CHAPTER 2
Ch. 2.
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION
than those of the Greeks.
And on the other side I set the accusation of the Jews, in which they claim to be justly incensed against us, because we do not embrace their manner of life, though we make use of their sacred writings.
Such being the division, I met the first so far as I could in my PreparniUm for the Gospel by allowing that we were originally Greeks, or men of other nations who had absorbed
Greek ideas,' and enslaved by ancestral ties in the deceits of polytheism.
But I went on to say that our conversion was due not to emotional and unexamined impulse, but ('0 to judgment and sober reasoning, and that our devotion to the oracles of the Hebrews thus had the support of judgment and sound reason.
And now I have to defend myself against the second class of opponents, and to embark on the investigation it requiies.
It has to do with those of the Circumcision, it has not yet been investigated,- but I hope in time to dispose of it in the present work on the Proof of the Gospel.
And so now with an invocation of the C^od of Jews and Greeks alike in our Saviour's Name we will take as our first object of inquiry, what is the character of the religion set before Christians.
And in this same inquiry we shall record the solutions of all the points investigated.
CHAPTER
T]ie Character of the Christian Relii^ioii.
I HAVK already laid down in my Preparation that Christianity is neither a form of Hellenism, nor of Judaism, but that \X. is a religion with its own characteristic stamp, and that this is not anything novel or original,^ but something of the greatest antiquity, something natural and familiar to the godly men before the times of Moses who (12) * rh. 'Z\\i)va>v irf fji.^ovrjsorts.
* I.e. Nul in \'.E., for many A|Kjl<)ijics had already addrcFsed the Jews.
* iKTtTcnritTfj.ti'ov, cf. r.E. 60 a, "to be carried out of the course."
Christianity is in the main stream of man's spiritual purpose, and is identical with his earliest true rehijion.
THE PROOF OF THE GOSPEL
Bk.
I. are remembered for their holiness and justice.
]kit now let us consider the nature of Hellenism and Judaism, and inquire under which banner we should find these pre Mosaic saints, whose godliness and holiness is attested by Moses himself Judaism would be correctly defined as the polity constituted accf)rding to the Law of Moses, dependent on the one, omnipotent God.
Hellenism you might summarily describe as the worshij) of many Gods according to the ancestral religions of all nations.
What then would you say about the pre-Mo.saic and pre-Judaic saints, • whose lives are recorded by Moses, Enoch for instance, of whom he says :
Gen. V. 22.
"And Enoch pleased God."
Or Noah, of whom he says again :
Gen. vi.
"And Noah was a man righteous in his generation Or Seth, and Japheth, of whom he writes :
Gen. ix.
" Blessed be the Lord God of Seth - (Shem), .
26, 27. and may God make room for Japheth."
Add to these Abraham, Lsaac, and Jacob, include as is right the patriarch Job, and all the rest who lived according to the ideals of these men ; they must, you may think, have been either Jews or Greeks, but yet they could ncH properly be called Jews, inasmuch as the system of Moses" Law had not yet been brought into being.
For if (as we have (13) admitted) Judaism is only the observance of Moses'
T^aw, and Moses did not appear until long after the date of the men named, it is ol)vious that those whose holiness he records who lived before him, were not Jews.
Neither can we regard them as Greeks,^ inasmuch as they were not under the dominion of polytlieislic superstition, l-'or it is recorded of .\braham that lie left his lather's house and his ' This seems tlie best equivaleiil for 0fi>(/)i\7|$ in llic fatliois.
S. Shem, folltjwed by " Ami Canaan shall l>o liis scrv.inl."
S. throufjhout these notes refers to Dr. Swete's eililion of the Septu.Tsjint.
^ The religious use of " Greek " for " heathen '" rur.s hack t>'. St. Paul ; " like a horn lew and Pharisee he usually liisorts humanity into cireumcized and uncircmnci/cd—the hitler hein^ ilcscrihed for the s;»ke of brevity as Greeks."
(llarnack, Ii.\/<an.<:ion 0/ Christiitiiily, i.
304), (?.,^.
I Cor.
X. 32, Gal. iii.
2.S, Mphes. ii.
