[95] But indeed it is commanded to offer tenths as first-fruits, not only from animals, but from all that springs from the earth. “Every tenth of the earth,” it says, “from the seed and from the fruit of wood, and every tenth of oxen and sheep, and everything that passes through in the number under the rod the tenth shall be holy unto the Lord” (Lev. 27:30, 32).
[96] Observe that he thinks that first-fruits are due from our body, the cumbersome mass which is indeed of earth and of wood. For its life and survival, growth and health, come to it by the grace of God. Note too that we are also bidden to give first-fruits of the unreasoning creatures within us, the senses, for sight and hearing and smell and taste and touch also are gifts of God for which we must give thanks.
[97] Yet not only for the wooden and earthen mass of the body, not only for the unreasoning creatures, the senses, are we taught to praise the Benefactor, but also for the mind which may be truly called the man within the man, the better part within the worse, the immortal within the mortal.
[98] This is why, I believe, He sanctified all the first-born, and took as their ransom the tenth, that is the tribe of Levi, that they should observe and maintain holiness and piety and the rites which are offered for the honour of God. For the first and best thing in us is the reason, and it is only right that from its intelligence, its shrewdness, its apprehension, its prudence and the other qualities which belong to it, we should offer first-fruits to God, who gave to it its fertility of thinking.
[99] It was this feeling which prompted the Man of Practice when he vowed thus, “Of all that thou givest me, I will give a tenth to thee” (Gen. 28:22); which prompted the oracle that follows the blessing given to the victor by Melchisedek the holder of that priesthood, whose tradition he had learned from none other but himself. For “he gave him,” it runs, “a tenth from all” (Gen. 14:20); from the things of sense, right use of sense; from the things of speech, good speaking; from the things of thought, good thinking.
[100] Admirable then, and demanded by the facts, are the words added as a sort of side utterance, when while telling us how the memorial of the divine and heaven-sent food was enshrined in a golden jar he continues, “the omer was the tenth part of three measures” (Ex. 16:36). For we seem to contain three measures, sense, speech, mind; sense measuring the objects of sense, speech the parts of speech and what we say, and mind the things of mind.
[101] Of each of these three measures we must offer as it were a holy tenth, that speech, sense perception and apprehension may be judged soundly and blamelessly according to God’s standard, for this is the true and just measure, while our measures are false and unjust.