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 \v\\\ and the power to do still greater injury. The one tried to get a share in the enjoyment of light; the other effected the en- tire 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." - For part of your god was sent to sufter 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 i)art of the deity must be purchased by the eternal misery of the other parts. Such is the harm- lessness 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 prin- ciple that you call god is the more injurious of the two, both to friends and to enemies. In the case of Ifv/^, 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 per- fect excellence that you ascribe to him, dooms his enemies to eternal destruction, and his 272 THE WORKS OF ST. AUGUSTIN.
[Book XXII I friends to eternal punishment. And the height of insanity is in behaving that while internal contest occasions the injury of the members of Hylc, 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 anti- dote 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 driv- ing its own members into it; or, which is worst of all, slandering this unfortunate rem- nant, as an excuse for not effecting its purifi- cation. For ManichKus, in his Fundamental Epistle, says that these souls deserved to be thus punished, because they allowed them- selves to be led away from their original brightness, and became enemies of holy light; whereas it was God himself that sent them to Jose 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 willingl)^ he is un- grateful 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 com- ing, 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! i the folly of these blasphemies? You attempt,; indeed, to vindicate the goodness of God, byi asserting that Hyle when shut up is prevented from doing any more injury to itself. Hyk,, it seems, is to get some good, when it has noi longer any good mixed with it. Perhaps, asj God before the conflict had the evil of neces-i sity, when the good was unmixed with evil,i 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, j one worse than the other; or two goods, both, imperfect, but one better than the other, j 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 whoi has got the victory. The poison, we are to understand, is Hyle, where, nevertheless, ani- 1. mal life found a plentiful supply of the means. i of growth and productiveness; while the anti- 1 dote is God, who could condemn his own 1 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 j follies of men who turn to fables because they ' cannot bear sound doctrine.'
I [This is one of Augustin's most effective refutations of Man- icha;an dualism. — A. H. N.]
BOOK XXII.
FAUSTUS STATES HIS OBJECTIONS TO THE MORALITY OF THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS, AND AUGUSTIN SEEKS BY THE APPLICATION OF THE TYPE AND THE ALLEGORY TO EXPLAIN AWAY THE MORAL DIFFICULTIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.
I. Faustus said: You ask why we blas- pheme the law and the prophets. We are so far from professing or feeling any hostility to the law and the prophets, that we are ready, if you will allow us, to declare the falsehood of all the writings which make the law and the prophets appear objectionable. But this you refuse to admit, and by maintaining the authority of your writers, you bring a perhaps unmerited reproach upon the prophets; you slander the patriarchs, and dishonor the law. You are so unreasonable as to deny that your writers are false, while you uphold the piety and sanctity of those who are described in these writings as guilty of the worst crimes, and as leading wicked lives. These opinions are inconsistent; for either these were bad characters, or the writers were untruthful.
2. Supposing, then, that we agree in con- demning the writers, we may succeed in vin- dicating the law and the prophets. By the law must be understood not circumcision, or Sabbaths, or sacrifices, or the other Jewish observances, but the true law, viz., Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not bear false witness, and so on. To this law, promulgated throughout the world, that is, at the commencement of the present constitution of the world, the Hebrew writers did violence, by infecting it with the pollution of their disgusting precepts about circumcision and sacrifice. As a friend of I Booi-: XXII.]
REPLY TO FAUSTUS THE MANICH^AN.
7 '» / J the law, you should join with me in condemn- ing the Jews for injuring the law by this mix- ture of unsuitable precepts. Plainly, you must be aware that these precepts are not the law, or any part of the law, since you claim to be righteous, though you make no attempt to keep the precepts. In seeking to lead a righteous life, you pay great regard to the commandments which forbid sinful actions, while you take no notice of the Jewisli ob- servances; which' would be unjustifiable if they were one and the same law. You resent as a foul reproach being called negligent of the precept," Thou shalt not kill," or " Thou shalt not commit adultery.'' And if you showed the same resentment at being called uncircumcised, or negligent of the Sabbath, it would be evident tliat you considered both to be the law and the commandment of God. In fact, however, you consider the honor and L^lory of keeping the one no way endangered by disregard of the ^other. It is plain, as I have said, that these observances are not the law, but a disfigurement of the law. If we condemn them, it is not as being genuine, but as spurious. In this condemnation there is no reproach of the law, or of God its au- thor, but only of those who published their shocking superstitions under these names. If we sometimes abuse the venerable name of law in attacking the Jewish precepts, the fault is yours, for refusing to distinguish between Hebrew observances and the law. Only re- store to the law its proper dignity, by remov- ing these foul Israelitish blots; grant that these writers are guilty of disfiguring the law, and you will see at once that we are the enemies I not of the law, but of Judaism. You are misled by the word law; for you do not know to what that name properly belongs.
