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Contra Faustum Manichaeum libri triginta tres

6.

Sed quid vobis faciam, quos contra testimonia scripturarum ita obsurdefecit iniquitas, ut quicquid adversum vos inde prolatum fuerit, non esse dictum ab apostolo, sed a nescio quo falsario sub eius nomine scriptum esse dicere audeatis? Usque adeo a christiana doctrina aperte aliena est quam praedicatis doctrina daemoniorum, ut eam sub christianae doctrinae nomine defendere nulla ex parte possitis, nisi dicatis falsas esse scripturas apostolorum. p. 791,6 Infelices inimici animae uestrae! Quae umquam litterae ullum habebunt pondus auctoritatis, si evangelicae, si apostolicae non habebunt? De quo libro certum erit, cuius sit, si litterae, quas apostolorum dicit et tenet ecclesia ab ipsis apostolis propagata et per omnes gentes tanta eminentia declarata, utrum apostolorum sint, incertum est? Et hoc erit certum scripsisse apostolos, quod huic ecclesiae contrarii haeretici proferunt auctorum suorum nominibus appellati longe post apostolos exsistentium? Quasi vero et in litteris saecularibus non fuerunt certissimi auctores, sub quorum nominibus postea multa prolata sunt et ideo repudiata, quia vel his, quae ipsorum esse constaret, minime congruerunt vel eo tempore, quo illi scripserint, nequaquam innotescere et per ipsos vel familiarissimos eorum in posteros prodi commendarique meruerunt. p. 791,21 Nonne, ut alios omittam, sub Hippocratis medici nobilissimi nomine quidam libri prolati in auctoritatem a medicis non recepti sunt? Nec eos adiuvit nonnulla similitudo rerum atque verborum, quando, comparati eis, quos vere Hippocratis esse constaret, impares iudicati sunt, et quod ab eo tempore, quo et cetera scripta eius, non innotuerunt quod vere eius essent. Hos autem libros, quibus illi, qui de traverso proferuntur, comparati respuuntur, unde constat esse Hippocratis? Unde – si quis hoc neget, nec saltem refellitur, sed ridetur – nisi quia sic eos ab ipso Hippocratis tempore usque ad hoc tempus et deinceps successionis series commendavit, ut hinc dubitare dementis sit! p. 792,5 Platonis, Aristotelis, Varronis, Ciceronis aliorumque eiusmodi auctorum libros unde noverunt homines, quod ipsorum sint, nisi eadem temporum sibimet succedentium contestatione continua? Multi multa de litteris ecclesiasticis conscripserunt, non quidem auctoritate canonica, sed aliquo adiuvandi studio sive discendi. Unde constat, quid cuius sit, nisi quia his temporibus, quibus ea quisque scripsit, quibus potuit insinuavit atque edidit et inde in alios atque alios continuata notitia latiusque firmata ad posteros etiam usque ad nostra tempora pervenerunt, ita ut interrogati, cuius quisque liber sit, non haesitemus, quid respondere debeamus? Sed quid pergam in longe praeterita? Ecce istas litteras, quas habemus in manibus, si post aliquantum tempus vitae huius nostrae vel illas quisquam Fausti esse vel has neget meas, unde convincitur, nisi quia illi, qui nunc ista noverunt, notitiam suam ad longe etiam post futuros continuatis posterorum successionibus traiciunt? p. 792,21 Quae cum ita sint, quis tandem tanto furore caecatur, nisi daemoniorum mendaciloquorum malitiae atque fallaciae consentiendo subversus sit, qui dicat hoc mereri non potuisse apostolorum ecclesiam, tam fidam tam numerosam fratrum concordiam, ut eorum scripta fideliter ad posteros traicerent, cum eorum cathedras usque ad praesentes episcopos certissima successione servarent, cum hoc qualiumcumque hominum scriptis sive extra ecclesiam sive in ipsa ecclesia tanta facilitate proveniat?

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Reply to Faustus the Manichaean

6.

You are so hardened in your errors against the testimonies of Scripture, that nothing can be made of you; for whenever anything is quoted against you, you have the boldness to say that it is written not by the apostle, but by some pretender under his name. The doctrine of demons which you preach is so opposed to Christian doctrine, that you could not continue, as professing Christians, to maintain it, unless you denied the truth of the apostolic writings. How can you thus do injury to your own souls? Where will you find any authority, if not in the Gospel and apostolic writings? How can we be sure of the authorship of any book, if we doubt the apostolic origin of those books which are attributed to the apostles by the Church which the apostles themselves founded, and which occupies so conspicuous a place in all lands, and if at the same time we acknowledge as the undoubted production of the apostles what is brought forward by heretics in opposition to the Church, whose authors, from whom they derive their name, lived long after the apostles? And do we not see in profane literature that there are well-known authors under whose names many things have been published after their time which have been rejected, either from inconsistency with their ascertained writings, or from their not having been known in the lifetime of the authors, so as to be banded down with the confirmatory statement of the authors themselves, or of their friends? To give a single example, were not some books published lately under the name of the distinguished physician Hippocrates, which were not received as authoritative by physicians? And this decision remained unaltered in spite of some similarity in style and matter: for, when compared to the genuine writings of Hippocrates, these books were found to be inferior; besides that they were not recognized as his at the time when his authorship of his genuine productions was ascertained. Those books, again, from a comparison with which the productions of questionable origin were rejected, are with certainty attributed to Hippocrates; and any one who denies their authorship is answered only by ridicule, simply because there is a succession of testimonies to the books from the time of Hippocrates to the present day, which makes it unreasonable either now or hereafter to have any doubt on the subject. How do we know the authorship of the works of Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Varro, and other similar writers, but by the unbroken chain of evidence? So also with the numerous commentaries on the ecclesiastical books, which have no canonical authority, and yet show a desire of usefulness and a spirit of inquiry. How is the authorship ascertained in each case, except by the author's having brought his work into public notice as much as possible in his own lifetime, and, by the transmission of the information from one to another in continuous order, the belief becoming more certain as it becomes more general, up to our own day; so that, when we are questioned as to the authorship of any book, we have no difficulty in answering? But why speak of old books? Take the books now before us: should any one, after some years, deny that this book was written by me, or that Faustus' was written by him, where is evidence for the fact to be found but in the information possessed by some at the present time, and transmitted by them through successive generations even to distant times? From all this it follows, that no one who has not yielded to the malicious and deceitful suggestions of lying devils, can be so blinded by passion as to deny the ability of the Church of the apostles--a community of brethren as numerous as they were faithful--to transmit their writings unaltered to posterity, as the original seats of the apostles have been occupied by a continuous succession of bishops to the present day, especially when we are accustomed to see this happen in the case of ordinary writings both in the Church and out of it.