Traduction Masquer
Reply to Faustus the Manichaean

7.

For the apostle, in speaking of the love which husbands ought to have for their wives gives, as an example, the love of the soul for the body. The words are: "He that loveth his wife, loveth himself: for no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as Christ the Church." ¹ Look at the whole animal creation, and you find in the instinctive self-preservation of every animal this natural principle of love to its own flesh. It is so not only with men, who, when they live aright, both provide for the safety of their flesh, and keep their carnal appetites in subjection to the use of reason; the brutes also avoid pain, and shrink from death, and escape as rapidly as they can from whatever might break up the construction of their bodies, or dissolve the connection of spirit and flesh; for the brutes, too, nourish and cherish their own flesh. "For no one ever yet," says the apostle, "hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as Christ the Church." See where the apostle begins, and to what he ascends. Consider, if you can, the greatness which creation derives from its Creator, embracing as it does the whole extent from the host of heaven down to flesh and blood, with the beauty of manifold form, and the order of successive gradations.

Edition Masquer
Contra Faustum Manichaeum libri triginta tres

7.

Apostolus enim cum de sancta dilectione praeciperet, qualis esse debeat virorum in uxores, ex anima amantis ‹se› sumpsit exemplum. p. 575,19 Qui diligit inquit uxorem suam, se ipsum diligit; nemo enim umquam carnem suam odio habet, sed nutrit et fovet eam tamquam Christus ecclesiam. Ecce in conspectu vestro est carnalis universa substantia! Videte quemadmodum in omne animal sibi ad salutem conciliatum _per_tendat naturae ista communio, ut diligat carnem suam! Neque enim hoc in hominibus tantum est, qui cum recte vivunt, non solum consulunt saluti carnis suae, verum etiam carnales motus ad usum rationis edomant et refrenant, sed etiam bestiae fugiunt dolorem, formidant interitum, et quicquid illam membrorum compagem copulamque carnis et spiritus a concordi iunctura disicere ac dirimere potest, quanta valent agilitate, devitant nutrientes etiam ipsae ac foventes carnem suam. p. 576,4 Nemo enim umquam carnem suam odio habet, sed nutrit inquit ac fovet eam sicut et Christus ecclesiam. Videte, unde quo ascenderit; intuemini, si potestis, quam vim ducat a creatore creatura ab ipsis caelestibus apparatibus usque ad carnem et sanguinem universitatis plenitudine terminata, formarum varietate decorata, rerum gradibus ordinata.