But if you ask where this true judgment is, it is first found in our mind, when we know and speak that truth. Yet if it be taken away even from our mind, when we have forgotten what we know, it will remain in the truth itself. For it will always be true that that has been which was and is not; and there it will be true that that already has been which was, where it was true, before it came to pass, that that would be future which was not yet. To this truth God cannot be opposed, in whom is that supreme and immutable Truth itself, by which is illumined, so that it may be, whatever is true in the souls and minds of any beings whatsoever. Now we do not call God omnipotent as though we believed that He can even die; and because He cannot do this, therefore He should not be called omnipotent.
He plainly is truly called the sole Omnipotent, because He truly is, and from Him alone is whatever in any way is, whether spiritual or corporeal; for He uses His whole creation as it pleases Him; and it pleases Him, according to true and immutable justice—which is what He Himself is—to change all mutable things (while He Himself is immutable) according to their merits, whether of natures or of deeds. Shall we then say that Elijah, being a creature, could not be changed either for the worse or for the better, or could not be so changed in a manner unusual to the human race, according to the will of the omnipotent God? What most foolish person would say this? Why then should we not believe what has been set down concerning him in most truthful Scripture?
unless we should suppose that God can do only that which we have been accustomed to see. 'But if Elijah was a man,' he says, 'and could avoid dying, why could not Christ, since He was not a man, have died?' This is as if someone should say: 'If the nature of man could be changed into something better, why could not the nature of God have been changed into something worse?' Foolish man—because the nature of man is mutable, but that of God immutable. For someone equally most insane might likewise say: 'If He can grant to a man that he reign forever, why not also bring it about for Himself that He be damned forever?' 'I do not say this,' he says, 'but compare at least the three-day death of God with the eternal life of man.'
Plainly, if you were so to take the three-day death of God, that in Him the flesh died which He assumed from the race of mortals, you would understand rightly; for the Gospel truth proclaims that this three-day death of Christ was accomplished for the eternal life of men. But when you wish it to be believed—not absurdly, as you think—that there was a three-day death within the divine nature itself, with no mortal creature assumed, on the ground that human nature can be granted immortality: assuredly you are as foolish as one who knows neither God nor the gifts of God. Then how is it that you do not say and hold what I set forth above, that God did not bring it about for Himself that He should be damned forever, when that part of your god shall be fixed forever in the mass? Or will you say this too, that a part of light is light, but a part of God is not God?
Finally, that you may hear from us, without any reasoning, by the plain truth of faith, why we believe that Elijah, a man born, was caught up divinely from the earth, while Christ was both truly born of a virgin and truly died on the cross: this we believe for this reason—because both that about Elijah and this about Christ Holy Scripture attests, which no godly person fails to believe, and which none but the impious disbelieves. But that concerning Elijah you deny, because you feign all things; while concerning Christ...
that He could not have been born but could have died—not even you say that; but you contend that His birth from a virgin was no birth at all, and that His death on the cross was false, that is, likewise no death at all, but only feigned to deceive human eyes, for no other purpose than that pardon might be granted even to you who lie about everything, by those who have believed these things. But who would put to you what Faustus puts to himself, as it were from the person of a Catholic: 'If Jesus was not born, how did He die?' Except one who gives too little thought to the fact that Adam himself was both not born and yet died.
