CHAPTER 7

How Christ, having first fulfilled the Law of Moses, became the Introducer of a New and Fresh System.

AND now having lived in all ways according to the Law of Moses, He made use of His Apostles as ministers of the new legislation, on the one hand teaching them that they must not consider the Law of Moses either foreign or unfriendly to their own religion, on the other as being the author and introducer of a legislation new and salutary for all men, so that He did not in any way break Moses' enactments, but rather crowned them, and was their fulfilment, and then passed on to the institution of the Gospel Law. Hear Him speaking in this strain:

3. "I have not come to destroy the law but to fulfil it."

For if He had been a transgressor of the Law of Moses, He would reasonably have been considered to have rescinded it and given a contrary law: and if He had been wicked and a law-breaker He could not have been believed to be the Christ. And if He had rescinded Moses' Law, He could never have been considered to be One foretold by Moses and the prophets. Nor would His new Law have had any authority. For He would have had to embark on a new Law, in order to escape the penalty of breaking the old. But as a matter of fact He has rescinded nothing - 44 - whatever in the Law, but fulfilled it. It is, as one might say, Mosaically perfect. Yet since it was no longer possible for the causes I have stated already to accommodate the Law of Moses to the needs of the other nations, and it was necessary, thanks to the love of God the All-good, "that all men should be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth," He laid down a law suitable and possible for all. Nor did He forbid His Apostles to preach Moses' Law to all men, except when it was likely to be a stumbling-block to them, as the apostle says:

"For that which was impossible by the law, in that it was weak, God sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh," etc.

And it was "impossible "for all the nations to go up thrice a year to Jerusalem as the Law of Moses required, for a woman after childbirth to hasten there from the ends of the earth to pay the fees of her purification, and in many other ways, which you can arrive at for yourselves at your leisure. Since then it was not possible for the nations living outside Judaea to keep these things even if they wished, our Lord and Saviour could hardly be said to have rescinded them, but was the fulfilment of the Law, and gave a proof to those who could see, that He was indeed the Christ of God foretold by the old Jewish prophets. This He did, when He gave to all nations through His own disciples enactments that suited them. And, therefore, we reject Jewish customs, on the ground that they were not laid down for us, and that it is impossible to accommodate them to the needs of the Gentiles, while we gladly accept the Jewish prophecies as containing predictions about ourselves. Thus the Saviour on the one side is our teacher, and on the other the fulfilment of the Law of Moses, and of the prophets who followed him.

For since as yet the prophecies lacked the fulfilment of their conclusions and of their words, He must necessarily fulfil them. As for example the prophecy in Moses says:

"A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up to you like unto me, him shall ye hear in all things, whatsoever that prophet shall speak to you."

He fulfilled what remained to be fulfilled in this prophecy, - 45 - appearing as the second Lawgiver after Moses, giving to men the Law of the Supreme God's true holiness. For Moses does not say simply "a prophet,"but adds "like unto me": ("For a prophet," he says, "shall the Lord your God raise up unto you, like unto me. Him shall ye hear"), and this can only menu that He who was foretold would be equal to Moses. And Moses was the giver of the Law of holiness of the Supreme God. So He that was foretold, to be like Moses, would probably be like him in being a Lawgiver. And though there were many prophets in later days, none of them is recorded to have been "like Moses."

For they all referred their hearers to him. Even Scripture bears witness that "a prophet has not arisen like Moses": neither Jeremiah, nor Isaiah, nor any other of the prophets was like him, because not one of them was a Lawgiver. When the expectation was that a prophet who was also a Lawgiver like Moses should arise, Jesus Christ came giving a Law to all nations, and accomplishing what the Law could not. As He said:

"it was said to them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: but I say unto you, Thou shalt not desire to." And, "It was said to them of old time, Thou shalt not kill, but I say unto you, Thou shalt not be angry." And, "No more in Jerusalem, but in every place must you worship." And, "Worship not with incense and sacrifices, but in spirit and in truth." And all such things that are recorded of His teaching are surely the laws of a Lawgiver very wise and very perfect. 

Wherefore Holy Scripture says His hearers were "astounded," because He taught them "as one having authority, and not as the Scribes and the Pharisees"—an oracle which supplied what was lacking to the fulfilment of the prophecy of Moses. And the same can be said of the other prophecies about Him, and the calling of the Gentiles. He was, therefore, the fulfiller of the Law and the prophets since He brought the predictions referring to Himself to a conclusion.

He ordained that the former Law should stand till He came, and He was revealed as the originator of the second Law of the new covenant preached to all nations, as being - 46 - responsible for the Law and influence of the two religions, I mean Judaism and Christianity. And it is wonderful that divine prophecy should accord:

"Behold, I lay in Zion a stone, choice, a cornerstone; precious, and he that believes on him shall not be ashamed."

Who could be the corner-stone but He, the living and precious stone Who supports by His teaching two buildings and makes them one? For He set up the Mosaic building, which was to last till His day, and then fitted on to one side of it our building of the Gospel. Hence He is called the corner-stone. And it is said in the Psalms: "22. The stone which the builders refused, the same is become the head of the corner. 23. This is of the Lord, and it is marvellous in our eyes."

This oracle too indubitably indicates the Jewish conspiracy against the subject of the prophecy, how He has been set at naught by the builders of the old wall, meaning the Scribes and Pharisees, the High-Priests and all the rulers of the Jews. And it prophesied that though He should be despised and cast out He would become the head of the corner, regarding Him as the originator of the new covenant, according to the above proofs.

So then we are not apostates from Hellenism who have embraced Judaism, nor are we at fault in accepting the law of Moses and the Hebrew Prophets, and we do not live as Jews, but according to the system of the men of God who lived before Moses. Nay, we claim that in this - 47 - we authenticate Moses and the succeeding prophets, in that we accept the Christ foretold by them, and obey His laws, and endeavour prayerfully to tread in the steps of His teaching, for so we do what Moses himself would approve. For he says, in foretelling that God will raise up a prophet like himself, "and every soul which doth not hear that prophet shall be cast out from its race."Therefore the Jews, because they rejected the prophet, and did not hearken to His holy words, have suffered extreme ruin according to the prediction. For they neither received the law of Christ of the new covenant, nor were they able to keep the commands of Moses without some breach of his law; and so they fell under the curse of Moses, in not being able to carry out what was ordained by him, being exiled as they were from their mother-city, which was destroyed, where alone it was allowed to celebrate the Mosaic worship. Whereas we, who accept Him that was foretold by Moses and the prophets, and endeavour to obey Him prayerfully, must surely be fulfilling the prophecy of Moses, where he said: "And every soul, which doth not hear that prophet, shall be cast out from its race."And we heard just now what the ordinances of the prophet were, which we must obey, their wisdom, perfection and heavenliness, which he thought fit to inscribe, not on tables of stone like Moses, nor yet with ink and parchment, but on the hearts of his pupils, purified and open to reason. On them he wrote the laws of the new covenant, and actually fulfilled the prophecy of Jeremiah.

"I will make a new covenant, not according to the covenant which I made with their fathers. For this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel, I will give my laws into their mind, and upon their heart I will write them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.