Traduction Masquer
Reply to Faustus the Manichaean

5.

Faustus tells us that he has good grounds for concluding that these Scriptures are unworthy of credit. And yet he speaks of not using arguments. But the argument too shall be refuted. The end of the whole argument is to bring the soul to believe that the reason of its misery in this world is, that it is the means of preventing God from being deprived of His kingdom, and that God's substance and nature is so exposed to change, corruption, injury, and contamination, that part of it is incurably defiled, and is consigned by Himself to eternal punishment in the mass of darkness, though, when it was in harmless union with Himself, and guilty of no crime, He knowingly sent it where it was to suffer defilement. This is the end of all your arguments and fictions; and would that there were an end of them as regards your heart and your lips, that you might sometime desist from believing and uttering those execrable blasphemies! But, says Faustus, I prove from the writings themselves that they cannot be in all points trustworthy, for they contradict one another. Why not say, then, that they are wholly untrustworthy, if their testimony is inconsistent and self-contradictory? But, says Faustus, I say what I think to be in accordance with truth. With what truth? The truth is only your own fiction, which begins with God's battle, goes on to His contamination, and ends with His damnation. No one, says Faustus, believes writings which contradict themselves. But if you think they do this, it is because you do not understand them; for your ignorance has been manifested in regard to the passages you have quoted in support of your opinion, and the same will appear in regard to any quotations you may still make. So there is no reason for our not believing these writings, supported as they are by such weighty testimony; and this is itself the best reason for pronouncing accursed those whose preaching differs from what is there written.

Edition Masquer
Contra Faustum Manichaeum libri triginta tres

5.

Sed rationem inquit profero, qua demonstrem scripturis illis non esse credendum. Certe non argumentaris! Et tamen in ipsa quoque argumentatione superaris. Ad hoc enim redigitur omnis argumentatio tua, ut ad extremum credat anima ideo se in hoc mundo esse miseram, quia miseria sua deo suo subvenit, ne ille regno privaretur, eiusque naturam atque substantiam usque adeo esse mutabilem, corruptibilem, violabilem, coinquinabilem, ut pars eius quaedam nec mundari valeat et ab ipso, qui eam sciens innocentem de suis visceribus nihilque apud se peccantem tantae contaminationi permiscuit, aeterno globi supplicio puniatur. p. 742,23 Iste finis est omnium argumentationem fabularumque vestrarum: quarum utinam sit finis, sed in corde et in ore vestro, ut aliquando tam exsecrandas blasphemias credere ac dicere desinatis. Sed ex ipsis inquit litteris probo, quam eis non ubique credendum sit, quoniam contraria sibi loquuntur. Cur non ergo dicis potius nusquam eis esse credendum tamquam inconstantibus seseque impugnantibus testibus? p. 743,4 Sed hoc inquit eligo, quod consentaneum video veritati. Cui veritati? Fabulae scilicet tuae habenti in capite bellum dei, in medio contaminationem dei, in fine damnationem dei. Et nusquam inquit creditur litteris sibimet adversis atque contrariis. Sed ideo tibi hoc videtur, quia non intellegis; nam et quicquid protulisti, quod tale videretur, demonstratum est, quam non intellegas, et quicquid protuleris, demonstrabitur. Nulla ergo causa est, quare illis litteris tanta auctoritate praeditis non credamus; et plane ista maxima causa est, cur eos, qui aliud adnuntiant, anathememus.