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Contra Faustum Manichaeum libri triginta tres

1.

Faustus dixit: Scriptum est in evangelio: Quia multi venient ab oriente et occidente et recumbent cum Abraham et Isaac et Iacob in regno caelorum. Vos ergo quare non accipitis patriarchas? (p.784,10) Absit nos quidem cuiquam invidere mortalium, quem deus forte miseratione respiciens sua de perditione umquam reduxerit ad salutem, sed hoc sane nos eius esse iam clementiae ponimus, qui misertus sit, non illius meriti, cuius fuisse negare non possis improbabilem vitam. Ac per hoc et Iudaeorum patres, Abraham scilicet et Isaac et Iacob – si est hoc pro certo de eisdem Christi testimonium, quod affertis – quamquam fuerunt ipsi quidem flagitiosissimi, ut fere Moyses indicat eorum pronepos sive quis alius historiae huius conditor est, quae dicitur geneseos, qui eorum vitas nobis odio omni fastidioque dignissimas scripsit, sint tamen et ipsi iam in regno caelorum, sint in loco, quem nec crediderant umquam nec speraverant, ut fere ex eorum liquido libris apparet, dummodo tamen constet vobis etiam confitentibus longo intervallo de tetra ac poenali inferorum custodia, ubi se vitae merita coercebant, a Christo nostro domino liberatos, per eius scilicet mysticam passionem pervenire ad hoc ipsum potuisse, si pervenerunt, quod scriptum de eis est. p. 785,1 Neque enim quia et latronem quendam de cruce liberavit idem noster dominus et ipso eodem die secum futurum dixit eum in paradiso patris sui, quisquam inviderit aut inhumanus adeo esse potest, ut hoc ei displiceat tantae benignitatis officium. Sed tamen non idcirco dicemus et latronum vitas ac mores nobis probabiles esse debere, quia Iesus latroni indulgentiam dederit aut quia publicanis et meretricibus ignorit errata dixeritque, quod etiam praecederent ipsi ad regnum caelorum eos, qui se superbe gesserint. p. 785,10 In iniustitia namque et in adulterio deprehensam mulierem quandam Iudaeis accusantibus absolvit ipse praecipiens ei, ut iam peccare desineret. Quapropter si horum tale quid et circa Abraham egit et Isaac et Iacob, ipsi gratias; decet eum talia operari circa animas, qui solem suum oriri facit super bonos et malos et pluit super iustos et iniustos. Sed hoc tamen mihi unum in opinione hac vestra molestum est, cur id de Iudaeorum tantum patribus sentiatis ac non de ceteris quoque patriarchis gentium, quod et ipsi senserint aliquando nostri liberatoris hanc gratiam, praesertim cum de ipsorum filiis magis christiana constet ecclesia quam de semine Abraham, Isaac et Iacob. p. 785,21 Sed ais utique illos quidem idola coluisse, hos vero omnipotentem deum idcircoque solam ipsorum curam habuisse Iesum. Ita dei omnipotentis cultura in tartara retrudit et filii eget auxilio, qui coluit patrem! Sed videris! Consentiamus, inquam, hactenus in caelum reductos eos, non quia mererentur, sed quia vincat divina clementia vim peccatorum.

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Reply to Faustus the Manichaean

1.

Faustus said: You quote from the Gospel the words, "Many shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven," ¹ and ask why we do not acknowledge the patriarchs. Now, we should be the last to grudge to any human being that God should have compassion on him, and bring him out of perdition to salvation. At the same time, we should acknowledge in such a case the clemency shown in this act of compassion, and not the merit of the person whose life is undeniably blameworthy. Thus, in the case of the Jewish fathers, Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, who are mentioned by Christ in this verse, supposing it to be genuine, although they led wicked lives, as we may learn from their descendant Moses, or whoever was the author of the history called Genesis, which describes their conduct as having been most shocking and detestable; we are ready to allow that they may, after all, be in the kingdom of heaven, in the place which they neither believed in, nor hoped for, as is plain enough from their books. But then it must be kept in mind that, as you yourselves confess, if they did attain to what is spoken of in this verse, it was something very different from the nether dungeons of woe to which their own deserts consigned them, and that their deliverance was the work of our Lord Christ, and the result of His mystic passion. Who would grudge to the thief on the cross that deliverance was granted to him by the same Lord, and that Christ said that on that very day he should be with Him in the paradise of His Father? ² Who is so hard-hearted as to disapprove of this act of benevolence? Still, it does not follow that, because Jesus pardoned a thief, we must approve of the habits and practices of thieves; any more than of the publicans and harlots, whose faults Jesus pardoned, declaring that they would go into the kingdom of heaven before those who behaved proudly. ³ For, when He acquitted the woman accused by the Jews as sinful, and as having been caught in adultery, He told her to sin no more. ⁴ If, then, He has done something of the same kind in the case of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, all the praise is His; for such actions towards souls are becoming in Him who maketh His sun to rise upon the evil and upon the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. ⁵ One thing perplexes me in your doctrine: why you limit your statements to the fathers of the Jews, and are not of opinion that the Gentile patriarchs had also a share in this grace of our Redeemer; especially as the Christian Church consists of their children more than of the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. You will say that the Gentiles worshipped idols, and the Jews the Almighty God, and that therefore Jesus had regard only to the Jews. It would seem from this that the worship of the Almighty God is the sure way to hell, and that the Son must come to the aid of the worshipper of the Father. That is as you please. For my part, I am ready to join you in the belief that the fathers reached heaven, not by any merit of their own, but by that divine mercy which is stronger than sin.