An Answer to the Jews

So, again, we show that sacrifices of earthly oblations and of spiritual sacrifices were predicted; and, moreover, that from the beginning the earthly were foreshown, in the person of Cain, to be those of the “elder son,” that is, of Israel; and the opposite sacrifices demonstrated to be those of the “younger son,” Abel, that is, of our people. For the elder, Cain, offered gifts to God from the fruit of the earth; but the younger son, Abel, from the fruit of his ewes.

“God had respect unto Abel, and unto his gifts; but unto Cain and unto his gifts He had not respect. And God said unto Cain, Why is your countenance fallen? Have you not— if you offer indeed aright, but do not divide aright— sinned? Hold your peace. For unto you shall your conversion be and he shall lord it over you. And then Cain said unto Abel his brother, Let us go into the field: and he went away with him there, and he slew him. And then God said unto Cain, Where is Abel your brother?

And he said, I know not: am I my brother's keeper? To whom God said, The voice of the blood of your brother cries forth unto me from the earth. Wherefore cursed is the earth, which has opened her mouth to receive the blood of your brother. Groaning and trembling shall you be upon the earth, and every one who shall have found you shall slay you.” From this proceeding we gather that the twofold sacrifices of “the peoples” were even from the very beginning foreshown. In short, when the sacerdotal law was being drawn up, through Moses, in Leviticus, we find it prescribed to the people of Israel that sacrifices should in no other place be offered to God than in the land of promise; which the Lord God was about to give to “the people” Israel and to their brethren, in order that, on Israel's introduction there, there should there be celebrated sacrifices and holocausts, as well for sins as for souls; and nowhere else but in the holy land. Why, accordingly, does the Spirit afterwards predict, through the prophets, that it should come to pass that in every place and in every land there should be offered sacrifices to God? As He says through the angel Malachi, one of the twelve prophets: “I will not receive sacrifice from your hands; for from the rising sun unto the setting my Name has been made famous among all the nations, says the Lord Almighty: and in every place they offer clean sacrifices to my Name.” Again, in the Psalms, David says: “Bring to God, you countries of the nations”— undoubtedly because “unto every land” the preaching of the apostles had to “go out” — “bring to God fame and honour; bring to God the sacrifices of His name: take up victims and enter into His courts.” For that it is not by earthly sacrifices, but by spiritual, that offering is to be made to God, we thus read, as it is written, An heart contribulate and humbled is a victim for God; and elsewhere, “Sacrifice to God a sacrifice of praise, and render to the Highest your vows.” Thus, accordingly, the spiritual “sacrifices of praise” are pointed to, and “an heart contribulate” is demonstrated an acceptable sacrifice to God. And thus, as carnal sacrifices are understood to be reprobated— of which Isaiah withal speaks, saying, “To what end is the multitude of your sacrifices to me? Says the Lord” — so spiritual sacrifices are predicted as accepted, as the prophets announce. For, “even if you shall have brought me,” He says, “the finest wheat flour, it is a vain supplicatory gift: a thing execrable to me;” and again He says, “Your holocausts and sacrifices, and the fat of goats, and blood of bulls, I will not, not even if you come to be seen by me: for who has required these things from your hands?” for “from the rising sun unto the setting, my Name has been made famous among all the nations, says the Lord.” But of the spiritual sacrifices He adds, saying, “And in every place they offer clean sacrifices to my Name, says the Lord.”