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ST. AUGUSTINE
REPLY TO FAUSTUS THE MANICHAEAN, BOOKS I-XV
[CONTRA FAUSTUM MANICHAEUM.]
[Translated by Rev. Richard Stothert, M.A., Bombay.]
BOOK I: WHO FAUSTUS WAS. FAUSTUS'S OBJECT IN WRITING THE POLEMICAL TREATISE
THAT FORMS THE BASIS OF AUGUSTIN'S REPLY. AUGUSTIN'S REMARKS THEREON
1. FAUSTUS was an African by race, a citizen of Mileum; he was eloquent
and clever, but had adopted the shocking tenets of the Manichaean heresy.
He is mentioned in my Confessions,(1) where there is an account of my
acquaintance with him. This man published a certain volume against the true
Christian faith and the Catholic truth. A copy reached us, and was read by
the brethren, who called for an answer from me, as part of the service of
love which I owe to them. Now, therefore, in the name and with the help of
our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, I undertake the task, that all my
readers may know that acuteness of mind and elegance of style are of no use
to a man unless the Lord directs his steps.(3) In the mysterious equity of
divine mercy, God often bestows His help on the slow and the feeble; while
from the want of this help, the most acute and eloquent run into error only
with greater rapidity and willfulness. I will give the opinions of Faustus
as if stated by himself, and mine as if in reply to him.
2. FAUSTUS said: As the learned Adimantus, the only teacher since the
sainted Manichaeus deserving of our attention, has plentifully exposed and
thoroughly refuted the errors of Judaism and of semi-Christianity, I think
it not amiss that you should be supplied in writing with brief and pointed
replies to the captious objections of our adversaries, that when, like
children of the wily serpent, they try to bewilder you with their quibbles,
you may be prepared to give intelligent answers. In this way they will be
kept to the subject, instead of wandering from one thing to another. And I
have placed our opinions and those of our opponent over against one
another, as plainly and briefly as possible, so as not to perplex the
reader with a long and intricate discourse.
3. AUGUSTIN replies: You warn against semi-Christians, which you say we
are; but we warn against pseudo-Christians, which we have shown you to be.
Semi-Christianity may be imperfect without being false. So, then, if the
faith of those whom you try to mislead is imperfect, would it not be better
to supply what is lacking than to rob them of what they have? It was to
imperfect Christians that the apostle wrote, "joying and beholding your
conversation," and "the deficiency in your faith in Christ."(1) The apostle
had in view a spiritual structure, as he says elsewhere, "Ye are God's
building;"(2) and in this structure he found both a reason for joy and a
reason for exertion. He rejoiced to see part already finished; and the
necessity of bringing the edifice to perfection called for exertion.
Imperfect Christians as we are, you pursue us with the desire to pervert
what you call our semi-Christianity by false doctrine; while even those who
are so deficient in faith as to be unable to reply to all your sophisms,
are wise enough at least to know that they must not have anything at all to
do with you. You look for semi-Christians to deceive: we wish to prove you
pseudo-Christians, that Christians may learn something from your
refutation, and that the less advanced may learn to avoid you. Do you call
us children of the serpent? You have surely forgotten how often you have
found fault with the prohibition in Paradise, and have praised the serpent
for opening Adam's eyes. You have the better claim to the title which you
give us. The serpent owns you as well when you blame him as when you praise
him.
BOOK II: FAUSTUS CLAIMS TO BELIEVE THE GOSPEL, YET REFUSES TO ACCEPT THE
GENEALOGICAL TABLES ON VARIOUS GROUNDS WHICH AUGUSTIN SEEKS TO SET ASIDE.
1. FAUSTUS said: Do I believe the gospel? Certainly. Do I therefore
believe that Christ was born? Certainly not. It does not follow that
because I believe the gospel, as I do, I must therefore believe that Christ
was born. This I do not believe; because Christ does not say that He was
born of men, and the gospel, both in name and in fact, begins with Christ's
preaching. As for the genealogy. the author himself does not venture to
call it the gospel. For what did he write? "The book of the generation of
Jesus Christ the Son of David.''(1) The book of the generation is not the
book of the gospel. It is more like a birth-register, the star confirming
the event. Mark, on the other hand, who recorded the preaching of the Son
of God, without any genealogy, begins most suitably with the words, "The
gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God." It is plain that the genealogy is
not the gospel. Matthew himself says, that after John was put in prison,
Jesus began to preach the gospel of the kingdom; so that what is mentioned
before this is the genealogy, and not the gospel. Why did not Matthew begin
with, "The gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God," but because he thought
it sinful to call the genealogy the gospel? Understand, then, what you have
hitherto overlooked --the distinction between the genealogy and the gospel.
Do I then admit the truth of the gospel? Yes; understanding by the gospel
the preaching of Christ. I have plenty to say about the generations too, if
you wish. But you seem to me now to wish to know not whether I accept the
gospel, but whether I accept the generations.
2. AUGUSTIN replied: Well, in answer to your own questions, you tell us
first that you believe the gospel, and next, that you do not believe in the
birth of Christ; and your reason is, that the birth of Christ is not in the
gospel. What, then, will you answer the apostle when he says, "Remember
that Christ Jesus rose from the dead, of the seed of David, according to my
gospel?"(1) You surely are ignorant, or pretend to be ignorant, what the
gospel is. You use the word, not as the apostle teaches, but as suits your
own errors. What the apostles call the gospel you depart from; for you do
not believe that Christ was of the seed of David. This was Paul's gospel;
and it was also the gospel of the other apostles, and of all faithful
stewards of so great a mystery. For Paul says elsewhere, "Whether,
therefore, I or they, so we preach, and so ye believed."(2) They did not
all write the gospel, but they all preached it. The name evangelist is
properly given to the narrators of the birth, the actions, the words, the
sufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ. The word gospel means good news, and
might be used of any good news, but is properly applied to the narrative of
the Saviour. If, then, you teach something different, you must have
departed from the gospel. Assuredly those babes whom you despise as semi-
Christians will oppose you, when they hear their mother Charity declaring
by the mouth of the apostle, "If any one preach another gospel than that
which we have preached to you, let him be accursed."(3) Since, then, Paul,
according to his gospel, preached that Christ was of the seed of David, and
you deny this and preach something else, may you be accursed! And what can
you mean by saying that Christ never declares Himself to have been born of
men, when on every occasion He calls Himself the Son of man?
3. You learned men, forsooth, dress up for our benefit some wonderful
First Man, who came down from the race of light to war with the race of
darkness, armed with his waters against the waters of the enemy, and with
his fire against their fire, and with his winds against their winds. And
why not with his smoke against their smoke, and with his darkness against
their darkness? According to you, he was armed against smoke with air, and
against darkness with light. So it appears that smoke and darkness are bad,
since they could not belong to his goodness. The other three, again--water,
wind, and fire--are good. How, then, could these belong to the evil of the
enemy? You reply that the water of the race of darkness was evil, while
that which the First Man brought was good; anti so, too, his good wind and
fire fought against the evil wind and fire of the adversary. But why could
he not bring good smoke against evil smoke? Your falsehoods seem to vanish
in smoke. Well, your First Man warred against an opposite nature. And yet
only one of the five things he brought was the opposite of what the hostile
race had. The light was opposed to the darkness, but the four others are
not opposed to one another. Air is not the opposite of smoke, and still
less is water the opposite of water, or wind of wind, or fire of fire.
4. One is shocked at your wild fancies about this First Man changing
the elements which he brought, that he might conquer his enemies by
pleasing them. So you make what you call the kingdom of falsehood keep
honestly to its own nature, while truth is changeable in order to deceive.
Jesus Christ, according to you, is the son of this First Man. Truth
springs, forsooth, from your fiction. You praise this First Man for using
changeable and delusive forms in the contest. If you, then, speak the
truth, you do not imitate him. If you imitate him, you deceive as he did.
But our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the true and truthful Son of God,
the true and truthful Son of man, both of which He testifies of Himself,
derived the eternity of His godhead from true God, and His incarnation from
true man. Your First Man is not the first man of the apostle. "The first
man," he says, "was of the earth, earthy; the second man is from heaven,
heavenly. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy; as is the
heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. As we have borne the image
of the earthy, let us also bear the image of the heavenly."(4) The first
man of the earth, earthy, is Adam, who was made of dust. The second man
from heaven, heavenly, is the Lord Jesus Christ; for, being the Son of God,
He became flesh that He might be a man outwardly, while He remained God
within; that He might be both the true Son of God, by whom we were made,
anti the true Son of man, by whom we are made anew. Why do you conjure up
this fabulous First Man of yours, and refuse to acknowledge the first man
of the apostle? Is this not a fulfillment of what the apostle says:
"Turning away their ears from the truth, they will give heed to fables?"(5)
According to Paul, the first man is of the earth, earthy; according to
Manichaeus, he is not earthy, and is equipped with five elements of some
unreal, unintelligible kind. Paul says: "If any one should have announced
to you differently from what we have announced let him be accursed."
Therefore lest Paul be a liar, let Manichaeus be accursed.
5. Again, you find fault with the star by which the Magi were led to
worship the infant Christ, which you should be ashamed of doing, when yon
represent your fabulous Christ, the son of your fabulous First Man not as
announced by a star, but as bound up in all the stars.(1) For you say that
he mingled with the principles of darkness in his conflict with the race of
darkness, that by capturing these principles the world might be made out of
the mixture. So that, by your profane fancies, Christ is not only mingled
with heaven and all the stars, but conjoined and compounded with the earth
and all its productions,(2)--a Saviour no more, but needing to be saved by
you, by your eating and disgorging Him.
This foolish custom of making your disciples bring you food, that your
teeth and stomach may be the means of relieving Christ, who is bound up in
it, is a consequence of your profane fancies. You declare that Christ is
liberated in this way--not, however, entirely; for you hold that some tiny
particles of no value still remain in the excrement, to be mixed up and
compounded again and again in various material forms, and to be released
and purified at any rate by the fire in which the world will be burned up,
if not before. Nay, even then, you say, Christ is not entirely liberated;
but some extreme particles of His good and divine nature, which have been
so defiled that they cannot be cleansed, are condemned to stay for ever in
the horrid mass of darkness. And these people pretend to be offended with
our saying that a star announced the birth of the Son of God, as if this
were placing His birth under the influence of a constellation; while they
subject Him not to stars only, but to such polluting contact with all
material things, with the juices of all vegetables, and with the decay of
all flesh, and with the decomposition of all food, in which He is bound up,
that the only way of releasing Him, at least one great means, is that men,
that is the Elect of the Manichaeans, should succeed in digesting their
dinner.
We, too, deny the influence of the stars upon the birth of any man;
for we maintain that, by the just law of God, the free-will of man, which
chooses good or evil, is under no constraint of necessity. How much less do
we subject to any constellation the incarnation of the eternal Creator and
Lord of all! When Christ was born after the flesh, the star which the Magi
saw had no power as governing, but attended as a witness. Instead of
assuming control over Him, it acknowledged Him by the homage it did.
Besides, this star was not one of those which from the beginning of the
world continue in the course ordained by the Creator. Along with the new
birth from the Virgin appeared a new star, which served as a guide to the
Magi who were themselves seeking for Christ; for it went before them till
they reached the place where they found the Word of God in the form of a
child. But what astrologer ever thought of making a star leave its course,
and come down to the child that is born, as they imagine, under it? They
think that the stars affect the birth, not that the birth changes the
course of the stars; so,if the star in the Gospel was one of those heavenly
bodies, how could it determine Christ's action, when it was compelled to
change its own action at Christ's birth? But if, as is more likely, a star
which did not exist before appeared to point out Christ, it was the effect
of Christ's birth, and not the cause of it. Christ was not born because the
star was there; but the star was there because Christ was born. If there
was any fate, it was in the birth, and not in the star. The word fate is
derived from a word which means to speak; and since Christ is the Word of
God by which all things were spoken before they were, the conjunction of
stars is not the fate of Christ, but Christ is the fate of the stars. The
same will that made the heavens took our earthly nature. The same power
that ruled the stars laid down His life and took it again.
6. Why, then, should the narrative of the birth not be the gospel,
since it conveys such good news as heals our malady? Is it because Matthew
begins, not like Mark, with the words, "The beginning of the gospel of
Jesus Christ," but, "The book of the generation of Jesus Christ?" In this
way, John, too, might be said not to have written the gospel, for he has
not the words, Beginning of the gospel, or Book of the gospel, but, "In the
beginning was the Word." Perhaps the clever word-maker Faustus will call
the introduction in John a Verbidium, as he called that in Matthew a
Genesidium. The wonder is, that you are so impudent as to give the name of
gospel to your silly stories. What good news is there in telling us that,
in the conflict against some strange hostile nation, God could protect His
own kingdom only by sending part of His own nature into the greedy jaws of
the former, and to be so defiled, that after all those toils and tortures
it cannot all be purged? Is this bad news the gospel? Every one who has
even a slender knowledge of Greek knows that gospel means good news. But
where is your good news, when your God himself is said to weep as under
eclipse till the darkness and defilement are removed from his members? And
when he ceases to weep, it seems he becomes cruel. For what has that part
of him which is to be involved in the mass done to deserve this
condemnation? This part must go on weeping for ever. But no; whoever
examines this news will not weep because it is bad, but will laugh because
it is not true.
BOOK III: FAUSTUS OBJECTS TO THE INCARNATION OF GOD ON THE GROUND THAT THE
EVANGELISTS ARE AT VARIANCE WITH EACH OTHER, AND THAT INCARNATION IS
UNSUITABLE TO DEITY. AUGUSTIN ATTEMPTS TO REMOVE THE CRITICAL AND
THEOLOGICAL DIFFICULTIES.
1. FAUSTUS said: Do I believe in the incarnation? For my part, this is
the very thing I long tried to persuade myself of, that God was born; but
the discrepancy in the genealogies of Luke and Matthew stumbled me, as I
knew not which to follow. For I thought it might happen that, from not
being omniscient, I might take the true for false, and the false for true.
So, in despair of settling this dispute, I betook myself to Mark and John,
two authorities still, and evangelists as much as the others. I approved
with good reason of the beginning of Mark and John, for they have nothing
of David, or Mary, or Joseph. John says, "In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God," meaning Christ. Mark
says, "The gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God," as if correcting
Matthew, who calls him the Son of David. Perhaps, however, the Jesus of
Matthew is a different person from the Jesus of Mark. This is my reason for
not believing in the birth of Christ.
Remove this difficulty, if you can, by harmonizing the accounts, and I
am ready to yield. In any case, however, it is hardly consistent to believe
that God, the God of Christians, was born from the womb.
2. AUGUSTIN replied: Had you read the Gospel with care, and inquired
into those places where you found opposition, instead of rashly condemning
them, you would have seen that the recognition of the authority of the
evangelists by so many learned men all over the world, in spite of this
most obvious discrepancy, proves that there is more in it than appears at
first sight. Any one can see, as well as you, that the ancestors of Christ
in Matthew and Luke are different; while Joseph appears in both, at the end
in Matthew and at the beginning in Luke. Joseph, it is plain, might be
called the father of Christ, on account of his being in a certain sense the
husband of the mother of Christ; and so his name, as the male
representative, appears at the beginning or end of the genealogies. Any one
can see as well as you that Joseph has one father in Matthew and another in
Luke, and so with the grandfather and with all the rest up to David. Did
all the able and learned men, not many Latin writers certainly, but
innumerable Greek, who have examined most attentively the sacred
Scriptures, overlook this manifest difference? Of course they saw it. No
one can help seeing it. But with a due regard to the high authority of
Scripture, they believed that there was something here which would be given
to those that ask, and denied to those that snarl; would be found by those
that seek, and taken away from those that criticise; would be open to those
that knock, and shut against those that contradict. They asked, sought, and
knocked; they received, found, and entered in.
3. The whole question is how Joseph had two fathers. Supposing this
possible, both genealogies may be correct. With two fathers, why not two
grandfathers, and two great-grandfathers, and so on, up to David, who was
the father both of Solomon, who is mentioned in Matthew's list, and of
Nathan, who occurs in Luke? This is the difficulty with many people who
think it impossible that two men should have one and the same son,
forgetting the very obvious fact that a man may be called the son of the
person who adopted him as well as of the person who begot him.
Adoption, we know, was familiar to the ancients, for even women adopted
the children of other women, as Sarah adopted Ishmael, and Leah her
handmaid's son, and Pharaoh's daughter Moses. Jacob, too, adopted his
grandsons, the children of Joseph. Moreover, the word adoption is of great
importance in the system of our faith, as is seen from the apostolic
writings. For the Apostle Paul, speaking of the advantages of the Jews,
says: "Whose are the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the
giving of the law whose are the fathers, and of whom, according to the
flesh, Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever."(1) And again:
"We ourselves also groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption of the
sons of God, even the redemption of the body."(2) Again, elsewhere: "But
in the fullness of time, God sent His Son, made of a woman, made under the
law, that we might receive the adoption of sons."(3) These passages show
clearly that adoption is a significant symbol. God has an only Son, whom He
begot from His own substance, of whom it is said, "Being in the form of
God, He thought it not robbery to be equal to God."(4) Us He begot not of
His own substance, for we belong to the creation which is not begotten, but
made; but that He might make us the brothers of Christ, He adopted us. That
act, then, by which God, when we were not born of Him, but created and
formed, begot us by His word and grace, is called adoption. So John says,
"He gave them power to become the sons of God."(5)
Since, therefore; the practice of adoption is common among our fathers,
and in Scripture, is there not irrational profanity in the hasty
condemnation of the evangelists as false because the genealogies are
different, as if both could not be true, instead of considering calmly the
simple fact that frequently in human life one man may have two fathers, one
of whose flesh he is born, and another of whose will he is afterwards made
a son by adoption? If the second is not rightly called father, neither are
we right in saying, "Our Father which art in heaven," to Him of whose
substance we were not born, but of whose grace and most merciful will we
were adopted, according to apostolic doctrine, and truth most sure. For one
is to us God, and Lord, and Father: God, for by Him we are created, though
of human parents; Lord, for we are His subjects; Father, for by His
adoption we are born again. Careful students of sacred Scripture easily
saw, from a little consideration, how, in the different genealogies of the
two evangelists, Joseph had two fathers, and consequently two lists of
ancestors. You might have seen this too, if you had not been blinded by the
love of contradiction. Other things far beyond your understanding have been
discovered in the careful investigation of all parts of these narratives.
The familiar occurrence of one man begetting a son and another adopting
him, so that one man has two fathers, you might, in spite of Manichaean
error, have thought of as an explanation, if you had not been reading in a
hostile spirit.
4. But why Matthew begins with Abraham and descends to Joseph, while
Luke begins with Joseph and ascends, not to Abraham, but to God, who made
man, and, by giving a commandment, gave him power to become, by believing,
a son of God; and why Matthew records the generations at the commencement
of his book, Luke after the baptism of the Saviour by John; and what is the
meaning of the number of the generations in Matthew, who divides them into
three sections of fourteen each, though in the whole sum there appears to
be one wanting; while in Luke the number of generations recorded after the
baptism amount to seventy-seven, which number the Lord Himself enjoins in
connection with the forgiveness of sins, saying, "Not only seven times, but
seventy-seven times;" --these things you will never understand, unless
either you are taught by some Catholic of superior stamp, who has studied
the sacred Scriptures, and has made all the progress possible, or you
yourselves turn from your error, and in a Christian spirit ask that you
may receive, seek that you may find, and knock that it may be opened to
you.
5. Since, then, this double fatherhood of nature and adoption removes
the difficulty arising from the discrepancy of the genealogies, there is no
occasion for Faustus to leave the two evangelists and betake himself to the
other two, which would be a greater affront to those he betook himself to
than to those he left. For the sacred writers do not desire to be favored
at the expense of their brethren. For their joy is in union, and they are
one in Christ; and if one says one thing, and another another, or one in
one way and another in another, still they all speak truth, and in no way
contradict one another; only let the reader be reverent and humble, not in
an heretical spirit seeking occasion for strife, but with a believing heart
desiring edification. Now, in this opinion that the evangelists give the
ancestors of different fathers, as it is quite possible for a man to have
two fathers, there is nothing inconsistent with truth. So the evangelists
are harmonized, and you, by Faustus's promise are bound to yield at once.
6. You may perhaps be troubled by that additional remark which he
makes: "In any case, however, it is hardly consistent to believe that God,
the God of Christians, was born from the womb." As if we believed that the
divine nature came from the womb of a woman. Have I not just quoted the
testimony of the apostle, speaking of the Jews: "Whose are the fathers, and
of whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is God over all, blessed
for ever?" Christ, therefore, our Lord and Saviour, true Son of God in His
divinity, and true son of man according to the flesh, not as He is God over
all was born of a woman, but in that feeble nature which He took of us,
that in it He might die for us, and heal it in us: not as in the form of
God, in which He thought it not robbery to be equal to God, was He born of
a woman, but in the form of a servant, in taking which He emptied Himself.
He is therefore said to have emptied Himself because He took the form of a
servant, not because He lost the form of God. For in the unchangeable
possession of that nature by which in the form of God He is equal to the
Father, He took our changeable nature, by which He might be born of a
virgin. You, while you protest against putting the flesh of Christ in a
virgin's womb, place the very divinity of God in the womb not only of human
beings, but of dogs and swine. You refuse to believe that the flesh of
Christ was conceived in the Virgin's womb, in which God was not found nor
even changed; while you assert that in all men and beasts, in the seed of
male and in the womb of female, in all conceptions on land or in water, an
actual part of God and the divine nature is continually bound, and shut up,
and contaminated, never to be wholly set free.(1)
BOOK IV: FAUSTUS'S REASONS FOR REJECTING THE OLD TESTAMENT, AND AUGUSTIN'S
ANIMADVERSIONS THEREON.
1. FAUSTUS said: Do I believe the Old Testament? If it bequeaths
anything to me, I believe it; if not, I reject it. It would be an excess of
forwardness to take the documents of others which pronounce me
disinherited. Remember that the promise of Canaan in the Old Testament is
made to Jews, that is, to the circumcised, who offer sacrifice, and abstain
from swine's flesh, and from the other animals which Moses pronounces
unclean, and observe Sabbaths, and the feast of unleavened bread, and other
things of the same kind which the author of the Testament enjoined.
Christians have not adopted these observances, and no one keeps them; so
that if we will not take the inheritance, we should surrender the
documents. This is my first reason for rejecting the Old Testament, unless
you teach me better. My second reason is, that this inheritance is such a
poor fleshly thing, without any spiritual blessings, that after the New
Testament, and its glorious promise of the kingdom of heaven and eternal
life, I think it not worth the taking.
2. AUGUSTIN replied: No one doubts that promises of temporal things are
contained in the Old Testament, for which reason it is called the Old
Testament; or that the kingdom of heaven and the promise of eternal life
belong to the New Testament. But that in these temporal things were figures
of future things which should be fulfilled in us upon whom the ends of the
ages are come, is not my fancy, but the judgment of the apostle, when he
says of such things, "These things were our examples;" and again, "These
things happened to them for an example, and they are written for us on whom
the ends of the ages are come.''(1) We receive the Old Testament,
therefore, not in order to obtain the fulfillment of these promises, but to
see in them predictions of the New Testament; for the Old bears witness to
the New. Whence the Lord, after He rose from the dead, and allowed His
disciples not only to see but to handle Him, still, lest they should doubt
their mortal and fleshly senses, gave them further confirmation from the
testimony of the ancient books, saying, "It was necessary that all things
should be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses, and in the
Prophets and Psalms, concerning me."(2) Our hope, therefore, rests not on
the promise of temporal things. Nor do we believe that the holy and
spiritual men of these times -- the patriarchs and prophets -- were taken
up with earthly things. For they understood, by the revelation of the
Spirit of God, what was suitable for that time, and how God appointed all
these sayings and actions as types and predictions of the future. Their
great desire was for the New Testament; but they had a personal duty to
perform in those predictions, by which the new things of the future were
foretold. So the life as well as the tongue of these men was prophetic. The
carnal people, indeed, thought only of present blessings, though even in
connection with the people there were prophecies of the future.
These things you do not understand, because, as the prophet said,
"Unless you believe, you shall not understand."(1) For you are not
instructed in the kingdom of heaven, -- that is, in the true Catholic
Church of Christ. If you were, you would bring forth from the treasure of
the sacred Scriptures things old as well as new. For the Lord Himself says,
"Therefore every scribe instructed in the kingdom of heaven is like an
householder who brings forth from his treasure things new and old."(2) And
so, while you profess to receive only the new promises of God, you have
retained the oldness of the flesh, adding only the novelty of error; of
which novelty the apostle says, "Shun profane novelties of words, for they
increase unto more ungodliness, and their speech eats like a cancer. Of
whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus, who concerning the faith have erred, saying
that the resurrection is past already, and have overthrown the faith of
some."(3) Here you see the source of your false doctrine, in teaching that
the resurrection is only of souls by the preaching of the truth, and that
there will be no resurrection of the body. But how can you understand
spiritual things of the inner man, who is renewed in the knowledge of God,
when in the oldness of the flesh, if you do not possess temporal things,
you concoct fanciful notions about them in those images of carnal things of
which the whole of your false doctrine consists? You boast of despising as
worthless the land of Canaan, which was an actual thing, and actually given
to the Jews; and yet you tell of a land of light cut asunder on one side,
as by a narrow wedge, by the land of the race of darkness, -- a thing which
does not exist, and which you believe from the delusion of your minds; so
that your life is not supported by having it, and your mind is wasted in
desiring it.(4)
BOOK V: FAUSTUS CLAIMS THAT THE MANICHAEANS AND NOT THE CATHOLICS ARE
CONSISTENT BELIEVERS IN THE GOSPEL, AND SEEKS TO ESTABLISH THIS CLAIM BY
COMPARING MANICHAEAN AND CATHOLIC OBEDIENCE TO THE PRECEPTS OF THE GOSPEL.
AUGUSTIN EXPOSES THE HYPOCRISY OF THE MANICHAEANS AND PRAISES THE
ASCETICISM OF CATHOLICS.
1. FAUSTUS said: Do I believe the gospel? You ask me if I believe it,
though my obedience to its commands shows that I do. I should rather ask
you if you believe it, since you give no proof of your belief. I have left
my father, mother, wife, and children, and all else that the gospel
requires;(1) and do you ask if I believe the gospel? Perhaps you do not
know what is called the gospel. The gospel is nothing else than the
preaching and the precept of Christ. I have parted with all gold and
silver, and have left off carrying money in my purse; content with daily
food; without anxiety for tomorrow; and without solicitude about how I
shall be fed, or where-withal I shall be clothed: and do you ask if I
believe the gospel? You see in me the blessings of the gospel;(2) and do
you ask if I believe the gospel? You see me poor, meek, a peacemaker, pure
in heart, mourning, hungering, thirsting, bearing persecutions and enmity
for righteousness' sake; and do you doubt my belief in the gospel? One can
understand now how John the Baptist, after seeing Jesus, and also hearing
of His works, yet asked whether He was Christ. Jesus properly and justly
did not deign to reply that He was; but reminded him of the works of which
he had already heard: "The blind see, the deaf hear, the dead are
raised."(3) In the same way, I might very well reply to your question
whether I believe the gospel, by saying, I have left all, father, mother,
wife, children, gold, silver, eating, drinking, luxuries, pleasures; take
this as a sufficient answer to your questions, and believe that you will be
blessed if you are not offended in me.(1)
2. But, according to you, to believe the gospel is not only to obey its
commands, but also to believe in all that is written in it; and, first of
all, that God was born. But neither is believing the gospel only to believe
that Jesus was born, but also to do what He commands. So, if you say that I
do not believe the gospel because I disbelieve the incarnation, much more
do you not believe because you disregard the commandments. At any rate, we
are on a par till these questions are settled. If your disregard of the
precepts does not prevent you from professing faith in the gospel, why
should my rejection of the genealogy prevent me? And if, as you say, to
believe the gospel includes both faith in the genealogies and obedience to
the precepts, why do you condemn me, since we both are imperfect? What one
wants the other has. But if, as there can be no doubt, belief in the gospel
consists solely in obedience to the commands of God, your sin is twofold.
As the proverb says, the deserter accuses the soldier. But suppose, since
you will have it so, that there are these two parts of perfect faith, one
consisting in word, or the confession that Christ was born, the other in
deed or the observance of the precepts; it is plain that my part is hard
and painful, yours light and easy. It is natural that the multitude should
flock to you and away from me, for they know not that the kingdom of God is
not in word, but in power. Why, then, do you blame me for taking the harder
part, and leaving to you, as to a weak brother, the easy part? You have the
idea that your part of faith, or confessing that Christ was born, has more
power to save the soul than the other parts.
3. Let us then ask Christ Himself, and learn from His own mouth, what
is the chief means of our salvation. Who shall enter, O Christ, into Thy
kingdom? He that doeth the will of my Father in heaven,(2) is His reply;
not, "He that confesses that I was born." And again, He says to His
disciples, "Go, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all
things which I have commanded you."(3) It is not, "teaching them that I was
born," but, "to observe my commandments." Again, "Ye are my friends if ye
do what I command you;"(4) not, "if you believe that I was born." Again,
"If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love," (5) and in many
other places. Also in the sermon on the mount, when He taught, "Blessed are
the poor, blessed are the meek, blessed are the peacemakers, blessed are
the pure in heart, blessed are they that mourn, blessed are they that
hunger, blessed are they that are persecuted for righteousness' sake,'' (6)
He nowhere says, "Blessed are they that confess that I was born." And in
the separation of the sheep from the goats in the judgment, He says that He
will say to them on the right hand, "I was hungry, and ye gave me meat; I
was thirsty, and ye gave me drink" (7) and so on; therefore" inherit the
kingdom." Not, ''Because ye believe that I was born, inherit the kingdom."
Again, to the rich man seeking for eternal life, He says, "Go, sell all
that thou hast, and follow me;" (8) not, "Believe that I was born, that you
may have eternal life." You see, the kingdom, life, happiness, are
everywhere promised to the part I have chosen of what you call the two
parts of faith, and nowhere to your part. Show, if you can, a place where
it is written that whoso confesses that Christ was born of a woman is
blessed, or shall inherit the kingdom, or have eternal life. Even
supposing, then, that there are two parts of faith, your part has no
blessing. But what if we prove that your part is not a part of faith at
all? It will follow that you are foolish, which indeed will be proved
beyond a doubt. At present, it is enough to have shown that our part is
crowned with the beatitudes. Besides, we have also a beatitude for a
confession in words: for we confess that Jesus Christ is the Son of the
living God; and Jesus declares with His own lips that this confession has a
benediction, when He says to Peter, "Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona; for
flesh and blood hath not revealed this unto thee, but my Father which is in
heaven." (9) So that we have not one, but both these parts of faith, and in
both alike are we pronounced blessed by Christ; for in one we reduce faith
to practice, while in the other our confession is unmixed with blasphemy.
