You have departed from God in the pursuit of your own fancies, which of all kinds have increased and multiplied in your foolish roving 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 universe 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 writings 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 shinp in darkness, and the darkness comprejendeth 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 distance 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 astonished, 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 astonished, as if they were better than we expected; 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 Manichaeans 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.
[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 centurion; for Jesus is the true light, which enlighteneth 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 Paradise, 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 of men, because he said, " He that loseth his life for my sake, shall keep it unto life eternal;"'* as Faustus reproaches God in reference to those animal sacrifices which prefigured the sacrifice of blood-shedding by which we are redeemed. He might also accuse Christ of jealousy, because in narrating His driving the buyers and sellers out of the temple, the evangelist quotes as applicable to Him the words, " The jealousy of Thine house hath eaten me up;"^ as Faustus accuses God of jealousy in forbidding sacrifices to be offered to other gods. He might say that Christ was angry with both His friends and His enemies: with His friends, because He said, " The servant that knows his lord's will, and doeth it not, shall be beaten with man)' stripes;" and with His enemies, be- 5 John ii. 17.
3 Matt. vii. 7.
cause He said, " If any one shall not receive you, shake off against him the dust of your shoes; verily I say unto you, that it shall be more tolerable for Sodom in the day of judgment than for that city; " *,as Faustus accuses God of being angry at one time with His friends, and at another with His enemies; both of whom are spoken of thus by the apostle: " They that have sinned without law shall perish without law, and they that have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law." ^ Or he might say that Christ shed the blood of many without mercy, for a slight offense or for nothing. For to a Pagan there would appear to be little or no harm in not having a wedding garment at the marriage feast, for which our King in the Gospel commanded a man to be bound hand and foot, and cast into outer darkness;^ or in not wishing to have Christ for a king, which is the sin of which Christ says, " Those that would not have me to reign over them, bring hither and slay before me;"' as Faustus blames God in the Old Testament for slaughtering thousands of human beings for slight offenses, as Faustus calls them, or for nothing. Again, if Faustus finds fault with God's threatening to come with the sword, and to spare neither the righteous nor the wicked, might not the Pagan find as much fault with the words of the Apostle Paul, when he says of our God, ' ' He spared not His own Son, but gave Him up for us all; " '" or of Peter, when, in exhorting the saints to be patient in the midst of persecution and slaughter, he says, " It is time that judgment begin from the house of God; and if it first! begin at us, what shall the end be of them that believe not the gospel of the Lord? Andi if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shallj the ungodly and sinner appear? " " What can! be more righteous than the Only-Begotten,i whom nevertheless the Father did not spare?] And what can be plainer than that the right eous also are not spared, but chastised with| manifold afflictions, as is clearly implied in; the words, "If the righteous scarcely arei saved "? As it is said in the Old Testament "Whom the Lord loveth He correcteth, anc chastiseth every 'son whom He receiveth; "'■ and, "If we receive good at the hand of thd Lord, shall we not also receive evil? " '^ Sci we read also in the New Testament, " Whon-i I love I rebuke and chasten; " '-» and, " If wtt judge ourselves, we shall not be judged of th(' Lord; but when we are judged, we are cor rected of the Lord, that we may not be conj demned with the world. '"s if a Pagan wen k i^ 7 Rom. ii. 12. 10 Rom. viii. 32. 13 Job ii. 10.
Book XXII.]
REPLY TO FAUSTUS THE MANICH^EAN.
to make such objections to the New Testament, would not the Manichreans try to answer them, though they themselves make similar objections to the Old Testament? But supposing them able to answer the Pagan, how absurd it would be to defend in the one Testament what they find fault with in the other! But if they could not answer the objections of the Pagan, why should they not allow in both Testaments, instead of in one only, that what appears wrong to unbelievers, from their ignorance, should be believed to be right by pious readers even when they also are ignorant?
