Straightaway, Abraham is attested by Moses himself as having accomplished righteousness through faith in the God of all, in the words: ‘And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him for righteousness.’
That it was after the accomplishment of righteousness and after the testimony to his piety that he received the sign of circumcision, and that this contributed nothing to his justification through piety, the text clearly shows. You would also find that Joseph, before the times of Moses, was brought up in the royal courts of the Egyptians without observance, and not in the Jewish manner.
And if you wish, you may also know that Moses himself, the very chief and lawgiver of the nation of the Jews, from his infant years, spent his life with the daughter of the king of Egypt, and partook of Egyptian food without observance.
What need is there to speak of the thrice-blessed Job, that true man, the blameless, the righteous, the God-fearing? What, then, was the cause of his piety and righteous conduct carried to the highest degree — surely not the precepts of Moses? By no means. But was it the observance of the sabbath day, or the keeping of some other self-chosen Jewish worship? How could it be, seeing he lived earlier in time than Moses and the legislation given through him? For Moses is reckoned in genealogy as seventh from Abraham, but this man as fifth, preceding Moses by two generations.
Consider, then, also his manner of life — bringing with it nothing of the legislation of Moses, but not foreign to the gospel teaching of our Savior. He himself, then, describing his own life in his defense before his companions, says: ‘For I delivered the poor out of the hand of the oppressor, and I helped the orphan who had no helper. The mouth of the widow blessed me, and I had put on righteousness; and I had clothed myself with judgment as with a robe, like a double cloak. I was eyes to the blind, and feet to the lame; I was father of the helpless.’
These very things are plainly the teachings proclaimed to us all through the gospel instruction. But he also, as one who knew full well the precept ‘to weep with those who weep,’ and ‘Blessed are they that weep, for they shall laugh,’ and ‘if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it’ — teachings contained in the gospel instruction — showed forth his love of mankind toward those who suffered hardship in life, saying: ‘But I wept over every helpless man; I groaned when I saw a man in distress.’
Then again, since the gospel teaching forbids unseemly laughter, the blessed man, anticipating this, says: ‘If I have walked with mockers, or if my foot has hastened to deceit — but I stand in a just balance, and the Lord knows my innocence.’
Since, then, the word in Moses legislates, saying, ‘You shall not commit adultery,’ and decrees death against adulterers, while the gospel teaching, intensifying the law, says, ‘It was said to the ancients, You shall not commit adultery; but I say to you, not even to desire it at all’ —
consider well the man of whom our discourse now treats, who, living according to the gospel of Christ, guarded himself even against the more licentious gazing that comes with desire, and prided himself on this, saying: ‘If my heart followed after my eye toward another man’s wife…’
And he next gives the reasoning, adding: ‘For the wrath of a man is uncontrollable, to defile another man’s wife; for it is a fire burning on every side, and wherever it enters, it destroys utterly from the roots.’
But he also shows the incorruptibility of his character thus: ‘And if I have taken hold of gifts with my hands, then let me sow, and let others eat, and let me be rooted out upon the earth.’
And how he behaved toward his own household one may learn from what he teaches, saying: ‘If I have despised the judgment of my manservant or my maidservant, when they contended with me…’
And again he gives the reasoning: ‘For what shall I do if the Lord makes inquiry of me? Were not they made in the flesh just as I was made? And we were made in the same womb.’
To these he adds: ‘I did not cause the eye of the widow to fail; and if I ate my morsel alone, and did not share it with the orphan; and if I saw one perishing naked, and did not clothe him…’
And again, going on a little further, he says: ‘If I have trusted in precious stone, or if I rejoiced when great wealth came to me, or if I set my hand upon things without number…’
Then again, since the evangelic teaching says, "It was said to the ancients, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy; but I say to you, love your enemies" -- that admirable man, anticipating this by a self-taught, innate teaching, had already accomplished the work; wherefore he says, "But if I also rejoiced at the downfall of my enemy, and my heart said, 'Well done!' -- then let my own ear hear my curse."
And he adds, "The stranger did not lodge outside; my door was open to everyone who came" -- since he was no stranger to him who said, "I was a stranger, and you took me in."
Hear also what sort of things he says concerning involuntary transgressions: "But if, having sinned involuntarily, I hid my sin -- for I was not abashed at the great multitude of the crowd, so as not to confess it before them. And if I let a helpless one go out from my door with an empty bosom -- had I not feared the hand of the Lord -- and the bond which I held against anyone, did I not tear it up and give it back, taking nothing from the debtor?"
