History of My Calamities & Works 3

I was gazing in a vision of the night, and behold: three men, coming by different paths, stood before me. At once, after the manner of a vision, I asked them of what profession they were, or why they had come to me. "We are men," they said, "who rest upon different sects of faith. For we all alike profess to be worshippers of the one God, yet we serve Him with differing faith and life. One of us, indeed, is a Gentile, of those whom they call philosophers, and is content with the natural law.

The other two, however, possess the Scriptures: of these, the one is called a Jew, the other a Christian. And after long conferring and disputing among ourselves concerning the differing sects of our faith, we have at length yielded to your judgment." Greatly marveling at this, I asked who had led them into this, or gathered them together, and above all, why they had chosen me as judge in these matters. The Philosopher answered: "This," he said, "is my undertaking; for it is the philosophers' own task to investigate the truth by reasons, and in all things to follow not the opinion of men but the guidance of reason.

Therefore, having applied my heart attentively to the schools of our masters, and being instructed as much by their reasonings as by their authorities, I at last betook myself to moral philosophy, which is the goal of all the disciplines, and for whose sake I judged that all else was to be tasted beforehand. Here, being instructed, so far as I could, concerning the highest good and the highest evil, and concerning those things which make a man either blessed or wretched, I forthwith diligently scrutinized the various sects of faith by which the world is now divided; and having examined them all and compared them one with another, I resolved to follow that which is more in accord with reason. I betook myself therefore also to the teaching of the Jews and of the Christians, examining the faith and the laws or the reasons of both.

I found the Jews foolish and the Christians mad—so let me speak this, with all due peace to you who are called a Christian. I conferred long with both; and our conference not yet having reached an end of its altercation, we resolved to commit the reasons of our several parties to your arbitration. For we know that neither the force of philosophical reasonings nor the bulwarks of either law lie hidden from you. Indeed, the Christian profession so rests upon its own law, which they call the New Testament, that nevertheless it does not presume to reject the Old, but bestows the greatest study upon the reading of both.

It behooved us to choose some judge, that our altercation might reach an end, and we could find no one save within some one of these three sects." And then, as if vending the oil of flattery and soothing my head with this ointment, he at once added: "By however great a keenness of intellect and a knowledge of any Scriptures whatever you are reputed to excel, by so much the more is it established that you prevail in favoring or defending this judgment, and that you can give satisfaction to the rebellion of any one of us.

Indeed, of what keenness your intellect is, and how greatly the treasury of your memory abounds with philosophical and divine maxims—beyond the customary studies of your schools, in which, in both fields of learning, you are established to have flourished above all masters, even your own, or above the very writers of the sciences that have been discovered—a certain proof has shown itself to us: that marvelous work of theology, which neither could envy bear nor avail to take away, but which, by persecuting it, it rendered the more glorious." Then I:

"I do not court," I said, "the favor of this honor which you have reserved for me—namely, that, the wise being passed over, you should appoint a fool as judge. For I too, like you, being accustomed to the empty contentions of this world, shall not find it grievous to hear those things in which I have been wont to take delight. You, however, philosopher, who, professing no law, yield to reason alone, should not reckon it any great matter if in this contest you seem to prevail. For you have two swords for the fight, whereas the others are armed against you with but one. You can act against them as much by Scripture as by reason;

they, however, since you follow no law, can object nothing to you from the law; and they can prevail the less against you by reasons, by as much as you, being more practiced in reasonings, possess the richer philosophical armament. Yet since you have established this by compact and by equal consent, and since I see that each of you trusts in his own powers, by no means shall our bashfulness inflict a repulse upon your boldness—especially since I believe I shall gain some instruction from these things. For, as one of our own has recorded, no teaching is so false that it does not mingle in some truth, and I judge no disputation to be so frivolous that it does not contain some lesson.

Whence even that greatest of the wise, at the very outset of his Proverbs, preparing for himself an attentive reader, says: A wise man hearing shall be wiser, and a man of understanding shall possess governance. And the apostle James says: Let every man be swift to hear, but slow to speak. They assent, rejoicing at our assent. The Philosopher: "It is mine," he said, "first to question the rest, I who am content with the natural law, which is the first. For this very purpose I have gathered you, that I might inquire concerning the writings superadded. The first, I say, not only in time but also in nature; for everything simpler is naturally prior to that which is more manifold.

Now the natural law—that is, the knowledge of morals, which we call ethics—consists in moral teachings alone. But the doctrine of your laws has added to these certain precepts of outward signs, which seem to us altogether superfluous, concerning which also we must confer in its proper place." Both grant to the philosopher the first place in the encounter of this contest. Then he said: "One thing I first ask of you both together, which I see pertains equally to you who rely most upon Scripture: namely, whether some reason led you into these sects of faith, or whether you here follow only the opinion of men and the love of your own kind. Of these, if it be the former, it is most to be approved, just as the latter is utterly to be disapproved.

Yet that the latter is true, I believe no man of discernment would, in conscience, deny. For so deeply is implanted in individual men a love of their own kind and of those among whom they are reared, that they shudder at whatever is said against their faith; and turning custom into nature, whatever they have learned as boys they hold fast obstinately as grown men, and they affirm that they believe before they are even able to grasp the things that are said. For, as the poet too has recorded: The jar, once it has been steeped while new, will long preserve the odor. Such men a certain one of the philosophers indeed reproaches, saying:

"Let them not, if they have received anything in childish disciplines, judge it sacrosanct, since indeed the more mature treatise of philosophy often eliminates the things fitted to tender ears." For what is wondrous is this: though through the succession of ages and of times human understanding grows in all other things, yet in faith—whose error involves the highest peril—there is no advance. But the lesser are said to think upon this matter equally with the greater, the rustic equally with the lettered; and he is called most firm in faith who does not exceed the common sense of the people. Which assuredly is certain to happen for this reason: that no one is permitted, among his own, to inquire what ought to be believed, nor to doubt with impunity concerning those things which are said by all.

