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sacrifices, since they sinned against him often, and supposed that he was propitiated by sacrifice but not by repentance. For he says through the prophets, "To what purpose do you bring me frankincense from Sheba, and cinnamon from a far country? Your whole burnt offerings are not acceptable, and your sacrifices did not please me. And gather your whole burnt offerings with your sacrifices, and eat the flesh, for I did not command you, when I brought you out of the land of Egypt, concerning sacrifices and whole burnt offerings." And "What is the multitude of your sacrifices to me? I am full of whole burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of lambs, and the blood of bulls and goats I do not desire, nor should you come to appear before me. For who has required this from your hands? You shall no longer tread my court. If you bring me fine flour, it is in vain; incense is an abomination to me. Your new moons and sabbaths and the great day I cannot endure. Fasting and idleness and your feasts my soul hates. You have become a surfeit to me." And "Take away from me the sound of your songs, and the psalm of your instruments I will not hear." And "I will not accept calves from your 1.418 house, nor goats from your flocks. For the world is mine, and its fullness. Shall I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats? Offer to God a sacrifice of praise." And "A sacrifice to God is a broken spirit." And simply in all the scriptures he likewise refuses sacrifices because they sinned against him out of extreme wickedness and disobedience and hardness of heart. For the sacrifices of the ungodly are an abomination to the Lord; for they offer them unlawfully, and their sacrifices are to them as the bread of mourning, and all who eat them will be defiled. Wherefore also the divine Samuel said to Saul, "To obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. For behold, the Lord desires sacrifice as much as to be heard by him." If, therefore, even before his coming he sought a pure heart and a broken spirit above sacrifice, much more did he, having come, put an end to the sacrifices of blood, not having needed them long ago, as has been said, but allowing them if they wished, and if they would offer from a right mind. If you desire to sacrifice, sacrifice to me who does not need it. But when they became unmindful of this, and called a calf god instead of God, and ascribed to it the cause of their journey out of Egypt, saying "These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt," and having denied the God who through Moses had visited them in their