These, and such as these, were the celebrated contests of piety belonging to the God-loving men before Moses (for from one man it is fitting to conjecture the life of the rest as well), on account of which they were also deemed worthy to be called friends of God and prophets.
But to men of such a kind, what further need was there of the precepts given through Moses to base and depraved men? Therefore through all these things it has been plainly demonstrated that the Word of Christ, having proclaimed to all the nations the most ancient manner of piety of the forefathers, is nothing other than that same most ancient godly way of life of the times before Moses -- so that the new covenant is at once both old and new: most ancient because of what has been demonstrated, but new again because, having been as it were hidden from men through the long intervening times, it has come to life again among men through the teaching of our Savior.
During, then, that intervening time which has been indicated -- for as long as it happened that the manner of the new covenant lay hidden from men and was, as it were, at rest -- the law of Moses, coming in meanwhile, gave over an inferior and imperfect way of life, like a guardian and steward of infant and imperfect souls, or indeed like a physician to the whole Jewish nation, worn down by a terrible, Egyptian-like disease -- to the very descendants of Abraham themselves -- since they were not able, like their forefathers, to succeed in the same way.
For since, during their sojourn among the Egyptians, after the death of the God-loving forefathers, these people were led away by Egyptian habits of life into polytheistic superstition, as I have said, and had so fallen away that they seemed to have nothing more than the Egyptians, but had become in every respect like them -- both in the error of idols and, naturally, in their other practices -- Moses, as it were drawing them up out of a depth of evils, removed them from atheistic polytheism, and led them up to the God who is the maker of all things, having set forth that first step of piety as it were among introductory matters and vestibules to the more perfect things.
Then he did not allow them to murder, to commit adultery, to steal, to swear falsely, for males to be mad with lust for males, to have intercourse with mothers, with sisters, with daughters, nor whatever such things it was then possible for men to do without fear.
And taking them from an untamed, beastlike life, he was the first on earth to establish in writing, for those times, a more rational and well-ordered way of life, since not even that manner of life was yet made manifest to all men.
Then, having forbidden idolatry to them as to men still imperfect, he urged them to serve the one God who is over all by sacrifices and certain more bodily means, having legislated that they perform the worship according to his law by means of certain more secret symbols peculiar to it -- which worship, having also marvelously perceived by the divine Spirit that it ought not to be extended without limit, he confined under a single place, determining that its ordinances should be carried out nowhere else than in one single place -- and this was the one in Jerusalem, and nowhere outside it.
Whence, even to this day, it is not lawful for the sons of the Hebrews, anywhere else outside their destroyed metropolis, either to sacrifice according to the law, or to raise up a temple or an altar, or to anoint priests or kings, or to perform the festal assemblies and feasts according to Moses, or to be purified of defilement, or to be released from transgression, or to offer gifts to God, or to be propitiated according to what has been legislated.
Wherefore they have reasonably been subjected to the curse of Moses, attempting to keep certain things in part, but transgressing the law as a whole -- Moses having plainly declared that "cursed is everyone who does not abide by all the things written in the book of the law, to do them."
They have fallen into all these things, since Moses himself, by the divine Spirit, had foreknown that, when the new covenant through Christ was renewed and proclaimed to all the nations, his own legislation would become superfluous -- which he therefore fittingly confined to a single place, so that, if ever they should be deprived of it and shut out from their own freedom, it would no longer be possible for them to carry out its ordinances in a foreign land; so that it must be accepted that of necessity the second covenant, proclaimed through Christ, has come to be.
So then, Moses having foretold this very thing, at the very time when Christ came to dwell among men in this life, and the teaching of the new covenant was set forth to all the nations, the Romans, immediately taking the city by siege, destroyed Jerusalem and the temple there; and at once the whole ordinance of Moses was dissolved, and the things of the old covenant were taken away, while the effects of the curse overtook those who, out of season, forced themselves to do the things of Moses, transgressing thereby; and at the same time, and in the same measure, the ordinances of the new and complete teaching were introduced in their place.
Wherefore fittingly the Savior and Lord says to those who suppose that God must be worshiped only in Jerusalem, or on certain mountains, or in appointed places: "The hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem; for God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth."
