- Скажи нам: Бог прежде дал какой закон: Моисеев, или тот, какой содержите вы, христиане?

- Не потому ли, - отвечал блаженный Константин, - вы спросили меня, какой первый закон, чтобы потом сказать, что первый есть самый лучший?

- Да, - отвечали иудеи. - А поэтому следует повиноваться первому закону, как начальнейшему и самому лучшему.

- Если желаете исполнять только первый закон, то откажитесь от обрезания, - сказал иудеям Константин.

- Почему ты это говоришь? - спросили иудеи.

- Скажите мне поистине, - сказал Константин иудеям, - первый закон был дан в обрезании или в не обрезании?

- Думаем, - отвечали иудеи, - что во обрезании.

"Was it not to Noah," said Constantine, "that God gave the first law?" And this was before circumcision and after the commandment given to Adam in Paradise after his fall. God commanded Noah that no human blood should be shed: "Whosoever sheds the blood of a man, his blood shall be shed" (Gen. 9:6), Then, speaking of the poisoning of potions of grass, beasts, cattle, birds, and fish, God said to Noah: "I make my covenant with you, and with your descendants after you" (Gen. 9:9).

"But the covenant is not the law," said the Jews. - God did not say to Noah, 'My law, but My covenant.' We are talking about the law.

- Do you observe circumcision as a law, or not? Konstantin asked.

"We keep it as a law," the Jews answered.

"Circumcision," continued Constantine, "God also did not call it a law, but only a covenant, when He said to Abraham: 'Thou shalt keep My covenant, thou and thy descendants after thee shall be circumcised in their generations all the males, and this shall be a sign of the covenant between Me and you, and My covenant shall be in your flesh in an everlasting covenant' (Gen. 17:913). "Look," said Constantine, "God has never called circumcision a law, but a covenant. Will you therefore renounce circumcision as illegal? But if you keep the covenant of circumcision as a law, then you must also keep the covenant given to Noah as a law, and call it the first law that God gave to the human race, which was expelled from paradise and preserved from the waters of the flood.

"No," answered the Jews. - Only the law given to Moses is the law, and we keep it.

"If the covenant given to Noah," said Constantine, "is not a law, but only a covenant, because God did not call it a law, but a covenant, then the law given to Moses is not a law, because God in the 11th chapter of the book of the prophet Jeremiah [37] does not call it a law, but a covenant: 'Hear the words of this covenant, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Cursed is the man who does not listen to the words of this covenant; which I commanded your fathers, when I brought them up out of the land of Egypt" (Jeremiah 11:23). If this covenant is a law to you, then the covenant given to Noah is also a law. And since this law was given before circumcision, you must also keep it as the first, and not listen to the other laws that came after it, that is, Abraham's and Moses'. After all, you yourself said that the first law is the best and must be obeyed.