Caesarius of Arles : When the Lord handed over to you the land of the Canaanites, he said, "Take care, therefore, not to make a covenant with these inhabitants of the land that you are to enter; else they will immediately become a snare among you." Now we believe that by the grace of baptism all sins and offenses have been banished from us. If we afterward make a covenant with those same sins and vices, doubtless this covenant will become a snare for us because of our consent to avarice or dissipation. — SERMON 81.4 Augustine of Hippo : What does what is said to Moses mean: Beware that he makes a covenant with those who are established in the country? The Greek does not have "that you ever do," but rather that he does. Does it refer perhaps to the people, of whom Moses is the chief? But Moses did not lead the people to that land, where God forbids making an alliance with those who lived there. It is, in short, a kind of rare expression and that I have not yet found or I have not noticed, if it is really some speech and not some special meaning. — QUESTIONS ON EXODUS, Q. 157 (tr. J. Litteral, draft)