Fathers

Loading…

What the Fathers say

Leviticus 12:3

Western Saints

Augustine of Hippo

It was certainly not for nothing that the commandment was given for the child "to be circumcised on the eighth day"; it can only have been because the rock, the stone with which we are circumcised, was Christ. It was "with knives of rock" or stone that the people were circumcised;"now the rock was Christ." So why on the eighth day? Because in seven-day weeks the first is the same as the eighth; once you've completed the seven days, you are back at the first. …

Sermon 169.3 ↗

Victorinus of Pettau

Which Sabbath He in His body abolished, although, nevertheless, He had formerly Himself commanded Moses that circumcision should not pass over the eighth day, which day very frequently happens on the Sabbath, as we read written in the Gospel.

On the Creation of the World ↗