Letters & Polemics (CSEL) 15 part 35/37

and that if the man is unwilling to do this, the woman ought to lay before the elders a complaint of this impiety against her kinsman, so that they, having summoned him, may restrain him with censorial severity; and if he persists in refusal, he shall not go unpunished among them, but, having his right foot unshod, shall be struck in the face by the aforesaid woman, and depart spat upon and cursed, destined to bear this everlasting reproach upon his offspring. These, then, and others of this kind, are both the examples and the laws of the Old Testament: which, if they are good, why do you not imitate them? If they are evil, why do you not condemn their author, that is, the Old Testament itself? Or if you too suppose that these things were inserted into it, falsely, just as we believe concerning the New, then we are equals.

Cease therefore henceforth to demand from us in the New Testament what you yourselves do not keep in the Old. Indeed, as far as I judge, insofar as you have wished it to be persuaded that the Old Testament also is from God, it is more convenient and more excusable for you, who do not keep its commands, if you confess that it has been corrupted by incongruous additions, than if you spurn it as inviolate and uncorrupted. Accordingly I have always held and still hold this opinion concerning you: whenever it is asked why you transgress the ordinances of the Old Testament, you either despise as wise men things that are false, or you neglect as obstinate and irreverent men things that are true. Meanwhile, because you compel me to believe all things that are inserted into the records of the New Testament,

if I accept that very thing, you should know that you too, as far as concerns the mind, do not believe many things that are in the Old Testament, although you profess to accept it. For you do not hold it among things confessed and credible from that same source that everyone is cursed who has hung upon a tree, since that pertains especially to Jesus, lest he too be reckoned among the accursed; or that he who has not raised up seed in Israel is accursed, since that would include all virgins and the children of God; or that he shall utterly perish from his people who has not been circumcised in the flesh of the foreskin, since this too pertains to every Christian; or that he shall be extinguished with stones who has broken the Sabbath;

or that he is not to be spared who has broken any single command whatsoever of the Old Testament: all of which, if you were to believe and hold firm, because they are the same things commanded by God, believe me, you would have laid hands first upon Christ, nor would you now be angry with the Jews, who, in persecuting him with mind and might, fulfilled the commands of their God. Indeed I am well aware that you do not dare to call these things false, but say that they were commanded to the Jews only for the time, that is, until the coming of Jesus; who, since he has come, foretold, as you wish, by the Old Testament, may himself now teach what is to be accepted by us from it and what is to be left aside. But whether the prophets foretold Jesus, we shall see afterward.

Meanwhile it behooves me now to answer this: that if Jesus, announced through the Old Testament, now discerns and sifts it and teaches that few things of it are to be accepted while very many are to be rejected, then the Paraclete promised to us from the New Testament likewise teaches what we ought to accept from it and what to reject. Concerning whom Jesus of his own accord, when he promised him, says in the Gospel: he himself will lead you into all truth, and he himself will announce to you all things and will remind you.

Wherefore let it be permitted to us as well, in the New Testament through the Paraclete, as much as you show it to be permitted to you in the Old through Jesus—unless perhaps the testament of the Son seems to you of more worth than that of the Father, if indeed it is the Father's; so that, whereas from the one so many things are reproved, of this alone nothing ought not to be approved—especially since it is agreed that this was written neither by Christ, as we have said, nor by his apostles.

Wherefore, just as you from the Old Testament admit only the prophecies and those precepts we mentioned above, which are civil and pertaining to the discipline of common life, but have set aside circumcision and the sacrifices and the Sabbath and its observance and the unleavened bread, what is amiss if we too, accepting from the New Testament only those things which we find said in honor and praise of the Son of majesty, whether by himself or by his apostles—but now perfected and faithful—have disregarded the rest, which were either said simply and ignorantly by unlearned men at that time, or objected obliquely and maliciously by enemies, or imprudently affirmed by writers and handed down to posterity?

Now I say this very thing: that he was born of a woman shamefully, was circumcised in Jewish fashion, sacrificed in heathen fashion, was baptized humbly, was led about by the devil through the deserts and by him most miserably tempted. These things therefore excepted, and whatever was thrust upon him by writers out of the Old Testament under a false attestation, we believe the rest; and besides, the mystical fixing of his cross, by which the wounds of our soul's passion are shown; then his saving precepts, then his parables, and his whole deifying discourse, which, chiefly displaying the distinction of the two natures, comes into no doubt as being his. There is therefore now no reason why you should think that I must believe all things which the Gospels contain, since you,

as was shown above, scarcely touch the topmost liquid of the Old Testament with, as they say, the very tip of your lips. AUGUSTINE replied: We praise all the Scriptures of the Old Testament as true and divine, as is fitting; you assail the Scriptures of the New Testament as though falsified and corrupted. We say, and moreover show and teach in the apostolic letters, that those things which we now do not observe from the books of the Old Testament were nevertheless fittingly commanded at that time and to that people, and were signified to us in those very things which we do not observe, so that we may understand them and hold them spiritually;

but you reprehend altogether everything that you do not accept in the books of the New Testament, and you assert that it was neither said nor written by Christ nor by his apostles. You see therefore how great a distance lies between us and you as regards this matter. When therefore it is asked of you why you do not accept all things in the books of the New Testament, but even in those books in which you approve some things you reject many, reprehend, accuse, and contend that they were inserted by corrupters, do not take as your example the distinction of our faith or of our observance, but render an account of your own presumption.

For if it is asked of us why we do not worship God with that rite by which the Hebrew fathers worshiped in the time of the Old Testament, we answer that God has commanded us something else through the fathers of the New Testament, and this not against the Old Testament, since in it too this very thing was foretold beforehand. For thus this very thing was foretold through the prophet: Behold, the days come, says the Lord, and I will complete over the house of Israel and over the house of Judah a new testament, not according to the testament which I made with their fathers in the day when I took hold of their hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt. Behold, that this too was prophesied, that that testament would not endure, but that a new one would be.

Here, if it is objected that we do not belong to the house of Israel and the house of Judah, we defend ourselves from apostolic doctrine, because the apostle teaches that the seed of Abraham is Christ, and to us who belong to his body he says: therefore you are the seed of Abraham. Further, if it is asked of us why we hold the authority of that testament whose rite we do not observe, to this too we answer from apostolic writings. For the apostle says: let no one therefore judge you in food and drink, or in respect of a feast day or of the new moon or of Sabbaths, which is a shadow of things to come.

For thus he shows both why it ought to be read and accepted—that is, lest we extinguish prophecy, since these things were made in a shadow of things to come—and that we ought not to concern ourselves with those who wish to judge us on this account, since we no longer observe it bodily; just as elsewhere he said something of the kind: these things happened to them as a figure; but they were written for our correction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come. When therefore something of this sort is read in the instrument of the Old Testament, such as is neither commanded to be observed by us in the New Testament nor even forbidden, what it signifies must be sought, not reprehended, because by the very fact that it is no longer observed, it is proved not condemned but fulfilled. Of which we have already said much and often.

Take for example this very thing which Faustus, not understanding, has cast up as a crime against the commands of the Old Testament: that a brother was commanded to marry his brother's widow to this end, that he might raise up offspring not for himself but for the other, and call by the other's name what should be born thence. What else does this foreshadow in figure, except that every preacher of the Gospel ought so to labor in the Church that he may raise up seed for his deceased brother, that is, for Christ, who died for us, and that what is raised up may receive his name?

Finally, fulfilling this, the apostle—now not carnally in the premised signification, but spiritually in the completed truth—reproves those whom he records having begotten in Christ Jesus through the Gospel, and rebuking corrects them when they wished to belong to Paul: Was Paul, he says, crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? As if he said: I begot you for my deceased brother; you are called Christians, not Paulians. But he who, chosen by the Church, refuses the ministry of evangelizing, is deservedly and worthily despised by that same Church. For this is what he is commanded to spit in the face of—not indeed without the sign of this reproach, that he be stripped of the shoe of one foot—lest he be in the lot of those to whom the apostle himself says:

and the feet shod in preparation of the Gospel of peace; and of whom the prophet makes mention: how beautiful are the feet of those who announce peace, who announce good things. For he who so holds the evangelical faith that it both profits himself and does not refuse to profit the Church, is rightly understood to be shod on both feet. But he who thinks it enough for himself that he has believed, yet shuns the care of gaining others, will not signify in figure the man unshod, but will bear in himself the fulfilled reproach. What of this—that he also objects that the Passover is celebrated by us, yet does not taunt us that we celebrate it as the Jews do?

