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ST. AUGUSTINE

REPLY TO FAUSTUS THE MANICHAEAN, Books XVI-XXI
[CONTRA FAUSTUM MANICHAEUM.]

[Translated by Rev. Richard Stothert, M.A., Bombay.]


BOOK XVI: FAUSTUS WILLING TO BELIEVE NOT ONLY THAT THE JEWISH BUT THAT ALL
GENTILE PROPHETS WROTE OF CHRIST, IF IT SHOULD BE PROVED; BUT HE WOULD NONE
THE LESS INSIST UPON REJECTING THEIR SUPERSTITIONS. AUGUSTIN MAINTAINS THAT
ALL MOSES WROTE IS OF CHRIST, AND THAT HIS WRITINGS MUST BE-EITHER ACCEPTED
OR REJECTED AS A WHOLE.

   1. FAUSTUS said: You ask why we do not believe Moses, when Christ says,
"Moses wrote of me; and if ye believed Moses, ye would also believe me." I
should be glad if not only Moses, but all prophets, Jew and Gentile, had
written of Christ. It would be no hindrance, but a help to our faith, if we
could cull testimonies from all hands agreeing in favor of our God. You
could extract the prophecies of Christ out of the superstition which we
should hate as much as ever. I am quite willing to believe that Moses,
though so much the opposite of Christ, may seem to have written of Him. No
one but would gladly find a flower in every thorn, and food in every plant,
and honey in every insect, although we would not feed on insects or on
grass, nor wear thorns as a crown. No one but would wish pearls to be found
in every deep, and gems in every land, and fruit on every tree. We may eat
fish from the sea without drinking the water. We may take the useful, and
reject what is hurtful. And why may we not take the prophecies of Christ
from a religion the rites of which we condemn as useless? This need not
make us liable to be led into the bondage of the errors; for we do not hate
the unclean spirits less because they confessed plainly and openly that
Jesus was the Son of God. If any similar testimony is found in Moses, I
will accept it. But I will not on this account be brought into subjection
to his law, which to my mind is pure Paganism. There is no reason whatever
for thinking that I can have any objections to receiving prophecies of
Christ from every spirit.

   2. Since you have proved that Christ declared that Moses wrote of him,
I should be very grateful if you would show me what he has written. I have
searched the Scriptures, as we are told to do, and have found no prophecies
of Christ, either because there are none, or because I could not understand
them. The only escape from this perplexity was in one or other of two
conclusions. Either this verse must be spurious, or Jesus a liar. As it is
not consistent with piety to suppose God a liar, I preferred to attribute
falsehood to the writers, rather than to the Author, of truth. Moreover, He
Himself tells that those who came before him were thieves and robbers,
which applies first of all to Moses. And when, on the occasion of His
speaking of His own majesty, and calling Himself the light of the world,
the Jews angrily rejoined, "Thou bearest witness of thyself, thy witness is
not true," I do not find that He appealed to the prophecies of Moses, as
might have been expected. Instead of this, as having no connection with the
Jews, and receiving no testimony from their fathers, He replied: "It is
written in your law, that the testimony of two men is true. I am one who
bear witness of myself, and the Father who sent me beareth witness of me."
(1) He referred to the voice from heaven which all had heard: "This is my
beloved Son, believe Him." I think it likely that if Christ had said that
Moses wrote of Him, the ingenious hostility of the Jews would have led them
at once to ask what He supposed Moses to have written. The silence of the
Jews is a proof that Jesus never made such a statement.

   3. My chief reason, however, for suspecting the genuineness of this
verse is what I said before, that in all my search of the writings of Moses
I have found no prophecy of Christ. But now that I have found in you a
reader of superior intelligence, I hope to learn something; and I promise
to be grateful if no feeling of ill-will prevents you from giving me the
benefit of your higher attainments, as your lofty style of reproof entitles
me to expect from you, I ask for instruction in whatever the writings of
Moses contain about our God and Lord which has escaped me in reading. I
beseech you not to use the ignorant argument that Christ affirms Moses to
have written of Him. For suppose you had not to deal with me, as in my case
there is an obligation to believe Him whom I profess to follow, but with a
Jew or a Gentile, in reply to the statement that Moses wrote of Christ,
they will ask for proofs. What shall we say to them? We cannot quote
Christ's authority, for they do not believe in Him. We must point out what
Moses wrote.

   4. What, then, shall we point to? Shall it be that passage which you
often quote where the God of Moses says to him: "I will raise up unto them
from among their brethren a prophet like unto thee?" (2) But the Jew can
see that this does not refer to Christ, and there is every reason against
our thinking that it does. Christ was not a prophet, nor was He like Moses:
for Moses was a man, and Christ was God; Moses was a sinner, and  Christ
sinless; Moses was born by ordinary generation, and Christ of a virgin
according to you, or, as I hold, not born at all: Moses, for offending his
God, was put to death on the mountain; and Christ suffered voluntarily, and
the Father was well pleased in Him. If we were to assert that Christ was a
prophet like Moses, the Jew would either deride us as ignorant or pronounce
us untruthful.

   5. Or shall we take another favorite passage of yours:" They shall see
their life hanging, and shall not believe their life?" (3) You insert the
words "on a tree," which are not in the original. Nothing can be easier
than to show that this has no reference to Christ. Moses is uttering dire
threatenings in case the people should depart from his law, and says among
other things that they would be taken captive by their enemies, and would
be expecting death day and night, having no confidence in the life allowed
them by their conquerors, so that their life would hang in uncertainty from
fear of impending danger. This passage will not do, we must try others. I
cannot admit that the words, "Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree,"
refer to Christ, or when it is said that the prince or prophet must be
killed who should try to turn away the people from their God, or should
break any of the commandments. (1) That Christ did this I am obliged to
grant. But if you assert that these things were written of Christ, it may
be asked in reply, What spirit dictated these prophecies in which Moses
curses Christ and orders him to be killed? If he had the Spirit of God,
these things are not written of Christ; if they are written of Christ, he
had not the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God would not curse Christ, or
order Him to be killed. To vindicate Moses, you must confess that these
passages too have no reference to Christ. So, if you have no others to
show, there are none. If there are none, Christ could not have said that
there were; and if Christ did not say so, that verse is spurious.

   6. The next verse too is suspicious, "If ye believed Moses, ye would
also believe me;" for the religion of Moses is so entirely different from
that of Christ, that if the Jews believed one, they could not believe the
other. Moses strictly forbids any work to be done on Sabbath, and gives as
a reason for this prohibition that God made the world and all that is
therein in six days, and rested on the seventh day, which is Sabbath; and
therefore blessed or sanctified it as His haven of repose after toil, and
commanded that breaking the Sabbath should be punished with death. The
Jews, in obedience to Moses, insisted strongly on this, and so would not
even listen to Christ when He told them that God always works, and that no
day is appointed for the intermission of His pure and unwearied energy, and
that accordingly He Himself had to work incessantly even on Sabbath. "My
Father," he says, "worketh always, and I too must work.'' (2) Again, Moses
places circumcision among the rites pleasing to God, and commands every
male to be circumcised in the foreskin of his flesh, and declares that this
is a necessary sign of the covenant which God made with Abraham, and that
every male not circumcised would be cut off from his tribe, and from his
part in the inheritance promised to Abraham and to his seed. (3) In this
observance, too, the Jews were very zealous, and consequently could not
believe in Christ, who made light of these things, and declared that a man
when circumcised became twofold a child of hell. (4) Again, Moses is very
particular about the distinction in animal foods, and discourses like an
epicure on the merits of fish, and birds, and quadrupeds, and orders some
to be eaten as clean, and others which are unclean not to be touched. Among
the unclean he reckons the swine and the hare, and fish without scales, and
quadrupeds that neither divide the hoof nor chew the cud. In this also the
Jews carefully obeyed Moses, and so could not believe in Christ, who taught
that all food is alike, and though he allowed no animal food to his own
disciples, gave full liberty to the laity to eat whatever they pleased, and
taught that men are polluted not by what goes into the mouth, but by the
evil things which come out of it. In these and many other things the
doctrine of Jesus, as everybody knows, contradicts that of Moses.

   7. Not to enumerate all the points of difference, it is enough to
mention this one fact, that most Christian sects, and, as is well known,
the Catholics, pay no regard to what is prescribed in the writings of
Moses. If this does not originate in some error, but in the doctrine
correctly transmitted from Christ and His disciples, you surely must
acknowledge that the teaching of Jesus is opposed to that of Moses, and
that the Jews did not believe in Christ on account of their attachment to
Moses. How can it be otherwise than false that Jesus said to the Jews, "If
ye believed Moses, ye would believe me also," when it is perfectly clear
that their belief in Moses prevented them from believing in Jesus, which
they might have done if they had left off believing in Moses? Again I ask
you to show me anything that Moses wrote of Christ.

   8. Elsewhere FAUSTUS says: When you find no passage to point to, you
use this weak and inappropriate argument, that a Christian is bound to
believe Christ when he says that Moses wrote of Him, and that whoever does
not believe this is not a Christian. It would be far better to confess at
once that you cannot find any passage. This argument might be used with me,
because my reverence for Christ compels me to believe what He says. Still
it may be a question whether this is Christ's own declaration, requiring
absolute belief, or only the writer's, to be carefully examined. And
disbelief in falsehood is no offence to Christ, but to impostors. But of
whatever use this argument may be with Christians, it is wholly
inapplicable in the case of the Jew or Gentile, with whom we are supposed
to be discussing. And even with Christians the argument is objectionable.
When the Apostle Thomas was in doubt, Christ did not spurn him from Him.
Instead of saying, "Believe, if thou art a disciple; whoever does not
believe is not a disciple," Christ sought to heal the wounds of his mind by
showing him the marks of the wounds in His own body. Does it become you
then to tell me that I am not a Christian because I am in doubt, not about
Christ, but about the genuineness of a remark attributed to Christ? But,
you say, He calls those especially blessed, who have not seen, and yet have
believed. If you think that this refers to believing without the use of
judgment and reason, you are welcome to this blind blessedness.I shall be
content with rational blessedness.

   9. AUGUSTIN replied: Your idea of taking any prophecies of Christ to be
found in Moses, as a fish out of the sea, while you throw away the water
from which the fish is taken, is a clever one. But since all that Moses
wrote is of Christ, or relates to Christ, either as predicting Him by words
and actions, or as illustrating His grace and glory, you, with your faith
in the untrue and untruthful Christ from the writings of Manichaeus, and
your unbelief in Moses, will not even eat the fish. Moreover, though you
are sincere in your hostility to Moses, you are hypocritical in your praise
of fish. For how can yon say that there is no harm in eating a fish taken
out of the sea, when your doctrine is that such food is so hurtful, that
you would rather starve than make use of it? If all flesh is unclean, as
you say it is, and if the wretched life of our god is confined in all water
or plants, from which it is liberated by your using them for food,
according to your own vile superstition, you must throw away the fish you
have praised, and drink the water and eat the thistles you speak of as
useless. As for your comparison of the servant of God to devils, as if his
prophecies of Christ resembled their confession, the servant does not
refuse to bear the reproach of his master. If the Master of the house was
called Beelzebub, how much more they of His household! (1) You have learned
this reproach from Christ's enemies; and you are worse than they were. They
did not believe that Jesus was Christ, and therefore thought Him an
impostor. But the only doctrine you believe in is that which lares to make
Christ a liar.

   10. What reason have you for saying that the law of Moses is pure
Paganism? Is it because it speaks of a temple, and an altar of sacrifices,
and priests? But all these names are found also in the New Testament.
Destroy," Christ says, "this temple, and in three days I will raise it
up;"' and again, "When thou offerest thy gift at the altar;" (3) and again,
"Go, show thyself to the priest, and offer for thyself a sacrifice as Moses
commanded, for a testimony unto them." (4) What these things prefigured the
Lord Himself partly tells us, when He calls His own body the temple; and we
learn also from the apostle, who says, "The temple of God is  holy, which
temple ye are;" (5) and again, "I beseech you therefore by the mercies of
God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to
God;"6 and in similar passages. As the same apostle says, in words which
cannot be too often quoted, these things were our examples, for they were
not the work of devils, but of the one true God who made heaven and earth,
and who, though not needing such things, yet, suiting His requirements to
the time, made ancient observances significant of future realities. Since
you pretend to abhor Paganism, though it is only that you may lead astray
by your deception unlearned Christians or those not established in the
faith, show us any authority in Christian books for your worship and
service of the sun and moon. Your heresy is liker Paganism than the law of
Moses is. For you do not worship Christ, but only something that you call
Christ, a fiction of your own fancy; and the gods you serve are either the
bodies visible in the heavens, or hosts of your own contrivance. If you do
not build shrines for these worthless idols, the creatures of the
imagination, yon make your hearts their temple.

   11. You ask me to show what Moses wrote of Christ. Many passages have
already been pointed out. But who could point out all? Besides, when any
quotation is made, you are ready perversely to try to give the words
another meaning; or if the evidence is too strong to be resisted, you will
say that you take the passage as a sweet fish out of the salt water, and
that you will not therefore consent to drink all the brine of the books of
Moses. It will be enough, then, to take those passages in the Hebrew law
which Faustus has chosen for criticism, and to show that, when rightly
understood, they apply to Christ. For if the things which our adversary
ridicules and condemns are made to prove that he himself is condemned by
Christian truth, it will be evident that either the mere quotation or the
careful examination of the other passages will be enough to show their
agreement with Christian faith. Well, then, O thou full of all subtilty,
when the Lord in the Gospel says, "If ye believed Moses, ye would believe
me also, for he wrote of me," (1) there is no occasion for the great
perplexity you pretend to be in, or for the alternative of either
pronouncing this verse spurious or calling Jesus a liar. The verse is as
genuine as its words are true. I preferred, says Faustus, to attribute
falsehood to the writers, rather than to the Author of truth. What sort of
faith can you have in Christ as the author of truth, when your doctrine is
that His flesh and His; death, His wounds and their marks, were reigned?
And where is your authority for saying that Christ is the author of truth,
if you dare to attribute falsehood to those who wrote of Him, whose
testimony has come down to us with the confirmation of those immediately
succeeding them? You have not seen Christ, nor has He conversed with you as
with the apostles, nor called you from heaven as He did Saul. What
knowledge or belief can we have of Christ, but on the authority of
Scripture? Or if there is falsehood in the Gospel which has been widely
published among all nations, and has been held in such high sacredness in
all churches since the name of Christ was first preached, where shall we
find a trustworthy record of Christ? If the Gospel is called in question in
spite of the general consent regarding it, there can be no writing which a
man may not call spurious if he does not wish to believe it.

   12. You go on to quote Christ's words, that all who came before Him
were thieves and robbers. How do you know that these were Christ's words,
but from the Gospel?  You profess faith in these words, as if you had heard
them from the mouth of the Lord  Himself. But if any one declares the verse
to be spurious, and denies that Christ said this, you will have, in reply,
to exert yourself in vindication of the authority of the Gospel. Unhappy
being! what you refuse to believe is written in the same place as that
which you quote as spoken by the Lord Himself. We believe both, for we
believe the sacred narrative in which both are contained. We believe both
that Moses wrote of Christ, and that all that came before Christ were
thieves and robbers. By their coming He means their not being sent. Those
who were sent, as Moses and the holy prophets, came not before Him, but
with Him. They did not proudly wish to precede Him, but were the humble
bearers of the message which He tittered by them. According to the meaning
which you give to the Lord's words, it is plain that with you there can be
no prophets. And so you have made a Christ for yourselves who should
prophesy a Christ to come. If you have any prophets of your own, they will
have, of course, no authority, as not being recognized by any others; but
if there are any that you dare to quote as prophesying that Christ would
come in an unreal body, and would suffer an unreal death, and would show to
His doubting disciples unreal marks of wounds, not to speak of the
abominable nature of such prophecies, and of the evident untruthfulness of
those who commend falsehood in Christ, by your own interpretation those
prophets must have been thieves and robbers, for they could not have spoken
of Christ as coming in any manner unless they had come before Him. If by
those who came before Christ we understand those who would not come with
Him, --that is, with the Word of God,--but without being sent by God
brought their own falsehoods to men, you yourselves, although you are born
in this world after the death and the resurrection of Christ, are thieves
and robbers. For, without waiting for His illumination that you might
preach His truth, you have come before Him to preach up your own deceits.

   13. In the passage where we read of the Jews saying to Christ, Thou
bearest witness of thyself, thy witness is not true, you do not see that
Christ replies by saying that Moses wrote of Him, simply because you have
not got the eye of piety to see with. The answer of Christ is this: "It is
written in your law, that the testimony of two men is true; I am one who
bear witness of myself, and the Father that sent me heareth witness of me."
(2) What does this mean, if rightly understood, but that this number of
witnesses required by the law was fixed upon and consecrated in the spirit
of prophecy, that even thus might be prefigured the future revelation of
the Father and Son, whose spirit is the Holy Spirit of the inseparable
Trinity? So it is written: " In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall
every word be established." (3) As a matter of fact, one witness generally
speaks the truth, while a number tell lies. And the world, in its
conversion to Christianity, believed one apostle preaching the gospel
rather than the mistaken multitude who persecuted him. There was a special
reason for requiring this number of witnesses, and in His answer the Lord
implied that Moses prophesied of Him. Do you carp at His saying your law
instead of the law of God? But, as every one knows,  this is the common
expression in Scripture. Your law means the law given to you. So the
apostle speaks of his gospel, while at the same time he declares that he
received it not from man, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. You might
as well say that Christ denies God to be His Father, when He uses the words
your Father instead of our Father. Again, you should refuse to believe the
voice which you allude to as having come from heaven This is my beloved
Son, believe Him, because you did not hear it. But if you believe this
because you find it in the sacred Scriptures, you will also find there what
you deny, that Moses wrote of Christ, besides many other things that you do
not acknowledge as true. Do you not see that your own mischievous argument
may be used to prove that this voice never came from heaven? To your own
destruction, and to the detriment of the welfare of mankind, you try to
weaken the authority of the gospel, by arguing that it cannot be true that
Christ said that Moses wrote of Him; because if He had said this, the
ingenious hostility of the Jews would have led them at once to ask what He
supposed Moses to have written of Him. In the same way, it might be
impiously argued that if that voice had really come from heaven, all the
Jews who heard it would have believed. Why are you so unreasonable as not
to consider that, as it was possible for the Jews to remain hardened in
unbelief after hearing the voice from heaven, so it was possible for them,
when Christ said that Moses wrote of Him, to refrain from asking what Moses
wrote, because in their ingenious hostility they were afraid of being
proved to be in the wrong?

   14. Besides that this argument is an impious assault on the gospel,
Faustus himself is aware of its feebleness, and therefore insists more on
what he calls his chief difficulty,--that in all his search of the writings
of Moses he has found no prophecies of Christ. The obvious reply is, that
he does not understand. And if any one asks why he does not understand, the
answer is that he reads with a hostile, unbelieving mind; he does not
search in order to know, but thinks he knows when he is ignorant. This
vainglorious presumption either blinds the eye of his understanding so as
to prevent his seeing anything, or distorts his vision, so that his remarks
of approval or disapproval are misdirected. I ask, he says, for instruction
in whatever the writings of Moses contain about our God and Lord, which has
escaped me in reading. I reply at once that it has all escaped him, for all
is written of Christ. As we cannot go through the whole, I will, with the
help of God, comply with your request, to the extent I have already
promised, by showing that the passages which you specially criticise refer
to Christ. You tell me not to use the ignorant argument that Christ affirms
Moses to have written of Him. But if I use this argument, it is not because
I am ignorant, but because I am a believer. I acknowledge that this
argument will not convince a Gentile or a Jew. But, in spite of all your
evasions, you are obliged to confess that it tells against you, who boast
of possessing a kind of Christianity. You say, Suppose you had not to deal
with me, as in my case there is an obligation to believe Him whom I profess
to follow, but with a Jew or a Gentile. This is as much as to say that you,
at any rate, with whom I have at present to do, are satisfied that Moses
wrote of Christ; for you are not bold enough to discard altogether the
well-grounded authority of the Gospel where Christ's own declaration is
recorded. Even when you attack this authority indirectly, you feel that you
are attacking your own position. You are aware that if you refuse to
believe the Gospel, which is so generally known and received, you must fail
utterly in the attempt to substitute for it any trustworthy record of the
sayings and doings of Christ. You are afraid that the loss of the Christian
name might lead to the exposure of your absurdities to universal scorn and
condemnation. Accordingly you try to recover yourself, by saying that your
profession of Christianity obliges you to believe these words of the
Gospel. So you, at any rate, which is all that we need care for just now,
are caught and slain in this death blow to your errors. You are forced to
confess that Moses wrote of Christ, because the Gospel, which your
profession obliges you to believe, states that Christ said so. As regards a
discussion with a Jew or a Gentile, I have already shown as well as I could
how I think it should be conducted.

   15. I still hold that there is a reference to Christ in the passage
which you select for refutation, where God says to Moses, "I will raise up
unto them from among their brethren a prophet like unto thee.'' (1) The
string of showy antitheses with which you try to ornament your dull
discourse does not at all affect my belief of this truth. You attempt to
prove, by a comparison of Christ and Moses, that they are unlike, and that
therefore the words. "I will raise up a prophet like unto thee," cannot be
understood of Christ. You specify a number of particulars in which you find
a diversity: that the one is man, and the other God; that one is a sinner,
the other sinless; that one is born of ordinary generation, the other, as
we hold, of a virgin, and, as you hold, not even of a virgin; the one
incurs God's anger, and is put to death on a mountain, the other suffers
voluntarily, law ing throughout the approval of His Father. But surely
things may be said to be like, although they are not like in every respect.
Besides the resemblance between things of the same nature, as between two
men, or between parents and children, or between men in general, or any
species of animals, or in trees, between one olive and another, or one
laurel and another, there is often a resemblance in things of a different
nature, as between a wild and a tame olive, or between wheat and barley.
These things are to some extent allied. But there is the greatest possible
distance between the Son of God, by whom all things were made, and a beast
or a stone. And yet in the Gospel we read, "Behold the Lamb of God,'' (1)
and in the apostle, "That rock was Christ." (2) This could not be said
except on the supposition of some resemblance. What wonder, then, if Christ
condescended to become like Moses, when He was made like the lamb which God
by Moses commanded His people to eat as a type of Christ, enjoining that
its blood should be used as a means of protection, and that it should be
called the Passover, which every one must admit to be fulfilled in Christ?
The Scripture, I acknowledge, shows points of difference; and the Scripture
also, as I call on you to acknowledge, shows points of resemblance. There
are points of both kinds, and one can be proved as well as the other.
Christ is unlike man, for He is God; and it is written of Him that He is
"over all, God blessed for ever." (3) Christ is also like man, for He is
man; and it is likewise written of Him, that He is the "Mediator between
God and man, the man Christ Jesus.'' (4) Christ is unlike a sinner, for He
is ever holy; and He is like a sinner, for "God sent His Son in the
likeness of sinful flesh, that by sin He might condemn sin in the flesh."
(5) Christ is unlike a man born in ordinary generation, for He was born of
a virgin; and yet He is like, for He too was born of a woman, to whom it
was said, "That holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the
Son of God.'' (6) Christ is unlike a man, who dies on account of his own
sin, for He died without sin, and of His own free-will; and again, He is
like, for He too died a real death of the body.

   16. You ought not to say, in disparagement of Moses, that he was a
sinner, and that he was put to death on a mountain because his God was
angry with him. For Moses could glory in the Lord as his Saviour, who is
also the Saviour of him who says, "Christ Jesus came into the world to save
sinners, of whom I am chief." (7) Moses, indeed, is accused by the voice of
God, because his faith showed signs of weakness when he was commanded to
draw water out of the rock. (8) In this he may have sinned as Peter did,
when from the weakness of his faith he became afraid in the: midst of the
waves. (9) But we cannot think from this, that he who, as the Gospel tells
us, was counted worthy to be present with the Lord along with holy Elias on
the mount of transfiguration, was separated from the eternal fellowship of
the saints. The sacred history shows in what favor he was with God even
after his sin. But since you may ask why God speaks of this sin as
deserving the punishment of death, and as I have promised to point out
prophecies of Christ in those passages which you select for criticism, I
will try, with the Lord's help, to show that what you object to in the
death of Moses is, when rightly understood, prophetical of Christ.

   17. We often find in the symbolical passages of Scripture, that the
same person appears in different characters on different occasions. So, on
this occasion, Moses represents and prefigures the Jewish people as placed
under the law. As, then, Moses, when he struck the rock with his rod,
doubted the power of God, so the people who were under the law given by
Moses, when they nailed Christ to the cross, did not believe Him to be the
power of God. And as water flowed from the smitten rock for those that were
athirst, so life comes to believers from the stroke of the Lord's passion.
The testimony of the apostle is clear and decisive on this point, when he
says, "This rock was Christ." (10) In the command of God, that the death of
the flesh of Moses should take place on the mountain, we see the divine
appointment that the carnal doubt of the divinity of Christ should die on
Christ's exaltation. As the rock is Christ, so is the mountain. The rock is
the fortitude of His humiliation; the mountain the height of His
exaltation. For as the apostle says, "This rock was Christ," so Christ
Himself says, "A city set upon an hill cannot be hid," (11) showing that He
is the hill, and believers the city built upon the glory of His name. The
carnal mind lives when, like the smitten rock, the humiliation of Christ on
the cross is despised. For Christ crucified is to the Jews a stumbling-
block, and to the Greeks foolishness. And the carnal mind dies when, like
the mountain-top, Christ is seen in His exaltation. "For to them that are
called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God, and the wisdom of
God.'' (1) Moses therefore ascended the mount, that in the death of the
flesh he might be received by the living spirit. If Faustus had ascended,
he would not have uttered carnal objections from a dead mind. It was the
carnal mind that made Peter dread the smiting of the rock, when, on the
occasion of the Lord's foretelling His passion, he said, "Be it far from
Thee, Lord; spare Thyself." And this sin too was severely rebuked, when the
Lord replied, "Get thee behind me, Satan; thou art an offense unto me: for
thou savorest not the things which be of God, but those which be of men."
(2) And where did this carnal distrust die but in the glorification of
Christ, as on a mountain height? If it was alive when Peter timidly denied
Christ, it was dead when he fearlessly preached Him. It was alive in Saul,
when, in his aversion to the offense of the cross, he made havoc of the
Christian faith, and where but on this mountain had it died, when Paul was
able to say, "I live no longer, but Christ liveth in me?"(3)

   18. What other reason has your heretical folly to give for thinking
that there is no prophecy of Christ in the words, "I will raise lip unto
them a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee?" Your showing
Christ to be unlike Moses is no reason; for we can show that in other
respects He is like. How can you object to Christ's being called a prophet,
since He condescended to be a man, and actually foretold many future
events? What is a prophet, but one who predicts events beyond human
foresight? So Christ says of Himself: "A prophet is not without honor, save
in his own country." (4) But, turning from you, since you have already
acknowledged that your profession of Christianity obliges you to believe
the Gospel, I address myself to the Jew, who enjoys the poor privilege of
liberty from the yoke of Christ, and who therefore thinks it allowable to
say: Your Christ spoke falsely; Moses wrote nothing of him.

