6 If you will not eat flesh why should you not slay animals in sacrifice to your God, in order that their souls, which you hold to be not only human, but so divine as to be mem- bers of God Himself, may be released from the confinement of flesh, and be saved from returning by the efficacy of your prayers? Perhaps, however, your stomach gives more effectual aid than your intellect, and that part of divinity which has had the advantage of passing through your bowels is more likely to be saved than that which has only the benefit of your prayers. Your objection to eating flesh will be that you cannot eat animals alive, and so the operation of your stomach will not avail for the liberation of their souls. Happy vegetables, that, torn up with the hand, cut with knives, tortured in fire, ground by teeth, yet reach alive the altars of your intestines! Unhappy sheep and oxen, that are not so tenacious of life, and therefore are refused entrance into your bodies! Such is the ab- surdity of your notions. And you persist in making out an opposition in us to the Old I Matt.
32- Luke V. 14.
3 Phil. iii. iq.
Testament, because we consider no flesh un- clean: according to the opinion of the apos- tle, " To the pure all things are pure; " ■* and according to the saying of our Lord Himself, " Not that which goeth into your mouth de- fileth you, but that which cometh out." ^ This was not said to the crowd only, as your Adi- mantus, whom Faustus, in his attack on the Old Testament, praises as second only to Manichaeus, wishes us to understand; but when retired from the crowd, the Lord repeated this still more plainly and pointedly to His disciples. Adimantus quotes this saying of our Lord in opposition to the Old Testament, where the people are prohilMted from eating- some animals which are pronounced unclean; and doubtless he was afraid that he should be asked why, since he quotes a passage from the Gospel about man not being defiled by what enters into his mouth and passes into his belly, and out into the draft, he yet considers not some only, but all flesh unclean, and ab- stains from eating it. It is in order to escape from this strait, when the plain truth is too much for his error, that he makes the Lord say this to the crowd; as if the Lord were in the habit of speaking the truth only in small companies, while He blurted out falsehoods in public. To speak of the Lord in this way is blasphemy. And all who read the passage can see that the Lord said the same thing more plainly to His disciples in private. Since Faustus praises Adimantus so much at the beginning of this book of his, placing him next to Manichaeus, let him say in a word whether it is true or false that a man is not defiled by what enters into his mouth. If it is false, why does this great teacher Adiman- tus quote it against the Old Testament? If it is true, why, in spite of this, do you believe that eating any flesh will defile you? It is true, if you choose this explanation, that the apostle does not say that all things are pure to heretics, but, "to the pure all things are pure." The apostle also goes on to explain why All things are not pure to heretics: " To the impure and unbelieving nothing is pure, but both their mind and conscience are de- filed."^ So to the Manichseans there is ab- solutely nothing pure; for they hold that the very substance or nature of God not only may be, but has actually been defiled, and so defiled that it can never be wholly restored and purified. What do they mean when they call animals unclean, and refrain from eating them, when it is impossible for them to think anything, whether food or whatever it may be, clean? According to them, vegetables 4 Tit. i. 15.
5 Matt.,\vi. II.
6 Tit. i. 15.
Book VI.]
REPLY TO FAUSTUS THE MANICH^AN.
171 too, fruits, all kinds of crops, the earth and sky, are defiled by mixture with the race of darkness. Why do they not act up to their opinions about other things as well as about animals? Why do they not abstain alto- gether, and starve themselves to death, in- stead of persisting in their blasphemies? If they will not repent and reform, this is evi- dently the best thing that they could do.
7. The saying of the apostle, that " to the pure all things are pure," and that "every creature of God is good,'' is not opposed to the prohibitions of the Old Testament; and the explanation, if they can understand it, is this. The apostle speaks of the natures of the things, wliile the Old Testament calls some animals unclean, not in their nature,, but symbolically, on account of the prefigurative character of that dispensation. For instance, a pig and a lamb are both clean in their nature, for every cieature of God is good; but sym- bolically, a lamb is clean, and a pig unclean. So the words wise and fool are both clean in their nature, as words composed of letters; hvXfool may be called symbolically unclean, because it means an unclean thing. Perhaps a pig is the same among symbols as a fool is among real things. The animal, and the four letters which compose the word, may mean the same thing. No doubt the animal is pro- nounced unclean by the law, because it does not chew the cud; which is not a fault but its nature. But the men of whom this animal is a symbol are unclean, not by nature, but from their own fault; because, though they gladly hear the words of wisdom, they never reflect on them afterwards. For to recall, in quiet repose, some useful instruction from the stomach of memory to the mouth of reflec- tion, is a kind of spiritual rumination. The animals above mentioned are a symbol of those people who do not do this. And the prohibition of the flesh of these animals is a warning against this fault. Another passage of Scripture speaks of the precious treasure of wisdom, and describes ruminating as clean, and not ruminating as* unclean: " A precious treasure resteth in the mouth of a wise man; but a foolish man swallows it up." ' Symbols of this kind, either in words or in things, give useful and pleasant exercise to intelligent minds in the way of inquiry and comparison. But formerly people were required not only to hear, but to practise many such things. For at that time it was necessary that, by deeds as well as by words, those things should be foreshadowed which were in after times to be revealed. After the revelation by Ciirist ' Prov. xxi. 20.
