(26) The New Testament also confirms this view, for only moral doctrines are
therein taught, and the kingdom of heaven is promised as a reward, whereas
ceremonial observances are not touched on by the Apostles, after they began
to preach the Gospel to the Gentiles. (27) The Pharisees certainly continued
to practise these rites after the destruction of the kingdom, but more with
a view of opposing the Christians than of pleasing God: for after the first
destruction of the city, when they were led captive to Babylon, not being
then, so far as I am aware, split up into sects, they straightway neglected
their rites, bid farewell to the Mosaic law, buried their national customs
in oblivion as being plainly superfluous, and began to mingle with other
nations, as we may abundantly learn from Ezra and Nehemiah. (28) We cannot,
therefore, doubt that they were no more bound by the law of Moses, after the
destruction of their kingdom, than they had been before it had been begun,
while they were still living among other peoples before the exodus from
Egypt, and were subject to no special law beyond the natural law, and also,
doubtless, the law of the state in which they were living, in so far as it
was consonant with the Divine natural law.

(29) As to the fact that the patriarchs offered sacrifices, I think they did
so for the purpose of stimulating their piety, for their minds had been
accustomed from childhood to the idea of sacrifice, which we know had been
universal from the time of Enoch; and thus they found in sacrifice their
most powerful incentive. (30) The patriarchs, then, did not sacrifice to God
at the bidding of a Divine right, or as taught by the basis of the Divine
law, but simply in accordance with the custom of the time; and, if in so
doing they followed any ordinance, it was simply the ordinance of the
country they were living in, by which (as we have seen before in the case of
Melchisedek) they were bound.

(31) I think that I have now given Scriptural authority for my view: it