Edition Hide
Contra Faustum Manichaeum libri triginta tres

4.

Illa vero iam ne audire quidem vos velle credo ex testamento vetere, nedum admittere, - id est soceros dormire cum nuribus tamquam Iudas; - patres cum filiabus tamquam Loth; - prophetas cum fornicibus tamquam Osee; - maritos uxorum suarum noctes amatoribus vendere tamquam Abraham; - duabus germanis sororibus unum misceri maritum tamquam Iacob ; - rectores populi et quos maxime entheos credas, millenis et centenis volutari cum scortis tamquam David et Salomon ; p. 763,15 - aut illud item, quod lege uxoria cautum in deuteronomio est : debere uxorem defuncti fratris, si idem sine filiis obierit, superstiti fratri nubere et eundem (eandem codd.) subolem ex eadem in locum suscitare fratris, quod facere si noluerit vir, debere mulierculam apud maiores natu deponere de hac impietate cognati sui querelam, ut idem accersitum eum censoria gravitate coerceant ; qui si pernegaverit et apud eos, non ferat inpune, sed excalciatus dextri pedis calciamento a praedicta muliere caedatur in faciem et consputus ac maledictus recedat habiturus hoc opprobrium sempiternum in progeniem suam. p. 764,1 Haec igitur atque alia huiusmodi sunt testamenti veteris et exempla et iura ; quae si bona sunt, cur non imitamini ? Si mala, cur non damnatis auctorem, id est testamentum ipsum vetus ? Aut si falsa haec et tamquam nos de novo credimus, etiam vos putatis inserta, pares ergo sumus. Desinite iam proinde id a nobis exigere in testamento novo, quod vos non servatis in vetere!

Translation Hide
Reply to Faustus the Manichaean

4.

I do not suppose that you will consent, or even listen, to such things as that a father-in-law should lie with his daughter-in-law, as Judah did; or a father with his daughters, like Lot; or prophets with harlots, like Hosea; or that a husband should sell his wife for a night to her lover, like Abraham; or that a man should marry two sisters, like Jacob; or that the rulers of the people and the men you consider as most inspired should keep their mistresses by hundreds and thousands; or, according to the provision made in Deuteronomy about wives, that the wife of one brother, if he dies without children, should marry the surviving brother, and that he should raise up seed from her instead of his brother; and that if the man refuses to do this, the fair plaintiff should bring her case before the elders, that the brother may be called and admonished to perform this religious duty; and that, if he persists in his refusal, he must not go unpunished, but the woman must loose his shoe from his right foot, and strike him in the face, and send him away, spat upon and accursed, to perpetuate the reproach in his family. ¹ These, and such as these, are the examples and precepts of the Old Testament. If they are good, why do you not practise them? If they are bad, why do you not condemn the Old Testament, in which they are found? But if you think that these are spurious interpolations, that is precisely what we think of the New Testament. You have no right to claim from us an acknowledgment for the New Testament which you yourselves do not make for the Old.