4. But why Matthew begins with Abraham and descends to Joseph, while Luke begins with Joseph and ascends, not to Abraham, but to God, who made man, and, by giving a commandment, gave him power to become, by believing, a son of God; and why Matthew records the generations at the commencement of his book, Luke after the baptism of the Saviour by John; and what is the meaning of the number of the generations in Matthew, who divides them into three sections of four- teen each, though in the whole sum there ap- pears to be one wanting; while in Luke the number of generations recorded after the baptism amount to seventy-seven, which num- ber the Lord Himself enjoins in connection with the forgiveness of sins, saying, " Not only seven times, but seventy-seven times; " — these things you will never understand, unless either you are taught by some Catholic of superior stamp, who has studied the sacred Scriptures, and has made all the progress possible, or you yourselves turn from your error, and in a Christian spirit ask that you may receive, seek that you may find, and knock that it may be opened to you.
5. Since, then, this double fatherhood of nature and adoption removes the difficulty- arising from the discrepancy of the genealo- gies, there is no occasion for Faustus to leave the two evangelists and betake himself to the other two, which would be a greater affront to those he betook himself to than to those he left. For the sacred writers do not de- sire to be favored at the expense of their brethren. For their joy is in union, and they are one in Christ; and if one says one thing, and another another, or one in one way and another in another, still they all speak truth, and in no way contradict one another; only let the reader be reverent and humble, not in an heretical spirit seeking occasion for strife, but with a believing heart desiring edification. Now, in this opinion that the evangelists give the ancestors of different fathers, as it is quite possible for a man to have two fathers, there is nothing inconsistent with truth. So the evangelists are harmonized, and you, by Faustus's promise are bound to yield at once.
Book IV.]
REPLY TO FAUSTUS THE MANICHtEAN.
l6l 6. You may perhaps be troubled by that additional remark which he makes: " In any case, however, it is hardly consistent to be- lieve that God, the God of Christians, was born from the womb." As if we believed that the divine nature came from the womb of a woman. Have I not just quoted the testimony of the apostle, speaking of the Jews: " Whose are the fathers, and of whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is God over all, blessed for ever?" Christ, therefore, our Lord and Saviour, true Son of God in His divinity, and true son of man ac- cording to the flesh, not as He is God over all was born of a woman, but in that feeble nature which He took of us, that in it He might die for us, and heal it in us: not as in the form of God, in which He thought it not robbery to be equal to God, was He born of a woman, but in the form of a servant, in taking which He emptied Himself. He is therefore said to have emptied Himself be- cause He took the form of a servant, not because He lost the form of God. For in the unchangeable possession of that nature by which in the form of God He is equal to the Father, He took our changeable nature, by which He might be born of a virgin. You, while you protest against putting the flesh of Christ in a virgin's womb, place the very di- vinity of God in the womb not only of human beings, but of dogs and swine. You refuse to believe that the flesh of Christ was con- ceived in the Virgin's womb, in which God was not found nor even changed; while you assert that in all men and beasts, in the seed of male and in the womb of female, in all concep- tions on land or in water, an actual part of God and the divine nature is continually bound, and shut up, and contaminated, never to be wholly set free.'
I [It cannot be said that Augustin adequately meets the diffi- culty that Faustus finds in the genealogies of our Lord. Cf. Her- VEV: The Genealogies of Our Lord, and the recent commentaries, such as Meyer's, Lange's, The International Revision, and espec- ially Broadus on Jilattkeiu. — A. H.N. J BOOK IV.
lAUSTUS'S REASONS FOR REJECTING THE OLD TESTAMENT, AND AUGUSTIN's ANIMADVERSIONS THEREON.
