Collected Works 6 part 1/4

I. It happened recently: a disputation was held between a Christian and a Jewish proselyte. In alternating turns, with a contentious tug-of-war, each drew the day out into evening. As certain persons on the sides of both clamoured, the truth was obscured by a kind of cloud. It seemed good, therefore, that what could be less fully clarified through the concourse of the disputation should be settled by writing, with the questions reconsidered by more careful examination of the readings. For the occasion of defending that divine grace is granted even to the Gentiles had this prerogative here, that a man from the Gentiles, and not a Jew of the lineage of the Israelites, had undertaken to claim for himself the law of God.

For this is enough: that the Gentiles can be admitted to the law of God, lest Israel should still be proud, in that the Gentiles are reckoned as a drop from a bucket or dust from a threshing-floor. Although we have God Himself as a fitting promiser and faithful surety, who promised to Abraham that in his seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed, and that from the womb of Rebecca two peoples and two nations should proceed -- namely, of the Jews, that is, of Israel, and of the Gentiles, that is, ours. Each, therefore, was called both a people and a nation, lest anyone should dare to claim for himself the privilege of grace from the appellation of a name.

For God destined that two peoples and two nations should proceed from the womb of one woman, nor did He distinguish grace in the appellation of a name, but in the bringing forth of the birth, so that he who was to proceed first from the womb should be made subject to the lesser, that is, to the later-born. For thus God spoke to Rebecca, saying: 'Two nations are in thy womb, and two peoples shall be divided from thy womb; and people shall overcome people, and the greater shall serve the lesser.'

And so, since the people or nation of the Jews is prior in time and greater through the grace of the first favour in the law, but ours is understood to be lesser in age of years, inasmuch as in the last span of the age it has attained the knowledge of the divine mercy, beyond doubt, according to the edict of the divine utterance, the prior, greater people -- that is, the Jewish -- must of necessity serve the lesser, and the lesser people -- that is, the Christian -- overcome the greater. For according to the records of the divine Scriptures also, the people of the Jews, that is, the more ancient, having forsaken God, served idols, and, having abandoned the Godhead, was given over to images, the people saying to Aaron: 'Make us gods to go before us.'

And when the gold from the women's necklaces and the men's rings had been melted in the fire, and there had come forth for them a bullock's head, to this figment all Israel, having forsaken God, gave honour, saying: 'These are the gods that brought us out of the land of Egypt.' For thus also in later times, when kings ruled over them, both under Jeroboam they worshipped golden calves and groves and gave themselves over to Baal. Whence it is proved that they were always marked as guilty of the crime of idolatry, out of the record of the divine Scriptures. But our people, that is, the later, having forsaken the idols which it formerly served, was converted to the same God from whom Israel, as we recalled above, had departed.

For thus the lesser people, that is, the later, overcame the greater people, in that it obtains the grace of the divine favour from which Israel was rejected. II. Let us therefore join the contest and bound the sum of the question with definite lines. For why should God, the founder of the universe, the governor of the whole world, the fashioner of man, the sower of all the nations, be believed to have given the law through Moses to one people only, and not be said to have assigned it to all nations? For unless He had given it to all, in no way would He permit even proselytes from the Gentiles to have access to it.

But as befits the goodness of God and His equity, inasmuch as He is the fashioner of the human race, He gave the same law to all nations, which at certain appointed times He commanded to be observed -- when He willed, and through whom He willed, and as He willed. For in the beginning of the world itself He gave a law to Adam and Eve, that they should not eat of the fruit of the tree planted in the midst of paradise; and that if they should do the contrary, they would die the death. This law would have sufficed for them, had it been kept. For in this law given to Adam we recognize all the precepts established which afterward sprouted forth, given through Moses -- that is: 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul,' and: 'Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,' and:

'Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not defraud, thou shalt not bear false witness, honour thy father and thy mother,' and: 'Thou shalt not covet what is another's.' For the primordial law was given to Adam and Eve in paradise, as it were the womb of all the precepts of God. In short, if they had loved the Lord their God, they would not have acted against His precept; if they had loved their neighbour, that is, themselves, they would not have believed the persuasion of the serpent, and thus would not have committed homicide upon themselves by falling away from immortality through acting against God's precept;

they would also have abstained from theft, if they had not secretly tasted of the fruit of the tree, nor sought to hide themselves beneath the tree from the sight of the Lord their God, nor become partakers with the devil who falsely asserted, by believing him that they would be like God; and thus they would neither have offended God as a Father, who had fashioned them out of the mire of the earth as it were from a mother's womb; if they had not coveted what was another's, they would not have tasted of the forbidden fruit. Therefore in this general and primordial law of God, which He had ordained to be observed in the fruit of the tree, we recognize that all the precepts of the later law were specially implanted, which, brought forth in their own times, germinated.

