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Reply to Faustus the Manichaean

6.

You may perhaps be troubled by that additional remark which he makes: "In any case, however, it is hardly consistent to believe that God, the God of Christians, was born from the womb." As if we believed that the divine nature came from the womb of a woman. Have I not just quoted the testimony of the apostle, speaking of the Jews: "Whose are the fathers, and of whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is God over all, blessed for ever?" Christ, therefore, our Lord and Saviour, true Son of God in His divinity, and true son of man according to the flesh, not as He is God over all was born of a woman, but in that feeble nature which He took of us, that in it He might die for us, and heal it in us: not as in the form of God, in which He thought it not robbery to be equal to God, was He born of a woman, but in the form of a servant, in taking which He emptied Himself. He is therefore said to have emptied Himself because He took the form of a servant, not because He lost the form of God. For in the unchangeable possession of that nature by which in the form of God He is equal to the Father, He took our changeable nature, by which He might be born of a virgin. You, while you protest against putting the flesh of Christ in a virgin's womb, place the very divinity of God in the womb not only of human beings, but of dogs and swine. You refuse to believe that the flesh of Christ was conceived in the Virgin's womb, in which God was not found nor even changed; while you assert that in all men and beasts, in the seed of male and in the womb of female, in all conceptions on land or in water, an actual part of God and the divine nature is continually bound, and shut up, and contaminated, never to be wholly set free. ¹

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Contra Faustum Manichaeum libri triginta tres

6.

An illud, quod adiunxit, vos movet adhuc? Quamvis nec sic quidem inquit dignum erit [et] ex utero natum credere deum et deum christianorum.

Quasi nos ipsam divinam naturam ex feminae utero extitisse credamus. p. 267,12 Nonne modo commemoravi apostoli testimonium, ubi ait de Iudaeis: Quorum patres, et ex quibus Christum secundum carnem, qui est super omnia deus benedictus in saecula? Christus ergo, dominus et salvator noster, filius dei verus secundum divinitatem, et filius hominis verus secundum carnem, non ex eo, quod est super omnia deus benedictus in saecula, ex femina natus est, sed ex illa infirmitate, quam suscepit ex nobis, ut in ea moreretur pro nobis et eam sanaret in nobis; p. 267,21 non ex forma dei, in qua cum esset, non rapinam arbitratus est esse aequalis deo, natus ex femina est, sed ex forma servi, quam accipiendo semet ipsum exinanivit. Neque enim ob aliud exinanisse se dictus est nisi accipiendo formam servi, non amittendo formam dei. Illa enim natura, qua in forma dei aequalis est patri, incommutabiliter permanente suscepit mutabilem nostram, per quam de virgine nasceretur. p. 267,28

Vos autem, cum carnem Christi virginali utero committere horretis, ipsam divinitatem dei non tantum hominum, sed et canum porcorumque uteris commisistis, semel conceptam in utero virginis Christi carnem non vultis credere, in qua non solum non ligatus, sed nec commutatus est deus, et ipsam dei partem divinamque naturam in omnium hominum ac bestiarum masculinis seminibus et femininis uteris, in omnibus conceptibus per omnes terras et per omnes aquas et per omnes auras ligari, opprimi, coinquinari et nec totam postea liberari posse praedicatis!