Chapter III.—Of Circumcision and the Supercession of the Old Law.

But Abraham, (you say,) was circumcised. Yes, but he pleased God before his circumcision;37    See Gen. xii.–xv. compared with xvii. and Rom. iv. nor yet did he observe the Sabbath. For he had “accepted”38    Acceperat. So Tertullian renders, as it appears to me, the ἔλαβε of St. Paul in Rom. iv. 11. q. v. circumcision; but such as was to be for “a sign” of that time, not for a prerogative title to salvation. In fact, subsequent patriarchs were uncircumcised, like Melchizedek, who, uncircumcised, offered to Abraham himself, already circumcised, on his return from battle, bread and wine.39    There is, if the text be genuine, some confusion here.  Melchizedek does not appear to have been, in any sense, “subsequent” to Abraham, for he probably was senior to him; and, moreover, Abraham does not appear to have been “already circumcised” carnally when Melchizedek met him. Comp. Gen. xiv. with Gen. xvii. “But again,” (you say) “the son of Moses would upon one occasion have been choked by an angel, if Zipporah,40    Tertullian writes Seffora; the LXX. in loco, Σεπφώρα Ex. iv. 24–26, where the Eng. ver. says, “the Lord met him,” etc.; the LXX ἄγγελος Κυρίου. had not circumcised the foreskin of the infant with a pebble; whence, “there is the greatest peril if any fail to circumcise the foreskin of his flesh.” Nay, but if circumcision altogether brought salvation, even Moses himself, in the case of his own son, would not have omitted to circumcise him on the eighth day; whereas it is agreed that Zipporah did it on the journey, at the compulsion of the angel. Consider we, accordingly, that one single infant’s compulsory circumcision cannot have prescribed to every people, and founded, as it were, a law for keeping this precept. For God, foreseeing that He was about to give this circumcision to the people of Israel for “a sign,” not for salvation, urges the circumcision of the son of Moses, their future leader, for this reason; that, since He had begun, through him, to give the People the precept of circumcision, the people should not despise it, from seeing this example (of neglect) already exhibited conspicuously in their leader’s son. For circumcision had to be given; but as “a sign,” whence Israel in the last time would have to be distinguished, when, in accordance with their deserts, they should be prohibited from entering the holy city, as we see through the words of the prophets, saying, “Your land is desert; your cities utterly burnt with fire; your country, in your sight, strangers shall eat up; and, deserted and subverted by strange peoples, the daughter of Zion shall be derelict, like a shed in a vineyard, and like a watchhouse in a cucumber-field, and as it were a city which is being stormed.”41    Isa. i. 7, 8. See c. xiii. sub fin. Why so?  Because the subsequent discourse of the prophet reproaches them, saying, “Sons have I begotten and upraised, but they have reprobated me;”42    Again an error; for these words precede the others. These are found in Isa. i. 2. and again, “And if ye shall have outstretched hands, I will avert my face from you; and if ye shall have multiplied prayers, I will not hear you: for your hands are full of blood;”43    Isa. i. 15. and again, “Woe! sinful nation; a people full of sins; wicked sons; ye have quite forsaken God, and have provoked unto indignation the Holy One of Israel.”44    Isa. i. 4. This, therefore, was God’s foresight,—that of giving circumcision to Israel, for a sign whence they might be distinguished when the time should arrive wherein their above-mentioned deserts should prohibit their admission into Jerusalem:  which circumstance, because it was to be, used to be announced; and, because we see it accomplished, is recognised by us. For, as the carnal circumcision, which was temporary, was in wrought for “a sign” in a contumacious people, so the spiritual has been given for salvation to an obedient people; while the prophet Jeremiah says, “Make a renewal for you, and sow not in thorns; be circumcised to God, and circumcise the foreskin of your heart:”45    Jer. iv. 3, 4. In Eng. ver., “break up your fallow ground;” but comp. de Pu. c. vi. ad init. and in another place he says, “Behold, days shall come, saith the Lord, and I will draw up, for the house of Judah and for the house of Jacob,46    So Tertullian. In Jer. ibid. “Israel and…Judah.” a new testament; not such as I once gave their fathers in the day wherein I led them out from the land of Egypt.”47    Jer. xxxi. 31, 32 (in LXX. ibid. xxxviii. 