Traduction Masquer
Reply to Faustus the Manichaean

47.

But, it is said, if the prophets foretold Christ, they did not live in a way becoming their office. How can you tell whether they did or not? You are bad judges of what it is to live well or ill, whose justice consists in giving relief to an inanimate melon by eating it, instead of giving food to the starving beggar. It is enough for the babes in the Catholic Church, who do not yet know the perfect justice of the human soul, and the difference between the justice aimed at and that actually attained, to think of those men according to the wholesome doctrine of the apostles, that the just lives by faith. "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness. For the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thy seed shall all nations be blessed." ¹ These are the words of the apostle. If you would, at his clear well-known voice, wake up from your unprofitable dreams, you would follow in the footsteps of our father Abraham, and would be blessed, along with all nations, in his seed. For, as the apostle says, "He received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had, yet being uncircumcised, that he might be the father of all that believe in uncircumcision; that he might be the father of circumcision not only to those who are of the circumcision, but also to those who follow the footsteps of the faith of our father Abraham in uncircumcision." ² Since the righteousness of Abraham's faith is thus set forth as an example to us, that we too, being justified by faith, may have peace with God, we ought to understand his manner of life, without finding fault with it; lest, by a premature separation from mother-Church, we prove abortions, instead of being brought forth in due time, when the conception has arrived at completeness.

Edition Masquer
Contra Faustum Manichaeum libri triginta tres

47.

At enim si Christum prophetaverunt, non digne neque congruenter sua prophetatione vixerunt. Unde hoc scitis? An quid sit vel bene vel male vivere, iudicare vos potestis, quorum iustitia est potius succurrendum esse meloni non sentienti, ut eum vos manducetis, quam mendico esurienti ut manducandum aliquid detis? Catholicis autem parvulis, antequam sciant, quae sit animae humanae perfecta iustitia, et quantum intersit inter ipsam, cui suspiratur, et istam, qua hic vivitur, sufficit de illis viris hoc existimare, quod commendat apostolicae doctrinae sanitas, quia iustus ex fide vivit. Credidit autem Abraham deo et deputatum est ei ad iustitiam. Praevidens enim scriptura, quia ex fide iustificat gentes deus, praenuntiavit Abrahae dicens quia in semine tuo benedicentur omnes gentes. p. 376,8 Apostoli verba sunt. Ad cuius tam claram tamque omnibus notissimam vocem, si a vestris fallacissimis somniis evigilaretis, sequeremini vestigia patris nostri Abraham et in eius semine benediceremini cum omnibus gentibus. Ipse enim accepit sicut dicit apostolus signum circumcisionis signaculum iustitiae fidei, quae est in praeputio, ut sit pater omnium credentium per praeputium, ut deputetur et illis ad iustitiam; ut sit pater circumcisionis his, qui non solum ex circumcisione sunt, sed et his, qui sequuntur vestigia, quae est in praeputio fidei patris nostri Abraham. Cuius ergo iustitia fidei nobis ad exemplum imitanda proposita est, ut et nos iustificati ex fide pacem habeamus ad deum, intellegere debemus, quemadmodum vixerit, non reprehendere, ne ante per abortum labamur ex utero matris ecclesiae, quam per stabilem conceptum formati perfectique nascamur. p. 376,24