3. For my part, I see no reason for your thinking that we blaspheme your prophets land patriarchs. There would indeed be some -round for the charge, if we had been directly ')r remotely the authors of the account given of their actions. But as this account is written ijither by themselves, in a criminal desire to l)e famous for their misdeeds, or by their companions and coevals, why should you 'l)lame us? You condemn them in abhorrence of the wicked actions of which they have vol- Untarily declared themselves guilty, though Ithere was no occasion for such a confession. < )r if the narrative is only a malicious fiction, let its authors be punished, let the books be condemned, let the prophetic name be cleared from this foul reproach, let the patriarchs re- cover the respect due to their simplicity and ipurity of manners.
I 4. These books, moreover, contain shock- is ^ng calumnies against God' himself. We are told that he existed from eternity in darkness, and admired the light when he saw it; that he was so ignorant of the future, that he gave Adam a command, not foreseeing that it would be broken; that his perception was so limited that he could not see Adam when, from the knowledge of his nakedness, he hid himself in a corner of Paradise; tliat envy made him afraid lest his creature man should taste of the tree of life, and live for ever; that afterwards he was greedy for blood, and fat from all kinds of sacrifices, and jealous if they were offered to any one but himself; that he was enraged sometimes against his enemies, sometimes against his friends; that he destroyed thousands of men for a slight offense, or for nothing; that he threatened to come with a sword and spare nobody, right- eous or wicked. The authors of such bold libels against God might very well slander the men of God. You must join with us in lay- ing the blame on the writers if you wish to vindicate the prophets.
5. Again, we are not responsible for what is said of Abraham, that in his irrational crav- ing to have children, and not believing God, who promised that his wife Sara should have a son, he defiled himself with a mistress, with the knowledge of his wife, which only made it worse;' or that, in sacrilegious profanation of his marriage, he on different occasions, from avarice and greed, sold his wife Sara for the gratification of the kings Abimelech and Pharas, telling them that she was his sister, because she was very fair."" The narrative is not ours, which tells how Lot, Abraham's brother, after his escape from Sodom, lay with his two daughters on the mountain ^ (better for him to have perished in the con- flagration of Sodom, than to have burned with incestuous passion); or how Isaac imi- tated his father's conduct, and called his wife Rebecca his sister, that he might gain a shameful livelihood by her;-* or how his son Jacob, husband of four wives — two full sisters, Rachel and Leah, and their handmaids — led the life of a goat among them, so that there was a daily strife among his women who should be the first to lay hold of him when he came from the field, ending sometimes in their hiring him from one another for the night; ^ or, again, how his son Judah slept with his daughter-in-law Tamar, after she had been married to two of his sons, deceived, we are told, by the harlot's dress which Tamar put on, knowing that her father-in-law was in the 3 Gen. xix. 33, 35. 4 Gen. xxvi. 7. 5 Gen. xxix. and xxx.
2/4 THE WORKS OF ST. AUGUSTIN.
[Book XXII.
habit of associating witli such cliaracters; ' or how David, after having a number of wives, se- duced the wife of his soldier Uriah, and caused Uriah himself to be killed in the battle;^ or how his son Solomon had three hundred wives, and seven hundred concubines, and princesses without number; ^ or how the first prophet Hosea got children from a prostitute, and, what is worse, it is said that this dis- graceful conduct was enjoined by God;-* or how Moses committed murder, ^ and plundered Egypt,* and waged wars, and commanded, or himself perpetrated, many cruelties. ' And he too was not content with one wife. We are neither directly nor remotely the authors of these and similar narratives, which are found in the books of the patriarchs and the prophets. Either your writers forged these things, or the fathers are really guilty. Choose which you please; the crime in either case is detestable, for vicious conduct and falsehood are equally hateful.
