By this saying he also shows that the Creator is the source of that grace. For whether he speaks of the love which is due to God, or that which is due to one’s neighbor—in either case, the Creator’s grace is meant: for it is He who enjoins the first in these words, “Thou shalt loveGod with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength;”5365
For if we still live according to the Jewishlaw, and the circumcision of the flesh, we deny that we have received grace. For the divinest prophets lived according to JesusChrist. On this account also they were persecuted, being inspired by grace to fully convince the unbelieving that there is one God, the Almighty, who has manifested Himself by Jesus Christ His Son, who is His Word, not spoken, but essential. For He is not the voice of an articulate utterance, but a substance begotten by divine power, who has in all things pleased Him that sent Him.679
679 Some read ὑποστήσαντι, “that gave Him His hypostasis, or substance.”
does He not advert to a new state of things? We have generally been of opinion3840
3840 Olim statuimus.
that the destination of the former state of things was rather promised by the Creator, and exhibited in reality by Christ, only under the authority of one and the same God, to whom appertain both the old things and the new. For new wine is not put into old bottles, except by one who has the old bottles; nor does anybody put a new piece to an old garment, unless the old garment be forthcoming to him. That person only3841
3841 Ille.
does not do a thing when it is not to be done, who has the materials wherewithal to do it if it were to be done. And therefore, since His object in making the comparison was to show that He was separating the new condition3842
3847 Separatione. The more general reading is separationem.
of things which were alien to each other; for nobody ever unites his own things with things that are alien to them,3848
3848 Alienis: i.e., “things not his own.”
in order that he may afterwards be able to separate them from the alien things. A separation is possible by help of the conjunction through which it is made. Accordingly, the things which He separated He also proved to have been once one; as they would have remained, were it not for His separation. But still we make this concession, that there is a separation, by reformation, by amplification,3849
3849 Amplitudinem.
by progress; just as the fruit is separated from the seed, although the fruit comes from the seed. So likewise the gospel is separated from the law, whilst it advances3850
from it, but not an alien one; diverse, but not contrary. Nor in Christ do we even find any novel form of discourse. Whether He proposes similitudes or refute questions, it comes from the seventy-seventh Psalm. “I will open,” says He, “my mouth in a parable” (that is, in a similitude); “I will utter dark problems” (that is, I will set forth questions).3852
to be superseded by a new course of things which should arise, whilst Christ marks the period of the separation when He says, “The law and the prophets were until John”5239
