from God, and this, among other things, is to be attributed to an ancient heresy, among which, also, is that God, speaking, says: He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death. But there is that part of the Law which is typical, laying down that which is an image of things spiritual and excellent, which gives laws concerning such matters as offerings, I mean, and circumcision, the Sabbath and fasting, the passover and the unleavened bread, and such like. For all these things, being images and symbols of the truth which had been manifested, have been changed. They were abrogated so far as they were external, visible acts of bodily performance, but they were retained so far as they were spiritual, the names remaining, but the things being changed. For the Saviour commands us to present offerings, though not of irrational animals or of incense, but spiritual offerings—praise, glory, and thanksgiving, and also liberality and good deeds toward the neighbor. He would have us circumcised with a circumcision not of the flesh, but spiritual and of the heart; and have us observe the Sabbath, for he wishes us to rest from wicked actions; and fast, but he does not wish us to observe a bodily fast, but a spiritual, in that we abstain from all that is unworthy. External fasting, however, is observed among our people, since it is capable of benefiting the soul to some degree, if it is practised with reason, when it is neither performed from imitation of any one, nor by custom, nor on account of a day, as if a day were set apart for that purpose; and at the same time it is also for a reminder of true fasting, that they who are not able to fast thus may have a reminder of it from the fast which is external. And that the passover, in the same way, and the unleavened bread are images, the Apostle Paul also makes clear, saying: Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us, and That ye may be unleavened, not having any leaven (for he calls leaven wickedness), but that ye may be a new dough.