II.
Cf.
/*/v<7< /;///,• cf /'tttt, ap. Clem. Strom, vi.
5, 41, "Worship not as the Greeks nor as liie Jews."
E/<istlf to Diogiiilux, V. i and c.
.4f>t>li\^y 0/ Ans/id,s, c. W.
Clement of Alexandri.i, S/iom iii.
10, 70; v.
14, oS ; vi.
5, 42, and Fathers generally when dealing with the Church as the " third race."
Ch.
:;.
BETWEEN
JK\V AND GREEK
kindred altogether, and cleaved to the One God alone, Whom he confesses when he says :
" I will stretch out ^ (my hand) to the most-higk God, ^-en. xiv. who created the heaven and the earth."'
^^• And Jacob is recorded by Moses as saying to his house and all his peojile :
" 2. Remove the strange gods from your midst,- 3. and let us arise and go to Bethel, and make there an altar to the Lord that heard me in the day of affliction, who was with me, and preserved me in the way wherein I went.
4. And they gave to Jacob the strange gods, which were in their hands, and the ear-rings in their ears, and Jacob hid them under the terebinth that is in Shcchem, Cen. and destroyed^ them to this day." xxxv.
These men, then, were not involved in the errors of idolatry, moreover they were outside the pale of Judaism
; yet, though they were neither Jew nor Greek by birth, we know them to have been conspicuou.sly pious, holy, and just.
This compels us to conceive some otlicr ideal of religion, by (14) which they must have guided their lives, ^^'ould not this be exactly that third form of religion midway between Judaism ancf Hellenism, which I have already deduced, as the most ancient and most venerable of all religions, and which has been preached of late to all nations through our Saviour.
Christianity wouUl therefore be not a form of Hellenism nor of Judaism, but something between the two, the most ancient organization for holiness, and the most venerable philosophy, only lately codified as the law * for all mankind in the whole world.
'The convert from Hellenism to Christianity does not land in Judaism, nor docs one who rejects the Jewish worship' liecome ipso fado a Greek.
From whichever sitle they come, whether it be Hellenism or Judaism, they find their place in that intermediate law of life ]>reachcd by the godly and holy men of old time, which our Lord and Saviour has raised uji anew after its long sleep, in accordance with Moses' own prophecies, and those nf the other jirophets on the point.
Yes, Moses himself writes prophetically in the oracles '
S. adds " my hand.*'
.S. adds "be jiiirified and cliancje your fjarments.'"
' oiroiAfO'*;'.
•* vfvn^io0trriix(i-i}.
^ 40f\oOpr](TKuas, self-choccn Worship, cf. Col. ii. 23.
VOL.
THE PROOF OF THE GOSPEL
Bk.
I. addressed to Abraham, that in days to come not only (15) Abraham's descendants, his Jewish seed, but all the tribes and nations of the earth will be counted worthy of God's blessing on the common basis of a piety like Abraham's.
" I. And the Lord said to Abram, Go forth out of thy land, and from thy kindred, and from the house of thy father, and come hither into the land which I shall shew thee.
2. And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee and magnify thy name, and thou shalt be blessed, 3. and I will bless those that bless thee, and I will curse those that curse thee, and in thee all Gen. xii. i. the tribes of the earth shall be blessed.'
And again God said :
"Shall I hide from Abraham my servant that I shall do?
For Abraham shall become a great and numerous nation, and in him all the nations of the earth shall be Gen xviii. blessed."
17How could all the nations and families of the earth be blessed in Abraham, if there was no connection between him and them, either of spiritual character ^ or physical kinship?
There was assuredly no physical kinship between Abraham and the Scythians, or the Egyptians, or the .Ethiopians, or the Lidians, or the Britons, or the Spaniards : such nations and others more distant than , they could not surely hope to receive any blessing because of any physical kinship to Abraham.
It was quite as unlikely that all the nations would have any common claim to (16) share the spiritual blessings of Abraham.
For some of them prnctised marriage with mothers and incest with daughters, some of ihcni unmentionable vice.
