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Reply to Faustus the Manichaean

6.

If we read, "Cursed of God is every one that hangeth on a tree," the addition of the words "of God" creates no difficulty. For had not God hated sin and our death, He would not have sent His Son to bear and to abolish it. And there is nothing strange in God's cursing what He hates. For His readiness to give us the immortality which will be had at the coming of Christ, is in proportion to the compassion with which He hated our death when it hung on the cross at the death of Christ. And if Moses curses every one that hangeth on a tree, it is certainly not because he did not foresee that righteous men would be crucified, but rather because He foresaw that heretics would deny the death of the Lord to be real, and would try to disprove the application of this curse to Christ, in order that they might disprove the reality of His death. For if Christ's death was not real, nothing cursed hung on the cross when He was crucified, for the crucifixion cannot have been real. Moses cries from the distant past to these heretics: Your evasion in denying the reality of the death of Christ is useless. Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree; not this one or that, but absolutely every one. What! the Son of God? Yes, assuredly. This is the very thing you object to, and that you are so anxious to evade. You will not allow that He was cursed for us, because you will not allow that He died for us. Exemption from Adam's curse implies exemption from his death. But as Christ endured death as man, and for man; so also, Son of God as He was, ever living in His own righteousness, but dying for our offences, He submitted as man, and for man, to bear the curse which accompanies death. And as He died in the flesh which He took in bearing our punishment, so also, while ever blessed in His own righteousness, He was cursed for our offences, in the death which He suffered in bearing our punishment. And these words "every one" are intended to check the ignorant officiousness which would deny the reference of the curse to Christ, and so, because the curse goes along with death, would lead to the denial of the true death of Christ.

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Contra Faustum Manichaeum libri triginta tres

6.

Nec ideo maior invidia est, quod addiderit: Deo, ut diceret: Maledictus deo omnis, qui pependerit in ligno. Nisi enim deus odisset peccatum et mortem nostram, non ad eam suscipiendam atque delendam filium suum mitteret. Quid ergo mirum, si maledictum est deo, quod odit deus? Tanto enim libentius nobis donat immortalitatem, quae futura est Christo veniente, quanto misericordius odit mortem nostram, quae in ligno pependit Christo moriente. Quod autem additum est: Omnis, ut diceretur: maledictus omnis qui in ligno pependerit, non sane Moyses minus praevidit etiam iustos in cruce futuros, sed bene praevidit haereticos veram mortem domini negaturos et ideo volentes ab hoc maledicto Christum seiungere, ut a mortis etiam veritate seiungerent. p. 407,18 Si enim vera illa mors non erat, nullum maledictum Christo crucifixo pependit in ligno, quia nec vere crucifixus est. Sed contra longe futuros haereticos quam de longe clamat Moyses: Sine causa tergiversamini, quibus displicet veritas mortis Christi: ‛Maledictus omnis qui pendet in ligno’; non ille aut ille, sed omnis omnino! Etiamne et filius dei? Etiam prosus. Nam hoc est, quod non vultis; inde satagitis, inde seducitis. Displicet enim vobis maledictus pro nobis, quia displicet mortuus pro nobis: tunc enim extra maledictum illius Adam, si extra illius mortem. Cum vero ex homine et pro homine mortem suscepit, ex illo et pro illo etiam maledictum, quod morti comitatur, suscipere non dedignatus est, 408,1 etiam ille, prorsus etiam ille filius dei semper vivus in sua iustitia, mortuus autem propter delicta nostra in carne suscepta ex poena nostra. Sic et semper benedictus in sua iustitia, maledictus autem propter delicta nostra in morte suscepta ex poena nostra. Ac per hoc additum est: Omnis, ne Christus ad veram mortem non pertinere diceretur, si a maledicto, quod morti coniunctum est, insipienti honorificentia separaretur.