For it belongs to the same One afterward to superimpose a law who beforehand had sent forth a precept, since it is also His to instruct afterward who had before undertaken to form the just. For what wonder is it if He augments the discipline who instituted it, if He perfects it who began it? In short, before the law of Moses written on tablets of stone, I maintain that there was a law not written, which was naturally understood and kept by the fathers. For whence was Noah found just, if the justice of the natural law did not precede in him? Whence was Abraham reckoned the friend of God, if not from the equity and justice of the natural law? Whence was Melchizedek named priest of the Most High God, if before the priesthood of the Levitical law there were not Levites who offered sacrifices to God?

For thus, after the patriarchs mentioned above, the Law was given to Moses at that time, after they had departed from Egypt, after an interval spanning many periods of time. Indeed, the Law was given four hundred and thirty years after Abraham.

From this we understand that God's law existed already before Moses, and not only on Horeb, nor first on Sinai and in the wilderness, but that a still more ancient one existed first in paradise, and afterward was given to the patriarchs, and likewise to the Jews at fixed times, when He willed, and at fixed times was reformed; so that we should no longer regard the law of Moses as though it were the primary law, but rather the one that followed, which at a fixed time God set forth also for the nations, which He had promised through the prophets, and reformed for the better, and forewarned would come; so that, just as at a fixed time the Law was given through Moses, so it may be believed to have been observed and kept only for a season. And let us not take away this power of God, which reforms the precepts of the Law according to the condition of the times, unto man's salvation.

Finally, let the one who contends that the Sabbath must still be observed as though it were a remedy of salvation, and circumcision on the eighth day because of the threat of death, show that in times past the righteous kept the Sabbath or were circumcised, and thereby became friends of God. For if circumcision cleanses a man, then when God made Adam uncircumcised, why did He not circumcise him, even after he sinned, if circumcision cleanses? Surely, when He set him in paradise uncircumcised, He appointed him as the keeper of paradise.

Therefore, since God established Adam neither circumcised nor Sabbath-keeping, He consequently also commended his offspring Abel, uncircumcised and not Sabbath-keeping, who offered Him sacrifices, accepting with favour what he offered in simplicity of heart, and rejecting the sacrifice of his brother Cain, who did not rightly divide what he offered. Noah too, uncircumcised and not Sabbath-keeping, God delivered from the flood. For Enoch also, a most righteous man, neither circumcised nor Sabbath-keeping, He removed from this world—one who has not yet tasted death—so that, as a candidate for eternity, he might already show us that we too can please God without the burden of the law of Moses.

Melchizedek also, priest of the Most High God, uncircumcised and not Sabbath-keeping, was chosen to the priesthood of God. Lot too, Abraham's kinsman, proves it, since for the merits of his righteousness, without observance of the law, he was delivered from the burning of the Sodomites. III. "But Abraham," you say, "was circumcised." Yet he pleased God before he was circumcised, and yet he did not keep the Sabbath. For he had received circumcision, but such as was to be for a sign of that time, not as a prerogative of salvation. Indeed, the patriarchs who followed were uncircumcised, like Melchizedek, who, being uncircumcised, offered bread and wine to Abraham himself—already circumcised—as he returned from battle.

"But even the son of Moses," he says, "would then have been strangled by the angel, had not his mother Zipporah circumcised the infant's foreskin with a flint. Whence," he says, "there is the greatest peril of death, if one does not circumcise the foreskin of the flesh." And yet, if circumcision in every way conferred salvation, Moses himself would not have failed to circumcise his own son on the eighth day, when it is agreed that Zipporah, compelled by the angel, did it on the journey. Let us therefore consider that the enforced circumcision of a single infant could not prescribe for a whole people, nor establish, as it were, a law of this precept unto salvation.

For God, foreseeing that He was to give this circumcision to the people of Israel as a sign, not for salvation, therefore urged the son of Moses, the future leader, to be circumcised, so that when He should begin through him to give the precept of circumcision to the people, the people might not scorn it, seeing this example already honoured in the leader's son. For circumcision was to be given, but as a sign whereby Israel might be distinguished in the last time, when according to their deserts they should be forbidden to enter into the holy city—according to the words of the prophets who say:

Your land is desolate, your cities burned with fire; strangers shall devour your region in your sight, and the daughter of Zion shall be left desolate and overthrown by foreign peoples, like a hut in a vineyard, and like a watchman's lodge in a cucumber field, and like a besieged city. Why so? Because the prophet's following word reproaches them, saying: I have begotten sons and exalted them, but they have rejected me; and: If you stretch out your hands, I will turn my face away from you; and if you multiply prayers, they shall not hear you; for your hands are full of blood; and: Woe, sinful nation, a people full of transgressions, wicked sons; you have forsaken the Lord and provoked to indignation the Holy One of Israel.

