33 1Again we are bidden to set apart not only from these but from the “whole mixture.” The words of the commandment are as follows, “and it shall be that when ye eat of the bread of the land, ye shall set apart a portion marked out for the Lord: a loaf as the first offering of your mixture, ye shall set it apart as a portion. As ye do with a portion from the threshing-floor, so shall ye set it apart” (Numb. 15:19–20). 2The “mixture” then is ourselves, and indeed in a literal sense, so many substances are brought together and compounded in us, to make our complete selves. Cold and heat, wet and dry, such opposite forces as these were blended and combined by the moulder of living creatures to produce that single congeries the individual, and it is from this that it is here called a “mixture.” 3Of this congeries, in which soul and body hold the place of primary divisions, we must dedicate the firstlings. 4These firstlings are the sacred impulses which accord with the excellence of either, and therefore also we have the comparison with the threshing-floor. For as on the threshing-floor the wheat, barley, and other grain are gathered apart, while the chaff and husk and any other refuse are scattered elsewhither, so too in us there are the best, the profitable elements which provide that true nourishment, whereby right living is brought to its fullness. These it is which must be dedicated to God, while the rest which has nothing of the divine must be left as refuse to mortality. It is from the former then that we must take for our offering. 5But there are some powers which are pure from evil through and through, and these we must not mutilate by severing into their parts. These are like the undivided sacrifices, the whole burnt-offerings of which Isaac is a clear example, whom God commanded to be offered in victim’s fashion, because he had no part or lot in any passion which breeds corruption. 6And the same truth is taught in another passage, “my gifts, my offerings, my fruits ye shall observe to offer me at my feasts” (Numb. 28:2). No word here of setting apart or dividing: they are to be brought full, perfect, and complete. For the soul’s feast is the joy and gladness which the perfect virtues bring, and by perfect is meant virtues unspotted by all the tainting evils to which the human race is liable. Such a feast the wise man only can keep and save him none other. For hardly ever shall you find a soul which has never tasted of passions or vices.