   19. Let the Jews say what prophet is meant in this promise of God to
Moses: "I will raise up unto them a Prophet from among their brethren, like
unto thee." Many prophets appeared after Moses; but one in particular is
here pointed out. The Jews will perhaps naturally think of the successor of
Moses, who led into the promised land the people that Moses had brought out
of Egypt. Having this successor of Moses in his mind, he may perhaps laugh
at me for asking to what prophet the words of the promise refer, since it
is recorded who followed Moses in ruling and leading the people. When he
has laughed at my ignorance, as Faustus supposes him to do, I will still
continue my inquiries, and will desire my laughing opponent to give me a
serious answer to the question why Moses changed the name of this
successor, who was preferred to himself as the leader of the people into
the promised land, to show that the law given by Moses not to save, but to
convince the sinner, cannot lead us into heaven, but only the grace and
truth which are by Jesus Christ. This successor was called Osea, and Moses
gave him the name of Jesus. Why . then did he give him this name when he
sent him from the valley of Pharan into the land into which he was to lead
the people? (5) The true Jesus says, "If I go and prepare a place for you,
I will come again, and receive you unto myself.'' (6) I will ask the Jew if
the prophet does not show the prophetical meaning of these things when he
says, "God shall  come from Africa, and the Holy One from Pharan." Does
this not mean that the holy God would come with the name of him who  came
from Africa by Pharan, that is, with the  name of Jesus? Then, again, it is
the Word of God Himself who speaks when He promises to provide this
successor to Moses, speaking of him as an angel,--a name commonly given in
Scripture to those carrying any message. The words are: "Behold I send my
angel before thy face, to preserve thee in the way, and to bring thee into
the land which I have sworn to give thee. Take heed unto him, and obey, and
beware of unbelief in him; for he will not take anything from thee
wrongfully, for my name is in him." (7) Consider these words. Let the Jew,
not to speak of the Manichaean, say what other angel he can find in
Scripture to whom these words apply, but this leader who was to bring the
people into the land of promise. Then let him inquire who it was that
succeeded Moses, and brought in the people. He will find that it was Jesus,
and that this was not his name at first, but after his name was changed. It
follows that He who said, "My name is in him," is the true Jesus, the
leader who brings His people into the inheritance of eternal life,
according to the New Testament, of which the Old was a figure. No event or
action could have a more distinctly prophetical character than this, where
the very name is a prediction.

   20. It follows that this Jew, if he wishes to be a Jew inwardly, in the
spirit, and not in the letter, if he wishes to be thought a true Israelite,
in whom is no guile, will recognize in this dead Jesus, who led the people
into the land of mortality, a figure of the true living Jesus, whom he may
follow into the land of life. In this way, he will no longer in a hostile
spirit resist so plain a prophecy, but, influenced by the allusion to the
Jesus of the Old Testament, he will be prepared to listen meekly to Him
whose name he bore, and who leads to the true land of promise; for He says,
"Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the land."(1) The Gentile
also, if his heart is not too stony, if he is one of those stones from
which God raises up children unto Abraham, must allow it to be wonderful
that in the ancient books of the people of whom Jesus was born, so plain a
prophecy, including His very name, is found recorded; and must remark at
the same time, that it is not any many of the name of Jesus who is
prophesied, of, but a divine person, because God said that His name was in
that man who was appointed to rule the people, and to lead them into the
kingdom, and who by a change of name was called Jesus. In His being sent
with this new name, He brings a great and divine message, and is therefore
called an Angel, which, as every tyro in Greek knows, means messenger. No
Gentile, therefore, it he were not perverse and obstinate, would despise
these books merely because be is not subject to the law of the Hebrews, to
whom the books belong;  but would think highly of the books, no matter
whose they were, on finding in them prophecies of such ancient date, and of
what he sees now taking place. Instead of despising Christ Jesus because He
is foretold in the Hebrew Scriptures, he would conclude that one thought
worth), of being the subject of prophetic description, whoever the writers
might be, for so many ages before His coming into the world,--sometimes in
plain announcements, sometimes in figure by symbolic actions and
utterances,--must claim to be regarded with profound admiration and
reverence, and to be followed with implicit reliance. Thus the facts of
Christian history would prove the truth of the prophecy, and the prophecy
would prove the claims of Christ. Call this fancy, if it is not actually
the case that men all over the world have been led, and are now led, to
believe in Christ by reading these books.

   21. In view of the multitudes from all nations who have become zealous
believers in these books, it is laughably absurd to tell us that it is
impossible to persuade a Gentile to  learn the Christian faith from Jewish
books. Indeed, it is a great confirmation of our faith that such important
testimony is borne by enemies. The believing Gentiles cannot suppose these
testimonies to Christ to be recent forgeries; for they find them in books
held sacred for so many ages by those who crucified Christ, and still
regarded with the highest veneration by those who every day blaspheme
Christ. If the prophecies of Christ were the production of the preachers of
Christ. we might suspect their genuineness. But now the preacher expounds
the text of the blasphemer. In this way the Most High God order the
blindness of the ungodly for the profit of the saint, in His righteous
government bringing good out of evil, that those who by their own choice
live wickedly may be, in His just judgment, made the instruments of His
will. So, lest those that were to preach Christ to the world should be
thought to have forged the prophecies which speak of Christ as to be born,
to work miracles, to suffer unjustly, to die, to rise again, to ascend to
heaven, to publish the gospel of eternal life among all nations, the
unbelief of the Jews has been made of signal benefit to us; so that those
who do not receive in their heart for their own good these truths, carry,
in their hands for our benefit the writings in which these truths are
contained. And the unbelief of the Jews increases rather than lessens the
authority of the books, for this blindness is itself, foretold. They
testify to the truth by their not understanding it. By not understanding
the books which predict that they would not understand, they prove these
books to be true.

   22. In the passage, "Thou shalt see thy life hanging, and shalt not
believe thy life,"(2) Faustus is deceived by the ambiguity of the words.
The words may be differently interpreted; but that they cannot be
understood of Christ is not said by Faustus, nor can be said by anyone who
does not deny that Christ is life, or that He was seen by the Jews hang-lug
on the cross, or that they did not believe Him. Since Christ Himself says,
"I am the life,"(3) and since there is no doubt that He was seen hanging by
the unbelieving Jews, I see no reason for doubting that this was written of
Christ; for, as Christ says, Moses wrote of Him. Since we have already
refuted Faustus' arguments by which he tries to show that the words, "I
will raise up from among their brethren a prophet like unto thee," do not
apply to Christ, because Christ is not like Moses, we need not insist on
this other prophecy. Since, in the one case, his argument is that Christ is
unlike Moses, so here he ought to argue that Christ is not the life, or
that He was not seen hanging by the unbelieving Jews. But as he has not
said this, and as no one will now venture to say so, there should be no
difficulty in accepting this too as a prophecy of our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ, uttered by His servant. These words, says Faustus, occur in a
chapter of curses. But why should it be the less a prophecy because it
occurs in the midst of prophecies? Or why should it not be a prophecy of
Christ, although the context does not seem to refer to Christ? Indeed,
among all the curses which the Jews brought on themselves by their sinful
pride, nothing could be worse than this, that they should see their Life--
that is, the Son of God --hanging, and should not believe their Life. For
the curses of prophecy are not hostile imprecations, but announcements of
coming judgment. Hostile imprecations are forbidden, for it is said,
"Bless, and curse not."(1) But prophetic announcements are often found in
the writings of the saints, as when the Apostle Paul says: "Alexander the
coppersmith has done me much evil; the Lord shall reward him according to
his works."(2) So it might be thought that the apostle was prompted by
angry feeling to utter this imprecation: "I would that they were even made
eunuchs that trouble you."(3) But if we remember who the writer is, we may
see in this ambiguous expression an ingenious style of benediction. For
there are eunuchs which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of
heaven's sake.(4) If Faustus had a pious appetite for Christian food, he
would have found a similar ambiguity in the words of Moses. By the Jews the
declaration, "Thou shalt see thy life hanging, and shalt not believe thy
life," may have been understood to mean that they would see their life to
be in danger from the threats and plots of their enemies, and would not
expect to live. But the child of the Gospel, who has heard Christ say, "He
wrote of me." distinguishes in the ambiguity of the prophecy between what
is thrown to swine and what is addressed to man. To his mind the thought
immediately suggests itself of Christ hanging as the life of man, and of
the Jews not believing in Him for this very reason, that they saw Him
hanging. As to the objection that these words, "Thou shalt see thy life
hanging, and shalt not believe thy life," are the only words referring to
Christ in a passage containing maledictions not applicable to Christ, some
might grant that this is true. For this prophecy might very well occur
among the curses pronounced by the prophet upon the ungodly people, for
these curses are of different kinds. But I, and those who with me. consider
more closely the saying of the Lord in His Gospel, which is not, He wrote
also of me, as admitting that Moses wrote other things not referring to
Christ, but, "He wrote of me," as teaching that in searching the Scriptures
we should view them as intended solely to illustrate the grace of Christ,
see a reference to Christ in the rest of the passage also. But it would
take too much time to explain this here.

   23. So far from these words of Faustus' quotation being proved not to
refer to Christ by their occurring among the other curses, these curses
cannot be rightly understood except as prophecies of the glory of Christ,
in which lies the happiness of man. And what is true of these curses is
still more true of this quotation. If it could be said of Moses that his
words have a different meaning from what was in his mind, I would rather
suppose him to have prophesied without knowing it, than allow that the
words, "Thou shalt see thy life hanging, and shalt not believe thy life,"
are not applicable to Christ. So the words of Caiaphas had a different
meaning from what he intended, when, in his hostility to Christ, he said
that it was expedient that one man should die for the people, and that the
whole nation should not perish, where the Evangelist added that he said
this not of himself, but, since he was high priest, he prophesied.(5) But
Moses was not Caiaphas; and therefore when Moses said to the Hebrew people,
"Thou shalt see thy life hanging, and shalt not believe thy life," he not
only spoke of Christ, as he certainly did, even though he spoke without
knowing the meaning of what he said, lint he knew that he spoke of Christ.
For he was a most faithful steward of the prophetic mystery, that is, of
the priestly unction which gives the knowledge of the name of Christ; and
in this mystery even Caiaphas, wicked as he was, was able to prophesy
without knowing it. The prophetic unction enabled him to prophesy, though
his wicked life prevented him from knowing it. Who then can say that there
are no prophecies of Christ in Moses, with whom began that unction to which
we owe the knowledge of Christ's name, and by which even Caiaphas, the
persecutor of Christ, prophesied of Christ without knowing it?

24. We have already said as much as appeared desirable of the curse
pronounced on every one that hangs on a tree. Enough has been said to show
that the command to kill any prophet or prince who tried to turn away the
children of Israel from their God, or to break any commandment, is not
directed against Christ. The more we consider the words and actions of our
Lord Jesus Christ, the more clearly will this appear; for Christ never
tried to turn away any of the Israelites from their God. The God whom Moses
taught the people to love and serve, is the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and
of Jacob, whom the Lord Jesus Christ speaks of by this name, using the name
in refutation of the Sadducees, who denied the resurrection of the dead. He
says, "Of the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read what God said from
the bush to Moses, I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God
of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living; for all live
unto Him."(1) In the same words with which Christ answered the Sadducees we
may answer the Manichaeans, for they too deny the resurrection, though in a
different way. Again, when Christ said, in praise of the centurion's faith,
"Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in
Israel," He added, "And I say unto you, that many shall come from the east
and from the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob,
in the kingdom of heaven; but the children of the kingdom shall go into
outer darkness."(2) If, then, as Faustus must admit, the God of whom Moses
spoke was the God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, of whom Christ also
spoke, as these passages prove, it follows that Christ did not try to turn
away the people from their God. On the contrary, He warned them that they
would go into outer darkness, because He saw that they were turned away
from their God, in whose kingdom He says the Gentiles called from the whole
world will sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob; implying that they
would believe in the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob. So the
apostle also says: "The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the
Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, In
thy seed shall all nations be blessed."(3) It is implied that those who are
blessed in the seed of Abraham shall imitate the faith of Abraham. Christ,
then, did not try to turn away the Israelites from their God, but rather
charged them with being turned away. The idea that Christ broke one of the
commandments given by Moses is not a new one, for the Jews thought so; but
it is a mistake, for the Jews were in the wrong. Let Faustus mention the
commandment which he supposes the Lord to have broken, and we will point
out his mistake, as we have done already, when it was required. Meanwhile
it is enough to say, that if the Lord had broken any commandment, He could
not have found fault with the Jews for doing so. For when the Jews blamed
His disciples for eating with unwashen hands, in which they transgressed
not a commandment of God, but the traditions of the elders, Christ said,
"Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God, that ye may observe your
traditions?" He then quotes a commandment of God, which we know to have
been given by Moses. "For God said," He adds, "Honor thy father and mother,
and he that curseth father or mother shall die the death. But ye say,
Whoever shall say to his father or mother, It is a gift, by whatsoever thou
mightest be profited by me, is not obliged to honor his father. So ye make
the word of God of none effect by your traditions."(4) From this several
things maybe learned: that Christ did not turn away the Jews from their
God; that He not only did not Himself break God's commandments, but found
fault with those who did so; and that it was God Himself who gave these
commandments by Moses.

   25. In fulfillment of our promise that we would prove the reference to
Christ in those passages selected by Faustus from the writings of Moses for
adverse criticism, since we cannot here point out the reference to Christ
which we believe to exist in all the writings of Moses, it becomes our duty
to show that this commandment of Moses, that every prophet or prince should
be killed who tried to turn away the people from their God, or to break any
commandment, refers to the preservation of the faith which is taught in the
Church of Christ. Moses no doubt knew in the spirit of prophecy, and from
what he himself heard from God. that many heretics, would arise to teach
errors of all kinds against the doctrine of Christ, and to preach another
Christ than the true Christ. For the true Christ is He that was foretold in
the prophecies uttered by Moses himself, and by the other holy men of that
nation. Moses accordingly commanded that whoever tried to teach another
Christ should be put to death. In obedience to this command, the voice of
the Catholic Church, as with the spiritual two-edged sword of both
Testaments, puts to death all who try to turn us away from our God, or to
break any of the commandments. And chief among these is Manichaeus himself;
for the truth of the law and the prophets convinces him of error as trying
to turn us away from our God, the God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob,
whom Christ acknowledges, and as trying to break the commandments of the
law, which, even when they are only figurative, we regard as prophetic of
Christ.

   26. Faustus uses an argument which is either very deceitful or very
stupid. And as Faustus is not stupid, it is probable that he used the
argument intentionally, with the design of misleading the careless reader.
He says: If these things are not written of Christ, and if you cannot show
any others, it follows that there are none at all. The proposition is true;
but it remains to be proved, both that these things are not written of
Christ, and that no other can be shown. Faustus has not proved this; for we
have shown both how these things are to be understood of Christ, and that
there are many other things which have no meaning but as applied to Christ.
So it does not follow, as Faustus says, that nothing was written by Moses
of Christ. Let us repeat Faustus' argument: If these things are not written
of Christ, and if you cannot show any others, it follows that there are
none at  all. Perfectly so. But as both these things and many others have
been shown to be written of Christ, or with reference to Christ, the true
conclusion is that Faustus' argument is worthless. In the passages quoted
by Faustus, he has tried, though without success, to show that they were
not written of Christ.  But in order to draw the conclusion that there  are
none at all, he should first have proved that no others can be shown.
Instead of this, he takes for granted that the readers of his book will be
blind, or the hearers deaf, so that the omission will be overlooked, and
runs on thus: If there are none, Christ could not have asserted that there
were any. And if Christ did not make this assertion, it follows that this
verse is spurious. Here is a man who thinks so much of what he says
himself, that he does not consider the possibility of another person saying
the opposite. Where is your wit? Is this all you could say for a bad cause?
But if the badness of the cause made you utter folly, the bad cause was
your own choice. To prove your antecedent false, we have only to show some
other things written of Christ. If there are some, it will not be true that
there are none. And if there are some, Christ may have asserted that there
were. And if Christ may have asserted this, t follows that this verse of
the Gospel is not spurious. Coming back, then, to Faustus' proposition, If
you cannot show any other, it follows that there are none at all, it
requires to be proved that we cannot show any other. We need only refer to
what we showed before, as sufficient to prove the truth of the text in the
Gospel, in which Christ says, "If ye believed Moses, ye would also believe
me; for he wrote of me." And even though from dullness of mind we could
find nothing written of Christ by Moses, still, so strong is the evidence
in support of the authority of the Gospel, that it would be incumbent on us
to believe that not only some things, but everything written by Moses,
refers to Christ; for He says not, He wrote also of me, but, He wrote of
me. The truth then is this, that  even though there were doubts, which God
forbid, of the genuineness of this verse, the doubt would be removed by the
number of testimonies to Christ which we find in Moses; while, on the other
hand, even if we could find none, we should still be bound to believe that
these are to be found, because no doubts can be admitted regarding any
verse in the Gospel.

   27. As to your argument that the doctrine of Moses was unlike that of
Christ, and that therefore it was improbable that if they believed Moses,
they would believe Christ too; and that it would rather follow that their
belief in one would imply of necessity opposition to the other,--you could
not have said this if you had turned your mind's eye for a moment to see
men all the world over, when they are not blinded by a contentious spirit,
learned and unlearned, Greek and barbarian, wise and unwise, to whom the
apostle called himself a debtor,(1) believing in both Christ and Moses. If
it was improbable that the Jews would believe both Christ and Moses, it is
still more improbable that all the world would do so. But as we see all
nations believing both, and in a common and well-grounded faith holding the
agreement of the prophecy of the one with the gospel of the other, it was
no impossible thing to which this one nation was called, when Christ said
to them, "If ye believed Moses, ye would also believe me." Rather we should
be amazed at the guilty obstinacy of the Jews, who refused to do what we
see the whole world has done.

   28. Regarding the Sabbath and circumcision, and the distinction in
foods, in which you say the teaching of Moses differs from what Christians
are taught by Christ, we have already shown that, as the apostle says, "all
those things were our examples."(2) The difference is not in the doctrine,
but in the time. There was a time when it was proper that these things
should be figuratively predicted; and there is now a different time when it
is proper that they should be openly declared and fully accomplished. It is
not surprising that the Jews, who understood the Sabbath in a carnal sense,
should oppose Christ, who began to open up its spiritual meaning. Reply, if
you can, to the apostle, who declares that the rest of the Sabbath was a
shadow of something future.(1) If the Jews opposed Christ because they did
not understand what the true Sabbath is, there is no reason why you should
oppose Him, or refuse to learn what true innocence is. For on that occasion
when Jesus appears especially to set aside the Sabbath, when His disciples
were hungry, and pulled the ears of corn through which they were passing,
and ate them, Jesus, in replying to the Jews, declared His disciples to be
innocent. "If you knew," He said "what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and
not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the innocent."(2) They should
rather have pitied the wants of the disciples, for hunger forced them to do
what they did. But pulling ears of corn, which is innocence in the teaching
of Christ, is murder in the teaching of Manichaeus. Or was it an act of
charity in the apostles to pull the ears of corn, that they might in eating
set free the members of God, as in your foolish notions? Then it must be
cruelty in you not to do the same. Faustus' reason for setting aside the
Sabbath is because he knows that God's power is exercised without
cessation, and without weariness. It is for those to say this, who believe
that all times are the production of an eternal act of God's will. But you
will find it difficult to reconcile this with your doctrine, that the
rebellion of the race of darkness broke your god's rest, which was also
disturbed by a sudden attack of the enemy; or perhaps God never had rest,
as he foresaw this from eternity, and could not feel at ease in the
prospect of so dire a conflict, with such loss and disaster to his members.

   29. Unless Christ had considered this Sabbath-which in your want of
knowledge and of piety you laugh at--one of the prophecies written of
Himself, He would not have borne such a testimony to it as He did. For
when, as you say in praise of Christ, He suffered voluntarily, and so could
choose His own time for suffering and for resurrection, He brought it about
that His body rested from all its works on Sabbath in the tomb, and that
His resurrection on the third day. which we call the Lord's day, the day
after the Sabbath, and therefore the eighth, proved the circumcision of the
eighth day to be also prophetical of Him. For what does circumcision mean,
but the eradication of the mortality which comes from our carnal
generation? So the apostle says: "Putting off from Himself His flesh, He
made a show of principalities and powers, triumphing over them in
Himself."(3) The flesh here said to be put off is that mortality of flesh
on account of which the body is properly called flesh. The flesh is the
mortality, for in the immortality of the resurrection there will be no
flesh; as it is written, "Flesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdom of
God." You are accustomed to argue from these words against our faith in the
doctrine of the resurrection of the body, which has already taken place in
the Lord Himself. You keep out of view the following words, in which the
apostle explains his meaning. To show what he here means by flesh, he adds,
"Neither shall corruption inherit incorruption." For this body, which from
its mortality is properly called flesh, is changed in the resurrection, so
as to be no longer corruptible arid mortal. This is the apostle's
statement, and not a supposition of ours, as his next words prove. "Lo" he
says, "I show you a mystery: we shall all use again, but we shall not all
be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump; for
the last trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall rise incorruptible, and we
shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this
mortal must put on immortality."(4) To put on immortality, the body puts
off mortality. This is the mystery of circumcision, which by the law took
place on the eighth day; and on the eighth day, the Lord's day, the day
after the Sabbath, was fulfilled in its true meaning by the Lord. Hence it
is said, "Putting off His flesh, He made a show of principalities and
powers." For by means of this mortality the hostile powers of hell ruled
over us. Christ is said to have made a show or example of these, because in
Himself, our Head, He gave an example which will be fully realized in the
liberation of His whole body, the Church, from the power of the devil at
the last resurrection. This is our faith. And according to the prophetic
declaration quoted by Paul, "The just shall live by faith." This is our
justification.(5) Even Pagans believe that Christ died. But only Christians
believe that Christ rose again. "If thou confess with thy mouth," says the
apostle, "that Jesus is the Lord, and believest in thy heart that God
raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved."(1) Again, because we are
justified by faith in Christ's resurrection, the apostle says, "He died for
our offenses, and rose again for our justification."(2) And because this
resurrection by faith in which we are justified was prefigured by the
circumcision of the eighth day, the apostle says of Abraham, with whom the
observance began, "He received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the
righteousness of faith."(3) Circumcision, then, is one of the prophecies of
Christ, written by Moses, of whom Christ said, "He wrote of me." In the
words of the Lord, "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye
compass sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he is made, ye make
him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves,"(4) it is not the
circumcision of the proselyte which is meant, but his imitation of the
conduct of the scribes and Pharisees, which the Lord forbids His disciples
to imitate, when He says: "The scribes and Pharisees sit on Moses' seat:
what they say unto you, do; but do not after their works; for they say, and
do not."(5) These words of the Lord teach us both the honor due to the
teaching of Moses, in whose seat even bad men were obliged to teach good
things, and the reason of the proselyte becoming a child of hell, which was
not that he heard from the Pharisees the words of the law, but that he
copied their example. Such a circumcised proselyte might have been
addressed in the words of Paul: "Circumcision verily profiteth, if thou
keep the law."(6) His imitation of the Pharisees in not keeping the law
made him a child of hell. And he was twofold more than they, probably
because of his neglecting to fulfill what he voluntarily undertook, when,
not being born a Jew, he chose to become a Jew.

   30. Your scoff is very inappropriate, when you say that Moses discusses
like a glutton what should be eaten, and commands some things to be freely
used as clean, and other things as unclean to be not even touched. A
glutton makes no distinction, except in choosing the sweetest food. Perhaps
you wish to commend to the admiration of the uninitiated the innocence of
your abstemious habits, by appearing not to know, or to have forgotten,
that swine's flesh tastes better than mutton. But as this too was written
by Moses of Christ in figurative prophecy, in which the flesh of animals
signifies those who are to be united  to the body of Christ, which is the
Church, or who are to be cast out, you are typified by the unclean animals;
for your disagreement with the Catholic faith shows that you do not
ruminate on the word of wisdom, and that you do not divide the hoof, in the
sense of making a correct distinction between the Old Testament and the
New. But you show still more audacity in adopting the erroneous opinions of
your Adimantus.

