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Reply to Faustus the Manichaean

2.

Augustin replied: The Apostle Paul certainly uses the expression the inner man for the spirit of the mind, and the outer man for the body and for this mortal life; but we nowhere find him making these two different men, but one, which is all made by God, both the inner and the outer. However, it is made in the image of God only as regards the inner, which, besides being immaterial, is rational, and is not possessed by the lower animals. God, then, did not make one man after His own image, and another man not after that image; but the one man, which includes both the inner and the outer, He made after His own image, not as regards the possession of a body and of mortal life, but as regards the rational mind with the power of knowing God, and with the superiority as compared with all irrational creatures which the possession of reason implies. Faustus allows that the inner man is made by God, when, as he says, it is renewed in the knowledge of God after the image of Him that created him. I readily admit this on the apostle's authority. Why does not Faustus admit on the same authority that "God has placed the members every one in the body, as it has pleased Him"? ¹ Here we learn from the same apostle that God is the framer of the outer man too. Why does Faustus take only what he thinks to be in his own favor, while he leaves out or rejects what upsets the follies of the Manichaeans? Moreover, in treating of the earthy and the heavenly man, and making the distinction between the mortal and the immortal, between that which we are in Adam and that which we shall be in Christ, the apostle quotes the declaration of the law regarding the earthy or natural body, referring to the very book and the very passage where it is written that God made the earthy man too. Speaking of the manner in which the dead shall rise again, and of the body with which they shall come, after using the similitude of the seeds of corn, that they are sown bare grain, and that God gives them a body as it pleases Him, and to every seed his own body,--thus, by the way, overthrowing the error of the Manichaeans, who say that grains and plants, and all roots and shoots, are created by the race of darkness, and not by God, who, according to them, instead of exerting power in the production of these objects, is Himself subject to confinement in them,--he goes on, after this refutation of Manichaean impieties, to describe the different kinds of flesh. "All flesh," he says, "is not the same flesh." Then he speaks of celestial and terrestrial bodies, and then of the change of our body by which it will become spiritual and heavenly. "It is sown," he says, "in dishonor, it shall rise in glory; it is sown in weakness, it shall rise in power; it is sown a natural body, it shall rise a spiritual body." Then, in order to show the origin of the animal body, he says, "There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body; as it is written, The first man, Adam, was made a living soul." ² Now this is written in Genesis, ³ where it is related how God made man, and animated the body which He had formed of the earth. By the old man the apostle simply means the old life, which is a life in sin, and is after the manner of Adam, of whom it is said, "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, in that all have sinned." ⁴ Thus the whole of this man, both the inner and the outer part, has become old because of sin, and liable to the punishment of mortality. There is, however, a restoration of the inner man, when it is renewed after the image of its Creator, in the putting off of unrighteousness--that is, the old man, and putting on righteousness--that is, the new man. But when that which is sown a natural body shall rise a spiritual body, the outer man too shall attain the dignity of a celestial character; so that all that has been created may be created anew, and all that has been made be remade by the Creator and Maker Himself. This is briefly explained in the words: "The body is dead because of sin; but the spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead will also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit dwelling in you." ⁵ No one instructed in the Catholic doctrine but knows that it is in the body that some are male and some female, not in the spirit of the mind, in which we are renewed after the image of God. But elsewhere the apostle teaches that God is the Maker of both; for he says, "Neither is the woman without the man, nor the man without the woman, in the Lord; for as the woman is of the man, so is the man by the woman; but all things are of God." ⁶ The only reply given to this, by the perverse stupidity of those who are alienated from the life of God by the ignorance which is in them, on account of the blindness of their heart, is, that whatever pleases them in the apostolic writings is true, and whatever displeases them is false. This is the insanity of the Manichaeans, who will be wise if they cease to be Manichaeans. As it is, if they are asked whether it is He that remakes and renews the inner man (which they acknowledge to be renewed after the image of God, and they themselves quote the passage in support of this; and, according to Faustus, God makes man when the inner man is renewed in the image of God), they will answer, yes. And if we then go on to ask when God made what He now renews, they must devise some subterfuge to prevent the exposure of their absurdities. For, according to them, the inner man is not formed or created or originated by God, but is part of His own substance sent against His enemies; and instead of becoming old by sin, it is through necessity captured and damaged by the enemy. Not to repeat all the nonsense they talk, the first man they speak of is not the man of the earth earthy that the apostle speaks of, ⁷ but an invention proceeding from their own magazine of untruths. Faustus, though he chooses man as a subject for discussion, says not a word of this first man; for he is afraid that his opponents in the discussion might come to know something about him.

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Contra Faustum Manichaeum libri triginta tres

2.

