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Reply to Faustus the Manichaean

4.

Augustin replied: Since you continue repeating what has been so often exposed and refuted, we must be content to repeat the refutation. The things in the law and the prophets which Christians do not observe, are only the types of what they do observe. These types were figures of things to come, and are necessarily removed when the things themselves are fully revealed by Christ, that in this very removal the law and the prophets may be fulfilled. So it is written in the prophets that God would give a new covenant, "not as I gave to their fathers." ¹ Such was the hardness of heart of the people under the Old Testament, that many precepts were given to them, not so much because they were good, as because they suited the people. Still, in all these things the future was foretold and prefigured, although the people did not understand the meaning of their own observances. After the manifest appearance of the things thus signified, we are not required to observe the types; but we read them to see their meaning. So, again, it is foretold in the prophets, "I will take away their stony heart, and will give them a heart of flesh," ² --that is, a sensible heart, instead of an insensible one. To this the apostle alludes in the words: "Not in tables of stone, but in the fleshy tables of the heart." ³ The fleshy tables of the heart are the same as the heart of flesh. Since, then, the removal of these observances is foretold, the law and the prophets could not have been fulfilled but by this removal. Now, however, the prediction is accomplished, and the fulfillment of the law and the prophets is found in what at first sight seems the very opposite.

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Contra Faustum Manichaeum libri triginta tres

4.

Augustinus respondit: Iam totiens explosa atque convicta quia repetis, nos quoque, quibus ea convicimus, repetere non pigebit. Ea christiani ex lege et prophetis non faciunt, quibus significata sunt ista, quae faciunt. Illae quippe erant figurae futurorum, quas rebus ipsis per Christum revelatis et praesentatis auferri oportebat, ut eo quoque ipso, quod haec ablata sunt, lex et prophetae implerentur. Ibi quippe et hoc scriptum est daturum deum testamentum novum, non quale dedi inquit patribus eorum. Populus enim ille pro suo corde lapideo multa praecepta magis sibi congrua quam bona acceperat, quibus tamen figurarentur et prophetarentur futura; sed a non intellegentibus celebrabantur. 493,6 Cum autem venerunt et patefacta sunt, quae illis significabantur, non iam illa iubentur facienda, sed leguntur intellegenda. Unde ibi de hac etiam re futura dicitur: Auferam eis cor lapideum et dabo eis cor carneum, id est non cor sine sensu, sed cor cum sensu. Unde traxit apostolus cum ait: Non in tabulis lapideis, sed in tabulis cordis carnalibus. Quid enim aliud dixit quam cor carneum? Quia ergo et hoc praedictum erat, magis si ista de nostra celebratione non auferrentur, non implerentur lex et prophetae, quia non fieret, quod praedixerant. p. 493,16 Cum vero et hoc fit, inde potius intelleguntur adimpleri, unde vobis videntur non adimpleri.