If, then, the Son of God had willed to form for Himself true human flesh from the same source from which He formed it for that first man—since all things were made through Him—who would dare to affirm that He could not? If, again, He had willed to change a body assumed from a heavenly, or airy, or watery creature into the most true quality of human flesh, in which a mortal man could both live and die, who would deny that He could do this—the omnipotent Son of the Omnipotent? None would dare. Finally, if He had willed to assume a body from none of the corporeal elements which were created through Him, but altogether to create for Himself true flesh out of nothing, just as through Him were created all things which were not:
who among us would contradict, who among us would contend that it could not have been done? We do not therefore believe that He was born of the Virgin Mary because He could not otherwise exist in true flesh and appear to men, but because it is so written in that Scripture: unless we believe it, we can be neither Christians nor saved. We believe, then, that Christ was born of the Virgin Mary, because it is so written in the Gospel; we believe He was crucified and died, because it is so written in the Gospel; and both truly born and truly died, because the Gospel is truth. But why He willed to suffer all those things in the flesh assumed from a woman's womb—the highest reason of the counsel rests with Him:
whether because He judged that both sexes, which He had created, were in this way too to be commended and honored—by assuming the form of a man and being born of a woman—or for some other cause. What that cause may be, I would not rashly say; yet this I will confidently say: that it was not done otherwise than the Gospel truth has taught, nor ought it to have been done otherwise than the wisdom of God judged. We set the faith of the Gospel before all the disputations of heretics; and we praise the counsel of the wisdom of God above every counsel of any creature whatsoever. Yet Faustus exhorts us to believe him, saying: 'And if you are willing to believe me speaking the truth, both of them drew a false opinion among the Hebrews—Jesus about death, and Elijah about immortality,' while a little later he says:
'For as, having taken from the beginning the likeness of man, He simulated all the affections of the human condition, so it was not unfitting that, at the end too, for the sake of sealing the divine economy, He should have been seen even to die.' O most wicked and most deceitful man, how am I to believe you as though you spoke the truth, when you say that Christ could feign death? Then was He lying when He said, 'The Son of Man must be killed and on the third day rise again'—and you do not lie, and you demand that we believe you as speaking the truth? Peter, then, was more truthful, when he said to Him, 'Be it far from Thee, Lord; this shall not be to Thee.' And how did he deserve to hear, 'Get thee behind Me, Satan'?
And he indeed did not hear this without profit, for afterward, corrected and made perfect, he preached that very truth of Christ's death even unto his own death. But if that man, because he only supposed that Christ would not die, deserved to hear 'Satan'—what do you deserve to hear, who not only deny that He died, but even say that He feigned death? 'But for this reason,' he says, 'He is to be believed to have simulated death also, because He simulated all the affections of the human condition.' But who will grant you this against the Gospel, that He simulated all the affections of the human condition? Assuredly, if the Evangelist said, 'Jesus slept,' if he said, 'He hungered, He thirsted, He was saddened, He was gladdened,' and whatever else:
all things are true that have been so narrated, so that they have been recorded not as though He feigned them, but plainly that He did or exhibited them—yet not by the necessity of the condition, but by the will of teaching and even by divine power. For a man is generally angered even if he would not; is saddened even if he would not; sleeps even if he would not; hungers and thirsts even if he would not; but He did all these things because He willed. So too men are born and suffer, not because they will, nor what they will; but He experienced even these things because He willed. Yet these things are true and have been faithfully and truthfully recorded concerning Him, so that whoever believes His Gospel may be instructed by truth, not deluded by lies. BOOK TWENTY-SEVEN. FAUSTUS said: If Jesus was not born, neither did He suffer;
but if He suffered, then He was also born. It is not to your advantage, believe me, to seek in these matters the consequence of nature; otherwise your whole faith will be weakened. For you too believe that Jesus was born of a virgin without intercourse with a man; and if prior things are to be proved from what follows, this will be false. For it could be answered you in this manner: 'If Jesus was born of a woman, then He was also sown by a man; but if He was not sown by a man, then neither was He born of a woman.' Yet He was able, as you believe, to be born without being sown; why then could He not also suffer without being brought forth? AUGUSTINE replied: No one puts to you what you put to yourself, save the unskilled, whom you deceive—not the instructed, by whom you are refuted.
