Dialogue with Trypho

"But to prevent you from claiming that Christ had to be crucified and that those who wronged Him had to be from your nation, and that things couldn't have been different, I mentioned briefly, in advance, that God, wanting men and angels to follow His will, decided to create them with the freedom to choose righteousness. They were given reason so they could know who created them and understand that they now exist thanks to Him, although they did not exist before; and with a law so that they can be judged by Him if they do anything against right reason. We, both men and angels, will be proven guilty of sin unless we repent beforehand. If the word of God predicts that some angels and people will definitely be punished, it is because it foreknows they will be unchangeably wicked, not because God made them that way. Therefore, if they repent, all who desire it can receive mercy from God: and Scripture declares that they will be blessed, saying, 'Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute sin;' meaning, after he has repented of his sins so that he may receive forgiveness from God. Not like some of you deceive yourselves, and others like you, by saying that even as sinners, knowing God will mean that the Lord will not charge them with sin. We have evidence in the single failing of David, which occurred due to his pride, and he was forgiven when he mourned and wept, as it is written. If even such a man was not granted forgiveness without repentance, and only after this great king, anointed one, and prophet mourned and humbled himself, how can those who are impure and utterly lost, expect that the Lord will not count their sin if they do not weep, mourn, and repent? This one failing of David, regarding Uriah's wife, demonstrates that the patriarchs had many wives not for fornication, but so that a certain dispensation and all mysteries might be fulfilled through them. Since if it were permissible to take any wife or as many wives as one wants, as your people do all over the earth, wherever they settle, taking women under the name of marriage, much more would David have been permitted to do this."