XIX. To Those that Speak Evil of the Law.

For since ye have known God through Jesus Christ, and all His dispensation, as it has been from the beginning, that He gave a plain law to assist the law of nature,¹ such a one as is pure, saving, and holy, in which His own name was inscribed,² perfect, which is never to fail, being complete in ten commands, unspotted, converting souls;³ which, when the Hebrews forgot, He put them in mind of it by the prophet Malachi, saying, "Remember ye the law of Moses, the man of God, who gave you in charge commandments and ordinances."⁴ Which law is so very holy and righteous, that even our Saviour, when on a certain time He healed one leper, and afterwards nine, said to the first, "Go, show thyself to the high priest, and offer the gift which Moses commanded for a testimony unto them;"⁵ and afterwards to the nine, "Go, show yourselves to the priests."⁶ For He nowhere has dissolved the law, as Simon pretends, but fulfilled it; for He says: "One iota, or one tittle, shall not pass from the law until all be fulfilled." For says He, "I come not to dissolve the law, but to fulfil it."⁷ For Moses himself, who was at once the lawgiver, and the high priest, and the prophet, and the king, and Elijah, the zealous follower of the prophets, were present at our Lord's transfiguration in the mountain,⁸ and witnesses of His incarnation and of His sufferings, as the intimate friends of Christ, but not as enemies and strangers. Whence it is demonstrated that the law is good and holy, as also the prophets.