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Contra Faustum Manichaeum libri triginta tres

6.

Iterum si ad virginitatem sic adhortaremini, quemadmodum hortatur apostolica doctrina: qui dat nuptum, bene facit, et qui non dat nuptum, melius facit, ut bonum esse nuptias diceretis, sed meliorem virginitatem, sicut facit ecclesia, quae vere Christi est ecclesia, non vos spiritus sanctus ita praenuntiaret dicens : prohibentes nubere. Ille enim prohibet, qui hoc malum esse dicit, non qui huic bono aliud melius anteponit. Denique vos eum praecipue concubitum detestamini, qui solus honestus et coniugalis est et quem matrimoniales quoque tabulae prae se gerunt, liberorum procreandorum causa: unde vere non tam concumbere quam nubere prohibetis. p. 755,4 Concumbitur enim etiam causa libidinum, nubitur autem nonnisi filiorum . Nec ideo vos (nos?) dicatis non prohibere, quia multos vestros auditores in hoc oboedire nolentes vel non valentes salva amicitia toleratis. Illud enim habetis in doctrina vestri erroris, hoc in necessitate societatis. Hinc est, quod paulo ante distuleram dicere, cur vobis mors Christi visa sit vel fallax et simulata praedicanda et non etiam nativitas. Mortem quippe tamquam separationem animae, id est naturae dei vestri a corpore inimicorum eius, hoc est a figmento diaboli, praedicatis atque laudatis, ac per hoc rem dignam fuisse credidistis, quam Christus etsi non moriens, tamen mortem simulans commendaret. p. 755,15 In nativitate autem quia non solvi, sed ligari potius deum vestrum creditis, hanc nec saltem fallaciter imaginatum Christum credere voluistis, ita ut non sic vobis Maria displiceret, si concubuisset et non concepisset, quomodo displicet, quia non concubuit et tamen peperit. Videtis ergo multum interesse inter hortantes ad virginitatem bono minori bonum amplius praeponendo, et prohibentes nubere concubitum propagationis, qui solus proprie nuptialis est, vehementius accusando; multum interesse inter abstinentes a cibis propter sacramenti significationem vel propter corporis castigationem et abstinentes a cibis, quos deus creavit, dicendo, quod eos deus non creavit. Proinde illa doctrina est prophetarum et apostolorum, haec daemoniorum mendaciloquorum.

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Reply to Faustus the Manichaean

6.

So, again, if your exhortations to virginity resembled the teaching of the apostle, "He who giveth in marriage doeth well, and he who giveth not in marriage doeth better;" ¹ if you taught that marriage is good, and virginity better, as the Church teaches which is truly Christ's Church, you would not have been described in the Spirit's prediction as forbidding to marry. What a man forbids he makes evil; but a good thing may be placed second to a better thing without being forbidden. Moreover, the only honorable kind of marriage, or marriage entered into for its proper and legitimate purpose, is precisely that you hate most. So, though you may not forbid sexual intercourse, you forbid marriage; for the peculiarity of marriage is, that it is not merely for the gratification of passion, but, as is written in the contract, for the procreation of children. And, though you allow many of your followers to retain their connection with you in spite of their refusal, or their inability, to obey you, you cannot deny that you make the prohibition. The prohibition is part of your false doctrine, while the toleration is only for the interests of the society. And here we see the reason, which I have delayed till now to mention, for your making not the birth but only the death of Christ feigned and illusory. Death being the separation of the soul, that is, of the nature of your god, from the body which belongs to his enemies, for it is the work of the devil, you uphold and approve of it; and thus, according to your creed, it was meet that Christ, though He did not die, should commend death by appearing to die. In birth, again, you believe your god to be bound instead of released; and so you will not allow that Christ was born even in this illusory fashion. You would have thought better of Mary had she ceased to be a virgin without being a mother, than as being a mother without ceasing to be a virgin. You see, then, that there is a great difference between exhorting to virginity as the better of two good things, and forbidding to marry by denouncing the true purpose of marriage; between abstaining from food as a symbolic observance, or for the mortification of the body, and abstaining from food which God has created for the reason that God did not create it. In one case, we have the doctrine of the prophets and apostles; in the other, the doctrine of lying devils.