[How God, on Account of Their Impiety Towards Christ, Made the Jews Captives, and Placed Them Under Tribute.]
XXV. Because, indeed, they drew servitude upon themselves voluntarily, when they said, “We have no king but Cæsar;” 153 John xix. 15. and, “If we do not slay Christ, all men will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and will take away both our place and nation.” 154 John xi. 48. And so they prophesied unwittingly. For accordingly the nations believed on Him, and they themselves were deprived by the Romans of their power, and of their legal worship; and they have been forbidden to slay whom they please, and to sacrifice when they will. Wherefore they are accursed, as not able to perform the things they are commanded to do. For says He: “Cursed be he that does not continue in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them.” 155 Deut. xxvii. 26; Gal. iii. 10 Now it is impossible in their dispersion, while they are among the heathen, for them to perform all things in their law. For the divine Moses forbids both to rear an altar out of Jerusalem, and to read the law out of the bounds of Judea. 156 Deut. xii. [See on Liturgies, infra.] Let us therefore follow Christ, that we may inherit His blessings. Let us walk after the law and the prophets by the Gospel. Let us eschew the worshippers of many gods, and the murderers of Christ, and the murderers of the prophets, and the wicked and atheistical heretics. Let us be obedient to Christ as to our King, as having authority to change several constitutions, and having, as a legislator, wisdom to make new constitutions in different circumstances; yet so that everywhere the laws of nature be immutably preserved.
[Sec. V.—The Teaching of the Apostles in Opposition to Jewish and Gentile Superstitions, Especially in Regard to Marriage and Funerals. ]
[25] Ἑπόμενοι οὖν Χριστῷ τὰς εὐλογίας κληρονομήσωμεν, νόμῳ καὶ προφήταις διὰ τοῦ Εὐαγγελίου στοιχήσωμεν, φύγωμεν τοὺς πολυθέους καὶ τοὺς χριστοκτόνους καὶ προφητοφόντας καὶ τοὺς δυσωνύμους καὶ ἀθέους αἱρεσιώτας: Πειθαρχήσωμεν Χριστῷ ὡς βασιλεῖ, ὡς ἐξουσίαν ἔχοντι μετατιθέναι διατάξεις διαφόρους, καὶ ἔχοντι ὡς νομοθέτῃ σοφίαν τοῦ διατάσσεσθαι διαφόρως, τῶν φυσικῶν πανταχοῦ ἀμεταθέτων φυλασσομένων.