Early Church View of Law given Moses

Tertullian in 207 A.D. was the voice of orthodoxy when he wrote Against Marcion.

Marcion advocated in 144 A.D. a Paulinist movement, claiming Paul alone was the apostle to the Gentiles, and the Jesus portrayed by the 12, including Matthew and John, was for a different dispensation. Marcion insisted the Law given Moses did not apply in the NT. Marcion relied upon a truncated version of what looks like Luke's gospel.

Tertullian blasted Marcion's claim the Law was abrogated in Tertullian's 207 A.D. classic entitled Against Marcion. Here are references to this discussion from Tertullian, The Five Books of Quintus Sept. Flor. Tertullianus Against Marcion (trans. Peter Holmes) (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1868).

First, Tertullian rebuts Marcion's claim that Christ did away with the Law by discussing Jesus' instruction to the leper to follow the Law's requirement for giving thanks for a healing. Tertullian writes:

The law about lepers had a profound meaning as respects* the forms of the disease itself, and of the inspection by the high priest. The interpretation of this sense it will be our task to ascertain. Marcion's labour, however, is to object to us the strictness of the law, with the view of maintaining that here also Christ is its enemy—forestalling its enactments even in His cure of the ten lepers. ....Id., at 326.

Forasmuch, then, as He was Himself the veritable High Priest of God the Father, He inspected them according to the hidden purport of the law, which signified that Christ was the true distinguisher and extinguisher of the defilements of mankind. However, what was obviously required by the law He commanded should be done : " Go," said He, " show yourselves to the priests." ' Yet why this, if He meant to cleanse them first 1 Was it as a despiser of the law, in order to prove to them that, having been cured already on the road, the law was now nothing to "them, nor even the priests ? Well, the matter must of course pass as it best may,6 if anybody supposes that Christ had such views as these !7 But there are certainly better interpretations to be found of the passage, and more deserving of belief: how that they were cleansed on this account, because they were obedient, and went as the law required, when they were commanded to go to the priests; and it is not to be believed that persons who observed the law could have found a cure from a god that was destroying the law. Id., at 327-28.

Second, Tertullian proves Jesus did not do away with the Law because He told the rich man that obeying the Law's precepts was the key to eternal life. Remember, here if Paul were a true authority in the church, Tertullian would have had to address Paul's opposing thesis upon which Marcion explicitly relied, but Tertullian ignores Paul and simply cites Jesus' words in rebuttal that the Law remain and Jesus simply supplemented but did not supplant them:

When afterwards " a certain man asked him, ' Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life ?'" [Jesus] inquired whether he knew (that is, in other words, whether he kept) the commandments of the Creator, in order to testify that it was by the Creator's precepts that eternal life is acquired. Then, when he affirmed that from his youth up he had kept all the principal commandments, [Jesus] said to him : " One thing thou yet lackest: sell all that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me."1 Well now, Marcion, and all ye who are companions in misery, and associates in hatred with that heretic, what will you dare say to this? Did Christ rescind the forementioned commandments: " Do not kill, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honour thy father and thy mother?" Or did He both keep them, and then add3 what was wanting to them ? This very precept, however, about giving to the poor, was very largely diffused through the pages of the law and the prophets. This vainglorious observer of the commandments was therefore convicted of holding money in much higher estimation [than charity]. This verity of the gospel then stands unimpaired : " I am not come to destroy the law and the prophets, but rather to fulfil them."6 He also dissipated other doubts, when He declared that the name of God and of the Good belonged to one and the same being, at whose disposal were also the everlasting life and the treasure in heaven and Himself too—whose commandments He both maintained and augmented with His own supplementary precepts. He may likewise be discovered in the following passage of Micah, saying : " He hath showed thee, O man, what is good ; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to be ready to follow the Lord thy God ?"7 Now Christ is the man who tells us what is good, even the knowledge of the law. " Thou knowest," says He, " the commandments." " To do justly"— "Sell all that thou hast;" "to love mercy"—"Give to the poor;" " and to be ready to walk with God"—" And come," says He, " follow me." Id., at 332-33.