And when he had said these things, immediately, and not after a long time, Jerusalem was besieged, and the sanctuary there and the altar beside it, together with the worship according to Moses's own ordinance, were taken away; and the archetypal piety of the God-loving men before Moses appeared and shone forth upon all men, together with the blessing promised through it to all the nations -- leading those who came to it, from the first step and the first elementary instruction of the worship according to Moses, onward to a better and more perfect way of life.
For at once those blessed and God-loving men -- I mean those about Abraham -- did not worship in a place set apart, nor by symbols and types, but, as our Savior and Lord says, "in spirit and in truth" -- which came to be for all the nations through the appearing of our Savior, this too having been foreseen by the prophets of old. Zephaniah, then, says outright: "The Lord will appear to them, and will utterly destroy all the gods of the nations of the earth, and they shall worship him, each from his own place."
Malachi, at the same time, directs his words against those of the circumcision, and proclaims beforehand these things concerning the nations, saying: "It is not my will, says the Lord Almighty, and I will not accept a sacrifice from your hands; for from the rising of the sun even to its setting, my name has been glorified among the nations, and in every place incense is brought to my name, and a pure sacrifice."
For what else does incense and sacrifice being offered up to God "in every place" indicate, than that it is not in Jerusalem, nor set apart in this particular place, but in every land and among all the nations, that they will offer up, to the God who is over all, the incense that comes through prayers, and the sacrifice named "pure" not through blood, but through pious works?
And Isaiah cries out plainly and exclaims, prophesying and saying at once: "There will be an altar to the Lord in the land of Egypt, and the Lord will be known to the Egyptians, and he will send them a man who will save them; and the Egyptians will know the Lord in that day, and will offer sacrifices, and will vow vows to the Lord, and will pay them, and they will turn to the Lord, and he will hear them, and will heal them."
Do we, then, seem to you to speak the truth, when we say that a transposition of the law of Moses -- or rather, a cessation and dissolution of it -- is being foretold through the prophetic voices?
Moses, on the one hand, legislates that an altar and sacrifices are to be established nowhere else on earth than in Judea alone, and in that land in one city only; but the prophecy says that an altar will be set up to the Lord in the land of Egypt, and that the Egyptians themselves will offer their sacrifices acceptably to the Lord of the prophets, and no longer to the ancestral gods; and that neither Moses nor any other of the prophets will be the cause of the knowledge of God for them, but rather some new and unprecedented man sent from God.
But when the altar is transposed contrary to what seemed good to Moses, it is altogether necessary that a change of the law of Moses also come about. Moreover, when the Egyptians sacrifice to the God who is over all, they will surely somewhere also be deemed worthy of priesthood. And once the Egyptians have been made priests, the ordinances laid down by Moses concerning the Levites and those in succession from Aaron would no longer be of use to the Egyptians.
There is need, then, of a new legislation for the establishment of what has been declared. But what then? Have these things been proclaimed in vain? Or has an outcome been brought upon the words? Consider, then, whether it is not the case that today -- I mean, in our own time -- one sees with one's own eyes not only the Egyptians, but every race of men formerly given to idolatry, whom the prediction hinted at through the Egyptians, freed from the polytheistic and demonic error, and calling upon the God of the prophets.
And they no longer pray to many lords, but to the one and only Lord, according to the sacred oracle; and to him an altar of bloodless and rational sacrifices, according to the new mysteries of the new and fresh covenant, has been raised up throughout the whole inhabited world of men -- in Egypt itself, and among the rest of the nations who, in their superstitious error, behaved after the Egyptian manner.
Now in our own time, the knowledge of the God of all things, shining forth, sets an undisputed seal upon the faith owed to what was foretold. And seeing these things accomplished in deeds, and no longer merely awaited by hearsay, if you seek out the time from which these matters took their beginning, you will find none other than that of the saving appearing.
He, then, was that very one whom the oracle indicated, saying that the God and Lord of all things would send to the Egyptians a man who would save them -- the very one whom the sayings of Moses also indicated, in which he said, "A man shall come forth from his seed, and shall rule over many nations" -- among which nations the Egyptians too would surely be numbered.
But concerning these matters the discussion would be a long one, to be given more fully in its proper place; for the present, however, let it be observed that the things previously mentioned were fulfilled at no other time than after the appearing of Jesus our Savior.
For from that time even to this day, among the Egyptians, and among the Persians, Syrians, and Armenians, and among the barbarians who inhabit the ends of the earth -- even those nations formerly most untamed and most beastlike -- indeed, even among those who dwell on the islands (since the prophecy also thought it worthy to make mention of these), that very same way of life according to Abraham, and the most ancient and, of all things, earliest manner of piety, is being earnestly pursued.