   31. You follow Adimantus in saying that Christ made no distinction in
food, except in entirely prohibiting the use of animal food to His
disciples, while He allowed the laity to eat anything that is eatable; and
declared that they were not polluted by what enters into the mouth, but
that the unseemly things which come out of the mouth are the things which
defile a man. These words of yours are unseemly indeed, for they express
notorious falsehood. If Christ taught that the evil things which come out
of the mouth are the only things that defile a man, why should they not be
the only things to defile His disciples, so as to make it unnecessary that
any food should be forbidden or unclean? Is it only the laity that are not
polluted by what goes into the mouth, but by what comes out of it? In that
case, they are better protected from impurity than the saints, who are
polluted both by what goes in and by what comes out. But as Christ,
comparing Himself with John, who came neither eating nor drinking, says
that He came eating and drinking, I should like to know what He ate and
drank. When exposing the perversity which found fault with both, He says:
"John came neither eating nor drinking; and ye say, He hath a devil. The
Son of man cometh eating and drinking; and ye say, Behold a glutton and a
wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners."(7) We know what John ate
and drank. For it is not said that he drank nothing, but that he drank no
wine or strong drink; so he must have drunk water. He did not live without
food, but his food was locusts and wild honey.(8) When Christ says that
John did not eat or drink, He means that he did not use the food which the
Jews used. And because the Lord used this food, He is spoken of, in
contrast with John, as eating and drinking. Will it be said that it was
bread and vegetables which the Lord ate, and which John did not eat?  It
would be strange if one was said not to eat, because he used locusts and
honey, while the other is said to eat simply because he used bread and
vegetables. But whatever may be thought of the eating, certainly no one
could be called a wine-bibber unless he used wine. Why then do you call
wine unclean? It is not in order to subdue the body by abstinence that you
prohibit these things, but because they are unclean, for you say that they
are the poisonous filth of the race of darkness; whereas the apostle says,
"To the pure all things are pure."(1) Christ, according to this doctrine,
taught that all food was alike, but forbade His disciples to use what the
Manichaeans call unclean. Where do you find this prohibition? You are not
afraid to deceive men by falsehood; but in God's righteous providence, you
are so blinded that you provide us with the means of refuting you. For I
cannot resist quoting for examination the whole of that passage of the
Gospel which Faustus uses against Moses; that we may see from it the
falsehood of what was said first by Adimantus, and here by Faustus, that
the Lord Jesus forbade the use of animal food to His disciples, and allowed
it to the laity. After Christ's reply to the accusation that His disciples
ate with unwashen hands, we read in the Gospel as follows: "And He called
the multitude, and said unto them, Hear and understand. Not that which
goeth into the mouth defileth a man: but that which cometh out of the
mouth, this defileth a man. Then came His disciples, and said unto Him,
Knowest Thou that the Pharisees were offended after they heard this
saying?" Here, when addressed by His disciples, He ought certainly,
according to the Manichaeans, to have given them special instructions to
abstain from animal food, and to show that His words, "Not that which goeth
into the mouth defileth a man, but that which goeth out of the mouth,"
applied to the multitude only. Let us hear, then, what, according to the
evangelist, the Lord replied, not to the multitude, but to His disciples:
"But He answered and said, Every plant which my heavenly Father hath not
planted shall be rooted up. Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the
blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch."
The reason of this was, that in their desire to observe their own
traditions, they did not understand the commandments of God. As yet the
disciples had not asked the Master how they were to understand what He had
said to the multitude. But now they do so; for the evangelist adds: Then
answered Peter and said unto Him, Declare unto us this parable." This shows
that Peter thought that when the Lord said, "Not that which goeth into the
mouth defileth a man, but that which goeth out of the mouth," He did not
speak plainly and literally, but, as usual, wished to convey some
instruction under the guise of a parable. When His disciples, then, put
this question in private, does He tell them, as the Manichaeans say, that
all animal food is unclean, and that they must never touch it? Instead of
this, He rebukes them for not understanding His plain language, and for
thinking it a parable when it was not. We read: "And Jesus said, Are ye
also yet without understanding? Do not ye yet understand, that whatsoever
entereth in at the mouth goeth into the belly, and is cast out into the
drought? But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from
the heart, and they defile the man. For out of the heart proceed evil
thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness,
blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man: but to eat with
unwashen hands defileth not a man."(2)

   32. Here we have a complete exposure of the falsehood of the
Manichaeans: for it is plain that the Lord did not in this matter teach one
thing to the multitude, and another in private to His disciples. Here is
abundant evidence that the error and deceit are in the Manichaeans, and not
in Moses, nor in Christ, nor in the doctrine taught figuratively in one
Testament and plainly in the other,--prophesied in one, and fulfilled in
the other. How can the Manichaeans say that the Catholics regard none of
the things that Moses wrote, when in fact they observe them all, not now in
the figures, but in what the figures were intended to foretell? No one
would say that one who reads the Scripture subsequently to its being
written does not observe it because he does not form the letters which he
reads. The letters are the figures of the sounds which he utters; and
though he does not form the letters, he cannot read without examining them.
The reason why the Jews did not believe in Christ, was because they did not
observe even the plain literal precepts of Moses. So Christ says to them:
"Ye pay tithe of mint and cummin, and omit the weightier matters of the
law, mercy and judgment. Ye strain out a gnat and swallow a camel. These
ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone."(3) So also He
told them that by their traditions they made of none effect the commandment
of God to give honor to parents. On account of this pride and perversity in
neglecting what they understood, they were justly blinded, so that they
could not understand the other things.

  33. You see, my argument is not that if you are a Christian you must
believe Christ when He says that Moses wrote of Him, and that if you do not
believe this you are no Christian. The account you give of yourself in
asking to be dealt with as a Jew or a Gentile is your own affair. My
endeavor is to leave no avenue of error open to you. I have shut you out,
too, from that precipice to which you rush as a last resort, when you say
that these are spurious passages in the Gospel; so that, freed from the
pernicious influence of this opinion, you may be reduced to the necessity
of believing in Christ. You say you wish to be taught like the Christian
Thomas, whom Christ did not spurn from Him because he doubted of Him, but,
in order to heal the wounds of his mind, showed him the marks of the wounds
in His own body. These are your own words. It is well that you desire to be
taught as Thomas was. I feared yon would make out this passage too to be
spurious. Believe, then, the marks of Christ's wounds. For if the marks
were real, the wounds must have been real. And the wounds could not have
been real, unless His body had been capable of real wounds; which upsets at
once the whole error of the Manichaeans. If you say that the marks were
unreal which Christ showed to His doubting disciple, it follows that He
must be a deceitful teacher, and that you wish to be deceived in being
taught by Him. But as no one wishes to be deceived, while many wish to
deceive, it is probable that you would rather imitate the teaching which
you ascribe to Christ than the learning you ascribe to Thomas. If, then,
you believe that Christ deceived a doubting inquirer by false marks of
wounds, you must yourself be regarded, not as a safe teacher, but as a
dangerous impostor. On the other hand, if Thomas touched the real marks of
Christ's wounds, you must confess that Christ had a real body. So, if you
believe as Thomas did, you are no more a Manichaean. If you do not believe
even with Thomas, you must be left to your infidelity.

BOOK XVII: FAUSTUS REJECTS CHRIST'S DECLARATION THAT HE CAME NOT TO DESTROY
THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS BUT TO FULFILL THEM, ON THE GROUND THAT IT IS
FOUND ONLY IN MATTHEW, WHO WAS NOT PRESENT WHEN THE WORDS PURPORT TO HAVE
BEEN SPOKEN. AUGUSTIN REBUKES THE FOLLY OF REFUSING TO BELIEVE MATTHEW AND
YET BELIEVING MANICHAEUS, AND SHOWS WHAT THE PASSAGE OF SCRIPTURE REALLY
MEANS.

   1. FAUSTUS said: You ask why we do not receive the law and the
prophets, when Christ said that he came not to destroy them, but to fulfill
them. Where do we learn that Jesus said this? From Matthew, who declares
that he said it on the mount. In whose presence was it said? In the
presence of Peter, Andrew, James, and John--only these four; for the rest,
including Matthew himself, were not yet chosen. Is it not the case that one
of these four--John, namely--wrote a Gospel? It is. Does he mention this
saying of Jesus? No. How, then, does it happen that what is not recorded by
John, who was on the mount, is recorded by Matthew, who became a follower
of Christ long after He came down from the mount? In the first place, then,
we must doubt whether Jesus ever said these words, since the proper witness
is silent on the matter, and we have only the authority of a less
trustworthy witness. But, besides this, we shall find that it is not
Matthew that has imposed upon us, but some one else under his name, as is
evident from the indirect style of the narrative. Thus we read: "As Jesus
passed by, He saw a man, named Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom,
and called him; and he immediately rose up, and followed Him."(1) No one
writing of himself would say, He saw a man, and called him; and he followed
Him; but, He saw me, and called me, and I followed Him. Evidently this was
written not by Matthew himself, but by some one else under his name. Since,
then, the passage already quoted would not be true even if it had been
written by Matthew, since he was not present when Jesus spoke on the mount;
much more is its falsehood evident from the fact that the writer was not
Matthew himself, but some one borrowing the names both of Jesus and of
Matthew.

   2. The passage itself, in which Christ tells the Jews not to think that
He came to destroy the law, is rather designed to show that He did destroy
it. For, had He not done something of the kind, the Jews would not have
suspected Him. His words are: "Think not that I am come to destroy the
law." Suppose the Jews had replied, What actions of thine might lead us to
suspect this? Is it because thou exposest circumcision, breakest the
Sabbath, discardest sacrifices, makest no distinction in foods? this would
be the natural answer to the words, Think not. The Jews had the best
possible reason for thinking that Jesus destroyed the law. If this was not
to destroy the law, what is? But, indeed, the law and the prophets consider
themselves already so faultlessly perfect, that they have no desire to be
fulfilled. Their author and father condemns adding to them as much as
taking away anything from them; as we read in Deuteronomy: "These precepts
which I deliver unto thee this day, O Israel, thou shalt observe to do;
thou shalt not turn aside from them to the right hand or to the left; thou
shalt not add thereto nor diminish from it, that thy God may bless
thee."(1) Whether, therefore, Jesus turned aside to the right by adding to
the law and the prophets in order to fulfill them, or to the left in taking
away from them to destroy them, either way he offended the author of the
law. So this verse must either have some other meaning, or be spurious.

   3. AUGUSTIN replied: What amazing folly, to disbelieve what Matthew
records of Christ, while you believe Manichaeus! If Matthew is not to be
believed because he was not present when Christ said, "I came not to
destroy the law and the prophets, but to fulfill," was Manichaeus present,
was he even born, when Christ appeared among men? According, then, to your
rule, you should not believe anything that Manichaeus says of Christ. On
the other hand, we refuse to believe what Manichaeus says of Christ; not
because he was not present as a witness of Christ's words and actions, but
because he contradicts Christ's disciples, and the Gospel which rests on
their authority. The apostle, speaking in the Holy Spirit, tells us that
such teachers would arise. With reference to such, he says to believers:
"If any man preaches to you another gospel than that ye have received, let
him be accursed."(2) If no one can say what is true of Christ unless he has
himself seen and heard Him, no one now can be trusted. But if believers can
now say what is true of Christ because the truth has been handed down in
word or writing by those who saw and heard, why might not Matthew have
heard the truth from his fellow-disciple John, if John was present and he
himself was not, as from the writings of John both we who are born so long
after and those who shall be born after us can learn the truth about
Christ? In this way, the Gospels of Luke and Mark, who were companions of
the disciples, as well as the Gospel of Matthew, have the same authority as
that of John. Besides, the Lord Himself might have told Matthew what those
called before him had already been witnesses of. Your idea is, that John
should have recorded this saying of the Lord, as he was present on the
occasion. As if it might not happen that, since it was impossible to write
all that be heard from the Lord, he set himself to write some, omitting
this among others. Does he not say at the close of his Gospel: "And there
are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be
written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain
the books that should be written"?(3) This proves that he omitted many
things intentionally, But if you choose John as an authority regarding the
law and the prophets, I ask you only to believe his testimony to them. It
is John who writes that Isaiah saw the glory of Christ.(4) It is in his
Gospel we find the text l already treated of: "If ye believed Moses, ye
would also believe me; for he wrote of me."(5) Your evasions are met on
every side. You ought to say plainly that you do not believe the gospel of
Christ. For to believe what you please, and not to believe what you please,
is to believe yourselves, and not the gospel.

   4. Faustus thinks himself wonderfully clever in proving that Matthew
was not the writer of this Gospel, because, when speaking of his own
election, he says not, He saw me, and said to me, Follow me; but, He saw
him, and said to him, Follow me. This must have been said either in
ignorance or from a design to mislead. Faustus can hardly be so ignorant as
not to have read or heard that narrators, when speaking of themselves,
often use a construction as if speaking of another. It is more probable
that Faustus wished to bewilder those more ignorant than himself, in the
hope of getting hold on not a few unacquainted with these things. It is
needless to resort to other writings to quote examples of this construction
from profane authors for the information of our friends, and for the
refutation of Faustus. We find examples in passages quoted above from Moses
by Faustus himself, without any denial, or rather with the assertion, that
they were written by Moses, only not written of Christ. When Moses, then,
writes of himself, does he say, I said this, or I did that, and not rather,
Moses said, and Moses did? Or does he say, The Lord called me, The Lord
said to me, and not rather, The Lord called Moses, The Lord said to Moses,
and so on? So Matthew, too, speaks of himself in the third person. And John
does the same; for towards the end of his book he says: "Peter, turning,
saw the disciple whom Jesus loved, who also lay on His breast at supper,
and who said to the Lord, Who is it that shall betray Thee?" Does he say,
Peter, turning, saw me? Or will you argue from this that John did not write
this Gospel? But he adds a little after: "This is the disciple that
testifies of Jesus, and has written these things; and we know that his
testimony is true."(1) Does he say, I am the disciple who testify of Jesus,
and who have written these things, and we know that my testimony is true?
Evidently this style is common in writers of narratives. There are
innumerable instances in which the Lord Himself uses it. "When the Son of
man," He says, "cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?"(2) Not, When I
come, shall I find? Again, "The Son of man came eating and drinking;"(3)
not, I came. Again, "The hour shall come, and now is, when the dead shall
hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live;"(4) not,
My voice. And so in many other places. This may suffice to satisfy
inquirers and to refute scoffers.

   5. Every one can see the weakness of the argument that Christ could not
have said, "Think not that I am come to destroy the law and the prophets: I
came not to destroy, but to fulfill," unless He had done something to
create a suspicion of this kind. Of course, we grant that the unenlightened
Jews may have looked upon Christ as the destroyer of the law and the
prophets; but their very suspicion makes it certain that the true and
truthful One, in saying that He came not to destroy the law and the
prophets, referred to no other law than that of the Jews. This is proved by
the words that follow: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Till heaven and
earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till
all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of the least of these
commandments, and shall teach men so, shall be called the least in the
kingdom of heaven. But whosoever shall do and teach them, shall be called
great in the kingdom of heaven." This applied to the Pharisees, who taught
the law in word, while they broke it in deed. Christ says of the Pharisees
in another place, "What they say, that do; but do not after their works:
for they say, and do not."(5) So here also He adds, "For I say unto you,
Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the scribes and
Pharisees, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven;"(6) that is,
Unless ye shall both do and teach what they teach without doing, ye shall
not enter into the kingdom of heaven. This law, therefore, which the
Pharisees taught without keeping it, Christ says He came not to destroy,
but to fulfill; for this was the law connected with the seat of Moses in
which the Pharisees sat, who because they said without doing, are to be
heard, but not to be imitated.

   6. Faustus does not understand, or pretends not to understand, what it
is to fulfill the law. He supposes the expression to mean the addition of
words to the law, regarding which it is written that nothing is to be added
to or taken away from the Scriptures of God. From this Faustus argues that
there can be no fulfillment of what is spoken of as so perfect that nothing
can be added to it or taken from it. Faustus requires to be told that the
law is fulfilled by living as it enjoins. "Love is the fulfilling of the
law,"(7) as the apostle says. The Lord has vouch-safed both to manifest and
to impart this love, by sending the Holy Spirit to His believing people. So
it is said by the same apostle: "The love of God is shed abroad in our
heart by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us."(8) And the Lord Himself
says: "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love
one to another."(9) The law, then, is fulfilled both by the observance of
its precepts and by the accomplishment of its prophecies. For "the law was
given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ."(10) The law
itself, by being fulfilled, becomes grace and truth. Grace is the
fulfillment of love, and truth is the accomplishment of the prophecies. And
as both grace and truth are by Christ, it follows that He came not to
destroy the law, but to fulfill it; not by supplying any defects in the
law, but by obedience to what is written in the law. Christ's own words
declare this. For He does not say, One jot or one tittle shall in no wise
pass from the law till its defects are supplied, but "till all be
fulfilled."

BOOK XVIII: THE RELATION OF CHRIST TO PROPHECY, CONTINUED.

   1. FAUSTUS said: "I came not to destroy the law, but to fulfill it." If
these are Christ's words, unless they have some other meaning, they are as
much against you as against me. Your Christianity as well as mine is based
on the belief that Christ came to destroy the law and the prophets. Your
actions prove this, even though in words you deny it. It is on this ground
that you disregard the precepts of the law and the prophets. It is on this
ground that we both acknowledge Jesus as the founder of the New Testament,
in which is implied the acknowledgment that the Old Testament is destroyed.
How, then, can we believe that Christ said these words without first
confessing that hitherto we have been wholly in error, and without showing
our repentance by entering on a course of obedience to the law and the
prophets, and of careful observance of their requirements, whatever they
may be? This done, we may honestly believe that Jesus said that he came not
to destroy the law, but to fulfill it. As it is, you accuse me of not
believing what you do not believe yourself, and what therefore is false.

   2. But grant that we have been in the wrong hitherto. What is to be
done now? Shall we come under the law, since Christ has not destroyed, but
fulfilled it? Shall we by circumcision add shame to shame, and believe that
God is pleased with such sacraments? Shall we observe the rest of the
Sabbath, and bind ourselves in the fetters of Saturn? Shall we glut the
demon of the Jews, for he is not God, with the slaughter of bulls, rams,
and goats, not to say of men; and adopt, only with greater cruelty, in
obedience to the law and the prophets, the practices on account of which we
abandoned idolatry? Shall we, in fine, call the flesh of some animals
clean, and that Of others unclean, among which, according to the law and
the prophets, swine's flesh has a particular defilement? Of course you will
allow that as Christians we must not do any of these things, for you
remember that Christ says that a man when circumcised becomes twofold a
child of hell.(1) It is plain also that Christ neither observed the Sabbath
himself, nor commanded it to be observed. And regarding foods, he says
expressly that man is not defiled by anything that goes into his mouth, but
rather by the things which come out of it.(2) Regarding sacrifices, too, he
often says that God desires mercy, and not sacrifice.(3) What becomes,
then, of the statement that he came not to destroy the law, but to fulfill
it? If Christ said this, he must have meant something else, or, what is not
to be thought of, he told a lie, or he never said it. No Christian will
allow that Jesus spoke falsely; therefore he must either not have said
this, or said it with another meaning.

   3. For my part, as a Manichaean, this verse has little difficulty for
me, for at the outset I am taught to believe that many things which pass in
Scripture under the name of the Saviour are spurious, and that they must
therefore be tested to find whether they are true, and sound, and genuine;
for the enemy who comes by night has corrupted almost every passage by
sowing tares among the wheat. So I am not alarmed by these words,
notwithstanding the sacred name affixed to them; for I still claim the
liberty to examine whether this comes from the hand of the good sower, who
sows in the day-time, or of the evil one, who sows in the night. But what
escape from this difficulty can there be for you, who receive everything
without examination, condemning the use of reason, which is the prerogative
of human nature, and thinking it impiety to distinguish between truth and
falsehood, and as much afraid of separating between what is good and what
is not as children are of ghosts? For suppose a Jew or any one acquainted
with these words should ask you why you do not keep the precepts of the law
and the prophets, since Christ says that he came not to destroy but to
fulfill them: you will be obliged either to join in the superstitious
follies of the Jews, or to declare this verse false, or to deny that you
are a follower of Christ.

   4. AUGUSTIN replied: Since you continue repeating what has been so
often exposed and refuted, we must be content to repeat the refutation. The
things in the law and the prophets which Christians do not observe, are
only the types of what they do observe. These types were figures of things
to come, and are necessarily removed when the things themselves are fully
revealed by Christ, that in this very removal the law and the prophets may
be fulfilled. So it is written in the prophets that God would give a new
covenant, "not as I gave to their fathers."(1) Such was the hardness of
heart of the people under the Old Testament, that many precepts were given
to them, not so much because they were good, as because they suited the
people. Still, in all these things the future was foretold and prefigured,
although the people did not understand the meaning of their own
observances. After the manifest appearance of the things thus signified, we
are not required to observe the types; but we read them to see their
meaning. So, again, it is foretold in the prophets, "I will take away their
stony heart, and will give them a heart of flesh,"(2)--that is, a sensible
heart, instead of an insensible one. To this the apostle alludes in the
words: "Not in tables of stone, but in the fleshy tables of the heart."(3)
The fleshy tables of the heart are the same as the heart of flesh. Since,
then, the removal of these observances is foretold, the law and the
prophets could not have been fulfilled but by this removal. Now, however,
the prediction is accomplished, and the fulfillment of the law and the
prophets is found in what at first sight seems the very opposite.

   5. We are not afraid to meet your scoff at the Sabbath, when you call
it the fetters of Saturn. It is a silly and unmeaning expression, which
occurred to you only because you are in the habit of worshipping the sun on
what you call Sunday. What you call Sunday we call the Lord's day, and on
it we do not worship the sun, but the Lord's resurrection. And in the same
way, the fathers observed the rest of the Sabbath, not because they
worshipped Saturn, but because it was incumbent at that time, for it was a
shadow of things to come, as the apostle testifies.(4) The Gentiles, of
whom the apostle says that they "worshipped and served the creature rather
than the Creator,"(5) gave the names of their gods to the days of the week.
And so far you do the same, except that you worship only the two brightest
luminaries, and not the rest of the stars, as the Gentiles did. Besides,
the Gentiles gave the names of their gods to the months. In honor of
Romulus, whom they believed to be the son of Mars, they dedicated the first
month to Mars, and called it March. The next month, April, is named not
from any god, but from the word for opening, because the buds generally
open in this month. The third month is called May, in honor of Maia the
mother of Mercury. The fourth is called June, from Juno. The rest to
December used to be named according to their number The fifth and sixth,
however, got the names of July and August from men to whom divine honors
were decreed; while the others, from September to December, continued to be
named from their number. January, again, is named from Janus, and February
from the rites of the Luperci called Februae. Must we say that you worship
the god Mars in the month of March? But that is the month in which you hold
the feast you call Bema with great pomp. But if you think it allowable to
observe the month of March without thinking of Mars, why do you try to
bring in the name of Saturn in connection with the rest of the seventh day
enjoined in Scripture, merely because the Gentiles call the day Saturday?
The Scripture name for the day is Sabbath, which means rest. Your scoff is
as unreasonable as it is profane.

   6. As regards animal sacrifices, every Christian knows that they were
enjoined as suitable to a perverse people, and not because God had any
pleasure in them. Still, even in these sacrifices there were types of what
we enjoy; for we cannot obtain purification or the propitiation of God
without blood. The fulfillment of these types is in Christ, by whose blood
we are purified and redeemed. In these figures of the divine oracles, the
bull represents Christ, because with the horns of His cross He scatters the
wicked; the lamb, from His matchless innocence; the goat, from His being
made in the likeness of sinful flesh, that by sin He might condemn sin.(6)
Whatever kind of sacrifice you choose to specify, I will show you a
prophecy of Christ in it. Thus we have shown regarding circumcision, and
the Sabbath, and the distinction of food, and the sacrifice of animals,
that all these things were our examples, and our prophecies, which Christ
came not to destroy, but to fulfill, by fulfilling what was thus foretold.
Your opponent is the apostle, whose opinion I give in his own words: "All
these things were our examples."(7)

   7. If you have learned from Manichaeus the willful impiety of admitting
only those parts of the Gospel which do not contradict your errors, while
you reject the rest, we have learned from the apostle the pious caution of
looking on every one as accursed that preaches to us another gospel than
that which we have received. Hence Catholic Christians look upon you as
among the tares; for, in the Lord's exposition of the meaning of the tares,
they are not falsehood mixed with truth in the Scriptures, but children of
the wicked one--that is, people who imitate the deceitfulness of the devil.
It is not true that Catholic Christians believe everything; for they do not
believe Manichaeus or any of the heretics. Nor do they condemn the use of
human reason; but what you call reasoning they prove to be fallacious. Nor
do they think it profane to distinguish truth from falsehood; for they
distinguish between the truth of the Catholic faith and the falsehood of
your doctrines. Nor do they fear to separate good from evil; but they
contend that evil, instead of being natural, is unnatural. They know
nothing of your race of darkness, which, you say, is produced from a
principle of its own, and fights against the kingdom of God, and of which
your god seems really to be more frightened than children are of ghosts;
for, according to you, he covered himself with a veil, that he might not
see his own members taken and plundered by the assault of the enemy. To
conclude, Catholic Christians are in no difficulty regarding the words of
Christ, though in one sense they may be said not to observe the law and the
prophets; for by the grace of Christ they keep the law by their love to God
and man; and on these two commandments hang all the law and the
prophets.(1) Besides, they see in Christ and the Church the fulfillment of
all the prophecies of the Old Testament, whether in the form of actions, or
of symbolic rites, or of figurative language. So we neither join in
superstitious follies, nor declare this verse false; nor deny that we are
followers of Christ; for on those principles which I have set forth to the
best of my power, the law and the prophets which Christ came not to
destroy, but to fulfill, are no other than those recognized by the Church.

BOOK XIX: FAUSTUS IS WILLING TO ADMIT THAT CHRIST MAY HAVE SAID THAT HE
CAME NOT TO DESTROY THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS, BUT TO FULFILL THEM; BUT IF
HE DID, IT WAS TO PACIFY THE JEWS AND IN A MODIFIED SENSE. AUGUSTIN
REPLIES, AND STILL FURTHER ELABORATES THE CATHOLIC VIEW OF PROPHECY AND ITS
FULFILLMENT.