4. AUGUSTIN replied: I have already said that the Lord Jesus Christ
repeatedly calls Himself the Son of man, and that the Manichaeans have
contrived a silly story about some fabulous First Man, who figures in their
impious heresy, not earthly, but combined with spurious elements, in
opposition to the apostle, who says, "The first man is of the earth,
earthy;"(1) and that the apostle carefully warns us, "If any one preaches
to you differently from what we have preached, let him be accursed," (2) So
that we must believe Christ to be the Son of man according to apostolic
truth, not according to Manichaean error. And since the evangelists assert
that Christ was born of a woman, of the seed of David, and Paul writing to
Timothy says, "Remember that Jesus Christ, of the seed of David, was raised
from the dead, according to my gospel" (3) it is clear what sense we must
believe Christ to be the Son of man; for being the Son of God by whom we
were made, He also by His incarnation became the Son of man, that He might
die for our sins, and rise again for our justification. (4) Accordingly He
calls Himself both Son of God and Son of man. To take only one instance out
of many, in the Gospel of John it is written. "Verily, verily, I say unto
you, The hour cometh, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the
Son of God; and they that hear shall live. For as the Father hath life in
Himself, so He hath given to the Son to have life in Himself; and hath
given Him power to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of man."
(5) He says, "They shall hear the voice of the Son of God;" and He says,
"because He is the Son of man." As the Son of man, He has received power to
execute judgment, because He will come to judgment in human form, that He
may be seen by the good and the wicked. In this form He ascended into
heaven, and that voice was heard by His disciples, "He shall so come as ye
have seen Him go into heaven.''(6) As the Son of God, as God equal to and
one with the Father, He will not be seen by the wicked; for "blessed are
the pure in heart, for they shall see God." Since, then, He promises
eternal life to those that believe in Him, and since to believe in Him is
to believe in the true Christ, such as He declares Himself and His apostles
declare Him to be, true Son of God and true Son of man; you, Manichaeans,
who believe on a false and spurious son of a false and spurious man, and
teach that God Himself, from fear of the assault of the hostile race, gave
up His own members to be tortured, and after all not to be wholly
liberated, are plainly far from that eternal life which Christ promises to
those who believe in Him. It is true, He said to Peter when he confessed
Him to be the Son of God, "Blessed art thou, Simon. Barjona." But does He
promise nothing to those who believe Him to be the Son of man, when the Son
of God and the Son of man are the same? Besides, eternal life is expressly
promised to those who believe in the Son of man. "As Moses," He says,
"lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted
up, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal
life."(7) What more do you wish? Believe then in the Son of man, that you
may have eternal life; for He is also the Son of God, who can give eternal
life: for He is "the true God and eternal life," as the same John says in
his epistle. John also adds, that he is antichrist who denies that Christ
has come in the flesh.(8)
5. There is no need, then that you should extol so much the perfection
of Christ's commands, because you obey the precepts of the gospel. For the
precepts, supposing you really to fulfill them, would not profit you
without true faith. Do you not know that the apostle says, "If I distribute
all my goods to the poor, and give my body to be burned, and have not
charity, it profiteth me nothing?"(9) Why do you boast of having Christian
poverty, when you are destitute of Christian charity? Robbers have a kind
of charity to one another, arising from a mutual consciousness of guilt and
crime; but this is not the charity commended by the apostle. In another
passage he distinguishes true charity from all base and vicious affections,
by saying, "Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart,
and a good conscience, and faith unfeigned.''(10) How then can you have
true charity from a fictitious faith?(11) You persist in a faith corrupted
by falsehood: for your First Man, according to you, used deceit in the
conflict by changing his form, while his enemies remained in their own
nature; and, besides, you maintain that Christ, who says, "I am the truth,"
reigned His incarnation, His death on the cross, the wounds of His passion,
the marks shown after His resurrection. If you speak the truth, and your
Christ speaks falsehood, you must be better than he. But if you really
follow your own Christ, your truthfulness may be doubted, and your
obedience to the precepts you speak of may be only a pretence. Is it true,
as Faustus says, that you have no money in your purses? He means, probably,
that your money is in boxes and bags; nor would we blame you for this, if
you did not profess one thing and practise another. Constantius, who is
still alive, and is now our brother in Catholic Christianity, once gathered
many of your sect into his house at Rome, to keep these precepts of
Manichaesus, which you think so much of, though they are very silly and
childish. The precepts proved too much for your weakness, and the gathering
was entirely broken up. Those who persevered separated from your communion,
and are called Mattarians, because they sleep on mats, -- a very different
bed from the feathers of Faustus and his goatskin coverlets, and all the
grandeur that made him despise not only the Mattarians, but also the house
of his poor father in Mileum. Away, then, with this accursed hypocrisy from
your writing, if not from your conduct; or else your language will conflict
with your life by your deceitful words, as your First Man with the race of
darkness by his deceitful elements.
6. I am, however, addressing not merely men who fail to do what they
are commanded, but the members of a deluded sect. For the precepts of
Manichaeus are such that, if you do not keep them, you are deceivers; if
you do keep them, you are deceived. Christ never taught you that you should
not pluck a vegetable for fear of committing homicide; for when His
disciples were hungry when passing through a field of corn, He did not
forbid them to pluck the ears on the Sabbath-day; which was a rebuke to the
Jews of the time since the action was on Sabbath; and a rebuke in the
action itself to the future Manichaeans. The precept of Manichaeus,
however, only requires you to do nothing while others commit homicide for
you; though the real homicide is that of ruining miserable souls by such
doctrines of devils.
7. The language of Faustus has the typhus of heresy in it, and is the
language of overweening arrogance. "You see in me" he says, "the beatitudes
of the gospel; and do you ask if I believe the gospel? You see me poor,
meek, a peacemaker, pure in heart, mourning, hungering, thirsting, bearing
persecution and enmity for righteousness' sake; and do you doubt my belief
in the gospel?" If to justify oneself were to be just, Faustus would have
flown to heaven while uttering these words. I say nothing of the luxurious
habits of Faustus, known to all the followers of the Manichaeans, and
especially to those at Rome. I shall suppose a Manichaean such as
Constantius sought for, when he enforced the observance of these precepts
with the sincere desire to see them observed. How can I see him to be poor
in spirit, when he is so proud as to believe that his own soul is God, and
is not ashamed to speak of God as in bondage? How can I see him meek, when
he affronts all the authority of the evangelists rather than believe? How a
peacemaker, when he holds that the divine nature itself by which God is
whatever is, and is the only true existence, could not remain in lasting
peace? How pure in heart, when his heart is filled with so many impious
notions? How mourning, unless it is for his God captive and bound till he
be freed and escape, with the loss, however, of a part which is to be
united by the Father to the mass of darkness, and is not to be mourned for?
How hungering and thirsting for righteousness, which Faustus omits in his
writings lest, no doubt, he should be thought destitute of righteousness?
But how can they hunger and thirst after righteousness, whose perfect
righteousness will consist in exulting over their brethren condemned to
darkness, not for any fault of their own, but for being irremediably
contaminated by the pollution against which they were sent by the Father to
contend?
8. How do you suffer persecution and enmity for righteousness' sake,
when, according to you, it is righteous to preach and teach these
impieties? The wonder is, that the gentleness of Christian times allows
such perverse iniquity to pass wholly or almost unpunished. And yet, as if
we were blind or silly, you tell us that your suffering reproach and
persecution is a great proof of your righteousness. If people are just
according to the amount of their suffering, atrocious criminals of all
kinds suffer much more than you. But, at any rate, if we are to grant that
suffering endured on account of any sort of profession of Christianity
proves the sufferer to be in possession of true faith and righteousness,
you must admit that any case of greater suffering that we can show proves
the possession of truer faith and greater righteousness. Of such cases you
know many among our martyrs, and chiefly Cyprian himself, whose writings
also bear witness to his belief that Christ was born of the Virgin Mary.
For this faith, which you abhor, he suffered and died along with many
Christian believers of that day, who suffered as much, or more. Faustus,
when shown to be a Manichaean by evidence, or by his own confession, on the
intercession of the Christians themselves, who brought him before the
proconsul, was, along with some others, only banished to an island, which
can hardly be called a punishment at all, for it is what God's servants do
of their own accord every day when they wish to retire from the tumult of
the world. Besides, earthly sovereigns often by a public decree give
release from this banishment as an act of mercy. And in this way all were
afterwards released at once. Confess, then, that they were in possession of
a truer faith and a more righteous life, who were accounted worthy to
suffer for it much more than you ever suffered. Or else, cease boasting of
the abhorrence which many feel for you, and learn to distinguish between
suffering for blasphemy and suffering for righteousness. What it is you
suffer for, your own books will show in a way that deserves your most
particular attention.
9. Those evangelical precepts of peculiar sublimity which you make
people who know no better believe that you obey, are really obeyed by
multitudes in our communion. Are there not among us many of both sexes who
have entirely refrained from sexual intercourse, and many formerly married
who practise continence? Are there not many others who give largely of
their property, or give it up altogether, and many who keep the body in
subjection by fasts, either frequent or daily, or protracted beyond belief?
Then there are fraternities whose members have no property of their own,
but all things common, including only things necessary for food and
clothing, living with one soul and one heart towards God, inflamed with a
common feeling of charity. In all such professions many turn out to be
deceivers and reprobates, while many who are so are never discovered; many,
too, who at first walk well, fall away rapidly from willfulness. Many are
found in times of trial to have adopted this kind of life with another
intention than they professed; and again, many in humility and
steadfastness persevere in their course to the end, and are saved. There
are apparent diversities in these societies; but one charity unites all
who, from some necessity, in obedience to the apostle's injunction, have
their wives as if they had them not, and buy as if they bought not, and use
this world as if they used it not. With these are joined, in the abundant
riches of God's mercy, the inferior class of those to whom it is said,
"Defraud not one another, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may
give yourselves to prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you
not for your incontinency. But I speak this by permission, and not of
commandment." To such the same apostle also says, "Now therefore there is
utterly a fault among you, that ye go to law one with another;" while, in
consideration of their infirmity, he adds, "If ye have judgments of things
pertaining to this life, set them to judge who are least esteemed in the
Church."(2) For in the kingdom of heaven there are not only those who, that
they may be perfect, sell or leave all they have and follow the Lord; but
others in the partnership of charity are joined like a mercenary force to
the Christian army, to whom it will be said at last, "I was hungry, and ye
gave me meat," and so on. Otherwise, there would be no salvation for those
to whom the apostle gives so many anxious and particular directions about
their families, telling the wives to be obedient to their husbands, and
husbands to love their wives; children to obey their parents, and parents
to bring up their children in the instruction and admonition of the Lord;
servants to obey with fear their masters according to the flesh, and
masters to render to their servants what is just and equal. The apostle is
far from condemning such people as regardless of gospel precepts, or
unworthy of eternal life. For where the Lord exhorts the strong to attain
perfection, saying,"' If any man take not up his cross and follow me, he
cannot be my disciple," He immediately adds, for the consolation of the
weak, "Whoso receiveth a just man in the name of a just man shall receive a
just man's reward; and whoso receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet,
shall receive a prophet's reward." So that not only Be who gives Timothy a
little wine for his stomach's sake, and his frequent infirmities, but he
who gives to a strong man a cup of cold water only in the name of a
disciple, shall not lose his reward.(3)
10. If it is true that a man cannot receive the gospel without giving
up everything, why do you delude your followers, by allowing them to keep
in your service their wives, and children, and households, and houses, and
fields? Indeed, you may well allow them to disregard the precepts of the
gospel: for all you promise them is not a resurrection, but a change to
another mortal existence, in which they shall live the silly, childish,
impious life of those you call the Elect, the life you live yourself, and
are so much praised for; or if they possess greater merit, they shall enter
into melons or cucumbers, or some eatables which you will masticate, that
they may be quickly purified by your digestion. Least of all should you who
teach such doctrines profess any regard for the gospel. For if the faith of
the gospel had any connection with such nonsense, the Lord should have
said, not, "I was hungry, and ye gave me meat;" but, "Ye were hungry, and
ye ate me," or, "I was hungry, and I ate you." For, by your absurdities, a
man will not be received into the kingdom of God for the service of giving
food to the saints, but, because he has eaten them and belched them out, or
has himself been eaten and belched into heaven. Instead of saying, "Lord,
when saw we Thee hungry, and fed Thee?" the righteous must say, "When saw
we Thee hungry, and were eaten by Thee?" And He must answer, not, "When ye
gave food to one of the least of these my brethren, you gave to me;" but,
"When you were eaten by one of the least of these my brethren, you were
eaten by me."
11. Believing and teaching such monstrosities, and living accordingly,
you yet have the boldness to say that you obey the precepts of the gospel,
and to decry the Catholic Church, which includes many weak as well as
strong, both of whom the Lord blesses, because both according to their
measure obey the precepts of the gospel and hope in its promises. The
blindness of hostility makes you see only the tares in our harvest: for you
might easily see wheat too, if you were willing that there should be any.
But among you, those who are pretended Manichaeans are wicked, and those
who are really Manichaeans are silly. For where the faith itself is false,
he who hypocritically professes it acts deceitfully, while he who truly
believes is deceived. Such a faith cannot produce a good life, for every
man's life is good or bad according as his heart is engaged. If your
affections were set upon spiritual and intellectual good, instead of
material forms, you would not pay homage to the material sun as a divine
substance, and as the light of wisdom, which every one knows you do, though
I now only mention it in passing.
BOOK VI: FAUSTUS AVOWS HIS DISBELIEF IN THE OLD TESTAMENT AND HIS DISREGARD
OF ITS PRECEPTS, AND ACCUSES CATHOLICS OF INCONSISTENCY IN NEGLECTING ITS
ORDINANCES, WHILE CLAIMING TO ACCEPT IT AS AUTHORITATIVE. AUGUSTIN EXPLAINS
THE CATHOLIC VIEW OF THE RELATION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT TO THE NEW.
1. FAUSTUS said: You ask if I believe the Old Testament. Of course not,
for I do not keep its precepts. Neither, I imagine, do you. I reject
circumcision as disgusting; and if I mistake not, so do you. I reject the
observance of Sabbaths as superfluous: I suppose you do the same. I reject
sacrifice as idolatry, as doubtless you also do. Swine's flesh is not the
only flesh I abstain from; nor is it the only flesh you eat. I think all
flesh unclean: you think none unclean. Both alike, in these opinions, throw
over the Old Testament. We both look upon the weeks of unleavened bread and
the feast of tabernacles as unnecessary and useless. Not to patch linen
garments with purple; to count it adultery to make a garment of linen and
wool; to call it sacrilege to yoke together an ox and an ass when
necessary; not to appoint as priest a bald man, or a man with red hair, or
any similar peculiarity, as being unclean in the sight of God, are things
which we both despise and laugh at, and rank as of neither first nor second
importance; and yet they are all precepts and judgments of the Old
Testament. You cannot blame me for rejecting the Old Testament; for whether
it is right or wrong to do so, you do it as much as I. As for the
difference between your faith and mine, it is this, that while you choose
to act deceitfully, and meanly to praise in words what in your heart you
hate, I, not having learned the art of deception, frankly declare that I
hate both these abominable precepts and their authors.
2. AUGUSTIN replied: How and for what purpose the Old Testament is
received by the heirs of the New Testament has been already explained.(1)
But as the remarks of Faustus were then about the promises of the Old
Testament, and now he speaks of the precepts, I reply that he displays
ignorance of the difference between moral and symbolical precepts. For
example, "Thou shalt not covet" is a moral precept; "Thou shalt circumcise
every male on the eighth day" is a symbolical precept. From not making this
distinction, the Manichaeans, and all who find fault with the writings of
the Old Testament, not seeing that whatever observance God appointed for
the former dispensation was a shadow of future things, because these
observances are now discontinued, condemn them, though no doubt what is
unsuitable now was perfectly suitable then as prefiguring the things now
revealed. In this they contradict the apostle who says, "All these things
happened to them for an example, and they were written for our learning, on
whom the end of the world is come."(1) The apostle here explains why these
writings are to be received, and why it is no longer necessary to continue
the symbolical observances. For when he says, "They were written for our
learning," he clearly shows that we should be very diligent in reading and
in discovering the meaning of the Old Testament Scriptures, and that we
should have great veneration for them, since it was for us that they were
written. Again, when he says, "They are our examples," and "these things
happened to them for an example," he shows that, now that the things
themselves are clearly revealed, the observance of the actions by which
these things were prefigured is no longer binding. So he says elsewhere,
"Let no man judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holy day,
or of the new moon or of the sabbath-days, which are a shadow of things to
come.''(2) Here also, when he says, "Let no one judge you" in these things,
he shows that we are no longer bound to observe them. And when he says,
"which are a shadow of things to come," he explains how these observances
were binding at the time when the things fully disclosed to us were
symbolized by these shadows of future things.
3. Assuredly, if the Manichaeans were justified by the resurrection of
the Lord,--the day of whose resurrection, the third after His passion, was
the eighth day, coming after the Sabbath, that is, after the seventh day,--
their carnal minds would be delivered from the darkness of earthly passions
which rests on them; and rejoicing in the circumcision of the heart, they
would not ridicule it as prefigured in the Old Testament by circumcision in
the flesh, although they should not enforce this observance under the New
Testament. But, as the apostle says, "To the pure all things are pure. But
to the impure and unbelieving nothing is pure, but both their mind and
conscience are defiled."(3) So these people, who are so pure in their own
eyes, that they regard, or pretend to regard, as impure these members of
their bodies, are so defiled with unbelief and error, that, while they
abhor the circumcision of the flesh,--which the apostle calls a seal of the
righteousness of faith,--they believe that the divine members of their God
are subjected to restraint and contamination in these very carnal members
of theirs. For they say that flesh is unclean; and it follows that God, in
the part which is detained by the flesh, is made unclean: for they declare
that He must be cleansed, and that till this is done, as far as it can be
done, He undergoes all the passions to which flesh is subject, not only in
suffering pain and distress, but also in sensual gratification. For it is
for His sake, they say, that they abstain from sexual intercourse, that He
may not be bound more closely in the bondage of the flesh, nor suffer more
defilement. The apostle says, "To the pure all things are pure." And if
this is true of men, who may be led into evil by a perverse will, how much
more must all things be pure to God, who remains for ever immutable and
immaculate! In those books which you defile with your violent reproaches,
it is said of the divine wisdom, that "no defiled thing falleth into it,
and it goeth everywhere by reason of its pureness." (4) It is mere prurient
absurdity to find fault with the sign of human regeneration appointed by
that God, to whom all things are pure, to be put on the organ of human
generation, while you hold that your God, to whom nothing is pure, is in a
part of his nature subjected to taint and corruption by the vicious actions
in which impure men employ the members of their body. For if you think
there is pollution in conjugal intercourse, what must there be in all the
practices of the licentious? If you ask, then, as you often do, whether God
could not find some other way of sealing the righteousness of faith, the
answer is, Why not this way, since all things are pure to the pure, much
more to God? And we have the authority of the apostle for saying that
circumcision was the seal of the righteousness of the faith of Abraham. As
for you, you must try not to blush when you are asked whether your God had
nothing better to do than to entangle part of his nature with these members
that you revile so much. These are delicate subjects to speak of, on
account of the penal corruption attending the propagation of man. They are
things which call into exercise the modesty of the chaste, the passions of
the impure, and the justice of God.
4. The rest of the Sabbath we consider no longer binding as an
observance, now that the hope of our eternal rest has been revealed. But it
is a very useful thing to read of, and to reflect on. In prophetic times,
when things now manifested were prefigured and predicted by actions as well
as words, this sign of which we read was a presage of tim reality which we
possess. But I wish to know why you observe a sort of partial rest. The
Jews, on their Sabbath, which they still keep in a carnal manner. neither
gather any fruit in the field, nor dress and cook it at home. But you, in
your rest, wait till one of your followers takes his knife or hook to the
garden, to get food for you by murdering the vegetables, and brings back,
strange to say, living corpses. For if cutting plants is not murder, why
are you afraid to do it? And yet, if the plants are murdered, what becomes
of the life which is to obtain release and restoration from your
mastication and digestion? Well, you take the living vegetables, and
certainly you ought, if it could be done to swallow them whole; so that
after the one wound your follower has been guilty of inflicting in pulling
them, of which you will no doubt consent to absolve him, they may reach
without loss or injury your private laboratory, where your God may be
healed of his wound. Instead of this, you not only tear them with your
teeth, but, if it pleases your taste, mince them, inflicting a multitude of
wounds in the most criminal manner. Plainly it would be a most advantageous
thing if you would rest at home too, and not only once a week, like the
Jews, but every day of the week. The cucumbers suffer while you are cooking
them, without any benefit to the life that is in them: for a boiling pot
cannot be compared to a saintly stomach. And yet you ridicule as
superfluous the rest of the Sabbath. Would it not be better, not only to
refrain from finding fault with the fathers for this observance, in whose
case it was not superfluous, but, even now that it is superfluous, to
observe this rest yourselves instead of your own, which has no symbolical
use, and is condemned as grounded on falsehood? According to your own
foolish opinions, you are guilty of a defective observance of your own
rest, though the observance itself is foolish in the judgment of truth. You
maintain that the fruit suffers when it is pulled from the tree, when it is
cut and scraped, and cooked, and eaten. So you are wrong in eating anything
that can not be swallowed raw and unhurt, so that the wound inflicted might
not be from you, but from your follower in pulling them. You declare that
you could not give release to so great a quantity of life, if you were to
eat only things which could be swallowed without cooking or mastication.
But if this release compensates for all the pains you inflict, why is it
unlawful for you to pull the fruit? Fruit may be eaten raw, as some of your
sect make a point of eating raw vegetables of all kinds. But before it can
be eaten at all, it must be pulled or fall off, or be taken in some way
from the ground or from the tree. You might well be pardoned for pulling
it, since nothing can be done without that, but not for torturing the
members of your God to the extent you do in dressing your food. One of your
silly notions is that the tree weeps when the fruit is pulled. Doubtless
the life in the tree knows all things, and perceives who it is that comes
to it. If the elect were to come and pull the fruit, would not the tree
rejoice to escape the misery of having its fruit plucked by others, and to
gain felicity by enduring a little momentary pain? And yet, while you
multiply the pains and troubles of the fruit after it is plucked, you will
not pluck it. Explain that, if you can! Fasting itself is a mistake in your
case. There should be no intermission in the task of purging away the dross
of the excrements from the spiritual gold, and of releasing the divine
members from confinement. The most merciful man among you is he who keeps
himself always in good health, takes raw food, and eats a great deal. But
you are cruel when you eat, in making your food undergo so much suffering;
and you are cruel when you fast, in desisting from the work of liberating
the divine members.(1)
5. With all this, you venture to denounce the sacrifices of the Old
Testament, and to call them idolatry, and to attribute to us the same
impious notion. To answer for ourselves in the first place, while we
consider it no longer a duty to offer sacrifices, we recognize sacrifices
as part of the mysteries of Revelation, by which the things prophesied were
foreshadowed. For they were our examples, and in many and various ways they
all pointed to the one sacrifice which we now commemorate. Now that this
sacrifice has been revealed, and has been offered in due time, sacrifice is
no longer binding as an act of worship. while it retains its symbolical
authority. For these things "were written for our learning, upon whom the
end of the world is come." (2) What you object to in sacrifice is the
slaughter of animals, though the whole animal creation is intended
conditionally in some way for the use of man. You are merciful to beasts,
believing them to contain the souls of human beings, while you refuse a
piece of bread to a hungry beggar. The Lord Jesus, on the other hand, was
cruel to the swine when He granted the request of the devils to be allowed
to enter into them. (1) The same Lord Jesus, before the sacrifice of His
passion, said to a leper whom He had cured, "Go, show thyself to the
priest, and give the offering, as Moses commanded, for a testimony unto
them."(2) When God, by the prophets, repeatedly declares that He needs no
offering, as indeed reason teaches us that offerings cannot be needed by
Him who stands in need of nothing, the human mind is led to inquire what
God wished to teach us by these sacrifices. For, assuredly, He would not
have required offerings of which He had no need. except to teach us
something that it would profit us to know, and which was suitably set forth
by means of these symbols. How much better and more honorable it would be
for you to be still bound by these sacrifices, which have an instructive
meaning, though they are not now necessary, than to require your followers
to offer to you as food what you believe to be living victims. The Apostle
Paul says most appropriately of some who preached the gospel to gratify
their appetite, that their "god was their belly." (3) But the arrogance of
your impiety goes much beyond this; for, instead of making your belly your
god, you do what is far worse in making your belly the purifier of God.
Surely it is great madness to make a pretence of piety in not slaughtering
animals, while you hold that the souls of animals inhabit all the food you
eat, and yet make what you call living creatures suffer such torture from
your hands and teeth.
6. If you will not eat flesh why should you not slay animals in
sacrifice to your God, in order that their souls, which you hold to be not
only human, but so divine as to be members of God Himself, may be released
from the confinement of flesh, and be saved from returning by the efficacy
of your prayers? Perhaps, however, your stomach gives more effectual aid
than your intellect, and that part of divinity which has had the advantage
of passing through your bowels is more likely to be saved than that which
has only the benefit of your prayers. Your objection to eating flesh will
be that you cannot eat animals alive, and so the operation of your stomach
will not avail for the liberation of their souls. Happy vegetables, that,
torn up with tire hand, cut with knives, tortured in fire, ground by teeth,
yet reach alive the altars of your intestines Unhappy sheep and oxen, that
are not so tenacious of life, and therefore are refused entrance into your
bodies! Such is the absurdity of your notions. And you persist in making
out an opposition in us to the Old Testament, because we consider no flesh
unclean: according to the opinion of the apostle, "To the pure all things
are pure;" (4) and according to the saying of our Lord Himself, "Not that
which goeth into your mouth defileth you, but that which cometh out." (5)
This was not said to the crowd only, as your Adimantus, whom Faustus, in
his attack on the Old Testament, praises as second only to Manichaeus,
wishes us to understand; but when retired from the crowd, the Lord repeated
this still more plainly and pointedly to His disciples. Adimantus quotes
this saying of our Lord in opposition to the Old Testament, where the
people are prohibited from eating some animals which are pronounced
unclean; and doubtless he was afraid that he should be asked why, since he
quotes a passage from the Gospel about man not being defiled by what enters
into his mouth and passes into his belly, and out into the draft, he yet
considers not some only, but all flesh unclean, and abstains from eating
it. It is in order to escape from this strait, when the plain truth is too
much for his error, that he makes the Lord say this to the crowd; as if the
Lord were in the habit of speaking the truth only in small companies, while
He blurted out falsehoods in public. To speak of the Lord in this way is
blasphemy. And all who read the passage can see that the Lord said the same
thing more plainly to His disciples in private. Since Faustus praises
Adimantus so much at the beginning of this book of his, placing him next to
Manichaeus, let him say in a word whether it is true or false that a man is
not defiled by what enters into his mouth. If it is false, why does this
great teacher Adimantus quote it against the Old Testament? If it is true,
why, in spite of this, do you believe that eating any flesh will defile
you? It is true, if you choose this explanation, that the apostle does not
say that all things are pure to heretics, but, "to the pure all things are
pure." The apostle also goes on to explain why all things are not pure to
heretics: "To the impure and unbelieving nothing is pure, but both their
mind and conscience are defiled." (6) So to the Manichaens there is
absolutely nothing pure; for they hold that the very substance or nature of
God not only may be, but has actually been defiled, and so defiled that it
can never be wholly restored and purified. What do they mean when they call
animals unclean, and refrain from eating them, when it is impossible for
them to think anything, whether food or whatever it may be, clean?
According to them, vegetables too, fruits, all kinds of crops, the earth
and sky, are defiled by mixture with the race of darkness. Why do they not
act up to their opinions about other things as well as about animals? Why
do they not abstain altogether, and starve themselves to death, instead of
persisting in their blasphemies? If they will not repent and reform, this
is evidently the best thing that they could do.
7. The saying of the apostle, that "to the pure all things are pure,"
and that "every creature of God is good," is not opposed to the
prohibitions of the Old Testament; and the explanation, if they can
understand it, is this. The apostle speaks of the natures of the things,
while the Old Testament calls some animals unclean, not in their nature,
but symbolically, on account of the prefigurative character of that
dispensation. For instance, a pig and a lamb are both clean in their
nature, for every creature of God is good; but symbolically, a lamb is
clean, and a pig unclean. So the words wise and fool are both clean in
their nature, as words composed of letters but fool may be called
symbolically unclean, because it means an unclean thing. Perhaps a pig is
the same among symbols as a fool is among real things. The animal, and the
four letters which compose the word, may mean the same thing. No doubt the
animal is pronounced unclean by the law, because it does not chew the cud;
which is not a fault but its nature. But the men of whom this animal is a
symbol are unclean, not by nature, but from their own fault; because,
though they gladly hear the words of wisdom, they never reflect on them
afterwards. For to recall, in quiet repose, some useful instruction from
the stomach of memory to the mouth of reflection, is a kind of spiritual
rumination. The animals above mentioned are a symbol of those people who do
not do this. And the prohibition of the flesh of these animals is a warning
against this fault. Another passage of Scripture speaks of the precious
treasure of wisdom, and describes ruminating as clean, and not ruminating
as unclean: "A precious treasure resteth in the mouth of a wise man; but a
foolish man swallows it up."(1) Symbols of this kind, either in words or
in things, give useful and pleasant exercise to intelligent minds in the
way of inquiry and comparison. But formerly people were required not only
to hear, but to practise many such things. For at that time it was
necessary that, by deeds as well as by words, those things should be
foreshadowed which were in after times to be revealed. After the revelation
by Christ and in Christ, the community of believers is not burdened with
the practice of the observances, but is admonished to give heed to the
prophecy. This is our reason for accounting no animals unclean, in
accordance with the saying of the Lord and of the apostle, while we are not
opposed to the Old Testament, where some animals are pronounced unclean.
Now let us hear why you consider all animal food unclean.
8. One of your false doctrines is, that flesh is unclean on account of
mixture with the race of darkness. But this would make not only flesh
unclean, but your God himself, in that part which he sent to become subject
to absorption and contamination, in order that the enemy might be conquered
and taken captive. Besides, on account of this mixture, all that you eat
must be unclean. But you say flesh is especially unclean. It requires
patience to listen to all their absurd reasons for this peculiar impurity
of flesh. I will mention only what will suffice to show the inveterate
folly of these critics of the Old Testament, who, while they denounce
flesh, savor only fleshly things, and have no sort of spiritual perception.
