it is diminished and slips away. Many indeed dissolve even their natural strength by disuse of exercise. Likewise the strength of the soul is made solid by constancy of exercise, so that the labor itself may become discipline, not a burden, but a benefit. Let us bring to our mind this food, which, ground and polished by much meditation, may confirm the heart of man like that heavenly manna.

Which we do not receive ground and polished idly; because we ought long to grind and polish the discourses of the heavenly Scriptures, turning them over with the whole mind and heart; so that the sap of that spiritual food may diffuse itself into all the veins of the soul. If, then, faith grows up as though maturing, which banishes the defect of aging devotion, and glows with the spirit, and is held to the fitting measure of lawful division by congruous distinction, and constancy commends its grace; then that becomes the fat, and, as it were, the fatty kind of prayer, of which the Prophet says: You have anointed my head with oil. For just as lambs grow fat on abundant milk, and as well-fed sheep shine with fatness, so, fed with apostolic sap, the prayer of the faithful grows fat.

23. Order and Distinction in Creation and Gratitude

If any of these things which we have said above is lacking, the sacrifice is not approved. And for this reason it was said to Cain: If you offer rightly, but do not divide rightly, you have sinned. For indeed the world itself is read to have been made distinctly, whereas its part had been before unformed; because the Earth was invisible and unformed. Surely light was made first, and God called the light, and God separated the light from the darkness, and the darkness was called night. And in order we read that each thing was made: heaven, earth, fruit-bearing trees, diverse animals. The lighter things were assigned to the higher regions, as air and fire; the heavier to the lower, that is, earth and water. God could certainly have commanded all things to be made at once; but he preferred to observe distinction, which we ought to imitate in all our affairs, and especially in the exchanges of gratitude, in which it is not enough to render what you have received, but to commend what you render.

For if someone pays a debt, and in the paying does injury to the creditor, it is more intolerable, surely, than not to have paid what he owed. Therefore it is not the quantity of the payment, but the disposition of the payer, and the quality and affection, that is considered. Rightly, therefore, did Cain offer, because an offering is a mark of devotion and an indication of gratitude; but he did not divide rightly, because before all things he ought to have brought firstfruits to God, that he might begin from the grace of the Author. For this is the order of division: that the first should precede the second, not the second the first; and that heavenly things should be preferred to earthly, not earthly to heavenly.

24. Be Still and the Silence Owed to Guilt

But because Cain confounded this order, it is said to him: You have sinned, be still. God teaches all things. First, that you should not sin, as He warned in Adam: secondly, if you have sinned, that you should be still, as you are taught in Cain. For we ought to blush and condemn sin, not defend it; since guilt is lessened by shame, but heaped up by defense. And by silence we are corrected, by contention we slip further. Let there at least be shame, where there is no absolution. Hence that saying: The just man in the beginning of his speech is his own accuser. And again we read elsewhere, spoken by the Lord Himself: Declare your iniquities, that you may be justified. How great is the grace of shame, that modesty should hold to justice, which the guilt of the fault had taken away! Therefore He says: Be still, since you have nothing to excuse. The turning back of the fault itself is upon you.

For the brother is not charged to him, but the error is ascribed, of which he himself is the author. In you, He says, the crime returns, which began from you. You have nothing by which you may accuse necessity more than your own mind. Your own wickedness is turned back upon you, you are the author of it.

25. Impiety as the Mother of Further Crimes

He says well: You are the author of it. For impiety is a certain mother of misdeeds; and he who has sinned more gravely slips easily into the rest. For how can he who has violated things divine restrain himself from things human, and be good to men who has injured God? Therefore the remaining vices follow the more atrocious guilt of crimes; since to the degree that shameful things incline, the rest also incline that way. You therefore are the author of your own deed, you the leader of the crime. Error did not draw you unwilling, nor ignorant: but as a voluntary defendant before judgment, not by a slip, you wrought the deceit, whereby you yourself convict yourself guilty of an offense against God.

26. The Barren Field Chosen for Parricide

Therefore, though warned that he should be still, he increases his insolence, he embitters his crime. What then does he mean when he says: Let us go into the field; unless that a place bare of growing things is chosen for the parricide? For where should the brother have been killed, except where fruit was lacking? As though foreseeing the crime, nature had denied growth to the place of so great a wickedness; because it was not fitting that the same soil should both receive the contagion of parricidal blood contrary to nature, and bring forth fruits according to nature. Rightly he himself says: Let us go into the field. He does not say: Let us go into paradise, where fruits bloom, nor into some cultivated and fruitful place. Parricides themselves show that they cannot possess the fruit of their crime, nor does fruit remain with those who have lent their service to so great an impiety.

