Circumcision and the Sabbath

Apart from having crossed over, it has happened (John 7:22-23). Wishing to introduce the circumcision performed on the Sabbath as being the beginning of the precision regarding the Sabbath, he presents the argument made concerning circumcision.

He says that this does not even profane the people, showing especially first, not even from Moses is the custom of circumcision, but from above and from the fathers, since it begins from Abraham. Saying this, he refers them back to things more ancient than Moses, in which this thing is not yet law—that which they most admire as their own, the legal order—demonstrating it to be older and not yet legal.

He always introduces the greater things of the law, referring to the more ancient and primordial, since it was neither in Enoch nor in Noah. Therefore he did not say 'from Abraham' but 'from the fathers' regarding the circumcision, so that, having viewed the matter over all things, you might not consider its use to be absolutely necessary, since it was not even upon all. Coming to Moses, having used circumcision on the Sabbath, he left the Sabbath-rest having been dissolved by him because of the more divine work of Moses. If, he says, because of the circumcision as a divine work the Sabbath does not cease, he leads it as idle, but there is a time when it is also active; how do you accuse the much greater thing of the circumcision, the healing of the whole human body, as not having been required to be done in a time of rest?

The Lord introduces two opinions concerning him (John 7:28), and they know indeed whence he is, because his mother is Mary, but they also have the unknown, that he has both come and is from God.

Therefore, one should not be an arbitrary and self-appointed teacher, but should come to teaching having been sent by God the Father; yet those sent by Him are not known by them, because they were most far removed from the true knowledge of God, both in their judgment and in their actions. It is natural, then, for one to know the Father, since he is near him; for the most known is that which is most intimate.

As he was about to grant the participation in the flesh of the Spirit to us, he was going to provide a sanctification to men, truly given, before the Word was incarnated and before running the whole human way of life, to bring our dishonor into the divine glory; for there, God having made humanity receptive in Christ, grants the Spirit as to his own and as to those about to be received, and now the Spirit is present. And it is in us from that Spirit; for the Scripture calls the sanctification in the Spirit 'the Spirit', as is shown in Acts where Paul is inquiring: 'Having received the Holy Spirit?' they were saying when asked, 'We have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit'; saying this, they meant that if a sanctification of the Spirit is given to men, they have not heard of it, since it is the Spirit of God; again, it was shouted out from the divine Scriptures.

Let us not then marvel if, even in former times when the Spirit was working in the prophets, the gift of the resurrection of the Lord is said to be their own; for one is a prophetic energy of the Spirit, and another is sanctification and renewal, making manifest sons of God born of women. And prophecy often follows the sanctification of adoption, when it is necessary, but regeneration did not coincide with prophecy, because the Holy Spirit was not yet.

It does not refer to the substance, but to the energy; for it was not yet working in the disciples, otherwise he would not have spoken concerning the substance of the Spirit, saying that it was not yet (but making it clear that it was), but concerning the grace which was about to come upon the apostles and through them upon the rest. For that was not yet, since in those receiving it, the gift is taken and the diminution is often received through the self-evil of those receiving. But the Pharisees again regarding the...