The religion of others lav in slaughter, and the deification of animals, idols of lifeless wood, and superstitions of deceiving spirits.
Others burned their old men alive, and commended as holy and good the customs of delivering their dearest to the flames, or feasting on dead bodies.
Slen brought up in such savage wavs '
Kara ii/i"\f)5 Tfunrm'.
* lor a similar c.it.ilotjuo sec P. E. joi a. also 11 b. wlierc G. quotes Herodotus (i. 216) of customs of Massaijclac. Straho (513 and 520) ol tlie Deihices.
See also Ilciod. iii. ^S, 39.
Se\t. lunp.
<•. JA»,7/.
xi.
192.
Cltm. Alex. fiud. i. 7.
(V'ersian I'rinces.) Diojj. Licrt. /Vvvw. 7 and ix. ii. Sext. Emp. //r/. iii. 205.
Cf. Zeller :
.SV,7/<.v (E.T.) 30S.
For devouring parents sec Origen, <.
Cc/s.
2. 307 (of the Callatians).
Ch.
;..
TIIK RETURN TO ABRAHMI
ix could not surely share in the blessing of the godly, unless they escaped from their savagery, and embraced a way of life similar to the piety of Abraham.
For even he, a foreigner and a stranger to the religion which he afterwards embraced, is said to have changed his life, to have cast away his ancestral superstition, to have left his home and kindred and fathers' customs, and the manner of life in which he was born and reared, and to have followed God, A\'ho gave him the oracles which are preserved in the Scriptures.
If Moses tlicn, who came after Abraham and established a polity for the Jewish race on the basis of the law which he gave them, had laid down the kind of laws which were the guide of godly men before his own time, and such as it was possible for all nations to adopt, so that it should be possible for all the tribes and nations of the world to worship according to Moses' enactments ; which is the (17) same as saying that the oracles foretold that through Moses' lawgiving men of all nations would worship God and follow
Judaism, being brought to it by the law, and would be blessed with the blessing of Abraham— then it would have been right for us to be keeping the enactments of Moses.
But if the polity of Moses was not applicable to the other nations, but only to the Jews and not to all of them, but only to the inhabitants of Judxa, then it was altogether necessary to set up another kind of religion different from the law of ^Ioses, that all the nations of the world might take it as their guide with Abraham, and receive an equal share of blessing with him.
CHAPTER :3
That the System oj Moses was not Suitablefor All Nations.
That the enactments of Moses, as I said, were only applic able to the Jews, but not to all of them, and certainly not to the dispersed (among the Gentiles), only in fact to the inhabitants of Palestine, will be plain to you if you reflect thus.
For the law of Moses says :
THE PROOF OF THE GOSPEL
Bk.
('^) " Thrice in the year shall all thy males appear before Ex. xxiii. the Lord thy God."
'7And it defines more exactly at what place they should all meet, when it says :
" Three times in the year shall thy males appear before Ex.xxxiv. the Lord, thy God, in the place which the Lord shall 23. choose."
I)> t xvi ^°" ^^^ ^'^^^ '*• does not bid them meet in each city, or in ' any indefinite place, but " in the place which the Lord thy God shall choose."
There thrice a year it enacts that they must assemble together, and it determines the times, when they must meet at the place where the rites of the worship there are to be celebrated.
One season is that of the Passover, the second, fifty days later, is called the Feast of Pentecost, and the third is in the seventh month after the Passover, on the Day of Atonement, when all the Jews still perform their fast.
And a curse is laid on all who do not obey what is enacted.
It is i)lain that all who were to meet i(3_ at Jerusalem thrice in the year and perform their rites wt)uld not be able to live far from Judrca : but they live all round its boundaries.
If then it would be impossible even for the Jews whose home is the farthest from Palestine to obey their
(19) law, it would be absurd to hold that it could be applicable to all nations and to men in the uttermost parts of the earth.
Hear now in what way women after childbirth are bidden by the same Lawgiver to go and present their offerings to God, as follows " And the Lord spake to Moses, saying, Speak to the children of Israel, and thou shalt say to them, \\'hatsoever wcMiian shall have conceived and borne a male-child shall
Lev xii.