and in Christ, the community of believers is not burdened with the practice of the observ- ances, but is admonished to give heed to the prophecy. This is our reason for accounting no animals unclean, in accordance with the saying of the Lord and of the apostle, while we are not opposed to the Old Testament, where some animals are pronounced unclean. Now let us hear why you consider all animal food unclean.
8. One of your false doctrines is, that flesh is unclean on account of mixture with the race of darkness. But this would make not only flesh unclean, but your God himself, in that part which he sent to become sul)ject to ab- sorption and contamination, in order that the enemy might be conquered and taken captive. Besides, on account of this mixture, all that you eat must be unclean. But you say flesh is especially unclean. It requires patience to listen to all their absurd reasons for this peculiar impurity of flesh. I will mention only what will suffice to show the inveterate folly of these critics of the Old Testament, who, while they denounce flesh, savor only fleshly things, and have no sort of spiritual perception. And a lengthy discussion of this question may perhaps enable us to dispense with saying much on some other points. The following, then, is an account of their vain delusions in this matter: — In that battle, when the First Man ensnared the race of darkness by deceitful elements, princes of both sexes belonging to this race were taken. By means of these princes the world was constructed; and among those used in the formation of the heavenly bodies, were some pregnant females. When the sky began to rotate, the rapid circular motion made these females give birth to abortions, which, being of both sexes, fell on the earth, and lived, and grew, and came together, and produced offspring. Hence sprang all animal life in earth, air, and sea.= Now if the origin of flesh is from heaven, that is no reason for thinking it especially unclean. Indeed, in this construction of the world, they hold that these principles of darkness were arranged higher or lower, according to the greater or less amount of good mixed with them in the construction of the various parts of the world. So flesh ought to be cleaner than vegetables which come out of the earth, for it comes from heaven. And how irra- tional to suppose that the abortions, before becoming animate, were so lively, though in an abortive state, that after falling from the sky, they could live and multiply; whereas, after becoming animate, they die if brought = [Compare the Introduction, where an abstract is given of the Fihrisfs account of the creation.— A. H. X.]
172 THE WORKS OF ST. AUGUSTIN.
[Book VI.
forth prematurely, and a fall from a very moderate height is enough to kill them! The kingdom of life in contest with the kingdom of death ought to have improved them, by giving them life instead of making them more perishable than before. If the perishableness is a consequence of a change of nature, it is wrong to say that there is a bad nature. The change is tlie only cause of the perishable- ness. Both natures are good, though one is better than the other. Whence then comes the peculiar impurity of flesh as it exists in this world, sprung, as they say, from heaven? They tell us, indeed, of the first bodies of these principles of darkness being generated like worms from trees of darkness; and the trees, they say, are produced from the five elements. But supposing that the bodies of animals come in the first place from trees, and afterwards from heaven, why should they be more unclean than the fruit of trees? Per- haps it will be said that what remains after death is unclean, because the life is no longer there. For the same reason fruits and vege- tables must be unclean, for they die when they are pulled or cut. As we saw before, the elect get others to bring their food to them, that they may not be guilty of murder.