This, then, was the providence of God: to give circumcision as a sign whereby they might be distinguished when the time should come that, according to their deserts mentioned above, they should be forbidden admittance into Jerusalem; and because it was foretold that this would be, and because we see it has been done, we recognize it. For just as fleshly circumcision, which was temporal, was imprinted as a sign upon a stubborn people, so spiritual circumcision was given unto salvation to an obedient people, as Jeremiah says: Renew unto yourselves a newness, and do not sow among thorns; be circumcised unto God, and circumcise the foreskin of your heart. And in another place he says:

For behold, the days come, says the Lord, and I will establish for the house of Judah and the house of Jacob a new covenant, not such as I gave to their fathers in the day when I led them out of the land of Egypt. From this we understand that the former circumcision, given at that time, was to cease, and that a new law—not such as He had already given to the fathers—was announced as about to proceed forth, just as Isaiah preached, saying that in the last days the mountain of the Lord and the house of God should be made manifest above the summits of the mountains. And it shall be exalted, he says, above the hills, and all nations shall come unto it, and many shall walk and shall say:

Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob—not of Esau the former son, but of Jacob the later, that is, of our people, whose mountain is Christ, cut out without the hands of hewers, filling the whole earth, as shown in Daniel. Finally, that from this house of the God of Jacob a new law too should proceed forth, Isaiah announces in the following words, saying: For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord out of Jerusalem, and He shall judge among the nations—that is, among us who have been called out of the nations; and they shall beat, he says, their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning-hooks, and nation shall not take up sword against nation, and they shall learn war no more.

Who, then, are understood to be others than we, who, instructed in the new law, observe these things, the old law being blotted out—whose coming abolition the very deed demonstrates? For the old law avenged itself with the vengeance of the sword, and plucked out an eye for an eye, and requited injury with retaliation; but the new law marked out clemency, and turned the former ferocity of swords and spears into tranquillity, and reformed the former warlike execution against rivals and enemies into the peaceful works of ploughing and tilling the earth. Therefore, just as we showed above that the old law and fleshly circumcision were declared to be about to cease, so also the observance of the new law and of spiritual circumcision shone forth in the pursuit of peace.

For, He says, a people whom I did not know has served me; in the hearing of the ear it has obeyed me, the prophets have announced. But what people was it that did not know God, if not ours, we who formerly did not know God? And who in the hearing of the ear obeyed Him, if not we, who, having forsaken idols, turned to God? For Israel, who had been known to God, and who had been exalted by Him in Egypt, and carried across the Red Sea, and fed in the wilderness with manna for forty years, reduced to a likeness of eternity, neither defiled by human sufferings nor fed with the foods of this world, but fed with the bread of angels—that is, manna—and sufficiently bound to God by His benefits, forgot the Lord and their God, saying to Aaron: Make us gods to go before us;

for as for that Moses who led us out of the land of Egypt, he has forsaken us, and we do not know what has happened to him. And therefore we, who formerly were not the people of God, have become His people by receiving the new law spoken of above and the new circumcision foretold beforehand. IV. It follows, then, that inasmuch as the abolition of fleshly circumcision and of the old law is shown to have been discharged in its own times, so likewise the observance of the Sabbath too may be shown to have been temporary. For the Jews say that from the beginning God sanctified the seventh day, resting in it from all His works which He had made, and that from this Moses too said to the people: Remember the day of the Sabbaths, to sanctify it;

you shall do no servile work in it, except that which pertains to the soul. Whence we understand rather that we ought to keep the Sabbath from every servile work always, and not only on every seventh day but through all time. And by this we must inquire what Sabbath God wills us to keep. For the Scriptures point to an eternal Sabbath and a temporal Sabbath. For the prophet Isaiah says: My soul hates your Sabbaths. And in another place he says: You have profaned my Sabbaths. Whence we discern that the temporal Sabbath is human, and the eternal Sabbath is to be reckoned divine, of which He proclaims through Isaiah: And it shall be, he says, month from month and day from day and Sabbath from Sabbath, and all flesh shall come to worship in Jerusalem, says the Lord.