And a lengthy discussion of this question may perhaps enable us to dispense
with saying much on some other points. The following, then, is an account
of their vain delusions in this matter:--In that battle, when the First Man
ensnared the race of darkness by deceitful elements, princes of both sexes
belonging to this race were taken. By means of these princes the world was
constructed; and among those used in the formation of the heavenly bodies,
were some pregnant females. When the sky began to rotate, the rapid
circular motion made these females give birth to abortions, which, being of
both sexes, fell on the earth, and lived, and grew, and came together, and
produced offspring. Hence sprang all animal life in earth, air, and sea.(2)
Now if the origin of flesh is from heaven, that is no reason for thinking
it especially unclean. Indeed, in this construction of the world, they hold
that these principles of darkness were arranged higher or lower, according
to the greater or less amount of good mixed with them in the construction
of the various parts of the world. So flesh ought to be cleaner than
vegetables which come out of the earth, for it comes from heaven. And how
irrational to suppose that the abortions, before becoming animate, were so
lively, though in an abortive state, that after failing from the sky, they
could live and multiply; whereas, after becoming animate, they die if
brought forth prematurely, and a fall from a very moderate height is enough
to kill them! The kingdom of life in contest with the kingdom of death
ought to have improved them, by giving them life instead of making them
more perishable than before. If the perishableness is a consequence of a
change of nature, it is wrong to say that there is a bad nature. The change
is the only cause of the perishableness. Both natures are good, though one
is better than the other. Whence then comes the peculiar impurity of flesh
as it exists in this world, sprung, as they say, from heaven? They tell us,
indeed, of the first bodies of these principles of darkness being generated
like worms from trees of darkness; and the trees, they say, are produced
from the five elements. But supposing that the bodies of animals come in
the first place from trees, and afterwards from heaven, why should they be
more unclean than the fruit of trees? Perhaps it will be said that what
remains after death is unclean, because the life is no longer there. For
the same reason fruits and vegetables must be unclean, for they die when
they are pulled or cut. As we saw before, the elect get others to bring
their food to them, that they may not be guilty of murder. Perhaps, since
they say that; every living being has two souls, one of the race of light,
and the other of the race of darkness, the good soul leaves at death, and
the bad soul remains. But, in that case, the animal would be as much alive
as it was in the kingdom of darkness, when it had only the soul of its own
race, with which it had rebelled against the kingdom of God. So, since both
souls leave at death, why call the flesh unclean, as if only the good soul
had left? Any life that remains must be of both kinds; for some remains of
the members of God are found, we are told, even in filth. There is
therefore no reason for making flesh more unclean than fruits. The truth
is, they pretend to great chastity in holding flesh unclean because it is
generated. But if the divine body is more grossly shut in by flesh, there
is all the more reason that they should liberate it by eating. And there
are innumerable kinds of worms not produced from sexual intercourse; some
in the neighborhood of Venice come from trees, which they should eat, since
there is not the same reason for their being unclean. Besides, there are
the frogs produced by the earth after a shower of rain.(1) Let them
liberate the members of their God from these. Let them rebuke the mistake
of mankind in preferring fowls and pigeons produced from males and females
to the pure frogs, daughters of heaven and earth. By this theory, the first
principles of darkness produced from trees must be purer than Manichaeus,
who was produced by generation; and his followers, for the same reason,
must be less pure than the lice which spring from the perspiration of their
bodies. But if everything that comes from flesh is unclean, because the
origin of flesh itself is unclean, fruits and vegetables must also be
unclean, because they are manured with dung. After this, what becomes of
the notion that fruits are cleaner than flesh? Dung is the most unclean
product of flesh, and also the most fertilizing manure. Their doctrine is,
that the life escapes in the mastication and digestion of the food, so that
only a particle remains in the excrement. How is it, then, that this
particle of life has such an effect on the growth and the quality of your
favorite food? Flesh is nourished by the productions of the earth, not by
its excrements; while the earth is nourished by the excrements of flesh,
not by its productions. Let them say which is the cleaner. Or let them turn
from being unbelieving and impure to whom nothing is clean, and join with
us in embracing the doctrine of the apostle, that to the pure all things
are pure; that the earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof; that
every creature of God is good. All things in nature are good in their own
order; and no one sins in using them, unless, by disobedience to God, he
transgresses his own order, and disturbs their order by using them amiss.
9. The elders who pleased God kept their own order by their obedience,
in observing, according to God's arrangement, what was appointed as
suitable to certain times. So, although all animals intended for food are
by nature clean, they abstained from some which had then a symbolical
uncleanness, in preparation for the future revelation of the things
signified. And so with regard to unleavened bread and all such things, in
which the apostle says there was a shadow of future things, neglect of
their observance under the old dispensation, when this observance was
enjoined, and was employed to prefigure what was afterwards to be revealed,
would have been as criminal, as it would now be foolish in us, after the
light of the New Testament has arisen, to think that these predictive
observances could be of any use to us. On the other hand, since the Old
Testament teaches us that the things now revealed were so long ago
prefigured, that we may be firm and faithful in our adherence to them, it
would be blasphemy and impiety to discard these books, simply because the
Lord requires of us now not a literal, but a spiritual and intelligent
regard to their contents. They were written, as the apostle says, for our
admonition, on whom the end of the world is come.(1) "For whatsoever things
were written aforetime were written for our learning." (2) Not to eat
unleavened bread in the appointed seven days was a sin in the time of the
Old Testament; in the time of the New Testament it is not a sin. But having
the hope of a future world through Christ, who makes us altogether new by
clothing our souls with righteousness and our bodies with immortality, to
believe that the bondage and infirmity of our original corruption will
prevail over us or over our actions, must continue to be a sin, till the
seven days of the course of time are accomplished. In the time of the Old
Testament, this, under the disguise of a type, was perceived by some
saints. In the time of the New Testament it is fully declared and publicly
preached. (3)
What was then a precept of Scripture is now a testimony. Formerly, not
to keep the feast of tabernacles was a sin, which is not the case now. But
not to form part of the building of God's tabernacle, which is the Church,
is always a sin. Formerly this was acted in a figure; now the record serves
as testimony. The ancient tabernacle, indeed, would not have been called
the tabernacle of the testimony, unless as an appropriate symbol it had
borne testimony to some truth which was to be revealed in its own time. To
patch linen garments with purple, or to wear a garment of woollen and linen
together, is not a sin now. But to live intemperately, and to wish to
combine opposite modes of life,--as when a woman devoted to religion wears
the ornaments of married women, or when one who has not abstained from
marriage dresses like a virgin,--is always sin. So it is sin whenever
inconsistent things are combined in any man's life. This, which is now a
moral truth, was then symbolized in dress. What was then a type is now
revealed truth. So the same Scripture which then required symbolical
actions, now testifies to the things signified. The prefigurative
observance is now a record for the confirmation of our faith. Formerly it
was unlawful to plough with an ox and an ass together; now it is lawful.
The apostle explains this when he quotes the text about not muzzling the ox
that is treading out the corn. He says, "Does God care for oxen?" What,
then, have we to do with an obsolete prohibition? The apostle teaches us in
the following words, "For our sakes it is written." (4) It must be impiety
in us not to read what was written for our sakes; for it is more for our
sakes, to whom the revelation belongs, than for theirs who had only the
figure. There is no harm in joining an ox with an ass where it is required.
But to put a wise man and a fool together, not that one should teach and
the other obey, but that both with equal authority should declare the word
of God, cannot be done without causing offence. So the same Scripture which
was once a command enjoining the shadow in which future things were veiled,
is now an authoritative witness to the unveiled truth.
In what he says of the uncleanness of a man that is bald or has red
hair, Faustus is inaccurate, or the manuscript he has used is incorrect.
(3) Would that Faustus were not ashamed to bear on his forehead the cross
of Christ, the want of which is baldness, instead of maintaining that
Christ, who says, "I am the truth," showed unreal marks, after His
resurrection, of unreal wounds! Faustus says he has not learned the art of
deceiving, and speaks what he thinks. He cannot therefore be a disciple of
his Christ, whom he madly declares to have shown false marks of wounds to
his disciples when they doubted. Are we to believe Faustus, not only in his
other absurdities, but also when he tells us that he does not deceive us in
calling Christ a deceiver? Is he better than Christ? Is he not a deceiver,
while Christ is? Or does he prove himself to be a disciple not of the
truthful Christ, but of the deceiver Manichaeus, by this very falsehood,
when he boasts that he has not learned the art of deceiving ?
BOOK VII: THE GENEALOGICAL QUESTION IS AGAIN TAKEN UP AND ARGUED ON BOTH
SIDES.
1. FAUSTUS said: You ask why I do not believe in the genealogy of
Jesus. There are many reasons; but the principal is, that He never declares
with His own lips that He had an earthly father or descent, but on the
contrary, that he is not of this world, that He came forth from God the
Father, that He descended from heaven, that He has no mother or brethren
except those who do the will of His Father in heaven. Besides, the framers
of these genealogies do not seem to have known Jesus before His birth or
soon after it, so as to have the credibility of eye-witnesses of what they
narrate. They became acquainted with Jesus as a young man of about thirty
years of age, if it is not blasphemy to speak of the age of a divine being.
Now the question regarding a witness is always whether he has seen or heard
what he testifies to. But the writers of these genealogies never assert
that they heard the account from Jesus Himself, nor even the fact of His
birth; nor did they see Him till they came to know Him after his baptism,
many years after the time of His birth. To me, therefore, and to every
sensible man, it appears as foolish to believe this account, as it would be
to call into court a blind and deaf witness.
2. AUGUSTIN replied: As regards what Faustus calls his principal reason
for not receiving the genealogy of Jesus Christ, a complete refutation is
found in the passages formerly quoted, where Christ declares Himself to be
the Son of man, and in what we have said of the identity of the Son of man
with the Son of God: that in His Godhead He has no earthly descent, while
after the flesh He is of the seed of David, as the apostle teaches. We are
to believe, therefore, that He came forth from the Father, that He
descended from heaven, and also that the Word was made flesh and dwelt
amongst men. If the words, "Who is my mother, and who are my brethren?" (1)
are quoted to show that Christ had no earthly mother or descent, it follows
that we must believe that His disciples, whom He here teaches by His own
example to set no value on earthly relationship, as compared with the
kingdom of heaven, had no fathers, because Christ says to them, "Call no
man father upon earth; for one is your Father, even God." (2) What He
taught them to do with reference to their fathers, He Himself first did in
reference to His own mother and brethren; as in many other things He
condescended to set us an example, and to go before that we might follow in
His footsteps. Faustus' principal objection to the genealogy fails
completely; and after the defeat of this invincible force, the rest is
easily routed. He says that the apostles who declared Christ to be the Son
of man as well as the Son of God are not to be believed, because they were
not present at the birth of Christ, whom they joined when He had reached
manhood, nor heard of it from Christ Himself. Why then do they believe John
when he says, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things
were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made," (3) and such
passages, which they agree to, without understanding them? Where did John
see this, or did he ever hear it from the Lord Himself? In whatever way
John learned this, those who narrate the nativity may have learned also.
Again, how do they know that the Lord said, "Who is my mother, and who are
my brethren ?" If on the authority of the evangelist, why do they not also
believe that the mother and the brethren of Christ were seeking for Him?
They believe that Christ said these words, which they misunderstand, while
they deny a fact resting on the same authority. Once more, if Matthew could
not know that Christ was born, because he knew Him only in His manhood, how
could Manichaeus, who lived so long after, know that He was not born? They
will say that Manichaeus knew this from the Holy Spirit which was in him.
Certainly the Holy Spirit would make him speak the truth. But why not
rather believe what Christ's own disciples tell us, who were personally
acquainted with Him, and who not only had the gift of inspiration to supply
defects in their knowledge, but in a purely natural way obtained
information of the birth of Christ, and of His descent, when the event was
fresh in memory? And yet he dares to call the apostles deaf and blind. Why
were you not deaf and blind, to prevent you from learning such profane
nonsense, and dumb too, to prevent you from uttering it?
BOOK VIII: FAUSTUS MAINTAINS THAT TO HOLD TO THE OLD TESTAMENT AFTER THE
GIVING OF THE NEW IS PUTTING NEW CLOTH ON AN OLD GARMENT. AUGUSTIN FURTHER
EXPLAINS THE RELATION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT TO THE NEW, AND REPROACHES THE
MANICHAEANS WITH CARNALITY.
1. FAUSTUS said: Another reason for not receiving the Old Testament is,
that I am provided with the New; and Scripture says that old and new do not
agree. For "no one putteth a piece of new cloth unto an old garment,
otherwise the rent is made worse.'' (1) To avoid making a worse rent, as
you have done, I do not mix Christian newness with Hebrew oldness. Every
one accounts it mean, when a man has got a new dress, not to give the old
one to his inferiors. So, even if I were a Jew by birth, as the apostles
were, it would be proper for me, on receiving the New Testament, to discard
the Old, as the apostles did. And having the advantage of being born free
from the yoke of bondage, and being early introduced into the full liberty
of Christ, what a foolish and ungrateful wretch I should be to put myself
again under the yoke! This is what Paul blames the Galatians for; because,
going back to circumcision, they turned again to the weak and beggarly
elements, whereunto they desired again to be in bondage.(2) Why should I do
what I see another blamed for doing? My going into bondage would be worse
than their returning to it.
2. AUGUSTIN replied: We have already shown sufficiently why and how we
maintain the authority of the Old Testament, not for the imitation of
Jewish bondage, but for the confirmation of Christian liberty. It is not I,
but the apostle, who says, "All these things happened to them as an
example, and they were written for our admonition, on whom the ends of the
world are come.''(3) We do not therefore, as bondmen, observe what was
enjoined as predictive of us; but as free, we read what was written to
confirm us. So any one may see that the apostle remonstrates with the
Galatians not for devoutly reading what Scripture says of circumcision, but
for superstitiously desiring to be circumcised. We do not put a new cloth
to an old garment, but we are instructed in the kingdom of heaven, like the
householder, whom the Lord describes as bringing out of his treasure things
new and old.(4) He who puts a new cloth to an old garment is the man who
attempts spiritual self-denial before he has renounced fleshly hope.
Examine the passage, and you will see that, when the Lord was asked about
fasting, He replied, "No man putteth a new cloth to an old garment." The
disciples had still a carnal affection for the Lord; for they were afraid
that, if He died, they would lose Him. So He calls Peter Satan for
dissuading Him from suffering, because he understood not the things of God,
but the things of men.(5) The fleshly character of your hope is evident
from your fancies about the kingdom of God, and from your paying homage and
devotion to the light of the sun, which the carnal eye perceives, as if it
were an image of heaven. So your carnal mind is the old garment to which
you join your fasts. Moreover, if a new cloth and an old garment do not
agree, how do the members of your God come to be not only joined or
fastened, but to be united far more intimately by mixture and coherence to
the principles of darkness? Perhaps both are old, because both are false,
and both of the carnal mind. Or perhaps you wish to prove that one was new
and the other old, by the rent being made worse, in tearing away the
unhappy piece of the kingdom of light, to be doomed to eternal imprisonment
in the mass of darkness. So this pretended artist in the fashions of the
sacred Scriptures is found stitching together absurdities, and dressing
himself in the rags of his own invention.
BOOK IX: FAUSTUS ARGUES THAT IF THE APOSTLES BORN UNDER THE OLD COVENANT
COULD LAWFULLY DEPART FROM IT, MUCH MORE CAN HE HAVING BEEN BORN A GENTILE.
AUGUSTIN EXPLAINS THE RELATION OF JEWS AND GENTILES ALIKE TO THE GOSPEL.
1. FAUSTUS said: Another reason for not receiving the Old Testament is,
that if it was allowable for the apostles, who were born under it, to
abandon it, much more may I, who was not born under it, be excused for not
thrusting myself into it. We Gentiles are not born Jews, nor Christians
either. Out of the same Gentile world some are induced by the Old Testament
to become Jews, and some by the New Testament to become Christians. It is
as if two trees, a sweet and a bitter, drew from one soil the sap which
each assimilates to its own nature. The apostle passed from the bitter to
the sweet; it would be madness in me to change from the sweet to the
bitter.
2. AUGUSTIN replied: You say that the apostle, in leaving Judaism,
passed from the bitter to the sweet. But the apostle himself says that the
Jews, who would not believe in Christ, were branches broken off, and that
the Gentiles, a wild olive tree, were grafted into the good olive, that is,
the holy stock of the Hebrews, that they might partake of the fatness of
the olive. For, in warning the Gentiles not to be proud on account of the
fall of the Jews, he says: "For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am
the apostle of the Gentiles. I magnify my office; if by any means I may
provoke to emulation them which are my flesh, and might save some of them.
For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall
the receiving of them be, but life from the dead? For if the first fruit be
holy, the lump is also holy; and if the root be holy, so are the branches.
And if some of the branches are broken off, and thou, being a wild olive
tree, were grafted in among them, and with them partakest of the root and
fatness of the olive tree; boast not against the branches: but if thou
boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee. Thou wilt say then,
The branches were broken off, that I might be grafted in. Well; because of
unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not high-
minded, but fear; for if God spared not the natural branches, take heed
lest He also spare not thee. Behold therefore the goodness and severity of
God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou
continue in His goodness; otherwise thou also shalt be cut off. And they
also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be grafted in; for God is
able to graft them in again. For if thou weft cut out of the olive tree,
which is wild by nature, and weft grafted contrary to nature into a good
olive tree; how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be
grafted into their own olive tree? For I would not, brethren, that ye
should be ignorant of this mystery (lest ye should be wise in your own
conceits), that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fullness
of the Gentiles be come in; and so all Israel shall be saved."(1) It
appears from this, that you, who do not wish to be graffed into this root,
though you are not broken off, like the carnal unbelieving Jews, remain
still in the bitterness of the wild olive. Your worship of the sun and moon
has the true Gentile flavor. You are none the less in the wild olive of the
Gentiles, because you have added thorns of a new kind, and worship along
with the sun and moon a false Christ, the fabrication not of your hands,
but of your perverse heart. Come, then, and be grafted into the root of the
olive tree, in his return to which the apostle rejoices, after by unbelief
he had been among the broken branches. He speaks of himself as set free,
when he made the happy transition from Judaism to Christianity. For Christ
was always preached in the olive tree, and those who did not believe on Him
when He came were broken off, while those who believed were grafted in.
These are thus warned against pride: "Be not high-minded, but fear; for if
God spared not the natural branches, neither will He spare thee." And to
prevent despair of those broken off, he adds: "And they also, if they abide
not still in unbelief, shall be grafted in; for God is able to graft them
in again. For if thou weft cut out of the olive tree, which is wild by
nature, and wert grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree, how
much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be grafted into their
own olive tree." The apostle rejoices in being delivered from the condition
of a broken branch, and in being restored to the fatness of the olive tree.
So you who have been broken off by error should return and be grafted in
again. Those who are still in the wild olive should separate themselves
from its barrenness, and become partakers of fertility.
BOOK X: FAUSTUS INSISTS THAT THE OLD TESTAMENT PROMISES ARE RADICALLY
DIFFERENT FROM THOSE OF THE NEW. AUGUSTIN ADMITS A DIFFERENCE, BUT
MAINTAINS THAT THE MORAL PRECEPTS ARE THE SAME IN BOTH.
1. FAUSTUS said: Another reason for not receiving the Old Testament is,
that both the Old and the New teach us not to covet what belongs to others.
Everything in the Old Testament is of this kind. It promises riches, and
plenty, and children, and children's children, and long life, and withal
the land of Canaan; but only to the circumcised, the Sabbath observers,
those offering sacrifices, and abstaining from swine's flesh. Now I, like
every other Christian, pay no attention to these things, as being trifling
and useless for the salvation of the soul. I conclude, therefore, that the
promises do not belong to me. And mindful of the commandment, Thou shall
not covet, I gladly leave to the Jews their own property, and content
myself with the gospel, and with the bright inheritance of the kingdom of
heaven. If a Jew were to claim part in the gospel, I should justly reproach
him with claiming what he had no right to, because he does not obey its
precepts. And a Jew might say the same to me if I professed to receive the
Old Testament while I disregard its requirements.
2. AUGUSTIN replied: Faustus is not ashamed to repeat the same nonsense
again and again. But it is tiresome to repeat the same answers, though it
is to repeat truth. What Faustus says here has already been answered. (1)
But if a Jew asks me why I profess to believe the Old Testament while I do
not observe its precepts, my reply is this: The moral precepts of the law
are observed by Christians; the symbolical precepts were properly observed
during the time that the things now revealed were prefigured. Accordingly,
those observances, which I regard as no longer binding, I still look upon
as a testimony, as I do also the carnal promises from which the Old
Testament derives its name. For although the gospel teaches me to hope for
eternal blessings, I also find a confirmation of the gospel in those things
which "happened to them for an example, and were written for our
admonition, on whom the ends of the world are come." So much for our answer
to the Jews. And now we have something to say to the Manichaeans.
3. By showing the way in which we regard the authority of the Old
Testament we have answered the Jews, by whose question about our not
observing the precepts Faustus thought we would be puzzled. But what answer
can you give to the question, why you deceive simple-minded people by
professing to believe in the New Testament, while you not only do not
believe it, but assail it with all your force? It will be more difficult
for you to answer this than it was for us to answer the Jews. We hold all
that is written in the Old Testament to be true, and on joined by God for
suitable times. But in your inability to find a reason for not receiving
what is written in the New Testament, you are obliged, as a last resource,
to pretend that the passages are not genuine. This is the last gasp of a
heretic in the clutches of truth; or rather it is the breath of corruption
itself. Faustus, however, confesses that the Old Testament as well as the
New teaches him not to covet. His own God could never have taught him this.
For if this God did not covet what belonged to another, why did he
construct new worlds in the region of darkness? Perhaps the race of
darkness first coveted his kingdom. But this would be to imitate their bad
example. Perhaps the kingdom of light was previously of small extent, and
war was desirable in order to enlarge it by conquest. In that case, no
doubt, there was covetousness, though the hostile race was allowed to begin
the wars to justify the conquest. If there had been no such desire, there
was no necessity to extend the kingdom beyond its old limits into the
region of the conquered foe. If the Manichaeans would only learn from these
Scriptures the moral precepts, one of which is, Do not covet, instead of
taking offence at the symbolical precept, they would acknowledge in
meekness and candor that they suited the time then present. We do not covet
what belongs to another, when we read in the Old Testament what "happened
to them for examples, and was written for our admonition, on whom the ends
of the world are come." It is surely not coveting when a man reads what is
written for his benefit.
BOOK XI: FAUSTUS QUOTES PASSAGES TO SHOW THAT THE APOSTLE PAUL ABANDONED
BELIEF IN THE INCARNATION, TO WHICH HE EARLIER HELD. AUGUSTIN SHOWS THAT
THE APOSTLE WAS CONSISTENT WITH HIMSELF IN THE UTTERANCES QUOTED.
1. FAUSTUS said: Assuredly I believe the apostle. And yet I do not
believe that the Son of God was born of the seed of David according to the
flesh,(1) because I do not believe that God's apostle could contradict
himself, and have one opinion about our Lord at one time, and another at
another. But, granting that he wrote this,--since yon will not hear of
anything being spurious in his writings,--it is not against us. For this
seems to be Paul's old belief about Jesus, when he thought, like everybody
else, that Jesus was the son of David. Afterwards, when he learned that
this was false, he corrects himself; and in his Epistle to the Corinthians
he says: "We know no man after the flesh; yea, though we have known Christ
after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we Him no more." (1) Observe the
difference between these two verses. In one he asserts that Jesus was the
son of David after the flesh; in the other he says that now he knows no man
after the flesh. If Paul wrote both, it can only have been in the way I
have stated. In the next verse he adds: "Therefore, if any man be in
Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away; behold, all
things are become new." The belief that Jesus was born of the seed of David
according to the flesh is of this old transitory kind; whereas the faith
which knows no man after the flesh is new and permanent. So, he says
elsewhere: "When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a
child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish
things."(2) We are thus warranted in preferring the new and amended
confession of Paul to his old and faulty one. And if you hold by what is
said in the Epistle to the Romans, why should not we hold by what is said
to the Corinthians? But it is only by your insisting on the correctness of
the text that we are made to represent Paul as build ins again the things
which he destroyed, in spite of his own repudiation of such prevarication.
If the verse is Paul's, he has corrected himself. If Paul should not be
supposed to have written anything requiring correction, the verse is not
his.
2. AUGUSTIN replied: As I said a little ago, when these men are beset
by clear testimonies of Scripture, and cannot escape from their grasp, they
declare that the passage is spurious. The declaration only shows their
aversion to the truth, and their obstinacy in error. Unable to answer these
statements of Scripture, they deny their genuineness. But if this answer is
admitted, or allowed to have any weight, it will be useless to quote any
book or any passage against your errors. It is one thing to reject the
books themselves, and to profess no regard for their authority, as the
Pagans reject our Scriptures, and the Jews the New Testament, and as we
reject any books peculiar to your sect, or any other heretical sect, and
also the apocryphal books, which are so called, not because of any
mysterious regard paid to them, but because they are mysterious in their
origin, and in the absence of clear evidence, have only some obscure
presumption to rest upon; and it is another thing to say, This holy man
wrote only the truth, and this is his epistle, but some verses are his, and
some are not. And then, when you are asked for a proof, instead of
referring to more correct or more ancient manuscripts, or to a greater
number, or to the original text, your reply is, This verse is his, because
it makes for me; and this is not his, because it is against me. Are you,
then, the rule of truth? Can nothing be true that is against you? But what
answer could you give to an opponent as insane as yourself, if he confronts
you by saying, The passage in your favor is spurious, and that against you
is genuine? Perhaps you will produce a book, all of which can be explained
so as to support you. Then, instead of rejecting a passage, he will reply
by condemning the whole book as spurious. You have no resource against such
an opponent. For all the testimony you can bring in favor of your book from
antiquity or tradition will avail nothing.
In this respect the testimony of the Catholic Church is conspicuous, as
supported by a succession of bishops from the original seats of the
apostles up to the present time, and by the consent of so many nations.
Accordingly, should there be a question about the text of some passage, as
there are a few passages with various readings well known to students of
the sacred Scriptures, we should first consult the manuscripts of the
country where the religion was first taught; and if these still varied, we
should take the text of the greater number, or of the more ancient. And if
any uncertainty remained, we should consult the original text. This is the
method employed by those who, in any question about the Scriptures, do not
lose sight of the regard due to their authority, and inquire with the view
of gaining information, not of raising disputes.(3)
3. As regards the passage from Paul's epistle which teaches, in
opposition to your heresy, that the Son of God was born of the seed of
David, it is found in all manuscripts both new and old of all Churches, and
in all languages. So the profession which Faustus makes of believing the
apostle is hypocritical. Instead of saying, "Assuredly I believe," he
should have said, Assuredly I do not believe, as he would have said if he
had not wished to deceive people. What part of his belief does he get from
the apostle? Not the first man, of whom the apostle says that he is of the
earth, earthy; and again, "The first man Adam was made a living soul."
Faustus' First Man is neither of the earth, earthy, nor made a living soul,
but of the substance of God, and the same in essence as God; and this being
is said to have mixed up with the race of darkness his members, or vesture,
or weapons, that is, the five elements, which also are part of the
substance of God, so that they became subject to confinement and pollution.
Nor does Faustus get from Paul his Second Man, of whom Paul says that He is
from heaven, and that He is the last Adam, and a quickening spirit; and
also that He was born of the seed of David after the flesh, that He was
made of a woman, made under the law, that He might redeem them that were
under the law.(1) Of Him Paul says to Timothy: "Remember that Jesus Christ,
of the seed of David, was raised from the dead, according to my gospel."'
And this resurrection he quotes as an example of our resurrection: "I
delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ
died for our sins, according to the Scriptures; and that He was buried, and
that He rose again the third day, according to the Scriptures." And a
little further on he draws an inference from this doctrine: "Now, if Christ
be preached that He rose from the dead, how say some among you that there
is no resurrection of the dead?"(3) Our professed believer in Paul believes
nothing of all this. He denies that Jesus was born of the seed of David,
that He was made of a woman (by the word woman is not meant a wife in the
common sense of the word, but merely one of the female sex, as in the book
of Genesis, where it is said that God made a woman before she was brought
to Adam(4)); he denies His death, His burial, and His resurrection. He
holds that Christ had not a mortal body, and therefore could not really
die; and that the marks of His wounds which He showed to His disciples when
He appeared to them alive after His resurrection, which Paul also mentions,
(5) were not real. He denies, too, that our mortal body will be raised
again, changed into a spiritual body; as Paul teaches: "It is sown a
natural body, it is raised a spiritual body." To illustrate this
distinction between the natural and the spiritual body, the apostle adds
what I have quoted already about the first and the last Adam. Then he goes
on: "But this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the
kingdom of God." And to explain what he means by flesh and blood, that it
is not the bodily substance, but corruption, which will not enter into the
resurrection of the just, he immediately says, "Neither shall corruption
inherit incorruption." And in case any one should still suppose that it is
not what is buried that is to rise again, but that it is as if one garment
were laid aside and a better taken instead, he proceeds to show distinctly
that the same body will be changed for the better, as the garments of
Christ on the mount were not displaced, but transfigured: "Behold, I show
you a mystery; we shall not all be changed, but we shall all rise.'' (6)
Then he shows who are to be changed: "In a moment, in the twinkling of an
eye, at the last trumpet: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall
rise incorruptible, and we shall be changed." And if it should be said that
it is not as regards our mortal and corruptible body, but as regards our
soul, that we are to be changed, it should be observed that the apostle is
not speaking of the soul, but of the body, as is evident from the question
he starts with: "But some one will say, How are the dead raised, and with
what body do they come?" So also, in the conclusion of his argument, he
leaves no doubt of what he is speaking: "This corruptible must put on
incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality."(7) Faustus denies
this; and the God whom Paul declares to be "immortal, incorruptible, to
whom alone is glory and honor,"(8) he makes corruptible. For in this
monstrous and horrible fiction of theirs, the substance and nature of God
was in danger of being wholly corrupted by the race of darkness, and to
save the rest part actually was corrupted. And to crown all this, he tries
to deceive the ignorant who are not learned in the sacred Scriptures, by
making this profession: I assuredly believe the Apostle Paul; when he ought
to have said, I assuredly do not believe.
4. But Faustus has a proof to show that Paul changed his mind, and, in
writing to the Corinthians, corrected what he had written to the Romans; or
else that he never wrote the passage which appears as his, about Jesus
Christ being born of the seed of David according to the flesh. And what is
this proof? If the passage, he says, in the Epistle to the Romans is true,
"the Son of God, who was made of the seed of David according to the flesh,"
what he says to the Corinthians cannot be true, "Henceforth know we no man
after the flesh; yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now
henceforth know we Him no more." We must therefore show that both these
passages are true, and not opposed to one another. The agreement of the
manuscripts proves both to be genuine. In some Latin versions the word
"born"(1) is used instead of "made,"(2) which is not so literal a
rendering, but gives the same meaning. For both these translations, as well
as the original, teach that Christ was of the seed of David after the
flesh. We must not for a moment suppose that Paul corrected himself on
account of a change of opinion. Faustus himself felt the impropriety and
impiety of such an explanation, and preferred to say that the passage was
spurious, instead of that Paul was mistaken.
5. As regards our writings, which are not a rule of faith or practice,
but only a help to edification, we may suppose that they contain some
things falling short of the truth in obscure and recondite matters, and
that these mistakes may or may not be corrected in subsequent treatises.
