Edition Masquer
Contra Faustum Manichaeum libri triginta tres

10.

Magis verendum erat, ne tanta rerum evidentia circumfusus fortasse diceret, posteaquam ista per mundum fieri coeperunt, christianos has litteras composuisse, ut ante divinitus praedicta putarentur, ne quasi temere humanitus facta contemnerentur. Hoc verendum est, nisi esset late sparsus lateque notus populus Iudaeorum, Cain ille signo accepto, ne ab aliquo interficiatur, et ille Cham servus fratrum suorum portando libros, quibus illi erudiantur, ipse oneretur. p. 389,25 Per eorum quippe codices probamus non a nobis tamquam de rerum eventu commonitis ista esse conscripta, sed olim in illo regno praedicta atque servata, nunc autem manifestata et impleta. In quibus et ea, quae ibi minus perspicua sunt, quia in figura contingebant illis; scripta sunt autem propter nos, in quos finis saeculorum obvenit, iam nunc illustrata solvuntur, et quae umbris futurarum adhuc rerum opacabantur, iam factarum luce manifestantur.

Traduction Masquer
Reply to Faustus the Manichaean

10.

One might rather fear that the inquirer, in the midst of such copious evidence, would say that the Christians composed those writings when the events described had already begun to take place, in order that those occurrences might appear to be not due to a merely human purpose, but as if divinely foretold. One might fear this, were it not for the widely spread and widely known people of the Jews; that Cain, with the mark that he should not be killed by any one; that Ham, the servant of his brethren, carrying as a load the books for their instruction. From the Jewish manuscripts we prove that these things were not written by us to suit the event, but were long ago published and preserved as prophecies in the Jewish nation. These prophecies are now explained in their accomplishment: for even what is obscure in them--because these things happened to them as an example, and were written for our benefit, on whom the ends of the world are come--is now made plain; and what was hidden in the shadows of the future is now visible in the light of actual experience.