This we understand to have been fulfilled in the times of Christ, when all flesh—that is, every nation—came to worship God the Father in Jerusalem through Jesus Christ His Son, just as it was foretold through the prophets: Behold, proselytes shall come to you through me. Thus, therefore, before this temporal Sabbath there was also an eternal Sabbath foreshown and foretold, just as before fleshly circumcision there was also a spiritual circumcision foreshown.

Finally, let them show, as we have already spoken beforehand, that Adam kept the Sabbath, or that Abel, offering to God a holy victim, pleased Him by a religious observance of the Sabbath, or that Enoch, when translated, was a keeper of the Sabbath, or that Noah, the builder of the ark on account of the impending flood, observed the Sabbath, or that Abraham, in observance of the Sabbath, offered his son Isaac, or that Melchizedek in his priesthood received the law of the Sabbath. But the Jews will say that from the time this precept was given through Moses, from then on it was to be observed. It is therefore manifest that the precept was not eternal but temporal, which was one day to cease.

Finally, so far is this solemnity from being celebrated in the rest of the seventh day, that Joshua the son of Nun, at the time when he was warring down the city of Jericho, said that a command had been given to him by God, that he should charge the people that the priests should carry the ark of God's covenant around the circuit of the city for seven days, and that thus, when the circuit of the seventh day was completed, the walls of the city would fall of their own accord. And so it was done, and when the space of the seventh day was finished, as had been foretold, the walls of the city fell. From this it is manifestly shown that within the number of these seven days the Sabbath day had fallen—

for seven days, from wherever they take their beginning, must of necessity include the Sabbath day within themselves—on which day not only did the priests work, but also the plunder of the city was made by the edge of the sword by all the people of Israel; nor is there any doubt that they performed servile work, since they were carrying off the spoils of war by God's command. For also in the times of the Maccabees they acted bravely by fighting on the Sabbaths, and overcame their alien foes, and by fighting on the Sabbaths recalled the law of their fathers to its former state of life; nor would I suppose that they defended any other law than that in which they had remembered it was prescribed concerning the Sabbath day.

Whence it is manifest that precepts of this kind grew strong for a season and for the necessity of the present cause, and that God had not given them a law of this kind for observance throughout perpetual time. V. Thus too we have shown that sacrifices, both of earthly offerings and of spiritual ones, were foretold; and indeed that from the beginning earthly sacrifices were foreshown in Cain, the elder son, that is, of Israel, but that the different sacrifices of the younger son, Abel, that is, of our people, were displayed. For the elder-born Cain offered to God gifts from the fruit of the earth, but the younger son Abel from the fruit of his sheep. And God looked upon Abel and upon his gifts, but upon Cain and his gifts He did not look. And God said to Cain: Why has your countenance fallen?

If indeed you offer rightly, but do not divide rightly, have you not sinned? Be still; for unto you shall be its turning, and you shall rule over it. And then Cain said to Abel his brother: Let us go into the field. And he went with him there, and killed him. And then God said to Cain: Where is Abel your brother? And he said: I do not know; am I my brother's keeper? To whom God said: The voice of your brother's blood cries out to me from the earth. Wherefore cursed is the earth, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood. And groaning and trembling shall you be upon the earth, and everyone who finds you shall kill you. From this act, therefore, we perceive that even then, from the beginning, the twofold sacrifices of the two peoples were foreshown.

Finally, when through Moses the priestly law was written down in Leviticus, we find it prescribed to the people of Israel that sacrifices should be offered to God in no other place than in the land of promise, which the Lord God was to give to their fathers, so that when Israel had been brought in, there should be celebrated the sacrifices and burnt offerings, both for sins and for souls, and nowhere else except in the holy land. Why, then, does the Spirit afterward foretell through the prophets that it should come to pass that in every place and in every land sacrifices should be offered to God? As through Malachi, one of the twelve prophets, He says:

I will not receive a sacrifice from your hands, for from the rising of the sun even unto its setting my name is glorified among all nations, says the Lord Almighty, and in every place clean sacrifices are offered to my name. Likewise in the Psalms of David: Bring to God, you families of the nations—doubtless because the preaching of the apostles was to go forth into all the earth—bring to God glory and honour, bring to God the sacrifice of His name; take up an offering and enter into His courts. For that not with earthly sacrifices but with spiritual ones sacrifice must be made to God, we read thus as it is written: A contrite and humbled heart is a sacrifice to God; and elsewhere: Sacrifice to God the sacrifice of praise, and pay your vows to the Most High.

