by her handmaid, and of the same seed from Cor.
vn. 4.
Book XXII.]
REPLY TO FAUSTUS THE MANICH^AN.
28i which she herself would have had them, if that had been possible. No woman would do this if her love for her husband were merely an animal passion; she would rather be jeal- ous of a mistress than make her a mother. So here the pious desire for the procreation of children was an indication of the absence of criminal indulgence.
32. Abraham, indeed, cannot be defended, if, as Faiistus says, he wished to get children by Hagar, because he had no faith in God, who promised that he should have children by Sara. But this is an entire mistake: tiiis pro- mise had not yet been made. Any one who reads the preceding chapters will find that Abraham had already got the promise of the land with a countless number of inhabitants,' but that it had not yet been made known to him how the seed spoken of was to be pro- duced, whether by generation from his own body, or from his choice in the adoption of a son, or, in the case of its being from his own body, whether it would be by Sara or another. Whoever examines into this will find that Faustus has made either an nnpru- dent mistake or an impudent misrepresenta- tion. Abraham, then, when he saw that he had no children, though the promise was to his seed, thought first of adoption. This appears from his saying of his slave, when speaking to God, "This is mine heir;" as much as to say, As Thou hast not given me a seed of my own, fulfill Thy promise in this man. For the word seed may be applied to what has not come out of a man's own body, else the apostle could not call us the seed of Abraham: for we certainly are not his descend- ants in the flesh; but we are his seed in fol- lowing his faith, by believing in Christ, whose flesh did spring from the flesh of Abra- ham. Then Abraham was told by the Lord: "This shall not be thine heir; but he that Cometh out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir."= The thought of adoption was thus removed; but it still remained uncertain whether the seed which was to come from himself would be by Sara or another. And this God was pleased to keep concealed, till a figure of the Old Testament had been sup- plied in the handmaid. We may thus easily understand how Abraham, seeing that his wife was barren, and that she desired to ob- tain from her husband and her handmaid the offspring which she herself could not pro- duce, acted not in compliance with carnal ap- petite, but in obedience to conjugal authority, believing that Sara had the sanction of God for her wish; because God had already pro- ' Gen. xii. 3.
^ Gen. XV. 3, 4.
mised him an heir from his own body, but had not foretold who was to be the mother. Thus, when Faustus shows his own infidelity in accusing Abraham of unbelief, his ground- less accusation only proves the madness of the assailant. In other cases, Faustus' in- fidelity has prevented him from understand- ing; but here, m his love of slander, he has not even taken time to read.
33. Again, when Faustus accuses a right- eous and faithful man of a shameless profan- ation of his marriage from avarice and greed, by selling his wife Sara at different times to the two kings Abimelech and Pharaoh, telling them that she was his sister, because she was very fair, he does not distinguish justly be- tween right and wrong, but unjustly con- demns tiie whole transaction. Those who think that Abraham sold his wife cannot dis- cern in the light of the eternal law the dif- ference between sin and righteousness; and so they call perseverance obstinacy, and confi- dence presumption, as in these and similar cases men of wrong judgment are wont to blame what they suppose to be wrong actions. Abraham did not become partner in crime with his wife by selling her to others: but as she gave her handmaid to her husband, not to gratify his passion, but for the sake of off- spring, in the authority she had consistently with the order of nature, requiring the per- formance of a duty, not complying with a sinful desire; so in this case, the husband, in perfect assurance of the chaste attachment of his wife to himself, and knowing her mind to be the abode of modest and virtuous affection, called her his sister, without saying that she was his wife, lest he himself should be killed, and his wife fall into the hands of strangers and evil-doers: for he was assured by his God that He would not allow her to suffer violence or disgrace. Nor was he disappointed in his faith and hope; for Pharaoh, terrified by- strange occurrences, and after enduring many evils on account of her, when he was informed by God that Sara was Abraham's wife, re- stored her with honor uninjured. Abimelech also did the same, after learning the truth in a dream. ' 34. Some people, not scoffers and evil- speakers like Faustus, but men who pay due honor to the Scriptures, which Faustus finds fault with because he does not understand them, or which he fails to understand because of his fault-finding, in commenting on this act of Abraham, are of opinion that he stum- bled from weakness of faith, and denied his wife from fear of death, as Peter denied the Lord. If this is the correct view, we must allow that Abraham sinned; but the sin should 286 THE WORKS OF ST. AUGUSTIN.
[Book XXIInot cancel or obliterate all his merits, any more than in the case of the apostle. Be- sides, to deny his wife is not the same as to deny the Saviour. But when there is another explanation, why not abide by it, instead of giving blame without cause, since there is no proof that Abraham told a lie from fear? He did not deny that Sara was his wife in answer to any question on the subject; but when asked who she was, he said she was his sister, without denying her to be his wife: he con- cealed part of the truth, but said nothing false.
