Page:Ante-Nicene Christian Library Vol 5.djvu/425

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Book iv.]
IRENÆUS AGAINST HERESIES.
399

inheritance."[1] And again, "The priests the Levites shall have no part in the whole tribe of Levi, nor substance with Israel; their substance is the offerings (fructifications) of the Lord: these shall they eat."[2] Wherefore also Paul says, "I do not seek after a gift, but I seek after fruit."[3] To His disciples He said, who had a priesthood of the Lord,[4] to whom it was lawful when hungry to eat the ears of corn,[5] "For the workman is worthy of his meat."[6] And the priests in the temple profaned the Sabbath, and were blameless. Wherefore, then, were they blameless? Because when in the temple they were not engaged in secular affairs, but in the service of the Lord, fulfilling the law, but not going beyond it, as that man did, who of his own accord carried dry wood into the camp of God, and was justly stoned to death.[7] "For every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit shall be hewn down, and cast into the fire;"[8] and "whosoever shall defile the temple of God, him shall God defile."[9]


Chap. ix.There is but one author, and one end to both covenants.

1. All things therefore are of one and the same substance, that is, from one and the same God; as also the Lord says to the disciples: "Therefore every scribe, which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven, is like unto a man that is an householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old."[10] He did not teach that he who brought forth the old was one, and he that brought forth the new, another; but that they were one and the same. For the Lord is the good man of the house, who rules the entire house of His Father; and who delivers a law suited both for slaves and those who are as yet undisciplined; and gives

  1. Num. xviii. 20.
  2. Deut. xviii. 1.
  3. Phil. iv. 17.
  4. Literally, "the Lord's Levitical substance"—Domini Leviticam substantiam.
  5. Literally, "to take food from seeds."
  6. Matt. x. 10.
  7. Num. xv. 32, etc.
  8. Matt. iii. 10.
  9. 1 Cor. iii. 17.
  10. Matt. xiii. 52.