Saints Who Went Beyond the Law

So we read that Abraham went beyond the requirement of the law that was to be given later. After his victory over the four kings, he would not touch any of the spoils of Sodom, though they were fairly his as the conqueror, and though the king himself, whose goods he had rescued, offered them to him. Swearing by the name of God, he cried out: “I lift up my hand to the Lord Most High, who made heaven and earth, that I will not take so much as a thread or a sandal strap of anything that is yours.” So too we know that David went beyond the requirement of the law. Though Moses commanded that vengeance be taken on enemies, David not only did not take it, but actually embraced his persecutors with love, prayed devoutly to the Lord for them, and wept bitterly for them and avenged them when they were killed. So we are sure that Elijah and Jeremiah were not under the law, because, though they might without blame have made use of lawful marriage, they chose to remain virgins. [a]

So we read that Elisha and others of the same way of life went beyond the commands of Moses, for the apostle speaks of them this way: “They went about in sheepskins and in goatskins, oppressed, afflicted, in want, men of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and on mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.” What shall I say of the sons of Jonadab the son of Rechab? We are told that when, at the Lord’s bidding, the prophet Jeremiah offered them wine, they answered: “We drink no wine, for Jonadab the son of Rechab, our father, commanded us, saying: ‘You must drink no wine, you or your sons, forever. You must build no house, sow no seed, and plant no vineyards or own them, but you must live in tents all your days.’” That is why they were allowed to hear these words from the same prophet: “This is what the Lord God of hosts, the God of Israel, says: There will never fail to be a man of the line of Jonadab the son of Rechab standing in my sight all the days.” For none of them was satisfied with simply offering tithes of his possessions. They actually refused property, and instead offered to God themselves and their souls, for which no one can pay a ransom, as the Lord testifies in the gospel: “For what shall a man give in exchange for his own soul?”