LXX. (195) But as long as you did not escape, and while you were still bridled with the bridle of those masters, you were unworthy to be the servant of a worse master. Giving thus the greatest proof of a mean, and lowly, and servile disposition, when you said, "My birthright and my Blessing."[Ge 27:36.] For these are the words of men who have fallen into immoderate ignorance, since it belongs to God alone to say, "Mine;" for to him alone do all things properly belong. (196) And to this he will himself bear witness when he says, "My gifts, my offerings, my first Fruits."[Nu 28:2.] You must take notice here that gifts are spoken of in contradistinction to offerings. For the former display the manifestation of the vastness of the perfect good things which God gives to those men who are perfect, but the latter are only prepared to last a very short time, and are partaken of by well-disposed practisers of virtue who are making progress towards perfection. (197) On which account Abraham also, when following the will of God, retained those things which had been given to him by God: "but sends back the horses of the king of Sodom"[Ge 14:21.] as the wages of harlots. And Moses also condescends to administer justice in most important points, and with reference to things of the greatest value. But the more unimportant causes and trials he commits to judges of inferior rank to investigate. (198) And whoever ventures to assert that any thing is his own shall be set down as a slave for ever and ever; as he who says, "I have loved my master, and my wife, and my children; I will not depart and be Free."[Ge 21:5.] He does well on confessing that slavery is proper for him; for can he be any thing but a slave who says, "Mine is mind, which is the master, being its own master, and possessed of absolute power; mine, also are the outward senses, the sufficient judges of corporeal substances; mine, also are the offspring of these objects of intellect which are the offspring of the mind, and the objects of the outward senses, which are the offspring of those same outward senses; for it is in my power to exert both the mind and the outward senses?" (199) But it is not sufficient for such a man only to bear witness against himself, but, being also condemned by God, who sentences him to most durable and everlasting slavery, he shall undergo his sentence: and be bored in the ear, that he may not receive the language of virtue, but that he may be a slave for ever, both in his mind and in his outward senses, which are bad and pitiless masters.