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Contra Faustum Manichaeum libri triginta tres

17.

Sicut ergo ista verba, ita illa prioris populi sacramenta, quia per eum, qui non venit legem et prophetas solvere sed adimplere, iam impleta sunt, ideo tolli mutarique debuerunt, quod primis christianis, qui ex Iudaeis crediderant, donec contra tam diuturnam consuetudinem paulatim persuaderetur atque ad intellectum perfectum perduceretur, ‹ impositum non est S›, p.514,9 et quia ita nati erant atque instituti siverunt eos apostoli patrium ritum traditionemque servare et eos, quibus hoc opus erat, ut congruerent illorum tarditati moribusque, monuerunt. Inde est quod Timotheum Iudaea matre et Graeco patre natum propter illos, ad quos tales cum eo venerat, etiam circumcidit apostolus atque ipse inter eos morem huiusmodi custodivit non simulatione fallaci, sed consilio prudenti; neque enim ita natis et ita institutis noxia erant ista, quamvis iam non essent significandis futuris necessaria. p. 514,18 Magis quippe noxium erat ea tamquam noxia prohibere in his hominibus, usque ad quos durare debuerunt, quoniam Christus, qui omnes illas prophetias implere venerat, sic eos initiatos invenerat, ut iam de cetero, qui nulla tali necessitudine tenerentur, sed ex diverso veluti pariete, id est ex praeputio, ad illum angularem lapidem, qui Christus est, convenirent, ad nulla talia cogerentur, si autem his, qui ex circumcisione venerant talibusque sacramentis adhuc dediti erant, ultro vellent, sicut Timotheus, conferre congruentiam, non prohiberentur, verum si in huiusmodi legis operibus putarent suam spem salutemque contineri, tamquam a certa pernicie vetarentur. Unde est illud apostoli: Ecce ego Paulus dico vobis, quia si circumcidamini, Christus vobis nihil proderit, circumcidamini scilicet, sicut ipsi volebant, sicut eis a quibusdam depravatis persuasum erat, quod sine his legis operibus salvi esse non possent. p. 515,6 Nam cum gentes ad Christi fidem ita venirent, maxime per Pauli apostoli praedicationem, sicut venire debuerunt, ut nullis eiusmodi observationibus onerarentur – quia et insolita ista, maxime circumcisionem, grandes aetate reformidantes deterrerentur a fide, et non ita nati, ut talibus sacramentis imbuerentur, si more pristino proselyti fierent, tamquam Christus per illa mysteria venturus adhuc promitteretur – cum ergo sic venirent ad fidem, ut iam ex gentibus venire oportebat, non intellegentes qui ex circumcisione venerant, cur sibi illa permissa essent, et cur gentibus imponenda non essent, quibusdam carnalibus seditionibus coeperant ecclesiam perturbare, p. 515,18 quod gentiles ad dei populum accedentes non sollemniter proselyti fierent in carnis circumcisione et ceteris huiuscemodi observationibus legis. Atque in his erant, qui hoc ideo fieri magnopere insistebant, quia timebant Iudaeos, inter quos versabantur. Contra hos apostolus Paulus multa scripsit; nam in horum simulationem etiam Petrum adductum fraterna obiurgatione correxit. Sed posteaquam in unum apostoli congregati etiam concilio suo censuerunt gentes ad huiusmodi opera legis non esse cogendas, displicuit quibusdam ex circumcisione christianis non valentibus mente discernere illos solos ab huiusmodi observationibus non fuisse prohibendos, quos fides, quae revelata est, his iam imbutos invenerat, p. 516,2 ut in eis iam consummaretur ipsa actio prophetica, quos ante adimpletionem prophetiae iam tenuerat, ne si et ab ipsis removeretur, improbata potius quam terminata videretur, si autem et gentibus imponeretur, aut non Christi promittendi causa instituta esse, aut adhuc Christum promittere putaretur. Primus itaque populus dei, antequam Christus veniret legem prophetasque adimplere, illa omnia, quae hunc promittebant, observare iubebatur, liber in eis, qui haec quo pertinerent intellegebant, servus autem in eis, qui hoc non intellegebant. Posterior ergo populus accedens ad fidem, qua iam Christus venisse, passus esse ac resurrexisse praedicabatur, in his quidem hominibus, quos iam talibus sacramentis institutos eadem fides invenerat, nec cogebatur ista observare nec prohibebatur; p. 516,15 in his autem, qui talibus vacui, nulla generis nulla consuetudinis vel congruentiae necessitudine retenti crediderant, etiam prohibebatur, ut per eos iam inciperet apparere illa omnia propter promittendum Christum fuisse instituta, quo veniente atque haec promissa adimplente iam oportere cessare. Hoc igitur temperamentum moderamentumque spiritus sancti per apostolos operantis cum displicuisset quibusdam ex circumcisione credentibus, qui haec non intellegebant, in ea perversitate manserunt, ut et gentes cogerent iudaizare. Hi sunt, quos Faustus Symmachianorum vel Nazaraeorum nomine commemoravit, qui usque ad nostra tempora iam quidem in exigua, sed adhuc tamen vel in ipsa paucitate perdurant. p. 516,28

