9. When then this partridge shall have been completely forsaken by his false children, then that foolish one whom God has chosen and who has confounded the wise man, will be saved. Wherefore _if any man seemeth to be wise in this world let him become a fool, that he may be wise_. Farewell my son, and love me, as indeed you do, for I love you. LETTER XXXIII. S. AMBROSE in this Letter explains more fully the text of Deut. (xxi. 15 &c.) which he had alluded to in Letter xxi. and makes the _two wives_ represent qualities. AMBROSE TO IRENÆUS, GREETING. Sidenote: Deut. xxi. 15. 1. IN a previous letter I said that the soul ought to be delivered from its adversaries, and a bond of life which shall be inseparable entered into with it. And inasmuch as my discourse took as a proof of its assertion that passage in the Book of Deuteronomy which speaks of the man who had two wives, one beloved and the other hated, you seem to have felt much concern lest any one should suppose this man had taken to himself two souls, which is impossible. 2. But you yourself know that sometimes, when Scripture uses allegory, it refers some things to the figure of the Synagogue, some to that of the Church; some things to the soul, others to the mystery of the Word, others to souls of different kinds and qualities, which he who has spiritual discernment can distinguish. And so I conceive that it is not two souls, but different qualities of the same soul, which are treated of in the following chapter of the Law. For there is an amiable kind of soul, which desires pleasure, which shuns labour, shrinks from compunction, slights the judgments of God. It is amiable because it seems gentle and sweet for the time, and one that soothes rather than distresses the mind. But there is another severer kind, which is consumed with zeal for God, which, like a strict wife, will not permit or suffer her consort to commit whoredoms, allows no indulgence to the body, gives no licence to delight or pleasure, renounces the hidden deeds of shame, devotes herself to arduous labours and to severe perils. Sidenote: Ib. 16. Sidenote: Exod. xiii. 2. S. Luke ii. 23. 3. If therefore both have borne children, _he may not_, it is said, _when he maketh his sons to inherit that which he hath, make the son of the beloved first[174] before the son of the hated, which is indeed the first_. The meaning of which I conceive not to be so much a simple preference as between two first ones, but rather a declaration that the son of the hated wife alone has the prerogative of being first. Now the word ‘primitivus’ means as first-born[175], and the first-born are holy, for _every male that openeth the womb shall be called holy to the Lord_. Nevertheless all first-born are not holy, for Esau who was the first-born was not holy. Sidenote: Numb. iii. 12, 13. Sidenote: Heb. xii. 22. Sidenote: Gen. xxix. 34.