For men are ashamed to be questioned about those things concerning which they cannot answer. Indeed, no one willingly approaches a conflict who distrusts his own powers, and he runs eagerly to the fight who hopes for the glory of victory. These men also often break out into such madness that they are not ashamed to profess that they believe what they confess they cannot understand—as though faith consisted rather in the utterance of words than in the comprehension of the mind, and were of the mouth rather than of the heart. And in this above all they glory, when they seem to believe such great things as can neither be discussed by mouth nor conceived by mind.

And the singularity of his own sect makes them so presumptuous and puffed up that whomsoever they have seen divided from themselves in faith, they judge to be estranged from the mercy of God, and, with all others condemned, proclaim themselves alone blessed. Long, therefore, considering this blindness and pride of the human race, I betook myself to the divine mercy, humbly and continually imploring it, that it might deign to lead me out of so great an abyss of errors and so wretched a Charybdis, and to direct me out of such tempests to the gate of salvation. Concerning which even now you see me anxious, and intently bent, like a disciple, upon the instructions of your answers. The Jew:

You questioned two of us together, but it is not fitting for two to answer at once, lest the multitude of speakers hinder understanding. I will answer first, if it please you, because we came first into the worship of God, or first received the discipline of the law. But this brother, who professes himself a Christian, where he shall observe me failing or proving insufficient, will supply to my imperfection what may be lacking—he who, bearing as it were two horns in the two Testaments, will, being thus armed, be able the more mightily to resist the foe and to do battle. The Philosopher: I agree. The Jew:

But this one thing, before the contest of our conference, I wish to forewarn you of: that if perchance you should seem to overcome my simplicity by the truth of philosophical reasons, you should not therefore glory that you have conquered us, nor turn the feebleness of one little man into the disgrace of a whole people, nor refute the faith from the fault of a man, nor slander it as erroneous because I am less able to expound it. The Philosopher: This too seems to have been said prudently enough, but it was premised by no necessity—since indeed you do not doubt that I labor for the inquiry of truth, not for the ostentation of pride, nor to wrangle as a sophist, but to scrutinize reasons as a philosopher, and—what is greatest—to hunt for the salvation of my soul. The Jew:

May the Lord Himself, who is seen to have inspired this zeal in you, that you should seek Him with so great a solicitude for the salvation of your soul, grant us this conference, through which you may be able to find Him unto salvation. Now it remains for me to answer the questions, as far as He Himself shall grant. The Philosopher: So indeed it is fitting, according to the agreement of our purpose. The Jew: It is established that all men, while they are little ones and do not yet possess the age of discernment, follow the faith or the custom of those men with whom they consort, and most of all of those whom they love the more. But after they are grown, so that they can be ruled by their own judgment, they ought to be committed not to another's but to their own judgment, and it is fitting not so much to follow opinion as to scrutinize truth.

These things I have premised for this reason: that perhaps it was first the affection of fleshly origin and the custom which we first knew that led us into this faith. But now reason rather than opinion detains us here. The Philosopher: Open to us, I beseech you, this reason, and it suffices. The Jew: This law which we follow, if, as we believe, it was given to us by God, we are not to be reproved for obeying it—nay, we are rather to be rewarded for our obedience; and those who despise it err greatly. But if we cannot compel you to grant that it was given by God, neither are you able to refute this. And that we may take an example from the custom of human life, give me, I beseech you, your counsel!

I am the servant of a certain master, and I fear greatly to offend him, and I have many fellow-servants troubled by the same fear. They tell me that our master, in my absence, has commanded something to all his servants which I do not know, which they too perform and exhort me to cooperate in. What do you commend that I should do, if I should doubt concerning that precept at which I was not present? I do not believe that you or any other would counsel me, with the counsel of all my fellow-servants spurned, to follow my own sense and to set myself alone apart from that which they in common do, and which they all testify the master has commanded—especially since the precept seems such as can be refuted by no reason.

What need is there for me to doubt concerning a danger from which I can remain secure? If the Lord has commanded this—which is confirmed by the testimony of many and has the most of reason—I am altogether inexcusable if I do not obey. But if, deceived by the counsel or exhortation and example of my fellow-servants, I do what may not have been commanded, then even if it ought not to have been done, it is to be imputed to them rather than to me, whom the reverence of the master drew to this. The Philosopher: Certainly you yourself have opened the very counsel which you sought, and no man of discernment would judge against this; but fit the example of the proposed likeness to that toward which we tend! The Jew:

Many generations, as you yourself know, have gone before, from the time when our people, by obeying, have kept this Testament, which they declare was given to them by God; and all alike have instructed their posterity, as much by word as by example, concerning the observance of it; and well-nigh the whole world consents in this, that this law was given to us by God. Concerning which, even if we cannot perhaps compel some unbelievers, yet there is no one who can by any reason refute this which we believe. For it is pious to feel, and altogether consonant with reason, and as befitting the divine goodness as the salvation of man, that God should take such great care of men that He would deign also to instruct them by the writing of a law, and at least by the fear of penalties to restrain our malice.

For if the laws of secular princes have been salutarily instituted for this end, who would gainsay that the highest and most benign Prince of all has taken care of this matter also? For how can anyone govern a subject people without a law, if indeed each one, left to his own judgment, should follow what he chose? Or how shall He justly check their malice by punishing the wicked, unless first a law be established which forbids evils to be done? By this reasoning I believe it to be clear that the divine law preceded among men, so that the world might take the beginning and authority of this good also from God, when by the institution of certain laws He willed to bridle malice.

