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Reply to Faustus the Manichaean

2.

Augustin replied: Had you read the Gospel with care, and inquired into those places where you found opposition, instead of rashly condemning them, you would have seen that the recognition of the authority of the evangelists by so many learned men all over the world, in spite of this most obvious discrepancy, proves that there is more in it than appears at first sight. Any one can see, as well as you, that the ancestors of Christ in Matthew and Luke are different; while Joseph appears in both, at the end in Matthew and at the beginning in Luke. Joseph, it is plain, might be called the father of Christ, on account of his being in a certain sense the husband of the mother of Christ; and so his name, as the male representative, appears at the beginning or end of the genealogies. Any one can see as well as you that Joseph has one father in Matthew and another in Luke, and so with the grandfather and with all the rest up to David. Did all the able and learned men, not many Latin writers certainly, but innumerable Greek, who have examined most attentively the sacred Scriptures, overlook this manifest difference? Of course they saw it. No one can help seeing it. But with a due regard to the high authority of Scripture, they believed that there was something here which would be given to those that ask, and denied to those that snarl; would be found by those that seek, and taken away from those that criticise; would be open to those that knock, and shut against those that contradict. They asked, sought, and knocked; they received, found, and entered in.

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Contra Faustum Manichaeum libri triginta tres

2.

Augustinus respondit: O si pio studio legisses evangelium et ea, quae te in evangelistis tamquam repugnantia movissent, diligenter quaerere quam temere damnare maluisses, ut saltem propter ipsam, quae quasi prima fronte occurrit, apertissimam repugnantiam cogitares, nisi aliquid illic magnum lateret, difficile fieri potuisse, ut tanta eis auctoritas in terrarum orbe praeberetur, qua sibi tot hominum doctissimorum ingenia subiugarent. p. 262,19

Quid enim magnum est videre, quod vidistis, alios Christi secundum carnem progeneratores commemorari a Luca, alios a Matthaeo, cum ambo Ioseph constituant, Matthaeus ad quem terminet, Lucas a quo incipiat, qui propter quoddam cum eius matre sanctum et virginale coniugium etiam ipse parens Christi meruit appellari, ut propter virilem dignitatem ab ipso vel usque ad ipsum generationes contexerentur?

Quid ergo magnum est, quod vidistis, quod alium patrem habeat Ioseph secundum Matthaeum, alium secundum Lucam, et alium avum secundum istum, alium secundum illum, et deinceps sursum versus usque ad David per tam multas generationes alios parentes eius ab isto, alios ab illo enumerari?

Itane tam apertam manifestamque diuersitatem tot acuti et docti uiri, divinarum scripturarum pertractatores diligentissimi, non viderent? p. 263,5 Qui quidem in latina lingua perpauci sunt, eos autem in graeca quis numeret?

Viderunt eam plane. Quid enim facilius? Aut quis paululum intuens ista non videat?

Sed pie cogitantes tantae auctoritatis eminentiam latere ibi aliquid crediderunt, quod petentibus daretur, oblatrantibus negaretur, a quaerentibus inveniretur, reprehendentibus subtraheretur, pulsantibus aperiretur, oppugnantibus clauderetur:

Petierunt, quaesierunt, pulsaverunt, acceperunt, invenerunt, intraverunt.