Evaluating Offerings

Concluso ergo illo et convicto Cain crimine, aliud oblationis vitium discutiamus. Obtulit, inquit, ex fructibus terrae, non a primis fructibus primitias Deo. Hoc est primitias sibi prius vindicare: Deo autem sequentia deferre. Itaque cum vere anima corpori tamquam servo domina sit praeferenda, utique primitias ejus, hoc est, animae prius quam corporis offerre debemus. Primitiae animae primatus sunt bonarum disciplinarum. Quae licet tempore posteriores sint, quam corporis primitiae, quae sunt esca, incrementum, visus, auditus, et tactus, odor, vox (mens autem et sensus pars animae) pars corporis, tamen prioris sunt disciplinis. Quarum primitiva est pure corde et simplici sermone oblata Deo gratiarum actio. Haec munera obtulit Abel, et ideo respexit Deus in munera ejus, quoniam e primitivis obtulit. Accedit ergo quia de primitivis ovium, et de adipibus earum. Considera quia non de insensibilibus, sed de animantibus obtulit. Plus est enim animalis, quam terrenus; siquidem animalis proximus spiritali est. Non enim prius quod spiritale est, sed quod animale, deinde quod spiritale. Quod animale spirat, habet vitalem spiritum: non ita quod de terrarum est fructibus. Deinde obtulit non secunda, sed prima; non exigua, sed pinguia:. Sanctus Ambrosius Mediolanensis, De Cain et Abel, Liber I, Caput X Source: Migne PL 14. 377a-b

For that end and the criminal conviction of Cain we may discern some fault of offering. He offered offerings to God, it is said, from the fruit of the land, but not from the first fruits. 1Yet this is the offering that first vindicates one, he however brought to God the things that come after. Thus it truly is that the soul to the body, as that which rules to that which serves, must be preferred, and so his offering should have been an offering of the soul not of the body. The great offering of the soul are the goods of discipline. And the things after are the offerings sacrifices of the body, which are food, growth, sight, hearing, touch, smell, voice, all parts of the body, for mind and reason are parts of the soul, however by the former the things of the body are disciplined, of which the greatest are the pure heart and the simple word for offering to God the deed of thanks. And these gifts Abel offered and therefore God looked on his gifts, because from the first of them he offered. It happened so because it was from the first of the sheep, and from the fat of them. And consider that he offered not from insensible things but from animate creatures. For greater indeed is the animal than the earth, as nearer is the animal to the spiritual. For what is spiritual does not come before but what is animal, and then what is spiritual. Since the animal breathes it has the vital spirit, which is not so concerning the fruit of the earth. Thus he offered not what comes second but what comes first, not poor things, but rich things. Saint Ambrose, Cain and Abel, Book 1, Chap 10 1 Gen 4.3