Otherwise it might easily seem that God does not care for human affairs, and that the very state of the world is driven rather by chance than ruled by providence. But if any law is believed to have been given to the world by God, concerning which is it more to be thought than concerning ours, which has obtained so great an authority from antiquity and from the common opinion of men? Let it finally be doubtful to me as to you, that God instituted this law—which nevertheless is confirmed by so many testimonies and by reason—yet you are compelled, according to the induction of the supposed likeness, to counsel me to obey it, especially since my own conscience invites me to this.

I hold in common with you a faith in the truth of the one God; perhaps I love Him equally with you, and from works which you do not have I moreover render Him this. How do these works hinder me, if they do not profit, even if they are not commanded, since they are not forbidden? Who, moreover, could reproach me, if, bound by no precept, I labor the more for the Lord? Who would reproach this faith, which, as has been said, most of all commends the divine goodness and kindles our charity toward Him in the highest degree—Him who is so solicitous for our salvation that He deigns even to instruct us by the writing of a law? Either therefore reprove something in this law, or cease to inquire why we follow it!

Whoever judges that the perseverance of this our zeal, enduring such great things, is empty of reward, makes God out to be most cruel. For no nation is known, or even believed, ever to have endured such great things for God as we continually endure for Him; and there can be no rust of sin which the furnace of this affliction ought not to be granted to consume. Are we not, scattered among all nations, alone, without an earthly king or prince, burdened with such great exactions that on well-nigh every single day of our wretched life we must pay an intolerable ransom? For we are reckoned worthy of such great contempt and hatred by all, that whoever inflicts upon us any injury believes it the greatest justice and the highest sacrifice offered to God.

For they declare that the calamity of so great a captivity has befallen us only out of the highest hatred of God, and they impute to just vengeance whatever savagery they exercise against us, both Gentiles and Christians. The Gentiles, indeed, mindful of the ancient oppressions by which we first possessed their land and afterward, by long persecutions, ground them down and destroyed them, impute to deserved vengeance whatever they heap upon us. But the Christians, because, as they say, we killed their God, seem to have a greater cause of persecution against us. Behold among what manner of men our pilgrimage is exiled, and on whose protection we must rely! We commit our life to our deadliest enemies, and we are compelled to entrust ourselves to the good faith of the faithless.

Sleep itself, which most fosters and refreshes our relaxed nature, disquiets us with such great solicitude that even while sleeping we are permitted to think of nothing but the peril of our own throat. Nowhere, save to heaven, does a safe entrance lie open to us, for whom the very place of our dwelling is perilous. About to go forth to any neighboring places, we hire at no small price an escort—the very one in whom we have little confidence. The princes themselves, who preside over us and whose protection we buy dearly, desire our death the more, by as much as the more licentiously they plunder what we possess. And, bound and oppressed by these, as though the world had conspired against us alone, this itself is a marvel—that it is permitted us to live;

nor is it granted to us to have fields or vineyards or any earthly possessions, because there is no one who can protect them for us from open or hidden molestation. Whence there remains to us chiefly this gain: that, lending at interest to foreigners, we may thereby sustain our wretched life—which indeed makes us most odious to those very men, who reckon themselves greatly burdened in this. But concerning this supreme misery of our life, and the perils by which we ceaselessly toil, our very state suffices to speak to all more than the tongue could. The very precepts of the law, too—with how great difficulty they are entangled—lies hidden from no one who has touched them, so that we are intolerably afflicted both by the oppression of men and by the yoke of the law.

Who would not shrink or tremble to receive the very sacrament of our circumcision, both from the shame and from the pain of it? What portion of the human body is so tender as that on which the law inflicts this wound, even in the very infants? What is so great a bitterness of the wild lettuces which we take in the seasoning of the paschal sacrifice? Who would not see that almost all delicate foods, and most of all those which can be easily procured, are forbidden to us? Any flesh foretasted by beasts is unclean to us, and any carrion or strangled thing is interdicted to us.

Nor is it permitted us to eat of beasts, save those which we ourselves have slaughtered and carefully purged of fat and veins—which also burdens us not a little, and most of all when we are not able to buy a whole beast. For just as we abhor the flesh slaughtered by the Gentiles, so do they abhor that procured by us. From wine too, procured by others, we all alike abstain. From which it is clearly established how hard it is that our pilgrimage should live among you for the sake of God. Who, finally, would not shrink not only to endure the austerity of the legal penalties, but even to inflict it upon the guilty?

Who could bear to take from his brother a tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye, a soul also for a soul—still less to consent to endure these things upon himself, lest indeed he stand contrary to the law? From these, and from countless other observances, it is plain that each one of us, obeying the law, rightly professes to God that word of the Psalmist: Because of the words of Thy lips I have kept hard ways. The Philosopher: Truly this zeal, which you seem to have toward God, endures many and great things, with whatever intention. But it makes the greatest difference whether this intention be right or erroneous. For there is no sect of faith which does not believe that it serves God, and does not work for His sake those things which it judges to please Him.

Yet you do not therefore approve the sects of all, you who strive to defend yours alone, or to prefer it far above the rest. But how much this is dissonant from reason, I wish you to weigh, and to be reproved from the very writing of the law which you follow. The Jew: This too I gladly undertake. The Philosopher: It is established that, before the very giving of the law or the observances of the legal sacraments, very many, content with the natural law—which, namely, consists in the love of God and of neighbor—cultivated justice and proved most acceptable to God: such as Abel, Enoch, Noah, and his sons, Abraham too, and Lot, and Melchizedek, whom even your law commemorates and greatly commends.

