Against Faustus the Manichaean 22.9–22.21

For just as he is sufficient to himself for eternal blessedness and out of it abounds for making others blessed, so he is sufficient to himself for eternal light and out of it abounds for making others enlightened, coveting no one's good, since every good will enjoys him, fearing no one's evil, since every evil will is abandoned by him; for neither does the one who is blessed by his gift increase him, nor does the one who is wretched by his judgment frighten him. Such a God, Manichaeans, you do not worship; you have gone far from him while you follow your phantasms, which your vain and wandering heart, drinking in the light of the heavenly bodies through the eyes of the flesh, has expanded and varied for you with manifold fictions. This light, although God made it too, is far beyond comparison even with that light which God made in the minds of the godly, which he makes full of light out of darkness, as he makes them righteous out of ungodliness; how much more with that inaccessible light which makes all these things! Nor is it inaccessible to all; for “blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” But “God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all”; and “the ungodly shall not see the light,” as Isaiah says. To such, then, that light-making light is inaccessible, which made not only that spiritual light in the minds of the saints but also this bodily light—not one which it forbids the wicked to approach, but one which it makes rise upon the good and the wicked.

When, then, there was darkness over the abyss, he who was light said: “Let there be light.” What light made the light is clear; for it is clearly stated: “God said.” But what light he made is not so clear: whether that light which is in the minds of the angels, that is, whether God then made the rational spirits themselves, or some bodily light, itself also removed from our sight in the high places of this world—this is discussed in harmony among students of the divine Scriptures. For on the fourth day he made these visible lights of heaven. And whether they were made together with their own light, or were in some way kindled from that which had already been made, is likewise a question. But whatever light was made when, darkness being over the abyss, God said: “Let there be light,” whoever by reading the holy writings with piety becomes worthy to understand does not doubt that created light was made by the creating light.

Nor should God be thought to have dwelt in darkness before he made light because the Spirit of God was borne over the waters, when it had been said before: “Darkness was over the abyss.” For the abyss is the immeasurable depth of the waters. Hence it may occur to fleshly prudence that the Spirit of God, of whom it was said, “He was borne over the waters,” dwelt as it were in this darkness which was over the abyss—to one who does not understand how the light shines in the darkness and the darkness does not comprehend it, unless through the Word of God light is made and it is said to them: “For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.” But if rational minds, made dark through an ungodly will, cannot comprehend the light of the wisdom of God, which is nowhere absent, because they are far from it in affection, not in place, what wonder if the Spirit of God, which was borne over the waters, was borne also over the darkness of the waters, at an incomparable distance indeed, but of substance, not of places?

I know indeed how deaf they are to whom I sing these things; yet I do not despair that the truth of my song will find its own ear, one that the Lord has opened, from whom are the true things that we say. But what kind of judges of the divine Scriptures are we putting up with in these men, who are displeased even that his works pleased God, and who find fault with him as though he marvelled at the light as something unfamiliar, because it is written: “And God saw the light, that it was good”! For he approves his works because what he made pleases him, and this is to see that they are good. For he is not forced to do anything against his will, so as to make what does not please him, nor does he slip unawares into making something, so that what has been made displeases him. But why should it not displease them that our God saw his work, that it was good, since their god, when he plunged his members into darkness, placed a veil before himself? For he did not see what he had made, that it was good; rather he was unwilling to see it, because it was evil.

Faustus indeed said that our God marvelled. This is not written, nor does it at all follow that when someone has seen that a thing is good, he is said also to have marvelled. For we see many good things without marvelling at them, as though they were so beyond expectation; we merely approve that they are as they ought to be. Yet we will show them that God marvelled—not in the Old Testament, which they maliciously slander, but in the New, which they accept in order to deceive the unlearned. For they confess that Christ is God, and they set this in their snare like a very sweet bait, with which to catch those devoted to Christ. God therefore marvelled when Christ marvelled; for so it is written in the gospel, that on hearing the faith of a certain centurion he marvelled and said to his disciples: “Truly I say to you, I have not found such faith in Israel.” See, we have explained as best we could “God saw that it was good,” and better men perhaps explain it better; let these men also explain why Jesus marvelled at what he foreknew before it happened, and certainly knew before he heard it. For although there is a very great difference between someone seeing that a thing is good and also marvelling at it, yet there is some likeness in this, that Jesus too marvelled at the light of faith which he himself had made in the heart of that centurion—he who is the true light that enlightens every man coming into this world.

Some ungodly pagan could certainly slander and find fault with him in the gospel just as Faustus does with God in the Old Testament. For he too would call Christ improvident, not only because he marvelled at the centurion's faith, but also because he chose Judas among the disciples, who was not going to keep his commandments—just as this man finds fault with the giving of a precept in paradise to a man who would not do it. He would also blame Christ because he could not know who touched him when the woman who suffered from a flow of blood touched the fringe of his garment—just as this man blamed God for not knowing where Adam was hiding, I suppose because he said: “Adam, where are you?”, as Christ said: “Who touched me?” He would also call him envious and fearful lest, if five other virgins entered his kingdom, they should live for ever: against whom he shut the door so that he did not open even when they knocked pitiably, as though forgetting what he himself had promised, saying: “Knock, and it will be opened to you”—just as this man charges God with envy and fear because he did not admit the sinner to eternal life. He would also say that he craved the blood not of cattle but of men, because he said: “Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it in eternal life”—just as this man chose to slander the sacrifices of animals, by which figures the sacrifice of the blood by which we were redeemed was promised. He would also find fault with him as jealous, because when he had driven the buyers and sellers out of the temple with a whip, the evangelist recalled that it was written of him: “Zeal for your house consumes me”—just as this man accused God of being jealous because he forbade sacrifice to others. He would say he was angry with his own and with strangers: with his own, because he said: “The servant who knows the will of his master and does things worthy of stripes will be beaten with many”; with strangers, because he said: “If anyone does not receive you, shake off the dust of your feet against them; truly I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Sodom on the day of judgment than for that city”—just as this man charges God with being angry, now with strangers, now with his own, both of whom the apostle mentions, saying: “For whoever have sinned without the law will also perish without the law; and whoever have sinned under the law will be judged by the law.” He would also say that he slaughtered and shed the blood of many for slight offences or none. For it would seem to a pagan a slight offence or none not to have a wedding garment at the wedding feast, on account of which our King in the gospel ordered a man to be bound hand and foot and cast into the outer darkness; or to be unwilling that Christ should reign over oneself, for which sin he says: “But those who did not want me to reign over them, bring here and kill before me”—just as this man accused God in the Old Testament, who seemed to him to slaughter thousands of men for slight offences or none. And as for Faustus's finding fault with God's threatening to come with a sword with which he would spare neither the righteous nor the sinner, how would that pagan find fault with it, hearing the apostle Paul say of our God: “He did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all,” and hearing Peter too, when he spoke of the great tribulations and killings of the saints, exhorting them to endure and saying: “The time has come for judgment to begin at the house of the Lord; and if it begins with us, what will be the end of those who do not believe the gospel of the Lord? And if the righteous is scarcely saved, where will the sinner and the ungodly appear?” For who is more righteous than the One whom yet the Father did not spare? And what is clearer than that he spares not even the righteous, correcting them by various tribulations, when it is openly said of this: “And if the righteous is scarcely saved”? For it is written not only in the Old Testament: “For whom God loves he rebukes, and he scourges every son whom he receives,” and: “If we have received good things from the hand of the Lord, why should we not endure evil things?”, but also in the New: “Those whom I love I reprove and chasten,” and this: “For if we judged ourselves, we would not be judged by the Lord; but when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord, so that we may not be condemned with the world.” And yet if a pagan found fault with such things in the New Testament as these men find fault with in the Old, would not they themselves undertake to defend them? If they could do so, by what madness do they find fault here with the same kind of things they defend there? But if they could not, why do they grant only in one Testament, and not rather in both, that what would seem perverse to the ungodly who do not understand should be believed by the godly who do not understand to be right, though hidden?