Since we rather hold the lamb in the reality of the present Gospel, not in the shadow of a thing to come, and we prefigure its slaying, which we commemorate both daily and especially in an annual solemnity, not as something to come but as already accomplished; therefore indeed the day of the solemnity of our Passover does not coincide with the day of the shadowy celebration of the Jews, so that we might also embrace the Lord's day, on which Christ rose again. And those Christians who are of right faith keep the unleavened bread not in the leaven of the old life, that is, of malice, but in the truth and sincerity of the faith itself—not for seven days but every day—which is signified by the sevenfold number of days, by which every day is daily rolled around.

And although this is somewhat laborious in this age, since narrow and strait is the way that leads to life, nevertheless a sure reward is kept. For the labor itself was signified by those bitter herbs, in that they are somewhat bitter. Pentecost also, that is, the fiftieth day from the passion and resurrection of the Lord, on which he sent us the Holy Spirit the Paraclete, whom he had promised. That this would come to pass was signified even through the Passover of the Jews, when on the fiftieth day after the celebration of the slain lamb Moses received on the mountain the law written by the finger of God. Read the Gospel and note that there the Holy Spirit is called the finger of God.

For those things are celebrated annually in the Church which were done with notable excellence on certain days, so that a festivity celebrated together may guard their necessary and salutary memory. If therefore you wish to know why we celebrate the Passover: because then Christ was sacrificed for us. If you wish to know why we do not celebrate it by the Jewish rite: because that was a prefiguring of the truth to come, this a commemoration of the truth fulfilled. But a thing future and a thing past cannot be expressed even by our own words in the same manner; whereof we have already spoken enough in this work.

But if you also ask this: why, out of all the foods from which that people was prohibited in the shadow of things to come, we do not eat of what died of itself and of what was sacrificed—hear this too, and for once set truth before the calumnies of vanity. For why it is not expedient for a Christian to eat of a sacrificed thing, the apostle says: I do not wish, he says, that you become associates of demons. For neither does he reprehend the sacrifice itself, which the fathers performed prefiguring the blood of the sacrifice by which Christ has redeemed us; but the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, he says, they sacrifice to demons and not to God. Then he added what I have said: I do not wish you to become associates of demons. For if the very nature of sacrificed flesh were unclean, it would surely defile even one who did not know.

For it would not be any the less unclean because it was received by one who did not know; but the danger is on account of conscience, lest one seem to have communed with demons. But by 'that which died of itself' I think is meant what the use of men has not admitted for food, because it is the diseased flesh not of slain but of dead animals, and not fit for the health of the body, for the sake of which we take nourishment. For as to what was commanded in figure to the ancients concerning the pouring out of blood—that is, to Noah himself after the flood, what it signified we have already shown—many understand it thus. And in the Acts of the Apostles this is read as commanded by the apostles, that the Gentiles should abstain only from fornication and from things sacrificed and from blood, that is, that they should eat no flesh whose blood had not been poured out.

Which others do not understand thus, but that abstinence from blood was commanded lest anyone defile himself with homicide. To discuss this now is long and not necessary, because even if the apostles then commanded this—that Christians should abstain from the blood of animals, lest they eat strangled flesh—they seem to me to have chosen for the time a thing easy and in no way burdensome to those observing it, in which, together with the Israelites, the Gentiles too might observe something in common on account of that corner-stone which builds two into itself, and might at the same time be admonished that in the very ark of Noah, when God commanded this, the Church of all nations was prefigured, the prophecy of which fact was now beginning to be fulfilled as the Gentiles were coming to the faith.

But once that time had passed, in which those two walls—the one coming from circumcision, the other from the foreskin—although they agreed in the corner-stone, nevertheless stood out more distinctly by certain properties of their own; when the Church of the Gentiles had become such that no carnal Israelite appeared in it, what Christian now observes this, that he should not touch thrushes or smaller little birds except those whose blood has been poured out, or that he should not eat a hare if, struck by hand on the neck, it has been killed with no bloody wound? And those few who perhaps still dread to touch such things are laughed at by the rest. So has that sentence of truth held the minds of all in this matter:

