Traduction Masquer
Reply to Faustus the Manichaean

4.

Faustus glibly defends himself by saying, "We speak not of two gods, but of God and Hyle." But when you ask for the meaning of Hyle, you find that it is in fact another god. If the Manichaeans gave the name of Hyle, as the ancients did, to the unformed matter which is susceptible of bodily forms, we should not accuse them of making two gods. But it is pure folly and madness to give to matter the power of forming bodies, or to deny that what has this power is God. When you give to some other being the power which belongs to the true God of making the qualities and forms, by which bodies, elements, and animals exist, according to their respective modes, whatever name you choose to give to this being, you are chargeable with making another god. There are indeed two errors in this blasphemous doctrine. In the first place, you ascribe the act of God to a being whom you are ashamed to call god; though you must call him god as long as you make him do things which only God can do. In the second place, the good things done by a good God you call bad, and ascribe to an evil god, because you feel a childish horror of whatever shocks the frailty of fallen humanity, and a childish pleasure in the opposite. So you think snakes are made by an evil being; while you consider the sun so great a good, that you believe it to be not the creature of God, but an emission from His substance. You must know that the true God, in whom, alas, you have not yet come to believe, made both the snake along with the lower creatures, and the sun along with other exalted creatures. Moreover, among still more exalted creatures, not heavenly bodies, but spiritual beings, He has made what far surpasses the light of the sun, and what no carnal man can perceive, much less you, who, in your condemnation of flesh, condemn the very principle by which you determine good and evil. For your only idea of evil is from the disagreeableness of some things to the fleshly sense; and your only idea of good is from sensual gratification.

Edition Masquer
Contra Faustum Manichaeum libri triginta tres

4.

Nam cito videtur Faustus se defendisse, cum ait: Non dicimus duos deos, sed deum et hylen. * Porro autem cum quaesieris, quam dicat hylen, audies plane describi alterum deum. Si enim materies informis corporalium formarum capax ab eis hyle appellaretur, quae appellata est ab antiquis, nemo eam nostrum coargueret dici deum. p. 572,28 Nunc vero quantus error est, quanta dementia vel materiem corporum dicere opificem corporum vel opificem corporum negare deum! Quia ergo quod deus verus facit, id est corporum, elementorum, animalium qualitates et formas, ut corpora, ut elementa, ut animalia sint, hoc vos dicitis nescio quem alterum facere, quolibet eum nomine vocitetis, recte dicimini errore vestro deum alterum inducere. In hac enim una re bis erratis errore sacrilego: semel quidem, quod ea, quae deus fecit, eum facere dicitis, quem deum fateri erubescitis – sed nullo modo efficietis, ut non sit deus, nisi eum talia facere negaveritis, qualia non facit nisi deus; p. 573,9 iterum autem, quia ea, quae bonus deus bona facit, vos et a malo fieri et mala esse opinamini, puerili sensu horrentes, quae poenalis mortalitatis imbecillitati non congruunt, et amantes, quae congruunt. Proinde malum dicitis, qui fecit colubrum, istum autem solem tam magnum bonum putatis, ut nec factum a deo, sed prolatum vel missum esse credatis. Deus autem verus, in quem nondum a vobis credi nimium doleo, et colubrum fecit inter alia inferiora et solem inter alia superiora et adhuc in sublimioribus non corporalibus caelestibus, sed iam in spiritalibus multa ista luce longe meliora, quae carnalis homo quilibet non percipit, quanto magis vos, p. 573,20 qui cum carnem detestamini, nihil aliud quam vestram regulam detestamini, qua bona et mala metimini! Neque enim potest in vobis esse cogitatio vel malorum, nisi qualibus carnalis sensus offenditur, vel bonorum, nisi qualibus carnalis acies oblectatur.