For we are of those of whom the apostle says: "And if ye be otherwise
minded, God shall reveal even this unto you."(3) Such writings are read
with the right of judgment, and without any obligation to believe. In order
to leave room for such profitable discussions of difficult questions, there
is a distinct boundary line separating all productions subsequent to
apostolic times from the authoritative canonical books of the Old and New
Testaments. The authority of these books has come down to us from the
apostles through the successions of bishops and the extension of the
Church, and, from a position of lofty supremacy, claims the submission of
every faithful and pious mind. If we are perplexed by an apparent
contradiction in Scripture, it is not allowable to say, The author of this
book is mistaken; but either the manuscript is faulty, or the translation
is wrong, or you have not understood. In the innumerable books that have
been written latterly we may sometimes find the same truth as in Scripture,
but there is not the same authority. Scripture has a sacredness peculiar to
itself. In other books the reader may form his own opinion, and perhaps,
from not understanding the writer, may differ from him, and may pronounce
in favor of what pleases him, or against what he dislikes. In such cases, a
man is at liberty to withhold his belief, unless there is some clear
demonstration or some canonical authority to show that the doctrine or
statement either must or may be true. But in consequence of the distinctive
peculiarity of the sacred writings, we are bound to receive as true
whatever the canon shows to have been said by even one prophet, or apostle,
or evangelist. Otherwise, not a single page will be left for tim guidance
of human fallibility, if contempt for the wholesome authority of the
canonical books either puts an end to that authority altogether, or
involves it in hopeless confusion.(4)
6. With regard, then, to this apparent contradiction between the
passage which speaks of the Son of God being of the seed of David, to the
words, "Though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth
know we Him no more, even though both quotations were not from the writings
of one apostle,--though one were from Paul, and the other from Peter, or
Isaiah, or any other apostle or prophet,--such is the equality of canonical
authority, that it would not be allowable to doubt of either. For the
utterances of Scripture, harmonious as if from the mouth of one man,
commend themselves to the belief of the most accurate and clear-sighted
piety, and demand for their discovery and confirmation the calmest
intelligence and the most ingenious research. In the case before us both
quotations are from the canonical, that is, the genuine epistles of Paul.
We cannot say that the manuscript is faulty, for the best Latin
translations substantially agree; or that the translations are wrong, for
the best texts have the same reading. So that, if any one is perplexed by
the apparent contradiction, the only conclusion is that he does not
understand. Accordingly it remains for me to explain how both passages,
instead of being contradictory, may be harmonized by one rule of sound
faith. The pious inquirer will find all perplexity removed by a careful
examination.
7. That the Son of God was made man of the seed of David, is not only
said in other places by Paul, but is taught elsewhere in sacred Scripture.
As regards the words, "Though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now
henceforth know we Him no more," the context shows what is the apostle's
meaning. Here, or elsewhere, he views with an assured hope, as if it were
already present and in actual possession, our future life, which is now
fulfilled in our risen Head and Mediator, the man Christ Jesus. This life
will certainly not be after the flesh, even as Christ's life is now not
after the flesh. For by flesh the apostle here means not the substance of
our bodies, in which sense the Lord used the word when, after His
resurrection, He said, "Handle me, and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and
bones, as ye see me have,"(1) but the corruption and mortality of flesh,
which will then not be in us, as now it is not in Christ. The apostle uses
the word flesh in the sense of corruption in the passage about the
resurrection quoted before: "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of
God, neither shall corruption inherit incorruption." So, after the event
described in the next verse, "Behold, I show you a mystery; we shall all
rise, but we shall not all be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an
eye, at the last trump (for the trumpet shall sound); and the dead shall be
raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must
put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality," (2)--then
flesh, in the sense of the substance of the body, will, after this change,
no longer have flesh, in the sense of the corruption of mortality; and yet,
as regards its own nature, it will be the same flesh, the same which rises
and which is changed. What the Lord said after His resurrection is true,
"Handle me, and see for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me
have;" and what the apostle says is true, "Flesh and blood cannot inherit
the kingdom of God." The first is said of the bodily substance, which
exists as the subject of the change: the second is said of the corruption
of the flesh, which will cease to exist, for, after its change, flesh will
not be corrupted. So, "we have known Christ after the flesh," that is,
after the mortality of flesh, before His resurrection; "now henceforth we
know Him no more," because, as the same apostle says, "Christ being risen
from the dead, dieth no more, and death hath no more dominion over Him."(3)
The words, "we have known Christ after the fleshy" strictly speaking, imply
that Christ was after the flesh, for what never was cannot be known. And it
is not "we have supposed," but "we have known." But not to insist on a
word, in case some one should say that known is used in the sense of
supposed, it is astonishing, if one could be surprised at want of sight in
a blind man, that these blind people do not perceive that if what the
apostle says about not knowing Christ after the flesh proves that Christ
had not flesh, then what he says in the same place of not knowing any one
henceforth after the flesh proves that all those here referred to had not
flesh. For when he speaks of not knowing any one, he cannot intend to speak
only of Christ; but in his realization of the future life with those who
are to be changed at the resurrection, he says, "Henceforth we know no man
after the flesh;" that is, we have such an assured hope of our future
incorruption and immortality, that the thought of it makes us rejoice even
now. So he says elsewhere: "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those
things that are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God. Set
your affections upon things above, and not on things on the earth." (4) It
is true we have not yet risen as Christ has, but we are said to have risen
with Him on account of the hope which we have in Him. So again he says:
"According to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration." (5)
Evidently what we obtain in the washing of regeneration is not the
salvation itself, but the hope of it. And yet, because this hope is
certain, we are said to be saved, as if the salvation were already
bestowed. Elsewhere it is said explicitly: "We groan within ourselves,
waiting for the adoption, even the redemption of our body. For we are saved
by hope. But hope which is seen is not hope; for what a man seeth, why doth
he yet hope for? But if we hope for what we see not, then do we with
patience wait for it." (6) The apostle says not, "we are to be saved," but,
"We are now saved," that is, in hope, though not yet in reality. And in the
same way it is in hope, though not yet in reality, that we now know no man
after the flesh. This hope is in Christ, in whom what we hope for as
promised to us has already been fulfilled. He is risen, and death has no
more dominion over Him. Though we have known Him after the flesh, before
His death, when there was in His body that mortality which the apostle
properly calls flesh, now henceforth know we Him no more; for that mortal
of His has now put on immortality, and His flesh, in the sense of
mortality, no longer exists.
8. The context of the passage containing this clause of which our
adversaries make such a bad use, brings out its real meaning. "The love of
Christ," we read, "constrains us, because we thus judge, that if one died
for all, then all died; and He died for all, that they which live should
not henceforth live unto themselves, but to Him who died for them, and rose
again. Therefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh; and though we
have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we Him no more."
The words, "that they which live should not henceforth live unto
themselves, but unto Him who died for them, and rose again," show plainly
that the resurrection of Christ is the ground of the apostle's statement.
To live not to themselves, but to Him, must mean to live not after the
flesh, in the hope of earthly and perishable goods, but after the spirit,
in the hope of resurrection,--a resurrection already accomplished in
Christ. Of those, then, for whom Christ died and rose again, and who live
henceforth not to themselves, but to Him, the Apostle says that he knows no
one after the flesh, on account of the hope of future immortality to which
they were looking forward,--a hope which in Christ was already a reality.
So, though he has known Christ after the flesh, before His death, now he
knows Him no more; for he knows that He has risen, and that death has no
more dominion over Him. And because in Christ we all are even now in hope,
though not in reality, what Christ is, he adds: "Therefore if any man be in
Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all
things are become new. And all things are of God, who has reconciled us to
Himself by Christ."(1) What the new creature --that is, the people renewed
by faith--hopes for regarding itself, it has already in Christ; and the
hope will also hereafter be actually realized. And, as regards this hope,
old things have passed away, because we are no longer in the times of the
Old Testament, expecting a temporal and carnal kingdom of God; and all
things are become new, making the promise of the kingdom of heaven, where
there shall be no death or corruption, the ground of our confidence. But in
the resurrection of the dead it will not be as a matter of hope, but in
reality, that old things shall pass away, when the last enemy, death, shall
be destroyed; and all things shall become new when this corruptible has put
on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality. This has already
taken place in Christ, whom Paul accordingly, in reality, knew no longer
after the flesh. But not yet in reality, but only in hope, did be know no
one after the flesh of those for whom Christ died and rose again. For, as
he says to the Ephesians, we are already saved by grace. The whole passage
is to the purpose: "But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love
wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us
together with Christ, by whose grace we have been saved." The words, "hath
quickened us together with Christ," correspond to what he said to the
Corinthians, "that they which live should no longer live to themselves, but
to Him that died for them and rose again." And in the words, "by whose
grace we have been saved," he speaks of the thing hoped for as already
accomplished. So, in the passage quoted above, he says explicitly, "We have
been saved by hope." And here he proceeds to specify future events as if
already accomplished. "And has raised us up together," he says, "and has
made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus." Christ is
certainly already seated in heavenly places, but we not yet. But as in an
assured hope we already possess the future, he says that we sit in heavenly
places, not in ourselves, but in Him. And to show that it is still future,
in case it should be thought that what is spoken of as accomplished in hope
has been accomplished in reality, he adds, "that He might show in the ages
to come the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness towards us in
Christ Jesus.''(2) So also we must understand the following passage: "For
when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did
work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death."(3) He says, "when we
were in the flesh," as if they were no longer in the flesh. He means to
say, when we were in the hope of fleshly things, referring to the time when
the law, which can be fulfilled only by spiritual love, was in force, in
order that by transgression the offence might abound, that after the
revelation of the New Testament, grace and the gift by grace might much
more abound. And to the same effect he says elsewhere, "They which are in
the flesh cannot please God;" and then, to show that he does not mean those
not yet dead, he adds, "But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit."
(4) The meaning is, those who are in the hope of fleshly good cannot please
God; but you are not in the hope of fleshly things, but in the hope of
spiritual things, that is, of the kingdom of heaven, where the body itself,
which now is natural, will, by the change in the resurrection, be,
according to the capacity of its nature, a spiritual body. For "it is sown
a natural body, it will be raised a spiritual body." If, then, the apostle
knew no one after the flesh of those who were said to be not in the flesh,
because they were not in the hope of fleshly things, although they still
were burdened with corruptible and mortal flesh; how much more
significantly could he say of Christ that he no longer knew Him after the
flesh, seeing that in the body of Christ what they hoped for had already
been accomplished! Surely it is better and more reverential to examine the
passages of sacred Scripture so as to discover their agreement with one
another, than to accept some as true, and condemn others as false, whenever
any difficulty occurs beyond the power of our weak intellect to solve. As
to the apostle in his childhood understanding as a child, this is said
merely as an illustration.(1) And when he was a child he was not a
spiritual man, as he was when he produced for the edification of the
churches those writings which are not, as other books, merely a profitable
study, but which authoritatively claim our belief as part of the
ecclesiastical canon.
BOOK XII: FAUSTUS DENIES THAT THE PROPHETS PREDICTED CHRIST. AUGUSTIN
PROVES SUCH PREDICTION FROM THE NEW TESTAMENT, AND EXPOUNDS AT LENGTH THE
PRINCIPAL TYPES OF CHRIST IN THE OLD TESTAMENT.
1. FAUSTUS said: Why do I not believe the prophets? Rather why do you
believe them? On account, you will reply, of their prophecies about Christ.
For my part, I have read the prophets with the most eager attention, and
have found no such prophecies. And surely it shows a weak faith not to
believe in Christ without proofs and testimonies. Indeed, you yourselves
are accustomed to teach that Christian faith is so simple and absolute as
not to admit of laborious investigations. Why, then, should you destroy the
simplicity of faith by buttressing it with evidences, and Jewish evidences
too? Or if you are changing your opinion about evidences, what more
trustworthy witness could you have than God Himself testifying to His own
Son when He sent Him on earth,--not by a prophet or an interpreter,--by a
voice immediately from heaven: "This is my beloved Son, believe Him?" (1)
And again He testifies of Himself: "I came forth from the Father, and am
come into the world; (2) and in many similar passages. When the Jews
quarrelled with this testimony, saying "Thou bearest witness of thyself,
thy witness is not true," He replied: "Although I bear witness of myself,
my witness is true. It is written in your law, The witness of two men is
true. I am one that bear witness of myself, and the Father who sent me
beareth witness of me."(3) He does not mention the prophets. Again He
appeals to the testimony of His own works, saying, "If ye believe not me,
believe the works;" (4) not, "If ye believe not me, believe the prophets."
Accordingly we require no testimonies concerning our Saviour. All we look
for in the prophets is prudence and virtue, and a good example, which, you
are well aware, are not to be found in the Jewish prophets. This, no doubt,
explains your referring me at once to their predictions as a reason for
believing them, without a word about their actions. This may be good
policy, but it is not in harmony. with the declaration of Scripture, that
it is impossible to gather grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles. This
may serve meanwhile as a brief and sufficient reply to the question, why we
do not believe the prophets. The fact that they did not prophesy of Christ
is abundantly proved in the writings of our fathers. I shall only add this,
that if the Hebrew prophets knew and preached Christ, and yet lived such
vicious lives, what Paul says of the wise men among the Gentiles might be
applied to them: "Though they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, nor
were thankful; but they became vain in their imaginations, and their
foolish heart was darkened." (5) You see the knowledge of great things is
worth little, unless the life corresponds.
2. AUGUSTIN replied: The meaning of all this is, that the Hebrew
prophets foretold nothing of Christ, and that, if they did, their
predictions are of no use to us, and they themselves did not live suitably
to the dignity of such prophecies. We must therefore prove the fact of the
prophecies; and their use for the truth and steadfastness of our faith; and
that the lives of the prophets were in harmony with their words. In this
threefold discussion, it would take a long time under the first head to
quote from all the books the passages in which Christ may be shown to have
been predicted. Faustus' frivolity may be met effectually by the weight of
one great authority. Although Faustus does not believe the prophets, he
professes to believe the apostles. Above, as if to satisfy the doubts of
some opponent, he declares that he assuredly believes the Apostle Paul. (6)
Let us then hear what Paul says of the prophets. His words are: "Paul, a
servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel
of God, which He had promised before by His prophets in the holy
Scriptures, concerning His Son, who was made of the seed of David according
to the flesh."(1) What more does Faustus wish? Will he maintain that the
apostle is speaking of some other prophets, and not of the Hebrew
prophets? In any case, the gospel spoken of as promised was concerning the
Son of God, who was made for Him of the seed of David according to the
flesh: and to this gospel the apostle says that he was separated. So that
the Manichaean heresy is opposed to faith in the gospel, which teaches that
the Son of God was made of the seed of David according to the flesh.
Besides, there are many passages where the apostle plainly testifies in
behalf of the Hebrew prophets, with an authority by which the necks of
these proud Manichaeans are broken.
3. "I speak the truth in Christ," says the apostle, "I lie not, my
conscience bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, that I have great
heaviness and continual sorrow of heart. For I could wish that myself were
accursed from Christ, for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh:
who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the
covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service and the promises;
whose are the fathers, and of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came,
who is over all, God blessed for ever."(2) Here is the most abundant and
express testimony and the most solemn commendation. The adoption here
spoken of is evidently through the Son of God; as the apostle says to the
Galatians: "In the fullness of time, God sent forth His Son, made of a
woman, made under the law, that He might redeem them that were under the
law, that we might receive the adoption of sons." (3) And the glory spoken
of is chiefly that of which he says in the same Epistle to the Romans:
"What advantage hath the Jew? or what profit is there in circumcision? Much
every way: chiefly, because unto them were committed the oracles of God."
(4) Can the Manichaeans tell us of any oracles of God committed to the Jews
besides those of the Hebrew prophets? And why are the covenants said to
belong especially to the Israelites, but because not only was the Old
Testament given to them, but also the New was prefigured in the Old? Our
opponents often display much ignorant ferocity in attacking the
dispensation of the law given to the Israelites, not understanding that God
wishes us to be not under the law, but under grace. They are here answered
by the apostle himself, who, in speaking of the advantages of the Jews,
mentions this as one, that they had the giving of the law. If the law had
been bad, the apostle would not have referred to it in praise of the Jews.
And if Christ had not been preached by the law, the Lord Himself would not
have said, "If ye believe Moses, ye would have believed me, for he wrote of
me;" (5) nor would He have borne the testimony He did after His
resurrection, saying, "All things must needs be fulfilled that were written
in the law of Moses, and in the Prophets, and in the Psalms, concerning
me."(6)
4. But because the Manichaeans preach another Christ, and not Him whom
the apostles preached, but a false Christ of their own false contrivance,
in imitation of whose falsehood they themselves speak lies, though they may
perhaps be believed when they are not ashamed to profess to be the
followers of a deceiver, that has befallen them which the apostle asserts
of the unbelieving Jews: "When Moses is read, a veil is upon their heart."
Neither will this veil which keeps them from understanding Moses be taken
away from them till they turn to Christ; not a Christ of their own making,
but the Christ of the Hebrew prophets. For, as the apostle says, "When thou
shalt turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away." (7) We cannot wonder
that they do not believe in the Christ who rose from the dead, and who
said, "All things must needs be fulfilled which were written in the law of
Moses, and in the prophets, and in the Psalms, concerning me;" for this
Christ has Himself told us what Abraham said to a hard-hearted rich man
when he was in torment in hell, and asked Abraham to send some one to his
brothers to teach them, that they might not come too into that place of
torment. Abraham's reply was: "They have Moses and the prophets, let them
hear them." And when the rich man said that they would not believe unless
some one rose from the dead, he received this most truthful answer: "If
they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they believe even though
one rose from the dead.'' (8) Wherefore, the Manichaeans will not hear
Moses and the prophets, and so they do not believe Christ, though He rose
from the dead. Indeed, they do not even believe that Christ rose from the
dead. For how can they believe that He rose, when they do not believe that
He died? For, again, how can they believe that He died, when they deny that
He had a mortal body?
5. But we reject those false teachers whose Christ is false, or rather,
whose Christ never existed. For we have a Christ true and truthful,
foretold by the prophets, preached by the apostles, who in innumerable
places refer to the testimonies of the law and the prophets in support of
their preaching. Paul, in one short sentence, gives the right view of this
subject. "Now," he says, "the righteousness of God without the law is
manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets." (1) What
prophets, if not of Israel, to whom, as he expressly says, pertain the
covenants, and the giving of the law, and the promises? And what promises,
but about Christ? Elsewhere, speaking of Christ, he says concisely: "All
the promises of God are in Him yea." (2) Paul tells me that the giving of
the law pertained to the Israelites. He also tells me that Christ is the
end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth. He also tells
me that all the promises of God are in Christ yea. And you tell me that the
prophets of Israel foretold nothing of Christ. Shall I believe the
absurdities of Manichaeus relating a vain and long fable in opposition to
Paul? or shall I believe Paul when he forewarns us: "If any man preach to
you another gospel than that which we have preached, let him be accursed?"
6. Our opponents may perhaps ask us to point out passages where Christ
is predicted by the prophets of Israel. One would think they might be
satisfied with the authority of the apostles, who declare that what we read
in the writings of the Hebrew prophets was fulfilled in Christ, or with
that of Christ Himself, who says that these things were written of Him.
Whoever is unable to point out the passages should lay the blame on his own
ignorance; for the apostles and Christ and the sacred Scriptures are not
chargeable with falsehood. However, one instance out of many may be
adduced. The apostle, in the verses following the passage quoted above,
says: "The word of God cannot fail. For they are not all Israel which are
of Israel; neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all
children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called: that is, they which are
the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God; but the
children of promise are counted for the seed.'' (3) What can our opponent
says against this, in view of the declaration made to Abraham: "In thy seed
shall all the nations of the earth be blessed?" At the time when the
apostle gave the following exposition of this promise, "To Abraham and to
his seed were the promises made. He saith not, To seed, as of many, but as
of one, To thy seed, which is Christ,'' (4) a doubt on this point might
then have been less inexcusable, for at that time all nations had not yet
believed on Christ, who is preached as of the seed of Abraham. But now that
we see the fulfillment of what we read in the ancient prophecy,--now that
all nations are actually blessed in the seed of Abraham, to whom it was
said thousands of years ago, "In thy seed shall all nations be blessed, "--
it is mere obstinate folly to try to bring in another Christ, not of the
seed of Abraham, or to hold that there are no predictions of Christ in the
prophetical books of the children of Abraham.
7. To enumerate all the passages in the 'Hebrew prophets referring to
our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, would exceed the limits of a volume, not
to speak of the brief replies of which this treatise consists. The whole
contents of these Scriptures are either directly or indirectly about
Christ. Often the reference is allegorical or enigmatical, perhaps in a
verbal allusion, or in a historical narrative, requiring diligence in the
student, and rewarding him with the pleasure of discovery. Other passages,
again, are plain; for, without the help of what is clear, we could not
understand what is obscure. And even the figurative passages, when brought
together, will be found so harmonious in their testimony to Christ as to
put to shame the obtuseness of the sceptic.
8. In the creation God finished His works in six days, and rested on
the seventh. The history of the world contains six periods marked by the
dealings of God with men. The first period is from Adam to Noah; the
second, from Noah to Abraham; the third, from Abraham to David; the fourth,
from David to the captivity in Babylon; the fifth, from the captivity to
the advent of lowliness of our Lord Jesus Christ; the sixth is now in
progress, and will end in the coming of the exalted Saviour to judgment.
What answers to the seventh day is the rest of the saints,-not in this
life, but in another, where the rich man saw Lazarus at rest while he was
tormented in hell; where there is no evening, because there is no decay. On
the sixth day, in Genesis, man is formed after the image of God; in the
sixth period of the world there is the clear discovery of our
transformation in the renewing of our mind, according to the image of Him
who created us, as the apostle says. (1) As a wife was made for Adam from
his side while he slept, the Church becomes the property of her dying
Saviour, by the sacrament of the blood which flowed from His side after His
death. The woman made out of her husband's side is called Eve, or Life, and
the mother of living beings; and the Lord says in the Gospel: "Except a man
eat my flesh and drink my blood, he has no life in him." (2) The whole
narrative of Genesis, in the most minute details, is a prophecy of Christ
and of the Church with reference either to the good Christians or to the
bad. There is a significance in the words of the apostle when he calls Adam
"the figure of Him that was to come;" (3) and when he says, "A man shall
leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they two
shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery; but I speak concerning Christ
and the Church." (4) This points most obviously to the way in which Christ
left His Father; for "though He was in the form of God, and thought it not
robbery to be equal with God, He emptied Himself, and took upon Him the
form of a servant." (5) And so, too, He left His mother, the synagogue of
the Jews which cleaved to the carnality of the Old Testament, and was
united to the Church His holy bride, that in the peace of the New Testament
they two might be one flesh. For though with the Father He was God, by whom
we were made, He became in the flesh partaker of our nature, that we might
become the body of which He is the head.
9. As Cain's sacrifice of the fruit of the ground is rejected, while
Abel's sacrifice of his sheep and the fat thereof is accepted. so the faith
of the New Testament praising God in the harmless service of grace is
preferred to the earthly observances of the Old Testament. For though the
Jews were right in practising these things, they were guilty of unbelief in
not distinguishing the time of the New Testament when Christ came, from the
time of the Old Testament. God said to Cain, "If thou offerest well, yet if
thou dividest not well, thou hast sinned." (6) If Cain had obeyed God when
He said, "Be content, for to thee shall be its reference, and thou shalt
rule over it," he would have referred his sin to himself, by taking the
blame of it, and confessing it to God; and so assisted by supplies of
grace, he would have ruled over his sin, instead of acting as the servant
of sin in killing his innocent brother. So also the Jews, of whom all these
things are a figure, if they had been content, instead of being turbulent,
and had acknowledged the time of salvation through the pardon of sins by
grace, and heard Christ saying, "They that are whole need not a physician,
but they that are sick; I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to
repentance;'' (7) and, "Every one that committeth sin is the servant of
sin;" and, "If the Son make you free, ye shall be free indeed," (8)--they
would in confession have referred their sin to themselves, saying to the
Physician, as it is written in the Psalm, "I said, Lord, be merciful to me;
heal my soul, for I have sinned against Thee." (9) And being made free by
the hope of grace, they would have ruled over sin as long as it continued
in their mortal body. But now, being ignorant of God's righteousness, and
wishing to establish a righteousness of their own, proud of the works of
the law, instead of being humbled on account of their sins, they have not
been content; and in subjection to sin reigning in their mortal body, so as
to make them obey it in the lusts thereof, they have stumbled on the stone
of stumbling, and have been inflamed with hatred against him whose works
they grieved to see accepted by God. The man who was born blind, and had
been made to see, said to them, "We know that God heareth not sinners; but
if any man serve Him, and do His will, him He heareth;" (10) as if he had
said, God regardeth not the sacrifice of Cain, but he regards the sacrifice
of Abel. Abel, the younger brother, is killed by the elder brother; Christ,
the head of the younger people, is killed by the elder people of the Jews.
Abel dies in the field; Christ dies on Calvary.
10. God asks Cain where his brother is, not as if He did not know, but
as a judge asks a guilty criminal. Cain replies that he knows not, and that
he is not his brother's keeper. And what answer can the Jews give at this
day, when we ask them with the voice of God, that is, of the sacred
Scriptures, about Christ, except that they do not know the Christ that we
speak of? Cain's ignorance was pretended, and the Jews are deceived in
their refusal of Christ. Moreover, they would have been in a sense keepers
of Christ, if they had been willing to receive and keep the Christian
faith. For the man who keeps Christ in his heart does not ask, like Cain,
Am I my brother's keeper? Then God says to Cain, "What hast thou done? The
voice of i thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground." So the
voice of God in the Holy Scriptures accuses the Jews. For the blood of
Christ has a loud voice on the earth, when the responsive Amen of those who
believe in Him comes from all nations. This is the voice of Christ's blood,
because the clear voice of the faithful redeemed by His blood is the voice
of the blood itself.
11. Then God says to Cain: "Thou art cursed from the earth, which hath
opened its mouth to receive thy brother's blood at thy hand. For thou shalt
till the earth, and it shall no longer yield unto thee its strength. A
mourner and an abject shalt thou be on the earth." It is not, Cursed is the
earth, but, Cursed art thou from the earth, which hath opened its mouth to
receive thy brother's blood at thy hand. So the unbelieving people of the
Jews is cursed from the earth, that is, from the Church, which in the
confession of sins has opened its mouth to receive the blood shed for the
remission of sins by the hand of the people that would not be under grace,
but under the law. And this murderer is cursed by the Church; that is, the
Church admits and avows the curse pronounced by the apostle: "Whoever are
of the works of the law are under the curse of the law.'' (1) Then, after
saying, Cursed art thou from the earth, which has opened its mouth to
receive thy brother's blood at thy hand, what follows is not, For thou
shalt till it, but, Thou shalt till the earth, and it shall not yield to
thee its strength. The earth he is to till is not necessarily the same as
that which opened its mouth to receive his brother's blood at his hand.
From this earth he is cursed, and so he tills an earth which shall no
longer yield to him its strength. That is, the Church admits and avows the
Jewish people to be cursed, because after killing Christ they continue to
till the ground of an earthly circumcision, an earthly Sabbath, an earthly
passover, while the hidden strength or virtue of making known Christ, which
this tilling contains, is not yielded to the Jews while they continue in
impiety and unbelief, for it is revealed in the New Testament. While they
will not turn to God, the veil which is on their minds in reading the Old
Testament is not taken away. This veil is taken away only by Christ, who
does not do away with the reading of the Old Testament, but with the
covering which hides its virtue. So, at the crucifixion of Christ, the veil
was rent in twain, that by the passion of Christ hidden mysteries might be
revealed to believers who turn to Him with a mouth opened in confession to
drink His blood. In this way the Jewish people, like Cain, continue tilling
the ground, in the carnal observance of the law, which does not yield to
them its strength, because they do not perceive in it the grace of Christ.
So too, the flesh of Christ was the ground from which by crucifying Him the
Jews produced our salvation, for He died for our offences. But this ground
did not yield to them its strength, for they were not justified by the
virtue of His resurrection, for He arose again for our justification. As
the apostle says: "He was crucified in weakness, but He liveth by the power
of God." (2) This is the power of that ground which is unknown to the
ungodly and unbelieving. When Christ rose, He did not appear to those who
had crucified Him. So Cain was not allowed to see the strength of the
ground which he tilled to sow his seed in it; as God said, "Thou shalt till
the ground, and it shall no longer yield unto thee its strength."
12. ''Groaning and trembling shalt thou be on the earth." Here no one
can fail to see that in every land where the Jews are scattered they mourn
for the loss of their kingdom, and are in terrified subjection to the
immensely superior number of Christians. So Cain answered, and said: "My
case is worse, if Thou drivest me out this day from the face of the earth,
and from Thy face shall I be hid, and I shall be a mourner and an outcast
on the earth; and it shall be that every one that findeth me shall slay
me." Here he groans indeed in terror, lest after losing his earthly
possession he should suffer the death of the body. This he calls a worse
ease than that of the ground not yielding to him its strength, or than that
of spiritual death. For his mind is carnal; for he thinks little of being
hid from the face of God, that is, of being under the anger of God, were it
not that he may be found and slain. This is the carnal mind that tills the
ground, but does not obtain its strength. To be carnally minded is death;
but he, in ignorance of this, mourns for the loss of his earthly
possession, and is in terror of bodily death. But what does God reply? "Not
so," He says; "but whosoever shall kill Cain, vengeance shall be taken on
him sevenfold." That is, It is not as thou sayest; not by bodily death
shall the ungodly race of carnal Jews perish. For whoever destroys them in
this way shall suffer sevenfold vengeance, that is, shall bring upon
himself the sevenfold penalty under which the Jews lie for the crucifixion
of Christ. So to the end of the seven days of time, the continued
preservation of the Jews will be a proof to believing Christians of the
subjection merited by those who, in the pride of their kingdom, put the
Lord to death.
13. "And the Lord God set a mark upon Cain, lest any one finding him
should slay him." It is a most notable fact, that all the nations
subjugated by Rome adopted the heathenish ceremonies of the Roman worship;
while the Jewish nation, whether under Pagan or Christian monarchs, has
never lost the sign of their law, by which they are distinguished from all
other nations and peoples. No emperor or monarch who finds under his
government the people with this mark kills them, that is, makes them cease
to be Jews, and as Jews to be separate in their observances, and unlike the
rest of the world. Only when a Jew comes over to Christ, he is no longer
Cain, nor goes out from the presence of God, nor dwells in the land of Nod,
which is said to mean commotion. Against this evil of commotion the
Psalmist prays, "Suffer not my feet to be moved;" (1) and again, "Let not
the hands of the wicked remove me;" (2) and, "Those that trouble me will
rejoice when I am moved:" (3) and, "The Lord is at my right hand, that I
should not be moved;'' (4) and so in innumerable places. This evil comes
upon those who leave the presence of God, that is, His loving-kindness.
Thus the Psalmist says, "I said in my prosperity, I shall never be moved."
