CHAPTER CIX
Christians Are The Holy People Promised to Abraham.
Then I said again, "Would you suppose, sirs, that we could ever have understood these matters in the
Scriptures, if we had not received grace to discern by the will of Him whose pleasure it was? in order
that the saying of Moses(10) might come to pass, 'They provoked me with strange [gods], they
provoked me to anger with their abominations. They sacrificed to demons whom they knew not; new
gods that came newly up, whom their fathers knew not. Thou hast forsaken God that begat thee, and
forgotten God that brought thee up. And the Lord saw, and was jealous, and was provoked to anger
by reason of the rage of His sons and daughters: and He said, I will turn My face away from them,
and I will show what shall come on them at the last; for it is a very froward generation, children in
whom is no faith. They have moved Me to jealousy with that which is not God, they have provoked
Me to anger with their idols; and I will move them to jealousy with that which is not a nation, I will
provoke them to anger with a foolish people. For a fire is kindled from Mine anger, and it shall burn
to Hades. It shall consume the earth and her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the
mountains; I will heap mischief on them.'(11) And after that Righteous One was put to death, we
flourished as another people, and shot forth as new and prosperous corn; as the prophets said, 'And
many nations shall betake themselves to the Lord in that day for a people: and they shall dwell in the
midst of all the earth.'(12) But we are not only a people, but also a holy people, as we have shown
already.(1) 'And they shall call them the holy people, redeemed by the Lord.'(2) Therefore we are
not a people to be despised, nor a barbarous race, nor such as the Carian and Phrygian nations; but
God has even chosen us and He has become manifest to those who asked not after Him. 'Behold, I
am God,' He says, 'to the nation which called not on My name.'(3) For this is that nation which God
of old promised to Abraham, when He declared that He would make him a father of many nations;
not meaning, however, the Arabians, or Egyptians, or Idumaeans, since Ishmael became the father of
a mighty nation, and so did Esau; and there is now a great multitude of Ammonites. Noah, moreover,
was the father of Abraham, and in fact of all men; and others were the progenitors of others. What
larger measure of grace, then, did Christ bestow on Abraham? This, namely, that He called him with
His voice by the like calling, telling him to quit the land wherein he dwelt. And He has called all of us
by that voice, and we have left already the way of living in which we used to spend our days, passing
our time in evil after the fashions of the other inhabitants of the earth; and along with Abraham we
shall inherit the holy land, when we shall receive the inheritance for an endless eternity, being children
of Abraham through the like faith. For as he believed the voice of God, and it was imputed to him for
righteousness, in like manner we having believed God's voice spoken by the apostles of Christ, and
promulgated to us by the prophets, have renounced even to death all the things of the world.
Accordingly, He promises to him a nation of similar faith, God-fearing, righteous, and delighting the
Father; but it is not you, 'in whom is no faith.'
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