31, 32); comp. Heb. viii. 8–13. Whence we understand that the coming cessation of the former circumcision then given, and the coming procession of a new law (not such as He had already given to the fathers), are announced: just as Isaiah foretold, saying that in the last days the mount of the Lord and the house of God were to be manifest above the tops of the mounts: “And it shall be exalted,” he says, “above the hills; and there shall come over it all nations; and many shall walk, and say, Come, ascend we unto the mount of the Lord, and unto the house of the God of Jacob,”48    Isa. ii. 2, 3.—not of Esau, the former son, but of Jacob, the second; that is, of our “people,” whose “mount” is Christ, “præcised without concisors’ hands,49    Perhaps an allusion to Phil. iii. 1, 2. filling every land,” shown in the book of Daniel.50    See Dan. ii. 34, 35, 44, 45. See c. xiv. below. In short, the coming procession of a new law out of this “house of the God of Jacob” Isaiah in the ensuing words announces, saying, “For from Zion shall go out a law, and the word of the Lord out of Jerusalem, and shall judge among the nations,”—that is, among us, who have been called out of the nations,—“and they shall join to beat their glaives into ploughs, and their lances into sickles; and nations shall not take up glaive against nation, and they shall no more learn to fight.”51    Isa. ii. 3, 4. Who else, therefore, are understood but we, who, fully taught by the new law, observe these practices,—the old law being obliterated, the coming of whose abolition the action itself52    i.e., of beating swords into ploughs, etc. demonstrates? For the wont of the old law was to avenge itself by the vengeance of the glaive, and to pluck out “eye for eye,” and to inflict retaliatory revenge for injury.53    Comp. Ex. xxi. 24, 25; Lev. xxiv. 17–22; Deut. xix. 11–21; Matt. v. 38. But the new law’s wont was to point to clemency, and to convert to tranquillity the pristine ferocity of “glaives” and “lances,” and to remodel the pristine execution of “war” upon the rivals and foes of the law into the pacific actions of “ploughing” and “tilling” the land.54    Especially spiritually. Comp. 1 Cor. iii. 6–9; ix. 9, 10, and similar passages. Therefore as we have shown above that the coming cessation of the old law and of the carnal circumcision was declared, so, too, the observance of the new law and the spiritual circumcision has shone out into the voluntary obediences55    Obsequia. See de Pa. c. iv. note 1. of peace. For “a people,” he says, “whom I knew not hath served me; in obedience of the ear it hath obeyed me.”56    See Ps. xviii. 43, 44 (xvii. 44, 45 in LXX.), where the Eng. ver. has the future; the LXX., like Tertullian, the past. Comp. 2 Sam. (in LXX. 2 Kings) xxii. 44, 45, and Rom. x. 14–17. Prophets made the announcement. But what is the “people” which was ignorant of God, but ours, who in days bygone knew not God? and who, in the hearing of the ear, gave heed to Him, but we, who, forsaking idols, have been converted to God? For Israel—who had been known to God, and who had by Him been “upraised”57    Comp. Isa. i. 2 as above, and Acts xiii. 17. in Egypt, and was transported through the Red Sea, and who in the desert, fed forty years with manna, was wrought to the semblance of eternity, and not contaminated with human passions,58    Sæculi. or fed on this world’s59    Or, perhaps, “not affected, as a body, with human sufferings;” in allusion to such passages as Deut. viii. 4; xxix. 5; Neh. ix. 21. meats, but fed on “angel’s loaves”60    Ps. lxxviii. (lxxvii. in LXX.) 25; comp. John vi. 31, 32.—the manna—and sufficiently bound to God by His benefits—forgot his Lord and God, saying to Aaron: “Make us gods, to go before us: for that Moses, who ejected us from the land of Egypt, hath quite forsaken us; and what hath befallen him we know not.” And accordingly we, who “were not the people of God” in days bygone, have been made His people,61    See Hos. i. 10; 1 Pet. ii. 10. by accepting the new law above mentioned, and the new circumcision before foretold.

CAPUT III.

Sed Abraham, inquit , circumcisus est. Sed ante Deo placuit quam circumcideretur, nec tamen sabbatizavit. Acceperat enim circumcisionem, sed quae esset in signum temporis illius, non in salutis praerogativam. Denique sequentes Patriarchae incircumcisi fuerunt, ut Melchisedech, qui ipsi Abrahae jam circumciso , revertenti de praelio, panem et 0602B vinum obtulit (Ibid.) incircumcisus. Sed et filius, inquit, Moysi tum ab angelo praefocatus fuisset, si non Seffora mater ejus calculo praeputium infantis circumcidisset (Exod. IV, 24, 25). Unde, inquit, maximum periculum est, si praeputium carnis quis non circumciderit. Et ideo si salutem circumcisio 0603A omni modo adferret , etiam ipse Moyses in filio suo non intermisisset, quominus octava die circumcideret eum, quando constet Sefforam coactam ab angelo id fecisse in itinere. Consideremus itaque quod non potuerit unius infantis coacta circumcisio omni populo