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| Chapter XVII.—Proof that God did not appoint the Levitical dispensation for His own sake, or as requiring such service; for He does, in fact, need nothing from men.
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Chapter XVII.—Proof that God did not
appoint the Levitical dispensation for His own sake, or as requiring such
service; for He does, in fact, need nothing from men.
1. Moreover, the prophets
indicate in the fullest manner that God stood in no need of their slavish
obedience, but that it was upon their own account that He enjoined
certain observances in the law. And again, that God needed not their
oblation, but [merely demanded it], on account of man himself who offers
it, the Lord taught distinctly, as I have pointed out. For when He
perceived them neglecting righteousness, and abstaining from the love of
God, and imagining that God was to be propitiated by sacrifices and the
other typical observances, Samuel did even thus speak to them: “God
does not desire whole burnt-offerings and sacrifices, but He will have
His voice to be hearkened to. Behold, a ready obedience is better than
sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.”4007
David also says: “Sacrifice and oblation Thou didst not
desire, but mine ears hast Thou perfected;4008
| 4008 Latin, “aures autem perfecisti
mihi;” a reading agreeable to neither the Hebrew nor Septuagint
version, as quoted by St. Paul in Heb. x. 9. Harvey,
however, is of opinion that the text of the old Latin translation was
originally “perforasti;” indicating thus an entire
concurrence with the Hebrew, as now read in this passage. [Both readings
illustrated by their apparent reference to Ex. xxi.
6, compared with Heb. v. 7–9.]
| burnt-offerings also for sin Thou hast not required.”4009
He thus teaches them that God desires
obedience, which renders them secure, rather than sacrifices and
holocausts, which avail them nothing towards righteousness; and [by this
declaration] he prophesies the new covenant at the same time. Still
clearer, too, does he speak of these things in the fiftieth Psalm:
“For if Thou hadst desired sacrifice, then would I have given it:
Thou wilt not delight in burnt-offerings. The sacrifice of God is a
broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart the Lord will not
despise.”4010
Because, therefore, God
stands in need of nothing, He declares in the preceding Psalm: “I
will take no calves out of thine house, nor he-goats out of thy fold. For
Mine are all the beasts of the earth, the herds and the oxen on the
mountains: I know all the fowls of heaven, and the various tribes4011
| 4011 Or, “the beauty,”
species. | of the field are Mine. If I were hungry, I
would not tell thee: for the world is Mine, and the fulness thereof.
Shall I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats?”4012
Then, lest it might be supposed that He refused
these things in His anger, He continues, giving him (man) counsel:
“Offer unto God the sacrifice of praise, and pay thy vows to the
Most High; and call upon Me in the day of thy trouble, and I will deliver
thee, and thou shalt glorify Me;”4013
rejecting, indeed, those things by which sinners imagined they could
propitiate God, and showing that He does Himself stand in need of
nothing; but He exhorts and advises them to those
things by
which man is justified and draws nigh to God. This same declaration does
Esaias make: “To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices
unto Me? saith the Lord. I am full.”4014
And when He had repudiated holocausts, and sacrifices, and
oblations, as likewise the new moons, and the sabbaths, and the
festivals, and all the rest of the services accompanying these, He
continues, exhorting them to what pertained to salvation: “Wash
you, make you clean, take away wickedness from your hearts from before
mine eyes: cease from your evil ways, learn to do well, seek judgment,
relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow; and
come, let us reason together, saith the Lord.”
2. For it was not because He was angry, like a man, as
many venture to say, that He rejected their sacrifices; but out of
compassion to their blindness, and with the view of suggesting to them
the true sacrifice, by offering which they shall appease God, that they
may receive life from Him. As He elsewhere declares: “The sacrifice
to God is an afflicted heart: a sweet savour to God is a heart glorifying
Him who formed it.”4015
| 4015 This passage is not now found in holy Scripture. Harvey
conjectures that it may have been taken from the apocryphal Gospel
according to the Egyptians. It is remarkable that we find the same words
quoted also by Clement of Alexandria. [But he (possibly with this place
in view) merely quotes it as a saying, in close connection with
Ps. li. 19, which is here partially cited. See
Clement, Pædagogue, b. iii. cap. xii.] | For if, when
angry, He had repudiated these sacrifices of theirs, as if they were
persons unworthy to obtain His compassion, He would not certainly have
urged these same things upon them as those by which they might be saved.