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Reply to Faustus the Manichaean

17.

Corresponding to this change in words is the change which naturally took place in the substitution of new sacraments instead of those of the Old Testament. In the case of the first Christians, who came to the faith as Jews, it was by degrees that they were brought to change their customs, and to have a clear perception of the truth; and permission was given them by the apostle to preserve their hereditary worship and belief, in which they had been born and brought up; and those who had to do with them were required to make allowance for this reluctance to accept new customs. So the apostle circumcised Timothy, the son of a Jewish mother and a Greek father, when they went among people of this kind; and he himself accommodated his practice to theirs, not hypocritically, but for a wise purpose. For these practices were harmless in the case of those born and brought up in them, though they were no longer required to prefigure things to come. It would have done more harm to condemn them as hurtful in the case of those to whose time it was intended that they should continue. Christ, who came to fulfill all these prophecies, found those people trained in their own religion. But in the case of those who had no such training, but were brought to Christ, the corner-stone, from the opposite wall of circumcision, there was no obligation to adopt Jewish customs. If, indeed, like Timothy, they chose to accommodate themselves to the views of those of the circumcision who were still wedded to their old sacraments, they were free to do so. But if they supposed that their hope and salvation depended on these works of the law, they were warned against them as a fatal danger. So the apostle says: "Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing;" ¹ that is, if they were circumcised, as they were intending to be, in compliance with some corrupt teachers, who told them that without these works of the law they could not be saved. For when, chiefly through the preaching of the Apostle Paul, the Gentiles were coming to the faith of Christ, as it was proper that they should come, without being burdened with Jewish observances--for those who were grown up were deterred from the faith by fear of ceremonies to which they were not accustomed, especially of circumcision; and if they who had not been trained from their birth to such observances had been made proselytes in the usual way, it would have implied that the coming of Christ still required to be predicted as a future event;--when, then, the Gentiles were admitted without these ceremonies, those of the circumcision who believed, not understanding why the Gentiles were not required to adopt their customs, nor why they themselves were still allowed to retain them, began to disturb the Church with carnal contentions, because the Gentiles were admitted into the people of God without being made proselytes in the usual way by circumcision and the other legal observances. Some also of the converted Gentiles were bent on these ceremonies, from fear of the Jews among whom they lived. Against these Gentiles the Apostle Paul often wrote, and when Peter was carried away by their hypocrisy, he corrected him with a brotherly rebuke. ² Afterwards, when the apostles met in council, decreed that these works of the law were not obligatory in the case of the Gentiles, ³ some Christians of the circumcision were displeased, because they failed to understand that these observances were permissible only in those who had been trained in them before the revelation of faith, to bring to a close the prophetic life in those who were engaged in it before the prophecy was fulfilled, lest by a compulsory abandonment it should seem to be condemned rather than closed; while to lay these things on the Gentiles would imply either that they were not instituted to prefigure Christ, or that Christ was still to be prefigured. The ancient people of God, before Christ came to fulfill the law and the prophets, were required to observe all these things by which Christ was prefigured. It was freedom to those who understood the meaning of the observance, but it was bondage to those who did not. But the people in those latter times who come to believe in Christ as having already come, and suffered, and risen, in the case of those whom this faith found trained to those sacraments, are neither required to observe them, nor prohibited from doing so; while there is a prohibition in the case of those who were not bound by the ties of custom, or by any necessity, to accommodate themselves to the practice of others, so that it might become manifest that these things were instituted to prefigure Christ, and that after His coming they were to cease, because the promises had been fulfilled. Some believers of the circumcision who did not understand this were displeased with this tolerant arrangement which the Holy Spirit effected through the apostles, and stubbornly insisted on the Gentiles becoming Jews. These are the people of whom Faustus speaks under the name of Symmachians or Nazareans. Their number is now very small, but the sect still continues.