I In. unclean seven days.''
And he adds after saying something else :
" 6. And when the days of her purification shall have been fulfilled for a son or a daughter, she shall bring a lamb of a year old without blemish for a whole burntoffering, and a young pigeon or a turtle-dove for a sin-offering to the door of tlie tabernacle of witness to the priest, 7. she shall present (them] before the Lord.
And the priest shall make atonement for her, and shall Iav. xii.
(). purify her from the issue of her blood; this is the law of her who bears a male or a fenialr."
Ch. 3-
LAWS OF PURIFICATION
Again, in addition to this tlic same law bids tliosc who have contracted defilcnicnt by mourning or toucliing a corpse only to be purified by the ashes of an heifer, and to abstain from their accustomed work for seven days.
'Iliis is what it says :
" 10. And it shall be a perpetual statute to the children of Israel and to the proselytes in the midst of them.
II. He that touches the dead body of any S(juI of man shall be unclean seven days, 12. shall be purified on the tliird day and shall be made clean on the seventh day. (20)
And if he be not purified on the third day, and on the seventh day, he shall not be clean.
13. Every one who touches the dead body of a soul of a man, if he shall have died, and he be not purified, he has defiled the tabernacle of the witness of the Lord.
That soul shall be cut off from Israel, because the water of cleansing has not been sprinkled on him.
He is unclean, uncleanness is on him.
14. And this is the law : if a man die in a house, everyone that goeth into that house, and all the things that are in the house, are unclean seven days.
15. And every v.pcn vessel ^ which is not bound with a fastening, shall be unclean ; 1 6. and every one who shall touch on the face any man slain by the sword, or a corpse, or a human bone, or a seinilchre, shall be unclean seven days.
I 7. And they shall take for the unclean of the burnt ashes of purification, and shall pour it into a vessel, 18. and -shall take hyssop.
And a clean man shall dip it, and sprinkle it on the house and the furniture and the souls that are therein, and on him that has touched the human bone, or the slain man, or the dead, or the sepulchre.
19. And the clean man shall sprinkle it on the unclean on the third day, and ^ on the seventh day, and he shall wash (21) his garments, and shall wash [his body] with water, and shall be unclean until the evening.
20. And a man, if he be defiled, and not purified, that soul shall be cast out of the congregation,* because the water of purification has not been sprinkled on him ; and this shall be a Xum perpetual law to you."
10.
* S. offa oiixl iifffJ-ov KOTaSfOtTat iv aiiTw for uaa ovx^ Sffffiw KaraS. " he shall take."
.S. aiUls "he shall be purified,"
* S. add§ " bpc:»use he defiled the holy things yf the L,ord,"
THE PROOF OF THE GOSPEL
Bk.
When Moses made this law he even determined the ritual of the sprinkling with water.
He said that a red heifer without spot must be completely burnt, and tliat a portion of its ashes must be cast into the water, with which those who had been defiled by a corpse were to be purified.
Where the heifer is to be burnt, where the woman is to luring her offerings after childbirth, where she is to celebrate the other rites, is not in doubt.
It is not to be done indifferently in every place, but only in that place which he defines.
Tliis is plain from his enactment, when he says :
"And there shall be a place, which the Lord your Deut. xii.
God shall choose, in which his name shall be called II. upon, there shall ye bear whatsoever I bid you to-day."
And he explains in accurate order, adding :
" 13. Take heed to thyself that thou offer not thy whole burnt-offerings in any place, which thou mayst see, 14. but in the place which the Lord thy (lod shall choose, in one of thy cities ; there shalt thou offer thy whole burnlDcui. xii. offerings, and there shalt thou do whatsoever I bid you 13, 14to-day."
And he makes this addition :
(22) " 17. Thou shalt not be able to eat in all thy cities the tenth of thy corn and wine and oil, the firstborn of thy herd and thy flock, and all thy vows whatsoever thou hast vowed, and thy thank-offerings, and the firstfruits of thine hands. iS. But before the Lord shalt thou eat it in the place wliich the Lord thy (lod shall choose for himself, thou and thy sons and thy daughter, and thy (') servant, and thy maid, and the stranger^ that is in thy Doiit. xii. cities."