15. Perhaps our opponents will maintain that these parallel passages quoted from the New Testament are themselves neither authoritative nor true: for they claim the impious liberty of holding and teaching, that whatever they deem favorable to their heresy was said by Christ and the apostles; while they have the profane boldness to say, that whatever in the same writings is unfavorable to them is a spurious interpolation I have {already at some length, as far as the intenjtion of the present work required, exposed I the unreasonableness of this assault upon the authority of the whole of Scripture.
16. At present I would call attention to the fact, that when the Manichaeans, although they disguise their blasphemous absurdities under the name of Christianity, bring such objections against the Christian Scriptures, we have to defend the authority of the divine record in both Testaments against the Manijch^eans as much as against the Pagans. A Pagan might find fault with passages in the New Testament in the same way as Faustus does with what he calls unworthy representations of God in the Old Testament; and the Pagan might be answered by the quotation of similar passages from his own authors, as in Paul's speech at Athens.' Even in Pagan writings we might find the doctrine that God created and constructed the world, and that jHe is the giver of light, which does not imply jthat before light was made He abode in dark-|ness; and that when His work was finished He was elated with joy, which is more than saying that He saw that it was good; and that He made a law with rewards for obedience, and punishments for disobedience, by which they do not mean to say that God was ignorant of the future, because He gave a law to those by whom it was to be broken. Nor could they make asking questions a proof of a want iof foresight even in a human beintr; for in Itheir books many questions are being; for asked only ' Acts xvii. 28.
for the purpose of using the answers for the conviction of the persons addressed: for the questioner knows not only what answer he desires, but what will actually be given. Again, if the Pagan tried to make out God to be envious of any one, because He will not give happiness to the wicked, he would find many passages in the writings of his own authors in support of this principle of the divine government.
17. The only objection that a Pagan would make on the subject of sacrifice would refer to our reason for finding fault with Pagan sacrifices, when in the Old Testament God is described as requiring men to offer sacrifice to Him. If I were to reply at length on this subject, I might prove to him that sacrifice is due only to the one true God, and that this sacrifice was offered by the one true Priest, the Mediator of God and man; and that it was proper that this sacrifice should be pre.
figured by animal sacrifices, in order to foreshadow the flesh and blood of the one sacrifice for the remission of sins contracted by flesh and blood, which shall not inherit the kingdom of God: for the natural body will be endowed with heavenly attributes, as the fire in the sacrifice typified the swallowing up of death in victory. Those observances properly belonged to the people whose kingdom and priesthood were prophetic of the King and Priest who should come to govern and to consecrate believers in all nations, and to lead them into the kingdom of heaven, and the holy society of angels and eternal life. And as this true sacrifice was piously set forth in the Hebrew observances, so it was impiously caricatured by the Pagans, because, as the apostle says, what they offer they offer to devils, and not to God.= The typical rite of blood-shedding in sacrifice dates from the earliest ages, pointing forward from the outset of human history to the passion of the Mediator. For Abel is mentioned in the sacred Scripture as the first who offered such sacrifices. 3 We need not therefore wonder that fallen angels who occupy the air, and whose chief sins are pride and falsehood, should demand from their worshippers by whom they wished to be considered as gods what they knew to be due to God only. This deception was favored by the folly of the human heart, especially when regret for the dead led to the making of likenesses, and so to the use of images.'* By the increase of this homage, divine honors came to be paid to tlie dead as dwelling in heaven, while devils took their place on earth as the objects of worship.
4 Wisd. xiv. 15.
[Book XXII.
exthe not and required that their deluded and degraded votaries should present sacrifices to tliem. Thus the nature of sacrifice as due only to God appears not only when God righteously claims it, but also when a false god proudly arrogates it. If the Pagan was slow to believe these things, I should argue from the prophecies, and point out that, though uttered long ago, they are now fulfilled. If he still remained in unbelief, this is rather to be pected than to be wondered at; for prophecy itself intimates that all would believe.
