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Contra Faustum Manichaeum libri triginta tres

6.

Sed si homo fuit inquit Helias et potuit non mori, cur Christus, cum homo non fuerit, non potuerit mori? Tale est, ac si quisquam diceret: Si potuit natura hominis in aliquid melius commutari, cur dei natura in deterius non potuerit? p. 734,7 Stulte, quia hominis est natura mutabilis, dei autem incommutabilis. Possit enim et aliquis pariter insanissimus dicere: Si potest donare, ut regnet in aeternum, cur non et sibi facere, ut damnetur in aeternum? Non hoc inquit ego dico, sed triduanam saltem mortem dei aeternae vitae hominis compara*! Plane si sic acciperes triduanam mortem dei, ut caro in illo moreretur, quam de mortalium genere assumpsit, verum saperes; nam istam triduanam Christi mortem pro aeterna vita hominum factam veritas evangelica praedicat. Cum autem velis triduanam mortem nulla mortali assumpta creatura in ipsa divina natura ideo non absurde credi, quia potest humana natura immortalitate donari, profecto sic desipis, quomodo qui nec deum nosti nec dona dei. p. 734,19 Deinde quomodo illud, quod supra posui, non dicis ac sentis deum sibi non fecisse, unde damnetur in aeternum, quando pars illa dei vestri in globo in perpetuum configetur? An et hoc dicturus es, quia pars lucis lux est est et pars dei deus non est? Postremo ut sine ulla ratiocinatione et plana fidei veritate a nobis audiatis, cur Heliam hominem natum raptum esse divinitus de terra credamus, Christum autem et ex virgine vere natum et in cruce vere mortuum: Haec ideo credimus, quia et illud de Helia et hoc de Christo sancta scriptura testatur, cui nemo pius nisi qui credit, nisi impius nemo non credit. Illud autem de Helia vos negatis, quia omnia simulatis; de Christo autem, quod nasci non potuerit et mori potuerit, nec vos dicitis, sed eius ex virgine nativitatem nullam, mortem autem in cruce falsam fuisse contenditis, hoc est etiam ipsam nullam, sed ad ludificandos humanos oculos simulatam, ad nihil aliud nisi ut ab eis, qui ista crediderint, etiam vobis omnia mentientibus ignoscatur. p. 735,10

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Reply to Faustus the Manichaean

6.

Faustus' argument is, If Elias who was a man could escape death, why might not Christ have the power of dying, since He was more than man? This is the same as to say, If human nature can be changed for the better, why should not the divine nature be changed for the worse?--a weak argument, seeing that human nature is changeable, while the divine nature is not. Such a method of inference would lead to the glaring absurdity, that if God can bestow eternal glory on man, He must also have the power of consigning Himself to eternal misery. Faustus will reply that his argument refers only to three days of death for God, as compared with eternal life for man. Well, if you understood the three days of death in the sense of the death of the flesh which God took as a part of our mortal nature, you would be quite correct; for the truth of the gospel makes known that the death of Christ for three days was for the eternal life of men. But in arguing that there is no impropriety in asserting a death of three days of the divine nature itself, without any assumption of mortality, because human nature can be endowed with immortality, you display the folly of one who knows neither God nor the gifts of God. And indeed, since you make part of your god to be fastened to the mass of darkness for ever, how can you escape the absurd conclusion already mentioned, that God consigns Himself to eternal misery? You will then require to prove that part of light is light, while part of God is not God. To give you in a word, without argument, the true reason of our faith, as regards Elias having been caught up to heaven from the earth, though only a man, and as regards Christ being truly born of a virgin, and truly dying on the cross, our belief in both cases is grounded on the declaration of Holy Scripture, ¹ which it is piety to believe, and impiety to disbelieve. What is said of Elias you pretend to deny, for you will pretend anything. Regarding Christ, although even you do not go the length of saying that He could not die, though He could be born, still you deny His birth from a virgin, and assert His death on the cross to have been feigned, which is equivalent to denying it too, except as a mockery for the delusion of men; and you allow so much merely to obtain indulgence for your own falsehoods from the believers in these fictions.