   1. FAUSTUS said: I will grant that Christ said that he came not to
destroy the law and the prophets, but to fulfill them. But why did Jesus
say this? Was it to pacify the Jews, who were enraged at seeing their
sacred institutions trampled upon by Christ, and regarded him as a wild
blasphemer, not to be listened to, much less to be followed? Or was it for
our instruction as Gentile believers, that we might learn meekly and
patiently to bear the yoke of commandment laid on our necks by the law and
the prophets of the Jews? You yourself can hardly suppose that Christ's
words were intended to bring us under the authority of the law and the
prophets of the Hebrews. So that the other explanation which I have given
of the words must be the true one. Every one knows that the Jews were
always ready to attack Christ, both with words and with actual violence.
Naturally, then, they would be enraged at the idea that Christ was
destroying their law and their prophets; and, to appease them, Christ might
very well tell them not to think that he came to destroy the law, but that
he came to fulfill it. There was no falsehood or deceit in this, for he
used the word law in a general sense, not of any particular law.

   2. There are three laws. One is that of the Hebrews, which the apostle
calls the law of sin and death.(1) The second is that of the Gentiles,
which he calls the law of nature. "For the Gentiles," he says," do by
nature the things contained in the law; and, not having the law, they are a
law into themselves; who show the work of the law written on their
hearts."(2) The third law is the truth of which the apostle speaks when he
says, "The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from
the law of sin and death."(3) Since, then, there are three laws, we must
carefully inquire which of the three Christ spoke of when He said that He
came not to destroy the law, but to fulfill it. In  the same way, there are
prophets of the Jews, and prophets of the Gentiles, and prophets of truth.
With the prophets of the Jews, of course, every one is acquainted. If any
one is in doubt about the prophets of the Gentiles, let him hear what Paul
says when writing of the Cretans to Titus: "A prophet of their own has
said, The Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, slow bellies."(4)  This
proves that the Gentiles also had their prophets. The truth also has its
prophets, as we learn from Jesus as well as from Paul. Jesus says: "Behold,
I send unto you wise men and prophets, and some of them ye shall kill in
divers places."(1) And Paul says: "The Lord Himself appointed first
apostles, and then prophets."(2)

   3. As "the law and the prophets" may have three different meanings, it
is uncertain in what sense the words are used by Jesus, though we may form
a conjecture from what follows. For if Jesus had gone on to speak of
circumcision, and Sabbaths, and sacrifices, and the observances of the
Hebrews, and had added something as a fulfillment, there could have been no
doubt that it was the law and the prophets of the Jews of which He said
that He came not, to destroy, but to fulfill them. But Christ, without any
allusion to these, speaks only of commandments which date from the earliest
times: "Thou shall not kill; Thou shalt not commit adultery; Thou shalt not
bear false witness." These, it can be proved, were of old promulgated in
the world by Enoch and Seth, and the other righteous men, to whom the
precepts were delivered by angels of lofty rank, in order to tame the
savage nature of men. From this it appears that Jesus spoke of the law and
the prophets of truth. And so we find him giving a fulfillment of those
precepts already quoted. "Ye have heard," He says, "that it was said by
them of old time, Thou shale not kill; but I say unto you, Be not even
angry." This is the fulfillment. Again: "Ye have heard that it was said,
Thou shale not commit adultery; but I say unto you, Do not lust even." This
is the fulfillment. Again: "It has been said, Thou shalt not bear false
witness; but I say unto you, Swear not." This too is the fulfillment. He
thus both confirms the old precepts and supplies their defects. Where He
seems to speak of some Jewish precepts, instead of fulfilling them, He
substitutes for them precepts of an opposite tendency. He proceeds thus:
"Ye have heard that it has been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a
tooth; but I say unto you, Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek,
turn to him the other also." This is not fulfillment, but destruction.
Again: "It has been said, Thou shall love thy friend, and hate thine enemy;
but I say unto you, Love your enemies, and pray for your persecutors." This
too is destruction. Again: "It has been said, Whosoever shall put away his
wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement; but I say unto you, That
whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication,
causeth her to commit adultery, and is himself an adulterer if he
afterwards marries another woman."(3) These precepts are evidently
destroyed because they are the precepts of Moses; while the others are
fulfilled because they are the precepts of the righteous men of antiquity.
If you agree to this explanation, we may allow that Jesus said that he came
not to destroy the law, but to fulfill it. If you disapprove of this
explanation, give one of your own. Only beware of making Jesus a liar, and
of making yourself a Jew, by binding yourself to fulfill the law because
Christ did not destroy it.

   4. If one of the Nazareans, or Symmachians, as they are sometimes
called, were arguing with me from these words of Jesus that he came not to
destroy the law, I should find some difficulty in answering him. For it is
undeniable that, at his coming, Jesus was both in body and mind subject to
the influence of the law and the prophets. Those people, moreover, whom I
allude to, practise circumcision, and keep the Sabbath, and abstain from
swine's flesh and such like things, according to the law, although they
profess to be Christians. They are evidently misled as well as you, by this
verse in which Christ says that he came not to destroy the law, but to
fulfill it. It would not be easy to reply to such opponents without first
getting rid of this troublesome verse. But with you I have no difficulty,
for you have nothing to go upon; and instead of using arguments, you seem
disposed, in mere mischief, to induce me to believe that Christ said what
you evidently do not yourself believe him to have said. On the strength of
this verse you accuse me of dullness and evasiveness, without yourself
giving any indication of keeping the law instead of destroying it. Do you
too, like a Jew or a Nazarean, glory in the obscene distinction of being
circumcised? Do you pride yourself in the observance of the Sabbath? Can
you congratulate yourself on being innocent of swine's flesh? Or can you
boast of having gratified the appetite of the Deity by the blood of
sacrifices and the incense of Jewish offerings? If not, why do you contend
that Christ came not to destroy the law, but to fulfill it?

   5. I give unceasing thanks to my teacher, who prevented me from falling
into this error, so that I am still a Christian. For I, like you, from
reading this verse without sufficient consideration, had almost resolved to
become a Jew. And with reason; for if Christ came not to destroy the law,
but to fulfill it, and as a vessel in order to be filled full must not be
empty, but partly filled already, I concluded that no one could become a
Christian but an Israelite, nearly filled already with the law and the
prophets, and coming to Christ to be filled to the full extent of his
capacity. I concluded, too, that in thus coming he must not destroy what he
already possesses; otherwise it would be a case, not of fulfilling, but of
emptying. Then it appeared that I, as a Gentile, could get nothing by
coming to Christ, for I brought nothing that he could fill up by his
additions. This preparatory supply is found, on inquiry, to consist of
Sabbaths, circumcision, sacrifices, new moons, baptisms, feasts of
unleavened bread, distinctions of foods, drink, and clothes, and other
things, too many to specify. This, then, it appeared, was what Christ came
not to destroy, but to fulfill. Naturally it must appear so: for what is a
law without precepts, or prophets without predictions? Besides, there is
that terrible curse pronounced upon those who abide not in all things that
are written in the book of the law to do them.(1) With the fear of this
curse appearing to come from God on the one side, and with Christ on the
other side, seeming, as the Son of God, to say that he came not to destroy
these things, but to fulfill them, what was to prevent me from becoming a
Jew? The wise instruction of Manichaeus saved me from this danger.

   6. But how can you venture to quote this verse against me? Or why
should it be against me only, when it is as much against yourself? If
Christ does not destroy the law and the prophets, neither must Christians
do so. Why then do you destroy them? Do you begin to perceive that you are
no Christian? How can you profane with all kinds of work the day pronounced
sacred in the law and in all the prophets, on which they say that God, the
maker of the world, himself rested, without dreading the penalty of death
pronounced against Sabbath-breakers, or the curse on the transgressor? How
can you refuse to receive in your person the unseemly mark of circumcision,
which the law and all the prophets declare to be honorable, especially in
the case of Abraham, after what was thought to be his faith; for does not
the God of the Jews proclaim that whosoever is without this mark of infamy
shall perish from his people? How can you neglect the appointed sacrifices,
which were made so much of both by Moses and the prophets under the law,
and by Abraham in his faith? And how can you defile your souls by making no
distinction in foods, if you believe that Christ came not to destroy these
things, but to fulfill them? Why do you discard the annual feast of
unleavened bread, and the appointed sacrifice of the lamb, which, according
to the law and the prophets, is to be observed for ever? Why, in a word, do
you treat so lightly the new moons, the baptisms, and the feast of
tabernacles, and all the other carnal ordinances of the law and the
prophets, if Christ did not destroy them? I have therefore good reason for
saying that, in order to justify your neglect of these things, you must
either abandon your profession of being Christ's disciple, or acknowledge
that Christ himself has already destroyed them; and from this
acknowledgment it must follow, either that this text is spurious in which
Christ is made to say that he came not to destroy the law, but to fulfill
it, or that the words have an entirely different meaning from what you
suppose.

   7. AUGUSTIN replied: If you allow, in consideration of the authority of
the Gospel, that Christ said that He came not to destroy the law and the
prophets, but to fulfill them, you should show the same consideration to
the authority of the apostle, when he says, "All these things were our
examples;" and again of Christ, "He was not yea and nay, but in Him was
yea; for all the promises of God are in Him yea;"(2) that is, they are set
forth and fulfilled in Him. In this way you will see in the clearest light
both what law Christ fulfilled, and how He fulfilled it. It is a vain
attempt that you make to escape by your three kinds of law and your three
kinds of prophets. It is quite plain, and the New Testament leaves no doubt
on the matter, what law and what prophets Christ came not to destroy, but
to fulfill. The law given by Moses is that which by Jesus Christ became
grace and truth.(3) The law given by Moses is that of which Christ says,
"He wrote of me."(4) For undoubtedly this is the law which entered that the
offence might abound;(5) words which you often ignorantly quote as a
reproach to the law. Read what is there said of this law: "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."(6) The entrance of the law made the
offense abound, not because the law required what was wrong, but because
the proud and self-confident incurred additional guilt as transgressors
after their acquaintance with the holy, and just, and good commandments of
the law; so that, being thus humbled, they might learn that only by grace
through faith could they be freed from subjection to the law as
transgressors, and be reconciled to the law as righteous. So the same
apostle says: "For before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up
unto the faith which was afterwards revealed. Therefore the law was our
schoolmaster in Christ Jesus; but after faith came, we are no longer under
a schoolmaster."(1) That is, we are no longer subject to the penalty of the
law, because we are set free by grace. Before we received in humility the
grace of the Spirit, the letter was only death to us, for it required
obedience which we could not render. Thus Paul also says: "The letter
killeth, but the spirit giveth life."(2) Again, he says: "For if a law had
been given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have
been by the law; but the Scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the
promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe."(3)
And once more: "What the law could not do, in that it was weak through the
flesh, God sent His Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, that by sin He
might condemn sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be
fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit."(4)
Here we see Christ coming not to destroy the law, but to fulfill it. As the
law brought the proud under the guilt of transgression, increasing their
sin by commandments which they could not obey, so the righteousness of the
same law is fulfilled by the grace of the Spirit in those who learn from
Christ to be meek and lowly in heart; for Christ came not to destroy the
law, but to fulfill it. Moreover, because even for those who are under
grace it is difficult in this mortal life perfectly to keep what is written
in the law, Thou shall not covet, Christ, by the sacrifice of His flesh, as
our Priest obtains pardon for us. And in this also He fulfills the law; for
what we fail in through weakness is supplied by His perfection, who is the
Head, while we are His members. Thus John says: "My little children, these
things write I unto you, that ye sin not; and if any man sin, we have an
Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: He is the
propitiation for our sins."(5)

   8. Christ also fulfilled the prophecies, because the promises of God
were made good in Him. As the apostle says in the verse quoted above, "The
promises of God are in Him yea." Again, he says: "Now I say that Jesus
Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm
the promises made unto the fathers."(6) Whatever, then, was promised in the
prophets, whether expressly or in figure, whether by words or by actions,
was fulfilled in Him who came not to destroy the law and the prophets, but
to fulfill them. You do not perceive that if Christians were to continue in
the use of acts and observances by which things to come were prefigured,
the only meaning would be that the things prefigured had not yet come.
Either the thing prefigured has not come, or if it has, the figure becomes
superfluous or misleading. Therefore, if Christians do not practise some
things enjoined in the Hebrews by the prophets, this, so far from showing,
as you think, that Christ did not fulfill the prophets, rather shows that
He did. So completely did Christ fulfill what these types prefigured, that
it is no longer prefigured. So the Lord Himself says: "The law and the
prophets were until John."(7) For the law which shut up transgressors in
increased guilt, and to the faith which was afterwards revealed, became
grace through Jesus Christ, by whom grace superabounded. Thus the law,
which was not fulfilled in the requirement of the letter, was fulfilled in
the liberty of grace. In the same way, everything in the law that was
prophetic of the Saviour's advent, whether in words or in typical actions,
became truth in Jesus Christ. For "the law was given by Moses, but grace
and truth came by Jesus Christ."(8) At Christ's advent the kingdom of God
began to be preached; for the law and the prophets were until John: the
law, that its transgressors might desire salvation; the prophets, that they
might foretell the Saviour. No doubt there have been prophets in the Church
since the ascension of Christ. Of these prophets Paul says: "God hath set
some in the Church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly
teachers," and so on.(9) It is not of these prophets that it was said, "The
law and the prophets were until John," but of those who prophesied the
first coming of Christ, which evidently cannot be prophesied now that it
has taken place.

   9. Accordingly, when you ask why a Christian is not circumcised if
Christ came not to destroy the law, but to fulfill it, my reply is, that a
Christian is not circumcised precisely for this reason, that what was
prefigured by circumcision is fulfilled in Christ. Circumcision was the
type of the removal of our fleshly nature, which was fulfilled in the
resurrection of Christ, and which the sacrament of baptism teaches us to
look forward to in our own resurrection. The sacrament of the new life is
not wholly discontinued, for our resurrection from the dead is still to
come; but this sacrament has been improved by the substitution of baptism
for circumcision, because now a pattern of the eternal life which is to
come is afforded us in the resurrection of Christ, whereas formerly there
was nothing of the kind. So, when you ask why a Christian does not keep the
Sabbath, if Christ came not to destroy the law, but to fulfill it, my reply
is, that a Christian does not keep the Sabbath precisely because what was
prefigured in the Sabbath is fulfilled in Christ. For we have our Sabbath
in Him who said, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and
I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek
and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls."(1)

   10. When you ask why a Christian does not observe the distinction in
food as enjoined in the law, if Christ came not to destroy the law, but to
fulfill it, I reply, that a Christian does not observe this distinction
precisely because what was thus prefigured is now fulfilled in Christ, who
admits into His body, which in His saints He has predestined to eternal
life, nothing which in human conduct corresponds to the characteristics of
the forbidden animals. When you ask, again, why a Christian does not offer
sacrifices to God of the flesh and blood of slain animals, if Christ came
not to destroy the law, but to fulfill it, I reply, that it would be
improper for a Christian to offer such sacrifices, now that what was thus
prefigured has been fulfilled in Christ's offering of His own body and
blood. When you ask why a Christian does not keep the feast of unleavened
bread as the Jews did, if Christ came not to destroy the law, but to
fulfill it, I reply, that a Christian does not keep this feast precisely
because what was thus prefigured is fulfilled in Christ, who leads us to a
new life by purging out the leaven of the old life.(2) When you ask why a
Christian does not keep the feast of the paschal lamb, if Christ came not
to destroy the law, but to fulfill it, my reply is, that he does not keep
it precisely because what was thus prefigured has been fulfilled in the
sufferings of Christ, the Lamb without spot. When you ask why a Christian
does not keep the feasts of the new moon appointed in the law, if Christ
came not to destroy the law, but to fulfill it, I reply, that he does not
keep them precisely because what was thus prefigured is fulfilled in
Christ. For the feast of the new moon prefigured the new creature, of which
the apostle says: "If therefore there is any new creature in Christ Jesus,
the old things have passed away; behold, all things are become new."(3)
When you ask why a Christian does not observe the baptisms for various
kinds of uncleanness according to the law, if Christ came not to destroy
the law, but to fulfill it, I reply, that he does not observe them
precisely because they were figures of things to come, which Christ has
fulfilled. For He came to bury us with Himself by baptism into death, that
as Christ rose again from the dead, so we also should walk in newness of
life.(4) When you ask why Christians do not keep the feast of tabernacles,
if the law is not destroyed, but fulfilled by Christ, I reply that
believers are God's tabernacle, in whom, as they are united and built
together in love, God condescends to dwell, so that Christians do not keep
this feast precisely because what was thus prefigured is now fulfilled by
Christ in His Church.

   11. I touch upon these things merely in passing with the utmost
brevity, rather than omit them altogether. The subjects, taken separately,
have filled many large volumes, written to prove that these observances
were typical of Christ. So it appears that all the things in the Old
Testament which you think are not observed by Christians because Christ
destroyed the law, are in fact not observed because Christ fulfilled the
law. The very intention of the observances was to prefigure Christ. Now
that Christ has come, instead of its being strange or absurd that what was
done to prefigure His advent should not be done any more, it is perfectly
right and reasonable. The typical observances intended to prefigure the
coming of Christ would be observed still, had they not been fulfilled by
the coming of Christ; so far is it from being the case that our not
observing them now is any proof of their not being fulfilled by Christ's
coming. There can be no religious society, whether the religion be true or
false, without some sacrament or visible symbol to serve as a bond of
union. The importance of these sacraments cannot be overstated, and only
scoffers will treat them lightly. For if piety requires them, it must be
impiety to neglect them.

   12. It is true, the ungodly may partake in the visible sacraments of
godliness, as we read that Simon Magus received holy baptism. Such are they
of whom the apostle says that "they have the form of godliness, but deny
the power of it."(5) The power of godliness is the end of the commandment,
that is, love out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith
unfeigned.(1) So the Apostle Peter, speaking of the sacrament of the ark,
in which the family of Noah was saved from the deluge, says, "So by a
similar figure baptism also saves you." And lest they should rest content
with the visible sacrament, by which they had the form of godliness, and
should deny its power in their lives by profligate conduct, he immediately
adds, "Not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a
good conscience."(2)

   13. Thus the sacraments of the Old Testament, which were celebrated in
obedience to the law, were types of Christ who was to come; and when Christ
fulfilled them by His advent they were done away, and were done away
because they were fulfilled. For Christ came not to destroy, but to
fulfill. And now that the righteousness of faith is revealed, and the
children of God are called into liberty, and the yoke of bondage which was
required for  carnal and stiffnecked people is taken away, other sacraments
are instituted, greater in efficacy, more beneficial in their use, easier
in performance, and fewer in number.

   14. And if the righteous men of old, who saw in the sacraments of their
time the promise of a future revelation of faith, which even then their
piety enabled them to discern in the dim light of prophecy, and by which
they lived, for the just can live only by faith;(3) if, then, these
righteous men of old were ready to suffer, as many actually did suffer, all
trials arid tortures for the sake of those typical sacraments which
prefigured things in the future; if we praise the three children and
Daniel, because they refused to be defiled by meat from the king's table,
from their regard for the sacrament of their day; if we feel the strongest
admiration for the Meccabees, who refused to touch food which Christians
lawfully use;(4) how much more should a Christian in our day be ready to
suffer all things for Christ's baptism, for Christ's Eucharist, for
Christ's sacred sign, since these are proofs of the accomplishment of what
the former sacraments only pointed forward to in the future! For what is
still promised to the Church, the body of Christ, is both clearly made
known, and in the Saviour Himself, the Head of the body, the Mediator
between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, has already been accomplished.
Is not the promise of eternal life by resurrection from the dead? This we
see fulfilled in the flesh of Him of whom it is said, that the Word became
flesh and dwelt among us.(5) In former days faith was dim, for the saints
and righteous men of those times all believed and hoped for the same
things, and all these sacraments and ceremonies pointed to the future; but
now we have the revelation of the faith to which the people were shut up
under the law;(6) and what is now promised to believers in the judgment is
already accomplished in the example of Him who came not to destroy the law
and the prophets, but to fulfill them.

   15. It is a question among the students of the sacred Scriptures,
whether the faith in Christ before His passion and resurrection, which the
righteous men of old learned by revelation or gathered from prophecy, had
the same efficacy as faith has now that Christ has suffered and risen; or
whether the actual shedding of the blood of the Lamb of God, which was, as
He Himself says, for many for the remission of sins,(7) conferred any
benefit in the way of purifying or adding to the purity of those who looked
forward in faith to the death of Christ, but left the world before it took
place; whether, in fact, Christ's death reached to the dead, so as to
effect their liberation. To discuss this question here, or to prove what
has been ascertained on the subject, would take too long, besides being
foreign from our present purpose.

   16. Meanwhile it is sufficient to prove, in opposition to Faustus'
ignorant cavils, how greatly they mistake who conclude, from the change in
signs and sacraments, that there must be a difference in the things which
were prefigured in the rites of a prophetic dispensation, and which are
declared to be accomplished in the rites of the gospel; or those, on the
other hand, who think that as the things are the same, the sacraments which
announce their accomplishment should not differ from the sacraments which
foretold that accomplishment. For if in language the form of the verb
changes in the number of letters and syllables according to the tense, as
done signifies the past, and to be done the future, why should not the
symbols which declare Christ's death and resurrection to be accomplished,
differ from those which predicted their accomplishment, as we see a
difference in the form and sound of the words, past and future, suffered
and to suffer, risen and to rise? For material symbols are nothing else
than visible speech, which, though sacred, is changeable and transitory.
For while God is eternal, the water of baptism, and all that is material in
the sacrament, is transitory: the very word "God," which must be pronounced
in the consecration, is a sound which passes in a moment. The actions and
sounds pass away, but their efficacy remains the same, and the spiritual
gift thus communicated is eternal. To say, therefore, that if Christ had
not destroyed the law and the prophets, the sacraments of the law and the
prophets would continue to be observed in the congregations of the
Christian Church, is the same as to say that if Christ had not destroyed
the law and the prophets, He would still be predicted as about to be born,
to suffer, and to rise again; whereas, in fact, it is proved that He did
not destroy, but fulfill those things, because the prophecies of His birth,
and passion, and resurrection, which were represented in these ancient
sacraments, have ceased, and the sacraments now observed by Christians
contain the announcement that He has been born, has suffered, has risen. He
who came not to destroy the law and the prophets, but to fulfill them, by
this fulfillment did away with those things which foretold the
accomplishment of what is thus shown to be now accomplished. Precisely in
the same way, he might substitute for the expressions, "He is to be born,
is to suffer, is to rise," which were in these times appropriate, the
expressions, "He has been born, has suffered, has risen," which are
appropriate now that the others are accomplished, and so done away.

   17. Corresponding to this change in words is the change which naturally
took place in the substitution of new sacraments instead of those of the
Old Testament. In the case of the first Christians, who came to the faith
as Jews, it was by degrees that they were brought to change their customs,
and to have a clear perception of the truth; and permission was given them
by the apostle to preserve their hereditary worship and belief, in which
they had been born and brought up; and those who had to do with them were
required to make allowance for this reluctance to accept new customs. So
the apostle circumcised Timothy, the son of a Jewish mother and a Greek
father, when they went among people of this kind; and he himself
accommodated his practice to theirs, not hypocritically, but for a wise
purpose. For these practices were harmless in the case of those born and
brought up in them, though they were no longer required to prefigure things
to come. It would have done more harm to condemn them as hurtful in the
case of those to whose time it l was intended that they should continue.
Christ, who came to fulfill all these prophecies, found those people
trained in their own religion. But in the case of those who had no such
training, but were brought to Christ, the corner-stone, from the opposite
wall of circumcision, there was no obligation to adopt Jewish customs. If,
indeed, like Timothy, they chose to accommodate themselves to the views of
those of the circumcision who were still wedded to their old sacraments,
they were free to do so. But if they supposed that their hope and salvation
depended on these works of the law, they were warned against them as a
fatal danger. So the apostle says: "Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye
be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing;"(1) that is, if they were
circumcised, as they were intending to be, in compliance with some corrupt
teachers, who told them that without these works of the law they could not
be saved. For when, chiefly through the preaching of the Apostle Paul, the
Gentiles were coming to the faith of Christ, as it was proper that they
should come, without being burdened with Jewish observances--for those who
were grown up were deterred from the faith by fear of ceremonies to which
they were not accustomed, especially of circumcision; and if they who had
not been trained from their birth to such observances had been made
proselytes in the usual way, it would have implied that the coming of
Christ still required to be predicted as a future event;--when, then, the
Gentiles were admitted without these ceremonies, those of the circumcision
who believed, not understanding why the Gentiles were not required to adopt
their customs, nor why they themselves were still allowed to retain them,
began to disturb the Church with carnal contentions. because the Gentiles
were admitted into the people of God without being made proselytes in the i
usual way by circumcision and the other legal observances. Some also of the
converted Gentiles were bent on these ceremonies, from fear of the Jews
among whom they lived. Against these Gentiles the Apostle Paul often wrote,
and when Peter was carried away by their hypocrisy, he corrected him with a
brotherly rebuke.(2) Afterwards, when the apostles met in council, decreed
that these works of the law were not obligatory in the case of the
Gentiles,(3) some Christians of the circumcision were displeased, because
they failed to understand that these observances were permissible only in
those who had been trained in them before the revelation of faith, to bring
to a close the prophetic life in those who were engaged in it before the
prophecy was fulfilled, lest by a compulsory abandonment it should seem to
be condemned rather than closed; while to lay these things on the Gentiles
would imply either that they were not instituted to prefigure Christ, or
that Christ was still to be prefigured. The ancient people of God, before
Christ came to fulfill the law and the prophets, were required to observe
all these things by which Christ was prefigured. It was freedom to those
who understood the meaning of the observance, but it was bondage to those
who did not. But the people in those latter times who come to believe in
Christ as having already come, and suffered, and risen, in the case of
those whom this faith found trained to those sacraments, are neither
required to observe them, nor prohibited from doing so; while there is a
prohibition in the case of those who were not bound by the ties of custom,
or by any necessity, to accommodate themselves to the practice of others,
so that it might become manifest that these things were instituted to
prefigure Christ, and that after His coming they were to cease, because the
promises had been fulfilled. Some believers of the circumcision who did not
understand this were displeased with this tolerant arrangement which the
Holy Spirit effected through the apostles, and stubbornly insisted on the
Gentiles becoming Jews. These are the people of whom Faustus speaks under
the name of Symmachians or Nazareans. Their number is now very small, but
the sect still continues,

   18. The Manichaeans, therefore have no ground for saying, in
disparagement of the law and the prophets, that Christ crime to destroy
rather than to fulfill them, because Christians do not observe what is
there enjoined: for the only things which they do not observe are those
that prefigured Christ, and these are not observed because their
fulfillment is in Christ, and what is fulfilled is no longer prefigured;
the typical observances having properly come to a close in the time of
those who, after being trained in such things, had come to believe in
Christ as their fulfillment. Do not Christians observe the precept of
Scripture "Hear, O Israel; the Lord thy God is one God;" "Thou shalt not
image," and so on? Do make Christians not observe the precept, "Thou shall
not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain?" Do Christians not observe
the Sabbath, even in the sense of a true rest? Do Christians not honor
their parents, according to the commandment? Do Christians not abstain from
fornication, and murder. and theft, and false witness, from coveting their
neighbor's wife, and from coveting his property,--all of which things are
written in the law? These moral precepts are distinct from typical
sacraments: the former are fulfilled by the aid of divine grace, the latter
by the accomplishment of what they promise. Both are fulfilled in Christ,
who has ever been the bestower of this grace, which is also now revealed in
Him, and who now makes manifest the accomplishment of what He in former
times promised; for "the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came
by Jesus Christ."(1) Again, these things which concern the keeping of a
good conscience are fulfilled in the faith which worketh by love;(2) while
types of the future pass away when they are accomplished. But even the
types are not destroyed, but fulfilled; for Christ, in bringing to light
what the types signified, does not prove them vain or illusory.

