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Contra Faustum Manichaeum libri triginta tres

16.

Ita et mentem tuam aram fecisti, sed vide cuius! Ex ipsis enim artibus et disciplinis tuis apparet, quibus eam imbutam esse dixisti. p. 556,10 Illae artes et disciplinae vetant panem porrigere mendicanti homini, ut in ara vestra cum sacrificio crudelitatis ardeatis, talem aram domino destruente, qui ex lege commemorat, quali odore delectatur deus dicens: Misericordiam volo quam sacrificium. Ubi autem hoc dominus commemoraverit, attendite, cum scilicet transiret per segetem et esurientes discipuli eius vellerent spicas, quod homicidium esse vos dicitis ex disciplina vestra, qua imbuistis mentem vestram, aram sane non dei, sed daemoniorum mendaciloquorum, ex quorum doctrinis inusta cauteriatur maligna conscientia, homicidium appellans, quam veritas innocentiam dicit. Ita enim Iudaeis ait, ubi vos quoque futuros percussit atque destruxit: Si sciretis, quid sit ‘misericordiam volo quam sacrificium’, numquam condemnassetis innocentes.

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Reply to Faustus the Manichaean

16.

If your mind is an altar, you see whose altar it is. You may see from the very doctrines and duties in which you say you are trained. You are taught not to give food to a beggar; and so your altar smokes with the sacrifice of cruelty. Such altars the Lord destroys; for in words quoted from the law He tells us what offering pleases God: "I desire mercy, and not sacrifice." Observe on what occasion the Lord uses these words. It was when, in passing through a field, the disciples plucked the ears of corn because they were hungry. Your doctrine would lead you to call this murder. Your mind is an altar, not of God, but of lying devils, by whose doctrines the evil conscience is seared as with a hot iron, ¹ calling murder what the truth calls innocence. For in His words to the Jews, Christ by anticipation deals a fatal blow to you: "If ye had known what this meaneth, I desire mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless." ²