Letter 234: The path of the spiritual life has a beginning, a middle, and an end.

To Agathodaemon. On the saying, "I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." "I was not sent," says the Lord to the Canaanite woman [Matthew 15:24], "except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel"-so as to fulfill the promise made to Abraham, and, taking hold of his seed, and choosing from there a mother, and being made flesh in her and from her, and becoming a man truly like us in all things except sin, and removing every pretext of the Jews. For since, as I said, he had promised salvation to the fathers, and to multiply their seed like the stars of heaven, he came to them and from among them; and for a time he did not admit those from the nations, preserving for the former the prior entrance. But when he saw the unchangeableness of the one group, and found the ready conversion of the other-and saw that the one cultivated for him death and the cross, while the other bore as fruit worship and the confession of his Godhead-then, having risen from the dead, he gives a command to the disciples to make disciples of all the nations, rejecting the senselessness and ingratitude of the Jews. For this reason they turned to the nations, and throughout the whole inhabited world they made the splendor of the divine proclamation shine forth.

Εἰς τό, « Οὐκ ἀπεστάλην εἰ μὴ εἰς τὰ πρόβατα τὰ ἀπολωλότα οἴκου Ἰσραήλ. » « Οὐκ ἀπεστάλην, φησὶν ὁ Κύριος τῇ Χαναναίᾳ, εἰ μήεις τὰ πρόβατα τὰ ἀπολωλότα οἴκου Ἰσραήλ· » τὴν πρὸς τὸν Ἀβραὰμ πληρῶσαι ὑπόσχεσιν, καὶ τοῦ σπέρματος αὐτοῦ ἐπιλαβόμενος, καὶ μητέρα ἐκεῖθεν ἐπιλεξάμενος, καὶ ἐν αὐτῇ καὶ ἐξ αὐτῆς σαρκωθείς, καὶ ἄνθρωπος κατ’ ἀλήθειαν ὅμοιος ἡμῖν κατὰ πάντα, πλὴν ἁμαρτίας, γενόμενος, καὶ Ἰουδαίων πᾶσαν σκῆψιν ἀναιρῶν. Ἐπειδὴ γὰρ, ὡς ἔφην, τοῖς πατράσι τὴν σωτηρίαν ὑπέσχετο, καὶ τὸ σπέρμα αὐτῶν πληθυνᾶν ὡς τοὺς ἀστέρας τοῦ οὐρανοῦ, πρὸς αὐτοὺς καὶ ἐξ αὐτῶν παρεγένετο· καὶ τέως τοὺς ἐξ ἐθνῶν οὐ προσίετο (18), προτέραν ἐκείνοις φυλάττων τὴν εἴσοδον. Ἐπειδὴ δὲ τῶν μὲν εἶδε τὸ ἀμετάθετον, τῶν δὲ εὗρε τὸ εὐεπίστροφον, καὶ τοὺς μὲν θάνατον αὐτῷ καὶ σταυρὸν γεωργήσαντας, τοὺς δὲ προσκύνησιν καὶ θεολογίαν καρποφορήσαντας, ἀνάστατ’ ἐκ νεκρῶν, ἐντολὴν δίδωσι τοῖς μαθηταῖς μαθητεῦσαι πάντα τὰ ἔθνη, τὸ ἄγνωμον καὶ ἀχάριστον τῶν Ἰουδαίων παραιτούμενος. Οὗ χάριν πρὸς τὰ ἔθνη στραφέντες, εἰς πᾶσαν τὴν οἰκουμένην, τοῦ θείου κηρύγματος αἴγλην ἐξέλαμψαν.