Of these, Enoch indeed is reported to have so pleased God that the Lord is said to have taken him up alive into paradise, as also a certain one of you affirms with these words: Enoch pleased God and was translated into paradise, that he might give to the nations repentance. But Noah too—as it is written, a just and perfect man in his generations—how greatly the Lord loved him, He showed by manifest deeds, when, namely, with all others submerged by the flood, He reserved him alone and his household as a seed for the human race.

To these add also those illustrious patriarchs of yours, namely Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in whom and in whose seed the blessing of all nations is promised to be future, who also preceded the law; and see how much more excellent is their prerogative than that of the others who existed after the law. Whence God is also specially said to be theirs, and the lawgiver Moses himself, through their merits and the promises made to them, reconciles the Lord, angry, to the people. For it is written: But Moses prayed to the Lord, saying: Let Thy anger be quieted, and be appeasable concerning the wickedness of Thy people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel Thy servants, to whom Thou didst swear by Thine own self, saying:

I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land of which I have spoken I will give to your seed, and you shall possess it forever. And the Lord was appeased, that He should not do the evil which He had spoken. From which it is clearly gathered how acceptable to God were those freely-given services of the earlier fathers, to which as yet no law constrained them—in which we still serve Him with that liberty. But if you should say that in Abraham the law in some manner began, namely on account of the sacrament of circumcision, you will assuredly find that he obtained from this no reward with God—lest there be for you any glorying from the law—nor that he attained anything of justification, nor that he was even on this account commended by the Lord.

For it is written that he, while not yet circumcised, was justified through faith, like the earlier fathers, when it is said: Abraham believed God, and it was reputed to him unto justice. Whose religion, moreover, had beforehand received the promise of the land and of the future multiplication, both for himself and for his seed. And afterward, being circumcised, when he heard from the Lord that in himself or in his seed all nations were to be blessed, he merited this not from circumcision, but from that obedience by which he was willing to immolate his son.

Finally, if you should turn over the whole history of your Testament, you will find no reward of circumcision promised, but only this established by the Lord: that whoever of the seed of Abraham shall not have been circumcised should not be numbered among his people—that is, among the sons of Abraham. For thus it is written, the Lord saying to Abraham: I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your seed after you, etc. This is the covenant which you shall observe: Every male among you shall be circumcised; the infant of eight days shall be circumcised among you. The male whose foreskin's flesh shall not have been circumcised—that soul shall perish from his people, etc.

And if you should say that this 'perishing' is to be understood also of the damnation of the soul, then the institution of circumcision has so much the less reason, by as much as it is the more perilous not to have it—without which, before, it did no harm to be. Which sentence also pre-builds the kingdom of heaven for infants dying before the eighth day, who nevertheless have committed as yet no harm whereby they might have deserved to be damned. Consider too, diligently, what reward of the observance of the whole law the Lord promises and prefixes. Nothing at all can you expect thence from Him save earthly prosperity, since you see nothing else there promised.

Since he does not even show whether you at least obtain this much—you who by your own judgment also are afflicted above all mortals—it is no small wonder by what hope you endure so many and such great hardships in this obedience to the Law, seeing that you have been cheated above all of that very advantage which ought especially to be awaited by you from the very obligation of the promise itself. Either, then, you do not fulfill the Law, and through this you incur the curse of the Law and deserve damnation; or else he who promised these things to those who fulfill the Law does not prove truthful in his promises. But whichever of these you choose, I see nothing in the Law in which you ought to place confidence, and that it earns but little toward blessedness.

What, I ask, was the reason that, when God invited you to the observance of the Law by its reward, he promised what is least, yet was utterly silent about what is greatest? Surely he did not plead the case discerningly, if he knew that both alike sufficed for obedience to the Law, since he wholly passed over that which had the greatest power of persuasion. For nothing, as has been said, is there commemorated in the reward concerning that true and eternal blessedness, but earthly prosperity is intimated to such a degree that this alone is set forth as the ground of obedience; and it is so commended that, by this response, every inquiry of those who came after is deemed to be satisfied.

For thus it is written, when Moses the lawgiver himself instructs the people against any assault upon the Law, saying: Hear, O Israel; keep the precepts of the Lord your God, and the testimonies and the ceremonies which he has commanded, and do what is pleasing and good in the sight of the Lord, that it may be well with you, and that, entering in, you may possess that most excellent land which he swore to your fathers, so that he might destroy all your enemies before you, as he has spoken. When your son shall ask you tomorrow, saying, What mean these testimonies and ceremonies and judgments which the Lord our God has commanded us? you shall say to him:

We were Pharaoh's bondservants in Egypt, and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand, and he wrought signs and wonders, great and grievous, in Egypt against Pharaoh and all his household in our sight; and he brought us out from there, that, having led us in, he might give us the land concerning which he swore to our fathers. And the Lord commanded us to perform all these statutes, and to fear the Lord our God, that it might be well with us all the days of our life, as it is this day. Likewise: The Lord your God has chosen you, that you should be to him a peculiar people of all the peoples that are upon the earth. Keep therefore the precepts and ceremonies and judgments which I command you this day, that you may do them.

If you keep them and do them, the Lord your God will also keep for you the covenant and the mercy which he swore to your fathers, and he will love you and multiply you; and he will bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your land, your grain and your vintage, your oil and your herds, the flocks of your sheep, upon the land which he swore to your fathers to give to you. You shall be blessed among all peoples; there shall not be among you any barren of either sex, whether among men or among your flocks. He will take away from you all sickness, and the grievous infirmities of Egypt, which you have known, he will not bring upon you, but upon all your enemies. You shall devour all the peoples which the Lord your God is about to give to you. And again:

He will give the early and the late rain to our land, that you may gather in your grain, your wine, and your oil, and hay from the fields to feed your cattle, and that you yourselves may eat and be filled. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if only you hearken to his precepts. Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed in the field. Blessed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your land, and the fruit of your cattle, the herds of your oxen, and the folds of your sheep. Blessed shall be your barns, and blessed your remaining stores. Blessed shall you be coming in and going out. He will bless all the works of your hands, and you shall lend to many nations, and you yourself shall borrow from none.