6. AuGUSTiN replied: You understand neither the symbols of the law nor the acts of the prophets, because you do not know what holiness or righteousness means. We have repeatedly shown at great length, that the precepts and symbols of the Old Testament contained both what was to be fulfilled in obedience through the grace bestowed in the New Testament, and what was to be set aside as a proof of its having been fulfilled in the truth now made manifest. For in the love of God and of our neighbor is secuied the accom- plishment of the precepts of the law, while the accomplishment of its promises is shown in the abolition of circumcision, and of other typical observances formerly practised. By the precept men were led, through a sense of guilt, to desire salvation; by the promise they were led to find in the typical observances the assurance that the Saviour would come. The salvation desired was to be obtained through the grace bestowed on the appearance of the New Testament; and the fulfillment of the expectation rendered the types no longer necessary. The same law that was given by Moses became grace and truth in Jesus Christ. By the grace in the pardon of sin, the precept is kept in force in the case of those supported by divine help. By the truth the symbolic rites are set aside, that the promise might, in those who trust in the di- vine faithfulness, be brought to pass.
7. Those, accordingly, who, finding fault with what they do not understand, call the typical institutions of the law disfigurements and excrescences, are like men displeased with things of which they do not know the use. As if a deaf man, seeing others move their lips in speaking, were to find fault with the motion of the mouth as needless and un- sightly; or as if a blind man, on hearing a house com_mended, were to test the truth of what he heard by passing his hand over the surface of the wall, and on coming to the windows were to cry out against them as flaws in the level, or were to suppose that the wall had fallen in.
8. How shall I make those whose minds are full of vanity understand that the actions of the prophets were also mystical and pro- phetic? The vanity of their minds is shown in their thinking that we believe God to have once existed in darkness, because it is written, " Darkness was over the deep." ^ As if we called the deep God, where there was dark- ness, because the light did not exist there before God made it by His word. From their not distinguishing between the light which is God, and the light which God made, they imagine that God must have been in darkness before He made light, because darkness was over the deep before God said, "Let there be light, and there was light." In the New Testament both these things are ascribed to God. For we read, "God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all;"' and again, " God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts.^' ^° So also, in the Old Testament, the name "Brightness of eternal light''" is given to the wisdom of God, which certainly was not created, for by it all things were made; and of the light which exists only as the produc- tion of this wisdom it is said, " Thou wilt light my candle, O Lord; my God, Thou wilt en- lighten my darkness."'^ In the same way, in the beginning, when darkness was over the deep, God said, " Let there be light, and there was light," which only the light-giving, light, which is God Himself, could have made..
9. For as God is His own eternal happi-, ness, and is besides the bestower of happi-j ness, so He is His own eternal light, and isj also the bestower of light. He envies the, good of none, for He is Himself the source of happiness to all good beings; He fears the, evil of none, for the loss of all evil beings is in their being abandoned by Him. He can neither be benefited by those on whom He, Himself bestows happiness, nor is He afraid, of those whose misery is the doom awarded by His own judgment. Very different, 0; Manichasus, is the object of your worship., 8 Gen. i. 2.
" W'isd. vii. 26.
1° 2 Cor. iv. 6.
Book XXII.]
REPLY TO FAUSTUS THE MANICH^AN.
275 You have departed from God in the pursuit of your own fancies, which of all kinds have increased and multiplied in your foolish rov- ing hearts, drinking in through the sense of sight the light of the heavenly bodies. This light, though it too is made by God, is not to be compared to the light created in the minds of the pious, whom God brings out of darkness into light, as He brings them out of sinfulness into righteousness. Still less can it be compared to that inaccessible light from which all kinds of light are derived. Nor is this light inaccessible to all; for " blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God,"' "God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all;'' but the wicked shall not see light, as is said in Isaiah.^ To them the light-giving light is inaccessible. From the light comes not only the spiritual light in the minds of the pious, but also the material light, which is not denied to the wicked, but is made to rise on the evil and on the good.
10. So, when darkness was over the deep. Me who was light said, " Let there be light.'' I'rom what light this light came is clear; for :the words are, "God said." What light is {that which was made, is not so clear. For there has been a friendly discussion among [Students of the sacred Scriptures, whether God then made the light in the minds of the ;ingels, or, in other words, these rational spirits themselves, or some material light ivhich exists in the higher regions of the uni- verse beyond our ken. For on the fourth day He made the visible luminaries of heaven. \nd it is also a question whether these bodies ,vere made at the same time as their light, or .vere somehow kindled from the light made il ready. But whoever reads the sacred writ- ings in the pious spirit which is required to (inderstand them, must be convinced that \'hatever the light was which was made when, It the time that darkness was over the deep, 'od said, " Let there be light," it was created L;ht, and the creating Light was the maker •\ it.
