perceived it not as a law, but as an eternal truth.

(63) What we have said about the Israelites and Adam, applies also to all
the prophets who wrote laws in God's name - they did not adequately conceive
God's decrees as eternal truths. (64) For instance, we must say of Moses
that from revelation, from the basis of what was revealed to him, he
perceived the method by which the Israelitish nation could best be united in
a particular territory, and could form a body politic or state, and further
that he perceived the method by which that nation could best be constrained
to obedience; but he did not perceive, nor was it revealed to him, that this
method was absolutely the best, nor that the obedience of the people in a
certain strip of territory would necessarily imply the end he had in view.
(65) Wherefore he perceived these things not as eternal truths, but as
precepts and ordinances, and he ordained them as laws of God, and thus it
came to be that he conceived God as a ruler, a legislator, a king, as
merciful, just, &c., whereas such qualities are simply attributes of human
nature, and utterly alien from the nature of the Deity. (66)Thus much we may
affirm of the prophets who wrote laws in the name of God; but we must not
affirm it of Christ, for Christ, although He too seems to have written laws
in the name of God, must be taken to have had a clear and adequate
perception, for Christ was not so much a prophet as the mouthpiece of God.
(67) For God made revelations to mankind through Christ as He had before
done through angels - that is, a created voice, visions, &c. (68) It would
be as unreasonable to say that God had accommodated his revelations to the
opinions of Christ as that He had before accommodated them to the opinions
of angels (that is, of a created voice or visions) as matters to be revealed
to the prophets, a wholly absurd hypothesis. (69) Moreover, Christ was sent
to teach not only the Jews but the whole human race, and therefore it was
not enough that His mind should be accommodated to the opinions the Jews
alone, but also to the opinion and fundamental teaching common to the whole