35. It is waste of time to observe Faustus' remark, that Abraham falsely called Sara his sister; as if Faustus had discovered the family of Sara, though it is not mentioned in Script- ure. In a matter which Abraham knew, and we do not, it is surely better to believe the patriarch when he says what he knows, than to believe Manichaeus when he finds fault with what he knows nothing about. Since, then, Abraham lived at that period in human history, when, though marriage had become unlawful between children of the same parents, or of the same father or mother, no law or authority interfered with the custom of marriage between the children of brothers, or any less degree of consan- guinity, why should he not have had as wife his sister, that is, a woman descended from his father? For he himself told the king, when he restored Sara, that she was his sister by his father, and not by his mother. And on this occasion he could not have been led to tell a falsehood from fear, for the king knew that she was his wife, and was restoring her with honor, because he had been warned by God. We learn from Scripture that, among the ancients, it was customary to call cousins brothers and sisters. Thus Tobias says in his prayer to God, before having intercourse with his wife, 'And now, O Lord, Thou knowest that not in wantonness I take to wife my sister;" ' though she was not sprung immediately from the same father or the same mother, but only belonged to the same family. And Lot is called the brother of Abraham, though Abraham was his uncle.- And, by the same use of the word, those called in the Gospel the Lord's brothers are certainly not children of the Virgin Mary, but ail the blood relations of the Lord.^ 36. Some may say, Why did not Abraham's confidence in God prevent his being afraid to confess his wife? God could have warded off from him the death which he feared, and could have protected both him and his wife • Tob. viii. 9. 2 Gen. xiii. 8, and xi. 31. 3 Matt. xii. 46.
while among strangers, so that Sara, although very fair, should not have been desired by any one, nor Abraham killed on account of her. or course, God could have done this; it would be absurd to deny it. But if, in reply to the people, Abraham had told them that Sara was his wife, his trust in God would have included both his own life and the chastity of Sara. Now it is part of sound doctrine, that when a man has any means in his power, he should not tempt the Lord his God. So it was not because the Saviour was unable to protect His disciples that He told them, " When ye are persecuted in one city, flee to another. "'* And He Himself set the example. For though He had the power of laying down His own life, and did not lay it down till He chose to do so, still when an infant He fled to Egypt, carried by His parents;5 and when He went up to the feast. He went not openly, but secretly, though at other times He spoke openly to the Jews, who in spite of their rage and hostility could not lay hands on Him, because His hour was not come,* — not the hour when He would be obliged to die, but the hour when He would consider it season- able to be put to death. Thus He who dis- played divine power by teaching and reproving openly, without allowing the rage of his enemies to hurt Him, did also, by escaping and concealing Himself, exhibit the conduct becoming the feebleness of men, that they should not tempt God when they have any means in their power of escaping threatened danger. So also in the apostle, it was not from despair of divine assistance and protec- tion, or from loss of faith, that he was let down over the wall in a basket, in order to escape being taken by his enemies:' not from want of faith in God did he thus escape, but because not to escape, when this escape was' possible, would have been tempting God. Accordingly, when Abraham was among strangers, and when, on account of the re- markable beauty of Sara, both his life and her chastity were in danger, since it was in his power to protect not both of these, but one only, — his life, namely, — -to avoid tempt- ing God he did what he could; and in what he could not do, he trusted to God. Unable to conceal his being a man, he concealed his be- ing a husband, lest he should be put to death; trusting to God to preserve his wife's purit}\ 37. There might also be a difference of opinion on the nice point whether Sara's chas- tity would have been violated even if some one had had intercourse with her, since she submitted to this to save her husband's life, 4 Matt. X. 23.
6 John vii. 10, 30.
5 Matt. ii. I.). 7 Acts ix. 2^.
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REPLY TO FAUSTUS THE MANICH^AN.
287 both with his knowledge and by his authority. In this there would be no desertion of con- jugal fidelity or rebellion against her hus- band's authority; in the same way as Abra- ham was not an adulterer, when, in submis- sion to the lawful authority of his wife, he consented to be made a father by his wife's handmaid. But, from the nature of the rela- tionship, for a wife to have two husbands, both in life, is not the same thing as for a man to have two wives: so that we regard the explanation already given of Abraham's con- duct as the most correct and unobjectionable; that our father Abraham avoided tempting God by taking what measures he could for the preservation of his own life, and that he showed his hope in God by entrusting to Him the chastity of his wife.