'7'
And proceeding he confirms the statement, where he says :
" iiut thou shalt take thy holy things, if thou hast Devit. xii. any, and thy vows, and shalt come to the place, wliich 26. the Lord thy (iod shall choose for himself."
.\nd again :
"Tliou shall tithe a tenlli of all the produce of thy seed, the produce of thy field year by year.
And thou '
It is at tliis point lli.-it tlio T.niis Codex 469, the basis of the ciiitioH of .Stephen, ami the Paris eHition of 162S, begins.
Up to this j)oint we are dependent on tlie edition of the lost Mavrocordato Codex by Kabriciiis and on his i)aging.
The paging is now that of .Stephen and starts here as page I,
Ch. 3.
FEASTS
shall eat it in the place which the Lord thy God shall (2) choose to have his name called on there."'
Deut. xiv And then, in considering what ought to be done if the 22. place designated by him were far off, and the yield of fruit large, how the year's fruits for the whole burnt-offering could be carried to the place of God, he lays down the following law :
" 23. And if the journey be too far for thee, and thou art not able to bring them, because the place is far from thee, which the Lord your God shall choose to have his name called on there, because the Lord thy God shall bless thee ; 24. and thou shalt sell them for money, and shalt take the money in thy hands, and shalt go to (1)) the place which the Lord thy God shall choose.
25. And thou shalt give the money for whatsoever thy soul desircth for oxen or sheep, or wine, or strong drink, or for whatsoever thy soul desircth and thou shalt conDeut. xiv. sume it there before the Lord."
23.
And he again sets his seal on the actual place, when he says :
" 19. Every firstborn that shall be born of thy kine and sheep, tliou shalt offer the males to the Lord thy God; thou shalt not work with thy firstborn calf, and thou shalt not shear thy firstborn sheep :
20. thou shalt eat it before the Lord year by year, in the place which the (c) Lord thy (iod shall choose, thou and thy house.'
Deut. xv.
Next notice how he arranges the celebration of the feasts, 19. not anywhere in the land, but only in the appointed place.
For he says :
"Observe the month of new corn, and thou shalt keep the Pas.sover to the Lord thy God,^ sheep and bulls, in the place which the Lord thy (iod shall j)^.^^ ^.^j choose."
And he again reminds them, saying :
" 5. Thou shalt not be able to sacrifice the passover ,j^ in any of the cities which the Lord thy (]od gives thee
; 6. l)Ut in the place which the Lord thy (iod shall choose, to have his name called on there, thou shalt sacrifice the passover at even at the setting of the sun * S. adds :
"Because in the month of the new corn thou came.-;t out of Egypt by night, and thou shalt sacrifice the I'assover to tiic Lurd thy God."
THE PROOF OF THE GOSPEL
Bk.
I. at the lime when thou earnest out of Egypt.
7. And Deut. xvi. thou slialt boil and eat ^ it in the place which the Lord 5thy God shall choose."
Such, then, is the law of the Feast of the Passover.
Hear that of Pentecost "9. Seven weeks in full shalt thou number to thyself, from when thou beginnest to put the sickle in the corn,^
10. and thou shalt keep a feast of weeks to the Lord thy God, according as thy hand has power in whatsoever things the Lord thy God gives thee to bless thee.
II. And thou shalt rejoice before the Lord thy Cjod, thou and thy son, and thy daughter, thy servant, (3) and thy maid, and the Levite that is in thy cities, and the proselyte, and the orphan, and the widow that is Dcut. xvi. among you, in the ])la(:e which the Lord thy God shall ^ choose for himself, to have his name called on there."
And hear where he commands the third feast to be celebrated :
"13. And thou shalt keep the fenst of tabernacles when thou gatherest in from thy corn-floor and from thy wine-press, 14. and shalt rejoice in thy feast, thou and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy servant, and thy (1) maid, and the widow,^ in the place which the Lord thy Dent. xvi.
(}od shall choose for himself."
