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| Chapter XVI.—Perfect righteousness was conferred neither by circumcision nor by any other legal ceremonies. The Decalogue, however, was not cancelled by Christ, but is always in force: men were never released from its commandments.
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Chapter XVI.—Perfect righteousness
was conferred neither by circumcision nor by any other legal ceremonies. The
Decalogue, however, was not cancelled by Christ, but is always in force: men
were never released from its commandments.
1. Moreover, we
learn from the Scripture itself, that God gave circumcision, not as the
completer of righteousness, but as a sign, that the race of Abraham might
continue recognisable. For it declares: “God said unto Abraham,
Every male among you shall be circumcised; and ye shall circumcise the
flesh of your foreskins, as a token of the covenant between Me and
you.”3983
This same does
Ezekiel the prophet say with regard to the Sabbaths: “Also I gave
them My Sabbaths, to be a sign between Me and them, that they might know
that I am the Lord, that sanctify them.”3984
And in Exodus, God says to
Moses: “And ye
shall observe My Sabbaths; for it shall be a sign between Me and you for
your generations.”3985
These things, then, were
given for a sign; but the signs were not unsymbolical, that is, neither
unmeaning nor to no purpose, inasmuch as they were given by a wise
Artist; but the circumcision after the flesh typified that after the
Spirit. For “we,” says the apostle, “have been
circumcised with the circumcision made without hands.”3986
And the prophet declares, “Circumcise
the hardness of your heart.”3987
But the Sabbaths taught that we should continue day by day in
God’s service.3988
| 3988 The
Latin text here is: “Sabbata autem perseverantiam totius diei erga
Deum deservitionis edocebant;” which might be rendered, “The
Sabbaths taught that we should continue the whole day in the service of
God;” but Harvey conceives the original Greek to have been,
τὴν καθημερινὴν διαμονὴν τῆς περὶ τὸν Θεὸν λατρείας. |
“For we have been counted,” says the Apostle Paul, “all
the day long as sheep for the slaughter;”3989
that is, consecrated [to God], and ministering continually to our
faith, and persevering in it, and abstaining from all avarice, and not
acquiring or possessing treasures upon earth.3990
Moreover, the Sabbath of God (requietio Dei), that is, the
kingdom, was, as it were, indicated by created things; in which
[kingdom], the man who shall have persevered in serving God (Deo
assistere) shall, in a state of rest, partake of God’s
table.
2. And that man was not justified by these things, but
that they were given as a sign to the people, this fact shows,—
that Abraham himself, without circumcision and without observance of
Sabbaths, “believed God, and it was imputed unto him for
righteousness; and he was called the friend of God.”3991
Then, again, Lot, without circumcision, was
brought out from Sodom, receiving salvation from God. So also did Noah,
pleasing God, although he was uncircumcised, receive the dimensions [of
the ark], of the world of the second race [of men]. Enoch, too, pleasing
God, without circumcision, discharged the office of God’s legate to
the angels although he was a man, and was translated, and is preserved
until now as a witness of the just judgment of God, because the angels
when they had transgressed fell to the earth for judgment, but the man
who pleased [God] was translated for salvation.3992
| 3992 Massuet remarks here that Irenæus makes
a reference to the apocryphal book of Enoch, in which this history is
contained. It was the belief of the later Jews, followed by the Christian
fathers, that “the sons of God” (Gen. vi.
2) who took wives of the daughters of men, were the apostate
angels. The LXX. translation of that passage accords with this view. See
the articles “Enoch,” “Enoch, Book of,” in
Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible. [See Paradise Lost, b. i.
