Cyril of Alexandria, on Isa 1:13

“Offer sacrifice no more in vain: incense is an abomination to me. The new moons, and the sabbaths, and other festivals I will not abide, your assemblies are wicked.”

“How, tell me, can festivals that God hates be intended for continual and uninterrupted observance? Are we to say that God changed his mind, and that ordinances God originally said to be good, when he established them through Moses, are ridiculed by the prophets, so that we must conclude he who enjoined them made a mistake, and that he is subject to the same infirmities that afflict us?… He was in favor of the good for the ancients, but he wished, rather, that by passing from symbols and shadows into the beauty of the truth, they should commend the worship most well pleasing to him, and it is clear that such worship is intellectual and in spirit.”

Imported from an open dataset — not yet checked against the printed edition.