1. Faustus said: Do I believe the Old Testament? If it bequeaths anything to me, I believe it; if not, I reject it. It would be an excess of forwardness to take the docu- ments of others which pronounce me disin- herited. Remember that the promise of Ca- naan in the Old Testament is made to Jews, that is, to the circumcised, who offer sacrifice, :ind abstain from swine's flesh, and from the other animals which Moses pronounces un- clean, and observe Sabbaths, and the feast of unleavened bread, and other things of the same kind which the author of the Testament enjoined. Christians have not adoj)ted these observances, and no one keeps them; so that if we will not take the inheritance, we should surrender the documents. This is my first reason for rejecting the Old Testament, un- less you teach me better. My second reason is, that this inheritance is such a poor fleshly thing, without any spiritual blessings, that after the New Testament, and its glorious promise of the kingdom of heaven and eter- nal life, I think it not worth the taking.
2. Augustin replied: No one doubts that promises of temporal things are contained in Lhe Old Testament, for which reason it is 11 called the Old Testament; or that the king- dom of heaven and the promise of eternal life belong to the New Testament. But that in these temporal things were figures of future things which should be fulfilled in us upon whom the ends of the ages are come, is not my fancy, but the judgment of the apostle, when he says of such things, '* These things were our examples;" and again, "These things happened to them for an example, and they are written for us on whom the ends of the ages are come."' We receive the Old Testament, therefore, not in order to obtain the fulfillment of these promises, but to see in them predictions of the New Testament; for the Old bears witness to the New. Whence the Lord, after He rose from the dead, and allowed His disciples not only to see but to handle Him, still, lest they should doubt their mortal and fleshly senses, gave them further confirmation from the testimony of the an- cient books, saying, " It was necessary that all things should be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses, and in the Prophets and Psalms, concerning me."- Our hope, there- fore, rests not on the promise of temporal ' I Cor. X. 6, II.
' I Cor. X. 6, II.
- Luke x.\iv. 44.
l62 THE WORKS OF ST. AUGUSTIN.
[Book V.
things. Nor do we believe that the holy and spiritual men of these times — the patriarchs and prophets — were taken up with earthly things. For they understood, by the revela- tion of the Spirit of God, what was suitable for that time, and how God appointed all these sayings and actions as types and predictions of the future. Their great desire was for the New Testament; but they had a personal duty to perform in those predictions, by which the new things of the future were foretold. So the life as well as the tongue of these men was prophetic. The carnal people, indeed, thought only of present blessings, though even in connection with the people there were prophecies of the future.
These things you do not understand, be- cause, as the prophet said, "Unless you be- lieve, you shall not understand."' For you are not instructed in the kingdom of heaven, — that is, in the true Catholic Church of Christ. If you were, you would bring forth from the treasure of the sacred Scriptures things old as well as new. For the Lord Him- self says, " Therefore every scribe instructed in the kingdom of heaven is like an house- holder who brings forth from his treasure things new and old."^ And so, while you profess to receive only the new promises of God, you have retained the oldness of the ^ Isa. vii. 9.
2 Matt. xiii. 52.
flesh, adding only the novelty of error; of which novelty the apostle says, " Shun pro- fane novelties of words, for they increase unto more ungodliness, and their speech eats like a cancer. Of whom is Hymenseus and Phi- letus, who concerning the faith have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already, and have overthrown the faith of some."^ Here you see the source of your false doc- trine, in teaching that the resurrection is only of souls by the preaching of the truth, and that there will be no resurrection of the body. But how can you understand spiritual things of the inner man, who is renewed in the knowledge of God, when in the oldness of the flesh, if you do not possess temporal things, you concoct fanciful notions about them in those images of carnal things of which the whole of your false doctrine consists? You boast of despising as worthless the land of Canaan, which was an actual thing, and actu- ally given to the Jews; and yet you tell of a land of light cut asunder on one side, as by a narrow wedge, by the land of the race of darkness, — a thing which does not exist, and which you believe from the delusion of your minds; so that your life is not supported by having it, and your mind is wasted in desiring it.-t 3 2 Tim. ii. 16-18.
4 [A good argumcnttiin ad hominetn, a species of argument which Augustin is fond of using. — A. H. N.]
BOOK V.