Behold, in the reward for fulfilling the Law, blessing is promised, as to men, so to the fruit of your cattle, to the herd of your oxen, and to the folds of your sheep; and no mention is made of any spiritual blessing of the soul, nor is anything which pertains to the salvation of the soul or to its damnation promised to those who obey or to those who transgress, but only earthly advantages or disadvantages are recalled to these people, while those which are greatest are altogether passed over. I ask also whether even now, after the Law has been given to us, the natural law can, as before, suffice for the salvation of some, that is, apart from those outward and proper works of the Law.

This indeed you can by no reason deny, since it is agreed that this Law was given to you alone, not to other peoples, and that circumcision was enjoined upon none but Abraham and his seed. And to his seed belong only those who are born of Isaac, the Lord saying to him: For in Isaac shall your seed be called. He also, after he had instituted the covenant of circumcision, added below: But my covenant I will establish with Isaac. Job too, a Gentile, who you do not doubt existed after Abraham without the Law, the Lord so commended that he said: That there is none like him on the earth, a man simple and upright, and fearing God, and departing from evil.

In setting forth to us through himself his own righteousness, which we are to imitate, he makes no mention of those works of the Law, but only of the works of the natural law, which natural reason itself persuades each one to do. If I have walked, he says, in vanity, or my foot has hastened in deceit; if I have denied to the poor what they desired, and have made the eyes of the widow to wait, and so on. These things he established for us Gentiles, by words as well as by examples, as a kind of law. But if these suffice for some unto salvation, whether before the Law or even now, what need was there to add the yoke of the Law, and by multiplying precepts to increase transgressions? For where there is no law, neither can there be transgression of it.

In what way did he, by giving the Law, constitute you a peculiar people, and by what reason does he name Israel his firstborn, whom he burdens with so great a load without cause? Who, moreover, could excuse you from the curse of the Law—you who, by reason of your sins demanding it, as you yourselves confess, have lost the land of promise, outside which you are by no means able to fulfill the Law? You who are neither permitted to exercise your judgments of justice, nor allowed to celebrate the very sacrifices or offerings instituted for the purging of sins, nor even to render the songs of divine praises. This indeed you yourselves confess, saying: How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?

From which it is agreed that you have lost both the works of the Law and its words, as also its reward; nor can you now, like your wives, be cleansed, since your sacrifices and offerings are lost, nor be consecrated to the Lord, being deprived alike of the priesthood and the Temple; so that you have not even the consolation of earthly dignity—you who never ask anything of the Lord but earthly things, and who have received no promise of reward except in earthly things, as has been said. The Jew: You have raised many objections in succession, which are not easy to recall, so that I might answer each in order. Yet as these come to my mind, I shall try to respond.

Even if we should now also concede that men can, after the manner of the former saints, be saved by the natural law alone, that is, apart from circumcision or the other carnal observances of the written Law, yet it must not be conceded that these have been added superfluously; rather, they have great usefulness for amplifying and more safely fortifying religion, and for more fully restraining malice. Wherefore, from those very things which you yourself adduced, receive certain reasons. As long as the faithful, mingled everywhere among the unfaithful, lived together—and the Lord had not yet granted them a land of their own—by no observance of the Law were they set apart from those with whom they were compelled to live, lest the very dissimilarity of their manner of life should breed enmities.

But after the Lord had led Abraham out from his land and kindred, that he might give to him and to his seed a land for an inheritance, by which they might be separated from the nations, he decreed also to separate them utterly by the bodily works of the Law, so that the faithful might be the less corrupted by the unfaithful, the more they were severed from them both in place and in body. Wherefore, fittingly, when the promise of this land had been made to Abraham and his seed—in which the Lord would gather a people to himself and constitute, as it were, a city of his own—he began to instruct them in the Law according to which they were to live there, beginning with circumcision.

For the Lord knew that the neck of our people would be stiff, and that they would easily incline to idolatry and to the depraved customs of the Gentiles, as was afterward proved by the event itself. Wherefore, by the legal observances interposed like a kind of wall, he decreed so to sever their rites that they should be joined to the Gentiles by no fellowship of converse or familiarity—nay rather, that from this they should conceive perpetual enmities against one another. But the greatest familiarity among men is wont to be contracted by the bond of marriage and the sharing of the table. Wherefore, to remove these things above all, the Lord both instituted circumcision and forbade the eating of delicate foods.

For the sign of circumcision seems so abominable to the Gentiles that, if we should desire their women, they would by no means consent to us in this matter. Wherefore, even if there were other reasons, I believe these suffice for the present. But as for the fact that you labor to nullify or diminish the merit of circumcision or of the Law from the very authority of Scripture, I believe this can be refuted by Scripture itself, if you would diligently attend to those things which, by your silence, you seem to have stolen from the sequence of Scripture—things which, I believe, you saw would be harmful to you. For when the Lord himself instituted the covenant which is entered into with him through circumcision, he said to Abraham:

I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your seed after you in their generations, by an everlasting compact, that I may be your God and the God of your seed. For when he says, by an everlasting compact, "that I may be your God and the God of your seed," he plainly teaches us that from circumcision we are to be perpetually bound in covenant to God, and that through these things we win him as our God, so that neither in this life nor in the life to come are we severed from him. And this he himself repeats, that he may the more commend it to memory, adding: And my covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant; so that, just as circumcision, once made in the flesh, can no longer be abolished, so in no wise can we be henceforth severed from God, who, specially strengthening us, says: You shall be to me for a people, and I will be to you for a God.

