(21) Then those men who will follow after him will introduce circumcision. And he will pronounce judgment upon those who are from the uncircumcision, who are the (true) people. For in fact he sent many preachers beforehand, who preached on his behalf.

(14) Moses therefore gave unto you circumcision (not because it is of Moses, but of the fathers); and ye on the sabbath day circumcise a man. If a man on the sabbath day receive circumcision, that the law of Moses should not be broken; are ye angry at me, because I have made a man every whit whole on the sabbath day?

(53) His disciples said to Him, "Is circumcision beneficial or not?" He said to them, "If it were beneficial, their father would beget them already circumcised from their mother. Rather, the true circumcision in spirit has become completely profitable."

(5) "Wherefore thus saith the Lord, Every alien son is uncircumcised in heart, and uncircumcised in flesh" (that is, unclean in body and soul): "there shall not enter one of the strangers into the midst of the house of Israel, but the Lerites." He calls those that would not believe, but would disbelieve, strangers. Only those who live purely being true priests of God. Wherefore, of all the circumcised tribes, those anointed to be high priests, and kings, and prophets, were reckoned more holy. Whence He commands them not to touch dead bodies, or approach the dead; not that the body was polluted, but that sin and disobedience were incarnate, and embodied, and dead, and therefore abominable.

(43) To attain the knowledge of God is impossible for those who are still under the control of their passions. Therefore they cannot attain the salvation they hope for as they have not obtained any knowledge of God. He who fails to attain this end is clearly subject to the charge of being ignorant of God, and ignorance of God is shown by a man's manner of life. It is absolutely impossible at the same time to be a man of understanding and not to be ashamed to gratify the body. Nor can the view that pleasure is the supreme Good be reconciled with the view that only the beautiful is good, or that only the Lord is beautiful, and God alone is good and is alone to be loved. "You are circumcised in Christ with a circumcision not done with hands, which consists rather in the putting away of the carnal body, in the circumcision of Christ." "If you then are risen with Christ, seek those things which are above; have in mind higher things, not earthly things. For you are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God" -but not the fornication which they practice. "Mortify therefore your earthly members, fornication, uncleanness, passion, lust; for on account of these wrath is coming." Let them also therefore "put away anger, wrath, wickedness, blasphemy, filthy talk from their mouth, putting off the old man with its lusts, and putting on the new man which is renewed to possess full knowledge according to the image of him who created it."

(34) It continued a long Time in the Covenant of Circumcision (in the Life and Light of the Father) with the Shadows and Types of the Incarnation of the Son; but these could not reach the Earnestness of the Coming again of the Body out of the Grave; but the Word must become Man, if Man must rise again out of the Grave. It [the Covenant] ransomed the Soul indeed, so. that it could stand before the Father (in the Gate of the Corruptibility) in the Fire of the Sharpness, but not in the pleasant Joy, before the Light of the holy Trinity; and besides, it could not bring the new Body forth out of the Element, for it was defiled too much with Sin.

(99) A eunuch, then, does not mean a man who has been castrated, nor even an unmarried man, but a man who is un- productive of truth. Formerly he was "dry wood," but if he obeys the word and observes the sabbaths by abstaining from sins and keeps the commandments, he will be in higher honour that those who are educated in word alone and fail to do what is right. "Little children," says our teacher, "a little while longer I am with you." That is why Paul also instructs the Galatians in these words: "My little children, with whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you." And again he writes to the Corinthians: "For though you may have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet you have not many fathers. For in Christ I have begotten you through the gospel." On this account a eunuch shall not enter into God's assembly," that is, the man who is unproductive and unfruitful both in conduct and in word; but blessed are those who have made themselves eunuchs, free from all sin, for the sake of the kingdom of heaven by their abstinence from the world.

When Abraham [was able] to see what he was to see, [he] circumcised the flesh of the foreskin, thus teaching us that it is necessary to destroy the flesh.

(1) WHILE Peter spake, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard, They of the circumcision which believed were astonished, because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost.

(33) But thou must not omit Baptism notwithstanding; for when the Child is born into the World, then it is severed from its Tree, and is in this World, and then itself must pass into the Covenant, and thou must with thy Faith present it, and with thy Prayer give Or in. it to God, in his Covenant; there needs no Pomp about it, that does dishonour the Covenant; it is an earnest Thing.

(3) To illustrate: the noble apostle circumcised Timothy, though loudly declaring and writing that circumcision made with hands profits nothing. But that he might not, by dragging all at once away from the law to the circumcision of the heart through faith those of the Hebrews who were reluctant listeners, compel them to break away from the synagogue, he, "accommodating himself to the Jews, became a Jew that he might gain all."