■n FAUSTUS CLAIMS THAT THE MANICH^ANS AND NOT THE CATHOLICS ARE CONSISTENT BELIEVERS IN THE GOSPEL, AND SEEKS TO ESTABLISH THIS CLALNI BY COMPARING MANICH^AN AND CATHOLIC OBEDIENCE TO THE PRECEPTS OF THE GOSPEL. AUGUSTIN EXPOSES THE HYPOCRISY OF THE MANICH^ANS AND PRAISES THE ASCETICISM OF CATHOLICS.
I. Faustus said: Do I believe the gospel? You ask me if I believe it, though my obedience to its commands shows that I do. I should rather ask you if you believe it, since you give no proof of your belief. I have left my father, mother, wife, and children, and all else that the gospel requires;' and do you ask if I believe the gospel? Perhaps you do not know what is called the gospel. The gos- pel is nothing else than the preaching and the precept of Christ. I have parted with all gold and silver, and have left off carrying money in my purse; content with daily food; without anxiety for to-morrow; and without solicitude about how I shall be fed, or where- I Matt. xix. 29.
I Matt. xix. 29.
withal I shall be clothed: and do you ask if I believe the gospel? You see in me the blessings of the gospel; "^ and do you ask if I \ believe the gospel? You see me poor, meek,; a peacemaker, pure in heart, mourning, hun-, gering, thirsting, bearing persecutions and i enmity for righteousness' sake; and do you doubt my belief in the gospel? One can un- derstand now how John the Baptist, after seeing Jesus, and also hearing of His works, yet asked whether He was Christ. Jesus i properly and justly did not deign to reply that He was; but reminded him of the works of which he had already heard: " The blind see, the deaf hear, the dead are raised.*' ^ i'l ' Matt. V. 3-11.
3 Matt. xi. 2-6.
Book V.]
REPLY TO FAUSTUS THE MANICH^AN.
l6 In the same way, I might very well reply to your question whether I believe the gospel, by saying, I have left all, father, mother, wife, children, gold, silver, eating, drinking, luxu- ries, pleasures; take this as a sufficient an- swer to your questions, and believe that you will be blessed if you are not offended in me.'
2. But, according to you, to believe the gospel is not only to obey its commands, but also to believe in all that is written in it; and, first of all, that God was born. But neither is believing the gospel only to believe that Jesus was born, but also to do what He com- mands. So, if you say that I do not believe the gospel because I disbelieve the incarna- tion, much more do you not believe because you disregard the commandments. At any rate, we are on a par till these questions are settled. If your disregard of the precepts does not prevent you from professing faith in the gospel, why should my rejection of the genealogy prevent me? And if, as you say, to believe the gospel includes both faith in the genealogies and obedience to the precepts, why do you condemn me, since we both are imperfect? What one wants the other has. But if, as there can be no doubt, belief in the gospel consists solely in obedience to the commands of God, your sin is twofold. As the proverb says, the deserter accuses the soldier. But suppose, since you will have it so, that there are these two parts of perfect faith, one consisting in word, or the confes- sion that Christ was born, the other in deed, or the observance of the precepts; it is plain that my part is hard and painful, yours light and easy. It is natural that the multitude should flock to you and away from me, for they know not that the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power. Why, then, do you blame me for taking the harder part, and leaving to you, as to a weak brother, the easy part? You have the idea that your part of faith, or confessing that Christ was born, has more power to save the soul than the other parts.
3. Let us then ask Christ Himself, and learn from His own mouth, what is the chief means of our salvation. Who shall entei*, O Christ, into Thy kingdom? He that doeth tlie will of my Father in heaven,- is His re- ply; not, "He thatconfesses that I wasborn."
'.And again. He says to His disciples, "Go, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things which I have commanded you.''^ It is ' fThis IS a good description of ideal Manicha;an relicfioiis life. Whether Faustus lived up to the claims here set forth is another question. — A. H. N.] ' ^ Matt. vii. 21. 3 Matt, xxviii. 19, 20.