Perhaps, since they say that every living being has two souls, one of the race of light, and the other of the race of darkness, the good soul leaves at death, and the bad soul remains. But, in that case, the animal would be as much alive as it was in the kingdom of darkness, when it had only the soul of its own race, with which it had rebelled against the kingdom of God. So, since both souls leave at death, why call the flesh unclean, as if only the good soul had left? Any life that remains muse be of both kinds; for some remains of the members of God are found, we are told, even in filth. There is therefore no reason for making flesh more unclean than fruits. The truth is, they pretend to great chastity in holding flesh unclean because it is generated. But if the divine body is more grossly shut in by flesh, there is all the more reason that they should liberate it by eating. And there are innumerable kinds of worms not produced from sexual intercourse; some in the neigh- borhood of Venice come from trees, which they should eat, since there is not the same reason for their being unclean. Besides, there are the frogs produced by the earth after a shower of rain.' Let them liberate the members of their God from these. Let them rebuke the mistake of mankind in preferring 1 [These biological blunders belong to the age, and are not Augustin's peculiar fancies. Of course, the argumentative value of them depends on their general acceptance.-- A. H. N.]
fowls and pigeons produced from males and females to the pure frogs, daughters of heaven and earth. By this theory, the first princi- ples of darkness produced from trees must be purer than Manichaeus, who was produced by generation; and his followers, for the same reason, must be less pure than the lice which spring from the perspiration of their bodies. But if everything that comes from flesh is unclean, because the origin of flesh itself is unclean, fruits and vegetables must also be unclean, because they are manured with dung. After this, what becomes of the notion that fruits are cleaner than flesh? Dung is the most unclean product of flesh, and also the most fertilizing manure. Their doctrine is, that the life escapes in the mastication and digestion of the food, so that only a particle remains in the excrement. How is it, then, that this particle of life has such an effect on the growth and the quality of your favorite food? Flesh is nourished by the productions of the earth, not by its excrements; while the earth is nourished by the excrements of flesh, not by its productions. Let them say which is the cleaner. Or let them turn from being unbelieving and impure to whom nothing is clean, and join with us in embracing the doctrine of the apostle, that to the pure all things are pure; that the earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof; that every creature, of God is good. All things in nature are good in their own order; and no one sins in using them, unless, by disobedience to God, he transgresses his own order, and disturbs their order by using them amiss.
9. The elders who pleased God kept their own order by their ol3edience, in observing, according to God's arrangement, what was appointed as suitable to certain times. So, although all animals intended for food are by nature clean, they abstained from some which had then a symbolical uncleanness, in prepa- ration for the future revelation of the things signified. And so with regard to unleavened bread and all such things, in which the apos-] tie says there was a shadow of future things,| neglect of their observance under the old dis- pensation, when this observance was enjoined,! and was employed to prefigure what was after-' wards to be revealed, would have been as criminal, as it would now be foolish in us,j after the light of the New Testament has arisen, to think that these predictive observ-| ances could be of any use to us. On the other hand, since the Old Testament teaches!! us that the things now revealed were so longi ago prefigured, that we may be firm and|: faithful in our adherence to them, it wouldj] be blasphemy and impiety to discard these Book VI.]
REPLY TO FAUSTUS THE MANICH^AN.
/ o books, simply because the Lord requires of us now not a literal, but a spiritual and in- telligent regard to their contents. The}^ were written, as the apostle says, for our admoni- tion, on whom the end of the world is come.' " For whatsoever things were written afore- time were written for our learning." "^ Not to eat unleavened bread in the appointed seven days was a sin in the time of the Old Testa- ment; in the time of the New Testament it is not a sin. But having the hope of a future world through Christ,who makes us altogether new by clothing our souls with righteousness and our bodies with immortality, to believe that the bondage and infirmity of our original cor- ruption will prevail over us or over our actions, must continue to be a sin, till the seven days of the course of time are accomplished. In the time of the Old Testament, this, under the disguise of a type, was perceived by some saints. In the time of the New Testament it is fully declared and publicly preached. ^ What was then a precept of Scripture is now a testimony. Formerly, not to keep the feast of tabernacles was a sin, which is not the case now. But not to form part of the building of God's tabernacle, which is the Church, is always a sin. Formerly this was acted in a figure; now the record serves as ti-stimony. The ancient tabernacle, indeed, would not have been called the tabernacle of tiie testimony, unless as an appropriate sym- bol it had borne testimony to some truth which was to be revealed in its own time. To patch linen garments with purple, or to wear a garment of woollen and linen together, is not a sin now. But to live intemperately, and to wish to combine opposite modes of life, — as when a woman devoted to religion wears the ornaments of married women, or when one who has not abstained from mar- riage dresses like a virgin, — is always sin. So it is sin whenever inconsistent things are combined in any man's life. This, which is now a moral truth, was then symbolized in dress. What was then a type is now revealed truth. So the same Scripture which then re- 5 [It will be seen in subsequent portions of this treatise that .\;n,'ustin carries the typological idea to an absurd extreme. — A. H. N.]