Wherefore he names himself in a special way the God of the Hebrews, not merely the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And it is indeed intimated that God became the God of Abraham and of his sons by reason of circumcision—he who, before circumcision, was called neither their God nor the God of men. Now he instituted circumcision as a fitting sign of the covenant between himself and us, so that those who are begotten by that member which is specially consecrated after the obedience of receiving circumcision, might be admonished from that very instrument of their generation that they are sanctified to the Lord; that thus they might be inwardly circumcised in heart from vices, just as they are already outwardly circumcised in the flesh;

and that from their preceding origin among the unfaithful Chaldeans they might cut themselves off in morals, just as they removed the first part of that member from themselves, going out from them with Abraham not so much in body as in mind, as David recalls when he invites the faithful soul thus: Forget your people and your father's house, and so on. Wherefore the Lord too, comparing his people to a chosen vineyard, complains that he expected it to bring forth grapes, but it brought forth wild grapes. And as his whole people is compared to a vineyard, so individual believers are fittingly likened to vines, and their generative members to shoots. But the branch of the vine, unless it be pruned in itself, brings forth wild grapes rather than grapes, and remains uncultivated.

To this likeness, therefore, of the divine diligence in cultivating us, the cut-off foreskin points, from which God begins to cultivate us. But if you also recall the beginnings of human guilt in our first parents, and the sentence of punishment which the Lord pronounced upon the woman—when it is said to her, In sorrow you shall bring forth children—you will see also that the man, a partaker of the sin, was rightly made a sharer of the punishment especially in the generative member, so that he might rightly suffer in that very member through which, into the exile of the present life, he begets children destined to die, casting both himself and us alike from paradise by his own transgression into the hardships of this life.

For the woman too, laboring in childbirth, rightly suffers in that member by which she conceives and brings forth, and she is punished in the bringing-forth for that very pleasure of concupiscence which she has in conception, and she pays besides the penalty which she acquired by sinning. And since she sinned first and afterward drew the man to sin, not unfittingly did she also go before him in this punishment. Yet God did not altogether defer to punish the man himself, for whom a penalty was at once appointed, and it was said by the Lord: Cursed is the earth in your work; in labors shall you eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to you, and so on.

But when we obtained the abundance of the promised land, which no longer brought forth thorns and thistles, what was diminished there from the punishment was not unfittingly recompensed in circumcision. Yet this was begun at once by the patriarchs after the promise of that land, before it was obtained, so that it might transmit a firmer authority to those who came after. These things concerning circumcision I judge sufficient for the present. But you, who strive to prove from Scripture that it was enjoined only upon those who are descended from the seed of Abraham, do not observe what is written in that same place concerning those also who are not of this stock. For when the Lord had premised:

The infant of eight days shall be circumcised among you, every male in your generations; he that is born in the house, as well as he that is bought, shall be circumcised—he straightway added: And whosoever shall not be of your stock. Therefore, as for your asserting that Isaac alone and his seed pertain to circumcision, see how much discord this has, and correct yourself also from the very deed of Abraham. He too is recorded, by the Lord's command, to have circumcised along with himself Ishmael also, and all the men of his house, both those born in the house and those bought and the foreigners alike: At once, says Scripture, on that very day, as the Lord had commanded him—before Isaac had yet been born; so that you may know that you received it from us, and may claim it for yourselves as something all the more natural.

Now therefore, if it please, let us set down the very words of Scripture, which are of this sort: And Abraham took Ishmael his son, and all the home-born servants of his house, and circumcised the flesh of their foreskin, straightway on that very day, as the Lord had commanded him. And again: On the same day was Abraham circumcised, and Ishmael his son, and all the men of his house, both home-born and bought, and the foreigners were circumcised alike. As for what you also adduced—But my covenant I will establish with Isaac—wishing to understand this only of the covenant of circumcision, not of the earthly promise, nothing prevents it, even if it be granted, just as was premised a little before, where it is said: I will constitute my covenant with him for an everlasting compact, and with his seed after him.

For even though Ishmael too was circumcised by the Lord's command, the Lord did not establish circumcision in him, in whose posterity it did not endure. But as for your bringing forward Job the Gentile as an example—since you cannot prove him uncircumcised, nor that he existed after the institution of circumcision: for just as it is agreed that Ishmael was circumcised by Abraham, so too Esau and Jacob, and even the reprobate sons no less than the elect, were circumcised by the patriarchs according to the Lord's command, so that hence even their descendants, if any clave to God, might take the example of circumcision—just as you yourselves preserve it to this day, you who, imitating Ishmael your father, receive circumcision in your twelfth year.

We know also that our people had many proselytes converted from the nations to the Law, not so much by the imitation of parents as by a kindred virtue. And this could have happened in the case of Job too, whom we see, after our manner, offering sacrifices acceptable to God as much for his sons as for his friends. As for the further objection—that reward was promised for the observance of the whole Law only as temporal and earthly, and that the Lord did not plead providently for the persuasion or commendation of the Law, if the fulfillment of legal precepts does not merit eternal life—this is easily refuted, since from circumcision itself, which the Law commanded, we have been bound in covenant to the Lord forever, as I have said.

To what end also did he choose us out of all the nations to be a peculiar people to himself, and give us a Law by which we might be made holy, if only the joys of the present life—which the reprobate possess rather than the elect—were owed for the superadded observance of the Law? If holiness acquires for you, or for any men whatever, a blessed and immortal life, it is agreed that this is owed especially to us also from the Law, if its observance sanctifies us. And it does indeed sanctify, just as the Lord himself speaks to us through Moses, saying: If therefore you hear my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be to me a peculiar possession of all peoples, for all the earth is mine, and you shall be to me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation.