But observe what follows, "Lord, by Thy favor Thou hast given strength to
my honor; Thou didst hide Thy face, and I was troubled;" (5) which teaches
us that not in itself, but by participation in the light of God, can any
soul possess beauty, or honor, or strength. The Manichaeans should think of
this, to keep them from the blasphemy of identifying themselves with the
nature and substance of God. But they cannot think, because they are not
content. The Sabbath of the heart they are Strangers to. If they were
content, as Cain was told to be, they would refer their sin to themselves;
that is, they would lay the blame on themselves, and not on a race of
darkness that no one ever heard of, and so by the grace of God they would
prevail over their sin. But now the Manichaeans, and all who oppose the
truth by their various heresies, leave the presence of God, like Cain and
the scattered Jews, and inhabit the land of commotion, that is, of carnal
disquietude, instead of the enjoyment of God, that is instead of Eden,
which is interpreted Feasting, where Paradise was planted. But not to
depart too much from the argument of this treatise I must limit myself to a
few, short remarks under this head.
14. Omitting therefore many passages in these Books where Christ may be
found, but which require longer explanation and proof, although the most
hidden meanings are the sweetest, convincing testimony may be obtained from
the enumeration of such things as the following:--That Enoch, the seventh
from Adam, pleased God, and was translated, as there is to be a seventh day
of rest into which all will be translated who, during the sixth day of the
world's history, are created anew by the incarnate Word. That Noah, with
his family is saved by water and wood, as the family of Christ is saved by
baptism, as representing the suffering of the cross. That this ark is made
of beams formed in a square, as the Church is constructed of saints
prepared unto every good work: for a square stands firm on any side. That
the length is six times the breadth, and ten times the height, like a human
body, to show that Christ appeared in a human body. That the breadth
reaches to fifty cubits; as the apostle says, "Our heart is enlarged," (6)
that is, with spiritual love, of which he says again, "The love of God is
shed abroad in our heart by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us." (7)
For in the fiftieth day after His resurrection, Christ sent His Holy Spirit
to enlarge the hearts of His disciples. That it is three hundred cubits
long, to make up six times fifty; as there are six periods in the history
of the world during which Christ has never ceased to be preached,--in five
foretold by the prophets, and in the sixth proclaimed in the gospel. That
it is thirty cubits high, a tenth part of the length; because Christ is our
height, who in his thirtieth year gave His sanction to the doctrine of the
gospel, by declaring that He came not to destroy the law, but to fulfil it.
Now the ten commandments are to be the heart of the law; and so the length
of the ark is ten times thirty. Noah himself, too, was the tenth from Adam.
That the beams of the ark are fastened within and without with pitch, to
signify by compact union the forbearance of love, which keeps the brotherly
connection from being impaired, and the bond of peace from being broken by
the offences which try the Church either from without or from within. For
pitch is a glutinous substance, of great energy and force, to represent the
ardor of love which, with great power of endurance, beareth all things in
the maintenance of spiritual communion.
15. That all kinds of animals are inclosed in the ark; as the Church
contains all nations, which was also set forth in the vessel shown to
Peter. That clean and unclean animals are in the ark; as good and bad take
part in the sacraments of the Church. That the clean are in sevens, and the
unclean in twos; not because the bad are fewer than the good, but because
the good preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace; and the
Spirit is spoken of in Scripture as having a sevenfold operation, as being
"the Holy Spirit of wisdom and understanding, of counsel and might, of
knowledge and piety, and of the fear of God." (1) So also the number fifty,
which is connected with the advent of the Holy Spirit, is made up of seven
times seven, and one over; whence it is said, "Endeavoring to keep the
unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." (2) The bad, again, are in twos,
as being easily divided, from their tendency to schism. That Noah, counting
his family, was the eighth; because the hope of our resurrection has
appeared in Christ, who rose from the dead on the eighth day, that is, on
the day after the seventh, or Sabbath day. This day was the third from His
passion; but in the ordinary reckoning of days, it is both the eighth and
the first.
16. That the whole ark together is finished in a cubit above; as the
Church, the body of Christ gathered into unity, is raised to perfection. So
Christ says in the Gospel: "He that gathereth not with me, scattereth." (3)
That the entrance is on the side; as no man enters the Church except by the
sacrament of the remission of sins which flowed from Christ's opened side.
That the lower spaces of the ark are divided into two and three chambers:
as the multitude of all nations in the Church is divided into two, as
circumcised and uncircumcised; or into three, as descended from the three
sons of Noah. And these parts of the-ark are called lower, because in this
earthly state there is a difference of races, and above we are completed in
one. Above there is no diversity; for Christ is all and in all, finishing
us, as it were, in one cubit above with heavenly unity.
17. That the flood came seven days after Noah entered the ark; as we
are baptized in the hope of the future rest, which was denoted by the
seventh day. That all flesh on the face of the earth, outside the ark, was,
destroyed by the flood; as, beyond the communion of the Church, though the
water off baptism is the same, it is efficacious only for destruction, and
not for salvation. That it rained for forty days and forty nights; as the
sacrament of heavenly baptism washes away all the guilt of the sins against
the ten commandments throughout all the four quarters of the world (four
times ten is forty), whether that guilt has been contracted in the day of
prosperity or in the night of adversity.
18. That Noah was five hundred years old when God told him to make the
ark, and six hundred when he entered the ark; which shows that the ark was
made during one hundred years, which seem to correspond to the years of an
age of the world. So the sixth age is occupied with the construction of the
Church by the preaching of the gospel. The man who avails himself of the
offer of salvation is made like a square beam, fitted for every good work,
and forms part of the sacred fabric. Again, it was the second month of the
six hundredth year when Noah entered the ark, and in two months there are
sixty days; so that here, as in every multiple of six, we have the number
denoting the sixth age.
19. That mention is made of the twenty seventh day of the month; as we
have already seen the Significance of the square in the beams. Here
especially it is significant; for as twenty-seven is the cube of three,
there is a trinity in the means by which we are, as it were, squared, or
fitted for every good work. By the memory we remember God; by the
understanding we know Him; by the will we love Hi m. That in the seventh
month the ark rested; reminding us again of the seventh day of rest. And
here again, to denote the perfection of those at rest, the twenty-seventh
day of the month is mentioned for the second time. So what is promised in
hope is realized in experience. There is here a combination of seven and
eight; for the water rose fifteen cubits above the mountains, pointing to a
profound mystery in baptism,--the sacrament of our regeneration. For the
seventh day of rest is connected with the eighth of resurrection. For when
the saints receive again their bodies after the rest of the intermediate
state, the rest will not cease; but rather the whole man, body and soul
united, renewed in the immortal health, will attain to the realization of
his hope in the enjoyment of eternal life. Thus the sacrament of baptism,
like the waters of Noah, rises above all the wisdom of the proud. Seven and
eight are also combined in the number of one hundred and fifty, made up of
seventy and eighty, which was the number of days during which the water
prevailed, pointing out the deep import of baptism in consecrating the new
man to hold the faith of rest and resurrection.
20. That the raven sent out after forty days did not return, being
either prevented by the water or attracted by some floating carcase; as men
defiled by impure desire, and therefore eager for things outside in the
world, are either baptized, or are led astray into the company of those to
whom, as they are outside the ark, that is, outside the Church, baptism is
destructive. That the dove when sent forth found no rest, and returned; as
in the New Testament rest is not promised to the saints in this world. The
dove was sent forth after forty days, a period denoting the length of human
life. When again sent forth after seven days, denoting the sevenfold
operation of the Spirit, the dove brought back a fruitful olive branch; as
some even who are baptized outside of the Church, if not destitute of the
fatness of charity, may come after all, as it were in the evening, and be
brought into the one communion by the mouth of the dove in the kiss of
peace. That, when again sent forth after seven days, the dove did not
return; as, at the end of the world, the rest of the saints shall no longer
be in the sacrament of hope, as now, while in the communion of the Church,
they drink what flowed from the side of Christ, but in the perfection of
eternal safety, when the kingdom shall be delivered up to God and the
Father, and when, in that unclouded contemplation of unchangeable truth, we
shall no longer need natural symbols.
21. There are many other points which we cannot take notice of even in
this cursory manner. Why in the six hundred and first year of Noah's life--
that is, after six hundred years were completed--the covering of the ark is
removed, and the hidden mystery, as it were, disclosed. Why the earth is
said to have dried on the twenty-seventh day of the second month; as if the
number fifty-seven denoted the completion of the rite of baptism. For the
twenty-seventh day of the second month is the fifty-seventh day of the
year; and the number fifty-seven is seven times eight, which are the
numbers of the spirit and the body, with one over, to denote the bond of
unity. Why they leave the ark together, though they entered separately. For
it is said: "Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives
with him, into the ark;" the men and the women being spoken of separately;
which denotes the time when the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the
spirit against the flesh. But they go forth, Noah and his wife, and his
sons and their wives,--the men and women together. For in the end of the
world, and in the resurrection of the just, the body will be united to the
spirit in perfect harmony, undisturbed by the wants and the passions of
mortality. Why, after leaving the ark, only clean animals are offered in
sacrifice to God, though both clean and unclean were in the ark.
22. Then, again, it is significant that when God speaks to Noah, and
begins anew, as it were, in order, by repetition in various forms, to draw
attention to the figure of the Church, the sons of Noah are blessed, and
told to replenish the earth, and all animals are given to them for food; as
was said to Peter of the vessel, "Kill and eat." That they are told to pour
out the blood when they eat; that the former life may not be kept shut up
in the conscience, but may be, as it were, poured out in confession. That
God makes the bow, which appears in the clouds only when the sun shines,
the sign of His covenant with men, and with every living thing, that He
will not destroy them with a flood; as those do not perish by the flood, in
separation from the Church, who in the clouds of God--that is, in the
prophets and in all the sacred Scriptures --discern the glory of Christ.
instead of seeking their own glory. The worshippers of the sun, however,
need not pride themselves on this; for they must understand that the sun,
as also a lion, a lamb, and a stone, are used as types of Christ because
they have some resemblance, not because they are of the same substance.
23. Again, the sufferings of Christ from His own nation are evidently
denoted by Noah being drunk with the wine of the vineyard he planted, and
his being uncovered in his tent. For the mortality of Christ's flesh was
uncovered, to the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness;
but to them that are called, both Jews and Greeks, both Shem and Japhet,
the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is
wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. (1)
Moreover, the two sons, the eldest and the youngest, carrying the
garment backwards, are a figure of the two peoples, and the sacrament of
the past and completed passions of the Lord. They do not see the nakedness
of their father, because they do not consent to Christ's death; and yet
they honor it with a covering, as knowing whence they were born. The middle
son is the Jewish people, for they neither held the first place with the
apostles, nor believed subsequently with the Gentiles. They saw the
nakedness of their father, because they consented to Christ's death; and
they told it to their brethren outside, for what was hidden in the prophets
was disclosed by the Jews. And thus they are the servants of their
brethren. For what else is this nation now but a desk for the Christians,
bearing the law and the prophets, and testifying to the doctrine of the
Church, so that we l honor in the sacrament what they disclose in the
letter?
54. Again, every one must be impressed, and be either enlightened or
confirmed in the faith, by the blessing of the two sons who honored the
nakedness of their father, though they turned away their faces, as
displeased with the evil done by the vine. "Blessed," he says, "be the Lord
God of Shem." For although God is the God of all nations, even the Gentiles
acknowledge Him to be in a peculiar sense the God of Israel. And how is
this to be explained but by the blessing of Japhet? The occupation of all
the world by the Church among the Gentiles was exactly foretold in the
words: "Let God enlarge Japhet, and let him dwell in the tents of Shem."
That is for the Manichaean to attend to. You see what the state of the
world actually is. The very thing that you are astonished and grieved at in
us is this, that God is enlarging Japhet. Is He not dwelling in the tents
of Shem ?--that is, in the churches built by the apostles, the sons of the
prophets. Hear what Paul says to the believing Gentiles: "Ye were at that
time without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and
strangers from the covenants; having no hope of the promise, and without
God in the world." In these words there is a description of the state of
Japhet before he dwelt in the tents of Shem. But observe what follows: "Now
then;" he says, "ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-
citizens with the saints, and of the household of God, being built upon the
foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the
chief corner-stone.'' (1) Here we have Japhet enlarged, and dwelling in
tile tents of Shem. These testimonies are taken from the epistles of the
apostles, which you yourselves acknowledge, and read, and profess to
follow. You occupy an unhappy middle position in a building of which Christ
is not the chief corner-stone. For you do not belong to the wall of those
who, like the apostles, being of the circumcision, believed in Christ; nor
to the wall of those who, being of the uncircumcision, like all the
Gentiles, are joined in the unity of faith, as in the fellowship of the
cornerstone. However, all who accept and read any books of our canon in
which Christ is spoken of as having been born and having suffered in the
flesh, and who do not unite with us in a common veiling with the sacrament
of the mortality, uncovered by the passion, but without the knowledge of
piety and charity make known that from which we all are born, --although
they differ among themselves, whether as Jews and heretics, or as heretics
of one kind or other,--are still all useful to the Church, as being all
alike servants, either in bearing witness to or in proving some truth. For
of heretics it is said: "There must be heresies, that those who are
approved among you may be manifested." (2) Go on, then, with your
objections to the Old Testament Scriptures! Go on, ye servants of Ham! You
have despised the flesh from which you were born when uncovered. For you
could not have called yourselves Christians unless Christ had come into the
world, as foretold by the prophets, and had drunk of His own vine that cup
which could not pass from Him, and had slept in His passion, as in the
drunkenness of the folly which is wiser than men; and so, in the hidden
counsel of God, the disclosure had been made of that infirmity of mortal
flesh which is stronger than men. For unless the Word of God had taken on
Himself this infirmity, the name of Christian, in which you also glory,
would not exist in the earth. Go on, then, as I have said. Declare in
mockery what we may honor with reverence. Let the Church use yon as her
servants to make manifest those members who are approved. So particular are
the predictions of the prophets regarding the state and the sufferings of
the Church, that we can find a place even for you in what is said of the
destructive error by which the reprobate are to perish, while the approved
are to be manifested.
25. You say that Christ was not foretold by the prophets of Israel,
when, in fact, their Scriptures teem with such predictions, if you would
only examine them carefully, instead of treating them with levity. Who in
Abraham leaves his country and kindred that he may become rich and
prosperous among strangers, but He who, leaving the land and country of the
Jews, of whom He was born in the flesh, is now extending His power, as we
see, among the Gentiles? Who in Isaac carried the wood for His own
sacrifice, but He who carried His own cross? Who is the ram for sacrifice,
caught by the horns in a. bush, but He who was fastened to the cross as an
offering for us?
26. Who in the angel striving with Jacob, on the one hand is
constrained to give him a blessing, as the weaker to the stronger, the
conquered to the conqueror, and on the other hand puts his thigh-bone out
of joint, but He who, when He suffered the people of Israel to prevail
against Him, blessed those among them who believed, while the multitude,
like Jacob's thigh-bone, halted in their carnality? Who is the stone placed
under Jacob's head, but Christ the head of man? And in its anointing the
very name of Christ is expressed, for, as all know, Christ means anointed.
Christ refers to this in the Gospel, and declares it to be a type of
Himself, when He said of Nathanael that he was an Israelite indeed, in whom
was no guile, and when Nathanael, resting his head, as it were, on this
Stone, or on Christ, confessed Him as the Son of God and the King of
Israel anointing the Stone by his confession, in which he acknowledged
Jesus to be Christ. On this occasion the Lord made appropriate mention of
what Jacob saw in his dream "Verily I say unto you, Ye shall see heaven
opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of
man.'' (1) This Jacob saw, who in the blessing was called Israel, when he
had the stone for a pillow, and had the vision of the ladder reaching from
earth to heaven, on which the angels of God were ascending and descending.
(2) The angels denote the evangelists, or preachers of Christ. They ascend
when they rise above the created universe to describe the supreme majesty
of the divine nature of Christ as being in the beginning God with God, by
whom all things were made. They descend to tell of His being made of a
woman, made under the law, that He might redeem them that were under the
law. Christ is the ladder reaching from earth to heaven, or from the carnal
to the spiritual: for by His assistance the carnal ascend to spirituality;
and the spiritual may be said to descend to nourish the carnal with milk
when they cannot speak to them as to spiritual, but as to carnal. (3) There
is thus both an ascent and a descent upon the Son of man. For the Son of
man is above as our head, being Himself the Saviour; and He is below in His
body, the Church. He is the ladder, for He says, "I am the way." We ascend
to Him to see Him in heavenly places; we descend to Him for the nourishment
of His weak members. And the ascent and descent are by Him as well as to
Him. Following His example, those who preach Him not only rise to behold
Him exalted, but let themselves down to give a plain announcement of the
truth. So the apostle ascends, "Whether we be beside ourselves, it is to
God;" and descends, "Whether we be sober, it is for your sake." And by whom
did he ascend and descend? "For the love of Christ constraineth us: for we
thus judge, that if one died for all, then all died; and that He died for
all, that they which live should no longer live unto themselves, but unto
Him that died for them, and rose again." (4)
27. The man who does not find pleasure in these views of sacred
Scripture is turned away to fables, because he cannot bear sound doctrine.
The fables have an attraction for childish minds in people of all ages; but
we who are of the body of Christ should say with the Psalmist; "O Lord, the
wicked have spoken to me pleasing things, but they are not after Thy law."
(5) In every page of these Scriptures, while I pursue my search as a son of
Adam in the sweat of my brow, Christ either openly or covertly meets and
refreshes me. Where the discovery is laborious my ardor is increased, and
the spoil obtained is eagerly devoured, and is hidden in my heart for my
nourishment.
28. Christ appears to me in Joseph, who was persecuted and sold by his
brethren, and after his troubles obtained honor in Egypt. We have seen the
troubles of Christ in the world, of which Egypt was a figure, in the
sufferings of the martyrs. And now we see the honor of Christ in the same
world which He subdues to Himself, in exchange for the food which He
bestows. Christ appears to me in the rod of Moses, which became a serpent
when cast on the earth as a figure of His death, which came from the
serpent. Again, when caught by the tail it became a rod, as a figure of His
return after the accomplishment of His work in His resurrection to what He
was before, destroying death by His new life, so as to leave no trace of
the serpent. We, too, who are His body, glide along in the same mortality
through the folds of time; but when at last the tail of this course of
things is laid hold of by the hand of judgment that it shall go no further,
we shall be renewed, and rising from the destruction of death, the last
enemy, we shall be the sceptre of government in the right hand of God.
29. Of the departure of Israel from Egypt, let us hear what the apostle
himself says: "I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant that all
our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and were
all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and did all eat the
same spiritual meat, and did all drink of the same spiritual drink. For
they drank of the spiritual rock which followed them, and that rock was
Christ." (6) The explanation of one thing is a key to the rest. For if the
rock is Christ from its stability, is not the manna Christ, the living
bread which came down from heaven, which gives spiritual life to those who
truly feed on it? The Israelites died because they received the figure only
in its carnal sense. The apostle, by calling it spiritual food, shows its
reference to Christ, as the spiritual drink is explained by the words,
"That rock was Christ," which explain the whole. Then is not the cloud and
the pillar Christ, who by His uprightness and strength supports our
feebleness; who shines by night and not by day, that they who see not may
see, and that they who see may be made blind? In the clouds and the Red Sea
there is the baptism consecrated by the blood of Christ. The enemies
following behind perish, as past sins are put away.
30. The Israelites are led through the wilderness, as those who are
baptized are in the wilderness while on the way to the promised land,
hoping and patiently waiting for that which they see not. In the wilderness
are severe trials, lest they should in heart return to Egypt. Still Christ
does not leave them the pillar does not go away. The bitter waters are
sweetened by wood, as hostile people become friendly by learning to honor
the cross of Christ. The twelve fountains watering the seventy palm trees
are a figure of apostolic grace watering the nations. As seven is mutiplied
by ten, so the decalogue is fulfilled in the sevenfold operation of the
Spirit. The enemy attempting to stop them in their way is overcome by Moses
stretching out his hands in the figure of the cross. The deadly bites of
serpents are healed by the brazen serpent, which was lifted up that they
might look at it. The Lord Himself gives the explanation of this: "As Moses
lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted
up, that whosoever believeth in Him may not perish, but have everlasting
life.'' (1) So in many other things we may find a protest against the
obstinacy of unbelieving hearts. In the passover a lamb is killed,
representing Christ, of whom it is said in the Gospel, "Behold the Lamb of
God, who taketh away the sin of the world!" (2) In the passover the bones
of the lamb were not to be broken; and on the cross the bones of the Lord
were not broken. The evangelist, in reference to this, quotes the words, "A
bone of Him shall not be broken." (3) The posts were marked with blood to
keep away destruction, as people are marked on their foreheads with the
sign of the Lord's passion for their salvation. The law was given on the
fiftieth day after the passover; so the Holy Spirit came on the fiftieth
day after the passion of the Lord. The law is said to have been written
with the finger of God; and the Lord says of the Holy Spirit, "With the
finger of God I cast out devils." (4) Such are the Scriptures in which
Faustus, after shutting his eyes, declares that he can see no prediction of
Christ. But we need not wonder that he should have eyes to read and yet no
heart to understand, since, instead of knocking in devout faith at the door
of the heavenly secret, he dares to act in profane hostility. So let it be,
for so it ought to be. Let the gate of salvation be shut to the proud. The
meek, to whom God teaches His ways, will find all these things in the
Scriptures, and those things which he does not see he will believe from
what he sees.
31. He will see Jesus leading the people into the land of promise; for
this name was given to the leader of Israel, not at first, or by chance,
but on account of the work to which he was called. He will see the cluster
from the land of promise hanging from a wooden pole. He will see in
Jericho, as in this perishing world, an harlot, one of those of whom the
Lord says that they go before the proud into the kingdom of heaven, putting
out of her window a scarlet line symbolical of blood, as confession is made
with the mouth for the remission of sins. He will see the walls of Jericho,
like the frail defences of the world, fall when compassed seven times by
the ark of the covenant; as now in the course. of the seven days of time
the covenant of God compasses the whole globe, that in the end, death, the
last enemy, may be destroyed, and the Church, like one single house, be
saved from the destruction of the ungodly, purified from the defilement of
fornication by the window of confession in the blood of remission.
32. He will see the times of the judges precede those of the kings, as
the judgment will precede the kingdom. And under both the judges and the
kings he will see Christ and the Church repeatedly prefigured in many and
various ways. Who was in Samson, when he killed the lion that met him as he
went to get a wife among strangers, but He who, when going to call His
Church from among the Gentiles, said, "Be of good cheer, I have overcome
the world?" (5) What means the hive in the mouth of the slain lion, but
that, as we see, the very laws of the earthly kingdom which once raged
against Christ have now lost their fierceness, and have become a protection
for the preaching of gospel sweetness? What is that woman boldly piercing
the temples of the enemy with a wooden nail, but the faith of the Church
casting down the kingdom of the devil by the cross of Christ? What is the
fleece wet while the ground was dry, and again the fleece dry while the
ground was wet, but the Hebrew nation at first possessing alone in its
typical institution Christ the mystery of God, while the whole world was in
ignorance? And now the whole world has this mystery revealed, while the
Jews are destitute of it.
33. To mention only a few things in the times of the kings, at the very
outset does not the change in the priesthood when Eli was rejected and
Samuel chosen, and in the kingdom when Saul was rejected and David chosen,
clearly predict the new priesthood and kingdom to come in our Lord Jesus
Christ, when the old, which was a shadow of the new, was rejected? Did not
David, when he ate the shew-bread, which it was not lawful for any but the
priests to eat, prefigure the union of the kingdom and priesthood in one
person, Jesus Christ? In the separation of the ten tribes from the temple
while two were left, is there not a figure of what the apostle asserts of
the whole nation: "A remnant is saved by the election of grace."? (1)
34. In the time of famine, Elijah is fed by ravens bringing bread in
the morning and flesh in the evening; but the Manichaeans cannot in this
perceive Christ, who, as it were, hungers for our salvation, and to whom
sinners come in confession, having now the first-fruits of the Spirit,
while in the end, that is to say in the evening of the age, they will have
the resurrection of their bodies also. Elijah is sent to be fed by a widow
woman of another nation, who was going to gather two sticks before she
died, denoting the two wooden beams of the cross. Her meal and oil are
blessed, as the fruit and cheerfulness of charity do not diminish by
expenditure, for God loveth a cheerful giver. (2)
35. The children that mocked Elisha by calling out Baldhead, are
devoured by wild beasts, as those who in childish folly scoff at Christ
crucified on Calvary are destroyed by devils. Elisha sends his servants to
lay his staff on the dead body, but it does not revive; he comes himself,
and lays himself exactly upon the dead body, and it revives: as the Word of
God sent the law by His servant, without any profit to mankind dead in
sins; and yet it was not sent without purpose by Him who knew the necessity
of its being first sent. Then He Himself came, conformed Himself to us by
participation in our death, and we were revived. When they were cutting
down wood with axes, the iron, flying off the wood, sank to the bottom of
the river, and came up again when the wood was thrown in by Elisha. So,
when Christ's bodily presence was cutting down the unfruitful trees among
the unbelieving Jews, according to the saying of John, "Behold, the axe is
laid to the roots of the tree,'' (3) by the death they inflicted, Christ
was separated from His body, and descended to the depths of the infernal
world; and then, when His body was laid in the tomb, like the wood on the
water, His spirit returned, like the iron to the handle, and He rose. The
reader will observe how many things of this kind are omitted for the sake
of brevity.
36. As regards the departure to Babylon, where the Spirit of God by the
prophet Jeremiah enjoins them to go, telling them to pray for the people in
whose land they dwell as strangers, because in their peace they would find
peace, and to build houses, and plant vineyards and gardens,--the
figurative meaning is plain, when we consider that the true Israelites, in
whom is no guile, passed over in the ministry of the apostles with the
ordinances of the gospel into the kingdom of the Gentiles. So the apostle,
like an echo of Jeremiah, says to us, "I will first of all that prayer,
supplications, intercessions and giving of thanks be made for all men, and
for those in authority, that we may live a quiet and peaceable life in all
godliness and charity; for this is good and acceptable in the sight of God
our Saviour, who will have all men to be saved, and to come to the
knowledge of the truth." (4) Accordingly the basilicas of Christian
congregations have been built by believers as abodes of peace, and
vineyards of the faithful have been renewed, and gardens planted, where
chief among the plants is the mustard tree, in whose wide-spreading
branches the pride of the Gentiles, like the birds of heaven, in its
soaring ambition, takes shelter. Again, in the return from captivity after
seventy years, according to Jeremiah's prophecy, and in the restoration of
the temple, every believer in Christ must see a figure of our return as the
Church of God from the exile of this world to the heavenly Jerusalem, after
the seven days of time have fulfilled their course. Joshua the high priest,
after the captivity, who rebuilt the temple, was a figure of Jesus Christ,
the true High Priest of our restoration. The prophet Zechariah saw this
Joshua in a filthy garment; and after the devil who stood by to accuse him
was defeated, the filthy garment was taken from him, and a dress of honor
and glory given him. So the body of Jesus Christ, which is the Church, when
the adversary is conquered in the judgment at the end of the world, will
pass from the pains of exile to the glory of everlasting safety. This is
the song of the Psalmist at the dedication of his house: "Thou hast turned
for me my mourning into gladness; Thou hast removed my sackcloth, and
girded me with gladness, that my glory may sing praise unto Thee, and not
be silent." (1)
37. It is impossible, in a digression like this, to refer, however
briefly, to all the figurative predictions of Christ which are to be found
in the law and the prophets. Will it be said that these things happened in
the regular course of things, and that it is a mere ingenious fancy to make
them typical of Christ? Such an objection might come from Jews and Pagans;
but those who wish to be considered Christians must yield to the authority
of the apostle when he says, "All these things happened to them for an
example;" and again, "These things are our examples.'' (2) For if two men,
Ishmael and Isaac, are types of the two covenants, can it be supposed that
there is no significance in the vast number of particulars which have no
historical or natural value? Suppose we were to see some Hebrew characters
written on the wall of a noble building, should we be so foolish as to
conclude that, because we cannot understand the characters, they are not
intended to be read, and are mere painting, without any meaning? So,
whoever with a candid mind reads all these things that are contained in the
Old Testament Scriptures, must feel constrained to acknowledge that they
have a meaning.
38. As an example of those particulars which have no meaning at all if
not a symbolical one: Granting that it was necessary that woman should be
made as an help meet for man, what natural reason can be assigned for her
being taken from his side while he slept? Granting that an ark was required
in order to escape from the flood, why should it have precisely these
dimensions, and why should they be recorded for the devout study of future
generations? Granting that the animals were brought into the ark to
preserve the various races, why should there be seven clean and two
unclean? Granting that the ark must have a door, why should it be in the
side, and why should this fact be committed to writing? Abraham is
commanded to sacrifice his son: we may allow that this proof of his
obedience was required in order to make it conspicuous in all ages; we may
allow, too, that it was a proper thing for the son to carry the wood
instead of the aged father, and that in the end the fatal stroke was
forbidden, lest the father should be left childless. But what had the
shedding of the ram's blood to do with Abraham's trial? or if it was
necessary to complete the sacrifice, was the ram any the better of being
caught by the horns in a bush? The human mind, that is to say, a rational
mind, is led by the consideration of the way in which these apparently
superfluous things are blended with what is necessary, first to acknowledge
their significance, and then to try to discover it.
39. The Jews themselves, who scoff at the crucified Saviour in whom we
believe, and who consequently will not allow that Christ is predicted in
the sayings and actions recorded in the Old Testament, are compelled to
come to us for an explanation of those things which, if not explained, must
appear trifling and ridiculous. This led Philo, a Jew of great learning,
whom the Greeks speak of as rivalling Plato in eloquence, to attempt to
explain some things without any reference to Christ, in whom he did not
believe. His attempt only shows the inferiority of all ingenious
speculations, when made without keeping Christ in view, to whom all the
predictions really point. So true is that saying of the apostle: "When they
shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away." (3) For instance,
Noah's ark is, according to Philo, a type of the human body, member by
member: with this view, he shows that the numerical proportions agree
perfectly. For there is no reason why a type of Christ should not be a type
of the human body, too, since the Saviour of mankind appeared in a human
body, though what is typical of a human body is not necessarily typical of
Christ. Philo's explanation fills, however, as regards the door in the side
of the ark. He actually, for the sake of saying something, makes this door
represent the lower apertures of the body. He has the hardihood to put this
in words, and on paper. Indeed, he knew not the door and could not
understand the symbol. Had he turned to Christ the veil would have been
taken away, and he would have found the sacraments of the Church flowing
from the side of Christ's human body. For, according to the announcement,
"They two shall be one flesh," some things in the ark which is a type of
Christ, refer to Christ, and some to the Church. This contrast between the
explanations which keep Christ in view, and all other ingenious
perversions, is the same in every particular of all the figures in
Scripture.
40. The Pagans, too, cannot deny our right to give a figurative meaning
to both words and things, especially as we can point to the fulfillment of
the types and figures. For the Pagans themselves try to find in their own
fables figures of natural and religious truth. Sometimes they give clear
explanations, while at other times they disguise their meaning, and what is
sacred in the temples becomes a jest in the theatres. They unite a
disgraceful licentiousness to a degrading superstition.
