All Commentaries on Deuteronomy 6:4 Go To Deuteronomy 6
John Chrysostom
AD 407
“What then?” one may say. “Were they wronged who lived before his coming?” By no means, for men might then be saved even though they had not confessed Christ. For this was not required of them, but not to worship idols and to know the true God. “For the Lord your God,” it is said, “is one Lord.” Therefore the Maccabees were admired, because for the observance of the law they suffered what they did suffer; and the three children, and many others too among the Jews, having shown forth a very virtuous life and having maintained the standard of this their knowledge, had nothing more required of them. For then it was sufficient for salvation, as I have said already, to know God only, but now it is so no more. There is need also of the knowledge of Christ.