Thus, therefore, spiritual sacrifices of praise are designated, and a contrite heart is shown to be an acceptable sacrifice to God. And so, just as fleshly sacrifices are understood to be rejected—of which Isaiah too speaks, saying: To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to me, says the Lord; for even if you bring me fine flour, he says, it is a vain supplication, an abomination to me; and again he says: Your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, and the fat of he-goats and the blood of bulls I do not want, nor that you come to be seen by me; for who has required these things at your hands?—so spiritual sacrifices are proclaimed as accepted, as the prophets announce. But of the fleshly sacrifices, concerning which it was foretold:

I have no pleasure in you, says the Lord; I will not accept sacrifices from your hands, for from the rising of the sun even unto its setting my name is glorified among all nations, says the Lord. But of the spiritual sacrifices He adds, saying: And in every place clean sacrifices are offered to my name, says the Lord. VI.

Therefore, since it is manifest both that a temporal Sabbath was shown and an eternal Sabbath foretold, that fleshly circumcision too was foretold and spiritual circumcision foreshown, that a temporal law also and an eternal law were announced, that fleshly sacrifices and spiritual sacrifices were foreshown, it follows that, all these precepts having been given in the preceding time to the people of Israel after the fleshly manner, there should come upon them a time in which the precepts of the ancient law and of the old ceremonies should cease, and the promise of the new law and the recognition of spiritual sacrifices and the pledge of the new covenant should come upon us, as a light shone forth for us from on high, we who were sitting in darkness and were held in the shadow of death.

And so a necessity presses upon us that, since we have said beforehand that a new law was foretold by the prophets—and not such as had already been given to their fathers at the time when He brought them out of the land of Egypt—we ought to show and prove both that that old law has ceased and that the promised new law is now at work; and indeed it must first be inquired whether a giver of the new law is awaited, and an heir of the new covenant, and a priest of the new sacrifices, and a purifier of the new circumcision, and an observer of the eternal Sabbath, who should restrain the old law and establish the new covenant and offer new sacrifices and repress the ancient ceremonies and suppress the old circumcision with its Sabbath, and announce a new kingdom which shall not be corrupted.

For it must be inquired whether the lawgiver of the new law, the observer of the spiritual Sabbath, the high priest of the eternal sacrifices, the ruler of the eternal kingdom, has come or not, so that if He has already come, He must be served; if He has not yet come, He must be awaited—provided it be manifest that by His coming the precepts of the old law are to be suppressed and the beginnings of the new law are to arise. And first of all it must be determined that the ancient law and the prophets could not cease unless He had come who was announced through that same law and through those same prophets as about to come. VII. Therefore let us join the contest at this step: whether the Christ who was announced as about to come has already come, or is still to be hoped for as coming.

That this very thing may be proved, we must also inquire into the times when the prophets announced that Christ would come, so that, if we recognize that He came within those times, we may without doubt believe that He is the very one whom the prophets sang would come, in whom we—the nations, that is—were announced as about to believe; and when it has been established that He came, let us believe without doubt that the new law also was given by Him, and let us not deny that a new covenant was ordained for us in Him and through Him. For we know that the Jews too do not deny that Christ will come, inasmuch as they extend their hope to His coming. Nor need this be inquired into at greater length, since all the prophets of old prophesied concerning Him, as Isaiah: Thus says the Lord God to Christ my Lord:

whose right hand I have held, that the nations may hearken to Him; I will break in pieces the might of kings, I will open before Him the gates, and cities shall not be closed to Him. This very thing we now see already fulfilled. For whose right hand does God the Father hold, if not Christ His Son, whom also all nations have heard—that is, in whom all nations have believed—whose preachers, the apostles, are shown in the Psalms of David: Into all the earth, he says, their sound has gone out, and to the ends of the earth their words? For in what other has the universality of nations believed than in Christ who has already come?

For in whom have the nations believed—the Parthians and Medes and Elamites, and those who dwell in Mesopotamia, Armenia, Phrygia, Cappadocia, and the inhabitants of Pontus and Asia and Pamphylia, those tarrying in Egypt and dwelling in the regions of Africa which are beyond Cyrene, Romans and sojourners, then also the Jews in Jerusalem and the other nations—so that now the diverse peoples of the Gaetuli and the many territories of the Moors, all the bounds of the Spains and the various nations of the Gauls, and the haunts of the Britons inaccessible to the Romans but made subject to Christ, and of the Sarmatians and Dacians and Germans and Scythians, and of many hidden nations and provinces and many islands unknown to us, which we are scarcely able to enumerate?