Traduction Masquer
Reply to Faustus the Manichaean

9.

But besides your errors regarding these conspicuous and familiar luminaries, which you worship not for what they are, but for what your wild fancy makes them to be, your other absurdities are still worse than this. Your illustrious World-bearer, and Atlas who helps to hold him up, are unreal beings. Like innumerable other creatures of your fancy, they have no existence, and yet you worship them. For this reason we say that you are worse than Pagans, while you resemble them in worshipping many gods. You are worse, because, while they worship things which exist though they are not gods, you worship things which are neither gods nor anything else, for they have no existence. The Pagans, too, have fables, but they know them to be fables; and either look upon them as amusing poetical fancies, or try to explain them as representing the nature of things, or the life of man. Thus they say that Vulcan is lame, because flame in common fire has an irregular motion: that Fortune is blind, because of the uncertainty of what are called fortuitous occurrences: that there are three Fates, with distaff, and spindle, and fingers spinning wool into thread, because there are three times,--the past, already spun and wound on the spindle; the present, which is passing through the fingers of the spinner; and the future, still in wool bound to the distaff, and soon to pass through the fingers to the spindle, that is, through the present into the future: and that Venus is the wife of Vulcan, because pleasure has a natural connection with heat; and that she is the mistress of Mars, because pleasure is not properly the companion of warriors: and that Cupid is a boy with wings and a bow, from the wounds inflicted by thoughtless, inconstant passion in the hearts of unhappy beings: and so with many other fables. The great absurdity is in their continuing to worship these beings, after giving such explanations; for the worship without the explanations, though criminal, would be a less heinous crime. The very explanations prove that they do not worship that God, the enjoyment of whom can alone give happiness, but things which He has created. And even in the creature they worship not only the virtues, as in Minerva, who sprang from the head of Jupiter, and who represents prudence,--a quality of reason which, according to Plato, has its seat in the head,--but their vices, too, as in Cupid. Thus one of their dramatic poets says, "Sinful passion, in favor of vice, made Love a god." ¹ Even bodily evils had temples in Rome, as in the case of pallor and fever. Not to dwell on the sin of the worshippers of these idols, who are in a way affected by the bodily forms, so that they pay homage to them as deities, when they see them set up in some lofty place, and treated with great honor and reverence, there is greater sin in the very explanations which are intended as apologies for these dumb, and deaf, and blind, and lifeless objects. Still, though, as I have said, these things are nothing in the way of salvation or of usefulness, both they and the things they are said to represent are real existences. But your First Man, warring with the five elements; and your Mighty Spirit, who constructs the world from the captive bodies of the race of darkness, or rather from the members of your god in subjection and bondage; and your World-holder, who has in his hand the remains of these members, and who bewails the capture and bondage and pollution of the rest; and your giant Atlas, who keeps up the World-holder on his shoulders, lest he should from weariness throw away his burden, and so prevent the completion of the final imitation of the mass of darkness, which is to be the last scene in your drama;--these and countless other absurdities are not represented in painting or sculpture, or in any explanation; and yet you believe and worship things which have no existence, while you taunt the Christians with being credulous for believing in realities with a faith which pacifies the mind under its influence. The objects of your worship can be shown to have no existence by many proofs, which I do not bring forward here, because, though I could without difficulty discourse philosophically on the construction of the world, it would take too long to do so here. One proof suffices. If these things are real, God must be subject to change, and corruption, and contamination; a supposition as blasphemous as it is irrational. All these things, therefore, are vain, and false, and unreal. Thus you are much worse than those Pagans, with whom all are familiar, and who still preserve traces of their old customs, of which they themselves are ashamed; for while they worship things which are not gods, you worship things which do not exist.

Edition Masquer
Contra Faustum Manichaeum libri triginta tres

9.

