De Virtutibus

For her first bounty was the birth by means of which that which had no existence was brought into being; the second bounteous gift was the flow of milk, the most tender and seasonable food for a tender creature, which, though it is only one thing, is at the same time both meat and drink. For inasmuch as part of the milk is of a watery nature, it is drink; and inasmuch as part of it is of a somewhat solid nature, it is meat; and it is endowed with these characteristics from a prudent foresight to prevent the lately born offspring from suffering disaster, through want lying in wait for it at different times, taking care thus that, by the one and the same application of each kind of food, it may escape those cruel mistresses, hunger and thirst.

Do you then, you excellent and most admirable parents, read this law and hide your faces, you who are continually plotting the deaths of your children, you who entertain cruel designs against your offspring, so as to expose them the moment that they are born, you irreconcileable enemies of the whole race of mankind;

for who is there to whom you ever entertain good will, when you are the murderers of your own children? You who, as far as lies in your power, make cities desolate, beginning with the destruction of your nearest relations; you who overturn all the laws of nature, and pull down all that she builds up; you who are savage and untameable in the barbarity of your souls, raising up destruction against birth, and death against life?

Do not you see, that it has been a care to that all-wise and all-good lawgiver, that not even in the case of brute beasts shall the offspring be separated from the mother until it has been nourished by her milk? And this is ordained principally for your sake, you noble persons, that if you have it not by nature, you may at least learn proper affection for your kindred by instruction, and having regard to the examples of lambs and kids, who are not hindered from revelling in the most abundant possible supply of necessary food, which nature itself prepares for them in the most convenient places, by which easy enjoyment of food is granted to those that stand in need of it the lawgiver providing, with great zeal and care, that no one shall intercept the bountiful and saving gifts of God.

And being desirous to implant the seeds of gentleness and humanity in the minds of men, by every kind of expedient imaginable, he adds also another injunction akin to the preceding one, forbidding any one to sacrifice the mother and the offspring on the same day, for even if they are both to be sacrificed, still it must be at different times, for it is the greatest extravagance of barbarity to slay in one day the animal which has been born and her who is the cause of its birth.

And for what object is this done? one is slain on pretence of sacrifice, the other for the gratification of the belly. If then it is on pretence of offering them in sacrifice, then the very name is given with falsehood; for animals taken for such purpose are victims, not sacrifices. [*]( The Greek is σφάγια, not θυσία. ) And what altar of God would ever receive such unholy sacrifices? And as for the fire, would it not of its own accord divide itself in two parts and stand asunder, avoiding all the contamination which might arise from any contact with such a profane thing? I imagine that it would not have remained, no, not for even the briefest time, but would have been immediately extinguished, out of a watchful care that the air, and the most holy nature of the Spirit, should not be polluted by the ascending flames.

And if they are not taken to be offered in sacrifice, but with a view to feast on them, then who can there be who would not loathe and reject all these new and unprecedented kinds of preposterous gluttony? for such men are, indeed, pursuing pleasures which are out of all reason. And what pleasure can it be to men who are eating meat, to devour, on the same occasion, the flesh of the mothers and of their offspring? And if any one were to desire to mangle the limbs of the two animals together, and to run them in a spit and to roast them, and so to devour them, I do believe that the very limbs themselves would not remain quiet, but would be filled with indignation and would utter speech, through their fury at the extraordinary character if the unprecedented injury done to them, and would revile, with innumerable reproaches for their gluttony, those men who had thus prepared this unmentionable banquet.