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Contra Faustum Manichaeum libri triginta tres

5.

Quapropter quoniam id, quod Faustum de generationum diversitate permovit, quia in duobus patribus intellegendis hic nodus erat intellecta natura et adoptione solutum est, frustra se voluit ad duos evangelistas conferre et ab aliis duobus auferre, magis offensurus, ad quos se contulisset, quam eos, a quibus abstulisset. p. 266,24

Non enim amant sancti suos electores, si suorum sociorum eos invenerint desertores.

Unitate enim gaudent et in Christo unum sunt; et si alius aliud et alius aliud, aut alius aliter et alius aliter, vera tamen omnes dicunt nec sibi ullo modo contraria, si pius lector accedat, si mitis legat, si non haeretico animo, unde rixetur, sed fideli corde, unde aedificetur, inquirat.

Iam ergo quoniam singulorum patrum generationes, quos ut unus homo duos haberet, non est ab humano genere alienum, singulos evangelistas narrandas suscepisse credidimus, non est a veritate nostra fides aliena.

Quocirca inter se iam evangelistis convenientibus, sicut Faustus promisit, utcumque succumbite!

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Reply to Faustus the Manichaean

5.

Since, then, this double fatherhood of nature and adoption removes the difficulty arising from the discrepancy of the genealogies, there is no occasion for Faustus to leave the two evangelists and betake himself to the other two, which would be a greater affront to those he betook himself to than to those he left. For the sacred writers do not desire to be favored at the expense of their brethren. For their joy is in union, and they are one in Christ; and if one says one thing, and another another, or one in one way and another in another, still they all speak truth, and in no way contradict one another; only let the reader be reverent and humble, not in an heretical spirit seeking occasion for strife, but with a believing heart desiring edification. Now, in this opinion that the evangelists give the ancestors of different fathers, as it is quite possible for a man to have two fathers, there is nothing inconsistent with truth. So the evangelists are harmonized, and you, by Faustus's promise are bound to yield at once.