praescribere, et quasi legem hujus praecepti condere. Nam providens Deus quod hanc circumcisionem in signum, non in salutem esset daturus populo Israel, idcirco filium Moysi ducis futuri instigat circumcidi, ut cum coepisset per eum populo dare praeceptum circumcisionis, non aspernaretur populus, videns exemplum istud in ducis filio jam celebratum. Dari enim habebat circumcisio, sed in signum: unde Israel in novissimo tempore dignosci haberet, quando secundum sua merita in sanctam civitatem 0603B ingredi prohiberetur, per verba prophetarum dicentium: Terra vestra deserta, civitates vestrae igni exustae, regionem vestram in conspectu vestro alieni comedent, et deserta et subversa a populis extraneis, derelinquetur filia Sion sicut casa in vinea, et sicut custodiarium in cucumerario, et quasi civitas quae expugnatur (Is. I, 7, 8). Et ideo subsequens sermo prophetae exprobrat eis dicens: Filios generavi et exaltavi, ipsi autem spreverunt me (Ibid, 2) . Et iterum: Et si extenderitis manus, avertam faciem meam a vobis: et si multiplicaveritis preces, non exaudiam vos: manus enim vestrae sanguine plenae sunt (Ibid. 15). Et iterum: Vae, gens peccatrix, populus plenus peccatis, filii scelerati, dereliquistis Deum, et in indignationem misistis Sanctum Israel (Ibid. 4). Haec igitur Dei providentia 0603C fuit dandi circumcisionem Israel in signum unde dignosci posset, cum adveniret tempus quo meritis suis supra dictis in Hierusalem admitti prohiberetur: quod et quia futurum erat, nuntiabatur, et quia factum videmus, recognoscimus. Sicut ergo circumcisio carnalis, quae temporalis erat, tributa est in signum populo contumaci, ita spiritalis data est in salutem populo obaudienti, dicente propheta Hieremia: Innovate vobis novitatem , et nolite seminare in spinis. Circumcidimini Deo, et circumcidite praeputium cordis vestri (Hier. IV, 3, 4). Et alio loco dicit: Ecce enim dies veniunt, dicit Dominus, et disponam domui Juda et domui Jacob testamentum novum, 0604A non tale quale jam dedi patribus eorum in die quo eos eduxi de terra Aegypti. Unde intelligimus et priorem circumcisionem tunc datam cessaturam, et novam legem, non talem qualem jam dederat patribus processuram, annuntiari, sicut Esaias praedicavit dicens, quod in novissimis diebus manifestus futurus esset mons Domini, et domus Dei super vertices montium: et exaltabitur, inquit, super colles, venient super illum omnes gentes, et ambulabunt multi, et dicent: Venite, ascendamus in montem Domini, et in domum Dei Jacob (Is. II, 2, 3): non in Esau prioris filii , sed in Jacob sequentis, id est populi nostri, cujus mons Christus est sine manibus concidentium praecisus, implens omnem terram, apud Danielem ostensus (Dan. II, 34, 37). Denique, ex hac domo Dei 0604B Jacob, etiam legem novam processuram sequentibus verbis annuntiat Esaias dicens: De Sion enim exiet lex, et verbum Domini ex Hierusalem, et judicabit inter gentes (Is. II, 3, 4), id est inter eos qui ex gentibus sumus vocati: et concident, inquit, gladios suos in aratra, et lanceas suas in falces, et non accipiet gentem super gentem gladium, et jam non discent praeliari (Ibid.). Igitur intelliguntur alii quam nos, qui, nova lege edocti, ista observamus, obliterata veteri lege, cujus abolitionem futuram actus ipse demonstrat ? Nam vetus lex ultione gladii se vindicabat, et oculum pro oculo eruebat (Exod. XXI, 24; Levit. XXIV, 20; Deut. XIX, 21), et vindictam injuriae retribuebat: nova autem lex clementiam designabat, et belli pristina in aemulos legis et hostis exsecutionem 0604C , in pacificos actus arandae et colendae terrae reformabat. Igitur, sicut supra ostendimus, quod vetus lex et circumcisio carnalis cessatura pronuntiata est, ita et novae legis et spiritalis circumcisionis observantia, in pacis obsequia eluxit. Populus enim, inquit, quem non noveram, servivit mihi, in obauditu auris obaudivit me (Ps. XVII, 29), Prophetae adnuntiaverunt. Quis autem et populus qui Deum ignorabat, nisi noster, qui retro Deum nesciebamus? et quis in auditu auris audiit, nisi nos, qui, relictis idolis, ad Deum conversi sumus? Nam Israel qui Deo fuerat cognitus, quique ab eo in Aegypto exaltatus fuerat, et per Erythraeum pelagum transvectus 0605A est (Exod. XIV, 22), quique in eremo manna cibatus (Exod. XVI, 13, sqq.), quadraginta annis ad instar aeternitatis redactus, nec humanis passionibus contaminatus, aut saeculi hujus cibi pastus, sed angelorum panibus (Ps. LXXVII) manna cibatus, satisque beneficiis Deo obligatus, Domini et Dei sui oblitus est, dicens ad Aaron: Fac nobis deos qui nos praecedant: Moyses enim ille, qui nos ejecit de terra Aegypti, dereliquit nos, et quid illi acciderit nescimus (Exod. XXXII, 1). Et ideo nos, qui non populus Dei retro, facti sumus populus ejus, accipiendo novam legem supra dictam, et novam circumcisionem ante praedictam.