And it is with particular beauty that he speaks of Damascus with reference, not to his father, but to his mother; in order to show that the soul depending on blood, by means of which the brute animals live, is akin properly to the female race; the race of his mother, and has no share in the male race. But this is not the case with virtue, that is with Sarah; Genesis ii. 7. Genesis xv. 2. Exodus xviii. 4.

for she has none but a male offspring, being borne only of God who is the father of all things, being that authority which has no mother. "For truly," says the scripture, "she is my sister by my father’s side, but not by my mother’s." Genesis xx. 12.

We have now explained what it was necessary for you to be apprised of as a preliminary. For the first part of the argument had a sort of enigmatical obscurity. But we must examine with more accurate particularity what the man who is fond of learning seeks. Perhaps then it is something of this sort: to know whether any one who is desirous of that life which is dependent on blood and who claims an interest in the objects of the outward sense, can become an inheritor of incorporeal and divine things?

for of such only he who is inspired from above is thought worthy, having received a portion of heavenly and divine inheritance, being in fact the most pure mind, disregarding not merely the body but also the other fragment of the soul, which being devoid of reason is mixed up with blood, kindling the fervid passions and excited appetites.

Accordingly, it pushes its inquiries in this manner: since you have not given to me a seed which is capable of becoming its own instructor, namely, that seed which is able to be comprehended by the intellect, "Shall the slave born in my house be my heir?" Genesis xv. 3. the offspring of that life which is dependent upon blood.