Irenaeus of Lyons · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Why circumcision was given to the people, and the observance of sabbaths, and what recapitulation they have.
But that God gave circumcision not as the accomplishment of righteousness, but as a sign, so that the race of Abraham might remain recognizable, we learn from that very Scripture. For it says, God spoke to Abraham thus: "Let every male of your household be circumcised — cut away the flesh of the foreskin — as a token of the pact between myself and you." The prophet Ezekiel states the like concerning the sabbaths: "I granted them my sabbaths, to stand as a token between myself and them, so they would recognize me as the Lord who makes them holy." And in Exodus God tells Moses: "You are to keep my sabbaths; this shall be a token for me toward you across your generations." These, then, were granted as a token — yet they were tokens neither meaningless, that is empty of purpose, nor idle, seeing they came from a wise maker. Rather, fleshly circumcision foreshadowed a circumcision of the spirit. For, as the Apostle states, "our circumcision is one not wrought by hands." And the prophet says: "Cut away the hardness of your heart." The sabbaths, meanwhile, taught the necessity of unbroken service toward God across every single day. For, the Apostle Paul states, "we are reckoned as sheep marked for slaughter the whole day through" — meaning set apart and serving without pause in devotion to our faith, holding fast to it, and steering clear of every kind of covetousness, neither amassing nor laying up riches on earth. And it was also made manifest, by the things that were made, that there would be a rest of God — that is, a kingdom — in which the man who has persevered in attending upon God shall, resting there, share in the table of God.
And because man found no justification through these observances, but they were granted the people as a token, Scripture reveals that Abraham, lacking circumcision and lacking any keeping of sabbaths, put his trust in God, and this was counted to him as righteousness, so that he was named God's friend. Lot likewise, uncircumcised, was led out of Sodom, obtaining rescue from God. So too Noah, uncircumcised yet pleasing to God, was granted the measure allotted to the world's second generation. Enoch as well, though an uncircumcised man pleasing to God, carried out a mission from God to the angels, and was carried off, and remains preserved down to this very day as a witness to God's righteous verdict — since the angels who rebelled fell earthward to face judgment, while the man who pleased God was carried off into salvation. So also all the rest of the great multitude of those who were righteous before Abraham, and of those patriarchs who were before Moses, were justified without the things aforesaid and without the law of Moses. As Moses himself says to the people in Deuteronomy: "The Lord your God made a covenant in Horeb: the Lord did not make this covenant with your fathers, but with you."
Why then did the Lord not make a covenant with the fathers? Because the law is not laid down for the righteous; but the righteous forefathers carried the force of the Decalogue engraved upon their hearts and inner selves, cherishing the God who had formed them, and holding back from wronging their neighbor; hence there was no call to correct them by spoken precepts, since the law's righteousness already dwelt within them. Yet once this righteousness and this love toward God had slipped into forgetfulness, and had been quenched during the Egyptian sojourn, God, moved by his abundant kindness toward mankind, was compelled to reveal himself through his own voice, and to bring the people forth by his might, so that man might once more become God's pupil and companion; and by his commandment he corrected the disobedient, lest they should scorn their own maker, and he nourished them on manna, that they might partake of a food fit for reason — as Moses likewise states in Deuteronomy: "And he fed you with manna, which your fathers did not know, that you might know that man does not live by bread alone."