But nevertheless I also intellectually have gone out to war against my enemies, and I saw there in the plunder a woman with a beautiful figure. Whatever we find said well and reasonably among our philosophical enemies, or we read anything said among them wisely and knowingly, we must cleanse it. We must remove and cut off all that is dead and worthless. It is as if one were trimming the hairs of the head and the nails of the woman taken from the spoils of the enemy. Only then would you take her as a wife.

The [Deuteronomic] law wishes males to have responsible sexual relations with their marriage partners, solely for the generation of children. This is clear when a bachelor is prevented from enjoying immediate sexual relations with a woman prisoner of war. If he once falls in love with her, he must let her cut her hair short and mourn for thirty days. If even so his desire has not faded away, then he may father children by her. The fixed period of time enables the overpowering impulse to be scrutinized and to turn into a more rational appetency.

SINCE that discourse^[1] took up an example from Deuteronomy for its assertion, where it is connected with the man who had two wives, one hateful, the other lovable, it is not unreasonable for you to be concerned, lest someone should perhaps think that the passage advocated that the man had two souls. This is not at all possible.

Truly, you yourself are not unaware that sometimes when Scripture speaks allegorically, one thing refers to the form of the synagogue, another to the church. One thing refers to the soul, another to the mystery of the Word and another to different forms and qualities of souls which the spiritually discerning person recognizes. In the following chapter of the law I judge that not two souls but different qualities of one soul were meant. For there is the form of the lovable soul, which delights in pleasures, flees from labor, shuns compunction and rejects the judgment of God. It is lovable in this way: it seems sweet and agreeable at the time. This form of the soul does not affect the mind but diverts it. But that other form of the soul is rather sadder. It is perfected by zeal for God, just as the severe wife is unwilling to allow her spouse to go to harlots. She does not endure it. She simply does not allow it. This form of the soul does not indulge the body in any way; she yields to no pleasures or delights. She rejects shameful secrets; she pursues harsh labors and grave dangers.

So the digression we made from one law to another was not pointless, so that we teach that the firstborn is not of that lovable wife, that is, the son of the wife who is indulgent and devoted to pleasure, although the verses before us express this thought. The words of Scripture say, He shall not propose the son of his lovable wife as the firstborn when he knows that the son of his hateful wife is the firstborn. Rather, he who is the holy offspring of a holy mother is genuinely the firstborn; true sons do not stray from their true mother though sinners do. Therefore, he is not the true firstborn who is not the son of the true mother, but like a firstborn he is helped by richers and honored lest he be in need. But the firstborn receives a double portion of all that he has in order that he may be rich, [just as] in Genesis you find that each patriarch received a gift of two cloaks from their brother Joseph when they were sent back to their father. [This signified] that their brother Joseph, who their father believed to be dead, was found.

If any of our own people also inquire, not from love of debate but from love of learning, why he suffered death in no other way except on the cross, let him also be told that no other way than this was good for us and that it was well that the Lord suffered this for our sakes. For if he himself came to bear the curse laid upon us, how else could he have become a curse^[1] unless he received the death set for a curse? And that is the cross. For this is exactly what is written: Cursed is he that hangs on a tree.