'Five hundred yoke of oxen also, and five hundred she-asses.' 41. The yoke of oxen: concordant virtues. The she-asses: wanton motions, or simple thoughts. — Yokes of oxen are for the use of our possession, when concordant virtues plough up the hardness of the mind. We possess also five hundred she-asses, when we restrain the wanton motions; and whatever in us desires to rise up carnally, we curb by the spiritual dominion of the heart. Or certainly to possess she-asses is to rule the simple thoughts within us: which, while they are not able to run in the subtler understanding, whereby they walk as it were more sluggishly, thereby they bear the fraternal burdens more gently.
For there are some who, while they understand not lofty things, press themselves more humbly to the outward works of conversation. Well therefore by she-asses, a sluggish animal indeed, yet given to bearing burdens, do we take simple thoughts; because, while we very often acknowledge our own ignorance, we more lightly endure the burdens of others. And when the loftiness of a singular wisdom does not lift us up, our mind inclines itself with equanimity to bearing the sloth of another's heart. Now rightly are either yokes of oxen or five hundred she-asses reckoned; because whether in this, that we savour prudently, or in this, that we humbly are ignorant, while we seek the rest of eternal peace, we are held as it were within the number of the jubilee. There follows: