Page:The whole familiar colloquies of Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam.djvu/267

ICHTHYOPHAGIA ; OR, FISH-EATING. 263 tiles, what scripture is there that says plainly of the Jews, that if they did embrace the gospel they should be freed from the servitude of the Mosaical law?

Fi. That was prophesied by the prophets, who promise a new covenant and a new heart, and introduce God as abhorring the festival days of the Jews, aversating their meat-offerings, abhorring their fasts, rejecting their gifts, and desiring a people of circumcised hearts; and the Lord himself confirmed what they had promised, who holding forth to His disciples His body and blood, calls it the New Testament. If nothing be abolished of the old, why is this called a new one? The Lord did not only abrogate the Jewish choice of meats by His example, but by His doctrine, when He denies that man is defiled by meats which go into the stomach, and pass thence into the draught. He teaches Peter the same by a vision, and Peter himself shews the same, in that he, with Paul and others, ate of common meats from which the law commanded them to abstain. Paul treats in this manner everywhere in his epistles, nor is there any doubt but what Christians now practise was handed down to us by tradition from the apostles themselves. So that the Jews were not so properly set at liberty as weaned from superstition as from the milk to which they had been accustomed and made familiar, but now was grown out of season.

Neither is the law abrogated, but it is but requisite that that part of it should give way which was not essential. Leaves and flowers bespeak fruit coming; and when a tree is loaded with that nobody covets the leaves. Nor is anybody sorry that his son’s puerility is gone when maturity of age is come. Nor does anybody call for candles and torches when the sun is got above the horizon. Nor does a schoolmaster complain if a son, being come to man’s estate, puts in his claim for freedom, and in his turn has the master under his tuition. A pledge ceases to be a pledge when the thing promised is produced. The spouse comforts herself with the bridegroom’s letters till she is married she kisses his presents, embraces his picture; but when she comes to enjoy his company she disregards those things she before admired for the sake of it. The Jews at first were very hardly brought off from those things they had been accustomed to, which is just as if a child that had been used to suck, being grown a lusty fellow, should cry for the breast and slight more solid food. So they were forced, as it were, from those figures, shadows, and temporary comforts, that they might entirely turn themselves to Him whom that law had promised and shadowed out.

Bu. Who would have expected so much divinity from a seller of salt fish? Fi. I used to serve the Dominican college in our city with fish, and by that means they often dine with me, and I sometimes with them, and I gathered these things from their discourses. Bu. In truth, instead of a seller of salt fish, you deserve to be a seller of fresh fish. But, prithee, tell me if you were a Jew (for I cannot very well tell whether you are one or not), and you were like to be starved with hunger, would you eat swine’s flesh or rather die? Fi. I cannot very well tell what I should do, for I do not yet well understand: what I ought to do. Bu. God has forbid both, “Thou shalt not kill,” and “Thou shalt not eat swine’s flesh.” In such a case as this, which precept must give way to the other?