323–431.] | Moreover, all the rest of the multitude of
those righteous men who lived before Abraham, and of those patriarchs who
preceded Moses, were justified independently of the things above
mentioned, and without the law of Moses. As also Moses himself says to
the people in Deuteronomy: “The Lord thy God formed a covenant in
Horeb. The Lord formed not
this covenant with your fathers, but for you.”3993
3. Why, then, did the Lord not form the covenant for
the fathers? Because “the law was not established for righteous
men.”3994
But the righteous fathers had the
meaning of the Decalogue written in their hearts and souls,3995
| 3995 [Hearts and souls; i.e.,
moral and mental natures. For a correct view of the patristic conceptions
of the Gentiles before the law, this is valuable.] | that is,
they loved the God who made them, and did no injury to their neighbour.
There was therefore no occasion that they should be cautioned by
prohibitory mandates (correptoriis literis),3996
| 3996 i.e., the letters of the Decalogue
on the two tables of stone. | because they had the
righteousness of the law in themselves. But when this righteousness and
love to God had passed into oblivion, and became extinct in Egypt, God
did necessarily, because of His great goodwill to men, reveal Himself by
a voice, and led the people with power out of Egypt, in order that man
might again become the disciple and follower of God; and He afflicted
those who were disobedient, that they should not contemn their Creator;
and He fed them with manna, that they might receive food for their souls
(uti rationalem acciperent escam); as also Moses says in
Deuteronomy: “And fed thee with manna, which thy fathers did not
know, that thou mightest know that man doth not live by bread alone; but
by every word of God proceeding out of His mouth doth man
live.”3997
And it enjoined love to
God, and taught just dealing towards our neighbour, that we should
neither be unjust nor unworthy of God, who prepares man for His
friendship through the medium of the Decalogue, and likewise for
agreement with his neighbour,—matters which did certainly profit
man himself; God, however, standing in no need of anything from man.
4. And therefore does the Scripture say,
“These words the Lord spake to all the assembly of the children of
Israel in the mount, and He added no more;”3998
for, as I have already observed, He stood in need of nothing from
them. And again Moses says: “And now Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but
to fear the Lord thy God,
to walk in all His ways, and to love Him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart,
and with all thy soul?”3999
Now these
things did indeed make man glorious, by supplying what was wanting to
him, namely, the friendship of God; but they profited God nothing, for
God did not at all
stand in need of man’s love. For
the glory of God was wanting to man, which he could obtain in no other
way than by serving God. And therefore Moses says to them again:
“Choose life, that thou mayest live, and thy seed, to love the
Lord thy God, to hear His
voice, to cleave unto Him; for this is thy life, and the length of thy
days.”4000
Preparing man for
this life, the Lord Himself did speak in His own person to all alike the
words of the Decalogue; and therefore, in like manner, do they remain
permanently with us,4001
| 4001
[Most noteworthy among primitive testimonies to the catholic reception of
the Decalogue.] | receiving by means of His advent in the
flesh, extension and increase, but not abrogation.
5. The laws of bondage, however, were one by one
promulgated to the people by Moses, suited for their instruction or for
their punishment, as Moses himself declared: “And the Lord commanded me at that time to
teach you statutes and judgments.”4002
These
things, therefore, which were given for bondage, and for a sign to them,
He cancelled by the new covenant of liberty. But He has increased and
widened those laws which are natural, and noble, and common to all,
granting to men largely and without grudging, by means of adoption, to
know God the Father, and to love Him with the whole heart, and to follow
His word unswervingly, while they abstain not only from evil deeds, but
even from the desire after them. But He has also increased the feeling of
reverence; for sons should have more veneration than slaves, and greater
love for their father. And therefore the Lord says, “As to every
idle word that men have spoken, they shall render an account for it in
the day of judgment.”4003
And,
“he who has looked upon a woman to lust after her, hath committed
adultery with her already in his heart;”4004
and, “he that is angry with his brother without a cause,
shall be in danger of the judgment.”4005
[All this is declared,] that we may know that we shall give
account to God not of deeds only, as slaves, but even of words and
thoughts, as those who have truly received the power of liberty, in which
[condition] a man is more severely tested, whether he will reverence, and
fear, and love the Lord. And for this reason Peter says “that we
have not liberty as a cloak of maliciousness,”4006
but as the means of testing and evidencing faith.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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