He had learnt this lesson under Abraham, who stood as grandfather to his early training, who gave to wise Isaac all his wealth (Gen. 25:5), leaving nothing for the false bastard thoughts bred of his concubines, save little gifts for those of little worth. For the real wealth, the perfect virtues, are the possessions of the perfect and true-born only. But the secondary things of the daily duties are fitting to the imperfect, who have risen only to the primary learning of the schools. These have Hagar and Keturah for their source, Hagar meaning ‘sojourning,’ and Keturah ‘incense-burning.’ For he who contents himself with the secular learning only does but sojourn and is not domiciled with wisdom. He sheds indeed over the soul, as it were, a sweet fragrance from the exquisite niceties of his studies, but yet it is food, not fragrance, that he needs for his health. The sense of smell is but the minister of the sense of taste; she is as the slave who tastes each dish before the monarch; we call her indeed a useful contrivance of nature, yet only an underling. And the sovereign forms of knowledge must ever be served above the subject, and the native-born above the alien sojourner.” After hearing this the mind turns away from pleasure and cleaves to virtue, for it apprehends her loveliness, so pure, so simple, so holy to look upon. Then too it becomes a shepherd of the sheep, one who guides the chariot and controls the helm of the unreasoning faculties of the soul, who does not suffer them to be swept away in disorder and discord, without a master or a guide, lest their unbridled instincts come to perdition, when they lack the protection and control of a father’s hand, and help is far away.
On the Sacrifices of Abel and Cain 10
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