38. But a pleasure which all must feel is obtained from this narrative so faithfully re- corded in the Holy Scriptures, when we exam- ine into the prophetic character of the action, and knock with pious faith and diligence at the door of the mystery, that the Lord may open, and show us who was prefigured in the ancient personage, and whose wife this is, who, while in a foreign land and among strangers, is not allowed to be stained or de- filed, that she may be brought to her own husband without spot or wrinkle. Thus we find that the righteous life of the Church is for the glory of Christ, that her beauty may bring honor to her husband, as Abraham was honored on account of the beauty of Sara among the inhabitants of that foreign land. To the Church, to whom it is said in the Song of Songs, "O thou fairest among women,"' kings offer gifts in acknowledgment of her beauty; as king Abimelech offered gifts to Sara, admiring the grace of her appearance; all the more that, while he loved, he was not allowed to profane it. The holy Church, too is in secret the spouse of the Lord Jesus Christ. For it is secretly, and in the hidden depths of the Spirit, that the soul of man is joined to the word of God, so that they two are one flesh; of which the apostle speaks as a great mystery in marriage, as referring to Christ and the Church.- Again, the earthly kingdom of this world, typified by the kings which were not allowed to defile Sara, had no knowledge or experience of the Church as the spouse of Christ, that is, of how faithfully she maintained her relation to her Husband, till it tried to violate her, and was compelled to yield to the divine testimony borne by the faith of the martyrs, and in the person of later monarchs was brought humbly to honor with gifts the Bride whom their predecessors had not been able to humble by subduing her to themselves. What, in the type, happened in the reign of one and the same king, is ful- filled in the earlier monarchs of this era and their successors.
39. Again, when it is said that the Church is the sister of Christ, not by the mother but by the father, we learn the excellence of the relation, which is not of the temporary nature of earthly descent, but of divine grace, which is everlasting. By this grace we shall no longer be a race of mortals when we receive power to be called and to become sons of God. This grace we obtain not from the synagogue, which is the mother of Christ after the flesh, but from God the Father. And when Christ calls us into another life where there is no death, He teaches us, in- stead of acknowledging, to deny the earthly relationship, where death soon follows upon birth; for He says to His disciples, " Call no man your father upon earth; for you have one Father, who is in heaven. "3 And He set us an example of this when He said, " Who is my mother, and who are my breth- ren? And stretching forth His hand to His disciples. He said, These are my brethren.'' And lest any one should think that He re- ferred to an earthly relationship, He added, " Whosoever shall do the will of my Father, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother;"* as much as to say, I derive this relationship from God my Father, not from the Synagogue my mother; I call you to eternal life, where I have an immortal birth, not to earthly life, for to call you away from this life I have taken mortality.
40. As for the reason why, though it is concealed among strangers whose wife the Church is, it is not hidden whose sister she is, it is plainly because it is obscure and hard to understand how the human soul and the Word of God are united or mingled, or what- ever word may be used to express this con- nection between God and the creature. It is from this connection that Christ and the Church are called bridegroom and bride, or husband and wife. The other relationship, in which Christ and all the saints are brethren by divine grace and not by earthly consangu- inity, or by the father and not by the mother, is more easily expressed in words, and more easily understood. For the same grace makes all the saints to be also lirethren of one an- other; while in their society no one is the bridegroom of all the rest. So also, notwith- standing the surpassing justice and wisdom ' Cant. i. 7.
2 Eph. V. 31, 32.
1 Matt, x.xiii. o.
4.Malt. xii. 48-30.
2b8 THE WORKS OF ST. AUGUSTIN.
[Book XXII.
of Christ, His manhood was much more plainly and readily recognized by strangers, who, indeed, were not wrong in believing Him to be man, but they did not understand His being God as well as man. Hence Jeremiah says: " He is both a man, and who shall know Him? " ' He is a man, for it is made mani- fest that He is a brother. And who shall know Him? for it is concealed that He is a husband. This must suffice as a defense of our father Abraham against Faustus ' impu- dence and ignorance and malice.
41. Lot also, the brother of Abraham, was just and hospitable m Sodom, and was found worthy to escape the conflagration which pre- figured the future judgment; for he was free from all participation in the corruption of the people of Sodom. He was a type of the body of Christ, which in the person of all the saints both groans now among the ungodly and wicked, to whose evil deeds it does not con- sent, and will at the end of the world be res- cued from their society, when they are doomed to the punishment of eternal fire. Lot's wife was the type of a different class of men, — of those, namely, who, when called by the giace of God, look back, instead of, like Paul, forgetting the things that are behind, and looking forward to the things that are before.'' The Lord Himself says: " No man that putteth his hand to the plough, and look- eth back, is fit for the kingdom of Heaven." ^ Nor did He omit to mention the case of Lot's wife; for she, for our warning, was turned into a pillar of salt, that being thus seasoned we might not trifle thoughtlessly with this danger, but be on our guard against it. So, when the Lord was admonishing every one to get rid of the things that are behind by the most strenuous endeavor to reach the things that are before. He said, "Remember Lot's wife."+ And, in addition to these, there is still a third type in Lot, when his daughters lay with him. For here Lot seems to prefig- ure the future law; for those who spring from the law, and are placed under the law, by mis- understanding it, stupefy it, as it were, and bring forth the works of unbelief by an unlaw- ful use of the law. " The law is good," says the apostle, " if a man use it lawfully. '^^ 42. It is no excuse for this action of Lot or of his daughters that it represented the per- versity which was afterwards in certain cases to be displayed. The purpose of Lot's daugh- ters is one thing, and the purpose of God is another, in allowing this to happen that He might make some truth manifest; for God both pronounces judgment on the actions of ■ Jer. xvii. 9. 4 Luke xvii. 32.