(98) To both the same Lord gives the corresponding promises by the prophet Isaiah in the following words: "Let not the eunuch say, I am dry wood. To eunuchs the Lord says this, If you keep my sabbaths and do all that I command you, I will give you a place better than sons and daughters." For a eunuch is not justified merely because he is a eunuch, and certainly not because he observes the sabbath, if he does not keep the commandments. And for the married he goes on to say, "My elect shall not labour in vain nor bear children to be accursed; for they are a seed blessed by the Lord." For him who begets children and brings them up and educates them in the Lord, just as for him who begets children by means of the true teaching, a reward is laid up, as also for the elect seed. But others hold that procreation is a curse and do not understand that the Scripture speaks against them. Those who are in truth the Lord's elect neither teach doctrines nor beget children to be accursed, as the sects do.

(1) For is it not the case that rightly and truly we do not circumscribe in any place that which cannot be circumscribed; nor do we shut up in temples made with hands that which contains all things? What work of builders, and stonecutters, and mechanical art can be holy? Superior to these are not they who think that the air, and the enclosing space, or rather the whole world and the universe, are meet for the excellency of God?

(4) For in Christ neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith which worketh by love." And we desire that every one of you show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope," down to "made an high priest for ever, after the order of Melchizedek." Similarly with Paul "the All-virtuous Wisdom" says, "He, that heareth me shall dwell trusting in hope." For the restoration of hope is called by the same term "hope." To the expression "will dwell" it has most beautifully added" trusting," showing that such an one has obtained rest, having received the hope for which he hoped. Wherefore also it is added, "and shall be quiet, without fear of any evil." And openly and expressly the apostle, in the first Epistle to the Corinthians says, "Be ye followers of me, as also I am of Christ," s in order that that may take place. If ye are of me, and I am of Christ, then ye are imitators of Christ, and Christ of God. Assimilation to God, then, so that as far as possible a man becomes righteous and holy with wisdom he lays down as the aim of faith, and the end to be that restitution of the promise which is effected by faith. From these doctrines gush the fountains, which we specified above, of those who have dogmatized about "the end." But of these enough.

(7) ¶But take heed to yourselves: for before all these, they shall lay their hands on you, and persecute you; delivering you up to councils, and into prisons, to be afflicted: and in the synagogues ye shall be beaten: and ye shall be brought before rulers and kings for my name's sake. And it shall turn to you for a testimony against them. Then shall they kill you, and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake.

(86) In general all the epistles of the apostle teach self-control and continence and contain numerous instructions about marriage, begetting children, and domestic life. But they nowhere rule out self-controlled marriage. Rather they preserve the harmony of the law and the gospel and approve both the man who with thanks to God enters upon marriage with sobriety and the man who in accordance with the Lord's win lives as a celibate, even as each individual is caned, making his choice without blemish and in perfection. "And the land of Jacob was praised above another lands," says the prophet, glorifying the vessel of his Spirit. But a certain man who disparages birth, speaking of it as corrupt and destined for abolition, and does violence to the Scripture, saying that the Lord was referring to procreation in the words that on earth one ought not to "lay up treasure where moth and rust corrupt." And he is not ashamed to add to this the quotation from the prophet: "You all shall wax old like a garment and moth shall eat you." But we do not contradict the Scripture. Our bodies are corruptible and by nature subject to continual change. Perhaps the prophet was foretelling destruction to those whom he was addressing because they were sinners. But the Saviour did not refer to begetting children, but was exhorting those who wished only to possess large wealth and not to help the needy, to share their goods with others.

(84) And now, my Lord, destroy from the earth the flesh which has aroused Thy wrath, But the flesh of righteousness and uprightness establish as a plant of the eternal seed, And hide not Thy face from the prayer of Thy servant, O Lord.'

(1) THEY shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you, you will think that he doeth God service. And these things will they do unto you, because they have not known the Father, nor me.

(55) Therefore God established the State of Wedlock with Adam and Eve, and bound it fast with a strong Chain, in that he said; A Man shall leave Father and Mother, and cleave to his Wife, and they two shall be one Flesh. And God tolerates their as one Body and its Members, and must aim (in the Fear of God) at the Getting of Children; or else the Wantonness [or Lust] in itself (without that true Love of the State of Wedlock) is continually a bestial Lust, [Infection,] and Sin. And if you (in the State of Wedlock) seek nothing but the Lust and Lechery, then in such a Condition, thou art not a Jot better than a Beast, And do but consider it rightly, that without this, thou standest [already] in a bestial Birth [or Generation,] contrary to the first Creation, like all Beasts. For the holy Man in Adam was not predetermined to have propagated so, but in great modest Love out of himself.

(4) Thou art pure, thou art pure, thy forepart is purified, thy hindpart is cleansed with bet and natron, and cooled with incense