Augustinus respondit: Paulus quidem apostolus interiorem hominem per spiritum mentis, exteriorem vero in corpore atque ista mortali vita vult intellegi; non tamen utrumque horum simul duos homines eum dixisse aliquando in eius litteris legitur, sed unum, quem totum deus fecerit, id est et id, quod interius est, et id, quod exterius; sed eum ad imaginem suam non fecit nisi secundum id, quod interius est, non solum incorporeum, verum etiam rationale, quod pecoribus non inest. Non itaque unum hominem fecit ad imaginem suam et alterum fecit non ad imaginem suam, sed quia hoc utrumque, interius et exterius, simul unus homo est, hunc unum hominem ad imaginem suam fecit, non secundum id, quod habet corpus corporalemque vitam, sed secundum id, quod habet rationalem mentem, qua cognoscat deum et omnibus irrationalibus eadem rationis excellentia praeponatur. Sed illud interius concedit Faustus a deo fieri, cum renovatur inquit in agnitionem dei secundum imaginem eius, qui creavit eum . p. 721,24 Hanc apostolicam plane agnosco sententiam; quare ipse alteram non agnoscit: Deus posuit membra, singulum quodque eorum in corpore prout voluit? Ecce deus etiam exterioris hominis effector ab eodem apostolo praedicatur; quare inde eligit, quod pro se putat, et tacet aut respuit, quod Manichaei fabulas amputat? p. 722,4 Item cum de terreno et caelesti homine dissereret idem Paulus inter mortalem immortalemque discernens, inter id, quod in Adam sumus, et illud, quod in Christo erimus, ex ipsa lege, ex ipso libro et ex ipso loco adhibuit terreni, id est animalis corporis testimonium, ubi scriptum est, quod deus etiam terrenum hominem fecit. Nam cum ageret, quomodo resurgent mortui et quo corpore venient, cum dedisset similitudines de seminibus frumentorum, quod nuda grana seminentur et deus illis det corpus, quomodo voluerit, unicuique seminum proprium corpus – ubi nihilominus Manichaei evertit errorem, qui et grana et herbas et omnes radices ac frutices gentem tenebrarum dicit creare, non deum et in eis formis atque generibus rerum deum potius credit alligari quam horum aliquid operari – cum ergo contra Manichaei sacrilegam vanitatem etiam ista dixisset, venit ad carnium differentias: p. 722,19 Non omnis inquit caro eadem caro, inde ad corporum caelestium atque terrestrium, inde ad mutationem corporis nostri, qua fieri possit spiritale atque caeleste: Seminatur inquit in contumelia, surget in gloria; seminatur in infirmitate, surget in virtute; seminatur corpus animale, surget corpus spiritale. Atque inde volens ostendere originem corporis animalis, si est inquit corpus animale, est et spiritale; sic et scriptum est: ‛Factus est primus homo Adam in animam viventem’. Hoc autem in genesi scriptum est, ubi narratur, quomodo deus hominem fecerit et corpus, quod de terra formaverat, animaverit. p. 723,3 Veterem autem hominem nihil aliud apostolus quam vitam veterem dicit, quae in peccato est, in quo secundum Adam vivitur, de quo dicit: Per unum hominem peccatum intravit in mundum et per peccatum mors; et ita in omnes homines pertransivit, in quo omnes peccaverunt. Ergo totus ille homo, id est et interiore et exteriore sui parte, inveteravit propter peccatum et poenae mortalitatis addictus est; renovatur autem nunc secundum interiorem hominem, ubi secundum sui creatoris imaginem reformatur, exuens se iniustitiam, hoc est veterem hominem, et induens iustitiam, hoc est novum hominem. Tunc autem, cum resurget corpus spiritale, quod seminatur animale, etiam exterior percipiet caelestis habitudinis dignitatem, ut totum, quod creatum est, recreetur et totum, quod factum est, reficiatur illo recreante, qui creavit, et reficiente, qui fecit. p. 723,18 Quod breviter explicat, ubi ait: Corpus quidem mortuum est propter peccatum, spiritus autem vita est propter iustitiam. Si autem spiritus eius, qui suscitavit Christum a mortuis, habitat in vobis, qui suscitavit Christum a mortuis, vivificabit et mortalia corpora vestra per habitantem spiritum eius in vobis. Nam quis catholica veritate instructus ignorat secundum corpus esse alios homines masculos, alias feminas, non secundum spiritum mentis, in quo renovamur secundum imaginem dei? Verumtamen quia utrumque deus fecit, rursum idem apostolus testis est, ubi dicit: Neque mulier sine viro neque vir sine muliere in domino; sicut enim mulier ex viro, ita et vir per mulierem; omnia autem ex deo. Quid ad haec dicit inepta fallacia hominum alienatorum a vita dei per ignorantiam, quae est in illis propter caecitatem cordis eorum, nisi: In apostolicis litteris quod volumus, verum est, quod nolumus, falsum est? p. 724,6 Sic delirent Manichaei ; si (et codd.) resipiscant et non sint Manichaei. A quibus si quaeritur – quoniam interiorem hominem renovari ad imaginem dei fatentur et hoc testimonium ultro etiam proferunt; tunc autem dicit Faustus quod deus faciat hominem, quando interior in dei agnitione renovatur – utrum eum ipse fecerit, qui reficit, ipse condiderit, qui renovat, respondebunt: Ipse. Cui responsioni eorum si adiciamus quaerentes, quando eum formaverit, quem nunc reformat, quaerent, ubi se abscondant, ne fabulae suae dedecus aperire cogantur. Neque enim dicunt a deo formatum vel conditum vel institutum, sed de substantia eius partem prorsus eius adversus hostes missam; nec peccato inveteratum, sed necessitate captivatum et deformatum ab inimicis et cetera, quae iam taedet dicere. p. 724,19 Ibi enim et primum hominem commemorant, non quem dicit apostolus de terra terrenum, sed nescio quem suum proprium ex arca mendaciorum prosilientem; de quo Faustus tacet omnino, cum de homine sibi proposuerit quaestionem, timens, ne aliquo modo eis, contra quos disputat, innotescat.