affliction, the one who had made the signs concerning the hand and the rod, the one who struck the Egyptians with ten plagues, the one who divided the Red Sea into parts and led 1.419 them through the midst of the water as on dry land, the one who drowned their enemies, the one who sweetened the bitter spring of Marah, the one who made water gush forth in abundance from the steep rock, the one who shaded them with a pillar of cloud and a pillar of fire because of the immeasurable heat, and who enlightened and guided those who did not know where they were going, the one who gave them manna from heaven and provided meat, quail, from the sea, the one who gave them the law on the mountain, whose divine and thunderous voice they were deemed worthy to hear. This one they denied, saying to Aaron "Make for us gods who will go before us," and they made a molten calf, and sacrificed to the idol. Thence, therefore, the long-suffering God, being angered, since indeed he was treated with ingratitude by them, bound them with unbreakable bonds, with heaps of burdens and the hardness of a collar; and he no longer said, if you should do, as he had said before the making of the calf, but, make an altar and sacrifice continually; for you are forgetful and ungrateful, so that you may continually be reminded of me. Since, therefore, the wretched and ungrateful ones used their authority badly, he then imposed a necessity to sacrifice and to abstain from certain foods, and distinguished differences of clean and unclean animals, although every animal happens to be clean; for all things that God made were very good. And indeed also

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θυσίας, ἐξαμαρτανόντων εἰς αὐτὸν πολλάκις, καὶ οἰομέ νων διὰ θυσίας ἀλλ' οὐ διὰ μετανοίας αὐτὸν ἐξευμενίζεσθαι. φησὶ γὰρ διὰ τῶν προφητῶν "ἵνα τί μοι φέρετε λίβανον ἐκ Σαβᾶ καὶ κιννάμωμον ἐκ γῆς μακρόθεν; τὰ ὁλοκαυτώματα ὑμῶν οὐκ ἔστι δεκτά, καὶ αἱ θυσίαι ὑμῶν οὐχ ἥδυνάν μοι. καὶ συναγά γετε τὰ ὁλοκαυτώματα ὑμῶν μετὰ τῶν θυσιῶν ὑμῶν, καὶ φάγετε τὰ κρέα, ὅτι οὐκ ἐνετειλάμην ὑμῖν, ἡνίκα ἐξήγαγον ὑμᾶς ἐκ γῆς Αἰγύπτου, περὶ θυσιῶν καὶ ὁλοκαυτωμάτων." καὶ "τί μοι πλῆθος τῶν θυσιῶν ὑμῶν; πλήρης εἰμὶ ὁλοκαυτωμάτων κριῶν, καὶ στέαρ ἀρνῶν καὶ αἷμα ταύρων καὶ τράγων οὐ βούλομαι, οὐδ' ἂν ἔρχεσθε ὀφθῆναί μοι. τίς γὰρ ἐξεζήτησε ταῦτα ἐκ χειρῶν ὑμῶν; πατεῖν τὴν αὐλήν μου οὐ προσθήσετε ἔτι. ἐὰν φέρητε μοι σεμίδαλιν, μάταιον· θυμίαμα βδέλυγμά μοί ἐστι. τὰς νεομηνίας ὑμῶν καὶ τὰ σάββατα καὶ ἡμέραν μεγάλην οὐκ ἀνέχομαι. νηστείαν καὶ ἀργίαν καὶ τὰς ἑορτὰς ὑμῶν μισεῖ ἡ ψυχή μου. ἐγενήθητέ μοι εἰς πλησμονήν." καὶ "ἀπόστησον ἀπ' ἐμοῦ ἦχον ᾠδῶν σου, καὶ ψαλμοῦ ὀργάνων σου οὐκ ἀκούσομαι." καὶ "οὐ δέξομαι ἐκ τοῦ 1.418 οἴκου σου μόσχους, οὐδὲ ἐκ τῶν ποιμνίων σου χιμάρους. ἐμὴ γάρ ἐστιν οἱ οἰκουμένη καὶ τὸ πλήρωμα αὐτῆς. μὴ φάγωμαι κρέατα ταύρων, ἢ αἷμα τράγων πίωμαι; θῦσον τῷ θεῷ θυσίαν αἰνέσεως." καὶ "θυσία τῷ θεῷ πνεῦμα συντετριμμένον." καὶ ἁπλῶς ἐν πάσαις ταῖς γραφαῖς ὁμοίως τὰς θυσίας ἀπαναίνεται διὰ τὸ ἐξαμαρτάνειν αὐτοὺς εἰς αὐτὸν ἐξ ἄκρας κακίας τε καὶ ἀπει θείας καὶ σκληροκαρδίας. θυσίαι γὰρ ἀσεβῶν βδέλυγμα κυρίῳ· καὶ γὰρ παρανόμως προσφέρουσιν αὐτάς, καὶ θυσίαι αὐτῶν ὡς ἄρτος πένθους αὐτοῖς, καὶ πάντες οἱ ἐσθίοντες αὐτὰς μολυνθή σονται. διὸ δὴ καὶ τῷ Σαοὺλ ὁ θεῖος Σαμουὴλ ἔλεγεν "ἀκοὴ ἀγαθὴ ὑπὲρ θυσίαν, καὶ ἀκρόαμα ὑπὲρ στέαρ κριῶν. ἰδοὺ γὰρ θέλει κύριος θυσίαν ὡς τὸ εἰσακούειν αὐτοῦ." εἰ τοίνυν καὶ πρὸ τῆς παρουσίας αὐτοῦ ὑπὲρ θυσίαν καρδίαν καθαρὰν ἐπεζήτει καὶ πνεῦμα συντετριμμένον, πολλῷ μᾶλλον ἐλθὼν ἔπαυσε τὰς δι' αἱ μάτων θυσίας, οὐδὲ πάλαι δεόμενος αὐτῶν, ὡς εἴρηται, ἀλλ' εἰ βουληθῶσι συγχωρῶν, καὶ εἰ ἀπὸ γνώμης ὀρθῆς προσοίσουσιν. εἰ θύειν ἐπιθυμεῖς, οὐ δεομένῳ μοι θύε. ὁπότε δὲ τούτου ἀμνή μονες ἐγένοντο, καὶ μόσχον ἀντὶ θεοῦ θεὸν ἐπεκαλέσαντο, καὶ τούτῳ τὴν αἰτίαν τῆς ἐξ Αἰγύπτου πορείας ἐπεγράψαντο, λέγον τες "οὗτοι οἱ θεοί σου, Ἰσραήλ, οἱ ἐξαγαγόντες σε ἐκ γῆς Αἰ γύπτου," καὶ ἀπαρνησάμενοι θεὸν τὸν διὰ Μωϋσέως ἐπισκεψά μενον αὐτοὺς ἐν τῇ θλίψει αὐτῶν, τὸν τὰ σημεῖα περὶ χειρὸς καὶ ῥάβδου ποιησάμενον, τὸν Αἰγυπτίους δεκαπλήγῳ πατάξαντα, τὸν τὴν ἐρυθρὰν θάλασσαν εἰς διαιρέσεις διελόντα καὶ διαγαγόντα 1.419 αὐτοὺς ἐν μέσῳ τοῦ ὕδατος ὡς διὰ ξηρᾶς, τὸν τοὺς ἐχθροὺς αὐ τῶν βυθίσαντα, τὸν Μερρὰν τὴν πηγὴν τὴν πικρὰν γλυκάναντα, τὸν ἐκ πέτρας ἀκροτόμου ὕδωρ εἰς πλησμονὴν ἀναβλύσαντα, τὸν στύλῳ νεφέλης καὶ στύλῳ πυρὸς σκιάζοντα αὐτοὺς διὰ θάλπος ἄμετρον, καὶ φωτίζοντα καὶ ὁδηγοῦντα τοὺς οὐκ εἰδότας ὅπου πορευθῶσι, τὸν ἐξ οὐρανοῦ μαννοδοτήσαντα αὐτοῖς καὶ ἐκ θα λάσσης κρεωδοτήσαντα ὀρτυγομήτραν, τὸν ἐν τῷ ὄρει νομοθετή σαντα αὐτοῖς, οὗ τῆς θείας καὶ βροντοφώνου φωνῆς ἠξιώθησαν ἀκοῦσαι. τοῦτον ἀπηρνήσαντο, εἰπόντες τῷ Ἀαρών "ποίησον ἡμῖν θεοὺς οἳ προπορεύσονται ἡμῶν," καὶ ἐμοσχοποίησαν χω νευτόν, καὶ ἔθυσαν τῷ εἰδώλῳ. κἀντεῦθεν οὖν ὀργισθεὶς ὁ μα κρόθυμος θεός, ἅτε δὴ ἀχαριστηθεὶς ὑπ' αὐτῶν, ἔδησεν αὐτοὺς δεσμοῖς ἀλύτοις, στιβάσι φορτισμοῦ καὶ σκληρότητι κλοιοῦ· καὶ οὐκέτι εἶπεν, ἐὰν ποιήσῃς, ὡς πρὸ τῆς μοσχοποιίας εἴρηκεν, ἀλλὰ ποίησον θυσιαστήριον καὶ θύε διηνεκῶς· ἐπιλήσμων γὰρ ὑπάρχεις καὶ ἀχάριστος, ἵνα συνεχῶς ἐπιμιμνήσκῃ μου. ἐπεὶ οὖν τῇ ἐξουσίᾳ κακῶς ἐχρήσαντο οἱ τάλανες καὶ ἀγνώμονες, ἀνάγκην ἐπέθηκε λοιπὸν θύειν καὶ βρωμάτων ἀπέχεσθαι τινῶν, καὶ ζῴων διαφορὰς καθαρῶν καὶ ἀκαθάρτων διέστειλε, καίτοι παντὸς ζῴου καθαροῦ τυγχάνοντος· πάντα γὰρ ὅσα ἐποίησεν ὁ θεὸς καλὰ λίαν. καὶ δὴ καὶ