not, "teaching them that I was born," but, "to observe my commandments.'^ Again, " Ye are my friends if ye do what I command you;" ■* not, " if you believe that I was born." Again, " If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love,"^ and in many other places. Also in the sermon on the mount, when He taught, " Blessed are the poor, blessed are the meek, blessed are the peace- makers, blessed are the pure in heart, blessed are they that mourn, blessed are they that hunger, blessed are they that are persecuted for righteousness' sake,"* He nowliere says, " Blessed are they that confess that I was born.'^ And in the separation of the sheep from the goats in the judgment. He says that He will say to them on the right hand, " I was hungry, and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink,"' and so on; therefore " inherit the kingdom. " Not, " Be- cause ye believe that I was born, inherit the kingdom." Again, to the rich man seeking for eternal life. He says, "Go, sell all that thou hast, and follow me;"^ not, "Believe that I was born, that you may have eternal life." You see, the kingdom, life, happiness, are everywhere promised to the part I have chosen of what you call the two parts of faith, and nowhere to your part. Show, if you can, a place where it is written that whoso con- fesses that Christ was born of a woman is blessed, or shall inherit the kingdom, or have eternal life. Even supposing, then, that there are two parts of faith, your part has no bless- ing. But what if we prove that your part is not a part of faith at all? It will follow that you are foolish, which indeed will be proved beyond a doubt. At present, it is enough to have shown that our part is crowned with the beatitudes. Besides, we have also a beatitude for a confession in words: for we confess that Jesus Christ is the Son of the living God; and Jesus declares with His own lips that this confession has a benediction, when He says to Peter, " Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona; for flesh and blood hath not revealed this unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven." ^ So that we have not one, but both these parts of faith, and in both alike are we pronounced blessed by Christ; for in one we reduce faith to practice, while in the other our confession is unmixed with blasphemy.
4. AuGUSTiN replied: I have already said that the Lord Jesus Christ repeatedly calls Himself the Son of man, and that the Mani- chaeans have contrived a silly story about some fabulous First Man, who figures in their impious heresy, not earthly, but combined 4 John XV. 14. 7 Matt. XXV. 35.
5 John XV. 10. 8 Rlatt. xix. 21.
164 THE WORKS OF ST. AUGUSTIN.
[Book V.
with spurious elements, in opposition to the apostle, who says, " The first man is of the earth, earthy;"' and that the apostle care- fully warns us, " If any one preaches to you differently from what we have preached, let him be accursed. " = So that we must believe Christ to be the Son of man according to apostolic truth, not according to Manichaean error. And since the evangelists assert that Christ was born of a woman, of the seed of David, and Paul writing to Timothy says, " Remember that Jesus Christ, of the seed of David, was raised from the dead, according to my gospel," 3 it is clear in what sense we must believe Christ to be the Son of man; for being the Son of God by whom we were made. He also by His incarnation became the Son of man, that He might die for our sins, and rise again for our justification/ Accordingly He calls Himself both Son of God and Son of man. To take only one instance out of many, in the Gospel of John it is written, " Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour cometh, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live. For as the Father hath life in Himself, so He hath given to the Son to have life in Himself; and hath given Him power to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of man."s He says, " They shall hear the voice of the Son of God;'^ and He says, "because He is the Son of man," As the Son of man. He has received power to ex- ecute judgment, because He will come to judgment in human form, that He may be seen by the good and the wicked. In this form He ascended into heaven, and that voice was heard by His disciples, "He shall so come as ye have seen Him go into heaven."* As the Son of God, as God equal to and one with the Father, He will not be seen by the wicked; for "blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." Since, then. He promises eternal life to those that believe in Him, and since to believe in Him is to be- lieve in the true Christ, such as He declares Himself and His apostles declare Him to be, true Son of God and true Son of man; you, Manichaeans, who believe on a false and spu- rious son of a false and spurious man, and teach that God Himself, from fear of the assault of the hostile race, gave up His own members to be tortured, and after all not to be wholly liberated, are plainly far from that eternal life which Christ promises to those who believe in Him. It is true, He said to Peter when he confessed Him to be the Son of God, " Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona."
