But we also find “everything which openeth the womb from thy herds amongst thy cattle, all that are born to thee, the males to the Lord” (Exod. 13:12). Having spoken of the offspring of the ruling element he proceeds to instruct us as to the offspring of the unreasoning element, the element allotted to the senses, which he likens to cattle. Now the younglings that are reared among the herd are tame and docile, because they are guided by the care of the herdsman who rules them. For those that roam at large and in liberty become wild for want of one to tame them, but those who are led by goatherd, neat-herd, shepherd, and the like, the herdsman, that is, who tends whatever kind of animal it may be, must needs be tame and gentle. So then, the senses also as a kind may be either wild or tame. They are wild when, throwing off the control of their herdsman the mind, they are carried away in their unreason into the outer sphere of things perceptible by them. They are tame when they respond submissively to reflection, the ruling element in our compound nature, and accept its guidance and control. Whatsoever then sense sees or hears or in general perceives under the direction of the mind is male and perfect, for each perception is made under good conditions. But whatsoever lacks that guide works destruction in our body, as anarchy does in a city. So then here, as in the former case, we must admit that the motions of the senses, which obey the mind and necessarily are of the better kind, come to pass through God’s will, but those which reject control must be held to belong to ourselves, when propelled by the external objects of sense we are carried away in unreasoning course.
On the Sacrifices of Abel and Cain 32
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