41. Besides this wonderful agreement between the types and the things
typified, the adversary may be convinced by plain prophetic intimations,
such as this: "In thy seed shall all nations be blessed." This was said to
Abraham, (1) and again to Isaac, (2) and again to Jacob. (3) Hence the
significance of the words "I am the God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob."
(4) God fulfills His promise to their seed in blessing all nations. With a
like significance, Abraham himself, when he made his servant swear, told
him to put his hand under his thigh; (5) for he knew that thence would come
the flesh of Christ, in whom we have now, not the promise of blessing to
all nations, but the promise fulfilled.
42. I should like to know, or rather, it would be well not to know,
with what blindness of mind Faustus reads the passage where Jacob calls his
sons, and says, "Assemble, that I may tell you the things that are to
happen in the last day. Assemble and hear, ye sons of Jacob; give ear to
Israel, your father." Surely these are the words of a prophet. What, then,
does he say of his son Judah, of whose tribe Christ came of the seed of
David according to the flesh, as the apostle teaches? "Judah," he says,
"thy brethren shall praise thee: thy hand shall be upon the backs of thine
enemies; the sons of thy father shall bow down to thee. Judah is a lion's
whelp; my son and offspring: bowing down, thou hast gone up: thou sleepest
as a lion, and as a young lion, who will rouse him up? A prince shall not
depart from Judah, nor a leader from his loins, till those things come
which have been laid up for him. He also is the desire of nations: binding
his foal unto the vine, and his ass's colt with sackcloth, he shall wash
his garment in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes: his eyes are
bright with wine, and his teeth whiter than milk." (6) There is no
falsehood or obscurity in these words when we read them in the clear light
of Christ. We see His brethren the apostles and all His joint-heirs
praising Him, seeking, not their own glory, but His. We see His hands on
the backs of His enemies, who are bent and bowed to the earth by the growth
of the Christian communities in spite of their opposition. We see Him
worshipped by the sons of Jacob, the remnant saved according to the
election of grace. Christ, who was born as an infant, is the lion's whelp,
as it is added, My son and offspring, to show why this whelp, in whose
praise it is said, "The lion's whelp is stronger than the herd," (7) is
even in infancy stronger than its elders. We see Christ ascending the
cross, and bowing down when He gave up His spirit. We see Him sleeping as a
lion, because in death itself He was not the conquered, but the conqueror,
and as a lion's whelp; for the reason of His birth and of His death was the
same. And He is raised from the dead by Him whom no man hath seen or can
see; for the words, "Who will raise Him up?" point to an unknown power. A
prince did not depart from Judah, nor a leader from his loins, till in due
time those things came which had been laid up in the promise. For we learn
from the authentic history of the Jews themselves, that Herod, under whom
Christ was born, was their first foreign king. So the sceptre did not
depart from the seed of Judah till the things laid up for him came. Then,
as the promise is not only to the believing Jews, it is added: "He is the
desire of the nations." Christ bound His foal--that is, His people--to the
vine, when He preached in sackcloth, crying, "Repent, for the kingdom of
heaven is at hand." The Gentiles made subject to Him are represented by the
ass's colt, on which He also sat, leading it into Jerusalem, that is, the
vision of peace teaching the meek His ways. We see Him washing His garments
in wine; for He is one with the glorious Church, which He presents to
Himself, not having spot or wrinkle; to whom also it is said by Isaiah:
"Though your sins be as scarlet, I will make them white as snow." (8) How
is this done but by the remission of sins? And the wine is none other than
that of which it is said that it is "shed for many, for the remission of
sins." Christ is the cluster that hung on the pole. So it is added, " and
His clothes in the blood of the grape." Again, what is said of His eyes
being bright with wine, is understood by those members of His body who are
enabled, in holy aberration of mind from the current of earthly things, to
gaze on the eternal light of wisdom. So Paul says in a passage quoted
before: "If we be beside ourselves, it is to God." Those are the eyes
bright with wine. But he adds: "If we be sober, it is for your sakes." The
babes needing to be fed with milk are not forgotten, as is denoted by the
words, "His teeth are whiter than milk."
43. What can our deluded adversaries say to such plain examples, which
leave no room for perverse denial, or even for sceptical uncertainty? I
call on the Manichaeans to begin to inquire into these subjects, and to
admit the force of these evidences, on which I have no time to dwell; nor
do I wish to make a selection, in case the ignorant reader should think
there are no others, while the Christian student might blame me for the
omission of many points more striking than those which occur to me at the
moment. You will find many passages which require no such explanation as
has been given here of Jacob's prophecy. For instance, every reader can
understand the words, "He was led as a lamb to the slaughter," and the
whole of that plain prophecy, "With His stripes we are healed" --" He bore
our sins." (1) We have a poetical gospel in the words: "They pierced my
hands and feet. They have told all my bones. They look and stare upon me.
They divided my garments among them, and cast lots on my vesture." (2) The
blind even may now see the fulfillment of the words: "All the ends of the
earth shall remember and turn unto the Lord, and all kingdoms of the
nations shall worship before Him." The words in the Gospel, "My soul is
sorrowful, even unto death," "My soul is troubled," are a repetition of the
words in the Psalm, "I slept in trouble." (3) And who made Him sleep? Whose
voices cried, Crucify him, crucify him? The Psalm tells us: "The sons of
men, their teeth are spears and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword."
(4) But they could not prevent His resurrection, or His ascension above the
heavens, or His filling the earth with the glory of His name; for the Psalm
says: "Be Thou exalted, O God, above the heavens, and let Thy glory be
above all the earth." Every one must apply these words to Christ: "The
Lord said unto me, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee. Ask of
me, and I will give Thee the heathen for Thine inheritance, and the
uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession." (5) And what Jeremiah
says of wisdom plainly applies to Christ: "Jacob delivered it to his son,
and Israel to his chosen one. Afterwards He appeared on earth, and
conversed with men." (6)
44. The same Saviour is spoken of in Daniel, where the Son of man
appears before the Ancient of days, and receives a kingdom without end,
that all nations may serve Him. (7) In the passage quoted from Daniel by
the Lord Himself, "When ye shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken
of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place, let him that readeth
understand," (3) the number of weeks points not only to Christ, but to the
very time of His advent. With the Jews, who look to Christ for salvation as
we do, but deny that He has come and suffered, we can argue from actual
events. Besides the conversion of the heathen, now so universal, as
prophesied of Christ in their own Scriptures, there are the events in the
history of the Jews themselves. Their holy place is thrown down, the
sacrifice has ceased, and the priest, and the ancient anointing; which was
all clearly foretold by Daniel when he prophesied of the anointing of the
Most Holy. (9) Now, that all these things have taken place, we ask the Jews
for the anointed Most Holy, and they have no answer to give. But it is from
the Old Testament that the Jews derive all the knowledge they have of
Christ and His advent. Why do they ask John whether he is Christ? Why do
they say to the Lord, "How long dost thou make us to doubt? If thou art the
Christ, tell us plainly." Why do Peter and Andrew and Philip say to
Nathanael, "We have found Messias, which is interpreted Christ," but
because this name was known to them from the prophecies of their
Scriptures? In no other nation were the kings and priests anointed, and
called Anointed or Christs. Nor could this symbolical anointing be
discontinued till the coming of Him who was thus prefigured. For among all
their anointed ones the Jews looked for one who was to save them. But in
the mysterious justice of God they were blinded; and thinking only of the
power of the Messiah, they did not understand His weakness, in which He
died for us. In the book of Wisdom it is prophesied of the Jews: "Let us
condemn him to an ignominious death; for he will be proved in his words. If
he is truly the Son of God, He will aid him; and deliver him from the hand
of his enemies. Thus they thought, and erred; for their wickedness blinded
them." (1) These words apply also to those who, in spite of all these
evidences, in spite of such a series of prophecies, and of their
fulfillment, still deny that Christ is foretold in the Scriptures. As often
as they repeat this denial, we can produce fresh proofs, with the help of
Him who has made such provision against human perversity, that proofs
already given need not be repeated.
45. Faustus has an evasive objection, which he no doubt thinks a most
ingenious way of eluding the force of the clearest evidence of prophecy,
but of which one is unwilling to take any notice, because answering it may
give it an appearance of importance which it does not really possess. What
could be more irrational than to say that it is weak faith which will not
believe in Christ without evidence? Do our adversaries, then, believe in
testimony about Christ? Faustus wishes us to believe the voice from heaven
as distinguished from human testimony. But did they hear this voice? Has
not the knowledge of it come to us through human testimony? The apostle
describes the transmission of this knowledge, when he says: "How shall they
call on Him on whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe on
Him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a
preacher? and how shall they preach except they be sent? As it is written,
"How beautiful are the feet of them who publish peace, who bring good
tidings!'' (2) Clearly, in the preaching of the apostles there was a
reference to prophetic testimony. The apostles quoted the predictions of
the prophets, to prove the truth and importance of their doctrines. For
although their preaching was accompanied with the power of working
miracles, the miracles would have been ascribed to magic, as some even now
venture to insinuate, unless the apostles had shown that the authority of
the prophets was in their favor. The testimony of prophets who lived so
long before could not be ascribed to magical arts. Perhaps the reason why
Faustus will not have us believe the Hebrew prophets as witnesses of the
true Christ, is because he believes Persian heresies about a false Christ.
46. According to the teaching of the Catholic Church, the Christian
mind must first be nourished in simple faith, in order that it may become
capable of understanding things heavenly and eternal. Thus it is said by
the prophet: "Unless ye believe, ye shall not understand.'' (3) Simple
faith is that by which, before we attain to the height of the knowledge of
the love of Christ, that we may be filled with all the fullness of God, we
believe that not without reason was the dispensation of Christ's
humiliation, in which He was born and suffered as man, foretold so long
before by the prophets through a prophetic race, a prophetic people, a
prophetic kingdom. This faith teaches us, that in the foolishness which is
wiser than men, and in the weakness which is stronger than men, is
contained the hidden means of our justification and glorification. There
are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, which are opened to no
one who despises the nourishment transmitted through the breast of his
mother that is, the milk of apostolic and prophetic instruction; or who,
thinking himself too old for infantile nourishment, devours heretical
poison instead of the food of wisdom, for which he rashly thought himself
prepared. To require simple faith is quite consistent with requiring faith
in the prophets. The very use of simple faith is to believe the prophets at
the outset, while the understanding of the person who speaks in the
prophets is attained after the mind has been purified and strengthened.
47. But, it is said, if the prophets foretold Christ, they did not live
in a way becoming their office. How can you tell whether they did or not?
You are bad judges of what it is to live well or ill, whose justice
consists in giving relief to an inanimate melon by eating it, instead of
giving food to the starving beggar. It is enough for the babes in the
Catholic Church, who do not yet know the perfect justice of the human soul,
and the difference between the justice aimed at and that actually attained,
to think of those men according to the wholesome doctrine of the apostles,
that the just lives by faith. "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to
him for righteousness. For the scripture, fore-seeing that God would
justify the Gentiles by faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham,
saying, In thy seed shall all nations be blessed." (4) These are the words
of the apostle. If you would, at his clear well-known voice, wake up from
your unprofitable dreams, you would follow in the footsteps of our father
Abraham, and would be blessed, along with all nations, in his seed. For, as
the apostle says, "He received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the
righteousness of the faith which he had, yet being uncircumcised, that he
might be the father of all that believe in un-circumcision; that he might
be the father of circumcision not only to those who are of the
circumcision, but also to those who follow the footsteps of the faith of
our father Abraham in uncircumcision." (1) Since the righteousness of
Abraham's faith is thus set forth as an example to us, that we too, being
justified by faith, may have peace with God, we ought to understand his
manner of life, without finding fault with it; lest, by a premature
separation from mother-Church, we prove abortions, instead of being brought
forth in due time, when the conception has arrived at completeness.
48. This is a brief reply to Faustus in behalf of the character of the
patriarchs and prophets. It is the reply of the babes of our faith, among
whom I would reckon myself, inasmuch as I would not find fault with the
life of the ancient saints, even if I did not understand its mystical
character. Their life is proclaimed to us with approval by the apostles in
their Gospel, as they themselves in their prophecy foretold the future
apostles, that the two Testaments, like the seraphim, might cry to one
another, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts.'' (2) When Faustus,
instead of the vague general accusation which he makes here, condemns
particular actions in the lives of the patriarchs and the prophets, the
Lord their God, and ours also, will assist me to reply suitably and
appropriately to the separate charges. For the present, the reader must
choose whether to believe the commendation of the Apostle Paul or the
accusations of Faustus the Manichaean. (3)
BOOK XIII: FAUSTUS ASSERTS THAT EVEN IF THE OLD TESTAMENT COULD BE SHOWN TO
CONTAIN PREDICTIONS, IT WOULD BE OF INTEREST ONLY TO THE JEWS, PAGAN
LITERATURE SUBSERVING THE SAME PURPOSE FOR GENTILES. AUGUSTIN SHOWS THE
VALUE OF PROPHESY FOR GENTILES AND JEWS ALIKE.
1. FAUSTUS said: We are asked how we worship Christ when we reject the
prophets, who declared the promise of His advent. It is doubtful whether,
on examination, it can be shown that the Hebrew prophets foretold our
Christ, that is, the Son of God. But were it so, what does it matter to us?
these testimonies of the prophets that you speak of were the means of
converting any one from Judaism to Christianity, and if he should
afterwards neglect these prophets, he would certainly be in the wrong, and
would be chargeable with ingratitude. But we are by nature Gentiles, of the
uncircumcision; as Paul says, born under another law. Those whom the
Gentiles call poets were our first religious teachers, and from them we
were afterwards converted to Christianity. We did not first become Jews, so
as to reach Christianity through faith in their prophets; but were
attracted solely by the fame, and the virtues, and the wisdom of our
liberator Jesus Christ. If I were still in the religion of my fathers, and
a preacher were to come using the prophets as evidence in favor of
Christianity, I should think him mad for attempting to support what is
doubtful by what is still more doubtful to a Gentile of another religion
altogether. He would require first to persuade me to believe the prophets,
and then through the prophets to believe Christ. And to prove the truth of
the prophets, other prophets would be necessary. For if the prophets bear
witness to Christ, who bears witness to the prophets? You will perhaps say
that Christ and the prophets mutually support each other. But a Pagan, who
has nothing to do with either, would believe neither the evidence of Christ
to the prophets, nor that of the prophets to Christ. If the Pagan becomes a
Christian, he has to thank his own faith, and nothing else. Let us, for the
sake of illustration, suppose ourselves conversing with a Gentile inquirer.
We tell him to believe in Christ, because He is God. He asks for proof. We
refer him to the prophets. He asks, What prophets? We reply, The Hebrew. He
smiles, and says that he does not believe them. We remind him that Christ
testifies to them. He replies, laughing, that we must first make him
believe in Christ. The result of such a conversation is that we are
silenced, and the inquirer departs, thinking us more zealous than wise.
Again, I say, the Christian Church, which consists more of Gentiles than of
Jews, can owe nothing to Hebrew witnesses. If, as is said, any prophecies
of Christ are to be found in the Sibyl, (1) or in Hermes, (2) called
Trismegistus, or Orpheus, or any heathen poet, they might aid the faith of
those who, like us, are converts from heathenism to Christianity. But the
testimony of the Hebrews is useless to us before conversion, for then we
cannot believe them; and superfluous after, for we believe without them.
2. AUGUSTIN replied: After the long reply of last book, a short answer
may suffice here. To one who has read that reply, it must seem insanity in
Faustus to persist in denying that Christ was foretold by the Hebrew
prophets, when the Hebrew nation was the only one in which the name Christ
had a peculiar sacredness as applied to kings and priests; in which sense
it continued to be applied till the coming of Him whom those kings and
priests typified. Where did the Manichaean learn the name of Christ? If
from Manichaeus, it is very strange that Africans, not to speak of others,
should believe the Persian Manichaeus, since Faustus finds fault with the
Romans and Greeks, and other Gentiles, for believing the Hebrew prophets as
belonging to another race. According to Faustus, the predictions of the
Sibyl, or Orpheus, or any heathen poet, are more suitable for leading
Gentiles to believe in Christ. He forgets that none of these are read in
the churches, whereas the voice of the Hebrew prophets, sounding
everywhere, draws swarms of people to Christianity. When it is so evident
that men are everywhere led to Christ by the Hebrew prophets, it is great
absurdity to say that those prophets are not suitable for the Gentiles.
3. Christ as foretold by the Hebrew prophets does not please you; but
this is the Christ in whom the Gentile nations believe, with whom,
according to you, Hebrew prophecy should have no weight. They receive the
gospel which, as Paul says, "God had promised before by His prophets in the
Holy Scriptures of His Son, who was made of the seed of David according to
the flesh." (3) So we read in Isaiah: "There shall be a Root of Jesse,
which shall rise to reign in the nations; in Him shall the Gentiles
trust.'' (4) And again: "Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall call His name Emmanuel," (5) which is, being interpreted,
God with us. Nor let the Manichaean think that Christ is foretold only as a
man by the Hebrew prophets; for this is what Faustus seems to insinuate
when he says, "Our Christ is the Son of God," as if the Christ of the
Hebrews was not the Son of God. We can prove Christ the virgin's son of
Hebrew prophecy to be God. For the Lord Himself teaches the carnal Jews not
to think that, because He is foretold as the son of David, He is therefore
no more than that. He asks: "What think ye of Christ? Whose son is He?"
They reply: "Of David." Then, to remind them of the name Emmanuel, God with
us, He says: "How does David in the Spirit call Him Lord, saying, The Lord
said unto my Lord, Sit Thou at my right hand, till I make Thine enemies Thy
footstool? " (6) Here, then, Christ appears as God in Hebrew prophecy. What
prophecy can the Manichaeans show with the name of Christ in it?
4. Manichaeus indeed was not a prophet of Christ, but calls himself an
apostle, which is a shameless falsehood; for it is well known that this
heresy began not only after Tertullian, but after Cyprian. In all his
letters Manichaeus begins thus: "Manichaeus, an apostle of Jesus Christ."
Why do you believe what Manichaeus says of Christ? What evidence does he
give of his apostleship? This very name of Christ is known to us only from
the Jews, who, in their application of it 'to their kings and priests, were
not individually, but nationally, prophets of Christ and Christ's kingdom.
What right has he to use this name, who forbids you to believe the Hebrew
prophets, that he may make you the heretical disciples of a false Christ,
as he himself is a false and heretical apostle? And if Faustus quotes as
evidence in his own support some prophets who, according to him, foretell
Christ, how will he satisfy his supposed inquirer, who will not believe
either the prophets or Faustus? Will he take our apostles as witnesses?
Unless he can find some apostles in life, he must read their writings; and
these are all against him. They teach our doctrine that Christ was born of
the Virgin Mary, that He was the Son of God, of the seed of David according
to the flesh. He cannot pretend that the writings have been tampered with,
for that would be to attack the credit of his own witnesses. Or if he
produces his own manuscripts of the apostolic writings, he must also obtain
for them the authority of the churches founded by the apostles themselves,
by showing that they have been preserved and transmitted with their
sanction. It will be difficult for a man to make me believe him on the
evidence of writings which derive all their authority from his own word,
which I do not believe.
5. But perhaps you believe the common report about Christ. Faustus
makes a feeble suggestion of this kind as a last resource, to escape being
obliged either to produce his worthless authorities, or to come under the
power of those opposed to him. Well, if report is your authority, you
should consider the consequences of trusting to such evidence. There are
many bad things reported of you which you do not wish people to believe. Is
it reasonable to make the same evidence true about Christ and false about
yourselves? In fact, you deny the common report about Christ. For the
report most widely spread, and which every one has heard repeated, is that
which distinctly asserts that Christ was born of the seed of David,
according to the promise made in the Hebrew Scriptures to Abraham and Isaac
and Jacob: "In thy seed shall all nations be blessed." You will not admit
this Hebrew testimony, but you do not seem to have any other. The authority
of our books, which is confirmed by the agreement of so many nations,
supported by a succession of apostles, bishops, and councils, is against
you. Your books have no authority, for it is an authority maintained by
only a few, and these the worshippers of an untruthful God and Christ. If
they are not following the example of the beings they worship, their
testimony must be against their own false doctrine. And, once more, common
report gives a very bad account of you, and invariably asserts, in
opposition to you, that Christ was of the seed of David. You did not hear
the voice of the Father from heaven. You did not see the works by which
Christ bore witness to Himself. The books which tell of these things you
profess to receive, that you may maintain a delusive appearance of
Christianity; but when anything is quoted against you, you say that the
books have been tampered with. You quote the passage where Christ says, "If
ye believe not me, believe the works;" and again, "I am one that bear
witness of myself, and the Father that sent me beareth witness of me;" but
you will not let us quote in reply such passages as these: "Search the
Scriptures; for in them ye think that ye have eternal life, and they are
they that testify of me;" "If ye believed Moses, ye would believe me, for
he wrote of me;" "They have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them;"
"If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they believe though
one rose from the dead." What have you to say for yourselves? Where is your
authority? If you reject these passages of Scripture, in spite of the
weighty authority in their favor, what miracles can you show? However, if
you did work miracles, we should be on our guard against receiving their
evidence in your case; for the Lord has forewarned us: "Many false Christs
and false prophets shall arise, and shall do many signs and wonders, that
they may deceive, if it were possible, the very elect: behold, I have told
you before." (1) This shows that the established authority of Scripture
must outweigh every other; for it derives new confirmation from the
progress of events which happen, as Scripture proves, in fulfillment of the
predictions made so long before their occurrence.
6. Are, then, your doctrines so manifestly true, that they require no
support from miracles or from any testimony? Show us these self-evident
truths, if you have anything of the kind to show. Your legends, as we have
already seen, are long and silly, old wives fables for the amusement of
women and children. The beginning is detached from the rest, the middle is
unsound, and the end is a miserable failure. If you begin with the
immortal, invisible, incorruptible God, what need was there of His fighting
with the race of darkness? And as for the middle of your theory, what
becomes of the incorruptibility and unchangeableness of God, when His
members in fruits and vegetables are purified by your mastication and
digestion? And for the end, is it just that the wretched soul should be
punished with lasting confinement in the mass of darkness, because its God
is unable to cleanse it of the defilement contracted from evil external to
itself in the fulfillment of His own commission? You are at a loss for a
reply. See the worthlessness of your boasted manuscripts, numerous and
valuable as you say they are! Alas for the toils of the antiquaries! Alas
for the property of the unhappy owners! Alas for the food of the deluded
followers! Destitute as you are of Scripture authority, of the power of
miracles, of moral excellence, and of sound doctrine, depart ashamed, and
return penitent, confessing that true Christ, who is the Saviour of all who
believe in Him, whose name and whose Church are now displayed as they were
of old foretold, not by some being issuing from subterranean darkness, but
by a nation in a distinct kingdom established for this purpose, that there
those things might be figuratively predicted of Christ which are now in
reality fulfilled, and the prophets might foretell in writing what the
apostles now exhibit in their preaching.
7. Let us suppose, then, a conversation with a heathen inquirer, in
which Faustus described us as making a poor appearance, though his own
appearance was much more deplorable. If we say to the heathen, Believe in
Christ, for He is God, and, on his asking for evidence, produce the
authority of the prophets, if he says that he does not believe the
prophets, because they are Hebrew and he is a Gentile, we can prove the
truth of the prophets from the actual fulfillment of their prophecies. He
could scarcely be ignorant of the persecutions suffered by the early
Christians from the kings of this world; or if he was ignorant, he Could be
informed from history and the records of imperial laws. But this is what we
find foretold long ago by the prophet, saying, "Why do the heathen rage,
and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the princes take counsel together against the Lord, and against His
Christ." The rest of the Psalm shows that this is not said of David. For
what follows might convince the most stubborn unbeliever: "The Lord said
unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten Thee. Ask of me, and I
will give Thee the heathen for Thine inheritance, and the ends of the earth
for Thy possession." (1) This never happened to the Jews, whose king, David
was, but is now plainly fulfilled in the subjection of all nations to the
name of Christ. This and many similar prophecies, which it would take too
long to quote, would surely impress the mind of the inquirer. He would see
these very kings of the earth now happily subdued by Christ, and all
nations serving Him; and he would hear the words of the Psalm in which this
was so long before predicted: "All the kings of the earth shall bow down to
Him; all nations shall serve Him.'' (2) And if he were to read the whole of
that Psalm, Which is figuratively applied to Solomon, he would find that
Christ is the true King of peace, for Solomon means peaceful; and he would
find many things in the Psalm applicable to Christ, which have no reference
at all to the literal King Solomon. Then there is that other Psalm where
God is spoken of as anointed by God, the very word anointed pointing to
Christ, showing that Christ is God, for God is represented as being
anointed. (3) In reading what is said in this Psalm of Christ and of the
Church, he would find that what is there foretold is fulfilled in the
present state of the world. He would see the idols of the nations perishing
from off the earth, and he would find that this is predicted by the
prophets, as in Jeremiah, "Then shall ye say unto them, The gods that have
not made the heavens and the earth shall perish from the earth, and from
under heaven;" (4) and again, "O Lord, my strength, and my fortress, and my
refuge in the day of affliction, the Gentiles shall come unto Thee from the
ends of the earth, and shall say, Surely our fathers have inherited lies,
vanity, and things wherein there is no profit. Shall a man make gods unto
himself, and they are no gods? Therefore, behold, I will at that time cause
them to know, I will cause them to know mine hand and my might; and they
shall know that I am the Lord." (5) Hearing these prophecies, and seeing
their actual fulfillment, I need not say that he would be affected; for we
know by experience how the hearts of believers are confirmed by seeing
ancient predictions now receiving their accomplishment.
8. In the same prophet the inquirer would find clear proof that Christ
is not merely one of the great men that have appeared in the world. For
Jeremiah goes on to say: "Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and
maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord: for he shall
be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but
shall inhabit the parched places of the wilderness, in a salt land not
inhabited. Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the
Lord is: for he shall be as a tree beside the water, that spreadeth out its
roots by the river: he shall not fear when heat cometh, but his leaf shall
be green; he shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall
cease from yielding fruit." (6) On hearing this curse pronounced in the
figurative language of prophecy on him that trusts in man, and the blessing
in similar style on him that trusts in God, the inquirer might have doubts
about our doctrine, in which we teach not only that Christ is God, so that
our trust is not in man, but also that He is man because He took, our
nature. So some err by denying Christ's humanity, while they allow His
divinity. Others, again, assert His humanity, but deny His divinity, and so
either become infidels or incur the guilt of trusting in man. The inquirer,
then, might say that the prophet says only that Christ is God, without any
reference to His human nature; whereas, in our apostolic doctrine, Christ
is not only God in whom we may safely trust, but the Mediator between God
and man--the man Jesus. The prophet explains this in the words in which he
seems to check himself, and to supply the omission: "His heart," he says
"is sorrowful throughout; and He is man, and who shall know Him?" (1) He is
man, in order that in the form of a servant He might heal the hard in
heart, and that they might acknowledge as God Him who became man for their
sakes, that their trust might be not in man, but in God-man. He is man
taking the form of a servant. And who shall know Him? For "He was in the
form of God, and thought it not robbery to be equal to God.'' (2) He is
man, for "the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us." And who shall know
Him? For "in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the
Word was God." (3) And truly His heart was sorrowful throughout. For even
as regards His own disciples His heart was sorrowful, when He said, "Have I
been so long time with you, and yet have ye not known me?" "Have I been so
long time with you" answers to the words "He is man," and "Have ye not
known me?" to "Who shall know Him?" And the person is none other but He who
says, "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." (4) So that our trust is
not in man, to be under the curse of the prophet, but in God-man, that is,
in the Son of God, the Saviour Jesus Christ, the Mediator between God and
man. In the form of a servant the Father is greater than He; in the form of
God He is equal with the Father.
9. In Isaiah we read: "The pride of man shall be brought low; and the
Lord alone shall be exalted in that day. And they shall hide the
workmanship of their hands in the clefts of the rocks, and in dens and
caves of the earth, from fear of the Lord, and from the glory of His power,
when He shall arise to shake terribly the earth. For in that day a man
shall cast away his idols of gold and silver, which they have made to
worship, as useless and hurtful." (5) Perhaps the inquirer himself, who, as
Faustus supposes, would laugh and say that he does not believe the Hebrew
prophets, has hid idols made with hands in some cleft, or cave, or den. Or
he may know a friend, or neighbor, or fellow-citizen who has done this from
the fear of the Lord, who by the severe prohibition of the kings of the
earth, now serving and bowing down to him, as the prophet predicted, shakes
the earth, that is, breaks the stubborn heart of worldly men. The inquirer
is not likely to disbelieve the Hebrew prophets, when he finds their
predictions fulfilled, perhaps in his own person.
10. One might rather fear that the inquirer, in the midst of such
copious evidence, would say that the Christians composed those writings
when the events described had already begun to take place, in order that
those occurrences might appear to be not due to a merely human purpose, but
as if divinely foretold. One might fear this, were it not for the widely
spread and widely known people of the Jews; that Cain, with the mark that
he should not be killed by any one; that Ham, the servant of his brethren,
carrying as a load the books for their instruction. From the Jewish
manuscripts we prove that these things were not written by us to suit the
event, but were long ago published and preserved as prophecies in the
Jewish nation. These prophecies are now explained in their accomplishment:
for even what is obscure in them--because these things happened to them as
an example, and were written for our benefit, on whom the ends of the world
are come--is now made plain; and what was hidden in the shadows of the
future is now visible in the light of actual experience.
11. The inquirer might bring forward as a difficulty the fact that
those in whose books these prophecies are found are not united with us in
the gospel. But when convinced that this also is foretold, he would feel
how strong the evidence is. The prophecies of the unbelief of the Jews no
one can avoid seeing, no one can pretend to be blind to them. No one can
doubt that Isaiah spoke of the Jews when he said, "The ox knoweth his
owner, and the ass his master's crib; but Israel hath not known, and my
people hath not considered ;" (6) or again, in the words quoted by the
apostle, "I have stretched out my hands all the day to a wicked and
gainsaying people;" (7) and especially where he says, "God has given them
the spirit of remorse, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they
should not hear, and should not understand," (8) and many similar passages.
If the inquirer objected that it was not the fault of the Jews if God
blinded them so that they did not know Christ, we should try in the
simplest manner possible to make him understand that this blindness is the
just punishment of other secret sins known to God. We should prove that the
apostle recognizes this principle when he says of some persons, "God gave
them up to the lusts of their own hearts, and to a reprobate mind, to do
things not convenient;" (1) and that the prophets themselves speak of this.
For, to revert to the words of Jeremiah, "He is man, and who shall know
Him?" lest it should be an excuse for the Jews that they did not know,--
for if they had known, as the apostle says, "they would not have crucified
the Lord of glory," (2) --the prophet goes on to show that their ignorance
was the result of secret criminality; for he says: "I the Lord search the
heart and try the reins, to give to every one according to his ways, and
according to the fruits of his doings."
