Is everyone who is turning from sin to faith, turning from sinful practices (as if they were his mother) to life? I shall call in evidence one of the twelve prophets, who says, "Am I to make an offering of my firstborn son for my impiety? Should I offer the fruit of my womb for the sin of my soul?" Can the mother buy her way to God by giving up her firstborn? This must not be taken as an attack on the words "increase in numbers." Micah is naming, by using the word impiety, the first impulses after birth, which do not help us to knowledge of God. If anyone misuses this as a basis for saying that that birth is evil, he should also use it as a basis for saying that it is good, in that in it we come to know the truth. "Come back to a sober and upright life and stop sinning." But the sinner knows nothing of God. "We are not wrestling against flesh and blood but against spiritual beings, potent in temptation, the rulers of this dark world," so there is forbearance. This is why Paul says, "I bruise my own body and treat it as a slave, because every athlete goes into total training." By "total training" we understand not that he abstains from absolutely everything but that he shows self-control in those things he has taken a deliberate decision to use. "They do it to win a crown which dies, we for one which never dies," if we win the contest. No effort, no crown!

Let us … earnestly strive to be found in the number of those that wait for him, in order that we may share in his promised gifts. But how, beloved, shall this be done? If our understanding is fixed by faith toward God; if we earnestly seek the things that are pleasing and acceptable to him; if we do the things that are in harmony with his blameless will; and if we follow the way of truth, casting away from us all unrighteousness and iniquity, along with all covetousness, strife, evil practices, deceit, whispering and evil speaking, all hatred of God, pride and haughtiness, vainglory and ambition. For they that do such things are hateful to God; and not only they that do them, but also those that take pleasure in them that do them.

He said not openly that He should rise again, because they would have derided him, but hints it distantly that even they might believe that He foreknew it. He said not in the earth, but in the heart of the earth, therein declaring His tomb, and that none might suspect that there was only the semblance of death. Therefore also He spake of three days, that it should be believed that He was dead. But the sign itself proves the truth of it; for Jonas was in the whale’s belly not in figure but in deed; and surely the sign did not happen in very deed, if the thing signified happened only in figure. Wherefore it is manifest that they are children of the Devil who follow Marcion asserting that the passion of Christ was only a phantasy. And that He should suffer for them also, though they would not profit by it, is shewn by that which He speaks, that to this generation should be given the sign of Jonas the Prophet.

But their words are full of hypocrisy and irony. But now they were railing against Him, saying that He had a dæmon; now they fawn upon Him, calling Him, Master. Wherefore the Lord rebukes them severely; He answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign. When they railed on Him, He had answered them mildly; now they approached Him with smooth and deceitful words, He rebukes them sharply; shewing that He was above either affection, and was neither moved to anger by evil speaking, nor was to be gained by flattery. What He says is this; What wonder that ye do thus to Me who am unknown to you, when you have done the same to the Father, of whom ye have had such large knowledge, in that, despising Him ye went after dæmons? He calls them an evil generation, because they have ever been ungrateful to their benefactors, and were made worse when they received benefits, which is the extreme of wickedness.

For the signs He wrought were not in order to move them, for He knew that they were hard as stone, but for the profit of others. Or because they had not received it when He had given them a sign such as they now desired. And a sign was given them, when by their own punishment they learned His power. This He alludes to when He says, No sign shall he given it. As much as to say; I have shewn you many mercies; yet none of these has brought you to honour My power, which you will then know when you shall behold your city thrown down upon the ground in punishment. In the mean time He brings in a saying concerning the Resurrection which they should after understand by those things that they should suffer; saying, Except the sign of the Prophet Jonas. For verily His Cross would not have been believed, unless it had had signs to testify to it. But if that were not believed, truly the Resurrection would not have been believed. For this reason also He calls this a sign, and brings forward a figure thereof, that the verity itself may be believed. It follows, As Jonas was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale,