law, they were warned fatal danger. So the apostle says: " Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing;"' that is, if they were circum- cised, as they were intending to be, in com- pliance 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 Gen- tiles 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 cir- cumcision; 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 tliat the coming of Christ still required to be predicted as a future event; — when, then, the Gentiles were ad- mitted 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 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 awa)'- by their hypocrisy, he corrected him with a brotherly rebuke.^ Afterwards, when the apostles met in council, decreed that these works of the law were not obligatory in the case of the Gentiles, ^ some Christians of the circumcision were displeased, because they failed to understand that these obser\\ances 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 l)efore 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 » Gal. V. 2.
2 Gal. ii. 14.
3 Acts..\v. 6-1 1.
246 THE WORKS OF ST. AUGUSTIN.
[Book XIX.
were not instituted to prefigure Christ, or triat Christ was still to be prefigured. The ancient people of God, before Christ came to fulfill the law and the prophets, were re- quired to observe all these things by which Christ was prefigured. It was freedom to those who understood the meaning of the ob- servance, 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 circum- cision who did not understand this were dis- pleased with this tolerant arrangement which the Holy Spirit effected through the apostles, and stubbornly insisted on the Gentiles be- coming 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 Manichseans, therefore, have no ground for saying, m disparagement of the law and the prophets, that Christ came to destroy rather than to fulfill them, because Christians do not observe what is there en- joined: for the only things which they do not observe are those that prefigured Christ, and these are not observed because their fulfill- ment 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 make unto thee an image,'' and so on? Do Christians not observe the precept, "Thou shalt 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, accord- ing 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 mani- fest the accomplishment of what He in former times promised; for "the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." ' Again, these things which concern the keeping of a good conscience are fulfilled in the faith which worketh by love;^ while types of the future pass away when they are accomplished. But even the types are not destroyed, but fulfilled; for Christ, in bring- ing to light what the types signified, does not prove them vain or illusory.
19. Faustus, therefore, is wrong in suppos- ing that the Lord Jesus fulfilled some pre- cepts of righteous men who lived before the law of Moses, such as, " Thou shalt 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," ^ 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 Testa- ment, and were not destroyed, but fulfilled by Christ.
20. In the first place let me ask our oppo- nents if these ancient righteous men, Enoch and Seth, whom Faustus mentions particu- larly, 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 ful- filled 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^ I John i. 17.
= Gal. V. 6.
3 Matt. V. 38, 39.
Book XIX.l REPLY TO FAUSTUS THE MAXICH.-^:AN.
247 247 and could not have been righteous. But no one will venture to say that in their righteous- ness 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, ]iy 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 ii-rsa? You will not be so foolish as to make this assertion. But even were you to do so, the reply will be tliat, 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 ^he 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 have not succeeded in finding any law of which it can l)e 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 tiie Lord, who added that no one should look on a woman to lust after her? This is what \ou imply in the way you quote the words, ■'Ye have heard that it has been said. Thou >Iialt not commit adultery; but I say unto \ou. 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 char- acter you give to those righteous men of an- tiquity. The words are: " Ye have heard that I it has been said, thou shalt not commit adul- I tery; but I say unto you, that whosoever look- „ eth on a woman to lust after her, hath com mitted adultery with her already in his heart."' In your opinion, then, Enoch and Seth, and tlie rest, committed adultery in their hearts; and either their heart was not the temple of God, or they committed adultery in the tem- ple 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 I time of those men complete? I 22. As regards not swearing, in which also you say that Christ completed the law given I to these righteous men of antiquity, I cannot I be certain that they did not swear, for we ■ Matt. V. 27, 2S.
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 dis- tinct from mere natural light, you know noth- ing 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 mad- ness, 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 ■/Jet.' 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 Mannichffius, but Manichaeus; which must mean that he pours forth madness in his long unprofitable discourses. Again, you often swear by the Paraclete, — not the Para- clete promised and sent by Christ to His dis- ciples, 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 au- thority, 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 say- ings whicli He quotes, and of which His dis- course was an explanation, but not a fulfill- ment.
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 disposi- tion to injure our brother is a kind of murder. So John also says, "He that hateth his brother is a murderer.''" And as it was thought that adultery meant only the act of unlawful intercourse with a woman, the ]Mas- ter showed that the lust He describes is also adultery. Again, because perjury is a hein- ous 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 - I John iij. 15.
248 THE WORKS OF ST. AUGUSTIN.
[Book XIX.
we should be in danger of perjury by he'ing in the habit of swearing truly. For one who never swears is less in danger of swearing falsely than one wlio is in the habit of swear- ing truly. So, in the discourses of the apos- tle 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,' 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 out that this is peculiar to Moses? Does not the Apostle Paub speak of some men as hateful to God?- 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 one 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 under- stand this, we shall find that the Lord, in ex- plaining to those who did not rightly under- stand the saying, Thou shalt hate thine en- emy, 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 Manichseans condemn without exception the precept. Thou shalt 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, be- cause 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 shalt 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 3 Matt. V. 45.
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 Manichseans 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, haied their fellow-men instead of only hating their wickedness; and for this purpose He says, Love your enemies. In- stead 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 hate 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 enjoin- ing on every one to love his enemy, they can- not 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 terri- tory, 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.'"'* This fabulous race of darkness, then, wished to take by force the good they desired, for its beautiful and attractive ap- pearance. 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 Man- ichceans, which of these obeys the precept of the Lord, " Love your enemies"? If you in- sist on making these precepts opposed to one 4 Matt. xi. 12.
I BOOK XIX.]
REPLY TO FAUSTUS THE MANICH^AN.
249 another, it will follow that your god obeyed what is written in the law of Moses, " Thou shalt hate thine enemy"; while the race of darkness obeyed what is written in the Gos- pel, "Love your enemies." However, you have never succeeded in explaining the differ- ence between the flies that fly in the day-time and the moths that fly at night; for both, ac- cording to you, belong to the race of dark- ness. 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 be- tween 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 ' The old precept as w^ell 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 re- venge 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 es- tablished 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 iright 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 com- mand 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 ■ i''.
xxi. 24, and Matt. v. 39.
is no sin in w-ishing for revenge within the limits of justice, the man who wishes for no revenge at all is further from the sin of an un- just 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 mak- ing an unjust demand is to demand nothing, especially considering the danger of being compelled to pay the debt to Him v/ho is in- debted to none. Thus, I would explain the pas- sage as follows: It has been said by them of old time. Thou shalt not take unjust revenge; but I say, Take no revenge at all: here is the fidfill- ment. It is thus that Faustus, after quot- ing," It has been said. Thou shalt 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 in- tention 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 per- jury 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 opposi-