'^'
As he is so insistent on the selected place, and says so many times that they are to meet there in all their tribes and in all their families, the law could hardly apply to those living even a little way from Jndiea, and still less to the nations of the whole world, especially as he allows no pardon to those who transgress his ordinanc^es, and invokes a curse on tho.se who do not carry liiem all out to the minutest detail, in the following words :
(*^) ''Cursed is he who continueth ntit in all things Deut. written in this law to do them."^ Consider, again, other instances of the im[)ossibilily of xxvii. ail men following the law of Moses.
He makes a distinction between voluntary transgressions and those hard to evade, and after assigning penaUies to sins wiiich deserve '
S. ndds : "and roa>;l. "
* S. adds:
" llioii sh.ilt hcjin to nuiid)cr {he wi-uks."
.S. aiMs: "and tlio Lcvitc, and ilio piioclxlo, and llic orp'ian."
* S.
.I'lds: "every man" and "in all the words of this law."
Ch. 3-
UNINTENTIONAL SINS
the severest punishment, he provides laws by which those who sin unwittingly are to receive different treatment.
One of these runs as follows :
" 27. And if a soul of the peo{)le of the land shall sin unwittingly by doing anything contrary to the commandments of the Lord that ought not to be done, and shall transgress, 2S. and his sin shall be known to him, wherein he hath sinned |in it), then shall he bring [his gift) a kid of the goats, a female without blemish, he shall (d) bring it for his sin that he hath sinned ^ 29. in the place where they slay the whole burnt-ofTerings, 30. and the Lev. iv jiriest shall take of the blood."
27.
Vou see here how one who has sinned unintentionally is reiiuired to present himself at the place where the whole burnt olTerings are sacrificed.
And this is the place the law has already so often mentioned, when it says :
"The place which the Lord thy God shall choose."
But, indeed, the Lawgiver himself perceived the 'impossibility for all mankind to carry out the law, and clearly noted it by not promulgating his law universally for all, but with this limitation :
" If a soul sin unwittingly of the people of the land."
And he lays down a second law which says :
(4) " And if a soul ^ hear the voice of the swearing of an oath, and he is a witness or has seen or been conscious of it, if he do not report it, he shall bear the iniquity."
Lev. v i.
What is he to do?
He is to take the victim in his hands and go with all speed to the purification.
And of course that must take place where the wholeburnt-offerings are sacrificed.
And once more a third law :
" 2. The .soul, it says, which shall touch any unclean thing,' or carcases of unclean cattle, and should lake from it, he also himself is defiled and transgresses, 3. or if he touch the uncleanness of a man, and by all the uncleanness that he touches be defiled, and know it (b) not, and afterwards should know it and transgress."
Lev. v. 2.
S. adds: "and lie sh.-xU lay his hand upon tlie head of the sinoflcring (a/uapr^j^oToj) and they shall slay the kid of his sin-offering."
" S. adds:
"sin, and."
S. adds :
"cither of a beast that has died, or one caught by wild beasts, or carcases, or unclean abominations.''
THE PROOF OF THE GOSPEL
Bk.
Here the only thing necessary for the j)olluted person is for him to go once more to the sacred place, and offer for the sin wliich he has sinned a female animal from his flock, a lamb or a kid of the goats, for his sin.
And the law was the same in the case of a soul, which shall "swear pronouncing with his lips to do evil or to do good, whatsoever it be that a man shall pronounce with an oath, and it be hid from him ; and when he knoweth of it and is guilty in one of those things, and shall confess the sin that he hath sinned : " he too, the law says, taking the same' offering, is to go with all speed to the sacred ]>lace, and the priest is to pray on his behalf for the sin, and his sin shall be forI.cv.
V. given.
And anothtilaw besides those I have quoted makes 4) 5.
(.[^jg provision :
"The soul which shall be really unconscious, and shall sin unwittingly in any of the holy things of the Lord, even he shall bear a ram for his transgression to the Lord.
[And he shall bear it again to the highLev. V.
15. priest to the place, that is to say the chosen place." ^] And he adds a sixth law in these words (tl) " And the soul which shall sin and do one thing against the commandments of the Lord, which it is not right to do, and hath not known it, and shall have transgressed and contracted guilt, he shall even bring a ram to the High Priest, and the priest shall make atonement for his trespass of ignorance, and he knew Lev. V.