But inasmuch as God is merciful, He did not cut them off from good
counsel. For after He had said by Jeremiah, “To what purpose bring
ye Me incense from Saba, and cinnamon from a far country? Your whole
burnt-offerings and sacrifices are not acceptable to Me;”4016
He proceeds: “Hear the word of the Lord,
all Judah. These things saith the Lord, the God of Israel, Make
straight your ways and your doings, and I will establish you in this
place. Put not your trust in lying words, for they will not at all profit
you, saying, The temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord, it is [here].”4017
3. And again, when He points out that it was not for
this that He led them out of Egypt, that they might offer sacrifice to
Him, but that, forgetting the idolatry of the Egyptians, they should be
able to hear the voice of the Lord, which was to them salvation and
glory, He declares by this same Jeremiah: “Thus saith the Lord; Collect together your
burnt-offerings with your sacrifices and eat flesh. For I spake not unto
your fathers nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of
Egypt, concerning burnt-offerings or sacrifices: but this word I
commanded them, saying, Hear My voice, and I will be your God, and ye
shall be My people; and walk in all My ways whatsoever I have commanded
you, that it may be well with you. But they obeyed not, nor hearkened;
but walked in the imaginations of their own evil heart, and went
backwards, and not forwards.”4018
And
again, when He declares by the same man, “But let him that
glorieth, glory in this, to understand and know that I am the Lord, who doth exercise
loving-kindness, and righteousness, and judgment in the
earth;”4019
He adds, “For in
these things I delight, says the Lord,” but not in
sacrifices, nor in holocausts, nor in oblations. For the people did not
receive these precepts as of primary importance (principaliter),
but as secondary, and for the reason already alleged, as Isaiah again
says: “Thou hast not [brought to] Me the sheep of thy holocaust,
nor in thy sacrifices hast thou glorified Me: thou hast not served Me in
sacrifices, nor in [the matter of] frankincense hast thou done anything
laboriously; neither hast thou bought for Me incense with money, nor have
I desired the fat of thy sacrifices; but thou hast stood before Me in thy
sins and in thine iniquities.”4020
He
says, therefore, “Upon this man will I look, even upon him that is
humble, and meek, and who trembles at My words.”4021
“For the fat and the fat flesh shall not take away from
thee thine unrighteousness.”4022
“This is the fast which I have chosen, saith the Lord. Loose every band of
wickedness, dissolve the connections of violent agreements, give rest to
those that are shaken, and cancel every unjust document. Deal thy bread
to the hungry willingly, and lead into thy house the roofless stranger.
If thou hast seen the naked, cover him, and thou shalt not despise those
of thine own flesh and blood (domesticos seminis tui). Then shall
thy morning light break forth, and thy health shall spring forth more
speedily; and righteousness shall go before thee, and the glory of the
Lord shall surround thee:
and whilst thou art yet speaking, I will say, Behold, here I
am.”4023
And Zechariah also,
among the twelve prophets, pointing out to the people the will of God,
says: “These things does the Lord Omnipotent declare: Execute
true judgment, and show mercy and compassion each one to his brother. And
oppress not the widow, and the orphan, and the proselyte, and the poor;
and let none imagine evil against your brother in his heart.”4024
And again, he says: “These are the words
which ye
shall utter. Speak ye the truth every man to his
neighbour, and execute peaceful judgment in your gates, and let none of
you imagine evil in his heart against his brother, and ye shall not love
false swearing: for all these things I hate, saith the Lord Almighty.”4025
Moreover, David also says in like manner:
“What man is there who desireth life, and would fain see good days?
Keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips that they speak no guile. Shun
evil, and do good: seek peace, and pursue it.”4026
4. From all these it is evident that God did
not seek sacrifices and holocausts from them, but faith, and obedience,
and righteousness, because of their salvation. As God, when teaching them
His will in Hosea the prophet, said, “I desire mercy rather than
sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than
burnt-offerings.”4027
Besides, our Lord also
exhorted them to the same effect, when He said, “But if ye had
known what [this] meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would
not have condemned the guiltless.”4028
Thus does
He bear witness to the prophets, that they preached the truth; but
accuses these men (His hearers) of being foolish through their own
fault.
5. Again, giving directions to His disciples to offer
to God the first-fruits4029
| 4029
Grabe has a long and important note on this passage and what follows,
which may be seen in Harvey, in loc. See, on the other side, and
in connection with the whole of the following chapter, Massuet’s
third dissertation on the doctrine of Irenæus, art. vii., reprinted in
Migne’s edition. | of His own, created things—not
as if He stood in need of them, but that they might be themselves neither
unfruitful nor ungrateful—He took that created thing, bread, and
gave thanks, and said, “This is My body.”4030
And the cup likewise,
which is part of that creation to which we belong, He confessed to be His
blood, and taught the new oblation of the new covenant; which the Church
receiving from the apostles, offers to God throughout all the world, to
Him who gives us as the means of subsistence the first-fruits of His own
gifts in the New Testament, concerning which Malachi, among the twelve
prophets, thus spoke beforehand: “I have no pleasure in you, saith
the Lord Omnipotent, and I
will not accept sacrifice at your hands. For from the rising of the sun,
unto the going down [of the same], My name is glorified among the
Gentiles, and in every place incense is offered to My name, and a pure
sacrifice; for great is My name among the Gentiles, saith the Lord Omnipotent;”4031
—indicating in the plainest manner, by
these words, that the former people [the Jews] shall indeed cease to make
offerings to God, but that in every place sacrifice shall be offered to
Him, and that a pure one; and His name is glorified among the
Gentiles.4032
| 4032 [One marvels
that there should be any critical difficulty here as to our
author’s teaching. Creatures of bread and wine are the body and the
blood; materially one thing, mystically another. See cap. xviii. 5
below.] |
6. But what other name is there which is glorified
among the Gentiles than that of our Lord, by whom the Father is
glorified, and man also? And because it is [the name] of His own Son, who
was made man by Him, He calls it His own. Just as a king, if he himself
paints a likeness of his son, is right in calling this likeness his own,
for both these reasons, because it is [the likeness] of his son, and
because it is his own production; so also does the Father confess the
name of Jesus Christ, which is throughout all the world glorified in the
Church, to be His own, both because it is that of His Son, and because He
who thus describes it gave Him for the salvation of men. Since,
therefore, the name of the Son belongs to the Father, and since in the
omnipotent God the Church makes offerings through Jesus Christ, He says
well on both these grounds, “And in every place incense is offered
to My name, and a pure sacrifice.” Now John, in the Apocalypse,
declares that the “incense” is “the prayers of the
saints.”4033
| 4033
Rev. v. 8. [Material incense seems to be always
disclaimed by the primitive writers.] | E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
