
Augustine of Hippo
Catena Aurea · Johannesevangelium 7
did not Moses give you the law, and yet none of you keepeth the law? Why go ye about to kill me? The people answered and said, Thou hast a devil: who goeth about to kill thee? Jesus answered and said unto them, I have done one work, and ye all marvel. Moses therefore gave unto you circumcision: (not because it is of Moses, but of the fathers:) and ye on the sabbath day circumcise a man. If a man on the sabbath day receive circumcision, that the law of Moses should not be broken; are ye angry at me, because I have made a man every whit whole on the sabbath day? Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.
(Tr. xxx. s. 4) As if He said, Ye have done well to receive circumcision from Moses, not because it is of Moses, but of the fathers; for Abraham first received circumcision from the Lord. And ye circumcise on the sabbath. Moses has convicted you: ye received a law to circumcise on the eighth day; and ye received a law to rest on the seventh day. If the eighth day after a child is born happen to be the sabbath, ye circumcise the child; because circumcision appertaineth to, is a kind of sign of, salvation; and men ought not to rest from the work of salvation on the sabbath.