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| Chapter XCII.—Unless the scriptures be understood through God’s great grace, God will not appear to have taught always the same righteousness.
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Chapter XCII.—Unless the scriptures
be understood through God’s great grace, God will not appear to have taught
always the same righteousness.
“Unless, therefore, a man by God’s
great grace receives the power to understand what has been said and done
by the prophets, the appearance of being able to repeat the words or the
deeds will not profit him, if he cannot explain the argument of them. And
will they not assuredly appear contemptible to many, since they are
related by those who understood them not? For if one should wish to ask you why, since
Enoch, Noah with his sons, and all others in similar circumstances, who
neither were circumcised nor kept the Sabbath, pleased God, God demanded
by other leaders, and by the giving of the law after the lapse of so many
generations, that those who lived between the times of Abraham and of
Moses be justified by circumcision, and that those who lived after Moses
be justified by circumcision and the other ordinances—to wit, the
Sabbath, and sacrifices, and libations,2307
| 2307 Or, “ashes,” σποδῶν for
σπονδῶν. |
and offerings; [God will be slandered] unless you show, as I have already
said, that God who foreknew was aware that your nation would deserve
expulsion from Jerusalem, and that none would be permitted to enter into
it. (For2308
| 2308 We have adopted
the parenthesis inserted by Maranus. Langus would insert before it,
τί ἕξετε ἀποκρίνασθαι;
“What will you have to answer?” | you are not
distinguished in any other way than by the fleshly circumcision, as I
remarked previously. For Abraham was declared by God to be righteous, not
on account of circumcision, but on account of faith. For before he was
circumcised the following statement was made regarding him:
‘Abraham believed God, and it was accounted unto him for
righteousness.’2309
And we, therefore, in the
uncircumcision of our flesh, believing God through Christ, and having
that circumcision which is of advantage to us who have acquired it
—namely, that of the heart—we hope to appear righteous
before and well-pleasing to God: since already we have received His
testimony through the words of the prophets.) [And, further, God will be
slandered unless you show] that you were commanded to observe the
Sabbath, and to present offerings, and that the Lord submitted to have a
place called by the name of God, in order that, as has been said, you
might not become impious and godless by worshipping idols and forgetting
God, as indeed you do always appear to have been. (Now, that God enjoined
the ordinances of Sabbaths and offerings for these reasons, I have proved
in what I previously remarked; but for the sake of those who came to-day,
I
wish to repeat nearly the whole.) For if this is not the
case, God will be slandered,2310
| 2310 We have supplied this phrase twice above. | as
having no foreknowledge, and as not teaching all men to know and to do
the same acts of righteousness (for many generations of men appear to
have existed before Moses); and the Scripture is not true which affirms
that ‘God is true and righteous, and all His ways are judgments,
and there is no unrighteousness in him.’ But since the Scripture is
true, God is always willing that such even as you be neither foolish nor
lovers of yourselves, in order that you may obtain the salvation of
Christ,2311
who pleased God, and received testimony from Him, as I have
already said, by alleging proof from the holy words of prophecy.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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