12. If the next difficulty in the mind of the inquirer arose from the
divisions and heresies among those called Christians, he would learn that
this too is taken notice of by the prophets. For, as if it was natural
that, after being satisfied about the blindness of the Jews, this objection
from the divisions among Christians should occur, Jeremiah, observing this
order in his prophecy, immediately adds in the passage already quoted: "The
partridge is clamorous, gathering what it has not brought forth, making
riches without judgment." For the partridge is notoriously quarrelsome, and
is often caught from its eagerness in quarreling. So the heretics discuss
not to find the truth, but with a dogged determination to gain the victory
one way or another, that they may gather, as the prophet says, what they
have not brought forth. For those whom they lead astray are Christians
already born of the gospel, whom the Christian profession of the heretics
misleads. Thus they make riches not with judgment, but with inconsiderate
haste. For they do not consider that the followers whom they gather as
their riches are taken from the genuine original Christian society, and
deprived of its benefits; and as the apostle describes these heretics in
the words: "As Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so they also resist the
truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith. But they shall
proceed no further: for their folly shall be manifest to all men, as theirs
also was." (3) So the prophet goes on to say of the partridge, which
gathers what it has not brought forth: "In the midst of his days they shall
leave him, and in the end he shall be a fool;" that is, he who at first
misled people by a promising display of superior wisdom, shall be a fool,
that is, shall be seen to be a fool. He will be seen when his folly is
manifest to all men, and to those to whom he was at first a wise man he
will then be a fool.
13. As if anticipating that the inquirer would ask next by what plain
mark a young disciple, not yet able to distinguish the truth among so many
errors, might find the true Church of Christ. since the clear fulfillment
of so many predictions compelled him to believe in Christ, the prophet
answers this question in what follows, and teaches that the Church of
Christ, which he describes prophetically, is conspicuously visible. His
words are: "A glorious high throne is our sanctuary." (4) This glorious
throne is the Church of which the apostle says: "The temple of God is holy,
which temple ye are." (5) The Lord also, foreseeing the conspicuousness of
the Church as a help to young disciples who might be misled, says, "A city
that is set on an hill cannot be hid." (6) Since, then, a glorious high
throne is our sanctuary, no attention is to be paid to those who would lead
us into sectarianism, saying, "Lo, here is Christ," or "Lo there." Lo here,
lo there, speaks of division; but the true city is on a mountain, and the
mountain is that which, as we read in the prophet Daniel, grew from a
little stone till it filled the whole earth. (7) And no attention should be
paid to those who, professing some hidden mystery confined to a small
number, say, Behold, He is in the chamber; behold, in the desert: for a
city set on an hill cannot be hid, and a glorious high throne is our
sanctuary.
14. After considering these instances of the fulfillment of prophecy
about kings and people acting as persecutors, and then becoming believers,
about the destruction of idols, about the blindness of the Jews, about
their testimony to the writings which they have preserved, about the folly
of heretics, about the dignity of the Church of true and genuine
Christians, the inquirer would most reasonably receive the testimony of
these prophets about the divinity of Christ. No doubt, if we were to begin
by urging him to believe prophecies yet unfulfilled, he might justly
answer, What have I to do with these prophets, of whose truth I have no
evidence? But, in view of the manifest accomplishment of so many
remarkable predictions, no candid person would despise either the things
which were thought worthy of being predicted in those early times with so
much solemnity, or those who made the predictions. To none can we trust
more safely, as regards either events long past or those still future, than
to men whose words are supported by the evidence of so many notable
predictions having been fulfilled.
15. If any truth about God or the Son of God is taught or predicted in
the Sibyl or Sibyls, or in Orpheus, or in Hermes, if there ever was such a
person, or in any other heathen poets, or theologians, or sages, or
philosophers, it may be useful for the refutation of Pagan error, but
cannot lead us to believe in these writers. For while they spoke, because
they could not help it, of the God whom we worship, they either taught
their fellow-countrymen to worship idols and demons, or allowed them to do
so without daring to protest against it. But our sacred writers, with the
authority and assistance of God, were the means of establishing and
preserving among their people a government under which heathen customs were
condemned as sacrilege. If any among this people fell into idolatry or
demon-worship, they were either punished by the laws, or met by the awful
denunciations of the prophets. They worshipped one God, the maker of heaven
and earth They had rites; but these rites were prophetic, or symbolical of
things to come, and were to cease on the appearance of the things
signified. The whole state was one great prophet, with its king and priest
symbolically anointed which was discontinued, not by the wish of the Jews
themselves, who were in ignorance through unbelief, but only on the coming
of Him who was God, anointed with spiritual grace above His fellows, the
holy of holies, the true King who should govern us, the true Priest who
should offer Himself for us. In a word, the predictions of heathen
ingenuity regarding Christ's coming are as different from sacred prophecy
as the confession of devils from the proclamation of angels.
16. By such arguments, which might be expanded if we were discussing
with one brought up in heathenism, and might be supported by proofs in
still greater number, the inquirer whom Faustus has brought before us would
certainly be led to believe, unless he preferred his sins to his salvation.
As a believer, he would be taken to be cherished in the bosom of the
Catholic Church, and would be taught in due course the conduct required of
him. He would see many who do not practise the required duties; but this
would not shake his faith, even though these people should belong to the
same Church and partake of the same sacraments as himself. He would
understand that few share in the inheritance of God, while many partake in
its outward signs; that few are united in holiness of life, and in the gift
of love shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given to us,
which is a hidden spring that no stranger can approach; and that many join
in the solemnity of the sacrament, which he that eats and drinks unworthily
eats and drinks judgment to himself, while he who neglects to eat it shall
not have life in him, (1) and so shall never reach eternal life. He will
understand, too, that the good are called few as compared with the
multitude of the evil, but that as scattered over the world there are very
many growing among the tares, and mixed with the chaff, till the day of
harvest and of purging. As this is taught in the Gospel, so is it foretold
by the prophets. We read, "As a lily among thorns, so is my beloved among
the daughters;'' (2) and again, "I have dwelt in the tabernacles of Kedar;
peaceful among them that hated peace; " (3) and again, "Mark in the
forehead those who sigh and cry for the iniquities of my people, which are
done in the midst of them." (4) The inquirer would be confirmed by such
passages; and being now a fellow-citizen with the saints and of the
household of God, no longer an alien from Israel, but an Israelite indeed,
in whom is no guile, would learn to utter from a guileless heart the words
which follow in the passage of Jeremiah already quoted, "O Lord, the
patience of Israel: let all that forsake Thee be dismayed." After speaking
of the partridge that is clamorous, and gathers what it has not brought
forth; and after extolling the city set on an hill which cannot be hid, to
prevent heretics from drawing men away from the Catholic Church; after the
words, "A glorious high throne is our sanctuary," he seems to ask himself,
What do we make of all those evil men who are found mixed with the Church,
and who become more numerous as the Church extends, and as all nations are
united in Christ? And then follow the words, "O Lord, the patience of
Israel." Patience is necessary to obey the command, "Suffer both to grow
together till the harvest.'' (5) Impatience towards the evil might lead to
forsaking the good, who in the strict sense are the body of Christ, and to
forsake them would be to forsake Him. So the prophet goes on to say, "Let
all that forsake Thee be dismayed; let those who have departed to the earth
be confounded." The earth is man trusting in himself, and inducing others
to trust in him. So the prophet adds: "Let them be overthrown, for they
have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of life." This is the cry of the
partridge, that it has got the fountain of life, and will give it; and so
men are gathered to it, and depart from Christ, as if Christ, whose name
they had professed, had not fulfilled His promise. The partridge gathers
those whom it has not brought forth. And in order to do this, it declares,
The salvation which Christ promises is with me; I will give it. In
opposition to this the prophet says: "Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be
healed; save me, and I shall be saved." So we read in the apostle, "Let no
man glory in men;" (1) or in the words of the prophet, "Thou art my
praise." (2) Such is a specimen of instruction in apostolic and prophetic
doctrine, by which a man may be built on the foundation of the apostles and
prophets.
17. Faustus has not told us how he would prove the divinity of Christ
to the heathen, whom he makes to say: I believe neither the prophets in
support of Christ, nor Christ in support of the prophets. It would be
absurd to suppose that such a man would believe what Christ says of
Himself, when he disbelieves what He says of others. For if he thinks Him
unworthy of credit in one case, he must think Him so in all, or at least
more so when speaking of Himself than when speaking of others. Perhaps,
failing this, Faustus would read to him the Sibyls and Orpheus, and any
heathen prophecies about Christ that he could find. But how could he do
this, when he confesses that he knows none? His words are: "If, as is said,
any prophecies of Christ are to be found in the Sibyl, or in Hermes, called
Trismegistus, or Orpheus, or any heathen poet." How could he read writings
of which he knows nothing, and which he supposes to exist only from report,
to one who will not believe either the prophets or Christ? What, then,
would be do? Would he bring forward Manichaeus as a witness to Christ? The
opposite of this is what the Manichaeans do. They take advantage of the
widespread fragrance of the name of Christ to gain acceptance for
Manichaeus, that the edge of their poisoned cup may be sweetened with this
honey. Taking hold of the promises of Christ to His disciples that He would
send the Paraclete, that is, the Comforter or Advocate, they say that this
Paraclete is Manichaeus, or in Manichaeus, and so steal an entrance into
the minds of men who do not know when He who was promised by Christ really
came. Those who have read the canonical book called the Acts of the
Apostles find a reference to Christ's promise, and an account of its
fulfillment. Faustus, then, has no proof to give to the inquirer. It is not
likely that any one will be so infatuated as to take the authority of
Manichaeus when he rejects that of Christ. Would he not reply in derision,
if not in anger, Why do you ask me to believe Persian books, when you
forbid me to believe Hebrew books? The Manichaean has no hold on the
inquirer, unless he is already in some way convinced of the truth of
Christianity. When he finds him willing to believe Christ, then he deludes
him with the representation of Christ given by Manichaeus. So the partridge
gathers what it has not brought forth. When will you whom he gathers leave
him? When will you see him to be a fool. who tells you that Hebrew
testimony is worthless in the case of unbelievers, and superfluous to
believers?
18. If believers are to throw away all the books which have led them to
believe, I see no reason why they should continue reading the Gospel
itself. The Gospel, too, must be worthless to this inquirer, who, according
to Faustus' pitiful supposition, rejects with ridicule the authority of
Christ. And to the believer it must be superfluous, if true notices of
Christ are superfluous to believers. And if the Gospel should be read by
the believer, that he may not forget what he has believed, so should the
prophets, that he may not forget why he believed. For if he forgets this
his faith cannot be firm. By this principle, you should throw away the
books of Manichaeus, on the authority of which you already believe that
light--that is, God--fought with darkness, and that, in order to bind
darkness, the light was first swallowed up and bound, and polluted and
mangled by darkness, to be restored, and liberated, and purified, and
healed by your eating, for which you are rewarded by not being condemned to
the mass of darkness for ever, along with that part of the light which
cannot be extricated. This fiction is sufficiently published by your
practice and your words. Why do you seek for the testimony of books, and
add to the embarrassment of your God by the consumption of strength in the
needless task of writing manuscripts? Burn all your parchments, with their
finely-ornamented binding; so you will be rid of a useless burden, and your
God who suffers confinement in the volume will be set free. What a mercy it
would be to the members of your God, if you could boil your books and eat
them! There might be a difficulty, however, from the prohibition of animal
food. Then the writing must share in the impurity of the sheepskin. Indeed,
you are to blame for this, for, like what you say was done in the first war
between light and darkness, you brought what was clean in the pen in
contact with the uncleanness of the parchment. Or perhaps, for the sake of
the colors, we may put it the other way; and so the darkness would be
yours, in the ink which you brought against the light of the white pages.
If these remarks irritate you, you should rather be angry with yourselves
for believing doctrines of which these are the necessary consequences. As
for the books of the apostles and prophets, we read them as a record of our
faith, to encourage our hope and animate our love. These books are in
perfect harmony with one another; and their harmony, like the music of a
heavenly trumpet, wakens us from the torpor of worldliness, and urges us on
to the prize of our high calling. The apostle, after quoting from the
prophets the words, "The reproaches of them that reproached Thee fell on
me," goes on to speak of the benefit of reading the prophets: "For
whatsoever things were written beforetime were written for our learning;
that we, through patience and comfort of the Scriptures, might have hope."
(1) If Faustus denies this, we can only say with Paul, "If any one shall
preach to you another doctrine than that ye have received, let him be
accursed.'' (2)
BOOK XIV: FAUSTUS ABHORS MOSES FOR THE AWFUL CURSE HE HAS PRONOUNCED UPON
CHRIST. AUGUSTIN EXPOUNDS THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF THE SUFFERING SAVIOUR
BY COMPARING OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT PASSAGES.
1. FAUSTUS said: If you ask why we do not believe Moses, it is on
account of our love and reverence for Christ. The most reckless man cannot
regard with pleasure a person who has cursed his father. So we abhor Moses,
not so much for his blasphemy of everything human and divine, as for the
awful curse he has pronounced upon Christ the Son of God, who for our
salvation hung on the tree. Whether Moses did this intentionally or not is
your concern. Either way, he cannot be excused, or considered worthy of
belief. His words are, "Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree." (1)
You tell me to believe this-man, though, if he was inspired, he must have
cursed Christ knowingly and intentionally; and if he did it in ignorance,
he cannot have been divine. Take either alternative. Moses was no prophet,
and while cursing in his usual manner, he fell ignorantly into the sin of
blasphemy against God. Or he was indeed divine, and foresaw the future; and
from ill-will to our salvation, he directs the venom of his malediction
against Him who was to accomplish that salvation on a tree. He who thus
injures the Son cannot surely have seen or known the Father. He who knew
nothing of the final ascension of the Son, cannot surely have foretold His
advent. Moreover, the extent of the injury inflicted by this curse is to be
considered. For it denounces all the righteous men and martyrs, and
sufferers of every kind, who have died in this way, as Peter and Andrew,
and the rest. Such a cruel denunciation could never have come from Moses if
he had been a prophet, unless he was a bitter enemy of these sufferers.
For he pronounces them cursed not only of men but of God. What hope, then,
of blessing remains to Christ, or his apostles, or to us if we happen to be
crucified for Christ's sake? It indicates great thoughtlessness in Moses,
and the want of all divine inspiration, that he overlooked the fact that
men are hung on a tree for very different reasons, some for their crimes,
and others who suffer in the cause of God and of righteousness. In this
thoughtless way lie heaps all together without distinction under the same
curse; whereas if he had had any sense, not to say inspiration, if he
wished to single out the punishment of the cross from all others as
specially detestable, he would have said, Cursed is every guilty and
impious person that hangeth on a tree. This would have made a distinction
between the guilty and the innocent. And yet even this would have been
incorrect, for Christ took the malefactor from the cross along with himself
into the Paradise of his Father. What becomes of the curse on every one
that hangeth on a tree? Was Barabbas, the notorious robber, who certainly
was not hung on a tree, but was set free from prison at the request of the
Jews, more blessed than the thief who accompanied Christ from the cross to
heaven? Again, there is a curse on the man that worships the sun or the
moon. Now if under a heathen monarch I am forced to worship the sun, and if
from fear of this curse I refuse, shall I incur this other curse by
suffering the punishment of crucifixion? Perhaps Moses was in the habit of
cursing everything good. We think no more of his denunciation than of an
old wife's scolding. So we find him pronouncing a curse on all youths of
both sexes, when he says: "Cursed is every one that raiseth not up a seed
in Israel." (1) This is aimed directly at Jesus, who, according to you, was
born among the Jews, and raised up no seed to continue his family. It
points too at his disciples, some of whom he took from the wives they had
married, and some who were unmarried he forbade to take wives. We have good
reason, you see, for expressing our abhorrence of the daring style in which
Moses hurls his maledictions against Christ, against light, against
chastity, against everything divine. You cannot make much of the
distinction between hanging on a tree and being crucified, as you often try
to do by way of apology; for Paul repudiates such a distinction when he
says, "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a
curse for us; as it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a
tree." (2)
2. Augustin replied: The pious Faustus is pained because Christ is
cursed by Moses. His love for Christ makes him hate Moses. Before
explaining the sacred import and the piety of the words, "Cursed is every
one that hangeth on a tree," I would ask these pious people why they are
angry with Moses, since his curse does not affect their Christ. If Christ
hung on the tree, He must have been fastened to it with nails, the marks of
which He showed to His doubting disciple after His resurrection.
Accordingly He must have had a vulnerable and mortal body, which the
Manichaeans deny. Call the wounds and the marks false, and it follows that
His hanging on the tree was false. This Christ is not affected by the
curse, and there is no occasion for this indignation against the person
uttering the curse. If they pretend to be angry with Moses for cursing what
they call the false death of Christ, what are we to think of themselves,
who do not curse Christ, but, what is much worse, make Him a liar? If it is
wrong to curse mortality, it is a much more heinous offense to sully the
purity of truth. But let us make these heretical cavils an occasion for
explaining this mystery to believers.
3. Death comes upon man as the punishment of sin, and so is itself
called sin; not that a man sins in dying, but because sin is the cause of
his death. So the word tongue, which properly means the fleshy substance
between the teeth and the palate, is applied in a secondary sense to the
result of the tongue's action. In this sense we speak of a Latin tongue and
a Greek tongue. The word hand, too, means both the members of the body we
use in working, and the writing which is done with the hand. In this sense
we speak of writing as being proved to be the hand of a certain person, or
of recognizing the hand of a friend. The writing is certainly not a member
of the body, but the name hand is given to it because it is the hand that
does it. So sin means both a bad action deserving punishment, and death the
consequence of sin. Christ has no sin in the sense of deserving death, but
He bore for our sakes sin in the sense of death as brought on human nature
by sin. This is what hung on the tree; this is what was cursed by Moses.
Thus was death condemned that its reign might cease, and cursed that it
might be destroyed. By Christ's taking our sin in this sense, its
condemnation is our deliverance, while to remain in subjection to sin is to
be condemned.
4. What does Faustus find strange in the curse pronounced on sin, on
death, and on human mortality, which Christ had on account of man's sin,
though He Himself was sinless? Christ's body was derived from Adam, for His
mother the Virgin Mary was a child of Adam. But God said in Paradise, "On
the day that ye eat, ye shall surely die." This is the curse which hung on
the tree. A man may deny that Christ was cursed who denies that He died.
But the man who believes that Christ died, and acknowledges that death is
the fruit of sin, and is itself called sin, will understand who it is that
is cursed by Moses, when he hears the apostle saying "For our old man is
crucified with Him." (3) The apostle boldly says of Christ, "He was made a
curse for us;" for he could also venture to say, "He died for all." "He
died," and "He was cursed," are the same. Death is the effect of the curse;
and all sin is cursed, whether it means the action which merits punishment,
or the punishment which follows. Christ, though guiltless, took our
punishment, that He might cancel our guilt, and do away with our
punishment.
5. These things are not my conjectures, but are affirmed constantly by
the apostle, with an emphasis sufficient to rouse the careless and to
silence the gainsayers. "God," he says, "sent His Son in the likeness of
sinful flesh, that by sin He might condemn sin in the flesh." (4) Christ's
flesh was not sinful, because it was not born of Mary by ordinary
generation; but because death is the effect of sin, this flesh, in being
mortal, had the likeness of sinful flesh. This is called sin in the
following words, "that by sin He might condemn sin in the flesh." Again he
says: "He hath made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be
made the righteousness of God in Him." (1) Why should not Moses call
accursed what Paul calls sin? In this prediction the prophet claims a share
with the apostle in the reproach of the heretics. For whoever finds fault
with the word cursed in the prophet, must find fault with the word sin in
the apostle; for curse and sin go together.
6. If we read, "Cursed of God is every one that hangeth on a tree," the
addition of the words "of God" creates no difficulty. For had not God hated
sin and our death, He would not have sent His Son to bear and to abolish
it. And there is nothing strange in God's cursing what He hates. For His
readiness to give us the immortality which will be had at the coming of
Christ, is in proportion to the compassion with which He hated our death
when it hung on the cross at the death of Christ. And if Moses curses every
one that hangeth on a tree, it is certainly not because he did not foresee
that righteous men would be crucified, but rather because He foresaw that
heretics would deny the death of the Lord to be real, and would try to
disprove the application of this curse to Christ, in order that they might
disprove the reality of His death. For if Christ's death was not real,
nothing cursed hung on the cross when He was crucified, for the crucifixion
cannot have been real. Moses cries from the distant past to these heretics:
Your evasion in denying the reality of the death of Christ is useless.
Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree; not this one or that, but
absolutely every one. What! the Son of God? Yes, assuredly. This is the
very thing you object to, and that you are so anxious to evade. You will
not allow that He was cursed for us, because you will not allow that He
died for us. Exemption from Adam's curse implies exemption from his death.
But as Christ endured death as man, and for man; so also, Son of God as He
was, ever living in His own righteousness, but dying for our offences, He
submitted as man, and for man, to bear the curse which accompanies death.
And as He died in the flesh which He took in bearing our punishment, so
also, while ever blessed in His own righteousness, He was cursed for our
offences, in the death which He suffered in bearing our punishment. And
these words "every one" are intended to check the ignorant officiousness
which would deny the reference of the curse to Christ, and so, because the
curse goes along with death, would lead to the denial of the true death of
Christ.
7. The believer in the true doctrine of the gospel will understand that
Christ is not reproached by Moses when he speaks of Him as cursed, not in
His divine majesty, but as hanging on the tree as our substitute, bearing
our punishment, any more than He is praised by the Manichaeans when they
deny that He had a mortal body, so as to suffer real death. In the curse of
the prophet there is praise of Christ's humility, while in the pretended
regard of the heretics there is a charge of falsehood. If, then, you deny
that Christ was cursed, you must deny that He died; and then you have to
meet, not Moses, but the apostles. Confess that He died, and you may also
confess that He, without taking our sin, took its punishment. Now the
punishment of sin cannot be blessed, or else it would be a thing to be
desired. The curse is pronounced by divine justice, and it will be well for
us if we are redeemed from it. Confess then that Christ died, and you may
confess that He bore the curse for us; and that when Moses said, "Cursed is
every one that hangeth on a tree," he said in fact, To hang on a tree is to
be mortal, or actually to die. He might have said, "Cursed is every one
that is mortal," or "Cursed is every one dying;" but the prophet knew that
Christ would suffer on the cross, and that heretics would say that He hung
on the tree only in appearance, without really dying. So he exclaims,
Cursed; meaning that He really died. He knew that the death of sinful man,
which Christ though sinless bore, came from that curse, "If ye touch it, ye
shall surely die." Thus also, the serpent hung on the pole was intended to
show that Christ did not feign death, but that the real death into which
the serpent by his fatal counsel cast mankind was hung on the cross of
Christ's passion. The Manichaeans turn away from the view of this real
death, and so they are not healed of the poison of the serpent, as we read
that in the wilderness as many as looked were healed.
8. It is true, some ignorantly distinguish between hanging on a tree
and being crucified. So some explain this passage as referring to Judas.
But how do they know whether he hung himself from wood or from stone?
Faustus is right in saying that the apostle obliges us to refer the words
to Christ. Such ignorant Catholics are the prey of the Manichaeans. Such
they get hold of and entangle in their sophistry. Such were we when we fell
into this heresy, and adhered to it. Such were we, when, not by our own
strength, but by the mercy of God, we were rescued.
9. What attacks on divine things does Faustus speak of when he charges
Moses with sparing nothing human or divine? He makes the charge without
stopping to prove it. We know, on the contrary, that Moses gave due praise
to everything really divine, and in human affairs was a just ruler,
considering his times and the grace of his dispensation. It will be time to
prove this when we see any proof of Faustus' charges. It may be clever to
make such charges cautiously, but there is great incaution in the
cleverness which ruins its possessor. It is good to be clever on the side
of truth, but it is a poor thing to be clever in opposition to the truth.
Faustus says that Moses spared nothing human or divine; not that he spared
no god or man. If he said that Moses did not spare God, it could easily be
shown in reply that Moses everywhere does honor to the true God, whom he
declares to be the Maker of heaven and earth. Again, if he said that Moses
spared none of the gods, he would betray himself to Christians as a
worshipper of the false gods that Moses denounces; and so he would be
prevented from gathering what he has not brought forth, by the brood taking
refuge under the wings of the Mother Church. Faustus tries to ensnare the
babes, by saying that Moses spared nothing divine, wishing not to frighten
Christians with a profession of belief in the gods, which would be plainly
opposed to Christianity, and at the same time appearing to take the side of
the Pagans against us; for they know that Moses has said many plain and
pointed things against the idols and gods of the heathen, which are devils.
10. If the Manichaeans disapprove of Moses on this account, let them
confess that they are worshippers of idols and devils. This, indeed, may be
the case without their being aware of it. The apostle tells us that "in the
last days some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing
spirits, and to doctrines of devils, speaking lies in hypocrisy." (1)
Whence but from devils, who are fond of falsehood, could the idea have come
that Christ's sufferings and death were unreal, and that the marks which He
showed of His wounds were unreal? Are these not the doctrines of lying
devils, which teach that Christ, the Truth itself, was a deceiver? Besides,
the Manichaeans openly teach the worship, if not of devils, still of
created things, which the apostle condemns in the words, "They worshipped
and served the creature rather than the Creator." (2)
11. As there is an unconscious worship of idols and devils in the
fanciful legends of the Manichaeans, so they knowingly serve the creature
in their worship of the sun and moon. And in what they call their service
of the Creator they really serve their own fancy, and not the Creator at
all. For they deny that God created those things which the apostle plainly
declares to be the creatures of God, when he says of food, "Every creature
of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it is received with
thanksgiving." (3) This is sound doctrine, which you cannot bear, and so
turn to fables. The apostle praises the creature of God, but forbids the
worship of it; and in the same way Moses gives due praise to the sun and
moon, while at the same time he states the fact of their having been made
by God, and placed by Him in their courses, --the sun to rule the day, and
the moon to rule the night. Probably you think Moses spared nothing divine,
simply because he forbade the worship of the sun and moon, whereas you turn
towards them in all directions in your worship. But the sun and moon take
no pleasure in your false praises. It is the devil, the transgressor, that
delights in false praises. The powers of heaven, who have not fallen by
sin, wish their Creator to be praised in them; and their true praise is
that which does no wrong to their Creator. He is wronged when they are said
to be His members, or parts of His substance. For He is perfect and
independent, underived, not divided or scattered in space, but unchangeably
self-existent, self-sufficient, and blessed in Himself. In the abundance of
His goodness, He by His word spoke, and they were made: He commanded, and
they were created. And if earthly bodies are good, of which the apostle
spoke when he said that no food is unclean, because every creature of God
is good, much more the heavenly bodies, of which the sun and moon are the
chief; for the apostle says again, "The glory of the terrestrial is one,
and the glory of the celestial is another." (4)
12. Moses, then, casts no reproach on the sun and moon when he
prohibits their worship. He praises them as heavenly bodies; while he also
praises God as the Creator of both heavenly and earthly, and will not allow
of His being insulted by giving the worship due to Him to those who are
praised only as dependent upon Him. Faustus prides himself on the
ingenuity of his objection to the curse pronounced by Moses on the worship
of the sun and moon. He says, "If under a heathen monarch I am forced to
worship the sun, and if from fear of this curse I refuse, shall I incur
this other curse by suffering the punishment of crucifixion?" No heathen
monarch is forcing you to worship the sun: nor would the sun itself force
you, if it were reigning on the earth, as neither does it now wish to be
worshipped. As the Creator bears with blasphemers till the judgment, so
these celestial bodies bear with their deluded worshippers till the
judgment of the Creator. It should be observed that no Christian monarch
could enforce the worship of the sun. Faustus instances a heathen monarch,
for he knows that their worship of the sun is a heathen custom. Yet, in
spite of this opposition to Christianity, the partridge takes the name of
Christ, that it may gather what it has not brought forth. The answer to
this objection is easy, and the force of truth will soon break the horns of
this dilemma. Suppose, then, a Christian threatened by royal authority with
being hung on a tree if he will not worship the sun. If I avoid, you say,
the curse pronounced by the law on the worshipper of the sun, I incur the
curse pronounced by the same law on him that hangs on a tree. So you will
be in a difficulty; only that you worship the sun without being forced by
anybody. But a true Christian, built on the foundation of the apostles and
prophets, distinguishes the curses, and the reasons of them. He sees that
one refers to the mortal body which is hung on the tree, and the other to
the mind which worships the sun. For though the body. bows in worship,--
which also is a heinous offence,--the belief or imagination of the object
worshipped is an act of the mind. The death implied in both curses is in
one case the death of the body, and in the other the death of the soul. It
is better to have the curse in bodily death,--which will be removed in the
resurrection,--than the curse in the death of the soul, condemning it along
with the body to eternal fire. The Lord solves this difficulty in the
words: "Fear not them that kill the body, but cannot kill the soul; but
fear him who has power to cast both soul and body into hell-fire." (1) In
other words, fear not the curse of bodily death, which in time is removed;
but fear the curse of spiritual death, which leads to the eternal torment
of both soul and body. Be assured, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a
tree is no old wife's railing, but a prophetical utterance. Christ, by the
curse, takes the curse away, as He takes away death by death, and sin by
sin. In the words, "Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree," there is
no more blasphemy than in the words of the apostle, "He died," or, "Our old
man was crucified along with Him," (2) or, "By sin He condemned sin," (3)
or, "He made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin," (4) and in many similar
passages. Confess, then, that when you exclaim against the curse of Christ,
you exclaim against His death. If this is not an old wife's railing on your
part, it is devilish delusion, which makes you deny the death of Christ
because your own souls are dead. You teach people that Christ's death was
feigned, making Christ your leader in the falsehood with which you use the
name of Christian to mislead men.
13. If Faustus thinks Moses an enemy of continence or virginity because
he says, "Cursed is everyone that raiseth not up seed in Israel," let them
hear the words of Isaiah: "Thus saith the Lord to all eunuchs; To them who
keep my precepts, and choose the things that please me, and regard my
covenant, will I give in my house and within my walls a place and a name
better than of sons and of daughters; I will give them an everlasting name,
that shall not be cut off." (5) Though our adversaries disagree with Moses.
if they agree with Isaiah it is something gained. It is enough for us to
know that the same God spoke by both Moses and Isaiah, and that every one
is cursed who raiseth not up seed in Israel, both then when begetting
children in marriage (for the continuation of the people was a civil duty),
and now because no one spiritually born should rest content without seeking
spiritual increase in the production of Christians by preaching Christ,
each one according to his ability. So that the times of both Testaments are
briefly described in the words, "Cursed is every one that raiseth not up
seed in Israel.'' (6)
BOOK XV: FAUSTUS REJECTS THE OLD TESTAMENT BECAUSE IT LEAVES NO ROOM FOR
CHRIST. CHRIST THE ONE BRIDEGROOM SUFFICES FOR HIS BRIDE THE CHURCH.
AUGUSTIN ANSWERS AS WELL AS HE CAN, AND REPROVES THE MANICHAEANS WITH
PRESUMPTION IN CLAIMING TO BE THE BRIDE OF CHRIST.
