Traduction Masquer
Reply to Faustus the Manichaean

1.

Faustus said: Do I believe in the incarnation? For my part, this is the very thing I long tried to persuade myself of, that God was born; but the discrepancy in the genealogies of Luke and Matthew stumbled me, as I knew not which to follow. For I thought it might happen that, from not being omniscient, I might take the true for false, and the false for true. So, in despair of settling this dispute, I betook myself to Mark and John, two authorities still, and evangelists as much as the others. I approved with good reason of the beginning of Mark and John, for they have nothing of David, or Mary, or Joseph. John says, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God," meaning Christ. Mark says, "The gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God," as if correcting Matthew, who calls him the Son of David. Perhaps, however, the Jesus of Matthew is a different person from the Jesus of Mark. This is my reason for not believing in the birth of Christ.

Remove this difficulty, if you can, by harmonizing the accounts, and I am ready to yield. In any case, however, it is hardly consistent to believe that God, the God of Christians, was born from the womb.

Edition Masquer
Contra Faustum Manichaeum libri triginta tres

1.

Faustus dixit: Accipis ergo generationem? Equidem conatus diu sum hoc ipsum, qualecumque est, persuadere mihi, quia sit natus deus, sed offensus duorum maxime evangelistarum dissensione, qui genealogian eius scribunt, Lucae et Matthaei, haesi incertus, quemnam potissimum sequerer. p. 261,25

Fieri enim posse putabam, ut, quia praescius non sum, quem mentiri existimarem, ipse diceret verum, et quem vera loqui, ipse forsitan mentiretur.

Infinita ergo eorum praetermissa lite et interminabili mihi ad Iohannem Marcumque me contuli nec impariter a duobus ad duos, et ab evangelistis ad eiusdem nominis professores, quorum mihi principia interim non immerito placuerunt, quia nec David nec Mariam inducunt nec Iosephum, sed Iohannes quidem in principio fuisse verbum dicit et verbum fuisse apud deum et deum fuisse verbum, Christum significans; p. 262,3

Marcus vero evangelium inquit Iesu Christi filii dei, tamquam Matthaeum exprobans, qui posuerit filium David, nisi forte alterum hic et alterum ille adnuntiat Iesum.

Haec ergo ratio est, qua ego non accipio Christum natum.

Tu vero, si tantus es, ut hanc mihi adimas offensionem, effice, ut inter se ipsi conveniant, et utcumque succumbam, quamvis ne sic quidem dignum erit ex utero natum credere deum et deum christianorum.