But it were meet first to inquire, why the disciples ate with unwashen hands. Wherefore then did they so eat? Not as making a point of it, but as overlooking henceforth the things that are superfluous, and attending to such as are necessary; having no law to wash or not to wash, but doing either as it happened. For they that despised even their own necessary food, how were they to hold these things worth much consideration? This then having often happened unintentionally,—for instance, when they ate in the wilderness, when they plucked the ears of corn,—is now put forward as a charge by these persons, who are always transgressing in the great things, and making much account of the superfluous.