CHAPTER 3 

That the System of Moses was not Suitable for All Nations.

THAT the enactments of Moses, as I said, were only applicable 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: - 12 - 

{18} "Thrice in the year shall all thy males appear before the Lord thy God."

And it defines more exactly at what place they should all meet, when it says:

"Three times in the year shall thy males appear before the Lord, thy God, in the place which the Lord shall choose."

You see that it 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 plain that all who were to meet at Jerusalem thrice in the year and perform their rites would not be able to live far from Judaea: but they live all round its boundaries. If then it would be impossible even for the lews whose home is the farthest from Palestine to obey their law, {19} 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, Whatsoever woman shall have conceived and borne a male-child shall be 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 burnt-offering, and a young pigeon or a turtle-dove for a sin-offering to the door of the tabernacle of witness to the priest, 7. she shall present [them] before the Lord. And the priest shall make atonement for her, and shall purify her from the issue of her blood; this is the law of her who bears a male or a female." - 13 - 

Again, in addition to this the same law bids those who have contracted defilement by mourning or touching a corpse only to be purified by the ashes of an heifer, and to abstain from their accustomed work for seven days. This 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. 11. He that touches the dead body of any soul of man shall be unclean seven days, 12. shall be purified on the third 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 open vessel which is not bound with a fastening, shall be unclean; 16. and every one who shall touch on the face any man slain by the sword, or a corpse, or a human bone, or a sepulchre, shall be unclean seven clays. 17. 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 clip 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, {21} and he shall wash 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 perpetual law to you." - 14 - 

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 that 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 bring 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. This is plain from his enactment, when he says:

"And there shall be a place, which the Lord your God shall choose, in which his name shall be called 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 God shall choose, in one of thy cities; there shall thou offer thy whole burnt-offerings, and there shall thou do whatsoever I bid you to-day." 

And he makes this addition:

"{22} 17. Thou shall 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. 18. But before the Lord shall thou eat it in the place which the Lord thy God shall choose for himself, thou and thy sons and thy daughter, and thy servant, and thy maid, and the stranger⁸  {1} that is in thy cities."

And proceeding he confirms the statement, where he says: 

"But thou shall take thy holy things, if thou hast any, and thy vows, and shall come to the place, which the Lord thy God shall choose for himself.'' 

And again:

"Thou shall tithe a tenth of all the produce of thy seed, the produce of thy field year by year. And thou - 15 - shall eat it in the place {2a} which the Lord thy God shall choose to have his name called on there."

And then in considering what ought to be done if the 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 shall sell them for money, {2b} and shall take the money in thy hands, and shall go to the place which the Lord thy God shall choose. 25. And thou shall give the money for whalsoever thy soul desireth for oxen or sheep, or wine, or slrong drink, or for whalsoever thy soul desireth and thou shall consume it there before the Lord."

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, thou shall offer the males to the Lord thy God; thou shall not work with thy firstborn calf, and thou shall not shear thy firstborn sheep: 20. thou shall eat it before the Lord year by year, {2c} in the place which the Lord thy God shall choose, thou and thy house."

Next notice how he arranges the celebration of the feasts, not anywhere in the land, but only in the appointed place. For he says:

"Observe the month of new corn, and thou shall keep the Passover lo the Lord thy God, sheep and bulls, in the place which the Lord thy God shall choose."

And he again reminds them, saying:

"5. Thou shall not be able to sacrifice the passover {2d} in any of the cities which the Lord thy God gives thee; 6. But in the place which the Lord thy God shall choose, to have his name called on there, thou shall sacrifice the passover at even at the setting of the sun - 16 - at the time when them earnest out of Egypt. 7. And thou shalt boil and eat it in the place which the Lord thy 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. 11. And thou shalt rejoice before the Lord thy God, thou and thy son, and thy daughter, thy servant, and thy maid, {3a} and the Levite that is in thy cities, and the proselyte; and the orphan, and the widow that is among you, in the place 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 feast 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 maid, and the widow, {3b} in the place which the Lord thy God 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 Judaea, and still less to the nations of the whole world, especially as he allows no pardon to those who transgress his ordinances, and invokes a curse on those who do not carry them all out to the minutest detail, in the following words:

"{3c} Cursed is he who continueth not in all things written in this law to do them."

Consider, again, other instances of the impossibility of all men following the law of Moses. He makes a distinction between voluntary transgressions and those hard to evade, and after assigning penalties to sins which deserve - 17 - 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 people 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, 28. 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, {3d} he shall bring it for his sin that he hath sinned 29. in the place where they slay the whole burnt-offerings, 30. and the priest shall take of the blood."

You see here how one who has sinned unintentionally is required to present himself at the place where the whole burnt-offerings 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: {4a} 

"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."

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 whole burnt-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 take 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 {4b} know it not, and afterwards should know it and transgress." - 18 - 

Here the only thing necessary for the polluted person is for him to go once more to the sacred place, and offer for the sin which 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 place, and the priest is to pray on his behalf for the sin, and his sin shall be forgiven. And another law besides those I have quoted makes this 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 high-priest to the place, that is to say the chosen place." 

And he adds a sixth law in these words:

"{4d} 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 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 business), or plunder, or has in any way wronged his neighbour, 3. or has 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 - 19 - committed, or restore the deposit which was entrusted to him, {5a} 5. or the lost article he has found of any kind, about which he swore unjustly, he shall even restore it in full, and shall add to it the fifth part."

Here, again, after confession and reparation the transgressor had to go with all speed, putting everything else on one side, to the place, which the Lord our God should choose, and offer for his sin an unblemished ram, and the priest was to pray for him before the Lord, and he would be forgiven.{5b} 

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 {5c} to the sacred 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 things written in this law. to do them "? 

Was it, then, meant that Moses' future disciples 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, {5d} 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? Were 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 required 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 - 20 - other nations to fulfil it.

Hence, of course, our Lord and Saviour, Jesus the Son of God, said to His disciples after His Resurrection:

"{6a} 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 requirements 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 says in the Acts: {6b} 

"Now therefore why do ye attempt to lay a yoke upon the necks of the disciples, which neither our fathers 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.

"{6c} 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 you]. 19. And it shall - 21 - be that every soul who will not hear that prophet shall be cast out of its race."

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:

"{6d} 5. How fair are thy dwellings, O Jacob, and thy tents, O Israel, 6. as shady groves, and as a garden by a river, and as tents which God pitched. 7. There shall come a man out of his seed, and he shall rule over many nations, and his kingdom shall be exalted."

He 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 - 22 -  it quite plain from his own words that he was quite well aware of the failure of the law he had laid down to apply to all nations, and that another prophet would be necessary for the fulfilment of the oracles given to Abraham. And this was He, of Whom his prophecy proclaimed the good news that one should arise from the tribe of Judah and rule all nations.