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Contra Faustum Manichaeum libri triginta tres

7.

Inest tamen ille haereticus typhus intolerabilisque superbia: Vides in me inquit Christi beatitudines illas, quae evangelium faciunt, et interrogas, utrum illud accipiam! Vides pauperem, vides mitem, vides pacificum, puro corde, lugentem, esurientem, sitientem, persecutiones et odia sustinentem propter iustitiam, et dubitas, utrum accipiam evangelium! p. 279,2 Si hoc esset iustum esse, iustificare se ipsum, verbis suis volasset in caelum homo iste, cum haec loqueretur. Sed ego in delicias Fausti non invehor notas omnibus auditoribus Manichaeorum et eis maxime qui sunt Romae; talem propono Manichaeum, qualem Constantius requirebat, cum illa praecepta exigebat impleri, non qualem videri nolebat: p. 279,8 et illum tamen quomodo video pauperem spiritu, qui tam superbus est, ut animam suam deum credat nec captivus erubescat? quomodo mitem, qui tantae auctoritati evangelicae mavult insultare quam credere? quomodo pacificum, qui naturam ipsam divinam, qua deus est quicquid est, qui solus vere est, perpetuam pacem habere potuisse non putat? quomodo puro corde, in quo tumultuantur tam sacrilega et tam multa figmenta? quomodo lugentem, nisi deum captum et ligatum, donec solvatur et evadat ex quadam tamen parte decurtatus, quae in globo tenebrarum a patre ligabitur et non lugebitur? p. 279,18 quomodo esurientem et sitientem iustitiam, quam Faustus in scriptis suis non addidit, credo, ne sibi deesse videretur, si eam se adhuc esurire ac sitire fateretur? Sed quam iustitiam isti esuriunt et sitiunt, quibus perfecta iustitia erit damnatis in globo fratribus, qui nihil suo vitio peccaverunt, sed hostili tabe, quo eos pater misit, inexpiabiliter infecti sunt, insuper triumphare?

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Reply to Faustus the Manichaean

7.

The language of Faustus has the typhus of heresy in it, and is the language of overweening arrogance. "You see in me" he says, "the beatitudes of the gospel; and do you ask if I believe the gospel? You see me poor, meek, a peacemaker, pure in heart, mourning, hungering, thirsting, bearing persecution and enmity for righteousness' sake; and do you doubt my belief in the gospel?" If to justify oneself were to be just, Faustus would have flown to heaven while uttering these words. I say nothing of the luxurious habits of Faustus, known to all the followers of the Manichaeans, and especially to those at Rome. I shall suppose a Manichaean such as Constantius sought for, when he enforced the observance of these precepts with the sincere desire to see them observed. How can I see him to be poor in spirit, when he is so proud as to believe that his own soul is God, and is not ashamed to speak of God as in bondage? How can I see him meek, when he affronts all the authority of the evangelists rather than believe? How a peacemaker, when he holds that the divine nature itself by which God is whatever is, and is the only true existence, could not remain in lasting peace? How pure in heart, when his heart is filled with so many impious notions? How mourning, unless it is for his God captive and bound till he be freed and escape, with the loss, however, of a part which is to be united by the Father to the mass of darkness, and is not to be mourned for? How hungering and thirsting for righteousness, which Faustus omits in his writings lest, no doubt, he should be thought destitute of righteousness? But how can they hunger and thirst after righteousness, whose perfect righteousness will consist in exulting over their brethren condemned to darkness, not for any fault of their own, but for being irremediably contaminated by the pollution against which they were sent by the Father to contend?