18. If the Pagan, in the next place, were to find fault with both Testaments as attributing jealousy to God and Christ, he would only show his own ignorance of literature, or his forgetfulness. For though their philosophers distinguish between desire and passion^ joy and gratification, caution and fear, gentleness and tender-heartedness, prudence and cunning, boldness and daring, and so on, giving the first name in each pair to what is good, and the second to what is bad, their books are notwithstanding full of instances in which, by the abuse of these words, virtues are called by the names which properly belong to vices; as passion is used for desire, gratification for joy, fear for caution, tenderheartedness for gentleness, cunning for prudence, daring for boldness. The cases are innumerable in which speech exhibits similar inaccuracies. Moreover, each language has its own idioms. For in religious writings I remember no instance of the word tenderheartedness being used in a bad sense. And common usage affords examples of similar peculiarities in the use of words. In Greek, one word stands for two distinct things, labor and pain; while we have a separate name for each. Again, we use the word in two senses, as when we say of what is not dead, that it has life; and again, of any one that he is a man of good life, whereas in Greek each of these meanings has a word of its own. So that, apart from the abuse of words which prevails in all languages, it may be an Hebrew idiom to use jealousy in two senses, as a man is called jealous when he suffers from a diseased state of mind caused by distress on account of the faithlessness of his wife, in which sense the word cannot be applied to God; or as when diligence is manifested in guarding conjugal chastity, in which sense it is profitable for us not only unhesitatingly to admit, but thankfully to assert, that God is jealous of His people when He calls them His wife, and warns them against committing adultery with a multitude of false gods. The same may be said of the anger of God. For God does not suffer perturbation when He visits men in anger; but either by an abuse of the word, or by a peculiarity of idiom, anger is used in the sense of punishment.
19. The slaughter of multitudes would not seem strange to the Pagan, unless he denied the judgment of God, which Pagans do not^ for they allow that all things in the universe, from the highest to the lowest, are governed by God's providence. But if he would not allow this, he would be convinced either by the authority of Pagan writers, or by the more tedious method of demonstration; and if still obstinate and perverse, he would be left to the judgment which he denies. Then, if he were to give instances of the destruction of men for no offense, or for a very slight one, we should show that these were offenses, and that they were not slight. For instance, totake the case already referred to of the wedding garment, we should prove that it was a great crime in a man to attend the sacred feast, seeking not the bridegroom's glory, but his own, or whatever the garment may b^ found on better interpretation to signify. And in the case of the slaughter before the king of those who would not have him to reign over them, we might perhaps easily prove that, though it may be no sin in a man to refuse to obey his fellow-man, it is both a fault and a great one to reject the reign of Him in whose reign alone is there righteousness, and happiness, and continuance.
20. Lastly, as regards Faustus' crafty insinuation, that the Old Testament misrepresents God as threatening to come with a sword, which will spare neither the righteous nor the wicked, if the words were explained to the Pagan, he would perhaps disagree neither with the Old Testament nor with the New; and he might see the beauty of the parable in the Gospel, which people who pretend to be Christians either misunderstand from their blindness, or reject from their perversity. The great husbandman of the vine uses his pruning-hook differently in the fruitful and in the unfruitful branches; yet he spares neither good nor bad, pruning one and cutting off the other.' There is no man so just as not to require to be tried by affliction to advance, or to establish, or to prove his virtue. Do the Manichceans not reckon Paul as righteous, who, while confessing humbly and honestly his past sins, still gives thanks for being justified b}^ faith in Jesus Christ? Was Paul then spared by Him whom fools misunderstand, when He says, " I will spare neither the righteous nor the sinner"? Hear the I John XV. 1-3.
Book: XXII.]
REPLY TO FAUSTUS THE MANlCHyEAN.