1. FAUSTUS said: Why do we not receive the Old Testament? Because when
a vessel is full, what is poured on it is not received, but allowed to run
over; and a full stomach rejects what it cannot hold. So the Jews,
satisfied with the Old Testament, reject the New; and we who have received
the New Testament from Christ, reject the Old. You receive both because you
are only half filled with each, and the one is not completed, but corrupted
by the other. For vessels half filled should not be filled up with anything
of a different nature from what they already contain. If it contains wine,
it should be filled up with wine, honey with honey, vinegar with vinegar.
For to pour gall on honey, or water on wine, or alkalies on vinegar, is
not addition, but adulteration. This is why we do not receive the Old
Testament. Our Church, the bride of Christ, the poor bride of a rich
bridegroom, is content with the possession of her husband, and scorns the
wealth of inferior lovers, and despises the gifts of the Old Testament and
of its author, and from regard to her own character, receives only the
letters of her husband. We leave the Old Testament to your Church, that,
like a bride faithless to her spouse, delights in the letters and gifts of
another. This lover who corrupts your chastity, the God of the Hebrews in
his stone tablets promises you gold and silver, and abundance of food, and
the land of Canaan. Such low rewards have tempted you to be unfaithful to
Christ, after all the rich dowry bestowed by him. By such attractions the
God of the Hebrews gains over the bride of Christ. You must know that you
are cheated, and that these promises are false. This God is in poverty and
beggary, and cannot do what he promises. For if he cannot give these things
to the synagogue, his proper wife, who obeys him in all things like a
servant, how can he bestow them on you who are strangers, and who proudly
throw off his yoke from your necks? Go on, then, as you have begun, join
the new cloth to the old garment, put the new wine in old bottles, serve
two masters without pleasing either, make Christianity a monster, half
horse and half man; but allow us to serve only Christ, content with his
immortal dower, and imitating the apostle who says, "Our sufficiency is of
God, who I has made us able ministers of the New Testament." (1) In the God
of the Hebrews we have no interest whatever; for neither can he perform his
promises, nor do we desire that he should. The liberality of Christ has
made us indifferent to the flatteries of this stranger. This figure of the
relation of the wife to her husband is sanctioned by Paul, who says: "The
woman that has a husband is bound to her husband as long as he liveth; but
if her husband die, she is freed from the law of her husband. So, then, if
while her husband liveth she be joined to another man, she shall be called
an adulteress; but if her husband be dead, she is not an adulteress, though
she be married to another man." (2) Here he shows that there is a spiritual
adultery in being united to Christ before repudiating the author of the
law, and counting him, as it were, as dead. This applies chiefly to the
Jews who believe in Christ, and who ought to forget their former
superstition. We who have been converted to Christ front heathenism, look
upon the God of the Hebrews not merely as dead, but as never having
existed, and do not need to be told to forget him. A Jew, when he believes,
should regard Adonai as dead; a Gentile should regard his idol as dead; and
so with everything that has been held sacred before conversion. One who,
after giving up idolatry, worships both the God of the Hebrews and Christ,
is like an abandoned woman, who after the death of one husband marries two
others.
2. Augustin replied: Let all who have given their hearts to Christ say
whether they can listen patiently to these things, unless Christ Himself
enable them. Faustus, full of the new honey, rejects the old vinegar; and
Paul, full of the old vinegar, has poured out half that the new honey may
be poured in, not lobe kept, but lobe corrupted. When the apostle calls
himself a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto
the gospel of God, this is the new honey. But when he adds, "which He
promised before by His prophets in the Holy Scriptures of His Son, who was
made of the seed of David according to the flesh," (3) this is the old
vinegar. Who could bear to hear this, unless the apostle himself consoled
us by saying: "There must be heresies, that they which are approved may be
made manifest among you?" (1) Why should we repeat what we said already?
(2)--that the new cloth and the old garment, the new wine and the old
bottles, mean not two Testaments, but two lives and two hopes,--that the
relation of the two Testaments is figuratively described by the Lord when
He says: "Therefore every scribe instructed in the kingdom of God is like
an householder bringing out of his treasure things new and old." (3) The
reader may remember this as said before, or he may find it on looking back.
For if any one tries to serve God with two hopes, one of earthly felicity,
and the other of the kingdom of heaven, the two hopes cannot agree; and
when the latter is shaken by some affliction, the former will be lost too.
Thus it is said, No man can serve two masters; which Christ explains thus:
"Ye cannot serve God and Mammon." (4) But to those who rightly understand
it, the Old Testament is a prophecy of the New. Even in that ancient
people, the holy patriarchs and prophets, who understood the part they
performed, or which they were instrumental in performing, had this hope of
eternal life in the New Testament. They belonged to the New Testament,
because they understood and loved it, though revealed only in figure. Those
belonging to the Old Testament were the people who cared for nothing else
but the temporal promises, without understanding them as significant of
eternal things. But all this has already been more than enough insisted on.
3. It is amazingly bold in the impious and impure sect of the
Manichaeans to boast of being the chaste bride of Christ. All the effect of
such a boast on the really chaste members of the holy Church is to remind
them of the apostle's warning against deceivers: "I have joined you to one
husband, to present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear lest, as
the serpent deceived Eve by his guile, so your minds also should be
corrupted from the purity which is in Christ." (5) What else do those
preachers of another gospel than that which we have received try to do, but
to corrupt us from the purity which we preserve for Christ, when they
stigmatize the law of God as old, and praise their own falsehoods as new,
as if all that is new must be good, and all that is old bad? The Apostle
John, however, praises the old commandment, and the Apostle Paul bids us
avoid novelties in doctrine. As an unworthy son and servant of the Catholic
Church, the true bride of the true Christ, I too, as appointed to give out
food to my fellow-servants, would speak to her a word of counsel. Continue
ever to shun the profane errors of the Manichaeans, which have been tried
by the experience of thine own children, and condemned by their recovery.
By that heresy I was once separated from thy fellowship, and after running
into danger which ought to have been avoided, I escaped. Restored to thy
service, my experience may perhaps be profitable to thee. Unless thy true
and truthful Bridegroom, from whose side thou wert made, had obtained the
remission of sins through His own real blood, the gulf of error would have
swallowed me up; I should have become dust, and been devoured by the
serpent. Be not misled by the name of truth. The truth is in thine own
milk, and in thine own bread. They have the name only, and not the thing.
Thy full-grown children, indeed, are secure; but I speak to thy babes, my
brothers, and sons, and masters, whom thou, the virgin mother, fertile as
pure, dost cherish into life under thine anxious wings, or dost nourish
with the milk of infancy. I call upon these, thy tender offspring, not to
be seduced by noisy vanities, but rather to pronounce accursed any one that
preaches to them another gospel than that which they have received in thee.
I call upon these not to leave the true and truthful Christ, in whom are
hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge; not to forsake the abundance
of His goodness which He has laid up for them that fear Him, and has
wrought for them that trust in Him. (6) How can they expect to find
truthful words in one who preaches an untruthful Christ? Scorn the
reproaches cast on thee, for thou knowest well that the gift which thou
desirest from thy Bridegroom is eternal life, for He Himself is eternal
life.
4. It is a silly falsehood that thou hast been seduced to another God,
who promises abundance of food and the land of Canaan. For thou canst
perceive how the saints of old, who were also thy children, were
enlightened by these figures which were prophecies of thee. Thou needest
not regard the poor jest against the stone tablets, for the stony heart of
which they were in old times a figure is not in thee. For thou art an
epistle of the apostles, "written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the
living God; not on tables of stone, but on the fleshy tables of the heart."
(7) Our opponents ignorantly think that these words are in their favor, and
that the apostle finds fault with the dispensation of the Old Testament,
whereas they are the words of the prophet. This utterance of the apostles
was a fulfillment of the long anterior utterances of the prophet whom the
Manichaeans reject, for they believe the apostles without understanding
them. The prophet says: "I will take away from them the stony heart, and I
will give them a heart of flesh." (1) What is this but "Not on tables of
stones but on the fleshy tables of the heart"? For by the heart of flesh
and the fleshy tables is not meant a carnal understanding: but as flesh
feels, whereas a stone cannot, the insensibility of stone signifies an
unintelligent heart, and the sensibility of flesh signifies an intelligent
hurt. Instead, then, of scoffing at thee, they deserve to be ridiculed who
say that earth, and wood, and stones have sense, and that their life is
more intelligent than animal life. So, not to speak of the truth, even
their own fiction obliges them to confess that the law written on tables of
stone was purer than their sacred parchments. Or perhaps they prefer
sheepskin to stone, because their legends make stones the bones of princes.
In any case, the ark of the Old Testament was a cleaner covering for the
tables of stone than the goatskin of their manuscripts. Laugh at these
things, while pitying them, to show their falsehood and absurdity. With a
heart no longer stony, thou canst see in these stone tablets a suitableness
to that hard-hearted people; and at the same time thou canst find even
there the stone, thy Bridegroom, described by Peter as "a living stone,
rejected by men, but chosen of God, and precious." To them He was "a stone
of stumbling and a rock of offence;" but to thee, "the stone which the
builders rejected has become the head of the corner." (2) This is all
explained by Peter, and is quoted from the prophets, with whom these
heretics have nothing to do. Fear not, then, to read these tablets--they
are from thy Husband; to others the stone was a sign of insensibility, but
to thee of strength and stability. With the finger of God these tablets
were written; with the finger of God thy Lord east out devils; with the
finger of God drive thou away the doctrines of lying devils which sear the
conscience. With these tablets thou canst confound the seducer who calls
himself the Paraclete, that he may impose upon thee by a sacred name. For
on the fiftieth day after the passover the tables were given; and on the
fiftieth day after the passion of thy Bride-groom--of whom the passover was
a type--the finger of God, the Holy Spirit, the promised Paraclete, was
given. Fear not the tablets which convey to thee ancient writings now made
plain. Only be not under the law, lest fear prevent thy fulfilling it; but
be under grace, that love, which is the fulfilling of the law, may be in
thee. For it was in a review of these very tablets that the friend of thy
Bridegroom said: "For thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not
murder, Thou shalt not covet, and if there be any other commandment, it is
contained in this word, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Love
worketh no ill to his neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the
law." (3) One table contains the precept of love to God, and the other of
love to man. And He who first sent these tablets Himself came to enjoin
those precepts on Which hang the law and the prophets. (4) In the first
precept is the chastity of thy espousals; in the second is the unity of thy
members. In the one thou art united to divinity; in the other thou dost
gather a society. And these two precepts are identical with the ten, of
which three relate to God, and seven to our neighbor. Such is the chaste
tablet in which thy Lover and thy Beloved of old prefigured to thee the new
song on a psaltery of ten strings; Himself to be extended on the cross for
thee, that by sin He might condemn sin in the flesh, and that the
righteouness of the law might be fulfilled in thee. Such is the conjugal
tablet, which may well be hated by the unfaithful wife.
5. I turn now to thee, thou deluded and deluding congregation of
Manichaeus,--wedded to so many elements, or rather prostituted to so many
devils, and impregnated with blasphemous falsehoods,--dost thou dare to
slander as unchaste the marriage of the Catholic Church with thy Lord?
Behold thy lovers, one balancing creation, and the other bearing it up like
Atlas. For one, by thy account, holds the sources of the elements, and
hangs the world in space; while the other keeps him up by kneeling down and
carrying the weight on his shoulders. Where are those beings? And if they
are so occupied, how can they come to visit thee, to spend an idle hour in
getting their shoulders or their fingers relieved by thy soft, soothing
touch? But thou art deceived by evil spirits which commit adultery with
thee, that thou mayest conceive falsehoods and bring forth vanities. Well
mayest thou reject the message of the true God, as opposed to thy
parchments, where in the vain imaginations of a wanton mind thou hast gone
after so many false gods. The fictions of the poets are more respectable
than thine, in this at least, that they deceive no one; while the fables in
thy books, by assuming an appearance of truth, mislead the childish, both
young and old, and pervert their minds. As the apostle says, they have
itching ears, and turn away from hearing the truth to listen to fables. (1)
How shouldest thou bear the sound doctrine of these tables, where the first
commandment is, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is one Lord," (2) when
thy corrupt affections find shameful delight in so many false deities? Dost
thou not remember thy love-song, where thou describest the chief ruler in
perennial majesty, crowned with flowers, and of fiery countenance? To have
even one such lover is shameful; for a chaste wife seeks not a husband
crowned with flowers. And thou canst not say that this description or
representation has a typical meaning, for thou art wont to praise
Manichaeus for nothing more than for speaking to thee the simple naked
truth without the disguise of figures. So the God of thy song is a real
king, bearing a sceptre and crowned with flowers. When he wears a crown of
flowers, he ought to put aside his sceptre; for effeminacy and majesty are
incongruous. And then he is not thy only lover; for the song goes on to
tell of twelve seasons clothed in flowers, and filled with song, throwing
their flowers at their father's face. These are twelve great gods of thine,
three in each of the four regions surrounding the first deity. How this
deity can be infinite, when he is thus circumscribed, no one can say.
Besides, there are countless principalities, and hosts of gods, and troops
of angels, which thou sayest were not created by God, but produced from His
substance.
6. Thou art thus convicted of worshipping gods without number; for thou
canst not bear the sound doctrine which teaches that there is one Son of
one God, and one Spirit of both. And these, instead of being without
number, are not three Gods; for not only is their substance one and the
same, but their operation by means of this substance is also one and the
same, while they have a separate manifestation in the material creation.
These things thou dost not understand, and canst not receive. Thou art
full, as thou sayest, for thou art steeped in blasphemous absurdities. Will
thou continue burying thyself under such crudities? Sing on, then, and open
thine eyes, if thou canst, to thine own shame. In this doctrine of lying
devils thou art invited to fabulous dwellings of angels in a happy clime,
and to fragrant fields where nectar flows for ever from trees and hills, in
seas and rivers. These are the fictions of thy foolish heart, which revels
in such idle fancies. Such expressions are sometimes used as figurative
descriptions of the abundance of spiritual enjoyments; and they lead the
mind of the student to inquire into their hidden meaning. Sometimes there
is a material representation to the bodily senses, as the fire in the bush,
the rod becoming a serpent, and the serpent a rod, the garment of the Lord
not divided by His persecutors, the anointing of His feet or of His head by
a devout woman, the branches of the multitude preceding and following Him
when riding on the ass. Sometimes, either in sleep or in a trance, the
spirit is informed by means of figures taken from material things, as
Jacob's ladder, and the stone in Daniel cut out without hands and growing
into a mountain, and Peter's vessel, and all that John saw. Sometimes the
figures are only in the language; as in the Song of Songs, and in the
parable of a householder making a marriage for his son, or that of the
prodigal son, or that of the man who planted a vineyard and let it out to
husbandmen. Thou boastest of Manichaeus as having come last, not to use
figures, but to explain them. His expositions throw light on ancient types,
and leave no problem unsolved. This idea is supported by the assertion that
the ancient types, in vision or in action or in words, had in view the
coming of Manichaeus, by whom they were all to be explained; while he,
knowing that no one is to follow him, makes use of a style free from all
figurative expressions. What, then, are those fields, and shady hills, and
crowns of flowers, and fragrant odors, in which the desires of thy fleshly
mind take pleasure? If they are not significant figures, they are either
idle fancies or delirious dreams. If they are figures, away with the
impostor who seduces thee with the promise of naked truth, and then mocks
thee with idle tales. His ministers and his wretched deluded followers are
wont to bait their hook with that saying of the apostle, "Now we see
through a glass in a figure, but then face to face." (3) As if, forsooth,
the Apostle Paul knew in part, and prophesied in part, and saw through a
glass in a figure; whereas all this is removed at the coming of Manichaeus,
who brings that which is perfect, and reveals the truth face to face. O
fallen and shameless! still to continue uttering such folly, still feeding
on the wind, still embracing the idols of thine own heart. Hast thou, then,
seen face to face the king with the sceptre, and the crown of flowers, and
the hosts of gods, and the great worldholder with six faces and radiant
with light, and that other exalted ruler surrounded with troops of angels,
and the invincible warrior with a spear in his right hand and a shield in
his left, and the famous sovereign who moves the three wheels of fire,
water, and wind, and Atlas, chief of all, bearing the world on his
shoulders, and supporting himself on his arms? These, and a thousand other
marvels, hast thou seen face to face, or are thy songs doctrines learned
from lying devils, though thou knowest it not? Alas! miserable prostitute
to these dreams, such are the vanities which thou drinkest up instead of
the truth; and, drunk with this deadly poison, thou darest with this jest
of the tablets to affront the matronly purity of the spouse of the only Son
of God; because no longer under the tutorship of the law, but under the
control of grace, neither proud in activity nor crouching in fear, she
lives by faith, and hope, and love, the Israel in whom there is no guile,
who hears what is written: "The Lord thy God is one God." This thou hearest
not, and art gone a whoring after a multitude of false gods.
7. Of necessity these tables are against thee, for the second
commandment is, "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain;"
whereas thou dost attribute the vanity of falsehood to Christ Himself, who,
to remove the vanity of the fleshly mind, rose in a true body, visible to
the bodily eye. So also the third commandment about the rest of the Sabbath
is against thee, for thou art tossed about by a multitude of restless
fancies. How these three commandments relate to the love of God, thou hast
neither the power nor the will to understand. Shamefully headstrong and
turbulent, thou hast reached the height of folly, vanity, and
worthlessness; thy beauty is spoiled, and thine order perished. I know
thee, for I was once the same. How shall I now teach thee that these three
precepts relate to the love of God, of whom, and by whom, and in whom are
all things? How canst thou understand this, when thy pernicious doctrines
prevent thee from understanding and from obeying the seven precepts
relating to the love of our neighbor, which is the bond of human society?
The first of these precepts is, "Honor thy father and mother;" which Paul
quotes as the first commandment with promise, and himself repeats the
injunction. But thou art taught by thy doctrine of devils to regard thy
parents as thine enemies, because their union brought thee into the bonds
of flesh, and laid impure fetters even on thy god. The doctrine that the
production of children is an evil, directly opposes the next precept, "Thou
shall not commit adultery;" for those who believe this doctrine, in order
that their wives may not conceive, are led to commit adultery even in
marriage. They take wives, as the law declares, for the procreation of
children; but from this erroneous fear of polluting the substance of the
deity, their intercourse with their wives is not of a lawful character; and
the production of children, which is the proper end of marriage, they seek
to avoid. As the apostle long ago predicted of thee, thou dost indeed
forbid to marry, for thou seekest to destroy the purpose of marriage. Thy
doctrine turns marriage into an adulterous connection, and the bed-chamber
into a brothel. This false doctrine leads in a similar way to the
transgression of the commandment, "Thou shall not kill." For thou dost not
give bread to the hungry, from fear of imprisoning in flesh the member of
thy God. From fear of fan-tied murder, thou dost actually commit murder.
For if thou wast to meet a beggar starving for want of food, by the law of
God to refuse him food would be murder; while to give food would be murder
by the law of Manichaeus. Not one commandment in the decalogue dost thou
observe. If thou wert to abstain from theft, thou wouldst be guilty of
allowing bread or food, whatever it might be, to undergo the misery of
being devoured by a man of no merit, instead of running off with it to the
laboratory of the stomach of thine elect; and so by theft saving thy god
from the imprisonment with which he is threatened, and also from that from
which he already suffers. Then, if thou art caught in the theft, wilt thou
not swear by this god that thou art not guilty? For what will he do to thee
when thou sayest to him, I swore by thee falsely, but it was for thy
benefit; a regard for thine honor would have been fatal to thee? So the
precept, Thou shall not bear false witness, will be broken, not only in thy
testimony, but in thine oath, for the sake of the liberation of the members
of thy god. The commandment, "Thou shall not covet thy neighbor's wife," is
the only one which thy false doctrine does not oblige thee to break. But if
it is unlawful to covet our neighbor's wife, what must it be to excite
covetousness in others? Remember thy beautiful gods and goddesses
presenting themselves with the purpose of exciting desire in the male and
female leaders of darkness, in order that the gratification of this passion
might effect the liberation of this god, who is in confinement everywhere,
and who requires the assistance of such self-degradation. The last
commandment, "Thou shall not covet the possessions of thy neighbor," it is
wholly impossible for thee to obey. Does not this god of thine delude thee
with the promise of making new worlds in a region belonging to another, to
be the scene of thine imaginary triumph after thine imaginary conquest? In
the desire for the accomplishment of these wild fancies, while at the same
time thou believest that this land of darkness is in the closest
neighborhood with thine own substance, thou certainly covetest the
possessions of thy neighbor. Well indeed mayest thou dislike the tables
which contain such good precepts in opposition to thy false doctrine. The
three relating to the love of God thou dost entirely set aside. The seven
by which human society is preserved thou keepest only from a regard to the
opinion of men, or from fear of human laws; or good customs make thee
averse to some crimes; or thou art restrained by the natural principle of
not doing to another what thou wouldst not have done to thyself. But
whether thou doest what thou wouldst not have done to thyself, or
refrainest from doing what thou wouldst not have done to thyself, thou
seest the opposition of the heresy to the law, whether thou actest
according to it or not.
8. The true bride of Christ, whom thou hast the audacity to taunt with
the stone tablets, knows the difference between the letter and the spirit,
or in other words, between law and grace; and serving God no longer in the
oldness of the letter, but in newness of spirit, she is not under the law,
but under grace. She is not blinded by a spirit of controversy, but learns
meekly from the apostle what is this law which we are not to be under; for
"it was given, "he says, "on account of transgression, till the seed should
come to whom the promise was made." (1) And again: "It entered, that the
offence might abound; but where sin abounded, grace has much more
abounded." (2) Not that the law is sin, though it cannot give life without
grace, but rather increases the guilt; for "where there is no law, there is
no transgression." (3) The letter without the spirit, the law without
grace, can only condemn. So the apostle explains his meaning, in case any
should not understand: "What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid.
For I had not known sin but by the law. For I had not known lust unless the
law had said, Thou shalt not covet. But sin, taking occasion by the
command-merit, deceived me, and by it slew me. Therefore the law is holy,
and the commandment holy, and just, and good. Was then that which is good
made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, wrought
death in me by that which is good." (4) She at whom thou scoffest knows
what this means; for she asks earnestly, and seeks humbly, and knocks
meekly. She sees that no fault is found with the law, when it is said, "The
letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life," any more than with knowledge,
when it is said, "Knowledge puffeth up, but love edifieth." (5) The passage
runs thus: "We know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffeth up, but
love edifieth." The apostle certainly had no desire to be puffed up; but he
had knowledge, because knowledge joined with love not only does not puff
up, but strengthens. So the letter when joined with the spirit, and the law
when joined with grace, is no longer the letter and the law in the same
sense as when by itself it kills by abounding sin. In this sense the law is
even called the strength of sin, because its strict prohibitions increase
the fatal pleasure of sin. Even thus, however, the law is not evil; but
"sin. that it may appear sin, works death by that which is good." So things
that are not evil may often be hurtful to certain people. The Manichaeans,
when they have sore eyes, will shut out their god the sun. The bride of
Christ, then, is dead to the law, that is, to sin, which abounds more from
the prohibition of the law; for the law apart from grace commands, but does
not enable. Being dead to the law in this sense, that she may be married to
another who rose from the dead, she makes this distinction without any
reproach to the law, which would be blasphemy against its author. This is
thy crime; for though the apostle tells thee that the law is holy, and the
commandment holy, and just, and good, thou dost not acknowledge it as the
production of a good being. Its author thou makest to be one of the princes
of darkness. Here the truth confronts thee. They are the words of the
Apostle Paul: "The law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and
good." Such is the law given by Him who appointed for a great symbolical
use the tablets which thou foolishly deridest. The same law which was given
by Moses becomes through Jesus Christ grace and truth; for the spirit is
joined to the letter, that the righteousness of the law might begin to be
fulfilled, which when unfulfilled only added the guilt of transgression.
The law which is holy, and just, and good, is the same law by which sin
works death, and to which we must die, that we may be married to another
who rose from the dead. Hear what the apostle adds: "But sin, that it might
appear sin, wrought death in me by that which is good, that sin by the
commandment might become exceeding sinful." Deaf and blind, dost thou not
now hear and see? "Sin wrought death in me," he says, "by that which is
good." The law is always good': whether it hurts those who are destitute of
grace, or benefits those who are filled with grace, itself is always good;
as the sun is always good, for every creature of God is good, whether it
hurts weak eyes or gladdens the sight of the healthy. Grace fits the mind
for keeping the law, as health fits the eyes for seeing the sun. And as
healthy eyes die not to the pleasure of seeing the sun, but to that painful
effect of the rays which beat upon the eye so as to increase the darkness;
so the mind, healed by the love of the spirit, dies not to the justice of
the law, but to the guilt and transgression which followed on the law in
the absence of grace. So it is said "The law is good, if used lawfully;"
and immediately after of the same law, "Knowing this, that the law is not
made for a righteous man." The man who delights in righteousness itself,
does not require the restraint of the letter.
9. The bride of Christ rejoices in the hope of full salvation, and
desires for thee a happy conversion from fables to truth. She desires that
the fear of Adoneus, as if he were a strange lover, may not prevent thy
escape from the seductions of the wily serpent. Adonai is a Hebrew word,
meaning Lord, as applied only to God. In the same way the Greek word latria
means service, in the sense of the service of God; and Amen means true, in
a special sacred sense. This is to be learned only from the Hebrew
Scriptures, or from a translation. The Church of Christ understands and
loves these names. without regarding the evils of those who scoff because
they are ignorant. What she does not yet understand, she believes may be
explained, as similar things have already been explained to her. If she is
charged with loving Emmanuel, she laughs at the ignorance of the accuser,
and holds fast by the truth of this name. If she is charged with loving
Messiah, she scorns her powerless adversary, and clings to her anointed
Master. Her prayer for thee is, that thou also mayest be cured of thy
errors, and be built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets. The
monstrosity with which thou ignorantly chargest the true doctrine, is
really to be found in the world which, according to thy fanciful stories,
is made partly of thy god and partly of the world of darkness. This world,
half savage and half divine, is worse than monstrous. The view of such
follies should make thee humble and penitent, and should lead thee to shun
the serpent, who seduces thee into such errors. If thou dost not believe
what Moses says of the guile of the serpent, thou mayest be warned by Paul,
who, when speaking of presenting the Church as a chaste virgin to Christ,
says, "I fear lest, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his craftiness,
your minds also should be corrupted from the simplicity and purity which is
in Christ." (1) In spite of this warning, thou hast been so misled, so
infatuated by the serpent's fatal enchantments, that while he has persuaded
other heretics to believe various falsehoods. he has persuaded thee to
believe that he is Christ. Others, though fallen into the maze of manifold
error, still admit the truth of the apostle's warning. But thou art so far
gone in corruption, and so lost to shame, that thou holdest as Christ the
very being by whom the apostle declares that Eve was beguiled, and against
whom he thus seeks to put the virgin bride of Christ on her guard. Thy
heart is darkened by the deceiver, who intoxicates thee with dreams of
glittering groves. What are these promises but dreams? What reason is there
to believe them true? O drunken, but not with wine!
10. Thou hast the impious audacity to accuse the God of the prophets of
not fulfilling His promises even to His servants the Jews. Thou dost not
mention, however, any promise that is unfulfilled; otherwise it might. be
shown, either that the promise has been fulfilled, and so that thou dost
not understand it, or that it is yet to be fulfilled, and so that thou dost
not believe it. What promise has been fulfilled to thee, to make it
probable that thou wilt obtain new worlds gained from the region of
darkness? If there are prophets who predict the Manichaeans with praise,
and if it is said that the existence of the sect is a fulfillment of this
prediction, it must first be proved that these predictions were not forged
by Manichaeus in order to gain followers. He does not consider falsehood
sinful. If he declares in praise of Christ that He showed false marks of
wounds in His body, he can have no scruple about showing false predictions
in his sheepskin volumes. Assuredly there are predictions of the
Manichaeans, less clear in the prophets, and most explicit in the apostle.
For example: "The Spirit," he says, "speaketh expressly, that in the last
times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits,
and to doctrines of devils, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their
conscience seared, forbidding to marry, abstaining from meats, which God
has created to be received with thanksgiving by believers, and those who
know the truth. For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be
refused, if it be received with thanksgiving." (1) The fulfillment of this
in the Manichaeans is as clear as day to all that know them, and has
already been proved as fully as time permits.
11. She whom the apostle warns against the guile of the serpent by
which thou hast been corrupted, that he may present her as a chaste virgin
to Christ, her only husband, acknowledges the God of the prophets as the
true God, and her own God, So many of His promises have already been
fulfilled to her, that she looks confidently for the fulfillment of the
rest. Nor can any one say that these prophecies have been forged to suit
the present time, for they are found in the books of the Jews. What could
be more unlikely than that all nations should be blessed in Abraham's seed,
as it was promised? And yet how plainly is this promise now fulfilled! The
last promise is made in the following short prophecy: "Blessed are they
that dwell in Thy house: they shall ever praise Thee." (2) When trial is
past, and death, the last enemy, is destroyed, there will be rest in the
constant occupation of praising God, where there shall be no arrivals and
no departures. So the prophet says elsewhere: "Praise the Lord, O
Jerusalem; celebrate thy God, o Zion: for He hath strengthened the bars of
thy gates; He hath blessed thy children within thee." (3) The gates are
shut, so that none can go in or out. The Bridegroom Himself says in the
Gospel, that He will not open to the foolish virgins though they knock.
This Jerusalem, the holy Church, the bride of Christ, is described fully in
the Revelation of John. And that which commends the promises of future
bliss to the belief of this chaste virgin is, that now she is in possession
of what was foretold of her by the same prophets. For she is thus
described: "Hearken, O daughter, and regard, and incline thine ear; forget
also thine own people, and thy father's house. For the King hath greatly
desired thy beauty; and He is thy God. The daughters of Tyre shall worship
Him with gifts; the rich among the people shall entreat thy favor. The
daughter of the King is all glorious within; her clothing is of wrought
gold. The virgins following her shall be brought unto the King: her
companions shall be brought unto thee; with gladness and rejoicing shall
they be brought into the temple of the King. Instead of thy fathers,
children shall be born to thee, whom thou shall make princes over all the
earth. Thy name shall be remembered to all generations: therefore shall the
people praise thee for ever and ever." (4) Unhappy victim of the serpent's
guile, the inward beauty of the daughter of the King is not for thee even
to think of. For this purity of mind is that which thou hast lost in
opening thine eyes to love and worship the sun and moon. And so by the just
judgment of God thou art estranged from the tree of life, which is eternal
and internal wisdom; and with thee nothing is called or accounted truth or
wisdom but that light which enters the eyes opened to evil, and which in
thy impure mind expands and shapes itself into fanciful images. These are
thy abominable whoredoms. Still the truth calls on thee to reflect and
return. Return to me, and thou shall be cleansed and restored, if thy shame
leads thee to repentance. Hear these words of the true Truth, who neither
with feigned shapes fought against the race of darkness, nor with feigned
blood redeemed thee.
Taken from "The Early Church Fathers and Other Works" originally published
by Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co. in English in Edinburgh, Scotland, beginning in
1867. (LNPF I/IV, Schaff). The digital version is by The Electronic Bible
Society, P.O. Box 701356, Dallas, TX 75370, 214-407-WORD.
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