in the desert, and were seeing all those wondrous acts wrought for you by God, you made and worshipped the golden calf.[1] Hence he cries continually, and justly, 'They are foolish children, in whom is no faith.'[2]
Chap. xxi.—Sabbaths were instituted on account of the people's sins, and not for a work of righteousness.
"Moreover, that God enjoined you to keep the Sabbath, and imposed 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, therefore 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 judgments, 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 fury 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 I lifted up mine hand unto them in the wilderness, that I would scatter them among the heathen, and disperse them through the countries; because they had not executed my judgments, 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
- ↑ "The reasoning of S. 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.
- ↑ Deut. xxxii. 6, 20.