-79 apostle himself: " Lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelation, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet me. For this I besought the Lord thrice, that He would remove it from me; and He said unto me, My grace is sufificient for thee: for strength is perfected in weakness." ' Here a just man is not spared that his strength might be perfected in weakness by Him who had given him an angel of Satan to buffet him. If you say that the devil gave this angel, it follows that the devil sought to prevent Paul's being exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelation, and to perfect his strength. This is impossible. Therefore He who gave up this righteous man to be buffeted by the messenger of Satan, is the same as He who, through Paul, gave up to Satan himself the wicked persons of whom Paul says: "I have delivered them to Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme." ^ Do you see now how the Most High spares neither the righteous nor the wicked? Or is it the sword that frightens you? For to be buffeted is not so l-ad as to be put to death. But did not the thousands of martyrs suffer death in various forms? And could their persecutors have :iad this power against them except it had been given them by God, who thus spared neither the righteous nor the wicked? For the Lord Himself, the chief martyr, says expressly to Pilate: "Thou couklst have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above." ^ Paul also, besides recording his own experience, says that the afflictions and persecutions of the righteous exhibit the judgment of God.* This truth is set forth at length by the Apostle Peter in the passage already quoted, where he says: ''It is time that judgment should begin at the house of the Lord. And if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of those that believe not the gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely are saved, where shall the ungodly antl the sinner appear? " ^ Peter also explains how the wicked are not spared, for they are branches broken off to be burnt; while the righteous are not spared, because their purification is to be brought to perfection. He ascribes these things to the will of Him who says in the Old Testament, I will spare neither the righteous nor the wicked; for he says: " It is better, if the will of the Spirit of God be so, that we suffer for welldoing than for evil-doing.''* So, when by the will of the Spirit of God men suffer for well-doing, the righteous are not spared; when 3 John xix. 11. I Pet. iii. 17.
they suffer for evil-doing, the wicked are not spared. In both cases it is according to the will of Him who says: I will spare neither the righteous nor the wicked; correcting the one as a son, and punishing the other as a transgressor.
21. I have thus shown, to the best of my power, that the God we worship did not abide from eternity in darkness, but is Himself light, and in Him is no darkness at all; and in Himself dwells in light inaccessible; and the brightness of this light is His coeternal wisdom. From what we have said, it appears that God was not taken b)^ surprise by the unexpected appearance of light, but that light owes its existence to Him as its Creator, as its owes its continued existence to His approval. Neither was God ignorant of the future, but the author of the precept as well as the punisher of disobedience; that by showing His righteous anger against transgression, He might provide a restraint for the time, and a warning for the future Nor does He ask questions from ignorance, but by His very inquiry declares His judgment. Nor is He envious or timid, but excludes the transgressor from eternal life, which is the just reward of obedience. Nor is He greedy for blood and fat; but by requiring from a carnal people sacrifices, suited to their character, He by certain types prefigures the true sacrifice. Nor is His jealousy an emotion of pale anxiety, but of quiet benevolence, in desire to keep the soul, which owes chastity to the one true God, from being defiled and prostituted by serving many false gods. Nor is He enraged with a passion similar to human anger, but is angrj^, not in the sense of desiring vengeance, but in the peculiar sense of sriving full effect to the sentence of a righteous retribution. Nor does He destroy thousands of men for trifling offenses, or for nothing, but manifests to the world the benefit to be obtained from fearing Him, by the temporal death of those already mortal. Nor does He punish the righteous and sinners indiscriminately, but chastises the righteous for their good, in order to perfect them, and gives to sinners the punishment justly due to them. Thus, ye Manicha^ans, do your suspicions lead you astray, when, by misunderstanding our Scriptures, or by hearing bad interpreters, you form a mistaken judgment of Catholics. Hence you leave sound doctrine, and turn to impious fables; and in your perversity and estrangement from the society of saints, you reject the instruction of the New Testament, which, as we have shown, contains statements similar to those which you condemn in the Old Testament. So we are 2 So [Book XXII.
obliged to defend both Testaments against you as well as against the Pagans.