not that which enters into your mouth defiles you, but that which goes out—condemning no nature of food which human society admits, but the sins which iniquity commits. Now indeed concerning the deeds of the ancients, both those which seem sins to foolish and untaught men though they are not, and those which are truly sins—for what cause they were recorded, preserved, and rather commended by the veneration of Scripture itself—we have already shown in sufficient discourse; and likewise concerning the curse of him who hangs on a tree, and of him who has not raised up seed in Israel, we already answered first in its place, when we washed away these objections beforehand. And absolutely all things—whether those about which we have already discoursed one by one in the earlier parts of this work,

or those similar things which Faustus has set down in this discourse of his to which we are replying, we defend by one most firm rationale of truth, which we have received from the authority of the holy Scriptures. Whatever things are written in those books of the Old Testament, we praise, accept, and approve as all most truly and most usefully written for eternal life; but as for the commands in them which we do not observe in bodily performance, we both most rightly understand that they were commanded at that time, and have learned that they are a shadow of things to come, and now recognize that they are already being fulfilled.

And through this, whoever at that time did not observe even those works which were commanded to be done for the sake of signifying, paid by a most right judgment the penalties divinely appointed, just as now if anyone should dare with sacrilegious rashness to violate the sacraments of the New Testament, distinguished according to the reckoning of the time. For just as then the righteous men, who did not even refuse death for the sake of those sacraments, are rightly praised, so now the holy martyrs for the sake of these.

And just as a sick man ought not to reprehend the medical doctrine if it prescribes one thing for him today and another tomorrow, forbidding even what it had prescribed before—for so did the plan of healing his body require—so the human race, from Adam until the end of the age, so long as the body which is corrupted weighs down the soul, being sick and wounded, ought not to reprehend the divine medicine if in some cases it has prescribed the same thing, but in others one thing earlier and another later to be observed, especially since it promised that it would prescribe something else. There is therefore no comparison, which Faustus has held out, that you have thus chosen the Paraclete from the New Testament, that you may believe,

and demonstrated what you reject, since he himself was prophesied by the New Testament, just as Christ did for us from the Old, by which he was likewise prophesied. For this could be said with some plausible reasoning, if there were something in the books of the Old Testament which we should say was not rightly said, not divinely commanded, not truthfully written. We say none of these things, but accept all—whether those which we observe, that we may live rightly, or those which we do not observe, so that we may nevertheless see those very things, commanded and observed then in prophecy, now already fulfilled. Then, just as we read the Paraclete promised in those books, not all of which you wish to accept, so also we read him sent in that book which you are even afraid to name.

For in the Acts of the Apostles, as I have often, and a little before, mentioned, it is most plainly read that the Holy Spirit was sent on the day of Pentecost, who also by his working made manifest who he was. For those who first received him spoke in all tongues, so that even by this sign he might promise that the Church would be in all tongues, that is, in all nations, which would most truly proclaim him along with the Father and the Son. Do you therefore now say why you do not accept all things from the books of the New Testament: whether because they are not of the apostles of Christ, or because the apostles of Christ taught something depraved. You reply: because they are not of the apostles of Christ. For that other voice is of the pagans, who say that the apostles of Christ did not teach rightly.

You therefore, what do you say? From what do you show that those Scriptures were not administered by the apostles? You reply: because there are many things in them contrary both to each other and to themselves. This is utterly most false; you do not understand. For whatever of this sort Faustus has brought forward, so that it might seem so to you, it has been shown not to be so; and whatever of this sort has been brought forward by you, this we shall teach. But who would tolerate a reader or hearer daring to blame a Scripture of such great authority more readily than the vice of his own slowness? Or do you say that the Paraclete taught you that these Scriptures are not of the apostles, but were written under their names by others? At least teach this—that that very one is the Paraclete from whom you learned that these are not of the apostles.

Or will you say: Christ himself promised and sent him? It is answered to you: Christ absolutely neither promised nor sent this one; and at the same time it is shown when he sent the one whom he promised. Prove this, then, that Christ sent him. Whence do you assert the person of your author, or rather of your deceiver? You reply that you prove it from the Gospel. From which Gospel? The one you do not accept in its entirety, the one you say has been falsified. Who then would first himself say that his own witness has been corrupted by falsity, and then produce him for testimony? For if we believe him in what you wish, and do not believe him in what you do not wish, then we no longer believe him, but you. But if we were willing to believe you, we would not demand a witness from you.