Or perhaps they dare to say that the similar things we have brought forward from the New Testament are also false and perverse, by that devilish privilege of theirs, so that whatever is in the gospel or the canonical letters by which they think their heresy can be helped, they hold and urge to have been said by Christ and the apostles, but whatever sounds against them from the same books they do not hesitate to say, with impudent and sacrilegious mouth, was inserted by falsifiers? To this madness of theirs, which tries to extinguish and abolish the authority of all books, I have already replied above at no little length, as far as the plan of the work I undertook seemed to allow.

Now I point out this: since they strive to veil their mad and sacrilegious fables with the cloak of the Christian name, let them nevertheless see that, when they argue thus against the Christian Scriptures, the truth of the divine books of both Testaments is defended by us not only against pagans but also against Manichaeans. And these things which Faustus has just set down in his discourse from our old writings as unworthy of God, I would perhaps defend against a pagan who found fault with such things in the words of the gospel or the apostles by recalling similar things from their own authors, as our Paul did among the Athenians. For I would perhaps find even in their writings God the creator and maker of the world and the establisher of this light, who nevertheless, before he founded it, did not lie in darkness; and who was transported with joy at his completed work—which is certainly more than “he saw that it was good”; and a lawgiver, whose law, if man followed it, he would follow to his own good, but if he despised it, to his own harm; and they would not call him ignorant of the future because he gave a law also to those who would later despise it. Nor would they call even a man improvident because he asks something, those in whose books many things are asked for no other reason than that each may be refuted by his own answers, when the one who asks knows not only what he wants the other to answer but also that he will answer it. And if he wished to say that God envied anyone because he did not allow the wicked to become blessed, he would find the books of his own authors full on this subject, which pertains to divine providence.

Concerning sacrifices, a pagan would object nothing else to me than why we find fault with these among them, when in our old books our God is read to have commanded such things to be offered to himself. Here, discussing true sacrifice perhaps more fully, I would show that it is due only to the one true God, being that which the one true Priest offered to him, the mediator between God and men; that the promising figures of this sacrifice had to be celebrated in the victims of animals for the commending of the flesh and blood to come, through which one victim forgiveness would be made of the sins contracted from flesh and blood, which shall not possess the kingdom of God, because the same substance of the body will be changed into a heavenly quality: which the fire in the sacrifice signified, as swallowing up death in victory. And these things were duly celebrated in that people whose kingdom and priesthood were a prophecy of the King and Priest to come, to rule and consecrate the faithful in all nations and to bring them into the kingdom of heaven and the sanctuary of the angels, to eternal life. Of this true sacrifice, then, as the Hebrews celebrated religious foreshadowings, so the pagans celebrated sacrilegious imitations; for “what the nations sacrifice,” says the apostle, “they sacrifice to demons, and not to God.” For the immolation of blood that foretold it is an ancient thing, testifying from the beginning of the human race to the future passion of the mediator; for Abel is found in the sacred writings to have been the first to offer it. It is no wonder, then, if the transgressing angels, whose two greatest vices are pride and deceit, flitting through this air, demanded for themselves from their worshippers what they knew was due to the one true God, wishing to be thought gods by them, the vanity of the human heart giving them room—especially when images were set up out of longing for the dead, from which the use of idols arose, and by greater flattery divine honours were paid to them as though they had been received into heaven; in place of whom the demons put themselves forward on earth to be worshipped and demanded sacrifice for themselves from the deceived and lost. Sacrifice, then, shows clearly enough to whom it is due, not only when the true God justly commands it, but also when a false god proudly exacts it. If that pagan were harder to persuade, I would persuade him of these things by prophecy itself also, in which things written so long before are now, as I would show, fulfilled. And if he despised this too, I would recognize this also rather than wonder at it, since I would recall that in the truth of that same prophecy it was foretold that not all would believe.