Verum si in istis tam eminentibus notissimisque luminibus sic erratis, ut in eis non quod sunt, sed quod vobis dementissime fingitis adoretis, quid de ceteris vestris fabulis dicam? Quis enim Splenditenens suspendit mundum et quis Atlas cum illo supportat? Haec et innumerabilia, quae similiter deliratis, omnino non sunt et colitis ea. Hinc vos paganis dicimus deteriores, eo tantum similes, quod multos deos colitis, eo vero in peiorem partem dissimiles, quod illi pro diis ea colunt, quae sunt, sed dii non sunt, vos autem colitis ea, quae nec dii nec aliquid sunt, quoniam prorsus nulla sunt. Habent quidem et illi quaedam fabulosa figmenta, sed esse illas fabulas norunt et vel a poetis delectandi causa fictas esse asserunt vel eas ad naturam rerum vel mores hominum interpretari conantur, p. 544,20 sicut Vulcanum claudum, quia ignis terreni motus eiusmodi est, et Fortunam caecam, quod ex incerto accidant, quae fortuita dicuntur, et tria Fata in colo et fuso digitisque filum ex lana torquentibus propter tria tempora, praeteritum, quod in fuso iam netum atque involutum est, praesens, quod inter digitos nentis traicitur, futurum in lana, quae colo implicata est, quod adhuc per digitos nentis ad fusum tamquam per praesens ad praeteritum traiciendum est; et Venerem Vulcani uxorem, quia ex calore voluptas naturaliter asciscitur, et Martis adulteram, quia belligerantibus incongrua est; et Cupidinem puerum volitantem ac sagittantem, quod irrationabilis et instabilis amor corda vulneret miserorum, p. 545,5 et alia permulta in hunc modum. Quocirca hoc in eis irridemus, quod interpretata sic adorant, quae non intellecta quamvis damnabiliter, tamen excusabilius adorarent. Ipsis quippe interpretationibus convincuntur non se illum deum colere, cuius solius participatione mens beata fit, sed ab illo conditam creaturam, nec solas virtutes ipsius creaturae, sicut Minervam, cuius fabulam, quod de Iovis capite nata sit, ad prudentiam consiliorum interpretantur, quae rationis est propria, cui sedem capitis etiam Plato dedit, sed etiam vitia, sicut de Cupidine diximus, unde quidam eorum tragicus ait: Deum esse Amorem turpis et vitio favens finxit libido. p. 545,18 Nam et corporalium vitiorum simulacra Romani consecraverunt, sicut Palloris et Febris. Ut ergo omittam, quod simulacrorum adoratores circa ipsas corporum figuras habent affectum, ut eas ipsas formas in locis honorabilibus sublimatas, quibus tantum obsequium exhiberi vident, tamquam deos timeant: illae ipsae interpretationes, quibus haec muta et surda et caeca et exanima defenduntur, dignius accusantur. Verumtamen et ista quoquo modo sunt, quamvis, ut iam dixi, ad salutem vel aliquam utilitatem nihil sint, et, quae ex his interpretantur, in rebus inveniuntur. Vos autem primum hominem cum quinque elementis belligerantem, et spiritum potentem de captivis corporibus gentis tenebrarum an potius de membris dei vestri victis atque subiectis mundum fabricantem, et splenditenentem reliquias eorundem membrorum dei vestri habentem in manu et cetera omnia capta, oppressa, inquinata plangentem, p. 546,4 et Atlantem maximum subter humeris suis cum eo ferentem, ne totum ille fatigatus abiciat, atque ita fabula vestra velut in tapete theatrico ad illius ultimi globi catastolium pervenire non possit, et alia innumerabilia pariter inepta et insana nec pingendo aut sculpendo nec interpretando demonstratis et ea, cum omnino nulla sint, creditis et colitis et insuper christianis fide non ficta pias mentes mundantibus tamquam temere credulis insultatis. Ut enim multa non quaeram, quibus haec ostendantur omnino non esse, quia subtilius sublimiusque tractare de mundi fabrica, etsi mihi difficile non esset, certe nimis longum est, hoc dico: Si ista vera sunt, dei substantia commutabilis est, corruptibilis, coinquinabilis. p. 546,16 Hoc autem credere plenum est sacrilegae insaniae. Illa igitur omnia vana sunt, falsa sunt, nulla sunt. Proinde vos paganis istis, qui vulgo noti sunt et antiquitus fuerunt et in reliquiis suis iam nunc erubescunt, prorsus deteriores estis, quod illi colunt ea, quae dii non sunt, vos autem, omnino quae non sunt.