   19. Faustus, therefore, is wrong in supposing that the Lord Jesus
fulfilled some precepts of righteous men who lived before the law of Moses,
such as, "Thou shall not kill," which Christ did not oppose, but rather
confirmed by His prohibition of anger and abuse; and that He destroyed some
things apparently peculiar to the Hebrew law, such as, "An eye for an eye,
and a tooth for a tooth," which Christ. seems rather to abolish than to
confirm, when He says, "But I say unto you, that ye resist not evil; but if
any one smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also,"(3) and
so on. But we say that even these things which Faustus thinks Christ
destroyed by enjoining the opposite, were suitable to the times of the Old
Testament, and were not destroyed, but fulfilled by Christ.

   20. In the first place let me ask our opponents if these ancient
righteous men, Enoch and Seth, whom Faustus mentions particularly, and any
others who lived before Moses, or even, if you choose, before Abraham, were
angry with their brother without a cause, or said to their brother, Thou
fool. If not, why may they not have taught these things as well as preached
them? And if they taught these things, how can Christ be said to have
fulfilled their righteousness or their teaching, any more than that of
Moses, by adding, "But I say unto you, if any man is angry with his
brother, or if he says Racha, or if he says, Thou fool, he shall be in
danger of the judgment, or of the council, or of hell-fire," since these
men did these very things themselves, and enjoined them upon others? Will
it be said that they were ignorant of its being the duty of a righteous man
to restrain his passion, and not to provoke his brother with angry abuse;
or that, knowing this, they were unable to act accordingly? In that case,
they deserved the punishment of hell, and could not have been righteous.
But no one will venture to say that in their righteousness there was such
ignorance of duty, and such a want of self-control, as to make them liable
to the punishment of hell. How, then, can Christ be said to have fulfilled
the law, by which these men lived by means of adding things without which
they could have had no righteousness at all? Will it be said that a hasty
temper and bad language are sinful only since the time of Christ, while
formerly such qualities of the heart and speech were allowable; as we find
some institutions vary according to the times, so that what is proper at
one time is improper at another, and vice versa? You will not be so foolish
as to make this assertion. But even were you to do so, the reply will be
that, according to. this idea, Christ came not to fulfill what was
defective in the old law, but to institute a law which did not previously
exist; if it is true that with the righteous men of old it was not a sin to
say to their brother, Thou fool, which Christ pronounces so sinful, that
whoever does so is in danger of hell. So, then, you bare not succeeded in
finding any law of which it can be said that Christ supplied its defect by
these additions.

   21. Will it be said that the law in these early times was incomplete as
regards not committing adultery, till it was completed by the Lord, who
added that no one should look on a woman to lust after her? This is what
you imply in the way you quote the words, "Ye have heard that it has been
said, Thou shalt not commit adultery: but I say unto you, Do not lust
even." "Here," you say, "is the fulfillment." But let us take the words as
they stand in the Gospel, without any of your modifications, and see what
character you give to those righteous men of antiquity. The words are: "Ye
have heard that it has been said, thou shall not commit adultery; but I say
unto you, that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath
committed adultery with her already in his heart."(1) In your opinion,
then, Enoch and Seth, and the rest, committed adultery in their hearts; and
either their heart was not the temple of God, or they committed adultery in
the temple of God. But if you dare not say this, how can you say that
Christ, when He came, fulfilled the law, which was already in the time of
those men complete?

   22. As regards not swearing, in which also you say that Christ
completed the law given to these righteous men of antiquity, I cannot be
certain that they did not swear, for we, find that Paul the apostle swore.
With you, swearing is still a common practice, for you swear by the light,
which you love as flies do; for the light of the mind which lighteth every
man that cometh into the world, as distinct from mere natural light, you
know nothing of. You swear, too, by your master Manichaeus, whose name in
his own tongue was Manes. As the name Manes seemed to be connected with the
Greek word for madness, you have changed it by adding a suffix, which only
makes matters worse, by giving the new meaning of pouring forth madness.
One of your own sect told me that the name Manichaeus was intended to be
derived from the Greek words for pouring forth manna; for che'ein means to
pour. But, as it is, you only express the idea of madness with greater
emphasis. For by adding the two syllables, while you have forgotten to
insert another letter in the beginning of the word, you make it not
Manichaeus, but Manichaeus; which must mean that he pours forth madness in
his long unprofitable discourses. Again, you often swear by the Paraclete,-
-not the Paraclete promised and sent by Christ to His disciples, but this
same madness-pourer himself. Since, then, you are constantly swearing, I
should like to know in what sense you make Christ to have fulfilled this
part of the law, which is one you mention as belonging to the earliest
times. And what do you make of the oaths of the apostle? For as to your
authority, it cannot weigh much with yourselves, not to speak of me or any
other person. It is therefore evident that Christ's words, "I am come not
to destroy the law, but to fulfill it," have not the meaning which you give
them, Christ makes no reference in these words to His comments on the
ancient sayings which He quotes, and of which His discourse was an
explanation, but not a fulfillment.

   23. Thus, as regards murder, which was understood to mean merely the
destruction of the body, by which a man is deprived of life, the Lord
explained that every unjust disposition to injure our brother is a kind of
murder. So John also says, "He that hateth his brother is a murderer."(2)
And as it was thought that adultery meant only the act of unlawful
intercourse with a woman, the Master showed that the lust He describes is
also adultery. Again, because perjury is a heinous sin, while there is no
sin either in not swearing at all or in swearing truly, the Lord wished to
secure us from departing from the truth by not swearing at all, rather than
that we should be in danger of perjury by being in the habit of swearing
truly. For one who never swears is less in danger of swearing falsely than
one who is in the habit of swearing truly. So, in the discourses of the
apostle which are recorded, he never used an oath, lest he should ever fall
unawares into perjury from being in the habit of swearing. In his writings,
on the other hand, where he had more leisure and opportunity for caution,
we find him using oaths in several places,(1) to teach us that there is no
sin in swearing truly, but that, on account of the infirmity of human
nature, we are best preserved from perjury by not swearing at all. These
considerations will also make it evident that the things which Faustus
supposes to be peculiar to Moses were not destroyed by Christ, as he says
they were.

   24. To take, for instance, this saying of the ancients, "Thou shalt
love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy," how does Faustus make cut that
this is peculiar to Moses? Does not the Apostle Paul speak of some men as
hateful to God?(3) And, indeed, in connection with this saying, the Lord
enjoins on us that we should imitate God. His words are: "That ye may be
the children of your Father in heaven, who maketh the sun to rise upon the
evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust."(3) In ore
sense we must hate our enemies, after the example of God, to whom Paul says
some men are hateful; while, at the same time, we must also love our
enemies after the example of God, who makes the sun to rise on the evil and
the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust. If we understand
this, we shall find that the Lord, in explaining to those who did not
rightly understand the saying, Thou shalt hate thine enemy, made use of it
to show that they should love their enemy, which was a new idea to them. It
would take too long to show the consistency of the two things here. But
when the Manichaeans condemn without exception the precept, Thou shall hate
thine enemy, they may easily be met with the question whether their god
loves the race of darkness. Or, if we should love our enemies now, because
they have a part of good, should we not also hate them as having a part of
evil? So even in this way it would appear that there is no opposition
between the saying of ancient times, Thou shall hate thine enemy, and that
of the Gospel, Love your enemies. For every wicked man should be hated as
far as he is wicked; while he should be loved as a man. The vice which we
rightly hate in him is to be condemned, that by its removal the human
nature which we rightly love in him may be amended. This is precisely the
principle we maintain, that we should hate our enemy for what is evil in
him, that is, for his wickedness; while we also love our enemy for that
which is good in him, that is, for his nature as a social and rational
being. The difference between us and the Manichaeans is, that we prove the
man to be wicked, not by nature, either his own or any other, but by his
own will; whereas they think that a man is evil on account of the nature of
the race of darkness, which, according to them, was an object of dread to
God when he existed entire, and by which also he was partly conquered, so
that he cannot be entirely set free. The intention of the Lord, then, is to
correct those who, from knowing without understanding what was said by them
of old time, Thou shalt hate thine enemy, hated their fellow-men instead of
only hating their wickedness; and for this purpose He says, Love your
enemies. Instead of destroying what is written about hatred of enemies in
the law, of which He said, "I am come not to destroy the law, but to
fulfill it," He would have us learn, from the duty of loving our enemies,
how it is possible in the case of one and the same person, both to Late him
for his sin, and to love him for his nature. It is too much to expect our
perverse opponents to understand this. But we can silence them, by showing
that by their irrational objection they condemn their own god, of whom they
cannot say that he loves the race of darkness; so that in enjoining on
every one to love his enemy, they cannot quote his example. There would
appear to be more love of their enemy in the race of darkness than in the
god of the Manichaeans. The story is, that the race of darkness coveted the
domain of light bordering on their territory, and, from a desire to possess
it, formed the plan of invading it. Nor is there any sin in desiring true
goodness and blessedness. For the Lord says, "The kingdom of heaven
suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force."(4) This fabulous
race of darkness, then, wished to take by force the good they desired, for
its beautiful and attractive appearance. But God, instead of returning the
love of those who wished to possess Him, hated it so as to endeavor to
annihilate them. If, therefore, the evil love the good in the desire to
possess it, while the good hate the evil in fear of being defiled, I ask
the Manichaeans, which of these obeys the precept of the Lord, "Love your
enemies"? If you insist on making these precepts opposed to one another, it
will follow that your god obeyed what is written in the law of Moses, "Thou
shall hate thine enemy"; while the race of darkness obeyed what is written
in the Gospel, "Love your enemies." However, you have never succeeded in
explaining the difference between the flies that fly in the day-time and
the moths that fly at night; for both, according to you, belong to the race
of darkness. How is it that one kind love the light, contrary to their
nature; while the other kind avoid it, and prefer the darkness from which
they sprung? Strange, that filthy sewers should breed a cleaner sort than
dark closets!

   25. Nor, again, is there any opposition between that which was said by
them of old time, "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth," and what the
Lord says, "But I say unto you, that ye resist not evil; but if any one
smiteth thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also," and so on(1)
The old precept as well as the new is intended to check the vehemence of
hatred, and to curb the impetuosity of angry passion. For who will of his
own accord be satisfied with a revenge equal to the injury? Do we not see
men, only slightly hurt, eager for slaughter, thirsting for blood, as if
they could never make their enemy suffer enough? If a man receives a blow,
does he not summon his assailant, that he may be condemned in the court of
law? Or if he prefers to return the blow, does he not fall upon the man
with hand and heel, or perhaps with a weapon, if he can get hold of one? To
put a restraint upon a revenge so unjust from its excess, the law
established the principle of compensation, that the penalty should
correspond to the injury inflicted. So the precept, "an eye for an eye, a
tooth for a tooth," instead of being a brand to kindle a fire that was
quenched, was rather a covering to prevent the fire already kindled from
spreading. For there is a just revenge due to the injured person from his
assailant; so that when we pardon, we give up what we might justly claim.
Thus, in the Lord's prayer, we are taught to forgive others their debts
that God may forgive us our debts. There is no injustice in asking back a
debt, though there is kindness in forgiving it. But as, in swearing, one
who swears, even though truly, is in danger of perjury, of which one is in
no danger who never swears; and while swearing truly is not a sin, we are
further. from sin by not swearing; so that the command not to swear is a
guard against perjury: in the same way since it is sinful to wish to be
revenged with an unjust excess, though there is no sin in wishing for
revenge within the limits of justice, the man who wishes for no revenge at
all is further from the sin of an unjust revenge. It is sin to demand more
than is due, though it is no sin to demand a debt. And the best security
against the sin of making an unjust demand is to demand nothing, especially
considering the danger of being compelled to pay the debt to Him who is in
debted to none. Thus, I would explain the passage as follows: It has been
said by them of old time, Thou shall not take unjust revenge; but I say,
Take no revenge at all: here is the fulfillment. It is thus that Faustus,
after quoting," It has been said, Thou shall not swear falsely; but I say
unto you, swear not at all," adds: here is the fulfillment. I might use the
same expression if I thought that by the addition of these words Christ
supplied a defect in the law, and not rather that the intention of the law
to prevent unjust revenge is best secured by not taking revenge at all, in
the same way as the intention to prevent perjury is best secured by not
swearing at all. For if "an eye for an eye" is opposed to "If any one smite
thee on the cheek, turn to him the other also," is there not as much
opposition between "Thou shalt perform unto the Lord thine oath," and
"Swear not at all?"(2) If Faustus thinks that there is not destruction, but
fulfillment, in the one case, he ought to think the same of the other. For
if "Swear not" is the fulfillment of "Swear truly," why should not "Take no
revenge" be the fulfillment of "Take revenge justly"?

   So, according to my interpretation, there is in both cases a guard
against sin, either of false swearing or of unjust revenge; though, as
regards giving up the right to revenge, there is the additional
consideration that, by forgiving such debts, we shall obtain the
forgiveness of our debts. The old precept was required in the case of a
self-willed people, to teach them not to be extravagant in their demands.
Thus, when the rage eager for unrestrained vengeance, was subdued, there
would be leisure for any one so disposed to consider the desirableness of
having his own debt cancelled by the Lord, and so to be led by this
consideration to forgive the debt of his fellow-servant.

   26. Again, we shall find on examination, that there is no opposition
between the precept of the Lord about not putting away a wife, and what was
said by them of old time: "Whosoever putteth away his wife, let him give
her a writing of divorcement."(3) The Lord explains the intention of the
law, which required a bill of divorce in every case where a wife was put
away. The precept not to put away a wife is the opposite of saying that a
man may put away his wife if he pleases; which is not what the law says. On
the contrary, to prevent the wife from being put away, the law required
this intermediate step, that the eagerness for separation might be checked
by the writing of the bill, and the man might have time to think of the
evil of putting away his wife; especially since, as it is said, among the
Hebrews it was unlawful for any but the scribes to write Hebrew: for the
scribes claimed the possession of superior wisdom; and if they were men of
upright and pious character, their pursuits might justly entitle them to
make this claim. In requiring, therefore, that in putting away his wife, a
man should give her a writing of divorcement, the design was that he should
be obliged to have recourse to those from whom he might expect to receive a
cautious interpretation of the law, and suitable advice against separation.
Having no other way of getting the bill written, the man should be obliged
to submit to their direction, and to allow of their endeavors to restore
peace and harmony between him and his wife. In a case where the hatred
could not be overcome or checked, the bill would of course be written A
wife might with reason be put away when wise counsel failed to restore the
proper feeling and affection in the mind of her husband. If the wife is not
loved, she is to be put away. And that she may not be put away, it is the
husband's duty to love her. Now, while a man cannot be forced to love
against his will, he may be influenced by advice and persuasion. This was
the duty of the scribe, as a wise and upright man; and the law gave him the
opportunity, by requiring the husband in all cases of quarrel to go to him,
to get the bill of divorcement written. No good or prudent man would write
the bill unless it were a case of such obstinate aversion as to make
reconciliation impossible. But according to your impious notions, there can
be nothing in putting away a wife; for matrimony, according to you, is a
criminal indulgence. The word "matrimony" shows that a man takes a wife in
order that she may become a mother, which would be an evil in your
estimation. According to you, this would imply that part of your god is
overcome and captured by the race of darkness, and bound in the fetters of
flesh.

   27. But, to explain the point in hand: If Christ, in adding the words,
"But I say unto you," to the quotations He makes of ancient sayings,
neither fulfilled the law of primitive times by His additions, nor
destroyed the law given to Moses by opposite precepts, but rather paid such
deference to the Hebrew law in all the quotations He made from it, as to
make His own remarks chiefly explanatory of what the law stated less
distinctly, or a means of securing the design intended by the law, it
follows that from the words, "I came not to destroy the law, but to fulfill
it" we are not to understand that Christ by His precepts filled up what was
wanting in the law; but that what the literal command failed in doing from
the pride and disobedience of men, is accomplished by grace in those who
are brought to repentance and humility. The fulfillment is not in
additional words, but in acts of obedience. So the apostle says "Faith
worketh by love;"(1) and again, He that loveth another hath fulfilled the
law."(2) This love, by which also the righteousness of the law can be
fulfilled was bestowed in its significance by Christ in His coming, through
the spirit which He sent according to His promise; and therefore He said,
"I came not to destroy the law, but to fulfill it." This is the New
Testament in which the promise of the kingdom of heaven is made to this
love; which was typified in the Old Testament, suitably to the times of
that dispensation. So Christ says again; "A new commandment I give unto
you, that ye love one another."(3)

   28. So we find in the Old Testament all or nearly all the counsels and
precepts which Christ introduces with the words "But I say unto you.'
Against anger it is written, "Mine eyes troubled because of anger;"(4) and
again, "Better is he that conquers his anger, than he that taketh a
city."(5) Against hard words, 'The stroke of a whip maketh a wound; but the
stroke of the tongue breaketh the bones."(6) Against adultery in the heart,
"Thou shall not covet thy neighbor's wife."(7) It is not," Thou shall not
commit adultery;" but, "Thou shall not covet." The apostle, in quoting
this, says: "I had not known lust, unless the law had said, Thou shalt not
covet."(8) Regarding patience in not offering resistance, a man is praised
who "giveth his cheek to him that smiteth him, and who is filled full with
reproach."(9) Of love to enemies it is said: "If thine enemy hunger, feed
him; if he thirst, give him drink."(10) This also is quoted by the
apostle."(11) In the Psalm, too, it is said, "I was a peace maker among
them that hated peace;"(1) and in many similar passages. In connection also
with our imitating God in refraining from taking revenge, and in loving
even the wicked, there is a passage containing a full description of God in
this character; for it is written: "To Thee alone ever belongeth great
strength, and who can withstand the power of Thine arm? For the whole world
before Thee is as a little grain of the balance; yea, as a drop of the
morning dew that falleth down upon the earth. But Thou hast mercy upon all,
for Thou canst do all things, and winkest at the sins of men, because of
repentance. For Thou lovest all things that are, and abhorrest nothing
which Thou hast made; for never wouldest Thou have made anything if Thou
hadst hated it. And how could anything have endured, if it had not been Thy
will? or been preserved, if not called by Thee? But Thou sparest all; for
they are Thine, O Lord, Thou lover of souls. For Thy good Spirit is in all
things; therefore chastenest Thou them by little and little that offend,
and warnest them by putting them in remembrance wherein they have offended,
that learning their wickedness, they may believe in Thee, O Lord."(2)
Christ exhorts us to imitate this long-suffering goodness of God, who
maketh the sun to rise upon the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the
just and on the unjust; that we may not be careful to revenge, but may do
good to them that hate us, and so may be perfect, even as our Father in
heaven is perfect.(3) From another passage in these ancient books we learn
that, by not exacting the vengeance due to us, we obtain the remission of
our own sins; and that by not forgiving the debts of others, we incur the
danger of being refused forgiveness when we pray for the remission of our
own debts: "He that revengeth shall find vengeance from the Lord, and He
will surely keep his sin in remembrance. Forgive thy neighbor the hurt that
he hath done to thee; so shall thy sins also be forgiven when thou prayest.
One man beareth hatred against another, and cloth he seek pardon of the
Lord? He showeth no mercy to a man who is like himself; and doth he ask
forgiveness of his own sins? If he that is but flesh nourishes hatred, and
asks for favor from the Lord, who will entreat for the pardon of his
sins?"(4)

   29. As regards not putting away a wife, there is no need to quote any
other passage of the Old Testament than that referred to most appropriately
in the Lord's reply to the Jews when they questioned Him on this subject.
For when they asked whether it is lawful for a man to put away his wife for
any reason, the Lord answered: "Have ye not read, that He that made them at
the beginning made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a
man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they two
shall be one flesh? Therefore they are no longer twain, but one flesh. What
therefore God hath joined, let no man put asunder."(5) Here the Jews, who
thought that they acted according to the intention of the law of Moses in
putting away their wives, are made to see from the book of Moses that a
wife should not be put away. And, by the way, we learn here, from Christ's
own declaration, that God made and joined male and female; so that by
denying this, the Manichaeans are guilty of opposing the gospel of Christ
as well as the writings of Moses. And supposing their doctrine to be true,
that the devil made and joined male and female, we see the diabolical
cunning of Faustus in finding fault with Moses for dissolving marriages by
granting a bill of divorce, and praising Christ for strengthening the union
by the precept in the Gospel. Instead of this, Faustus, consistently with
his own foolish and impious notions, should have praised Moses for
separating what was made and joined by the devil, and should have blamed
Christ for ratifying a bond of the devil's workmanship. To return, let us
hear the good Master explain how Moses, who wrote of the conjugal chastity
in the first union of male and female as so holy and inviolable, afterwards
allowed the people to put away their wives. For when the Jews replied, "Why
did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her
away?" Christ said unto them, "Moses, because of the hardness of your
heart, suffered you to put away your wives."(6) This passage we have
already explained.(7) The hardness must have been great indeed which could
not be induced to admit the restoration of wedded love, even though by
means of the writing an opportunity was afforded for advice to be given to
this effect by wise and upright men. They the Lord quoted the same law, to
show both what was enjoined on the good and what was permitted to the hard;
for, from what is written of the union of male and female, He proved that a
wife must not be put away, and pointed out the divine authority for the
union; and shows from the same Scriptures that a bill of divorcement was to
be given because of the hardness of the heart, which might be subdued or
might not.

   30. Since, then, all these excellent precepts of the Lord, which
Faustus tries to prove to be contrary to the old books of the Hebrews, are
found in these very books, the only sense in which the Lord came not to
destroy the law, but to fulfill it, is this, that besides the fulfillment
of the prophetic types, which are set aside by their actual accomplishment,
the precepts also, in which the law is holy, and just, and. good, are
fulfilled in us, not by the oldness of the letter which commands, and
increases the offence of the proud by the additional guilt of
transgression, but by the newness of the Spirit, who aids us, and by the
obedience of the humble, through the saving grace which sets us free. For,
while all these sublime precepts are found in the ancient books, still the
end to which they point is not there revealed; although the holy men who
foresaw the revelation lived in accordance with it, either veiling it in
prophecy as suited the time, or themselves discovering the truth thus
veiled.

   31. I am disposed, after careful examination, to doubt whether the
expression so often used by the Lord, "the kingdom of heaven," can be found
in these books. It is said, indeed, "Love wisdom, that ye may reign for
ever."(1) And if eternal life had not been clearly made known in the Old
Testament, the Lord would not have said, as He did even to the unbelieving
Jews: "Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think that ye have eternal
life, and they are they that testify of me."(2) And to the same effect are
the words of the Psalmist: "I shall not die, but live, and declare the
works of the Lord."(3) And again: "Enlighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the
sleep of death."(4) Again, we read, "The souls of the righteous are in the
hand of the Lord, and pain shall not touch them;" and immediately
following: "They are in peace; and if they have suffered torture from men,
their hope is full of immortality; and after a few trouble, they shall
enjoy many rewards."(5) Again, in another place: "The righteous shall live
for ever, and their reward is with the Lord, and their concern with the
Highest; therefore shall they receive from the hand of the Lord a kingdom
of glory and a crown of beauty."(6) These and many similar declarations of
eternal life, in more or less explicit terms, are found in these writings.
Even the resurrection of the body is spoken of by the prophets. The
Pharisees, accordingly, were fierce opponents of the Sadducees, who
disbelieved the resurrection. This we learn not only from the canonical
Acts of the Apostles, which the Manichaeans reject, because it tells of the
advent of the Paraclete promised by the Lord, but also from the Gospel,
when the Sadducees question the Lord about the woman who married seven
brothers, one dying after the other, whose wife she would be in the
resurrection.(7) As regards, then, eternal life and the resurrection of the
dead, numerous testimonies are to be found in these Scriptures. But I do
not find there the expression, "the kingdom of heaven." This expression
belongs properly to the revelation of the New Testament, because in the
resurrection our earthly bodies shall, by that change which Paul fully
describes, become spiritual bodies, and so heavenly, that thus we may
possess the kingdom of heaven. And this expression was reserved for Him
whose advent as King to govern and Priest to sanctify His believing people,
was ushered in by all the symbolism of the old covenant, in its
genealogies, its typical acts and words, its sacrifices and ceremonies and
feasts, and in all its prophetic utterances and events and figures. He came
full of grace and truth, in His grace helping us to obey the precepts, and
in His truth securing the accomplishment of the promises. He came not to
destroy the law, but to fulfill it.

BOOK XX: FAUSTUS REPELS THE CHARGE OF SUN-WORSHIP, AND MAINTAINS THAT WHILE
THE MANICHAEANS BELIEVE THAT GOD'S POWER DWELLS IN THE SUN AND HIS WISDOM
IN THE MOON, THEY YET WORSHIP ONE DEITY, FATHER, SON, AND HOLY SPIRIT. THEY
ARE NOT A SCHISM OF THE GENTILES, NOR A SECT. AUGUSTIN EMPHASIZES THE
CHARGE OF POLYTHEISM, AND GOES INTO AN ELABORATE COMPARISON OF MANICHAEAN
AND PAGAN MYTHOLOGY.

   1. Faustus said: You ask why we worship quire into the matter, that we
may see whether the sun, if we are a sect or separate religion, the name of
Gentiles is more applicable to and not Pagans, or merely a schism of the
you or to us. Perhaps, in giving you in a Gentiles. It may therefore be as
well to in a friendly way this simple account of my faith, I shall appear
to be making an apology for it, as if I were ashamed, which God forbid, of
doing homage to the divine luminaries. You may take it as you please; but I
shall not regret what I have done if I succeed in conveying to some at
least this much knowledge, that our religion has nothing in common with
that of the Gentiles.

   2. We worship, then, one deity under the threefold appellation of the
Almighty God the Father, and his son Christ, and the Holy Spirit. While
these are one and the same, we believe also that the Father properly dwells
in the highest or principal light, which Paul calls "light
inaccessible,"(1) and the Son in his second or visible light. And as the
Son is himself twofold, according to the apostle, who speaks of Christ as
the power of God and the wisdom of God,(2) we believe that His power dwells
in the sun, and His wisdom in the moon. We also believe that the Holy
Spirit, the third majesty, has His seat and His home in the whole circle of
the atmosphere. By His influence and spiritual infusion, the earth
conceives and brings forth the mortal Jesus, who, as hanging from every
tree, is the life and salvation of men.(3) Though you oppose, these
doctrines so violently, your religion resembles ours in attaching the same
sacredness to the bread and wine that we do to everything. This is our
belief, which you will have an opportunity of hearing more of, if you wish
to do so. Meanwhile there is some force in the consideration that you or
any one that is asked where his God dwells, will say that he dwells in
light; so that the testimony in favor of my worship is almost universal.

   3. As to your calling us a schism of the Gentiles, and not a sect, I
suppose the word schism applies to those who have the same doctrines and
worship as other people, and only choose to meet separately. The word sect,
again, applies to those whose doctrine is quite unlike that of others, and
who have made a form of divine worship peculiar to themselves. If this is
what the words mean, in the first place, in our doctrine and worship we
have no resemblance to the Pagans. We shall see presently whether you have.
The Pagan doctrine is, that all things good and evil, mean and glorious,
fading and unfading, changeable and unchangeable, material and divine, have
only one principle. In opposition to this, my belief is that God is the
principle of all good things, and Hyle [matters] of the opposite. Hyle is
the name given by our master in divinity to the principle or nature of
evil. The Pagans accordingly think it right to worship God with altars, and
shrines, and images, and sacrifices, and incense. Here also my practice
differs entirely from theirs: for I look upon myself as a reasonable temple
of God, if I am worthy to be so; and I consider Christ his Son as the
living image of his living majesty; and I hold a mind well cultivated to be
the true altar, and pure and simple prayers to be the true way of paying
divine honors and of offering sacrifices. Is this being a schism of the
Pagans?

   4. As regards the worship of the Almighty God, you might call us a
schism of the Jews, for all Jews are bold enough to profess this worship,
were it not for the difference in the form of our worship, though it may be
questioned whether the Jews really worship the Almighty. But the doctrine I
have mentioned is common to the Pagans in their worship of the sun, and to
the Jews in their worship of the Almighty. Even in relation to you, we are
not properly a schism, though we acknowledge Christ and worship Him; for
our worship and doctrine are different from yours. In a schism, little or
no change is made from the original; as, for instance, you, in your schism
from the Gentiles, have brought with you the doctrine of a single
principle, for you believe that all things are of God. The sacrifices you
change into love-feasts, the idols into martyrs, to whom you pray as they
do to their idols. You appease the shades of the departed with wine and
food. You keep the same holidays as the Gentiles; for example, the calends
and the solstices. In your way of living you have made no change. Plainly
you are a mere schism; for the only difference from the original is that
you meet separately. In this you have followed the Jews, who separated from
the Gentiles, bat differed only in not having images. For they used
temples, and sacrifices, and altars. and a priesthood, and the whole round
of ceremonies the same as those of the Gentiles, only more superstitious.
Like the Pagans, they believe in a single principle; so that both you and
the Jews are schisms of the Gentiles. for you have the same faith, and
nearly the same worship, and you call yourselves sects only because you
meet separately. The fact is, there are only two sects, the Gentiles and
ourselves. We and the Gentiles are as contrary in our belief as truth and
falsehood, day and night, poverty and wealth, health and sickness. You,
again, are not a sect in relation either to truth or to error. You are
merely a schism and a schism not of truth, but of error.

   5. Augustin replied: O hateful mixture of ignorance and cunning! Why do
you put arguments in the mouth of your opponent, which no one that knows
you would use? We do not call you Pagans, or a schism of Pagans; but we say
that you resemble them in worshipping many gods. But you are far worse than
Pagans, for they worship things which exist, though they should not be
worshipped: for idols have an existence, though for salvation they are
nought. So, to worship a tree with prayers, instead of improving it by
cultivation, is not to worship nothing, but to worship in a wrong way. When
the apostle says that "the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they
sacrifice to demons, and not to God,"(1) he means that these demons exist
to whom the sacrifices are made, and with whom he wishes us not to be
partakers. So, too, heaven and earth, the sea and air, the sun and moon,
and the other heavenly bodies, are all objects which have a sensible
existence. When the Pagans worship these as gods, or as parts of one great
God (for some of them identify the universe with the Supreme Deity), they
worship things which have an existence. In arguing with Pagans, we do not
deny the existence of these things, but we say that they should not be
worshipped; and we recommend the worship of the invisible Creator of all
these things, in whom alone man can find the happiness which all allow that
he desires. To those, again, who worship what is invisible and immaterial,
but still is created, as the soul or mind of man, we say that happiness is
not to be found in the creature even under this form, and that we must
worship the true God, who is not only invisible, but unchangeable; for He
alone is to be worshipped, in the enjoyment of whom the worshipper finds
happiness, and without whom the soul must be wretched, whatever else it
possesses. You, on the other hand, who worship things which have no
existence at all except in your fictitious legends, would be nearer true
piety and religion if you were Pagans, or if you were worshippers of what
has an existence, though not a proper object of worship. In fact, you do
not properly worship the sun, though he carries your prayers with him in
his course round the heavens.

   6. Your statements about the sun himself are so false and absurd, that
if he were to repay you for the injury done to him, he would scorch you to
death. First of all, you call the sun a ship, so that you are not only
astray worlds off, as the saying is, but adrift. Next, while every one sees
that the sun is round, which is the form corresponding from its perfection
to his position among the heavenly bodies, you maintain that he is
triangular, that is, that his light shines on the earth through a
triangular window in heaven. Hence it is that you bend and bow your heads
to the sun, while you worship not this visible sun, but some imaginary ship
which you suppose to be shining through a triangular opening. Assuredly
this ship would never have been heard of, if the words required for the
composition of heretical fictions had to be paid for, like the wood
required for the beams of a ship. All this is comparatively harmless,
however ridiculous or pitiable. Very different is your wicked fancy about
youths of both sexes proceeding from this ship, whose beauty excites eager
desire in the princes and princesses of darkness; and so the members of
your god are released from this humiliating confinement in the members of
the race of darkness, by means of sinful passion and sensual appetite. And
to these filthy rags of yours you would unite the mystery of the Trinity;
for you say that the Father dwells in a secret light, the power of the Son
in the sun, and His wisdom in the moon, and the Holy Spirit in the air.

   7. As for this threefold or rather fourfold fiction, what shall I say
of the secret light of the Father, but that you can think of no light
except what you have seen? From your knowledge of visible light, with which
beasts and insects as well as men are familiar, you form some vague idea in
your mind, and call it the light in Which God the Father dwells with His
subjects. How can you distinguish between the light by which we see, and
that by which we understand, when, according to your ideas, to understand
truth is nothing else than to form the conception of material forms, either
finite or in some cases infinite; and you actually believe in these wild
fancies? It is manifest that the act of my mind in thinking of your region
of light which has no existence, is entirely different from my conception
of Alexandria, which exists, though I have not seen it. And, again, the act
of forming a conception of Alexandria, which I have never seen, is very
different from thinking of Carthage, which I know. But this difference is
insignificant as compared with that between my thinking of material things
which I know from seeing them, and my understanding justice, chastity,
faith, truth, love, goodness, and things of this nature. Can you describe
this intellectual light, which gives us a clear perception of the
distinction between itself and other things, as well as of the distinction
between those things themselves? And yet even this is not the sense in
which it can be said that God is light, for this light is created, whereas
God is the Creator; the light is made, and He is the Maker; the light is
changeable. For the intellect changes from dislike to desire, from
ignorance to knowledge, from forgetfulness to recollection; whereas God
remains the same in will, in truth, and in eternity. From God we derive the
beginning of existence, the principle of knowledge, the law of affection.
From God all animals, rational and irrational, derive the nature of their
life, the capacity of sensation, the faculty of emotion. From God all
bodies derive their subsistence in extension, their beauty in number, and
their order in weight. This light is one divine being, in an inseparable
triune existence; and yet, without supposing the assumption of any bodily
form, you assign to separate places parts of the immaterial, spiritual,
anti unchangeable substance. And instead of three places for the Trinity,
you have four: one, the light inaccessible, which you know nothing about,
for the Father; two, the sun and moon, for the Son; and again one, the
circle of the atmosphere, for the Holy Spirit. Of the inaccessible light of
the Father I shall say nothing further at present, for orthodox believers
do not separate the Son and the Spirit from the Father in relation to this
light.

   8. It is difficult to understand how you have been taken with the
absurd idea of placing the power of the Son in the sun, and His wisdom in
the moon. For, as the Son remains inseparably in the Father, His wisdom and
power cannot be separated from one another, so that one should be in the
sun and the other in the moon. Only material things can be thus assigned to
separate places. If you only understood this, it would have prevented you
from taking the productions of a diseased fancy as the material for so many
fictions. But there is inconsistency and improbability as well as falsehood
in your ideas. For, according to you, the seat of wisdom is inferior in
brightness to the seat of power. Now energy and productiveness are the
qualities of power, whereas light teaches and manifests; so that if the sun
had the greater heat, and the moon the greater light, these absurdities
might appear to have some likelihood to men of carnal minds, who know
nothing except through material conceptions. From the connection between
great heat and motion, they might identify power with heat; while light
from its brightness, and as making things discernible, they might represent
wisdom. But what folly as well as profanity, in placing power in the sun,
which excels so much in light, and wisdom in the moon, which is so inferior
in brightness! And while you separate Christ from Himself, you do not
distinguish between Christ and the Holy Spirit; whereas Christ is one, the
power of God, and the wisdom of God, and the Spirit is a distinct person.
But according to you, the air, which you make the seat of the Spirit, fills
and pervades the universe. So the sun and moon in their course are always
united to the air. But the moon approaches the sun at one time, and recedes
from it at another. So that, if we may believe you, or rather, if we may
allow ourselves to be imposed on by you, wisdom recedes from power by half
the circumference of a circle, and again approaches it by the other half.
And when wisdom is full, it is at a distance from power. For when the moon
is full, the distance between the two bodies is so great, that the moon
rises in the east while the sun is setting in the west. But as the loss of
power produces weakness, the fuller the moon is, the weaker must wisdom be.
If, as is certainly true, the wisdom of God is unchangeable in power, and
the power of God unchangeable in wisdom, how can you separate them so as to
assign them to different places? And how can the place be different when
the substance is the same? Is this not the infatuation of subjection to
material fancies; showing such a want of power and wisdom that your wisdom
is as weak as your power is foolish? This execrable absurdity would divide
Christ between the sun and the moon,--His power in one, and His wisdom in
the other; so that He would be incomplete in both, lacking wisdom in the
sun, and power in the moon, while in both He supplies youths, male and
female, to excite the affection of the princes and princesses of darkness.
Such are the tenets which you learn and profess. Such is the faith which
directs your conduct. And can you wonder that you are regarded with
abhorrence?

   9. But besides your errors regarding these conspicuous and familiar
luminaries, which you worship not for what they are, but for what your wild
fancy makes them to be, your other absurdities are still worse than this.
Your illustrious World-bearer, and Atlas who helps to hold him up, are
unreal beings. Like innumerable other creatures of your fancy, they have no
existence, and yet you worship them. For this reason we say that you are
worse than Pagans, while you resemble them in worshipping many gods. You
are worse, because, while they worship things which exist though they are
not gods, you worship things which are neither gods nor anything else, for
they have no existence. The Pagans, too, have fables, but they know them to
be fables; and either look upon them as amusing poetical fancies, or try to
explain them as representing the nature of things, or the life of man. Thus
they say that Vulcan is lame, because flame in common fire has an irregular
motion: that Fortune is blind, because of the uncertainty of what are
called fortuitous occurrences: that there are three Fates, with distaff,
and spindle, and fingers spinning wool into thread, because there are three
times,--the past, already spun and wound on the spindle; the present, which
is passing through the fingers of the spinner; and the future, still in
wool bound to the distaff, and soon to pass through the fingers to the
spindle, that is, through the present into the future: and that Venus is
the wife of Vulcan, because pleasure has a natural connection with heat;
and that she is the mistress of Mars, because pleasure is not properly the
companion of warriors: and that Cupid is a boy with wings and a bow, from
the wounds inflicted by thoughtless, inconstant passion in the hearts of
unhappy beings: and so with many other fables. The great absurdity is in
their continuing to worship these beings, after giving such explanations;
for the worship without the explanations, though criminal, would be a less
heinous crime. The very explanations prove that they do not worship that
God, the enjoyment of whom can alone give happiness, but things which He
has created. And even in the creature they worship not only the virtues, as
in Minerva, who sprang from the head of Jupiter, and who represents
prudence,--a quality of reason which, according to Plato, has its seat in
the head,--but their vices, too, as in Cupid. Thus one of their dramatic
poets says, "Sinful passion, in favor of vice, made Love a god."(1) Even
bodily evils had temples in Rome, as in the case of pallor and fever. Not
to dwell on the sin of the worshippers of these idols, who are in a way
affected by the bodily forms, so that they pay homage to them as deities,
when they see them set up in some lofty place, and treated with great honor
and reverence, there is greater sin in the very explanations which are
intended as apologies for these dumb, and deaf, and blind, and lifeless
objects. Still, though, as I have said, these things are nothing in the way
of salvation or of usefulness, both they and the things they are said to
represent are real existences. But your First Man, warring with the five
elements; and your Mighty Spirit, who constructs the world from the captive
bodies of the race of darkness, or father from the members of your god in
subjection and bondage; and your World-holder, who has in his hand the
remains of these members, and who bewails the capture and bondage and
pollution of the rest; and your giant Atlas, who keeps up the World-holder
on his shoulders, lest he should from weariness throw away his burden, and
so prevent the completion of the final imitation of the mass of darkness,
which is to be the last scene in your drama;--these and countless other
absurdities are not represented in painting or sculpture, or in any
explanation; and yet you believe and worship things which have no
existence, while you taunt the Christians with being credulous for
believing in realities with a faith which pacifies the mind under its
influence. The objects of your worship can be shown to have no existence by
many proofs, which I do not bring forward here, because, though I could
without difficulty discourse philosophically on the construction of the
world, it would take too long to do so here. One proof suffices. If these
things are real, God must be subject to change, and corruption, and
contamination; a supposition as blasphemous as it is irrational. All these
things, therefore, are vain, and false, and unreal. Thus you are much worse
than those Pagans, with whom all are familiar, and who still preserve
traces of their old customs, of which they themselves are ashamed; for
while they worship things which are not gods, you worship things which do
not exist.

   10. If you think that your doctrines are true because they are unlike
the errors of the Pagans, and that we are in error because we perhaps
differ more from you than from them, you might as well say that a dead man
is in good health because he is not sick; or that good health is
undesirable, because it differs less from sickness than from death. Or if
the Pagans should be viewed in many cases as rather dead than sick, you
might as well praise the ashes in the tomb because they have no longer the
human shape, as compared with the living body, which does not differ so
much from a corpse as from ashes. It is thus we are reproached for having
more resemblance to the dead body of Paganism than to the ashes of
Manichaeism. But in division, it often happens that a thing is placed in
different classes, according to the point of resemblance on which the
division proceeds, For instance, if animals are divided into those that fly
and those that cannot fly, in this division men and beasts are classed
together as distinct from birds, because they are both unable to fly. But
if they are divided into rational and irrational, beasts and birds are
classed together as distinct from men, for they are both destitute of
reason. Faustus did not think of this when he said: There are in fact only
two sects, the Gentiles and ourselves, for we are directly opposed to them
in our belief. The opposition he means is this, that the Gentiles believe
in a single principle, whereas the Manichaeans believe also in the
principle of the race of darkness. Certainly, according to this division we
agree in general with the Pagans. But if we divide all who have a religion
into those who worship one God and those who worship many gods, the
Manichaeans must be classed along with the Pagans, and we along with the
Jews. This is another distinction, which may be said to make only two
sects. Perhaps you l will say that you hold all your gods to be of one
substance, which the Pagans do not. But you at least resemble them in
assigning to your gods different powers, and functions, and employments.
One does battle with the race of darkness; another constructs the world
from the part which is captured; another, standing above, has the world in
his band; another holds him up from below; another turns the wheels of the
fires and winds and waters beneath; another, in his circuit of the heavens,
gathers with his beams the members of your god from cesspools. Indeed, your
gods have innumerable occupations, according to your fabulous descriptions,
which you neither explain nor represent in a visible form. But again, if
men were divided into those who believe that God takes an interest in human
affairs and those who do not, the Pagans and Jews, and you and all heretics
that have anything of Christianity, will be classed together, as opposed to
the Epicureans, and any others holding similar views. As this is a
principle of importance, here again we may say that there are only two
sects, and you belong to the same sect as we do. You will hardly venture to
dissent from us in the opinion that God is concerned in human affairs, so
that in this matter your opposition to the Epicureans makes you side with
us. Thus, according to the nature of the division, what is in one class at
one time, is in another at another time: things joined here are separated
there: in some things we are classed with others, and they with us; in
other things we are classed separately, and stand alone. If Faustus thought
of this, he would not talk such eloquent nonsense.

   11. But what are we to make of these words of Faustus: The Holy Spirit,
by his influence and spiritual infusion, makes the earth conceive and bring
forth the mortal Jesus, who, as hanging from every tree, is the life and
salvation of men? Letting pass for a moment the absurdity of this
statement, we observe the folly of believing that the mortal Jesus can be
conceived through the power of the Holy Spirit by the earth, but not by the
Virgin Mary. Dare you compare the holiness of that chaste virgin's womb
with any piece of ground where trees and plants grow? Do you pretend to
look with abhorrence upon a pure virgin, while you do not shrink from
believing that Jesus is produced in gardens watered by the filthy drains of
a city? For plants of all kinds spring up and are nourished in such
moisture. You will have Jesus to be born in this way, while you cry out
against the idea of His being born of a virgin. Do you think flesh more
unclean than the excrements which its nature rejects? Is the filth cleaner
than the flesh which expels it? Are you not aware how fields are manured in
order to make them productive? Your folly comes to this, that the Holy
Spirit, who, according to you, despised the womb of Mary, makes the earth
conceive more fruitfully in proportion as it is carefully enriched with
animal off-scourings. Do you reply that the Holy Spirit preserves His
incorruptible purity everywhere? I ask again, Why not also in the virgin's
womb? Passing from the conception, you maintain in regard to the mortal
Jesus--who, as you say, is born from the earth, which has conceived by the
power of the Holy Spirit-that He hangs in the shape of fruit from every
tree: so that, besides this pollution, He suffers additional defilement
from the flesh of the countless animals that eat the fruit; except, indeed,
the small amount that is purified by your eating it. While we believe and
confess Christ the Son of God, and the Word of God, to have become flesh
without suffering defilement, because the divine substance is not defiled
by flesh, as it is not defiled by anything, your fanciful notions would
make Jesus to be defiled even as hanging on the tree, before entering the
flesh of any animal; for if He were not defiled, there would be no need of
His being purified by your eating Him. And if all trees are the cross of
Christ, as Faustus seems to imply when he says that Jesus hangs from every
tree, why do you not pluck the fruit, and so take Jesus down from hanging
on the tree to bury Him in your stomach, which would correspond to the good
deed of Joseph of Arimathea, when he took down the true Jesus from the
cross to bury Him?(1) Why should it be impious to take Christ from the
tree, while it is pious to lay Him in the tomb? Perhaps you wish to apply
to yourselves the words quoted from the prophet by Paul, "Their throat is
an open sepulchre:"(1) and so you wait with open mouth till some one comes
to use your throat as the best sepulchre for Christ. Once more, how many
Christs do you make? Is there one whom you call the mortal Christ, whom the
earth conceives and brings forth by the power of the Holy Spirit; and
another crucified by the Jews under Pontius Pilate; and a third whom you
divide between the sun and the moon? Or is it one and the same person, part
of whom is confined in the trees, to be released by the help of the other
part which is not confined? If this is the case, and you allow that Christ
suffered under Pontius Pilate, though it is difficult to see how he could
have suffered without flesh, as you say he did, the great question is, with
whom he left those ships you speak of, that he might come down and suffer
these things, which he certainly could not have suffered without having a
body of some kind. A mere spiritual presence could not have made him liable
to these sufferings, and in his bodily presence he could not be at the same
time in the sun, in the moon, and on the cross. So, then, if he had not a
body, he was not crucified; and if he had a body, the question is, where he
got it: for, according to you, all bodies belong to the race of darkness,
though you cannot think of the divine substance except as being material.
Thus you must say either that Christ was crucified without a body; which is
utterly absurd; or that he was crucified in appearance and not in reality,
which is blasphemy; or that all bodies do not belong to the race of
darkness, but that the divine substance has also a body, and that not an
immortal body, but liable to crucifixion and death, which, again, is
altogether erroneous; or that Christ had a mortal body from the race of
darkness, so that, while you will not allow that Christ's body came from
the Virgin Mary, you derive it from the race of demons. Finally, as in
Faustus' statement, in which he alludes in the briefest manner possible to
the lengthy stories of Manichaean invention, the earth by the power of the
Holy Spirit conceives and brings forth the mortal Jesus, who, hanging from
every tree, is the life and salvation of men, why should this Saviour be
represented by whatever is hanging, because he hung on the tree, and not by
whatever is born, because he was born? But if you mean that the Jesus on
the trees, and the Jesus crucified under Pontius Pilate, and the Jesus
divided between the sun and the moon, are all one and the same substance,
why do you not give the name of Jesus to your whole host of deities? Why
should not your World-holder be Jesus too, and Atlas, and the King of
Honour, and the Mighty Spirit, and the First Man, and all the rest, with
their various names and occupations?

   12. So, with regard to the Holy Spirit, how can you say that he is the
third person, when the persons you mention are innumerable? Or why is he
not Jesus himself? And why does Faustus mislead people, in trying to make
out an agreement between himself and true Christians, from whom he differs
only too widely, by saying, We worship one God under the threefold
appellation of the Almighty God the Father, Christ his Son, and the Holy
Spirit? Why is the appellation only threefold, instead of being manifold?
And why is the distinction in appellation only, and not in reality, if
there are as many persons as there are names? For it is not as if you gave
three names to the same thing, as the same weapon may be called a short
sword, a dagger, or a dirk; or as you give the name of moon, and the lesser
ship, and the luminary of night, and so on, to the same thing. For you
cannot say that the First Man is the same as the Mighty Spirit, or as the
World-Holder, or as the giant Atlas. They are all distinct persons, and you
do not call any of them Christ. How can there be one Deity with opposite
functions? Or why should not Christ himself be the single person, if in one
substance Christ hangs on the trees, and was persecuted by the Jews, and
exists in the sun and moon? The fact is, your fancies are all astray, and
are no better than the dreams of insanity.

   13. How can Faustus think that we resemble the Manichaeans in attaching
sacredness to bread and wine, when they consider it sacrilege to taste
wine? They acknowledge their god in the grape, but not in the cup; perhaps
they are shocked at his being trampled on and bottled. It is not any bread
and wine that we hold sacred as a natural production, as if Christ were
confined in corn or in vines, as the Manichaeans fancy, but what is truly
consecrated as a symbol. What is not consecrated, though it is bread and
wine, is only nourishment or refreshment, with no sacredness about it;
although we bless and thank God for every gift, bodily as well as
spiritual. According to your notion, Christ is confined in everything you
eat, and is released by digestion from the additional confinement of your
intestines. So, when you eat, your god suffers; and when you digest, you
suffer from his recovery. When he fills you, your gain is his loss. This
might be considered kindness on his part, because he suffers in you for
your benefit, were it not that he gains freedom by escaping and leaving you
empty. There is not the least resemblance between our reverence for the
bread and wine, and your doctrines, which have no truth in them. To compare
the two is even more foolish than to say, as some do, that in the bread and
wine we worship Ceres and Bacchus. I refer to this now, to show where you
got your silly idea that our fathers kept the Sabbath in honor of Saturn.
For as there is no connection with the worship of the Pagan deities Ceres
and Bacchus in our observance of the sacrament of the bread and wine, which
you approve so highly that you wish to resemble us in it, so there was no
subjection to Saturn in the case of our fathers, who observed the rest of
the Sabbath in a manner suitable to prophetic times.

