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Reply to Faustus the Manichaean

2.

Augustin replied: Faustus is not ashamed to repeat the same nonsense again and again. But it is tiresome to repeat the same answers, though it is to repeat truth. What Faustus says here has already been answered. ¹ But if a Jew asks me why I profess to believe the Old Testament while I do not observe its precepts, my reply is this: The moral precepts of the law are observed by Christians; the symbolical precepts were properly observed during the time that the things now revealed were prefigured. Accordingly, those observances, which I regard as no longer binding, I still look upon as a testimony, as I do also the carnal promises from which the Old Testament derives its name. For although the gospel teaches me to hope for eternal blessings, I also find a confirmation of the gospel in those things which "happened to them for an example, and were written for our admonition, on whom the ends of the world are come." So much for our answer to the Jews. And now we have something to say to the Manichaeans.

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Contra Faustum Manichaeum libri triginta tres

2.

Augustinus respondit: Eadem saepe vana repetere istum non pudet, sed eadem saepe quamvis vera respondere me piget. Quisquis itaque etiam adversus ista responsionem quaerit, quae superius a nobis dicta sunt, legat. Iudaeo autem dicenti mihi: Cur tenes vetus testamentum, cuius praecepta non servas? respondeo servari a christianis etiam ex ipsis libris praecepta vitae agendae, praecepta vero vitae significandae tunc recte observata, cum praenuntiabantur ista, quae nunc revelata sunt. p. 311,7 Quapropter etiam ipsa sic non observo ad religionem, ut teneam tamen ad testificationem, sicut et promissa carnalia, quae ibi continentur, unde proprie vetus dicitur testamentum : quamvis mihi aeterna speranda revelata sint, et illa tamen attestantia lego, quae in figura contingebant illis; scripta autem sunt propter nos, in quos finis saeculorum obvenit. Itaque si audistis, quid respondeamus Iudaeis, audite et quod obiciam Manichaeis !