How then did he choose us as a peculiar people and as his own, and sanctify us through the Law, if he makes you or others more blessed? And after some words, when he was exhorting us to obedience to the Law, he said: For I am your God, showing mercy unto thousands of those who love me and keep my precepts. But what is "showing mercy unto thousands" but showing mercy perfect and consummate, beyond which none can be extended, just as no new names of numbers exceed a thousand? And elsewhere: Be holy, for I am holy, the Lord your God. Likewise below: Sanctify yourselves and be holy, for I am holy, the Lord your God. Keep my precepts and do them.

I am the Lord, who sanctify you. And after some words: You shall be my holy ones, for I am holy, the Lord, and I have separated you from the other peoples, that you might be mine. And again: I am the Lord, who sanctify you and brought you out of the land of Egypt, that I might be your God. And once more: If you walk in my precepts, I will set my tabernacle in the midst of you, and my soul shall not cast you off. And elsewhere: Who shall grant, he says, that they may have such a mind as to fear me and keep all my commandments at all times, that it may be well with them and with their children forever? Behold, openly the Lord declares an everlasting reward from obedience to the laws, not one that has an end.

Moses also, after that earthly reward which you mentioned above for those who keep the Law, added that mercy was furthermore to be fulfilled toward them by God, plainly promising us a reward other than the earthly. For when he had premised: And it may be well with you all the days of your life, as it is this day, he straightway subjoined: And he will be merciful to us, if we keep and do all his precepts, as he has commanded us. And, with certain words interposed, when he had said: The Lord has chosen you, that you should be to him a peculiar people of all peoples, he added below:

And you shall know that the Lord your God, he is the strong and faithful God, keeping the covenant and mercy to those who love him and to those who keep his precepts, unto a thousand generations. Now what perfect love of God or of neighbor—in which you say the natural law consists—the Law itself enjoins, I think does not escape you. For Moses, consummating the Law at the last, says: And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you, but that you fear the Lord your God, and walk in his ways, and love him, and serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and keep the commandments of the Lord and his ceremonies, which I command this day, that it may be well with you?

Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens belong to the Lord your God, the earth and all things that are in them; and the Lord was joined to your fathers and loved them, and chose their seed after them, that is, you, out of all peoples, as is proved this day. Now, to such a degree does the Law diligently express and amplify the love of God, that it be perfect, that it commands God to be loved with the whole heart and with the whole soul and with the whole strength of ours. But our neighbor we are bidden to love as ourselves, so that, namely, the love of God, extended even above ourselves, may be enclosed by no measure.

We are commanded also to love the very strangers sojourning among us as our own selves, and the Law itself opens so wide the bosom of love that not even to enemies or to those who do injury are its benefits lacking. Concerning these let us now bring forward some passages: If you come upon your enemy's ox or his straying ass, bring it back to him. If you see the ass of one who hates you lying under its burden, you shall not pass by, but shall lift it up with him. You shall not be troublesome to the foreigner, for you yourselves were foreigners in the land of Egypt. You shall not seek vengeance, nor be mindful of the wrong of your fellow citizens. If a stranger dwells in your land and sojourns among you, do not reproach him, but let him be among you as a native, and you shall love him as yourselves;

for you yourselves were also strangers in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God. And elsewhere: There will not be lacking poor in the land of your habitation; therefore I command you to open your hand to your brother, and to the needy and the poor who dwell with you in the land. From these things, therefore, I beg you, weigh how far the Law extends the affection of love both toward men and toward God, so that you may recognize that your law also, which you call natural, is enclosed in ours; so that, even if the other precepts should cease, these, which are of perfect love, would suffice for our salvation as well as for yours.

And by these you do not deny that our former fathers also were saved, so that the more security of salvation is left to us, the more the other superadded precepts of the Law have established for us a stricter life. This addition indeed seems to me to pertain not so much to the religion of holy morals as to fortifying it more safely. For the true love of God and of men suffices for every virtue of the soul. And if works be lacking, yet a good and perfect will is by no means diminished in merit. But just as the Lord willed to separate us in place from the unfaithful, lest we be corrupted by them, so also he decreed that this must be done by the rites of works, as I have said.

Since therefore the perfection of love suffices to merit true blessedness, surely the superadded precepts of a stricter life ought at least in this life to obtain something more, so that, by the consolation of earthly benefit as well, we might be made more eager and more secure toward God; and that, as his gifts toward us were increased, our devotion toward him might grow; and that the external people of the unfaithful, who saw these things, might be more easily invited by our advantages to the worship of God.

But as for the fact that the Lord, in the reward of the Law, seems more often or more openly to commemorate earthly benefits than eternal ones, you should understand that this was done chiefly on account of the still carnal and rebellious people, whom he was leading out from the abundance of Egypt—over which they continually murmured—into a most harsh wilderness. It also seemed superfluous to commemorate anything in the promise concerning eternal blessedness, which it was agreed the former saints had attained even without the giving of the Law. Finally, gather how great is the perfection of the Law from this one conclusion, concerning which Moses, among his last words, writes thus: And now, Israel, hear the precepts and judgments which I teach you, and so on. You shall not add to the word which I speak to you, nor take from it. And again:

What I command you, this only do for the Lord; neither add anything nor diminish. For that is perfect to which nothing is to be added. Or, if anything of perfection were lacking, this prohibition would be evil, which prohibits what is lacking and blocks for us the path of blessedness. Why also does any law command anything to be done in sacrifices or other observances for our purification or cleansing and the pardon of our sins, if this pertains nothing to true blessedness? For nothing excludes from true blessedness those whose sins are forgiven. Otherwise that blessedness would not be hoped for by you either.