   14. You might have found a resemblance in your religion to that of the
Pagans as regards Hyle [matter], which the Pagans often speak of. You, on
the contrary, maintain that you are directly opposed to them in your belief
in the evil principle which your teacher in theology calls Hyle. But here
you only show your ignorance, and, with an affectation of learning, use
this word without knowing what it means. The Greeks, when speaking of
nature, give the name Hyle to the subject-matter of things, which has no
form of its own, but admits of all bodily forms, and is known only through
these changeable phenomena, not being itself an object of sensation or
perception. Some Gentiles, indeed, erroneously make this matter co-eternal
with God, as not being derived from Him, though the bodily forms are. In
this manifest error you resemble the Pagans, for you hold that Hyle has a
principle of its own, and does not come from God. It is only ignorance that
leads you to deny this resemblance. In saying that Hyle has no form of its
own, and can take its forms only from God, the Pagans come near to the
truth which we believe in contradistinction from your errors. Not knowing
what Hyle or the subject-matter of things is, you make it the race of
darkness, in which you place not only innumerable bodily forms of five
different kinds, but also a formative mind. Such, indeed, is your ignorance
or insanity, that you call this mind Hyle, and make it give forms instead
of taking them. If there were such a formative mind as you speak of, and
bodily elements capable of form, the word Hyle would properly be applicable
to the bodily elements, which would be the matter to be formed by the mind,
which you make the principle of evil. Even this would not be a quite
accurate use of the word Hyle, which has no form of any kind; whereas these
elements, although capable of new forms, have already the form of elements,
and belong to different kinds. Still this use of the word would not be so
much amiss, notwithstanding your ignorance; for it would thus be applied,
as it properly is, to that which takes form, and not to that which gives
it. Even here, however, your folly and impiety would appear in tracing so
much that is good to the evil principle, from your not knowing that all
natures of every kind, all forms in their proportion, and all weights in
their order, can come only from the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
As it is, you know neither what Hyle is, nor what evil is. Would that I
could persuade you to refrain from misleading people stilt more ignorant
than yourselves!

   15. Every one must see the folly of your boasting of superiority to the
Pagans because they use altars and temples, images and sacrifices and
incense, in the worship of God, which you do not. As if it were not better
to build an altar and offer sacrifice to a stone, which has some kind of
existence, than to employ a heated imagination in worshipping things which
have no existence at all. And what do you mean by saying that you are a
rational temple of God? Can that be God's temple which is partly the
construction of the devil? And is this not true of you, as you say that all
your members and your whole body were formed by the evil principle which
you call Hyle, and that part of this formative mind dwells in the body
along with part of your god? And as this part of your god is bound and
confined, you should be called the prison of God rather than his temple.
Perhaps it is your soul that is the temple of God, as you have it from the
region of light. But you generally call your soul not a temple, but a part
or member of God. So, when you say you are the temple of God, it must be in
your body, which, you say, was formed by the devil. Thus you blaspheme the
temple of God, calling it not only the workmanship of Satan, but the
prison-house of God. The apostle, on the other hand, says: "The temple of
God is holy, which temple ye are," And to show that this refers not merely
to the soul, he says expressly: "Know ye not that your bodies are the
temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which ye have of God?"(1) You
call the workmanship of devils the temple of God, and there, to use
Faustus' words, you place Christ, the Son of God, the living image of
living majesty. Your impiety may well contrive a fabulous temple for a
fabulous Christ. The image you speak of must be so called, because it is
the creature of your imagination.

   16. If your mind is an altar, you see whose altar it is. You may see
from the very doctrines and duties in which you say you are trained. You
are taught not to give food to a beggar; and so your altar smokes with the
sacrifice of cruelty. Such altars the Lord destroys; for in words quoted
from the law. He tells us what offering pleases God: "I desire mercy, and
not sacrifice." Observe on what occasion the Lord uses these words. It was
when, in passing through a field, the disciples plucked the ears of corn
because they were hungry. Your doctrine would lead you to call this murder.
Your mind is an altar, not of God, but of lying devils, by whose doctrines
the evil conscience is seared as with a hot iron,(1) calling murder what
the truth calls innocence. For in His words to the Jews, Christ by
anticipation deals a fatal blow to you: "If ye had known what this meaneth,
I desire mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the
guiltless."(2)

   17. Nor can you say that you honor God with sacrifices in the shape of
pure and simple prayers: for, in your low, dishonoring notions about the
divine nature and substance, you make your god to be the victim in the
sacrifices of Pagans; so far are you from pleasing the true God with your
sacrifices. For you hold that God is confined not only in trees and plants,
or in the human body, but also in the flesh of animals, which contaminates
Him with its impurity. And how can your soul give praise to God, when you
actually reproach Him by calling your soul a particle of His substance
taken captive by the race of darkness; as if God could not maintain the
conflict except by this corruption of His members, and this dishonorable
captivity? Instead of honoring God in your prayers, you insult Him. For
what sin did you commit, when you belonged to Him, that you should be thus
punished by the god you cry to, not because you left Him sinfully of your
own: choice; for he himself gave you to His enemies, to obtain peace for
His kingdom? You are not even given as hostages to be honorably guarded.
Nor is it as when a shepherd lays a snare to catch a wild beast: for he
does not put one of his own members in the snare, but some animal from his
flock; and generally, so that the wild beast is caught before the animal is
hurt. You, though you are the members of your god, are given to the enemy,
whose ferocity you keep off from your god only by being contaminated with
their impurity, infected with their corruptions, without any fault of your
own. You cannot in your prayers use the words: "Free us, O Lord, for the
glory of Thy name; and for Thy name's sake pardon our sins."(3) Your prayer
is: "Free us by Thy skill, for we suffer here oppression, and torture, and
pollution, only that Thou mayest mourn unmolested in Thy kingdom." These
are words of reproach, not of entreaty. Nor can you use the words taught us
by the Master of truth: "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our
debtors."(4) For who are the debtors who have sinned against you? If it is
the race of darkness, you do not forgive their debts, but make them be
utterly cast out and shut up in eternal imprisonment. And how can God
forgive your debts, when He rather sinned against you by sending you into
such a state, than you against Him, whom you obeyed by going? If this was
not a sin in Him, because He was compelled to do it, this excuse must apply
you, now that you have been overthrown in the conflict, more than to Him
before the conflict began. You suffer now from the mixture of evil, which
was not the case with Him when nevertheless He was compelled to send you.
So either He requires that you should forgive Him his debt; or, if He is
not in debt to you, still less are you to Him. It appears that your
sacrifices and your pure and simple prayers are false and vile blasphemies.

   18. How is it, by the way, that you use the words temple, altar,
sacrifice, for the purpose of commending your own practices? If such things
can be spoken of as properly belonging to true religion, they must
constitute the true worship of the true God. And if there is such a thing
as true sacrifice to the true God, which is implied in the expression
divine honors, there must be some one true sacrifice of which the rest are
imitations. On the one hand, we have the spurious imitations in the case of
false and lying gods, that is, of devils, who proudly demand divine honors
from their deluded votaries, as is or was the case in the temples and idols
of the Gentiles. On the other hand, we have the prophetic intimations of
one most true sacrifice to be offered for the sins of all believers, as in
the sacrifices enjoined by God on our fathers; along with which there was
also the symbolical anointing typical of Christ, as the name Christ itself
means anointed. The animal sacrifices, therefore, presumptuously claimed by
devils, were an imitation of the true sacrifice which is due only to the
one true God, and which Christ alone offered on His altar. Thus the apostle
says: "The sacrifices which the Gentiles offer, they offer to devils, and
not to God."(1) He does not find fault with sacrifices, but with offering
to devils. The Hebrews, again, in their animal sacrifices, which they
offered to God in many varied forms, suitably to the significance of the
institution, typified the sacrifice offered by Christ. This sacrifice is
also commemorated by Christians, in the sacred offering and participation
of the body and blood of Christ. The Manichaeans understand neither the
sinfulness of the Gentile sacrifices, nor the importance of the Hebrew
sacrifices, nor the use of the ordinance of the Christian sacrifice. Their
own errors are the offering they present to the devil who has deceived
them. And thus they depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits,
and to doctrines of devils, speaking lies in hypocrisy.

   19. It may be well that Faustus, or at least that those who are charmed
with Faustus' writings, should know that the doctrine of a single principle
did not come to us from the Gentiles; for the belief in one true God, from
whom every kind of nature is derived, is a part of the original truth
retained among the Gentiles, notwithstanding their having fallen away to
many false gods. For the Gentile philosophers had the knowledge of God,
because, as the apostle says, "the invisible things of God, from the
creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things
that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without
excuse." But, as the apostle adds, "when they knew God, they glorified Him
not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations.
and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise,
they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an
image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-fooled beasts,
and creeping things."(2) These are the idols of the Gentiles, which they
cannot explain except by referring to the creatures made by God; so that
this very explanation of their idolatry, on which the more enlightened
Gentiles were wont to pride themselves as a proof of their superiority,
shows the truth of the following words of the apostle: "They worshipped and
served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever."(3)
Where you differ from the Gentiles, you are in error; where you resemble
them, you are worse than they. You do not believe, as they do, in a single
principle; and so you fall into the impiety of believing the substance of
the one true God to be liable to subjugation and corruption. As regards the
worship of a plurality of gods. the doctrine of lying devils has led the
Gentiles to worship many idols, and you to worship many phantasms.

   20. We do not turn the sacrifices of the Gentiles into love-feasts, as
Faustus says we do. Our love-feasts are rather a substitute for the
sacrifice spoken of by the Lord, in the words already quoted: "I will have
mercy, and not sacrifice." At our love-feasts the poor obtain vegetable or
animal food; and so the creature of God is used, as far as it is suitable,
for the nourishment of man, who is also God's creature. You have been led
by lying devils, not in self-denial, but in blasphemous error, "to abstain
from meats which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them
which believe and know the truth. For every creature of God is good, and
nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving."(4) In return
for the bounties of the Creator, you ungratefully insult Him with your
impiety; and because in our love-feasts flesh is often given to the poor,
you compare Christian charity to Pagan sacrifices. This indeed, is another
point in which you resemble some Pagans. You consider it a crime to kill
animals, because you think that the souls of men pass into them; which is
an idea found in the writings of some Gentile philosophers, although their
successors appear to have thought differently. But here again you are most
in error: for they dreaded slaughtering a relative in the animal; but you
dread the slaughter of your god, for you hold even the souls of animals to
be his members.

   21. As to our paying honor to the memory of the martyrs, and the
accusation of Faustus, that we worship them instead of idols, I should not
care to answer such a charge, were it not for the sake of showing how
Faustus, in his desire to cast reproach on us, has overstepped the
Manichaean inventions, and has fallen heedlessly into a popular notion
found in Pagan poetry, although he is so anxious to be distinguished from
the Pagans. For in saying that we have turned the idols into martyrs, be
speaks of our worshipping them with similar rites, and appeasing the shades
of the departed with wine and food. Do you, then, believe in shades? We
never heard you speak of such things, nor have we read of them in your
books. In fact, you generally oppose such ideas: for you tell us that the
souls of the dead, if they are wicked, or not purified, are made to pass
through various changes, or suffer punishment still more severe; while the
good souls are placed in ships, and sail through heaven to that imaginary
region of light which they died fighting for. According to you, then, no
souls remain near the burying-place of the body; and how can there be any
shades of the departed? What and where are they? Faustus' love of evil-
speaking has made him forget his own creed; or perhaps he spoke in his
sleep about ghosts, and did not wake up even when he saw his words in
writing. It is true that Christians pay religious honor to the memory of
the martyrs, both to excite us to imitate them and to obtain a share in
their merits, and the assistance of their prayers. But we build altars not
to any martyr, but to the God of martyrs, although it is to the memory of
the martyrs. No one officiating at the altar in the saints' burying-place
ever says, We bring an offering to thee, O Peter! or O Paul! or O Cyprian!
The offering is made to God, who gave the crown of martyrdom, while it is
in memory of those thus crowned. The emotion is increased by the
associations of the place, and. love is excited both towards those who are
our examples, and towards Him by whose help we may follow such examples. We
regard the martyrs with the same affectionate intimacy that we feel towards
holy men of God in this life, when we know that their hearts are prepared
to endure the same suffering for the truth of the gospel. There is more
devotion in our feeling towards the martyrs, because we know that their
conflict is over; and we can speak with greater confidence in praise of
those already victors in heaven, than of those still combating here. What
is properly divine worship, which the Greeks call latria, and for which
there is no word in Latin, both in doctrine and in practice, we give only
to God. To this worship belongs the offering of sacrifices; as we see in
the word idolatry, which means the giving of this worship to idols.
Accordingly we never offer, or require any one to offer, sacrifice to a
martyr, or to a holy soul, or to any angel. Any one falling into this error
is instructed by doctrine, either in the way of correction or of caution.
For holy beings themselves, whether saints or angels, refuse to accept what
they know to be due to God alone. We see this in Paul and Barnabas, when
the men of Lycaonia wished to sacrifice to them as gods, on account of the
miracles they performed. They rent their clothes, and restrained the
people, crying out to them, and persuading them that they were not gods. We
see it also in the angels, as we read in the Apocalypse that an angel would
not allow himself to be worshipped, and said to his worshipper, "I am thy
fellow-servant, and of thy brethen."(1) Those who claim this worship are
proud spirits, the devil and his angels, as we see in all the temples and
rites of the Gentiles. Some proud men, too, have copied their example; as
is related of some kings of Babylon. Thus the holy Daniel was accused and
persecuted, because when the king made a decree that no petition should be
made to any god, but only to the king, he was found worshipping and praying
to his own God, that is, the one true God.(2) As for those who drink to
excess at the feasts of the martyrs, we of course condemn their conduct;
for to do so even in their own houses would be contrary to sound doctrine.
But we must try to amend what is bad as well as prescribe what is good, and
must of necessity bear for a time with some things that are not according
to our teaching. The rules of Christian conduct are not to be taken from
the indulgences of the intemperate or the infirmities of the weak. Still,
even in this, the guilt of intemperance is much less than that of impiety.
To sacrifice to the martyrs, even fasting, is worse than to go home
intoxicated from their feast: to sacrifice to the martyrs, I say, which is
a different thing from sacrificing to God in memory of the martyrs, as we
do constantly, in the manner required since the revelation of the New
Testament, for this belongs to the worship or latria which is due to God
alone. But it is vain to try to make these heretics understand the full
meaning of these words of the Psalmist: "He that offereth the sacrifice of
praise glorifieth me, and in this way will I show him my salvation."(3)
Before the coming of Christ, the flesh and blood of this sacrifice were
foreshadowed in the animals slain; in the passion of Christ the types were
fulfilled by the true sacrifice; after the ascension of Christ, this
sacrifice is commemorated in the sacrament. Between the sacrifices of the
Pagans and of the Hebrews there is all the difference that there is between
a false imitation and a typical anticipation. We do not despise or denounce
the virginity of holy women because there were vestal virgins. And, in the
same way, it is no reproach to the sacrifices of our fathers that the
Gentiles also had sacrifices. The difference between the Christian and
vestal virginity is great, yet it consists wholly in the being to whom the
vow is made and paid; and so the difference in the being to whom the
sacrifices of the Pagans and Hebrews are made and offered makes a wide
difference between them. In the one case they are offered to devils, who
presumptuously make this claim in order to be held as gods, because
sacrifice is a divine honor. In the other case they are offered to the one
true God, as a type of the true sacrifice, which also was to be offered to
Him in the passion of the body and blood of Christ.

   22. Faustus is wrong in saying that our Jewish forefathers, in their
separation from the Gentiles, retained the temple, and sacrifices, and
altars, and priesthood, and abandoned only graven images or idols, for they
might have sacrificed, as some do, without any graven image, to trees and
mountains, or even to the sun and moon and the stars. If they had thus
rendered to these objects the worship called lards, they would have served
the creature instead of the Creator, and so would have fallen into the
serious error of heathenish superstition; and even without idols, they
would have found devils ready to take advantage of their error, and to
accept their offerings. For these proud and wicked spirits feed not, as
some foolishly suppose, on the smell of the sacrifice, and the smoke, but
on the errors of men. They enjoy not bodily refreshment, but a malevolent
gratification, when they in any way deceive people, or when, with a bold
assumption of borrowed majesty, they boast of receiving divine honors. It
was not, therefore, only the idols of the Gentiles that our Jewish
forefathers abandoned. They sacrificed neither to the earth nor to any
earthly thing, nor to the sea, nor to heaven, nor to the hosts of heaven,
but laid the victims on the altar of the one God, Creator of all, who
required these offerings as a means of foreshadowing the true victim, by
whom He has reconciled us to Himself in the remission of sins through our
Lord Jesus Christ. So Paul, addressing believers, who are made the body of
which Christ is the Head, says: "I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the
mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy,
acceptable to God."(1) The Manichaeans, on the other hand, say that human
bodies are the workmanship of the race of darkness, and the prison in which
the captive deity is confined. Thus Faustus' doctrine is very different
from Paul's. But since whosover preaches to you another gospel than that ye
have received must be accursed, what Christ says in Paul is the truth,
while Manichaeus in Faustus is accursed.

   23. Faustus says also, without knowing what he says, that we have
retained the manners of the Gentiles. But seeing that the just lives by
faith, and that the end of the commandment is love out of a pure heart, and
a good conscience, and faith unfeigned, and that these three, faith, hope,
and love, abide to form the life of believers, it is impossible that there
should be similarity in the manners of those who differ in these three
things. Those who believe differently, and hope differently, and love
differently, must also live differently. And if we resemble the Gentiles in
our use of such things as food and drink, and houses and clothes and baths,
and those of us who marry, in taking and keeping wives, and in begetting
and bringing up children as our heirs, there is still a great difference
between the man who uses these things for some end of his own, and the man
who, in using them, gives thanks to God, having no unworthy or erroneous
ideas about God. For as you, according to your own heresy, though you eat
the same bread as other men, and live upon the produce of the same plants
and the water of the same fountain, and are clothed like others in wool and
linen, yet lead a different life, not because you eat or drink, or dress
differently, but because you differ from others in your ideas and in your
faith, and in all these things have m view an end of your own--the end,
namely, set forth in your false doctrines; in the same way we, though we
resemble the Gentiles in the use of this and other things, do not resemble
them in our life; for while the things are the same, the end is different:
for the end we have in view is, according to the just commandment of God,
love out of a pure heart, and a good conscience, and faith unfeigned; from
which some having erred, are turned to vain jangling. In this vain jangling
you bear the palm, for you do not attend to the fact that so great is the
difference of life produced by a different faith, even when the things in
possession and use are the same, that though your followers have wives, and
in spite of themselves get children, for whom they gather and store up
wealth; though they eat flesh, drink wine, bathe, reap harvests, gather
vintages, engage in trade, and occupy high official positions, you
nevertheless reckon them as belonging to you, and not to the Gentiles,
though in their actions they approach nearer to the Gentiles than to you.
And though some of the Gentiles in some things resemble you more than your
own followers,--those, for instance, who in superstitious devotion abstain
from flesh, and wine, and marriage,--you still count your own followers,
even though they use all these things, and so are unlike you, as belonging
to the flock of Manichaeus rather than those who resemble you in their
practices. You consider as belonging to you a woman that believes in
Manichaeus, though she is a mother, rather than a Sibyl, though she never
marries. But you will say that many who are called Catholic Christians are
adulterers, robbers, misers, drunkards, and whatever else is contrary to
sound doctrine. I ask if none such are to be found in your company, which
is almost too small to be called a company. And because there are some
among the Pagans who are not of this character, do you consider them as
better than yourselves? And yet, in fact, your heresy is so blasphemous,
that even your followers who are not of such a character are worse than the
Pagans who are. It is therefore no impeachment to sound doctrine, which
alone is Catholic, that many wish to take its name, who will not yield to
its beneficial influence. We must bear in mind the true meaning of the
contrast which the Lord makes between the little company and the mass of
mankind, as spread over all the world; for the company of saints and
believers is small, as the amount of grain is small when compared with the
heap of chaff; and yet the good grain is quite sufficient far to outnumber
you, good and bad together, for good and bad are both strangers to the
truth. In a word, we are not a schism of the Gentiles, for we differ from
them greatly for the better; nor are you, for you differ from them greatly
for the worse.(1)

BOOK XXI: FAUSTUS DENIES THAT MANICHAEANS BELIEVE IN TWO GODS. HYLE NO GOD.
AUGUSTIN DISCUSSES AT LARGE THE DOCTRINE OF GOD AND HYLE, AND FIXES THE
CHARGE OF DUALISM UPON THE MANICHAEANS.

   1. FAUSTUS said: Do we believe in one God or in two? In one, of course.
If we are accused of making two gods, I reply that it cannot be shown that
we ever said anything of the kind. Why do you suspect us of this? Because,
you say, you believe in two principles, good and evil. It is true, we
believe in two principles; but one we call God, and the other Hyle, or, to
use common popular language, the devil. If you think this means two gods,
you may as well think that the health and sickness of which doctors speak
are two kinds of health, or that good and evil are two kinds of good, or
that wealth and poverty are two kinds of wealth. If I were describing two
things, one white and the other black, or one hot and the other cold, or
one sweet and the other bitter, it would appear like idiocy or insanity in
you to say that I was describing two white things, or two hot things, or
two sweet things. So, when I assert that there are two principles, God and
Hyle, you have no reason for saying that I believe in two gods. Do you
think that we must call them both gods because we attribute, as is proper,
all the power of evil to Hyle, and all the power of good to God? If so, you
may as well say that a poison and the antidote must both be called
antidotes, because each has a power of its own, and certain effects follow
from the action of both. So also, you may say that a physician and a
poisoner are both physicians; or that a just and an unjust man are both
just, because both do something. If this is absurd, it is still more absurd
to say that God and Hyle must both be gods, because they both produce
certain effects. It is a very childish and impotent way of arguing, when
you cannot refute my statements, to make a quarrel about names. I grant
that we, too, sometimes call the hostile nature God; not that we believe it
to be God, but that this name is already adopted by the worshippers of this
nature, who in their error suppose it to be God. Thus the apostle says:
"The god of this world has blinded the minds of them that believe not."(1)
He calls him God, because he would be so called by his worshippers; adding
that he blinds their minds, to show that he is not the true God.

   2. AUGUSTIN replied: You often speak in your discourses of two gods, as
indeed you acknowledge, though at first you denied it. And you give as a
reason for thus speaking the words of the apostle: "The god of this world
has blinded the minds of them that believe not." Most of us punctuate this
sentence differently, and explain it as meaning that the true God has
blinded the minds of unbelievers. They put a stop after the word God, and
read the following words together. Or without this punctuation you may, for
the sake of exposition, change the order of the words, and read, "In whom
God has blinded the minds of unbelievers of this world," which gives the
same sense. The act of blinding the minds of unbelievers may in one sense
be ascribed to God, as the effect not of malice, but of justice. Thus Paul
himself says elsewhere, "Is God unjust, who taketh vengeance?"(1) and
again, "What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God
forbid. For Moses saith, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and
will have compassion on whom I will have compassion." Observe what he adds,
after asserting the undeniable truth that there is no unrighteousness with
God: "But what if God, willing to show His wrath, and to make His power
known, endured with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted. for
destruction, and that He might manifest the riches of His grace towards the
vessels of mercy, which He hath before prepared unto glory?"(2) etc. Here
it evidently cannot be said that it is one God who shows his wrath, and
makes known his power in the vessels of wrath fitted for destruction, and
another God who shows his riches in the vessels of mercy. According to the
apostle's doctrine, it is one and the same God who does both. Hence he says
again, "For this cause God gave them up to the lusts of their own heart, to
uncleanness, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves;" and
immediately after, "For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections;"
and again, "And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge,
God gave them over to a reprobate mind."(3) Here we see how the true and
just God blinds the minds of unbelievers. For in all these words quoted
from the apostle no other God is understood than He whose Son, sent by Him,
came saying, "For judgment am I come into this world, that they which see
not might see, and that they which see might be made blind."(4) Here,
again, it is plain to the minds of believers how God blinds the minds of
unbelievers. For among the secret things, which contain the righteous
principles of God's judgment, there is a secret which determines that the
minds of some shall be blinded, and the minds of some enlightened.
Regarding this, it is well said of God, "Thy judgments are a great
deep."(5) The apostle, in admiration of the unfathomable depth of this
abyss, exclaims: "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and of the
knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past
finding out!"(6)

   3. You cannot distinguish between what God does in mercy and what He
does in judgment, because you can neither understand nor use the words of
our Psalter: "I will sing of mercy and judgment unto Thee, O Lord."(7)
Accordingly, whatever in the feebleness of your frail humanity seems amiss
to you, you separate entirely from the will and judgment of God: for you
are provided with another evil god, not by a discovery of truth, but by an
invention of folly; and to this god you attribute not only what you do
unjustly, but also what you suffer justly. Thus you assign to God the
bestowal of blessings, and take from Him the infliction of judgments, as if
He of whom Christ says that He has prepared everlasting fire for the wicked
were a different being from Him who makes His sun to rise upon the evil and
the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. Why do you not
understand that this great goodness and great severity belong to one God,
but because you have not learned to sing of mercy and judgment? Is not He
who causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the
just and on the unjust, the same who also breaks off the natural branches,
and engrafts contrary to nature the wild olive tree? Does not the apostle,
in reference to this, say of this one God: "Thou seest, then, the goodness
and severity of God: to them which were broken off, severity; but toward
thee, goodness, if thou continue m His goodness?"(8) Here it is to be
observed how the apostle takes away neither judicial severity from God, nor
free-will from man. It is a profound mystery, impenetrable by human
thought, how God both condemns the ungodly and justifies the ungodly; for
both these things are said of Him in the truth of the Holy Scriptures. But
is the mysteriousness of the divine judgments any reason for taking
pleasure in cavilling against them? How much more becoming, and more
suitable to the limitation of our powers, to feel the same awe which the
apostle felt, and to exclaim, "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom
and of the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His
ways past finding out!" How much better thus to admire what you cannot
explain, than to try to make an evil god in addition to the true God,
simply because you cannot understand the one good God! For it is not a
question of names, but of actions.