But if he objected to me that Christ, or God, is called jealous in both Testaments, and harped on the word itself, he would only show himself either ignorant or neglectful of all literature. For although their learned men distinguish between will and desire, joy and gladness, caution and fear, clemency and pity, prudence and cunning, confidence and boldness, and many things of this kind, so that in each pair they assign the first words I have given to virtues and the second to vices, yet their books are full of cases where, by a loose use of these names which properly signify vices, virtues too are so called: when desire is put for will, or gladness for joy, or fear for caution, or pity for clemency, or cunning for prudence, or boldness for confidence. And who could recount everything that the custom of speech appropriates with similar licence? Add to this the particular character of each language. For in the writings of the church I do not remember pity ever being used in a bad sense; and the custom of everyday speech agrees with this. The Greeks call two things that are related, yet distinct, by one name, labour and pain; we express them by separate names; just as we call by one name “life,” whether in the sense in which we say “he lives” of what is not lifeless, or in the sense in which we say “he is a man of good life”; but the Greeks signify these two by two words. Hence it may be that, apart from the loose use of words which is widespread in all languages, zeal (jealousy) is also used, by some peculiarity of the Hebrew language, in both senses: either when the mind, troubled by a spouse's adultery, wastes away—which cannot happen to God—or when diligent watch is kept to preserve conjugal chastity; and that God does this, when he addresses his people as a wife whom he does not want to commit fornication with many false gods, it is useful for us to confess not only without hesitation but with thanksgiving. This I would say also of the anger of God; for God is not disturbed when he brings anger, but anger is put for punishment, either by a loose use of the word or by some peculiarity of the original language.

As for the thousands of men killed, he would not wonder at it if he did not deny the judgment of God: which not even pagans deny, who grant that this universe is ruled and administered by the providence of God from the highest things to the lowest. If he denied this too, he would be convinced either more easily by the authority of his own writers or, at somewhat greater length, by argument from sure reasons; or else, as too hard and stupid, he would be left to the divine judgment itself, which he did not believe existed. Further, if he expressly named the slight offences or no offences for which God killed men, we would show that they were neither none nor slight. For example, as to what we gave as an example concerning the wedding garment, we would show how great a wickedness it is to come to the sacred wedding seeking there the glory not of the bridegroom but one's own, or whatever else that garment might be found, on better understanding, to signify. Or as to those who are killed before the eyes of the king because they were unwilling that he should reign over them, it would perhaps appear without long discussion on our part that, although it is no fault in a man if he is unwilling that any man should reign over him, it is no slight fault, nor none, to be unwilling that he should reign over one in whose kingdom alone one lives rightly, blessedly, and for ever.

