Chapter I.
The mature production of the offspring of the soul: what is their form? Can the plebeian senses of the mind be subdued by authority? For our kind of sensory perception is twofold; and is it beyond that which is offered to God to stand forth on its own accord? Finally, there is a discussion about the mixture by which we are constituted, and its first principles.
May our soul give birth to these [works], and not only give birth, but also bring forth, and bring forth when the days of giving birth are completed, so that the premature days of judgment may not find us. For concerning these births, the Lord Jesus says: Woe to those who are pregnant and nursing in those days (Luke 21:23)? Therefore, let this birth be completed earlier, and let our thoughts be explained by the processes of good deeds; so that our end may find nothing unfinished, our life's end may not encounter anything unexplained, and our use of work may not leave anything as if placed on an anvil. Therefore, hasten, soul, to shape your offspring, to complete them more quickly, to nourish those you have brought forth more swiftly.
2. The Apostle demonstrates what a great formation is being born, saying: My little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you (Galat. IV, 19). Into this form, let all the depths of our mind unite, and in that womb of the soul, let Christ shine forth. Let our faith be our birth, and let the teachings of doctrine be our nourishment. Let our infancy be imbued with these things, let our childhood be instructed, let our youth be nurtured, and let our old age grow white. For old age is an unblemished life. Therefore, old age is truly a good for the soul, which no acts of treachery have stained. And so, Paul defends his offspring from this stain: 'I have begotten you,' he says, 'in the Gospel' (I Cor. IV, 15); lest any cruel whispering might try the faith's infancy. He was generating the masculine, therefore, who was eager to lead the peoples he taught to the perfection of faith, and to hold the perfect measure of the fullness of Christ in the knowledge of the Son of God (Ephes. IV, 13). For He knew that this sacrifice would be acceptable to God, about which it is written: 'You shall separate every offspring that opens the womb, the male belongs to the Lord' (Exodus 13:11). And the one who added: 'Every offspring that opens the womb among your livestock and animals, the male shall be sanctified to the Lord' (Ibid., 12); so that it may not be obscure, let us consider.
He had spoken about the main genera, that is, those capable of reason: he also added about the herd-like genera, that is, the remaining common senses, which are compared to irrational animals. However, when they are governed by some ruler, they easily become tamed; and they are accustomed to carry out commands, to submit to a yoke, to accelerate or stop at the master's voice, or to turn aside, or to perform various tasks of their assigned work, by a kind of human service. Such is the power of education, that it overcomes nature! Therefore, those things which do not have the fellowship of our substance, nevertheless recognize the dominion of our voice: and although they have no reason of their own nature, they take on our reason, and in a certain way acquire it as if transfused. We see horses spurred on by the pursuits of the common people, rejoicing in applause, delighting in flatteries of their masters. We behold fierce lions changing their natural ferocity into obedience, setting aside their own rage, adopting our customs; and although they themselves are terrible, they learn to fear. The dog is beaten so that the lion may be frightened: and he who is exasperated by his own injury is restrained by others, and is broken by the example of another. How often do they prefer to suffer hunger and endure the offense of the master, when there is prepared prey and food in sight? How often, impelled by a sudden movement, do they, commanded, open their mouths for bites? Thus, while they obey our will, they forget their own. Not so with those wild animals, or that herd of horses, or all kinds of cattle, which wander without any ruler, and without any guiding reins of the master, they are exasperated. And for this reason, cattle herders, shepherds, and other keepers were appointed, some as masters of their own flocks, forming their offices according to the condition of the animals entrusted to them.
Therefore, it seems that there is a certain kind of our senses that is tamed and gentle: another kind that is untamed which, with a certain movement of the mind as if lazy and loose, rushes towards irrational bodily pleasures; but the gentle kind that submits and subjects itself to the guidance of the mind. Therefore, whatever is governed by this nature is masculine and perfect; but whatever dominates without any leader, with a kind of plebeian presumption, like a city that is private to the council of the king and the nobles, it weakens all the states and manly vigor of its own body with a kind of feminine dissolution. From these things, that law of the flesh is, which, opposing the law of the Apostolic mind, was dragging it captive by a certain law of sin. And therefore, in order to be liberated from that body of death, Paul placed all his hope not in his own power, but in the grace of Christ (Rom. VII, 25). Hence it is clear that these disturbances which are according to the law of the mind, proceed from divine favor, while other sensations come from bodily pleasure.
Therefore, those things that are holy are the firstfruits of our senses: they are like a certain herd, and of a lowly condition: which seems Moses to have signified by various names. For this is also declared by that mystical ark of the law, of which he says: Thou shalt not make the beginnings of thy ark, and of thy fountains to be the last. The firstfruits of thy children thou shalt give to me. (Exod. 22:29) The holy movements of our senses, which are according to virtues, themselves are the firstfruits of a spiritual ark: therefore they are likened to a rural ark, in which the corn is winnowed. For just as wheat and barley are separated from the chaff when threshed in this rural area and, as they are repeatedly winnowed, the chaff and other impurities of the harvest are scattered by the gentle breath of the air in different directions, but those which are more solid fall back into the same place after the dust is shaken out, so the fruits of our thoughts, which are solid and excellent, present a pure and sincere nourishment of virtue, as it is written: 'Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word of God' (Luke 4:4). But those which are useless and empty are dispersed like smoke and clouds, for just as smoke irritates the eyes, so wickedness affects those who make use of it. And rightly so, iniquity is compared to smoke, which, like a certain secular darkness, clouds the sharpness of the mind.
6. And therefore the Lord says: When you enter the land which I bring you into, and when you begin to eat from its bread, you shall offer a separate oblation to the Lord, the firstfruits of your sprinkling, bread as an oblation from the threshing floor: thus you shall offer the firstfruits of your mixtures, and give them to the Lord (Num. XV, 2 et seq.). We are a mixture, composed of various elements. For cold is mixed with hot, and moist with dry, within us. This sprinkling has many allurements of the flesh and many delights: but these are not the original senses of this body, because we are made up of soul and body and spirit. This is the principal sprinkling, in which the Apostle desires us to be sanctified, as he says: 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 (I Thess. V, 23). The first fruits of this participation are spiritual, that is, the inventions and generations of the senses that proceed from the vigor of the soul. But not all senses are primitive, except those that are free from malice, wickedness, and all error. However, bodily pleasures are necessary, such as sleeping, eating, drinking, walking, and other such senses; but they are not the first fruits. And therefore, not in these bodily pleasures, but in the sacraments of the Lord, where there is purity, piety, faith, and devotion. The manifest and clear example of this thing is the offering of the patriarch Isaac, whom the father, unaffected by any motion of human passion, offered as a sacrifice in the mode of a sacrifice, offering a pure victim to God, empty of fear and free from bodily desire, while the piety of the father yielded to the devotion of the one sacrificing.