But does He promise nothing to those who believe Him to be the Son of man, when the Son of God and the Son of man are the same? Besides, eternal life is expressly promised to those who believe in the Son of man. "As Moses," He says, "lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life."^ What more do you wish? Believe then in the Son of man, that 3'ou may have eternal life; for He is also the Son of God, who can give eternal life: for He is "the true God and eternal life,'' as the same John says in his epistle. John also adds, that he is antichrist who denies that Christ has come in the flesh.® 5, There is no need, then, that you should extol so much the perfection of Christ's com- mands, because you obey the precepts of the gospel. For the precepts, supposing you really to fulfill them, would not profit you without true faith. Do you not know that the apostle says, " If I distribute all my goods to the poor, and give my body to be burned, and have not charit}^, it profiteth me noth- ing? " 9 Why do you boast of having Christian poverty, when you are destitute of Christian charity? Robbers have a kind of charity to one another, arismg from a mutual conscious- ness of guilt and crime; but this is not the charity commended by the apostle. In an- other passage he distinguishes true charity from all base and vicious affections, by say- ing, " Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and a good con- science, and faith unfeig-ned." ™ How then can you have true charity from a fictitious faith? " You persist in a faith corrupted by falsehood: for your First Man, according to you, used deceit in the conflict by chang- ing his form, while his enemies remained in their own nature; and, besides, you maintain that Christ, who says, "I am the truth," feigned His incarnation. His death on the i cross, the wounds of His passion, the marks shown after His resurrection. If you speak the truth, and your Christ speaks falsehood, you must be better than he. But if you; really follow your own Christ, your truthful- ness may be doubted, and your obedience to the precepts you speak of may be only a pretence. Is it true, as Faustus says, that, you have no money in 3'Our purses? He i means, probably, that your money is in boxes and bags; nor would we blame you for this,; if you did not profess one thing and practise " [Augustin confounds saving faith with orthodo.x doctrine, as | has been too commonly done since. — A. H. N.]
Book V.]
REPLY TO FAUSTUS THE MANICH.^AN.
165 another. Constantius, who is still alive, and 1 and is not ashamed to speak of God as in is now our brother in Catholic Christianity, I bondage? How can I see him meek, when he once gathered many of your sect into his I affronts all the authority of the evano-elists house at Rome, to keep tliese precepts of Manichasus, which you think so much of, though they are very silly and childish. The precepts proved too much for your weakness, and the gathering was entirely broken up. Those who persevered separated from your communion, and are called Mattarians, be- cause they sleep on mats, — a very different bed from the feathers of Faustus and his goatskin coverlets, and all the grandeur that made him despise not only the Mattarians, but also the house of his poor father in Mi- leum. Away, then, with this accursed hy- pocrisy from your writing, if not from your conduct; or else your language will conflict with your life by your deceitful words, as your First Man with the race of darkness by his deceitful elements.
6. I am, however, addressing not merely men who fail to do what they are commanded, but the members of a deluded sect. For the precepts of Manichaeus are such that, if you do not keep them, you are deceivers; if you do keep them, you are deceived. Christ never taught you that you should not pluck a vege- table for fear of committing homicide; for when His disciples were hungry when passing through a field of corn. Fie did not forbid them to pluck the ears on the Sabbath-day; which was a rebuke to the Jews of the time, since the action was on Sabbath; and a re- buke in the action itself to the future Mani- chreans. The precept of Manichteus, how- ever, only requires you to do nothing while others commit homicide for you; though the real homicide is that of ruining miserable souls by such doctrines of devils, 7. 'fhe language of Faustus has the typhus of heresy in it, and is the language of over- weening arrogance. "You see in me," he says, "the beatitudes of the gospel; and do you ask if I believe the gospel? You see me poor, meek, a peacemaker, pure in heart, mourning, hungering, thirsting, bearing per- secution and enmity for righteousness' sake; and do you doubt my belief in the gospel? " If to justify oneself were to be just, Faustus would have flown to heaven while uttering these words. I say nothing of the luxurious habits of Faustus, known to all the followers of the Manichajans, and especially to those at Rome. I shall suppose aManichaean such as Constantius sought for, when he enforced the observance of these precepts with the sin- cere desire to see them observed. How can I see him to be poor in spirit, when he is so proud as to believe that his own soul is God,