Now as for that last thing Faustus set down, laying snares for the old books as though they disparaged God—that he threatens a sword by which he will spare no one, neither righteous nor sinner—if it were explained to a pagan how it should be understood, perhaps he would resist neither the New Testament nor the Old, and the gospel likeness would please him, which to these men who want to be considered Christians is either not apparent, since they are blind, or displeasing, since they are perverse. For that supreme husbandman of the vine prepares his knife in one way for the fruitful branches and in another for the unfruitful, yet he spares neither the good nor the bad, pruning the one and cutting off the other. For there is no man endowed with such righteousness that he does not need the trial of tribulation, either to perfect or to strengthen or to prove his virtue—unless perhaps these men do not count even the apostle Paul among the righteous, who, though he humbly and truthfully confesses his past sins, yet gives thanks that he has been justified by the faith of Jesus Christ. Or did he spare him, he whom these empty men do not understand when he says: “I will not spare, neither the righteous nor the sinner”? Let them hear Paul himself: “And lest I should be exalted,” he says, “by the greatness of the revelations, there was given me a goad of the flesh, an angel of Satan, to buffet me; on account of which I three times asked the Lord to take it away from me, and he said to me: My grace is sufficient for you; for power is made perfect in weakness.” See, he did not spare even the righteous, in order to perfect his power in weakness—he who had given him the buffeting angel of Satan; unless you say that the devil gave it. Was the devil, then, acting so that Paul might not be exalted by the greatness of the revelations, and so that his power might be made perfect? Who would say this? The righteous man, therefore, had been handed over to be buffeted by the angel of Satan by him who through Paul handed over the unrighteous also to Satan himself, of whom the same apostle says: “whom I have handed over to Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme.” Do you now understand how he from above spares neither the righteous nor the sinner? Or do you shudder more because a sword is named there? For it is one thing to be buffeted, another to be killed. As though thousands of martyrs had not been laid low by various kinds of death, or the persecutors had really had this in their power, had it not been given them from above by him who said: “I will not spare, neither the righteous nor the sinner”; since the Lord of the martyrs himself, whose own Son the Father did not spare, says most plainly to Pilate: “You would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above.” These afflictions and persecutions of the righteous, the same Paul says, are an example of the righteous judgment of God. This thought is set out more fully by the apostle Peter, as I mentioned above, where he says that the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of the Lord. “And if it begins with us,” he says, “what will be the end of those who do not believe the gospel of God? And if the righteous is scarcely saved, where will the sinner and the ungodly appear?” From this it is understood how the ungodly are not spared, like branches cut off for burning, when the righteous are not spared for the perfecting of their cleansing. For Peter himself also testifies that these things happen by the will of him who says in the old books: “I will not spare, neither the righteous nor the sinner.” For he too says: “It is better to suffer for doing good, if the Spirit of God so wills, than for doing evil.” When, then, by the will of the Spirit of God those who do good suffer, the righteous are not spared; and when those who do evil suffer, sinners are not spared; yet both happen according to the will of him who says: “I will not spare, neither the righteous nor the sinner,” scourging the one as a son and punishing the other as ungodly.

See, I have shown as best I could that we do not worship a God who dwelt from eternity in darkness, but him who is light, and in whom there is no darkness at all, and who dwells in himself in light inaccessible, the radiance of whose eternal light is his co-eternal wisdom; not one who marvels at an unexpected light, but the creator of the light made, that it might exist, and its approver, that it might remain; not one ignorant of the future, but the giver of a precept and the condemner of a transgression, so that punishment justly pronounced against disobedience might restrain those present and frighten those to come; not one who asks in improvidence out of ignorance, but who judges by questioning; not envious and fearful, but justly barring the transgressor from the eternal life which is given to the justly obedient; not craving blood and fat, but, imposing sacrifices suited to a fleshly people, promising the true sacrifice through certain figures; jealous not with spiteful agitation but with tranquil goodness, lest the soul, which owes chastity to the one God, should be defiled, corrupted, and prostituted through many false gods; not raging turbulently with an anger like a man's, but with another, divine anger severely rendering what is just, which by an established usage of speech is called anger not because of a lust for revenge but because of the vigour of judging; not destroying thousands of men for slight offences or none, but by most equitable weighing imposing on peoples the benefit of fearing him through the temporal deaths of mortals; not punishing righteous and sinners without any discrimination in blind confusion, but dealing out to the righteous wholesome correction for their perfecting, and to sinners due severity for the sake of equity. Hence it appears, Manichaeans, that you are deceived by your suspicions, since by misunderstanding our Scriptures, or by meeting bad interpreters, you believe false things of Catholics; and so, having abandoned sound doctrine, turned to sacrilegious fables, utterly perverted and estranged from the fellowship of the saints, you will not be corrected even from the New Testament, from which we bring forward things like those you attack in the Old. So it comes about that we are compelled to defend both Testaments against you as against pagans.