65. Transitory things being despised, the things that shall abide unto eternity are desired.—For all things are dry which, temporally established, are dried up as by a summer sun from the pleasantness of the present life by the fate to come. But things called green are those which wither by no temporality. For this wild ass, then, to seek out green things is, for each holy man, transitory things being despised, to desire the things that shall abide unto eternity. But all these things that have been said of the wild ass can also be understood otherwise. These we expound by repeating the foregoing verse, so that we may leave to the reader's judgment what he shall have believed ought to be chosen.
After, therefore, the office of the preachers has been described under the figure of the hinds, in order that it might be shown through whom this same virtue of preaching is given, there is straightway subjoined a commemoration of the Lord's incarnation, so that it is said: