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Contra Faustum Manichaeum libri triginta tres

5.

Quod autem etiam stellae calumniamini, qua magi ad Christum infantem adorandum perducti sunt, non erubescitis, cum vos commenticium Christum vestrum, filium commenticii primi hominis vestri, non sub stellae testificatione ponatis, sed in stellis omnibus colligatum esse dicatis? p. 258,7

Quia videlicet principibus tenebrarum commixtum esse creditis in illo bello, quo ipse primus homo vester cum tenebrarum gente pugnavit, ut de ipsis principibus tenebrarum tali commixtione captis mundus fabricaretur.

Unde ista sacrilega deliramenta vos cogunt non solum in caelo atque in omnibus stellis, sed etiam in terra atque in omnibus, quae nascuntur in ea, confixum et colligatum atque concretum Christum dicere non iam salvatorem vestrum sed a vobis salvandum, cum ea manducatis atque ructatis.

Nam et ista inpia vanitate seducti seducitis auditores vestros, ut vobis cibos afferant, quo possit ligato in eis Christo subveniri per vestros dentes et ventres.

Talibus enim auxiliis eum solvi et liberari praedicatis. p. 258,20

Nec saltem totum, sed adhuc licet exiguas sordidasque reliquias eius in stercoribus remanere contenditis, ut in aliis atque aliis rerum corporalium formis iterum atque iterum implexae implicataeque teneantur, et si mundo stante solvi et purgari non potuerint, iam illo igne ultimo, quo ipse mundus ardebit, solvantur atque purgentur.

Nec tamen etiam tunc totum Christum dicitis posse liberari, sed eius bonae divinaeque naturae novissimas residuasque particulas, quae ita sordidatae sunt, ut nullo modo dilui valeant, damnari in aeternum confixas globo horrido tenebrarum.

Ecce qui se fingunt indignari, quod filio dei fiat iniuria, quia eum natum stella demonstrasse dicatur, tamquam genesis eius sub fatali constellatione sit constituta, cum eum ipsi non tantum sub stellarum conexione, sed in vinculis omnium terrenorum et in sucis omnium herbarum et in putredine omnium carnium et corruptione omnium ciborum ita ligatum pollutumque constituant, ut ex magna, non tamen ex tota parte solvi purgarique non possit, nisi et ab hominibus, electis videlicet Manichaeorum, etiam in porris radiculisque ructetur. p. 259,11

Et nos quidem sub fato stellarum nullius hominis genesim ponimus, ut liberum arbitrium voluntatis, qua vel bene vel male vivitur, propter iustum iudicium dei ab omni necessitatis vinculo vindicemus: quanto minus illius temporalem generationem sub astrorum condicione credimus factam, qui est aeternus universorum creator et dominus.

Itaque illa stella, quam viderunt magi, Christo secundum carnem nato non ad decretum dominabatur, sed ad testimonium famulabatur, nec eum subiciebat imperio, sed indicabat obsequio. p. 259,19

Proinde non ex illis erat haec stellis, quae ab initio creaturae itinerum suorum ordinem sub creatoris lege custodiunt, sed novo virginis partu novum sidus apparuit, quod ministerium officii sui etiam ipsis magis quaerentibus Christum, cum ante faciem praeiret, exhibuit, donec eos usque ad ipsum locum, ubi dei verbum infans erat, praeeundo perduceret.

Qui tandem astrologi ita constituerunt hominum nascentium fata sub stellis, ut aliquam stellarum homine aliquo nato circuitus sui ordinem reliquisse et ad eum, qui natus est, perrexisse, asseverent? Sortem quippe nascentis astrorum ordini colligari arbitrantur, non astrorum ordinem ad hominis nati diem posse mutari.

Quapropter si stella illa ex his erat, quae in caelo peragunt ordines suos, quomodo poterat decernere, quod natus Christus acturus erat, quae nato Christo iussa est relinquere, quod agebat? p. 260,5

Si autem, ut probabilius creditur, ad demonstrandum Christum, quae non erat, exorta est, non ideo Christus natus est, quia illa exstitit, sed ideo illa exstitit, quia Christus natus est.

Unde, si dici oporteret, non stellam Christo, sed Christum stellae fatum fuisse diceremus.

Ipse quippe illi, non illa huic nascendi attulit causam. Si ergo sunt fata, quae a fando, id est a dicendo appellata sunt, quoniam Christus verbum dei est, in quo, antequam essent, dicta sunt omnia, non consortium siderum fatum Christi est, sed fatum etiam siderum Christus est, qui et ipsam carnem sub caelo creatam ea voluntate assumpsit, qua etiam caelum creavit, ea potestate deposuit et recepit, qua etiam sideribus imperavit. p. 260,17

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Reply to Faustus the Manichaean

5.

Again, you find fault with the star by which the Magi were led to worship the infant Christ, which you should be ashamed of doing, when you represent your fabulous Christ, the son of your fabulous First Man not as announced by a star, but as bound up in all the stars. ¹ For you say that he mingled with the principles of darkness in his conflict with the race of darkness, that by capturing these principles the world might be made out of the mixture. So that, by your profane fancies, Christ is not only mingled with heaven and all the stars, but conjoined and compounded with the earth and all its productions, ² --a Saviour no more, but needing to be saved by you, by your eating and disgorging Him.

This foolish custom of making your disciples bring you food, that your teeth and stomach may be the means of relieving Christ, who is bound up in it, is a consequence of your profane fancies. You declare that Christ is liberated in this way--not, however, entirely; for you hold that some tiny particles of no value still remain in the excrement, to be mixed up and compounded again and again in various material forms, and to be released and purified at any rate by the fire in which the world will be burned up, if not before. Nay, even then, you say, Christ is not entirely liberated; but some extreme particles of His good and divine nature, which have been so defiled that they cannot be cleansed, are condemned to stay for ever in the horrid mass of darkness. And these people pretend to be offended with our saying that a star announced the birth of the Son of God, as if this were placing His birth under the influence of a constellation; while they subject Him not to stars only, but to such polluting contact with all material things, with the juices of all vegetables, and with the decay of all flesh, and with the decomposition of all food, in which He is bound up, that the only way of releasing Him, at least one great means, is that men, that is the Elect of the Manichaeans, should succeed in digesting their dinner.

We, too, deny the influence of the stars upon the birth of any man; for we maintain that, by the just law of God, the free-will of man, which chooses good or evil, is under no constraint of necessity. How much less do we subject to any constellation the incarnation of the eternal Creator and Lord of all! When Christ was born after the flesh, the star which the Magi saw had no power as governing, but attended as a witness. Instead of assuming control over Him, it acknowledged Him by the homage it did. Besides, this star was not one of those which from the beginning of the world continue in the course ordained by the Creator. Along with the new birth from the Virgin appeared a new star, which served as a guide to the Magi who were themselves seeking for Christ; for it went before them till they reached the place where they found the Word of God in the form of a child. But what astrologer ever thought of making a star leave its course, and come down to the child that is born, as they imagine, under it? They think that the stars affect the birth, not that the birth changes the course of the stars; so, if the star in the Gospel was one of those heavenly bodies, how could it determine Christ's action, when it was compelled to change its own action at Christ's birth? But if, as is more likely, a star which did not exist before appeared to point out Christ, it was the effect of Christ's birth, and not the cause of it. Christ was not born because the star was there; but the star was there because Christ was born. If there was any fate, it was in the birth, and not in the star. The word fate is derived from a word which means to speak; and since Christ is the Word of God by which all things were spoken before they were, the conjunction of stars is not the fate of Christ, but Christ is the fate of the stars. The same will that made the heavens took our earthly nature. The same power that ruled the stars laid down His life and took it again.