You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together.
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Clement Of Alexandria
AD 215
There it is perhaps guessing at the disparity between the animals. It is at the same time showing clearly that we must not wrong any of those from other races by bringing them under the same yoke when we have nothing against them apart from their foreignness, for which they are not responsible, which is not an immoral trait and does not spring from one. It is my view that this is an allegory, meaning that we should not share the cultivation of the Logos on equal terms between pure and impure, faithful and faithless, as the ox is accounted a clean animal and the donkey unclean.
Plough. In Leviticus xix. 19, this law is expressed, so as to forbid the procreation of mongrels. See Judges xiv. 18. People who have treated on agriculture observe, that it is a pernicious practice to make animals of unequal size and speed work together. (Colum. vi. 2.)
St. Paul explains to us the mystical sense of this passage. Bear not the yoke together with infidels, 2 Corinthians vi. 14. (Calmet)
Marry not with such. (Haydock)
Employ not in the sacred ministry the imprudent and wicked with those of a virtuous disposition. (St. Gregory, Mor. i. 16.)
What does Scripture mean by these riddles? That it is not right for evil and virtue to grow together in the same soul. Nor is it right, dividing one’s life between opposites, to reap thorns and grain from the same soul. Nor is it right for the bride of Christ to commit adultery with the enemies of Christ or to bear light in the womb and beget darkness. .
