Quis Rerum Divinarum Heres Sit

and as a very manifest proof of this the scripture says, "He took for himself all these things." [*](Genesis xv. 10 ) This is the praise of a virtuous man, who preserves the sacred deposit of those things which he has received, the soul, the outward sense, speech, divine wisdom, human knowledge, in a pure and guileless manner, not for himself, but only for him who has trusted him.

After this the scripture proceeds to say, "And he divided them in the middle," not explaining who did so, in order that you may understand that it was the untaught God who divided them, [*](Genesis xv. 9. ) [*](Exodus i. 15. ) [*](Genesis xv. 10 )

and when it has gone through them all, and arrived at the things which are called atoms and indivisible, then again this divider begins from them to divide those things which may be contemplated by the speculations of reason into unspeakable and indescribable portions, and to "beat the gold into thin plates," [*](Exodus xxxix. 3. ) like hairs, as Moses says, making them into one length without breadth, like unsubstantial lines.

Each therefore of the three victims he divided in the midst, dividing the soul into the rational and the irrational part, speech into truth and falsehood, and the outward sense into imaginations which can be and which cannot be comprehended; and these divisions he immediately places exactly opposite to one another, that is, the rational part opposite to the irrational, truth to falsehood, what is comprehensible to what is incomprehensible, leaving the birds undivided; for it was impossible to divide the incorporeal and divine sciences into contrarieties at variance with one another.