beasts  of  the  earth,  and  fowls  of  the  heaven,  and
things  moving  on  earth,  and  the  fish  of  the  sea,
and  every  creeping  thing,*  He  says,  '  lliey  shall
be  to  you  for  food :  just  like  grassy  vegetables


ate,  in  short,  and  perished  ;  saved  (as  he  would)
else  (have  been),  if  he  had  preferred  to  fast
from  one  little  tree :  so  that,  even  from  this
early  date,  animal  faith  may  recognise  its  own

seed,  deducing  from  thence  onward  its  appetite  1  have  I  given  (them)  you  universally :  but  flesh
for  carnalities  and  rejection  of  spiritualities. I '  in  the  blood  of  its  own  soul  shall  ye  not  eat.'  *
hold,  therefore,  that  from  the  very  beginning  the  j  For  even  by  this  very  fact,  that  He  exempts
murderous  gullet  was  to  be  punished  with  the  from  eating  that  flesh  only  the  '  soul '  of  which
torments  and  penalties  of  hunger. Even  if  God  is  not  out-shed  through  *  blood,'  it  is  manifest
had  enjoined  no  preceptive  fasts,  still,  by  point- !  that  He  has  conceded  the  use  of  all  other  flesh."
ing  out  the  source  whence  Adam  was  slain. He  j  To  this  we  reply,  that  it  was  not  suitable  for  man
who  had  demonstrated  the  offence  had  left  to  to  be  burdened  with  any  further  special  law  of
my  intelligence  the  remedies  for  the  offence. I  abstinence,  who  so  recently  showed  himself  una*
Unbidden,  I  would,  in  such  ways  and  at  such  |  ble  to  tolerate  so  light  an  interdiction  —  of  one
times  as  I  might  have  been  able,  have  habitually  single  fruit,  to  wit ;  that,  accordingly,  having  had
accounted  food  as  poison,  and  taken  the  anti-  i  the  rein  relaxed,  he  was  to  be  strengthened  by
dote,  hunger ;  through  which  to  purge  the  pri-  j  his  very  liberty  ;  that  equally  after  the  deluge,  in
mordial  cause  of  death  —  a  cause  transmitted  to ,  the  rrformation  of  the  human  race,  (as  before
me  also,  concurrently  with  my  very  generation; ,  it),  one  law  —  of  abstaining  from  blood  —  was
certain  that  God  willed  that  whereof  He  nilled  sufficient,  the  use  of  all  things  else  being  al-
the  contrary,  and  confident  enough  that  the  care  \  lowed. 