   4. Faustus glibly defends himself by saying, "We speak not of two gods,
but of God and Hyle." But when you ask for the meaning of Hyle, you find
that it is in fact another god. If the Manichaeans gave the name of Hyle,
as the ancients did, to the unformed matter which is susceptible of bodily
forms, we should not accuse them of making two gods. But it is pure folly
and madness to give to matter the power of forming bodies, or to deny that
what has this power is God. When you give to some other being the power
which belongs to the true God of making the qualities and forms, by which
bodies, elements, and animals exist, according to their respective modes,
whatever name you choose to give to this being, you are chargeable with
making another god. There are indeed two errors in this blasphemous
doctrine. In the first place, you ascribe the act of God to a being whom
you are ashamed to call god; though you must call him god as long as you
make him do things which only God can do. In the second place, the good
things done by a good God you call bad, and ascribe to an evil god, because
you feel a childish horror of whatever shocks the frailty of fallen
humanity, and a childish pleasure in the opposite. So you think snakes are
made by an evil being; while you consider the sun so great a good, that you
believe it to be not the creature of God, but an emission from His
substance. You must know that the true God, in whom, alas, you have not vet
come to believe, made both the snake along with the tower creatures, and
the sun along with other exalted creatures. Moreover, among still more
exalted creatures, not heavenly bodies, but spiritual beings, He has made
what far surpasses the light of the sun, and what no carnal man can
perceive, much less you, who, in your condemnation of flesh, condemn the
very principle by which you determine good and evil. For your only idea of
evil is from the disagreeableness of some things to the fleshly sense; and
your only idea of good is from sensual gratification.

   5. When I consider the things lowest in the scale of nature, which are
within our view, and which, though earthly, and feeble, and mortal, are
still the works of God, I am lost in admiration of the Creator, who is so
great, in the great works and no less great in the small. For the divine
skill seen in the formation of all creatures in heaven and earth is always
like itself, even in those things that differ from one another; for it is
everywhere perfect, in the perfection which it gives to everything in its
own kind. We see each creature made not as a whole by itself, but in
relation to the rest of the creation; so that the whole divine skill is
displayed in the formation of each, arranging each in its proper place and
order, and providing what is suitable for all, both separately and
unitedly. See here, lowest in the scale, the animals which fly, and swim,
and walk, and creep. These are mortal creatures, whose life, as it is
written, "is as a vapor which appeareth for a little time."(1) Each of
these, according to the capacity of its kind, contributes the measure
appointed in the goodness of the Creator to the completeness of the whole,
so that the lowest partake in the good which the highest possess in a
greater degree. Show me, if you can, any animal, however despicable, whose
soul hates its own flesh, and does not rather nourish and cherish it, by
its vital motion minister to its growth and direct its activity, and
exercise a sort of management over a little universe of its own, which it
makes subservient to its own preservation. Even in the discipline of his
own body by a rational being, who brings his body under, that earthly
passion may not hinder his perception of wisdom, there is love for his own
flesh, which he then reduces to obedience, which is its proper condition.
Indeed, you yourselves, although your heresy teaches you a fleshly
abhorrence of the flesh, cannot help loving your own flesh, and caring for
its safety and comfort, both by avoiding all injury from blows, and falls,
and inclement weather, and by seeking for the means of keeping it in
health. Thus the law of nature is too strong for your false doctrine.

   6. Looking at the flesh itself, do we not see in the construction of
its vital pans, in the symmetry of form, in the position and arrangement of
the limbs of action and the organs of sensation, all acting in harmony; do
we not see in the adjustment of measures, in the proportion of numbers, in
the order of weights, the handiwork of the true God, of whom it is truly
said, "Thou hast ordered all things in measure, and number, and weight"?(2)
If your heart was not hardened and corrupted by falsehood, you would
understand the invisible things of God from the things which He has made,
even in these feeble creatures of flesh. For who is the author of the
things I have mentioned, but He whose unity is the standard of all measure,
whose wisdom is the model of all beauty, and whose law is the rule of all
order? If you are blind to these things, hear at least the words of the
apostle.

   7. For the apostle, in speaking of the love which husbands ought to
have for their wives gives, as an example, the love of the soul for the
body. The words are: "He that loveth his wife, loveth himself: for no man
ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as
Christ the Church."(1) Look at the whole animal creation, and you find in
the instinctive self-preservation of every animal this natural principle of
love to its own flesh. It is so not only with men, who, when they live
aright, both provide for the safety of their flesh, and keep their carnal
appetites in subjection to the use of reason; the brutes also avoid pain,
and shrink from death, and escape as rapidly as they can from whatever
might break up the construction of their bodies, or dissolve the connection
of spirit and flesh; for the brutes, too, nourish and cherish their own
flesh. "For no one ever yet," says the apostle, "hated his own flesh, but
nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as Christ the Church." See where the
apostle begins, and to what he ascends. Consider, if you can, the greatness
which creation derives from its Creator, embracing as it does the whole
extent from the host of heaven down to flesh and blood, with the beauty of
manifold form, and the order of successive gradations.

   8. The same apostle again, when speaking of spiritual gifts as diverse,
and yet tending to harmonious action, to illustrate a matter so great, and
divine, and mysterious, makes a comparison with the human body,--thus
plainly intimating that this flesh is the handiwork of God. The whole
passage, as found in the Epistle to the Corinthians, is so much to the
point, that though it is long, I think it not amiss to insert it all: "Now
concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant. Ye
know that ye were Gentiles, carried away unto these dumb idols, even as ye
were led. Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the
Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed; and that no man can say that Jesus is
the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost. Now there are diversities of gifts, but
the same Spirit. And there are diversities of administrations, but the same
Lord. And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which
worketh all in all. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every
man to profit withal. For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom;
to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit; to another faith by
the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit; to
another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning
of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the
interpretation of tongues: but all these worketh that one and the self-same
Spirit, dividing to every man severally as He will. For as the body is one,
and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many,
are one body: so also is Christ. For by one Spirit are we all baptized into
one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and
have been all made to drink into one Spirit. For the body is not one
member, but many. If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am
not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? And if the ear shall say,
Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the
body? If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole
were hearing, where were the smelling? But now hath God set the members
every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased Him. And if they were all
one member, where were the body? But now are they many members, yet but one
body. And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee; nor
again the head to the feet, I have no need of you. Nay, much more those
members of the body, which seem to be more feeble, are necessary; and those
members of the body which we think to be less honorable, upon these we
bestow more abundant honor; and our uncomely parts have more abundant
comeliness. For our comely parts have no need; but God hath tempered the
body together, having given more abundant honor to that part which lacked:
that there should be no schism in the body, but that the members should
have the same care one for another. And whether one member suffer, all the
members suffer with it; or one member be honored, all the members rejoice
with it."(2) Apart altogether from Christian faith, which would lead you to
believe the apostle, if you have common sense to perceive what is self-
evident, let each examine and see for himself the plain truth regarding
those things of which the apostle speaks,--what greatness belongs to the
least, and what goodness to the lowest; for these are the things which the
apostle extols, in order to illustrate by means of these common and visible
bodily objects, unseen spiritual realities of the most exalted nature.

   9. Whoever, then, denies that our body and its members, which the
apostle so approves and extols, are the handiwork of God, you see whom he
contradicts, preaching contrary to what you have received. So, instead of
refuting his opinions, I may leave him to be accursed of all Christians.
The apostle says, God tempered the body. Faustus says, Not God, but Hyle.
Anathemas are more suitable than arguments to such contradictions. You
cannot say that God is here called the God of this world. And if any one
understands the passage where this expression does occur to mean that the
devil blinds the minds of unbelievers, we grant that he does so by his evil
suggestions, from yielding to which, men lose the light of righteousness in
God's righteous retribution. This is all in accordance with sacred
Scripture. The apostle himself speaks of temptation from without: "I fear
lest, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds
should be corrupted from the simplicity and purity. that is in Christ."(1)
To the same purpose are the words. "Evil communications corrupt good
manners;"(2) and when he speaks of a man deceiving himself, "Whoever
thinketh himself to be anything, when he is nothing, deceiveth himself;"(3)
or again, in the passage already quoted of the judgment of God, "God gave
them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not
convenient."(4) Similarly, in the Old Testament, after the words, "God did
not create death, nor hath He pleasure in the destruction of the living,"
we read, "By the envy of the devil death entered into the world."(5) And
again of death, that men may not put the blame from themselves, "The wicked
invite her with hands and voice; and thinking her a friend, they are drawn
down."(6) Elsewhere. however, it is said, "Good and evil, life and death,
riches and poverty, are from the Lord God."(7) This seems perplexing to
people who do not understand that, apart from the manifest judgment to
follow hereafter upon every evil work, there is an actual judgment at the
time; so that in one action, besides the craft of the deceiver and the
wickedness of the voluntary agent, there is also the just penalty of the
judge: for while the devil suggests, and man consents, God abandons. So, if
you join the words, God of this world, and understand that the devil blinds
unbelievers by his mischievous delusions, the meaning is not a bad one. For
the word God is not used by itself, but with the qualification of this
world, that is, of wicked men, who seek to prosper only in this age. In
this sense the world is also called evil, where it is written, "that He
might deliver us from this present evil age."(8) In the same way, in the
expression, "whose god is their belly," it is only in connection with the
word whose that the belly is called god. So also, in the Psalms, the devils
would not be called gods without adding "of the nations."(9) But in the
passage we are now considering it is not said, The god of this world, or,
Whose god is their belly, or, The gods of the nations are devils; but
simply, God has tempered the body, which can be understood only of the true
God, the Creator of all. There is no disparaging addition here, as in the
other cases. But perhaps Faustus will say that God tempered the body, not
as the maker of it, in the arrangement of its members, but by mixing His
light with it. Thus Faustus would attribute to some other being than God
the construction of the body, and the arrangement of its members, while God
tempered the evil of the construction by the mixture of His goodness. Such
are the inventions with which the Manichaeans cram feeble minds. But God,
in aid of the feeble, by the mouth of the sacred writers rebukes this
Opinion. For we read a few verses before: "God has placed the members every
one of them in the body, as it has pleased Him." Evidently, God is said to
have tempered the body, because He has constructed it of many members,
which in their union preserve the variety of their respective functions.

   10. Do the Manichaeans suppose that the animals which, according to
their wild notions, were constructed by Hyle in the race of darkness, had
not this harmonious action of their members, commended by the apostle,
before God mixed His light with them; so that then the head did say to the
feet, or the eye to the hand, I have no need of thee? This is not and
cannot be the Manichaean doctrine, for they describe the animals as using
all these members, and speak of them as creeping, walking, swimming,
flying, each in its own kind. They could all see, too, and hear, and use
the other senses, and nourish and cherish their own bodies with appropriate
means and appliances. Hence. moreover, they had the power of reproduction,
for they are spoken of as having offspring. All these things, of which
Faust speaks disparagingly as the works of Hyle, could not be done without
that harmonious arrangement which the apostle praises and ascribes to God.
Is it not now plain who is to be followed, and who is to be pronounced
accursed? Indeed, the Manichaeans tell us of animals that could speak; and
their speeches were heard and understood and approved of by all creatures,
whether creeping things, or quadrupeds, or birds, or fish. Amazing and
supernatural eloquence! Especially as they had no grammarian or
elocutionist to teach them, and had not passed through the painful
experience of the cane and the birch. Why, Faustus himself began late in
life to learn oratory, that he might discourse eloquently on these
absurdities; and with all his cleverness, after ruining his health by
study, his preaching has gained a mere handful of followers. What a pity
that he was born in the light, and not in that region of darkness! If he
had discoursed there against the light, the whole animal creation, from the
biped to the centipede, from the dragon to the shell-fish, would have
listened eagerly, and obeyed at once; whereas, when he discourses here
against the race of darkness, he is oftener called eloquent than learned,
and oftener still a false teacher of the worst kind. And among the few
Manichaeans who extol him as a great teacher, he has none of the lower
animals as his disciples; and not even his horse is any the wiser for his
master's instructions, so that the mixture of a part of deity seems only to
make the animals more stupid. What absurdity is this! When will these
deluded beings have the sense to compare the description in the Manichaean
fiction of what the animals were formerly in their own region, with what
they are now in this world? Then their bodies were strong, now they are
feeble; then their power of vision was such that they were induced to
invade the region of God on account of the beauty which they saw, now it is
too weak to face the rays of the sun; then they had intelligence sufficient
to understand a discourse addressed to them, now they have no ability of
the kind; then this astonishing and effective eloquence was natural, now
eloquence of the most meagre kind requires diligent study and preparation.
How many good things did the race of darkness Jose by the mixture of good!

   11. Faustus has displayed his ingenuity, in the remarks to which I am
now replying, by making for himself a long list of opposites--health and
sickness, riches and poverty, white and black, cold and hot, sweet and
bitter. We need not say much about black and white. Or, if there is a
character for good or evil in colors, so that white must be ascribed to God
and black to Hyle; if God threw a white color on the wings of birds, when
Hyle, as the Manichaeans say, created them, where had the crows gone to
when the swans got whitened? Nor need we discuss heat and cold, for both
are good in moderation, and dangerous in excess. With regard to the rest,
Faustus probably intended that good and evil, which he might as well have
put first, should be understood as including the rest, so that health,
riches, white, hot, sweet, should belong to good; and sickness, poverty,
black, cold, bitter, to evil. The ignorance and folly of this is obvious.
It might look like reviling if I were to take up separately white and
black, hot and cold, sweet and bitter, health and sickness. For if white
and sweet are both good, and black and bitter evil, how is it that most
grapes and all olives become black as they become sweet, and so get good by
getting evil? And if heat and health are both good, and cold and sickness
evil, why do bodies become sick when heated? Is it healthy to have fever?
But I let these things pass, for they may have been put down hastily, or
they may have been given as merely instances of opposition, and not as
being good and bad, especially as it is nowhere stated that the fire among
the race of darkness is cold, so that heat in this case must unquestionably
be evil.

   12. We pass on, then, to health, riches, sweetness, which Faustus
evidently accounts good in his contrasts. Was there no health of body in
the race of darkness where animals were born and grew up and brought forth,
and had such vitality, that when some that were with child were taken, as
the story is, and were put in bonds in heaven, even the abortive offspring
of a premature birth, falling from heaven to earth, nevertheless lived, and
grew, and produced the innumerable kinds of animals which now exist? Or
were there no riches where trees could grow not only in water and wind, but
in smoke and fire, and could bear such a rich produce, that animals,
according to their several kinds, sprang from the fruit, and were provided
with the means of subsistence from those fertile trees, and showed how well
fed they were by a numerous progeny? And all this where there was no toil
in cultivation, and no inclement change from summer to winter, for there
was no sun to give variety to the seasons by his annual course. There must
have been perennial productiveness where the trees were not only born in
their own element, but had a supply of appropriate nourishment to make them
constantly fertile; as we see orange-trees bearing fruit all the year round
if they are well watered. The riches must have been abundant, and they must
have been secure from harm; for there could be no fear of hailstorms when
there were no light-gatherers who, in your fable, set the thunder in
motion.

   13. Nor would the beings in this race of darkness have sought for food
if it had not been sweet and pleasant, so that they would have died from
want. For we find that all bodies have their peculiar wants, according to
which food is either agreeable or offensive. If it is agreeable, it is said
to be sweet or pleasant; if it is offensive, it is said to be bitter or
sour, or in some way disagreeable. In human beings we find that one desires
food which another dislikes, from a difference in constitution or habit or
state of health. Still more, animals of quite different make can find
pleasure in food which is disagreeable to us. Why else should the goats
feed so eagerly on the wild olives? This food is sweet to them, as in some
sicknesses honey tastes bitter to us. To a thoughtful inquirer these things
suggest the beauty of the arrangement in which each finds what suits it,
and the greatness of the good which extends from the lowest to the highest,
and from the material to the spiritual. As for the race of darkness, if an
animal sprung from any element fed on what was produced by that element,
doubtless the food must have been sweet from its appropriateness. Again, if
this animal had found food of another element, the want of appropriateness
would have appeared in its offensiveness to the taste. Such offensiveness
is called sourness, or bitterness, or disagreeableness, or something of the
kind; or if its adverse nature is such as to destroy the harmony of the
bodily constitution, and so take away life or reduce the strength, it is
called poison, simply on account of this want of appropriateness, while it
may nourish the kind of life to which it is appropriate. So, if a hawk eat
the bread which is our daily food, it dies; and we die if we eat hellebore,
which cattle often feed on, and which may itself in a certain form be used
as a medicine. If Faustus bad known or thought of this, he would not have
given poison and antidote as an example of the two natures of good and
evil, as if God were the antidote and Hyle the poison. For the same thing,
of one and the same nature, kills or cures, as it is used appropriately or
inappropriately. In the Manichaean legends, their god might be said to have
been poison to the race of darkness; for he so injured their bodies, that
from being strong, they became utterly feeble. But then again, as the light
was itself taken, and subjected to loss and injury, it may be said to have
been poison to itself.

   14. Instead of one good and one evil principle, you seem to make both
good or both evil, or rather two good and two evil; for they are good in
themselves, and evil to one another. We may see afterwards which is the
better or the worse; but meanwhile we may think of them as both good in
themselves. Thus God reigned in one region, while Hyle reigned in the
other. There was health in both kingdoms, and rich produce in both; both
had a numerous progeny, and both tasted the sweetness of pleasures suitable
to their respective natures. But the race of darkness, say the Manichaeans,
excepting the part which was evil to the light which it bordered on, was
also evil to itself. As, however, I have already pointed out many good
things in it, if you can point out its evils, there will still be two good
kingdoms, though the one where there are no evils will be the better of the
two. What, then, do you call its evils? They plundered, and killed, and
devoured one another, according to Faustus. But if they did nothing else
than this, how could such numerous hosts be born and grow up to maturity?
They must have enjoyed peace and tranquillity too. But, allowing the
kingdom where there is no discord to be the better of the two, still they
should both be called good, rather than one good and the other bad. Thus
the better kingdom will be that where they killed neither themselves nor
one another; and the worse, or less good, where, though they fought with
one another, each separate animal preserved its own nature in health and
safety. But we cannot make much difference between your god and the prince
of darkness, whom no one opposed, whose reign was acknowledged by all, and
whose proposals were unanimously agreed to. All this implies great peace
and harmony. Those kingdoms are happy where all agree heartily in obedience
to the king. Moreover, the rule of this prince extended not only to his own
species, or to bipeds whom you make the parents of mankind, but to all
kinds of animals, who waited in his presence, obeying his commands, and
believing his declarations. Do you think people are so stupid as not to
recognize the attributes of deity in your description of this prince, or to
think it possible that you can have another? If the authority of this
prince rested on his resources, he must have been very powerful; if on his
fame, he must have been renowned; if on love, the regard must have been
universal; if on fear, he must have kept the strictest order. If some
evils, then, were mixed with so many good things, who that knows the
meaning of words would call this the nature of evil? Besides, if you call
this the nature of evil, because it was not only evil to the other nature,
but was also evil in itself, was there no evil, think you, in the dire
necessity to which your god was subjected before the mixture with the
opposite nature, so that he was compelled to right with it, and to send his
own members to be swallowed up so mercilessly as to be beyond the hope of
complete recovery? This was a great evil in that nature before its mixture
with the only thing you allow to be evil. Your god must either have had it
in his power not to be injured and sullied by the race of darkness, in
which case his own folly must have brought him into trouble; or if his
substance was liable to corruption, the object of your worship is not the
incorruptible God of whom the apostle speaks.(1) Does not, then this
liability to corruption, even apart from the actual experience, seem to you
to be an evil in your god?

   15. It is plain, moreover, that either he must have been destitute of
prescience,--a great defect, surely, in the Deity, not to know what is
coming; or if he had prescience, he can never have felt secure, but must
have been in constant terror, which you must allow to be a serious evil.
There must have been the fear at every moment, that the time might be come
for that conflict in which his members suffered such loss and
contamination, that to liberate and purify them costs infinite labor, and,
after all, can be done only partially. If it is going too far to attribute
this state of alarm to the Deity himself, his members at least must have
dreaded the prospect of suffering all these evils. Then, again, if they
were ignorant of what was to happen, the substance of your god must have
been so far wanting in prescience. How many evils do you reckon in your
chief good? Perhaps you will say that they had no fear, because they
foresaw, along with the suffering, their liberation and triumph. But still
they must have feared for their companions, if they knew that they were to
be cut off from their kingdom, and bound for ever in the mass of darkness.

   16. Had they not the charity to feel a kindly sympathy, for those who
were doomed to suffer eternal punishment, without having committed any sin?
These souls that were to be bound up with the mass, were not they too part
of your god? Were they not of the same origin, the same substance? They at
least must have felt grief or fear in the prospect of their own eternal
bondage. To say that they did not know what was to happen, while the others
did, is to make one and the same substance partly acquainted with the
future, and partly ignorant. How can you call this substance the pure, and
perfect, and supreme good, if there were such evils in it, even before its
mixture with the evil principle? You will have to confess your two
principles either both good or both evil. If you make two evils, you may
make either of them the worse, as you please. But if you make two goods, we
shall have to inquire which you make the better. Meanwhile there is an end
to your doctrine of two principles, one good and the other evil, which are
in fact two gods, one good and the other evil. But if hurting another is
evil, they both hurt one another. Perhaps the greater evil was in the
principle that first began the attack. But if one began the injury, the
other returned it; and not by the law of compensation, an eye for an eye,
which you are foolish enough to find fault with, but with far greater
severity. You must choose which you will call the worse,--the one that
began the injury, or the one that had the will and the power to do still
greater injury. The one tried to get a share in the enjoyment of light; the
other effected the entire overthrow of its opponent. If the one had got
what it desired, it would certainly have done no harm to itself. But the
other, in the discomfiture of its adversary, did great mischief to part of
itself; reminding us of the well-known passionate exclamation, which is on
record as having been actually used, "Perish our friends, if that will rid
us of our enemies."(2) For part of your god was sent to suffer hopeless
contamination, that there might be a covering for the mass in which the
enemy is to be buried for ever alive. So much will he continue to be
dreaded even when conquered and bound, that the security, such as it is, of
one part of the deity must be purchased by the eternal misery of the other
parts. Such is the harmlessness of the good principle! Your god, it
appears, is guilty of the crime with which you charge the race of darkness-
-of injuring both friends and enemies. The charge is proved in the case of
your god, by that final mass in which his enemies are confined, while his
own subjects are involved in it. In fact, the principle that you call god
is the more injurious of the two, both to friends and to enemies. In the
case of Hyle, there was no desire to destroy the opposite kingdom, but only
to possess it; and though some of its subjects were put to death by the
violence of others, they appeared again in other forms, so that in the
alternation of life and death they had intervals of enjoyment in their
history. But your god, with all the omnipotence and perfect excellence that
you ascribe to him, dooms his enemies to eternal destruction, and his
friends to eternal punishment. And the height of insanity is in believing
that while internal contest occasions the injury of the members of Hyle,
victory brings punishment to the members of God. What means this folly? To
use Faustus' comparison of God and Hyle to the antidote and poison, the
antidote seems to be more mischievous than the poison. We do not hear of
Hyle shutting up God for ever in a mass of darkness, or driving its own
members into it; or, which is worst of all, slandering this unfortunate
remnant, as an excuse for not effecting its purification. For Manichaeus,
in his Fundamental Epistle, says that these souls deserved to be thus
punished, because they allowed themselves to be led away from their
original brightness, and became enemies of holy light; whereas it was God
himself that sent them to dose themselves in the region of darkness, that
light might be opposed to light: which was unjust, if he forced them
against their will; while, if they went willingly, he is ungrateful in
punishing them. These souls can never have been happy, if they were
tormented with fear before the conflict, from knowing that they were to
become enemies to their original principle, and then in the conflict were
hopelessly contaminated, and afterwards eternally condemned. On the other
hand, they can never have been divine, if before the conflict they were
unaware of what was coming, from want of prescience, and then showed
feebleness in the conflict, and suffered misery afterwards. And what is
true of them must be true of God, since they are of the same substance. Is
there any hope of your seeing the folly of these blasphemies? You attempt,
indeed, to vindicate the goodness of God, by asserting that Hyle when shut
up is prevented from doing any more injury to itself. Hyle, it seems, is to
get some good, when it has no longer any good mixed with it. Perhaps, as
God before the conflict had the evil of necessity, when the good was
unmixed with evil, so Hyle after the conflict is to have the good of rest,
when the evil is unmixed with good. Your principles are thus either two
evils, one worse than the other; or two goods, both imperfect, but one
better than the other. The better, however, is the more miserable; for if
the issue of this great conflict is that the enemy gets some good by the
cessation of mutual injuries in Hyle, while God's own subjects suffer the
serious evil of being driven into the mass of darkness, we may ask who has
got the victory. The poison, we are to understand, is Hyle, where,
nevertheless, animal life found a plentiful supply of the means of growth
and productiveness; while the antidote is God, who could condemn his own
members, but could not restore them. In reality, it is as absurd to call
the one Hyle, as it is to call the other God. These are the follies of men
who turn to fables because they cannot bear sound doctrine.(1)


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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