Edition Masquer
Contra Faustum Manichaeum libri triginta tres

32.

Illud sane defendi non potest, si Abraham, sicut Faustus obiecit, minime credens deo, qui sibi iam prolem de Sara promiserat, de Agar suscipere voluit. Sed apertissime falsum est. Nondum hoc promiserat deus. Recenseant scripturae illius superiora, qui volunt. Invenient semini Abraham iam fuisse promissam terram et innumerabilis multitudinis abundantiam, p. 626,2 nondum tamen fuisse patefactum, quomodo illius seminis esset futura propagatio, utrum ex carne Abrahae, si de se ipse generaret, an ex voluntate, si aliquem forte adoptaret; deinde si de carne ipsius, utrum ex Sara, an ex alia prorsus, nondum manifestatum fuit. Legant, inquam, qui volunt, et invenient Faustum aut falli imprudenter aut fallere impudenter. Itaque Abraham cum sibi videret non nasci filios et tamen semini suo factam promissionem teneret, primo de adoptione cogitabat. Hoc indicat, quod cum deo loquens ait de vernaculo suo: Hic heres meus erit, tamquam diceret: quia de me ipso mihi semen non dedisti, in isto comple, quod meo semini promisisti. Si enim semen cuiusque non appellaretur, nisi quod de eius carne nasceretur, nec nos appellaret apostolus semen Abrahae, qui certe originem carnis ab illo non ducimus, sed imitatione fidei semen eius facti sumus credentes in Christo, cuius caro ex illius carne propagata est. 626,17 Tunc ergo Abraham audivit a domino: Non hic erit heres tuus; sed qui exiet de utero tuo, ipse erit heres tuus*. Iam tunc adoptionis cogitatione sublata cum de se ipso semen speraret Abraham, restabat incertum, utrum ex Sara, an ex alia; quod illi deus occultare voluit, donec prius ex ancilla vetus testamentum figuraretur. Quid ergo mirum, si videns Abraham sterilem uxorem cupientem sibi prolem, quam parere ipsa non potuit, ex famula sua et ex marito provenire, non suae carnali cupiditati cessit, sed coniugali potestati obtemperavit, credens hoc Saram ex dei nutu voluisse, qui iam ex se ipso illi heredem promiserat, sed ex qua femina non praedixerat? p. 627,1 Frustra igitur Faustus ad obiciendum hoc crimen insanus insiluit tamquam infidelem Abraham infideliter arguens. Cetera enim caecitate non credendi nec valuit intellegere, hoc autem libidine calumniandi neglexit et legere.

Traduction Masquer
Reply to Faustus the Manichaean

32.

Abraham, indeed, cannot be defended, if, as Faustus says, he wished to get children by Hagar, because he had no faith in God, who promised that he should have children by Sara. But this is an entire mistake: this promise had not yet been made. Any one who reads the preceding chapters will find that Abraham had already got the promise of the land with a countless number of inhabitants, ¹ but that it had not yet been made known to him how the seed spoken of was to be produced, whether by generation from his own body, or from his choice in the adoption of a son, or, in the case of its being from his own body, whether it would be by Sara or another. Whoever examines into this will find that Faustus has made either an imprudent mistake or an impudent misrepresentation. Abraham, then, when he saw that he had no children, though the promise was to his seed, thought first of adoption. This appears from his saying of his slave, when speaking to God, "This is mine heir;" as much as to say, As Thou hast not given me a seed of my own, fulfill Thy promise in this man. For the word seed may be applied to what has not come out of a man's own body, else the apostle could not call us the seed of Abraham: for we certainly are not his descendants in the flesh; but we are his seed in following his faith, by believing in Christ, whose flesh did spring from the flesh of Abraham. Then Abraham was told by the Lord "This shall not be thine heir; but he that cometh out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir." ² The thought of adoption was thus removed; but it still remained uncertain whether the seed which was to come from himself would be by Sara or another. And this God was pleased to keep concealed, till a figure of the Old Testament had been supplied in the handmaid. We may thus easily understand how Abraham, seeing that his wife was barren, and that she desired to obtain from her husband and her handmaid the offspring which she herself could not produce, acted not in compliance with carnal appetite, but in obedience to conjugal authority, believing that Sara had the sanction of God for her wish; because God had already promised him an heir from his own body, but had not foretold who was to be the mother. Thus, when Faustus shows his own infidelity in accusing Abraham of unbelief, his groundless accusation only proves the madness of the assailant. In other cases, Faustus' infidelity has prevented him from understanding; but here, in his love of slander, he has not even taken time to read.