3 Luke ix. 62.
the people of those times, and arranges in His providence for the prefigurement of the future. As a part of Scripture, this action is a prophecy; as part of the history of those concerned, it is a crime.
43. At the same time there is in this trans- action no reason for the torrent of abuse which Faustus' blind hostility discharges on it. By the eternal law which requires the preservation of the order of nature and con- demns its violation, the judgment in this case is not what it would have been if Lot had been prompted by a criminal passion to commit in- cest with his daughters, or if they had been inflamed with unnatural desires. In justice, we must ask not only what was done, but witli what motive, in order to obtain a fair view of the action as the effect of that motive. The resolution of Lot's daughters to lie with their father was the effect of the natural desire for offspring in order to preserve the race; for they supposed that there were no other men to be found, thinking that the whole world had been consumed in that conflagration, which, for all they knew, had left no one alive but themselves. It would have been better for them never to have been mothers, than to have become mothers by their own father. But still, the fulfillment of a desire like this is very different from the accursed gratifica- tion of lust.
44. Knowing that their father would con- demn their design. Lot's daughters thought it necessary to fulfill it without his knowl- edge. We are told that they made him drunk, so that he was unaware of what hap- pened. His guilt therefore is not that of in- cest, but of drunkenness. This, too, is con- demned by the eternal law, which allows meat and drink only as required by nature for the preservation of health. There is, indeed, a great difference between a drunk man and an habitual drunkard; for the drunkard is not always drunk, and a man may be drunk on one occasion without being a drunkard. However, in the case of a righteous man, we require to account for even one instance of drunkenness. What can have made Lot con- sent to receive from his daughters all the cups of wine which they went on mixing for him, or perhaps giving him unmixed? Did they feign excessive grief, and did he resort to this consolation in their loneliness, and in the loss of their mother, thinking that they were drinking too, while they only pretended to drink? But this does not seem a proper method for a righteous man to take in consol- ing his friends when in trouble. Had the daughters learned in Sodom some vile art which enabled them to intoxicate their father Bo K XXII.]
Bo K XXII.]
REPLY TO FAUSTUS THE MANICH^AN.
289 with a few cups, so that in his ignorance he might sin, or rather be sinned against? But i it is not likely that the Scripture would have omitted all notice of this, or that God would nave. allowed His servant to be thus abused i without any fault of his own.
I 45. But we are defending the sacred Script- ' ures, not man's sins. Nor are we concerned to justify this action, as if our God had either commanded it or approved of it; or as I if, when men are called just in Scripture, it ' meant that they could not sin if they chose. And as, in the books which those critics find fault with, God nowhere expresses approval of this action, what thoughtless folly it is to bring a charge from this narrative against \ these writings, when in other places such ac- tions are condemned by express prohibitions! In the story of Lot's daughters the action is related, not commended. And it is proper tiiat the judgment of God should be declared ' in some cases, and concealed in others, that by its manifestation our ignorance may be enlightened, and that by its concealment our minds may be improved by the exercise of recalling what we already know, or our indo- lence stimulated to seek for an explanation. Here, then, God, who can bring good out of evil, made nations arise from this origin, as He saw good, but did not bring upon His own Scriptures the guilt of man's sin. It is God's writing, but not His doing; He does not pro- pose these things for our imitation, but holds them up for our warning.
46. Faustus' effrontery appears notably in his accusing Isaac also, the son of Abraham, of pretending that his wife Rebecca was his sister.' For as regards the family of Rebecca Scripture is not silent, and it appears that she was his sister in the well-known sense of the word. His concealing that she was his wife is not surprising, nor is it insignificant, if he did it in imitation of his father, so that he can be justified on the same grounds. We need only refer to the answer already given to Faustus' charge against Abraham, as being equally applicable to Isaac. Perhaps, how- ever some inquirer will ask what typical sig- nificance there is in the foreign king discover- [ ing Rebecca to be the wife of Isaac by seeing him playing with her; for he would not have known, had he not seen Isaac playing with ' Rebecca as it would have been improper to I do with a woman not his wife. When holy men act thus as husbands, they do it not fool- ishly, but designedly: for they accommodate themselves to the nature of the weaker sex in words and actions of gentle playfulness; ' Clen. xxvi. 7.
in