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Reply to Faustus the Manichaean

6.

I am aware that instead of boldly pronouncing these passages spurious, you make out that these things were required of the Jews till the coming of Jesus; and that now that He is come, according, as you say, to the predictions of this Old Testament, He Himself teaches what we should receive, and what we should set aside as obsolete. Whether the prophets predicted the coming of Jesus we shall see presently. Meanwhile, I need say no more than that if Jesus, after being predicted in the Old Testament, now subjects it to this sweeping criticism, and teaches us to receive a few things and to throw over many things, in the same way the Paraclete who is promised in the New Testament teaches us what part of it to receive, and what to reject; as Jesus Himself says in the Gospel, when promising the Paraclete, "He shall guide you into all truth, and shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance." ¹ So then, with the help of the Paraclete, we may take the same liberties with the New Testament as Jesus enables you to take with the Old, unless you suppose that the Testament of the Son is of greater value than that of the Father, if it is really the Father's; so that while many parts of the one are to be condemned, the other must be exempted from all disapproval; and that, too, when we know, as I said before, that it was not written by Christ or by His apostles.

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Contra Faustum Manichaeum libri triginta tres

6.

Equidem haud ignoro, quin vos haec non audeatis dicere falsa, sed quia sint eadem pro tempore tunc mandata Iudaeis usque ad adventum scilicet Iesu, qui quoniam venerit ab eodem praenuntiatus, ut vultis, vetere testamento ipse iam doceat, quid accipiendum nobis ex eodem sit et quid relinquendum. Sed an prophetae Iesum praesagaverint, postea videbimus ; interim ad haec me nunc respondere oportet, quia si Iesus per testamentum vetus adnuntiatus nunc diiudicat et carminat docetque pauca eius accipienda esse, repudianda vero quam plurima, et nobis paracletus ex novo testamento promissus perinde docet, quid accipere ex eodem debeamus et quid repudiare. p. 765,20 - De quo ultro Iesus cum eum promitteret, dicit in evangelio Ipse vos inducet in omnem veritatem et ipse vobis adnuntiabit omnia et commemorabit vos. Quapropter liceat tantundem et nobis in testamento novo per paracletum, quantum vobis in vetere licere ostenditis per Iesum, nisi forte pluris vobis testamentum videtur filii esse quam patris, si modo patris est, ut, cum ex illo reprobentur tam multa, huius solius nihil non debeat approbari, praesertim quod nec a Christo scriptum constat, ut diximus, nec ab eius apostolis.