And who would not be astonished at the paradox of the matter, if indeed those who from time immemorial bestowed reverent honor upon stones and wood and demons, upon man-eating beasts, and venomous reptiles, upon animals of every sort, and hideous monsters, upon fire and earth, and upon the soulless elements of the universe -- now, after the coming of our Savior, call upon the Most High God, the maker of heaven and earth, the very Lord of the prophets, the God of Abraham and of his forefathers?
And those who but a little before wallowed in unions with mothers and intercourse with daughters, in mutual defilements and every kind of bloodguilt, who differed in no way in manner from untamed beasts -- now, transformed through the divine power of our Savior, and become, as it were, other men out of other men, gathering together words of virtue and lessons of self-control in the common schools, learn -- do they not? -- the highest philosophy, which exhorts them not even to look with unchaste eyes, nor to be indifferent even as far as words, nor to do the common things familiar to all -- not only men, but also women, both poor and rich, both learned and unlearned, even down to children and slaves, are instructed in this in their pursuits both in the cities and in the countryside, and learn the true manner in which it is fitting to worship and serve the God who is over all, in every place, according to the prophecy that said: "And they shall worship him, each from his own place."
So then every barbarian and Greek worships the God who is over all, not running to Jerusalem, nor purifying himself by blood and sacrifices, but remaining at home and within himself, and rendering to him, in spirit and in truth, the bloodless and pure service.
And this indeed was the new covenant, not being according to the old one. But do not suppose that by "old" is meant that of the God-loving men before Moses, but rather that which was legislated by Moses himself for the Jewish nation.
The passage, then, goes on to make clear what it declared the old covenant to be, teaching that the new will bear no resemblance to it, saying: "I will make a new covenant, not according to the covenant which I made with their fathers, in the day when I took hold of their hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt."
"Not according to this one," he says -- that is, the one legislated by Moses; for this was the covenant handed down to the Jews at the time of the exodus from Egypt. It would then have seemed that the new covenant was being introduced as contrary to the manner of piety of the God-loving men about Abraham, had he not precisely indicated it by saying, "not according to the covenant which I made with their fathers at that time when I brought them out of the land of Egypt."
He was prophesying, then, that the new covenant would not be according to that which was legislated by Moses at the exodus and during the sojourn in the wilderness, but evidently according to that way of life which had been lived long before, by which those before Moses were shown to have attained uprightness.
On account of these things, then, taking courage now, divide the purposes of those who profess piety not into two, but into three orders: that of the wholly idolatrous, who are idolaters given over to the polytheistic error; and that of those of the circumcision who, through Moses, have ascended to the first step of piety; and third, that of those who have advanced further through the evangelic teaching -- which, inserted as a middle term between the two, means you should no longer suppose that those who depart from the Jews must fall entirely into Hellenism, nor that those who withdraw from the Greeks must of necessity become Jews; but taking the middle one, the third, you will find it standing somewhere above, and, as it were, having ascended to the loftiest mountain-peak, having left the rest below on either side.
For it has escaped, on the one hand, the atheistic and manifold-erring superstition of the Greeks, and their licentious fornications and disorders; and, on the other hand, likewise, the imperfect self-devised worship of the Jews under Moses, suited to infants and to the weak. But observe what it says, calling from above upon the law that is proper not only to Jews, but also to Greeks and barbarians and to all the nations under the sun:
"O man, and all the race of mortals: the law of Moses, beginning from one race of men -- first of all the race of the Jews -- for the sake of the promise made to their God-loving forefathers, called them back to the knowledge of the one God, freeing those who obeyed it from the bitter slavery of demons; but I, proclaiming beforehand to all men, and to the nations throughout the whole inhabited world, the more advanced knowledge of God and piety, exhort them to live according to the manner of those about Abraham, and of the times still more ancient, before Moses -- among whom many, even from foreign nations, are recorded as having shone forth in piety."
And again: "The law of Moses commanded those who had chosen to be pious to hasten from every quarter to one single place set apart on earth; but I, having released freedom to all, teach that the God who is over all is not to be sought in a corner of the earth, nor in mountains, nor in certain hand-made temples, but that each is to worship and revere him at home."
And again: "The old law commanded that the God who is over all be worshiped by sacrifices consisting of the slaughter of animals, and by frankincense and fire, and by certain other bodily purifications of like kind; but I, delivering the mysteries of the soul, command that the divine be honored with a most pure understanding and a clear mind, in self-control and a life according to virtue, and with right and pious doctrines."