17. it not, and it shall be forgiven him."'
The following is a seventh law :
" 2. The soul which shall have sinned and surely overlooked the commandments of the Lord, and shall deal falsely in the affairs of his neighbour in the matter of a deposit, or concerning association (in lousiness), or plunder, or has in any way wronged his neighbour,
3. or lias found that which was lost, and has lied concerning it, and shall have sworn unjustly concerning any one of all the things, whatsoever a man may do, so as to sin thereby ; 4. it shall come to pass, whenever he so hath sinned and transgressed, that he shall restore the plunder he has seized, or redress the injustice he has ' A par.iplir.i'^e of S. text.
* S. adds: " wilhout lilemish from tlie sheep of tlie price of tli? money for his trcsp.-i.S'S, " and has " priest" for " hii;h-priest."
Ch.
THE MOSAIC CURSE
committed, or restore the deposit wliich was entrusted to him, 5. or the lost article he has found of any kind, (5) about which he swore unjustly, he shall even restore it in full, and shall add to it the fifth part."
Lev. vi. 2.
Here, again, after confession and rei'aration the transgressor had to go with all speed, putting everything else on one side, to the place, which tlie Eord our («od should choose, and offer for his sin an unblcniisiied ram, and the priest was to pray for him before the lord, and he would be forgiven.
(b) In this careful way our wonderful Moses distinguished sins done unwittingly and ignorantly from intentional offences, on which in the government of his people he set rigorous penalties.
For he that would not pardon the unwitting offender before he had confessed his offence, exacted a small penalty from him in the sacrifice ordained, by requiring him to repair with all speed to the sacred (c) place fostered both the religious spirit and watchfulness of those who worshipped God by his rule, and of course restrained even more the desires of willing offenders.
What, then, must be our conclusion from all this, when, as we have said, we find Moses summing up his whole system with a curse, where he says ^"Cursed is everyone, who shall not remain in'all the Dent, things written in this law, to do them " ?
^^'^vii.
26.
Wasit, then, meant that Moses' future di.sciples from the ends of the earth must do all these things, if they were to escape the curse and receive the blessing promised to Abraham?
Were they to go thrice a year to Jerusalem, (J) and were the female worshippers of all nations, fresh from the pangs of childbirth, to undertake so long a journey, to offer the sacrifice ordained by Moses for each one of their children ?
^Vere those who had touched a dead body, or had forsworn themselves, or had sinned against their will, to come from the ends of the earth, to run and hasten to the purification that was recjuired by the law, in order to escape the visitation of the curse ?
Of course it is clear to you that it was hard enough to follow Moses' rule of life for those who lived round Jerusalem, or only inhabited
Judaea, and that it was quite out of the question for the * R.V.
"confirmcth not the words of ihis l.iw to do them."
Cf. Gal. iii, lO."
THE PROOF OF THE GOSPEL
Bk.
I. other nations to fulfil it.
Hence, of course, our Lord and Saviour, Jesus the Son of God, said to His disciples after His Resurrection :
(6) "Go and make disciples of all the nations,'' and added :
'' Teaching them to observe all things, whatsoever I have commanded you.'^ For He did not bid them to teach the laws of Moses to all nations, but whatsoever He Himself had commanded that is to say, the contents of the Gospels.
And agreeably to this His disciples and apostles in considering the recjuirements of the Gentiles decided that Moses' enactments were unsuitable to their needs, since neither they themselves nor their fathers had found them easy to be kept.
As St. Peter (h) says in the Acts :
"Now therefore why do ye attempt to lay a yoke Acts XV. upon the necks of the disciples, which neither our lofathers nor we were able to bear ? "
And agreeably to this Moses himself for this very reason said that another prophet would be raised up " like unto him "
; and publishes the good news that he should be a lawgiver for all the nations.
He speaks of Christ in a riddle.
He orders his followers to obey him in these prophetic words.
(c) " 15. A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up to you from your brethren, like unto me, ye shall hear him [whatsoever he saith unto youi.