Then the Paraclete was so promised that it was said: he himself will lead you into all truth. But how will he lead you into truth, who teaches you that Christ is deceitful? Add to this: that if you were to demonstrate that all the things which are read in the Gospel concerning the promise of the Paraclete are such that they could not be understood at all except of your Mani—just as those things are shown in the prophets to have been said of Christ which can in no way fall upon another—yet, since you would bring them forth from those codices which you say are falsified, we would say that this very thing there is false and was inserted by your greater corrupters, namely, that you read written there of Mani in such a way that we could not understand it of another.

What would you do, tell me, but cry out that you could in no way have falsified the codices, which were already in the hands of all Christians? Because as soon as you had begun to do so, you would be convicted by the truth of older copies. For the very reason on account of which they could not be corrupted by you, is the reason they could be corrupted by no one. For whoever first should have dared this would be refuted by the comparison of many older codices, especially since the same Scripture was contained not in one language but in many. For even now some faults of the codices are corrected either from older ones or from the preceding language.

So therefore either you are compelled to accept those codices as truthful straightway, and straightway they will overturn your heresy; or, if you call them false, you will not be able by their authority to assert the Paraclete, and you yourselves have overturned your heresy. Add to this, that those things were said in the promise of the Paraclete which utterly exclude Mani, coming after so many years, from this suspicion. For because after the resurrection and ascension of the Lord the Holy Spirit was to come at once, it was most plainly said by John: for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. If therefore this was the cause why he was not given—because Jesus was not yet glorified—then beyond doubt, Jesus being glorified, there was now cause that he should be given at once.

For the Cataphrygians too said that they had received the promised Paraclete, and hence deviated from the catholic faith, trying to prohibit what Paul allowed and to condemn second marriages, which he permitted—laying their snares under these words, because it is written concerning the Paraclete: he himself will lead you into all truth—as though, forsooth, Paul and the other apostles had not taught all truth, and had reserved a place for the Cataphrygians' Paraclete. To this they also dragged that which Paul says: for we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when that which is perfect has come, that which is in part will be done away—so that, forsooth, the apostle, knowing and prophesying in part, said: let one do what he wishes;

he does not sin if he marries, and therefore the perfection of the Phrygian Paraclete has done this away. To these things, when it was said to them that they were condemned by the authority of the churches promised so long before and spread throughout the whole world, they answer that hence too was fulfilled in them that which was said of the Paraclete, that the world cannot receive him. Are these not the very things which you too are wont to say—that 'he himself will lead you into all truth,' and 'when that which is perfect has come, that which is in part will be done away,' and 'the world cannot receive him,' were foretold of your Mani? And what heresy, pray, could arise under the name of the Paraclete that would not dare plausibly to fit all these things to itself?

For is there any heresy which does not name itself the truth, and the prouder it is, the more it names itself even the perfect truth, so that it both promises to lead into all truth, and tries to do away, as though through it there had come that which is perfect, the doctrine of the apostles contrary to its own error? And since the Church holds what the apostle more vehemently commended, 'if anyone should evangelize to you beyond what you received, let him be anathema,' when it has begun, announcing something else, to be anathematized by the whole world, let it at once say: this is what is written, the world cannot receive him.

How, then, will you be able to prove what is demanded of you—that he from whom you learned that the Gospel writings are not the work of the apostles is the Paraclete? For we too can prove that the Holy Spirit is no Paraclete other than the one who came soon after Jesus was glorified. He had not yet been given, precisely because Jesus had not yet been glorified. We prove also that it is he who leads into all truth, since one does not enter into the truth except through love; and 'the love of God,' says the Apostle, 'has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.' We teach, moreover, that Paul did not say 'when that which is perfect shall come' of anything but that perfection which is to be ours in the attainment of eternal life.

For when he was speaking of this, he says: 'We see now through a glass, in a riddle, but then face to face.' Surely here, unless you are willing openly to rave in madness, you will confess that you do not see God face to face. Therefore that which is perfect has not yet come to you. In this way indeed the Apostle sufficiently explained what he thought about this matter. Nor will this come to pass for the saints except when there is fulfilled what John also says: 'We are the sons of God, and it has not yet appeared what we shall be. We know that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is'—then, when the Holy Spirit, of whom we have now received the pledge, leads us into all truth. But as for what was said: