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Reply to Faustus the Manichaean

3.

For my part, I see no reason for your thinking that we blaspheme your prophets and patriarchs. There would indeed be some ground for the charge, if we had been directly or remotely the authors of the account given of their actions. But as this account is written either by themselves, in a criminal desire to be famous for their misdeeds, or by their companions and coevals, why should you blame us? You condemn them in abhorrence of the wicked actions of which they have voluntarily declared themselves guilty, though there was no occasion for such a confession. Or if the narrative is only a malicious fiction, let its authors be punished, let the books be condemned, let the prophetic name be cleared from this foul reproach, let the patriarchs recover the respect due to their simplicity and purity of managers.

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Contra Faustum Manichaeum libri triginta tres

3.

Ad haec et prophetas ac patriarchas vestros cur nos blasphemare existimetis, ego non video. Nam si a nobis scripta haec dictatave fuissent, quae idem commisisse leguntur, esset vestra haec in nos non irrationabilis accusatio. Ubi vero aut ab ipsis eadem scripta sunt contra honestatis morem de vitiis captantibus gloriam aut ab eorum sociis ac paribus, nostra quae istic culpa est? Damnamus enim detestati actus iniquos, quos ultro de se nec interrogati confessi sunt rei. Aut si haec per invidiam scriptorum adversus eos malignitas finxit, puniantur scriptores, damnentur eorum libri, purgetur propheticum nomen indigna fama, gravitati atque censurae suae patriarcharum reddatur auctoritas.