19. And it shall ^ Matt, xxviii.
19.
The verse is quoted thus seven times in the Demonstratio with the omission of the reference to Haptism and the Trinity.
Conybcarc {Hibbcrt Jottnuil. i. (1902-3) p.
102), wlio holds that the reference was interpolated for doj^malic reasons, and was not fully assured in the text till after the Council of Nica-a, supports his view from the practice of Euscbius.
This is the view of Kirsopp Lake, E.R.E. ii.
3S0 and Moffatt, The Historical New Test.
1901, p. 647.
The historicity of the words as ipsissima verba is denied by Harnack, Clemen, and J.
.\. Robinson, Enc.
Bif>l., art.
" Ixiptisni.'
I"'rom the Acts taken literally it would be gathered that apostolic Baptism was simply in tlie Name of Jesus.—(Acts viii. 12-16 ; ix. iS; xxii.
16, etc.) But the threefold formula occurs in the Didachc, ch. vii., and is supported by Jusiin Martyr, Apol. i.
61 and Irena'us, who, however, bases it not on Malt, xxviii. 19, but on tradition.
(.\. Harnack, History of Doi^iita, ii. 22.) The textual authority of the text as it stands is unassailable, ani' tlie problem is to reconcile it with the statements in Acts,
Ch. 3-
CHRIST FROM JUDAH
be that every soul who will not hear that prophet shall Deut. be cast out of its race." ^ j^"'"
'And that this prophet, who is clearly the Christ, should come forth from the Jews and rule all nations, he proclaims again when he says :
"5. How fair are thy dwellings, O Jacob, and thy (d) tents, O Israel, 6. as shady groves, and as a garden by a river, and as tents which Clod pitched.- 7. There shall come a man out of his seed, and he shall rule Num. over many nations,^ and his kingdom shall be exalted." ^^^^- 5He makes it clear from which tribe of all the twelve that comprised the Hebrew race, namely the tribe of Judah, Christ the Lawgiver of the Gentiles according to the prophecy should arise.
He is clear as to the date, for it would be after the cessation of the Jewish monarchy which had been handed down from their forefathers.
"A ruler shall not fail from Juda, nor a prince from his loins, until there come the things stored up for him: and he is the expectation of the nations."'* What " expectation " could this be, but that expressed in the promise to Abraham that in him all the families of the earth should be blessed ?
Moses has, therefore, made * S.
: " .\nd the man who will not hear whatsoever that prophet speaks in my name, I will judge him " (19).
Verse 18 is " I will raise up a prophet to them of their brethren like unto thee, and I will give my words into his mouili, and he shall speak to them as I command him."
S. adds : "as cedars by the waters."
* S. adds : koI v\f/aidr](rfTai v) r«7 PairiKf'ia—R.y. "His king shall be higher than .Xgag."'
* Here K. quotes to oiroKei^fia avT^, the text accepted by Swete, but pp.
50 c, 95 c, and 3 52 d, he quotes from another text <^ airoKeiTat, which he says (332 d) in Hebrew is StAaxx/x or "sent." to dvoKeiixfva avr(f, the reading of G. and Theodotion = " that which is his," and is adopted with hesitation by Driver, as the meaning of ihe Hebrew.
(f> a'K6K(iTat ^ " whose it is" was adopted by Justin, A/', i. 32, supplying Tb $a(Ti\fiov, and Tryf^ho, cxx., Iren. iv. x. 2, and by Origen (often)
: also by (Jnkelos, and the I'eshiita.
This rendering is adopted by Gunkel.
A.V. translates, "Until .Shiloh come," K.V.
(margin), "Till he come to Shiloh," noticing the two LXX rendei ings ; and this rendering is accepted in default of a l>etter, by Delit/.sch, Dillman, and S.
Davidson.
There are many other suggestions, including Wellhausen's " that the verse denotes an ideal limit of time, the coming of the Messiah, and presupposes the Davidic monarchy."
{I/.D.B. iv. 501, A. S.
Aglen.
See also S.
Davidson, Introd. to O.T., yo\.\.)