“People imitate those who do good deeds, therefore, not out of love for these good deeds but because of their utility.… The king of Moab took note of Jephthah. But, because it was his firstborn and a human being rather than an animal that he killed, God took pity on him, since he did it in affliction and not through love. In the case of Jephthah, if it had been one of his servants who had been first to encounter him, he would have killed him. But, in order that people would not engage in the sacrifice of their fellow human beings, he caused his own daughter to meet him, so that others would be afraid, lest they offer human beings by vow to God.”

“And whereas he [Jovinianus] prefers the fidelity of the father Jephthah to the tears of the virgin daughter, that corroborates our point. For we are not commending virgins of the world so much as those who are virgins for Christ's sake. Most Hebrews blame the father for the rash vow he made, "If you will indeed deliver the children of Ammon into my hand, then it shall be that whatsoever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, it shall be for the Lord's, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering." Supposing (the Hebrews say) a dog or an ass had met him, what would he have done? Their meaning is that God so ordered events that he who had improvidently made a vow should learn his error by the death of his daughter.”

“With these words [of his vow] at any rate Jephthah did not vow some kind of animal that he could offer as a whole burnt offering according to the law; it is neither customary now nor was it in the past that cattle would run to meet generals returning victoriously from war. As far as mute animals are concerned, dogs often run to meet their masters and sport with them in fawning servitude. But Jephthah could not have been thinking about dogs in his vow, because it would seem that he would have vowed not only something unlawful but also something contemptible and unclean according to the law. It would have been an insult to God. Nor does he say, "I will offer as a whole burnt offering whatever will come out of the doors of my house to meet me." He says, "I will sacrifice whoever comes out of my house." Thus, there can be no doubt that he was thinking of nothing else than a human being—not his only daughter, however. Yet who would have been able to surpass her in her father's eyes except perhaps his wife?”

“The Scriptures do not seem to pass judgment on this vow and its fulfillment as it does quite clearly in the case of Abraham, when he was ordered to sacrifice his son and did so. Rather the Scriptures seem to have only recorded the matter and left it to the reader to evaluate, just as in the case of Judah, Jacob's son, who in ignorance lay with his daughter-in-law but committed fornication by the very act, because he thought her to be a prostitute. The Scriptures never approve nor disapprove of the act explicitly but let the matter stand, to be evaluated and contemplated after consulting the righteousness and law of God. Therefore, the Scriptures of God do not offer any comment in either the vow or its fulfillment, so that our mind might be put to work to pass judgment on this matter and so that we might now say that such a vow displeased God and led to the punishment that his only daughter, of all people, ran out to meet her father.”

“The remaining sacrifices, of which those relating to the law are a symbol, are akin to this sacrifice. But in addition, the other sacrifices akin to this sacrifice seem to me to be the shedding of the blood of the noble martyrs. It was not in vain that the disciple John saw them standing beside the heavenly altar. "But who is wise, that he shall understand these things? Or intelligent, and he shall know them?"3Now comprehend, even if to a limited extent, the more spiritual sense of such sacrifices which cleanse those for whom they are offered; one must understand the sense of the sacrifice of the daughter of Jephthah who was offered as a burnt offering because of the vow of him who conquered the children of Ammon. She who was offered as a burnt offering consented to this vow, for, when her father said, "I have opened my mouth to the Lord against you," she said to him, "And if you have opened your mouth to the Lord against me, perform your vow." Such accounts give an appearance of great cruelty to God to whom such sacrifices are offered for humanity's salvation. We need a generous and perceptive spirit in order to refute the reproaches made against providence and, at the same time, to make a defense of all the sacrifices insofar as they are rather mysterious and beyond human nature.”

“It is also sometimes contrary to duty to fulfill a promise or to keep an oath. As was the case with Herod, who swore that whatever was asked he would give to the daughter of Herodias, and so allowed the death of John, that he might not break his word. And what shall I say of Jephthah, who offered up his daughter in sacrifice, she having been the first to meet him as he returned home victorious; whereby he fulfilled the vow which he had made that he would offer to God whatever should meet him first. It would have been better to make no promise at all than to fulfill it in the death of his daughter.”

“For Jephthah likewise, when he had promised that the first thing that met him, after a victorious battle, he would sacrifice, fell into the snare of child murder; for his daughter first meeting him, he sacrificed her, and God did not forbid it. And I know, indeed, that many of the unbelievers impugn us of cruelty and inhumanity on account of this sacrifice; but I should say that the concession in the case of this sacrifice was a striking example of providence and clemency; and that it was in care for our race that he did not prevent that sacrifice. For if after that vow and promise he had forbidden the sacrifice, many also who were subsequent to Jephthah, in the expectation that God would not receive their vows, would have increased the number of such vows, and proceeding on their way would have fallen into child murder. But now, by suffering this vow to be actually fulfilled, he put a stop to all such cases in the future. And to show that this is true, after Jephthah's daughter had been slain, in order that the calamity might be always remembered and that her fate might not be consigned to oblivion, it became a law among the Jews that the virgins assembling at the same season should bewail during forty days the sacrifice which had taken place; in order that renewing the memory of it by lamentation, they should make all people wiser for the future; and that they might learn that it was not after the mind of God that this should be done, for in that case he would not have permitted the virgins to bewail and lament her. And that what I have said is not conjectural, the event demonstrated; for after this sacrifice, no one vowed such a vow to God. Therefore also he did not indeed forbid this; but what he had expressly commanded in the case of Isaac, that he directly prohibited, plainly showing through both cases that he does not delight in such sacrifices.”

“As regards to the fact that Jephthah sacrificed his daughter to God as a whole burnt offering, these are the facts: he had vowed that if he were to obtain the victory, he would offer as a whole burnt offering whoever would come out of his house and meet him; because he had vowed this and won the battle and his daughter had been the one to meet him first, he fulfilled his vow. This event has become a great and rather difficult question to settle both for some who investigate the matter with piety and genuinely seek to know what this passage means and for some who out of ignorant impiety oppose the Holy Scriptures and call this a horrible misdeed that the God of the law and prophets would have delighted in sacrifices, yes, even human sacrifices. First let us reply to their calumnies by noting that the whole burnt offerings of cattle did not delight the God of the law and the prophets—or as I prefer to say, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. What pleased God about those sacrifices was that they were full of meaning and a foreshadowing of future things. We, however, have the very substance which was foreshadowed by these sacrifices that he wished to commend to us. Moreover, there was also a very pertinent reason why those sacrifices have been changed so that they no longer are commanded but even forbidden: it is so that we may not think that God is pleased by such sacrifices according to some carnal passion.”