For they themselves flee the very kindness of the elements, as this Cain, who seems to have feared lest a more generous produce of good earth might hinder the sad deed, and lest, by the accustomed liberality of the generative earth, which causes various offspring and fruits to spring forth for itself, it might, even in this preparation for crime, by some mute likeness of itself, recall brotherly affection. The robber flees the day as a witness of his crime, the adulterer blushes at the light as an accomplice of adultery, the parricide flees the fruitfulness of the lands. For how could he who was slaughtering the partner of his own blood bear to see the shared birthings of things in common? Joseph is thrown into a dry pit, Ammon is killed within the house.

Justly, therefore, nature was given a judgment, by depriving of the endowment of its gift those places in which the parricide was to take place: so that from a certain condemnation of the innocent soil it might show how great would be the punishments of the guilty. On account of the crime of men, therefore, the very elements themselves are condemned. Finally, David wished perpetual punishment of barrenness upon the mountains in which Jonathan was slain along with his father, saying: You mountains that are in Gilboa, let neither dew nor rain fall upon you, mountains of death.

27. God's Question and the Call to Confess

Now let us consider for what reason God asked Cain where his brother was, as though He did not know he had been slain. But as regards God's knowledge, He confutes the one who denies, and answers the one who conceals as though He knew: The voice of your brother's blood cries out to me: but as regards the deeper reasoning, He admonishes sinners to penitence. For confession is a shortening of punishments. Hence in secular trials those who deny, when placed on the rack, are tortured, and a certain mercy touches the judge for one who confesses. There is a certain shame in sins, and it is a portion of penitence to confess the crime, and not to deflect the fault, but to acknowledge it. The shame of the guilty softens the judge, but the obstinacy of those who deny provokes him. God wishes to call you to penitence, He wishes forgiveness to be hoped for from Himself, He wishes to show by your confession that He is not the author of malice.

For those who refer their sin, as the Gentiles assert, to some necessity of fate or of their own deed, seem to accuse the divine, as if the force of that necessity were the cause of the sin. For he who kills compelled by some necessity kills, as it were, unwillingly. But the things which are from us admit of no excuse: while those which are beyond us are excusable. But how much more grievous a sin it is to refer to God what you yourself have done, and to transfer the odium of your own guilt onto the author not of the crime, but of innocence.

28. Cain's Denial and the Question of Brotherly Duty

Consider now the parricide's reply: I do not know, he says, am I my brother's keeper? Although this speech betrays defiance, it nonetheless sounds as though, had he thought of his brother as good, he ought to have been the keeper of piety. For whom more than a brother ought he to have kept safe? But how could he keep the office of brotherhood, who had not acknowledged the affection of kinship? Or how could it be that he should render obedience to nature, who did not show reverence to God? He denies first, as though before one who did not know: he refuses the duty of brotherly guardianship, as though exempt from nature: he shuns the judge, as though free of will. Why do you wonder if he did not recognize piety, who did not recognize its Author? And therefore you are taught by this sequence of Scriptures that faith is the root of all virtues.

Whence also the Apostle says: For our foundation is Christ; and whatever you build upon this foundation, this alone tends to the fruit of your work, and to the reward of virtue.

29. The Voice of Abel's Blood Cries Out

Fittingly, then, the Lord replied to one so imprudently denying, saying: The voice of your brother's blood cries out to me, that is, why do you not know where your brother is? You were alone with your two parents; among so few your brother ought not to have escaped your notice. Or is it because your parents cannot be accusers? For I do not wish that the kinship which is the author of salvation should become the author of peril. In you alone has nature lost its laws. Do you think, then, that the crime is hidden, because parents ought not to accuse? But your condemnation is the greater for that. For if dear names of kinship ought not to accuse, much more ought they not to kill. But if you refuse me as witness, and shrink from me as judge, the voice of your brother's blood is witness, which cries out to me. It convicts you with greater authority than if your brother were still living. You were alone; who else could have killed him?

If you accuse your parents, you prove yourself a parricide. He who does not spare his parents could kill his brother. He could be a parricide, who desires to prove himself sprung from parricides.

30. The Blood and the Earth as Witnesses Against Cain

And rightly He says: The voice of your brother's blood cries out, not: your brother cries out. This preserves the grace of innocence and of brotherhood even in death itself. Brother Abel does not accuse, lest he seem a parricide. Not his voice, not his soul accuses, but the voice of the blood accuses, which you yourself shed. Your own crime, therefore, accuses you, not your brother. At the same time complaint is taken away from the criminal. He cannot complain of another's testimony, who confesses the crime by his own deed. Speech is a lesser thing than the deed. Yet the earth also is a witness, which received the blood. And rightly He says: The voice of your brother's blood cries from the earth: He did not say, it cries from your brother's body, but it cries from the earth. And if the brother spares, the earth does not spare. If the brother is silent, the earth condemns.

