Concerning the Ten Commandments, which are the Heads of the Law (77-79)

and as to these particular animals, they have indeed some reason for what they do, for they are the most domestic, and the most useful to life.

The bull, as a plougher, draws furrows for the reception of the seed, and is again the most powerful of all animals to thresh the corn out when it is necessary to purify it of the chaff; the ram gives us the most beautiful garments for the coverings of our persons; for if our bodies were naked, they would easily be destroyed either through heat, or through intense cold, caused at one time by the blaze of the sun, and at another by the cooling of the air.

But as it is they go beyond these animals, and select the most fierce, and untameable of all wild animals, honouring lions, and crocodiles, and of reptiles the poisonous asp, with temples, and sacred precincts, and sacrifices, and assemblies in their honour, and solemn processions, and things of that kind.

they have also deified many other animals, dogs, ichneumons, wolves, birds, ibises, and hawks, and even fish, taking sometimes the whole, and sometimes only a part; and what can be more ridiculous than this conduct? [*]