Why also does the Law forbid us sins, except to reserve for us that which sins, if they be absent, confer, and, if they be present, hinder? The Philosopher: I marvel that you, a man learned in the Law, speak so inconsiderately as to so exalt circumcision that you do not fear to lie, saying, namely, that only after circumcision and not before is God called the God of men, and of those only who had already been circumcised, just as God himself is called the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. Wherefore the very Scripture of the Law openly reproves you, since Noah long before says: Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem; let Canaan be his servant. Behold, indeed, Noah names God the God of Shem. Wherefore also, when it is said the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac or of Jacob, it is not unfittingly wont to be added:

and the God of our fathers. But if you also weigh the divine benefits, in which you especially glory as his peculiar people, see that Enoch was translated into paradise more happily than you were led into the land of Canaan. And this he is reported to have merited, when it is said: And Enoch walked with God, and was seen no more, because God took him. But that you obtained that land by your merits, Moses utterly denies, saying: Do not say in your heart, when the Lord has destroyed them: For my righteousness has he brought me in, that I should possess this land, whereas these nations were destroyed for their own impieties, that he might fulfill his word which he promised to your fathers.

Know therefore that it is not for your righteousnesses that God gave you this most excellent land, since you are a most stiff-necked people. But Noah, on account of his righteousness, when all men except his own household had been overthrown, was made lord of all things that are on earth or in the sea, and all things were granted to him for food except blood; so that, with respect to the earthly benefits of God which you have desired, the life of the former faithful was so much the more happy as it was freer and lord over all the creatures of earthly habitation.

Now, by as much as that life of Noah and his household was freer than yours — not yet, of course, oppressed by the yoke of your law — by so much also is ours freer, that more ancient life by which you cannot prove that we may be bound by any outward works of a harsh law. Let us then carefully consider those things, beginning from Noah himself, for whom the first law concerning abstinence from blood was instituted. Yet certain precepts of the law were extended even to foreigners — namely, only to those whom you held as house-born slaves or bondservants, or who dwelt with you within your gates or in your land.

These persons Scripture carefully defines in many places, and these you yourself showed above, from the very precept of the law, ought to be treated mercifully as native-born. These the law gathers to you in many observances and openly distinguishes from the rest of the foreign sojourners. Hence, when it says in a certain place: «In the seventh year you shall make a release,» which is celebrated in this manner: «To whom anything is owed by a friend or neighbor or his brother, he shall not be able to demand it back, because it is the year of the Lord's release; of a stranger and sojourner you shall exact it,» it plainly teaches that the stranger and sojourner are not to be treated as mercifully as the native-born. This same sojourner it had understood above, where it says: «Everything that is clean, eat;»

«whatever has died of itself, let no one eat of it. To the stranger who is within your gates give it, that he may eat it, or sell it to him, because you are a holy people of the Lord your God.» For long before this, in another book, it intimates concerning the sojourner — «who sojourns by dwelling among you, not merely passing through» — just as those things which are set down nearby there concerning the eating of carrion, even as it forbade you, saying: «The soul that has eaten what died of itself or was caught by a beast, whether of the native-born or of the sojourners, shall wash his clothes and himself with water, and shall be unclean until evening, and in this manner he shall become clean. But if he does not wash his clothes and his body, he shall bear his iniquity.»

But the one whom in one place it calls «stranger and sojourner,» elsewhere it sometimes names a «foreigner»; as when it is said: «You shall not lend to your brother at interest, neither money nor produce nor any other thing, but to a foreigner you may.» Concerning these sojourners, however, who sojourn among you — not you among them — it is written in another place, when it says: «Any man of the house of Israel and of the sojourners who sojourn among you, if he eats blood, I will set my face against that soul and will cut him off from his people.» For by no precept of the law would you comprehend another sojourner than the one who dwells among you, and on this account is subject to your dominion and discipline.

Wherefore, since divine grace, providing for us, has taken away from you altogether every possession of the land — so that, namely, no one sojourns among you, but you sojourn among all peoples — know that we are bound by none of your statutes. But as for your striving to compel us to circumcision by the precept of circumcision and the example of Abraham, so that you may include also in the law's sacrament those to whom you nonetheless grant that the law was in no way given, nor even the promise of the land made, which is established in the covenant of circumcision — see how feeble is your objection. For when the Lord had first said: «Every male among you shall be circumcised,» and had added:

«every male throughout your generations, both the house-born and the bought, and whoever is not of your stock» — surely by this, in that He says «among you,» He comprehends not only Abraham and his posterity, but also, besides, all whoever belong to their household and possession, so that, namely, they might command them and compel them to circumcision. Hence too, after He said «and you,» and afterward added, «throughout your generations, both house-born and bought,» and then subjoined: «and whoever is not of your stock» — by what He said:

«throughout your generations, and whoever is not of your stock,» He carefully expressed what He had comprehended above when He said «among you» — namely, not only the generations of his own posterity, but also the household of foreigners which they possess. The same One too, in giving the sentence: «And my covenant shall be in your flesh,» spoke thus generally, «in your flesh,» just as before He had said «in you.» Otherwise the promise would be very incongruous, as though the covenant of God would not appear in their flesh unless the sojourners also, like the rest, were circumcised. Wherefore also, by what is said, «in your flesh,» it is established that the sojourners themselves are comprehended. That too, which finally completes the added sentence:

«The male whose flesh of his foreskin has not been circumcised, that soul shall perish from his people, because he has made my covenant void» — how is it referred back to what was said before, in which the sojourners are already comprehended, unless His covenant is also with the sojourners; at least when it is said: «Every male among you shall be circumcised,» etc.? But as for your laboring to assert that the eternal blessedness of souls also has been promised to you out of your statutes, this can be shown from the law itself to be a most worthless conjecture. For by this — that it is said «with an everlasting covenant» or «for an eternal covenant» concerning those who shall be circumcised by God's precept — you understand them to be so allied to Him forever that not even in the future are they cut off from His grace.