Ante-Nicene Fathers — Volume I

Ante-Nicene Fathers — Vol. I — Section 144

" Moreover, that God enjoined you to keep the Sabbath, and impose on you other precepts for a sign, as I have already said, on account of your unrighteousness, and that of your fathers, — as He declares that for the sake of the nations, lest His name be profaned among them, there- fore He permitted some of you to remain alive, — these words of His can prove to you : they are narrated by Ezekiel thus : I am the Lord your God ; walk in My statutes, and keep My judg- ments, and take no part in the customs of Egypt ; and hallow My Sabbaths ; and they shall be a sign between Me and you, that ye may know that I am the Lord your God. Notwithstanding ye rebelled against Me, and your children walked not in My statutes, neither kept My judgments to do them : which if a man do, he shall live in them. But they polluted My Sabbaths. And I said that I would pour out My fiiry upon them in the wilderness, to accomplish My anger upon them ; yet I did it not ; that My name might not be altogether profaned in the sight of the heathen. I led them out before their eyes, and 8 " The reasoning of St. Justin is not quite clear to interpreters. As we abstain from some herbs, not because they are forbidden by law, but because they are deadly; so the law of abstinence from improper and violent animals was imposed not on Noah, but on you as a yoke on account of your sins." — Maranus. 9 Deut. xxxii. 6, so. DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 205 I lifted up Mine hand unto them in the wilder- ness, that I would scatter them among the heathen, and disperse them through the coun- tries ; because they had not executed My judg- ments, but had despised My statutes, and polluted My Sabbaths, and their eyes were after the devices of their fathers. Wherefore I gave them also statutes which were not good, and judgments whereby they shall not live. And I shall pollute them in their own gifts, that I may destroy all that openeth the womb, when I pass through them.' ' CHAP. XXII. so ALSO WERE SACRIFICES AND OBLATIONS. /