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| Chapter XXVII.—Why God taught the same things by the prophets as by Moses.
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Chapter XXVII.—Why God taught the
same things by the prophets as by Moses.
And Trypho
said, “Why do you select and quote whatever you wish from the
prophetic writings, but do not refer to those which expressly command the
Sabbath to be observed? For Isaiah thus speaks: ‘If thou shalt turn
away thy foot from the Sabbaths, so as not to do thy pleasure on the holy
day, and shalt call the Sabbaths the holy delights of thy God; if thou
shalt not lift thy foot to work, and shalt not speak a word from thine
own mouth; then thou shalt trust in the Lord, and He shall cause thee to
go up to the good things of the land; and He shall feed thee with the
inheritance of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken
it.’ ”2016
And I replied, “I have passed them by, my
friends, not because such prophecies were contrary to me, but because you
have understood, and
do understand, that although God
commands you by all the prophets to do the same things which He also
commanded by Moses, it was on account of the hardness of your hearts, and
your ingratitude towards Him, that He continually proclaims them, in
order that, even in this way, if you repented, you might please Him, and
neither sacrifice your children to demons, nor be partakers with thieves,
nor lovers of gifts, nor hunters after revenge, nor fail in doing
judgment for orphans, nor be inattentive to the justice due to the widow
nor have your hands full of blood. ‘For the daughters of Zion have
walked with a high neck, both sporting by winking with their eyes, and
sweeping along their dresses.2017
For they
are all gone aside,’ He exclaims, ‘they are all become
useless. There is none that understands, there is not so much as one.
With their tongues they have practised deceit, their throat is an open
sepulchre, the poison of asps is under their lips, destruction and misery
are in their paths, and the way of peace they have not known.’2018
| 2018 Various passages strung
together; comp. Rom. iii. 10, and foll. verses.
| So that, as in the beginning, these things were enjoined you
because of your wickedness, in like manner because of your stedfastness
in it, or rather your increased proneness to it, by means of the same
precepts He calls you to a remembrance or knowledge of it. But you are a
people hard-hearted and without understanding, both blind and lame,
children in whom is no faith, as He Himself says, honouring Him only with
your lips, far from Him in your hearts, teaching doctrines that are your
own and not His. For, tell me, did God wish the priests to sin when they
offer the sacrifices on the Sabbaths? or those to sin, who are
circumcised and do circumcise on the Sabbaths; since He commands that on
the eighth day—even though it happen to be a Sabbath—
those who are born shall be always circumcised? or could not the infants
be operated upon one day previous or one day subsequent to the Sabbath,
if He knew that it is a sinful act upon the Sabbaths? Or why did He not
teach those—who are called righteous and pleasing to Him, who
lived before Moses and Abraham, who were not circumcised in their
foreskin, and observed no Sabbaths—to keep these
institutions?”E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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