It is both witness and judge against you: a sharper witness, since it is still wet with the blood of your parricide: a harsher judge, since it has been so defiled by so great a crime, that it opened its mouth and received your brother's blood from your hand. And it indeed opened its mouth, as though about to receive words of piety from brothers, fearing nothing when it saw brothers, since it knew the right of brotherhood to be an incentive of love, not of hatred. For how could it suspect parricide, which had not yet seen homicide? But you shed the blood, and the earth, grieving at its contamination, says: It will not increase its strength to give to you. How innocent a vengeance, that though so gravely violated, being content not to profit you, it does not seek to harm you.

31. God Hears the Blood of the Just

Not a small teaching also is what He says: The voice of your brother's blood cries out to me; for God hears His just ones even when dead, since they live to God. And rightly they are held to be among the living; because even if they have tasted the death of the body, yet they attain an incorporeal life, and are illumined by the splendor of their own merits, and enjoy also the eternal light. He hears, then, the blood of the just: but He turns Himself away from the prayers of the impious; since even if they seem to live, they are yet more wretched than all the dead, carrying about their flesh as a tomb, in which they have buried their own unhappy soul. For what else is it than being buried, that which rolls within the earth, and is shut in by desires of earthly avarice and by other vices, so that it cannot breathe the air of heavenly grace?

A sinner of this kind is cursed from the earth, which is the lowest and last part of the world. Above, indeed, are the heaven and the things that are in heaven, sun, moon, and stars, Thrones, Dominations, Principalities, and Powers, Cherubim and Seraphim. There is no doubt, then, that the higher things also have condemned him whom the lower things have condemned. For how is he absolved by the pure and heavenly sentence there, whom even the earth could not absolve? And therefore, groaning and trembling, he is bidden to be upon the earth.

32. Present and Future Evils of the Wicked

It is a clear and general principle, that evils are present to every wicked man, and are also about to come. Those that are present work sadness; those that are to come, dread. But the wicked man is troubled more by present things than by future ones. Whence Cain also said to God: My guilt is greater than that it should be forgiven me. If you abandon me today, I shall hide myself from your face. For nothing is more grievous than for a wanderer to be forsaken by God, so that he cannot recall himself. Death brings an end to the sinner's sinning: but a life destitute of divine guidance is hurled headlong, and slips into graver things; just as if a shepherd should abandon his flock, beasts would attack it: so when God forsakes a man, the devil rushes in. It is grave, especially for the foolish, to have no ruler. Malice creeps on, the wound is increased, where medicine is lacking. But he hides himself who wishes to veil his fault, and cover his sin.

For he who does evil hates the light, and seeks the darkness and hiding-places of his own misdeeds. But the just man is not accustomed to hide himself from the Lord his God, but rather to offer himself, saying: Behold, here am I—one who has no guilty conscience which he fears to have detected.

33. Cain's Fear of Being Killed by Others

Rightly, then, does the man conscious of evil hide himself, and say: Everyone who finds me will kill me. A man of narrow mind fears present death, but neglects everlasting death, and does not dread the divine judgment, praying only against the destruction of the body. But by whom did he fear to be killed, who had only his parents upon the earth? He could indeed fear also the attacks of beasts, he who had violated the laws of the divine ordinance; nor could he presume upon the other subject animals, he who had taught that man could be killed. He could also fear his parents as parricides, he who had taught that parricide could be committed. For parents also could learn from their son what their descendants later learned from a parent.

34. The Sevenfold Vengeance and Man's Eightfold Nature

Now let us consider for what reason God said: Whoever kills Cain shall pay a sevenfold vengeance; and for what reason a sign is placed upon him, that the parricide should not be killed, whereas no provision was made that the innocent should not be killed. Man is an eighth thing; he has the rational faculty, by which he excels the rest, he has also the five senses of the body, he has also voice, he has also the grace of generation. These seven, unless they are ruled by that rational faculty, are subject to death; and therefore the fool has in these all the peril of himself. Whoever, then, has lost that rational faculty, will flatter himself in vain about the use of these seven carnal endowments. All these are dissolved, unless bound by certain reins of reason. Thus the death of reason works the death of irrational passions. But better is this, that the number seven is one of rest and remission.

Therefore he who has not spared another sinner, and has begrudged him the gift of remission of sins, will snatch away from himself the hope of remission, and there will be in him vengeance in equal measure with grace.

