Homilies on the Gospel of John

“If a man receive circumcision.”

“Do you see that the Law is most established when a man breaks it? Do you see that the breaking of the Sabbath is the keeping of the Law? That if the Sabbath were not broken, the Law must needs have been broken? So that I also have established the Law.” He said not, “You are angry with Me because I have wrought a thing which is greater than circumcision,” but having merely mentioned what had been done, He left it to them to judge, whether entire health was not a more necessary thing than circumcision. “The Law,” He says, “is broken, that a man may receive a sign which contributes nothing to health; are you vexed and indignant at its being broken, that one might be freed from so grievous a disease?”