Chapter 24 [XI.]—What Covenant of God the New-Born Babe Breaks. What Was the Value of Circumcision.

But let him inform us how it was that his189    i.e., Isaac’s. soul would be cut off from his people if he had not been circumcised on the eighth day. How could he have so sinned, how so offended God, as to be punished for the neglect of others towards him with so severe a sentence, had there been no original sin in the case? For thus ran the commandment of God concerning the circumcision of infants: “The uncircumcised man-child, whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised on the eighth day, his soul shall be cut off from his people; because he hath broken my covenant.”190    Gen. xvii. 14. Let him tell us, if he can, how that child broke God’s covenant,—an innocent babe, so far as he was personally concerned, of eight days’ age; and yet there is by no means any falsehood uttered here by God or Holy Scripture. The fact is, the covenant of God which he then broke was not this which commanded circumcision, but that which forbade the tree; when “by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for in him all have sinned.” 191    Rom. v. 12. And in his case the expiation of this was signified by the circumcision of the eighth day, that is, by the sacrament of the Mediator who was to be incarnate. For it was through this same faith in Christ, who was to come in the flesh, and was to die for us, and on the third day (which coming after the seventh or Sabbath day, was to be the eighth) to rise again, that even holy men were saved of old. For “He was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification.”192    Rom. iv. 25. Ever since circumcision was instituted amongst the people of God, which was at that time the sign of the righteousness of faith, it availed also to signify the cleansing even in infants of the original and primitive sin, just as baptism in like manner from the time of its institution began to be of avail for the renewal of man. Not that there was no justification by faith before circumcision; for even when he was still in uncircumcision, Abraham was himself justified by faith, being the father of those nations which should also imitate his faith.193    Rom. iv. 10, 11. In former times, however, the sacramental mystery of justification by faith lay concealed in every mode. Still it was the self-same faith in the Mediator which saved the saints of old, both small and great—not the old covenant, “which gendereth to bondage;”194    Gal. iv. 24. not the law, which was not so given as to be able to give life;195    Gal. iii. 21. but the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.196    Rom. vii. 25. For as we believe that Christ has come in the flesh, so they believed that He was to come; as, again, we believe that He has died, so they believed that He would die; and as we believe that He has risen from the dead, so they believed that He would rise again; whilst both we and they believe alike, that He will hereafter come to judge the quick and the dead. Let not this man, then, throw any hindrance in the way of its salvation upon human nature, by setting up a bad defence of its merits; because we are all born under sin, and are delivered therefrom by the only One who was born without sin.

CAPUT XI.

24. Sed ipse jam dicat, quare interiret anima ejus de genere suo, si circumcisus die non esset octavo: quid ipse peccasset, quid offendisset Deum, ut de aliena in se negligentia tam severa sententia puniretur, si nullum esset originale peccatum? De circumcidendis enim Deus sic mandavit infantibus: Masculus qui non circumcidetur carnem praeputii sui octavo die, disperiet anima ejus de genere suo, quia testamentum meum dissipavit (Gen. XVII, 14). Dicat iste, si potest, quomodo puer ille testamentum Dei dissipavit, octo dierum, quantum ad ipsum proprie attinet, innocens infans: et tamen nullo modo 0450 Deus vel sancta Scriptura id mendaciter diceret. Tunc ergo dissipavit testamentum Dei, non hoc de imperata circumcisione, sed illud de ligni prohibitione, quando per unum hominem peccatum intravit in mundum, et per peccatum mors; et ita in omnes homines pertransiit, in quo omnes peccaverunt. Et hoc in illo significabatur expiari circumcisione octavi diei, hoc est, sacramento Mediatoris in carne venturi: quia per eamdem fidem venturi in carne Christi, et morituri pro nobis, et tertio die, qui post septimum sabbati fuerat futurus octavus, resurrecturi, etiam justi salvabantur antiqui. Traditus est enim propter delicta nostra, et resurrexit propter justificationem nostram. Ex quo enim instituta est circumcisio in populo Dei, quod erat tunc signaculum justitiae fidei (Rom. IV, 25, 11), ita ad significationem purgationis valebat et in parvulis originalis veterisque peccati, sicut et Baptismus ex illo valere coepit ad innovationem hominis, ex quo est institutus. Non quod ante circumcisionem justitia fidei nulla erat; nam cum adhuc esset in praeputio, ex fide justificatus est ipse Abraham, pater gentium quae fidem ipsius fuerant sectaturae: sed superioribus temporibus omni modo latuit sacramentum justificationis ex fide. Eadem tamen fides Mediatoris salvos justos faciebat antiquos, pusillos cum magnis; non vetus Testamentum quod in servitutem generat (Galat. IV, 24), non lex quae non sic est data, quae posset vivificare (Id. III, 21), sed gratia Dei per Jesum Christum Dominum nostrum (Rom. VII, 25). Quia sicut credimus nos Christum in carne venisse, sic illi venturum: sicut nos mortuum, ita illi moriturum: sicut nos resurrexisse, ita illi resurrecturum: et nos vero et illi, ad judicium mortuorum vivorumque venturum. Non ergo iste humanam male defendendo impediat a salute naturam: quia omnes sub peccato nascimur, et per unum solum, qui sine peccato natus est, liberamur.