Traduction Masquer
Reply to Faustus the Manichaean

2.

The passage itself, in which Christ tells the Jews not to think that He came to destroy the law, is rather designed to show that He did destroy it. For, had He not done something of the kind, the Jews would not have suspected Him. His words are: "Think not that I am come to destroy the law." Suppose the Jews had replied, What actions of thine might lead us to suspect this? Is it because thou exposest circumcision, breakest the Sabbath, discardest sacrifices, makest no distinction in foods? this would be the natural answer to the words, Think not. The Jews had the best possible reason for thinking that Jesus destroyed the law. If this was not to destroy the law, what is? But, indeed, the law and the prophets consider themselves already so faultlessly perfect, that they have no desire to be fulfilled. Their author and father condemns adding to them as much as taking away anything from them; as we read in Deuteronomy: "These precepts which I deliver unto thee this day, O Israel, thou shalt observe to do; thou shalt not turn aside from them to the right hand or to the left; thou shalt not add thereto nor diminish from it, that thy God may bless thee." ¹ Whether, therefore, Jesus turned aside to the right by adding to the law and the prophets in order to fulfill them, or to the left in taking away from them to destroy them, either way he offended the author of the law. So this verse must either have some other meaning, or be spurious.

Edition Masquer
Contra Faustum Manichaeum libri triginta tres

2.

Quid, quod etiam ex ipso sermone, quo praecepit non putare, quia venerit legem solvere, magis intellegi detur, quia solverit? Neque enim nihil eo tale faciente Iudaei suspicari hoc possent. Sed nolite inquit putare, quia veni solvere legem. Agedum ergo, si ei et Iudaei dixissent: Quid porro autem tu tale agis, unde hoc suspicari possimus? An quia circumcisionem derides, sabbatum violas, sacrificia respuis, confundis cibos? Hoc est ergo: ‘Nolite putare!’? Et: quid hoc amplius quidve manifestius fieri potuit in destructionem legis ac prophetarum? Aut: si hoc adimplere est legem, quid erit solvere? Quid, quod etiam lex et prophetae ne adimpletione quidem gaudent, adeo sibi pleni videntur et consummati; quorum auctor ac pater non minus ei‹s› adici indignatur quam detrahi, ut scribens in deuteronomio dicat: p. 484,16 Haec praecepta, quae mando tibi hodie, Israhel, observabis; et cave, ne declines ab iisdem neque in sinistram neque in dextram, ne addas quicquam eis nec minuas, sed in iisdem perseverabis, ut benedicat te dominus deus tuus? Quapropter sive adimplendi causa Iesus legi aliquid et prophetis adiecit, in dextram videtur lapsus, sive dempsit, ut destrueret, in sinistram; utrumque certe offendit legis auctorem idcircoque aut aliud aliquid significat istud aut falsum est.