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Contra Faustum Manichaeum libri triginta tres

19.

His autem exceptis et testimoniis ex vetere testamento, quae illis iniecta (incerta Z.) sunt litteris, cetera vos secundum id, quod Faustus loquitur, fatemini accipere et praecipue crucis eius mysticam fixionem, qua passionis animae uestrae vulnera demonstrantur, deinde inquit praecepta salutaria eius et parabolas cunctumque sermonem deificum, qui maxime duarum praeferens naturarum discretionem ipsius esse non uenit in dubium. Videtis ergo id vos agere, ut omnis de medio scripturarum auferatur auctoritas et suus cuique animus auctor sit, quid in quaque scriptura probet, quid improbet, id est, ut non auctoritati scripturarum subiciatur ad fidem, sed sibi scripturas ipse subiciat, non ut ideo illi placeat aliquid, quia hoc in sublimi auctoritate scriptum legitur, sed ideo recte scriptum videatur, quia hoc illi placuit. p. 780,24 Quo te committis, anima misera, infirma, carnalibus nebulis involuta, quo te committis? Remove ergo auctoritatem, videamus, remove auctoritatem, redde rationem ! Eone ratio tua perducitur, ut nisi dei natura violabilis corruptibilisque credatur, exitum theatricum longa illa fabula vestra reperire non possit? Postremo unde scis octo esse terras et decem caelos, quod Atlas mundum ferat splenditenensque suspendat et innumerabilia talia? Unde scis haec? Plane inquis Manichaeus me docuit. Sed, infelix, credidisti; neque enim vidisti! p. 781,4 Si ergo ad milia fabulosorum phantasmatum, quibus turpiter gravidata es, te auctoritati ignotissimae et furiosissimae subdidisti, ut ideo haec omnia crederes, quia in illis conscripta sunt libris, quibus miserabili errore credendum esse censuisti, cum tibi nulla demonstrentur, cur non potius evangelicae auctoritati tam fundatae, tam stabilitae, tanta gloria diffamatae atque ab apostolorum temporibus usque ad nostra tempora per successiones certissimas commendatae non te subdis, ut credas, ut vivas (videas ?), ut discas etiam omnia illa, quae te offendunt, ex vana et perversa opinione te offendere potiusque esse verum naturam incommutabilem dei aliquid mortalis assumpsisse creaturae, in qua ‹in›commutabiliter permanens non fallaciter, sed veraciter faceret atque pateretur, quicquid eandem creaturam facere ac pati pro generis humani, unde sumpta erat, salute congrueret, quam violabilem et corruptibilem credere dei naturam nec inquinatam atque oppressam totam posse liberari atque purgari, sed aeterna globi poena summa dei necessitate damnari? p. 781,21

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Reply to Faustus the Manichaean

19.

With those exceptions, including also the testimonies quoted from the Old Testament, you profess, to use the words of Faustus, to receive all the rest, especially the mystic nailing to the cross, emblematic of the wounds of the soul in its passion; as also the sound moral precepts of Jesus, and the whole of His immortal discourse, which sets forth especially the distinction of the two natures, and therefore must undoubtedly be His. Your design clearly is to deprive Scripture of all authority, and to make every man's mind the judge what passage of Scripture he is to approve of, and what to disapprove of. This is not to be subject to Scripture in matters of faith, but to make Scripture subject to you. Instead of making the high authority of Scripture the reason of approval, every man makes his approval the reason for thinking a passage correct. If, then, you discard authority, to what, poor feeble soul, darkened by the mists of carnality, to what, I beseech you, will you betake yourself? Set aside authority, and let us hear the reason of your beliefs. Is it by a logical process that your long story about the nature of God concludes necessarily with this startling announcement, that this nature is subject to injury and corruption? And how do you know that there are eight continents and ten heavens, and that Atlas bears up the world, and that it hangs from the great world-holder, and innumerable things of the same kind? Who is your authority? Manichaeus, of course, you will say. But, unhappy being, this is not sight, but faith. If, then, you submit to receive a load of endless fictions at the bidding of an obscure and irrational authority, so that you believe all those things because they are written in the books which your misguided judgment pronounces trustworthy, though there is no evidence of their truth, why not rather submit to the authority of the Gospel, which is so well founded, so confirmed, so generally acknowledged and admired, and which has an unbroken series of testimonies from the apostles down to our own day, that so you may have an intelligent belief, and may come to know that all your objections are the fruit of folly and perversity; and that there is more truth in the opinion that the unchangeable nature of God should take part of mortality, so as, without injury to itself from this union, to do and to suffer not feignedly, but really, whatever it behoved the mortal nature to do and to suffer for the salvation of the human race from which it was taken, than in the belief that the nature of God is subject to injury and corruption, and that, after suffering pollution and captivity, it cannot be wholly freed and purified, but is condemned by a supreme divine necessity to eternal punishment in the mass of darkness?