And again: "Moses exhorted those who were at that time as if bloodstained men not to murder; but I legislate the more perfect commandment for those who have been previously instructed in this and have kept the first commandment aright, commanding that they not even be held fast by the passion of anger." And again: "Moses ordained for adulterers and licentious men not to commit adultery, nor to lie with males, nor to pursue pleasures contrary to nature, imposing death as the penalty upon transgressors; but I wish that my own not even look upon a woman with unchaste desire."
And again: "He said, 'You shall not swear falsely, but shall render to God your oaths'; but I say to you, do not swear at all, but let your word be Yes, yes; No, no; for whatever is beyond these is from the evil one."
And again: "He commanded to resist and requite those who do wrong, saying, 'Eye for eye and tooth for tooth'; but I say to you, do not resist the evil one, but whoever strikes you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also."
And again: "He exhorted to love one's friend, but to hate one's enemies; but I, by a surpassing loving-kindness and forbearance, legislate that you love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may become sons of your Father who is in heaven, who makes his sun rise upon the evil and the good, and sends rain upon the just and the unjust."
And besides these things, he accommodated himself to the hardness of the many, and ordained things suited to those subject to passion, handing down a manner of piety altered and inferior compared to the ancient way; but I call all men back to the pious and God-loving life of the God-loving men of old.
These things, and such as these, the word of the new covenant proclaimed to all the nations through the teaching of Christ. And these were the things which the Christ of God exhorted his own disciples to proclaim to all the nations, saying: "Go, make disciples of all the nations, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you."
And by handing these things down for all men, Greeks and barbarians alike, to observe, he clearly made manifest what Christianity really is, who we are, and of what sort is the teacher of such words and lessons -- our very Savior and Lord, Jesus the Christ of God, who established this new and all-virtuous way of life throughout the whole world, so that not only men, but also women, both rich and poor, both learned and unlearned, and slaves together with masters, learn and philosophize in such matters.
And indeed, the one who introduced this new legislation had himself been brought up, having lived his whole life according to the law of Moses -- a thing itself also worthy of wonder: that although he was about to establish, as lawgiver, a new way of life -- that of his new covenant according to the Gospel -- he did not reject the things of Moses as though hostile and opposed to it. For otherwise he would have been thought to be ordaining things hostile to Moses, and would thus have provided the godless heretics with a very great occasion for slander against Moses and the prophets, and would have given those of the circumcision a plausible pretext for their plot against him -- those who indeed contrived their conspiracy against him unto death, as against a transgressor and apostate from the law.
But now, having lived his whole life according to the law of Moses, he made use of his apostles as ministers of his new legislation -- at once teaching that the things of Moses were not to be regarded as foreign or hostile to one's own piety, and at the same time establishing himself as author and originator of a new and saving legislation for all men -- so that he in no way transgressed against what seemed good to Moses, but rather first set an end upon those things, and became their fulfiller, and thus proceeded to the authority of the law according to the Gospel. And he must be heard saying in this manner: "I did not come to destroy the law, but to fulfill it."
For if he had become a transgressor of the law of Moses, he might reasonably have been thought to be dissolving it and acting lawlessly; and being by nature a base and lawless man, he would not have been believed to be the Christ himself. And if he dissolved the things of Moses, how could he have been thought to be the one proclaimed by Moses and the prophets? And how could he have possessed the trustworthiness of a new legislation? For it would reasonably have seemed that, for the sake of lawlessness, he had come to this innovation, fleeing the punishment due to his transgressions.
But now, having dissolved nothing whatsoever of the things in the law, but having become their fulfiller, and, so to speak, perfect according to Moses -- since it was no longer possible for the rest of the nations to apply the ordinances of Moses, for the reasons already shown, but it was surely fitting, by the loving-kindness of the all-good God of all things, that all men be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth -- he legislated what was suitable and fitting for all; and he would not have begrudged proclaiming the things of Moses also to all men through his apostles, had not the impossibility stood in the way, as the apostle teaches, saying: "For what the law could not do, in that it was weak, God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh," and so on.
For it was surely impossible for all the nations to come three times a year to Jerusalem according to the law of Moses, and for a woman recently delivered of childbirth to hasten from the ends of the inhabited world in order to deposit her purification-offerings there, and countless other things, which one might for oneself gather up at leisure.