On the question, Who is the Heir of Divine Things (171-175)

The fifth commandment is about the honour due to parents. For this also is a sacred command; having reference not to men, but to him who is the cause of birth and existence of the universe, in accordance with whom it is that fathers and mothers appear to generate children; not generating them themselves, but only being the instruments of generation in his hands.

And this command is placed, as it were, on the borders between the two tables of laws relating to God and those relating to man, and so it bounds the five which concern piety, and that five also which comprehend a prevention of injury to one’s fellows. Since mortal parents are the boundaries of the immortal powers, which, generating everything according to nature, have permitted this lowest and mortal race to imitate their own powers of generation, and so to propagate its own seed; for God is the beginning of all generation, and the mortal species of mankind, being the lowest and least honoured of all, is the end.

The other table of five is the prohibition of adultery, of murder, of theft, of false witness, and of covetousness. These are generic rules, comprehending nearly all offences whatever, and to one of these rules each particular and special action is naturally referrible.

But you see also that the regularly occurring daily sacrifices are divided into equal portions; one portion being the sacrifice which the priests offer in their own behalf, consisting of the finest wheat-flour, and the other being that which they offer on behalf of the whole nation; consisting of two lambs, which they are especially commanded to offer. [*] For the law commands them to offer one half of the sacrifices [*]

You see also that the loaves which are placed upon the sacred table are divided by the twelve into equal parts, so as to be distributed to each company of six in number, and are so placed as a memorial of the tribes which are of a corresponding number: one half of whom, virtue, that is Leah, received as her share, having become the mother of six leaders of tribes; and the other half fell to the lot of Rachel’s children and those of the other women.