. II. Nor does it follow that God, before He Inade light, abode in darkness, because it is lid that darkness was over the deep, and hen that the Spirit of God moved on the iaters. The deep is the unfathomable hyss of the waters. And the carnal mind iiight suppose that the Spirit abode in the larkness which was over the deep, because it li said that He moved on the waters. This l from not understanding how the light shin- p in darkness, and the darkness compre- jendeth it not, till l)y the word of God those ■ Matt. V. 8.
2 Isa. viii. 20.
who were darkness are made light, and it is said to them, "Ye were once darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord."^ But if rational minds which are in darkness through a sinful will cannot comprehend the light of the wisdom of God, though it is present everywhere, because they are separated from it not in place, but in disposition: why may not the Spirit of God have moved on the darkness of the waters, when He moved on the waters, though at an immeasurable dis- tance from it, not in place, but in nature?
12. In all this I know I am singing to deaf ears; but the Lord, from whom is the truth which we speak, can open some ears to catch the strain. But what shall we say of those critics of the Holy Scriptures who object to God's being pleased with His own works, and find fault with the words, "God saw the light that it was good," as if this meant that God admired the light as something new? God's seeing His works that they were good, means that the Creator approved of His own works as pleasing to Himself. For God cannot be forced to do anything against His will, so that He should not be pleased with His own work; nor can He do anything by mistake, so that He should regret having done it. Why should the Manichseans object to our God seeing His work that it was good, when their god placed a covering before himself when he mingled his, own members with the darkness? For instead of seeing his work that it is good, he refuses to look at it because it is evil.
13. Faustus speaks of our God as aston- ished, which is not said in Scripture; nor does it follow that one must be astonished when he sees anything to be good. There are many good things which we see without being as- tonished, as if they were better than we ex- pected; we merely approve of them as being what they ought to be. We can, however, give an instance of God being astonished, not from the Old Testament, which the Mani- chaeans assail with undeserved reproach, but from the New Testament, which they profess to believe in order to entrap the unwary. For they acknowledge Christ as God, and use this as a bait to entice Christ's followers into their snares. God, then, was astonished when Christ was astonished. For we read in the Gospel, that when Christ heard the faith of a certain centurion, He was astonished, and said to His disciples, "Verily I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel." * We have already given our explanation of the words, "God saw that it was good." Better men may give a better explanation. Mean- 3 Eph. V. 8 4 Matt. viii. 10.
276 THE WORKS OF ST. AUGUSTIN.
[Book XXIIwhile let the Manichaeans explain Christ's being astonished at wliat He foresaw before it hirppened, and knew before He heard it. For though seeing a thing to be good is quite different from being astonished at it, in this case there is some resemblance, for Jesus was astonished at the light of faith which He Himself had created in the heart of the cen- turion; for Jesus is the true light, which en- lighteneth every man that cometh into the world.
14. Thus an irreligious Pagan might bring the same reproaches against Christ in the Gospel, as Faustus brings against God in the Old Testament. He might say that Christ lacked foresight, not only because He was astonished at the faith of the centurion, but because He chose Judas as a disciple who proved disobedient to His commands; as Faustus objects to the precept given in Para- dise, which, as it turned out, was not obeyed. He might also cavil at Christ's not knowing who touched Him, when the woman suffering from an issue of blood touched the hem of His garment; as Faustus blames God for not knowing where Adam had hid himself. If this ignorance is implied in God's saying, "Where art thou, Adam?"' the same may be said of Christ's asking, " Who* touched me?"^ The Pagans also might call Christ timid and envious, in not wishing five of the ten virgins to gain eternal life by entering into His kingdom, and in shutting them out, so that they knocked in vain in their entreaty to have the door opened, as if forgetful of His own promise, " Knock, and it shall be opened unto you; " ^ as Faustus charges God with fear and envy in not admitting man after his sin to eternal life. Again, he might call Christ greedy of the blood, not of beasts, but