7. Thus the first-born has received the prerogative of inheritance, as the Scripture says, _He is the beginning of his strength, the right of the first-born is his_. Thus from the first-born Son of God the first-born are holy, and from that beginning, (for He is the Beginning and the Ending,) the beginning is called holy, the beginning is the son to whom the prerogative of the first-fruits is due, according to that which was said to Abraham, _Cast out this bondwoman and her son, for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac_. Sidenote: Ib. xxi. 12. 8. Now the Divine Oracle teaches us that this relates to the inheritance of virtues rather than that of mercy, for the Lord says, _In all that Sarah hath said unto thee, hearken unto her voice; for in Isaac shall thy seed be called_. What other inheritance was there in Isaac which could ennoble his father, but that of sanctity? The son of the handmaid indeed he set over the Gentiles, as bestowing upon him a simple portion of his patrimony, but to the son of Sarah he gave a double portion, for on him he bestowed not only temporal but also heavenly and eternal things. Farewell: love me, for I love you. LETTER XXXIV. HORONTIANUS asks whether the soul is from heaven. S. Ambrose first refers him to the Book of Esdras, and then dwells upon S. Paul’s statement in Rom. viii. AMBROSE TO HORONTIANUS[176], GREETING. 1. YOU have enquired of me whether the soul is formed of a heavenly substance; for you are too well instructed to suppose that the soul is made of blood or fire or any harmony of nerves, as the common herd of philosophers believe, nor as that patrician sect of them, the descendants of Plato assert, does that which moves of itself and is not moved by others appear to you to be the soul, nor indeed have you approved that fifth kind of element which the keen genius of Aristotle has introduced, namely a kind of[177] perfection of which the essence of the soul might be (as it were) framed and compounded. 2. On this subject I advise you to read the book of Esdras, who despised these trifles of the philosophers, and with a deeper wisdom which he had gathered from Revelation, pointed out that the soul is of a nobler substance. Sidenote: Rom. viii. 20, 21. Sidenote: Acts xvii. 28.