quired symbolical actions, now testifies to the things signified. The prefigurative observ- ance is now a record for the confirmation of our faith, l^'ormerly it was unlawful to plough with an ox and an ass together; now it is law- ful. The apostle explains this when he quotes the text about not muzzling the ox that is treading out the corn. He says, " Does God care for oxen?" What, then, have we to do with an obsolete prohibition -* The apostle teaches us in the following words, " For our sakes it is written." ^ It must be impiety in us not to read what was written for our sakes; for it is more for our sakes, to whom the revelation belongs, than for theirs who had only the figure. There is no harm in joining an ox witti an ass where it is required. But to put a wise man and a fool together, not that one should teach and the other obey, but that both with equal authority should declare the word of God, cannot be done without causing offence. So the same Scripture which was once a command enjoining the shadow in which future things were veiled, is now an authoritative witness to the unveiled truth.
In what he says of the uncleanness of a man that is bald or has red hair, Faustus is inaccurate, or the manuscript he has used is incorrect. 3 Would that Faustus were not ashamed to bear on his forehead the cross of Christ, the want of which is baldness, instead of maintaining that Christ, who says, " I am the truth," showed unreal marks, after His resurrection, of unreal wounds! Faustus says he has not learned the art of deceiving, and speaks what he thinks. He cannot therefore be a disciple of his Christ, whom he madly declares to have shown false marks of wounds to his disciples when they doubted. Are we to believe Faustus, not only in his other ab- surdities, but also when he tells us that he does not deceive us in calling Christ a de- ceiver? Is he better than Christ? Is he not a deceiver, while Christ is? Or does he prove himself to be a disciple not of the truthful Christ, but of the deceiver Mani- ch?eus, by this very falsehood, when he boasts that he has not learned the art of deceiving?
4 I Cor. ix.
5 Cf. Lev. xxi. 18.
1/4 THE WORKS OF ST. AUGUSTIN.
[Book VII.
BOOK VII.
THE GENEALOGICAL QUESTION IS AGAIN TAKEN UP AND ARGUED ON BOTH SIDES.
1. Faustus said: You ask why I do not believe in tlie genealogy of Jesus. There are many reasons; but the principal is, that He never declares with His own lips that He had an earthly father or descent, but on the contrary, that he is not of this world, that He came forth from God the Father, that He de- scended from heaven, that He has no mother or brethren except those who do the will of His Father in heaven. Besides, the framers of these genealogies do not seem to have known Jesus before His birth or soon after it, so as to have the credibility of eye-witnesses of what they narrate. They became ac- quainted with Jesus as a young man of about thirty years of age, if it is not blasphemy to speak of the age of a divine being. Now the question regarding a witness is always whether he has seen or heard what he testifies to. But the writers of these genealogies never assert that they heard the account from Jesus Himself, nor even the fact of His birth; nor did they see Him till they came to know Him after his baptism, many years after the time of His birth. To me, therefore, and to every sensible man, it appears as foolish to believe this account, as it would be to call into court a blind and deaf witness.
2. AuGUSTiN replied: As regards what Faustus calls his principal reason for not re- ceiving the genealogy of Jesus Christ, a com- plete refutation is found in the passages for- merly quoted, where Christ declares Himself to be the Son of man, and in what we have said of the identity of the Son of man with the Son of God: that in His Godhead He has no earthly descent, while after the flesh He is of the seed of David, as the apostle teaches. We are to believe, therefore, that He came forth from the Father, that He descended from heaven, and also that the Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst men. If the words, " Who is my mother, and who are my brethren?"' are quoted to show that Christ had no earthly mother or descent, it follows that we must believe that His disciples, whom He here teaches by His own example to set no value on earthly relationship, as compared with the kingdom of heaven, had no fathers, because Christ says to them, "Call no man father upon earth; for one is your Father, even God." '^ What He taught them to do I Matt. xii. 48.