Note here Tertullian also quoted from within the famous Matthew 5:17-19 -- that Jesus says He did not come to abrogate the Law but to fulfill it, and not one jot or tittle will be taken away until a new heavens and earth.

Incidentally, Tertullian has another book I believe is falsely attributed to him -- Adversus Judeos -- Against the Jews.  It appears unfinished and a thief tried to complete it. What betrays this work is not authentic is that it contains portions completely opposite of what we read above. Tertullian in this work now claims Jews are replaced by Christians, the OT is defunct, including Sabbath. For information on this, see "Against the Jews." There are silly anachronisms that prove a much later hand than one living in the 200s was involved. For example, the hand supposed that the Romans had not yet conquered Britain as of the 200s when Tertullian lived, when it was already 200 years in their hands in Tertullian's day. Id. Thus, there is every reason to believe this work was created in the 300s when distancing Christianity from Judaism became government policy by Rome, especially Constantine. The English translation is found at this link. Unworthy of Tertullian are claims that Abraham and Enoch did not keep Sabbath, which is (a) unproven and (b) unlike Tertullian's normal reasoning from proof in the text. See Id., ch. 4.

A similar fraud was written in Tertullian's name -- De Idolatria. There Tertullian says supposedly: "Even the Jewish celebrations, which once were agreeable to God, are now forbidden." Id., Section VI, paraphrased at 223. This says, in effect, God intends all Jewish festivals to cease - which clearly is a Roman doctrine of the 300s, not a Christian one of the early 200s. Again, this is an obvious adulteration to promote the 'antiquity' of evolving later orthodoxy.

This proves that when statements as Tertullian in Against Marcion do survive with are contrary to later orthodoxy -- those words upholding the Law -- despite Rome's later effort vigorously to do away with Jewish legal rules in the 300s, means there were just too many copies of Against Marcion to successfully alter it in the 300s. Those portions of Against Marcion are thus unquestionably authentic.

Church Pre-205 AD Followed Law Given Moses

Tertullian was defending practices that were still ongoing in the 200 AD period -- observance of Sabbath, Passover, etc.

Historian W. D. Davies explained how Jewish Christianity still predominated by this juncture:

"Everywhere, especially in the East of the Roman Empire, there would be Jewish Christians whose outward way of life would not be markedly different from that of the Jews. They took for granted that the gospel was continuous with [the religion of Moses]; for them the New Covenant, which Jesus had set up at the Last Supper with His disciples… did not mean that the covenant made between God and Israel was no longer in force. They still observed the feasts of Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles; they also continued to be circumcised, to keep the weekly Sabbath and the Mosaic regulations concerning food. According to some scholars, they must have been so strong that right up to the fall of Jerusalem in ad70 they were the dominant element in the Christian movement" [W.D. Davies, "Paul and Jewish Christianity," Judeo-christianisme (1972) at 72, quoted in Samuele Bacchiocchi, From Sabbath to Sunday: A Historical Investigation of the Rise of Sunday Observance in Early Christianity (2000) at 151).

Post-205 AD Still Following The Law

By the time Chrysostom wrote in the late fourth century, he could berate Christians in Antioch who were observing the Feast of Trumpets (Rosh Hashana), the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) and the Feast of Tabernacles (Succoth) with the Jews. ("Pulpit of Preconceived Ideas," Vision (2011).)

Contrast The Pauline Era of Today

Anders Branderud tells of his conversion to Christianity among modern evangelicals in Stockholm who came from international missions. As he read the Bible, he thought to obey Sabbath and stop eating pork. But this led to his exclusion:

My argumentation of that Christians shall follow some of the directives of the Torâh created a conflict with the Christian leaders of the Word of Life Christian Bible school. They called me to a meeting and after that I stated that I won’t change my mind, they told me that I have to quit. (Follow Teachings of Jesus.com)

So obeying practices followed by the 12 apostles (even Peter never ate non-kosher foods, as he explains in Acts 11 in the Holy Spirit lesson to accept Gentiles) is now, due to Paul's doctrine, grounds to exclude you from Bible college. Amazing!