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Contra Faustum Manichaeum libri triginta tres

1.

Faustus dixit: Accipis vetus testamentum? Quomodo, cuius praecepta non servo? Puto quidem, quia nec tu: nam peritomen ego ut pudendam despui, ac, si non fallor, et tu; p. 284,14 cessationem sabbatorum ut supervacuam, credo, quod et tu; sacrificia ut idolatriam, non dubito, quod et tu.

Porcina certe non ego sola abstineo, tu item non solam comedis; ego quidem, quia omnem carnem immundam existimem, tu vero, quia nihil immundum; quo utroque ab utroque nostrum vetus destruitur testamentum. Azymophagiae hebdomadas, scenopegia uterque nostrum tamquam inutilia et vana contempsit. Lineis vestibus non inserere purpuras, in adulteriis ponere vestem linostimam, bovem et asinum iungere, si necesse sit, in sacrilegiis numerare, calvum aut reburrum et similis notae hominem non constituere sacerdotem, quia sunt huiusmodi apud deum immundi, uterque contempsimus, risimus nec in secundis habuimus nec in primis. p. 285,1 Quae omnia praecepta sunt et iustificationes veteris testamenti. Quod ergo obicis, tibi mecum commune est, sive crimen putandum seu recte factum; uterque enim nostrum vetus respuit testamentum. Ergo si quid intersit inter meam fidem quaeris et tuam, hoc, quia tibi mentiri libet et illiberaliter agere, ut quod mente oderis, verbo collaudes, ego fallere non didici; quod sentio, loquor, tam turpium odisse me fateor praeceptores quam ipsa praecepta.

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Reply to Faustus the Manichaean

1.

Faustus said: You ask if I believe the Old Testament. Of course not, for I do not keep its precepts. Neither, I imagine, do you. I reject circumcision as disgusting; and if I mistake not, so do you. I reject the observance of Sabbaths as superfluous: I suppose you do the same. I reject sacrifice as idolatry, as doubtless you also do. Swine's flesh is not the only flesh I abstain from; nor is it the only flesh you eat. I think all flesh unclean: you think none unclean. Both alike, in these opinions, throw over the Old Testament. We both look upon the weeks of unleavened bread and the feast of tabernacles as unnecessary and useless. Not to patch linen garments with purple; to count it adultery to make a garment of linen and wool; to call it sacrilege to yoke together an ox and an ass when necessary; not to appoint as priest a bald man, or a man with red hair, or any similar peculiarity, as being unclean in the sight of God, are things which we both despise and laugh at, and rank as of neither first nor second importance; and yet they are all precepts and judgments of the Old Testament. You cannot blame me for rejecting the Old Testament; for whether it is right or wrong to do so, you do it as much as I. As for the difference between your faith and mine, it is this, that while you choose to act deceitfully, and meanly to praise in words what in your heart you hate, I, not having learned the art of deception, frankly declare that I hate both these abominable precepts and their authors.