2 Matt, xxiii. 9.
with reference to their fathers. He Himself first did in reference to His own mother and brethren; as in many other things He conde- scended to set us an example, and to go before that we might follow in His footsteps. Faus- tus' principal objection to the genealogy fails completely; and after the defeat of this in- vincible force, the rest is easily routed. He says that the apostles who declared Christ to be the Son of man as well as the Son of God are not to be believed, because they were not present at the birth of Christ, whom they joined when He had reached manhood, nor heard of it from Christ Himself. Why then do they believe John when he says, '' In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made,'^^ and such passages, which they agree to, without understandmg them? Where did John see this, or did he ever hear it from the Lord Himself? In whatever way John learned this, those v/ho narrate the nativity may have learned also. Again, how do they know that the Lord said, " Who is my mother, and who are my brethren? " If on the authority of the evangelist, why do they not also believe that the mother and the brethren of Christ were seeking for Him? They believe that Christ said these words, which they misunderstand, while they deny a fact resting on the same authority. Once more, if Matthew could not know that Christ was born, because he knew Him only in His manhood, how could Manich^eus, who lived so long after, know that He was not born? They will say that Manichseus knew this from the Holy Spirit which was in him. Certainly the Holy Spirit would make him speak the truth. But why not rather believe what Christ's own disciples tell us, who were per- sonally acquainted with Him, and who not only had the gift of inspiration to supply de- fects in their knowledge, but in a purely natural way obtained information of the birth of Christ, and of His descent, when the event was fresh in memory? And yet he dares to call the apostles deaf and blind. Why were you not deaf and blind, to prevent you from learning such profane nonsense, and dumb too, to prevent you from uttering it?
3 John i. 1-5.
I Book IX.]
REPLY TO FAUSTUS THE MANICH^AN.
175 BOOK VIII.
FAUSTUS MAINTAINS THAT TO HOLD TO THE OLD TESTAMENT AFTER THE GIVING OF THE NEW IS PUTTING NEW CLOTH ON AN OLD GARMENT. AUGUSTIN FURTHER EXPLAINS THE RELATION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT TO THE NEW, AND REPROACHES THE MANICH^ANS WITH CAR- NALITY.
1. Faustus said: Another reason for not re- ceiving tlie Old Testament is, that I am pro- vided with the New; and Scripture says that old and new do not agree. For "no one putteth a piece of new cloth unto an old gar- ment, otherwise the rent is made worse."' To avoid making a worse rent, as you have done, I do not mix Christian newness v.-ith Hebrew oldness. Every one accounts it mean, when a man has got a new dress, not to give the old one to his inferiors. So, even if I were a Jew by birth, as the apostles were, it would be proper for me, on receiving the New Testament, to discard the Old, as the apostles did. And having the advantage of being born free from the yoke of bondage, and bemg early introduced into the full lib- erty of Christ, what a foolish and ungrateful wretch I should be to put myself again under the yoke! This is what Paul blames the Ga- latians for; because, going back to circumcis- ion, they turned again to the weak and beggar- ly elements, whereunto they desired again to be in bondage.^ Why should I do what I see an- other blamed for doing? My going into bond- age would be worse than their returning to it.
2. AuGUSTiN replied: We have already shown sufficiently why and how we maintain the au- thority of the Old Testament, not for the imitation of Jewish bondage, but for the con- firmation of Christian liberty. It is not I, but the apostle, who says, "All these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our admonition, on whom the ends of the world are come."^ We do not therefore, as bondmen, observe what was en- joined as predictive of us; but as free, we read what was written to confirm us. So any ;one may see that the apostle remonstrates Iwith the Galatians not for devoutly reading what Scripture says of circumcision, but for superstitiously desiring to be circumcised. We do not put a new cloth to an old garment, but we are instructed in the kingdom of heaven, like the householder, whom the Lord describes as bringing out of his treasure things new and old.'* He who puts a new cloth to an old gar- ment is the man who attempts spiritual self- denial before he has renounced fleshly hope. Examine the passage, and you will see that, when the Lord was asked about fasting, He replied, " No man putteth a new cloth to an old garment." The disciples had still a car- nal affection for the Lord; for they were afraid that, if He died, they would lose Him. So He calls Peter Satan for dissuading Him from suffering, because he understood not the things of God, but the things of men.^ The fleshly character of your hope is evident from your fancies about the kingdom of God, and from your paying homage and devotion to the light of the sun, which the carnal eye per- ceives, as if it were an image of heaven. So your carnal mind is the old garment to which you join your fasts. Moreover, if a new cloth and an old garment do not agree, how do the members of your God come to be not only joined or fastened, but to be united far more