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Reply to Faustus the Manichaean

5.

With all this, you venture to denounce the sacrifices of the Old Testament, and to call them idolatry, and to attribute to us the same impious notion. To answer for ourselves in the first place, while we consider it no longer a duty to offer sacrifices, we recognize sacrifices as part of the mysteries of Revelation, by which the things prophesied were foreshadowed. For they were our examples, and in many and various ways they all pointed to the one sacrifice which we now commemorate. Now that this sacrifice has been revealed, and has been offered in due time, sacrifice is no longer binding as an act of worship, while it retains its symbolical authority. For these things "were written for our learning, upon whom the end of the world is come." ¹ What you object to in sacrifice is the slaughter of animals, though the whole animal creation is intended conditionally in some way for the use of man. You are merciful to beasts, believing them to contain the souls of human beings, while you refuse a piece of bread to a hungry beggar. The Lord Jesus, on the other hand, was cruel to the swine when He granted the request of the devils to be allowed to enter into them. ² The same Lord Jesus, before the sacrifice of His passion, said to a leper whom He had cured, "Go, show thyself to the priest, and give the offering, as Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them." ³ When God, by the prophets, repeatedly declares that He needs no offering, as indeed reason teaches us that offerings cannot be needed by Him who stands in need of nothing, the human mind is led to inquire what God wished to teach us by these sacrifices. For, assuredly, He would not have required offerings of which He had no need, except to teach us something that it would profit us to know, and which was suitably set forth by means of these symbols. How much better and more honorable it would be for you to be still bound by these sacrifices, which have an instructive meaning, though they are not now necessary, than to require your followers to offer to you as food what you believe to be living victims. The Apostle Paul says most appropriately of some who preached the gospel to gratify their appetite, that their "god was their belly." ⁴ But the arrogance of your impiety goes much beyond this; for, instead of making your belly your god, you do what is far worse in making your belly the purifier of God. Surely it is great madness to make a pretence of piety in not slaughtering animals, while you hold that the souls of animals inhabit all the food you eat, and yet make what you call living creatures suffer such torture from your hands and teeth.

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Contra Faustum Manichaeum libri triginta tres

5.

Et audetis tamen etiam sacrificia testamenti veteris exsecrari et idolatriam nominare et in huiusmodi sacrilegium nos quoque sociare. Unde pro nobis prius respondemus sic illa iam non esse in operibus nostris, ut ea tamen in mysteriis divinarum scripturarum ad intellegenda, quae his praenuntiata sunt, amplectamur, quia et ipsa figurae nostrae fuerunt et omnia talia multis et variis modis unum sacrificium, cuius nunc memoriam celebramus, significaverunt. Unde isto revelato et suo tempore oblato illa de agendi celebritate sublata sunt, sed in significandi auctoritate manserunt; scripta sunt enim propter nos, in quos finis saeculorum obvenit p. 291,6 Sed in eis videlicet interfectio vos movet animalium, cum ista omnis creatura usibus hominum quodam modo condicionaliter serviat. Sed vos, qui homini mendico esurienti panem non porrigitis, misericordes estis in pecora, quibus animas humanas inesse creditis. Dominus autem Iesus in ea crudelis fuit, cum daemones in gregem porcorum, cum id ab eo peterent, ire permisit. Qui etiam nondum demonstrato per passionem sacrificio corporis sui cuidam leproso, quem mundaverat, ait: vade et ostende te sacerdoti, et offer pro te, quod praecepit Moyses, in testimonium illis! Magis enim, quia et per prophetas deus saepe testatur nullius se talis muneris indigere, et facile est ratione perspicere, quod nec eius rei egeat, qui nullius eget, compellitur animus humanus inquirere, quid nos per haec docere voluerit, qui utique non frustra ea, quibus non indiget, sibi iuberet offerri, nisi aliquid in eis ostenderet, quod nobis et nosse prodesset et talibus signis praefigurari oporteret. p. 291,22 Vos autem quanto melius et honestius istis quamvis iam nostro tempori non necessariis, tamen significantibus aliquid et docentibus sacrificiis subderemini, quam vobis ab auditoribus vestris vivas escarum victimas offerri iuberetis et crederetis! Nam cum apostolus Paulus de quibusdam propter epulas evangelium praedicantibus congruentissime dixerit: Quorum deus venter, quanto vos arrogantiore impietate iactatis, qui bentrem bestrum non deum, sed quod sceleratioris audaciae est, dei mundatorem dicere non timetis! p. 292,3 Cuius porro dementiae est pios se videri velle, quod ab animalium interfectione se temperent, cum omnes suas escas easdem animas habere dicant, quibus, ut putant, viventibus tanta vulnera et manibus et dentibus ingerunt!