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Reply to Faustus the Manichaean

6.

Your statements about the sun himself are so false and absurd, that if he were to repay you for the injury done to him, he would scorch you to death. First of all, you call the sun a ship, so that you are not only astray worlds off, as the saying is, but adrift. Next, while every one sees that the sun is round, which is the form corresponding from its perfection to his position among the heavenly bodies, you maintain that he is triangular, that is, that his light shines on the earth through a triangular window in heaven. Hence it is that you bend and bow your heads to the sun, while you worship not this visible sun, but some imaginary ship which you suppose to be shining through a triangular opening. Assuredly this ship would never have been heard of, if the words required for the composition of heretical fictions had to be paid for, like the wood required for the beams of a ship. All this is comparatively harmless, however ridiculous or pitiable. Very different is your wicked fancy about youths of both sexes proceeding from this ship, whose beauty excites eager desire in the princes and princesses of darkness; and so the members of your god are released from this humiliating confinement in the members of the race of darkness, by means of sinful passion and sensual appetite. And to these filthy rags of yours you would unite the mystery of the Trinity; for you say that the Father dwells in a secret light, the power of the Son in the sun, and His wisdom in the moon, and the Holy Spirit in the air.

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Contra Faustum Manichaeum libri triginta tres

6.

Nam et de ipso tanta falsa et tam detestanda iactatis, ut si suas vindicaret iniurias, iam flammis eius vivi arderetis. Nam primo eum navem quandam esse dicitis; ita non solum, ut dicitur, toto caelo erratis, sed et natatis. Deinde cum omnium oculis rotundus effulgeat eaque illi figura pro sui ordinis positione perfecta sit, vos eum triangulum perhibetis, id est per quandam triangulam caeli fenestram lucem istam mundo terrisque radiare. Ita fit, ut ad istum quidem solem dorsum cervicemque curvetis, non autem ipsum tam clara rotunditate conspicuum, sed nescio quam navem per foramen triangulum micantem atque lucentem, quam confictam cogitatis, adoretis. p. 540,16 Quam profecto faber ille non faceret, si, quemadmodum emuntur ligna, quibus navigiorum tabulae compinguntur, sic emerentur et verba, quibus haereticorum fabulae confinguntur. Verum haec tolerabilius vel ridentur vel flentur in vobis; illud est intolerabiliter sceleratum, quod de ipsa navi puellas pulchras et pueros proponi dicitis, quorum formosissimis corporibus inardescant principes tenebrarum, ad feminas masculi et ad masculos feminae, ut in ipsa flagranti libidine et inhianti concupiscentia de membris eorum tamquam de taetris sordidisque compedibus dei vestri membra solvantur. p. 540,26 Et his obscaenissimis pannis vestris conamini assuere ineffabilem trinitatem dicentes patrem in secreto quodam lumine habitare, filii autem in sole virtutem, in luna sapientiam, spiritum vero sanctum in aere!