35. The Sign Set on Cain to Spare His Life

Now the sign which he set upon Cain, that no one should slay him, was intended to turn back the wanderer, and by his kindness invite him to correction. For we are wont more readily to entrust ourselves to those whose favour we possess. Yet he does not grant great things; but in this very thing he avenges the imprudence of the foolish man, who, though liable to perpetual punishments, did not ask that his penalty be remitted to him, but thought that the life of this body should be begged for, in which there is more of trouble than of pleasure. For death is one thing in the separation of soul and body, and at the end of this life; and as soon as it comes, it is wont to take away all the pains of the body, not to increase them.

But the fears which frequently assail the living in this life, the sorrows, griefs, groans, and various torments, the wounds of grievous burdens and sicknesses, bring upon the human race very many deaths, so that this death seems to be a remedy, not a punishment. For it is not destructive, seeing that through it life is not taken away, but transferred to better things. For if the guilty die, who were unwilling to recall their step from sins, they attain, even unwillingly, an end not of nature but of guilt, lest they sin further, for whom life is an increase of their offences. But if they are possessed of good hope, they are rather to be believed to be departing than to be perishing.

36. The Soul's Incorruption After Bodily Death

Here is inserted the doctrine of the incorruption of the soul, namely, that this itself is the true and blessed life, which each one, being well conscious, lives much more purely and blessedly, when our soul has laid aside the covering of this flesh, and has been released from this bodily prison, as it were; flying back to that higher place from which, being infused into our members, it groaned with compassion for this body, until it should fulfil the office of the government entrusted to it; that it might rule and restrain by rational guidance the irrational motions of this flesh.

Hence it is that the prophets afterward passed into captivity along with the people of the Jews; lest the rest of the people of the saints, deprived of protection and widowed of counsel, should suffer a heavier affliction, but rather, being admonished by the frequent oracles of the prophets, should return to the Lord their God with pious affection; lest, worn down by the adversities of captivity, they should fall headlong into the sin of unfaithfulness, and despair of the remedy of perpetual salvation.

37. The Longevity of Cain Versus Abel's Short Life

Therefore in this place those are refuted who think that this alone is life, which is in this world (all things full of fall, full of sorrow), and they are refuted by the simple sequence of the events. For behold, a just man, innocent, pious, incurring, on account of the grace of his devotion, the hatred of his brother, was taken away by parricide while yet immature in age; and the unjust, the wicked, the impious man, defiled even by fratricide, led a long life, took a wife, left posterity, founded cities, and this he obtained by divine permission. Does not the voice of God plainly cry out in these things?

You err, who think that all the grace of living is here; you do not understand, you do not perceive, that this old age is a veteran of miseries, and that the progression of age is the wages of troubles, and that we are surrounded, as by a kind of Scylla, with daily shipwrecks, beaten by waves, dwelling in rocky habitations, and delighting in these things, as if it were not so much an eternal animal as an immortal evil? Therefore even to this Cain the length of life granted is a vengeance; because he lived in fear, and ran through a long space with much fruitless toil, than which punishment nothing is heavier, than that one should be to himself the cause of greater punishments. See, then, how perpetual is the life of the just, and how none is that of the wicked! The blood of the just man cries out even when dead, but the life of the sinner is hidden.

38. Divine Patience and the Sevenfold Vengeance on Lamech

Thirdly, since when a parricide had been committed—that is, the chief of crimes—where sin had crept in, immediately also the law of divine gentleness had to be prolonged; lest, if vengeance had at once been taken upon the guilty, men also, in taking vengeance, should observe no patience or moderation, but should immediately hand over the guilty to punishment. But the providence of the divine sentence is of such a kind as to teach magnanimity and patience to judges; lest anyone should be swept away too hastily by zeal for vengeance, and by the very immaturity of deliberation should punish the innocent, or embitter the penalty through anger; and yet he did not allow him to be altogether unpunished who had put on no repentance for his crime. For he drove him from his face, and, disowned by his parents, relegated him to a kind of exile of separate dwelling; because he had passed from human gentleness to the savagery of beasts.

Nevertheless he did not wish the murderer to be avenged by murder, he who prefers the correction of the sinner rather than his death. Hence in Lamech it is avenged seventy times sevenfold; because his fault is heavier, who did not correct himself even after another's condemnation. Cain had sinned before through a certain unforeseen impulse; Lamech, however, ought to have been on guard, seeing that he had noticed the thing rebuked in another. For a sentence was owed to its own judge, lest anyone should think a guilty man to be struck down indiscriminately. And to come to the mystery, he ought not to have slain him who had, up to the natural term of his death, a space for accomplishing repentance. He might have had excuse, that he had redeemed himself even by a late act of repentance, had not a premature punishment carried him off.