For Jesus both could be born without being sown and could suffer without being brought forth; but of these two He willed the one and did not will the other. For He willed to be born without being sown, but did not will to suffer without being brought forth, because as one brought forth He suffered. You say to me: 'How do you know?' Because I read this in the Gospel of truth. But if I should say to you, 'How do you know those things which you say?'—you set against me the authority of Manichaeus, you say there is falsehood in the Gospel. But I would not believe Manichaeus saying these things, not even if he did not commend to me that Christ had lied. This indeed he does not find in Christ, but he betrays what he himself loves. BOOK TWENTY-EIGHT. FAUSTUS said: But He could not die unless He had been born. And I answer: nor could He be born unless He were not God;
or, if He could both be God and be born, why could He not also both not be born and die? You see, then, that it is not useful enough in these matters to seek consequence or to rely on arguments, when the discussion concerns things that pertain to Jesus; but rather it must be inquired what He Himself preached about Himself, and what His apostles preached about Him. And indeed the genealogy itself must be examined, and it must be seen whether it agrees with itself—not to seek out the truth of His birth by conjecture from His passion; for He could both suffer without being born, and be born without at all suffering—especially since you yourselves confess that nothing is impossible to God: which will itself be false, if it be established that He could not have died without being born. AUGUSTINE replied:
Again and often you put to yourself what you do not hear from those by whom you are confuted. No one says to you, 'He could not die unless He had been born'—for Adam died, although he had not been born; but it is said to you: He was born, because the holy Gospel—not some heretic or other—says this; He died, because this is read in the holy Gospel, not in the book of some heretic.
But you, who forbid arguing when the discussion concerns things that pertain to the law, and who think it must be inquired what He Himself preached about Himself and what His apostles preached about Him—when I begin to recite the Gospel of His apostle Matthew, where the whole narrative of His birth is woven together, you will at once say that that narrative is not Matthew's, which the whole Church, brought down by sure succession from the apostolic sees to the present bishops, declares to be Matthew's. What will you read to me against it? Some book of Manichaeus, perhaps, where Jesus is denied to have been born of a virgin.
As, therefore, I believe that book to be Manichaeus's, because from the very time in which Manichaeus lived in the flesh it was guarded and handed down through his disciples, by a sure succession of your overseers, even to your own times: so also believe this book to be Matthew's, which from the time in which Matthew himself lived in the flesh the Church, by a sure succession of connection, has brought down through an unbroken series of times even to these times. And tell me, to which book ought we rather to believe—to that of the apostle who clung to Christ while He was still on earth, or to that of some Persian or other, who was born so long after?
But perhaps you will produce another book, which bears the name of some apostle whom it is agreed was chosen by Christ, and there you will read that Christ was not born of Mary. Since, then, it must needs be that one of these books is lying, to which do you judge that we ought rather to give faith? To that one which the Church—begun from Christ Himself, advanced through the apostles, spread by a sure series of successions throughout the whole world even to these times—acknowledges and approves as handed down and preserved from the beginning; or to that which the same Church rejects as unknown, especially when it is produced by men so truthful that they praise Christ for having lied? Here you will say: Let the very genealogy of the two books of the Gospel be considered, whether it agrees with itself.
We have already said elsewhere in this work what needed to be said. For nothing troubles you except how Joseph could have had two fathers. But if it had not occurred to you as you reflected that one begot him, another adopted him, not even so ought you to have brought forth a hasty verdict against so great an authority; but now, if even when admonished you consider how this could have come to pass, believe the Gospel simply, and cease rather from arguing so ill and so perversely. But as for what Faustus thinks must be inquired, namely what Jesus Himself preached about Himself—to whom would this not seem right? But surely this cannot be known except by His disciples relating it?
And if they are not believed when they announce that He was born of a virgin, how will faith be given to them when they announce what He Himself preached about Himself? For if some writings were brought forward which, with no one else narrating, were said to be properly Christ's own, how could it come about that, if they were truly His, they should not be read, not be received, not stand out with a preeminent height of authority in His Church—which, propagated from Him through the apostles by bishops succeeding one another even to these times, spreads abroad, many things being already fulfilled in it which were foretold beforehand, and the things that remain unto the end being without doubt going to be and to come?
For those writings too, if they were produced, one would certainly have to consider by whom they were produced: if by Him, they could without doubt have been produced first by those who then clung to Him, and through them have reached others also. And if this had been done, through those successions of overseers and peoples which I have mentioned they would shine forth with a most firmly established authority. Who then is so mad as to believe today that there is a letter of Christ which Manichaeus has produced, and not to believe that the things which Matthew wrote were done or said by Christ? Or if he doubts even of Matthew, whether he himself wrote these things,
let him rather believe about Matthew himself that which he finds in the Church, which from the times of Matthew himself even to this time is declared by a sure series of successions; and let him not believe some man who comes crosswise out of Persia after two hundred years or more, persuading that it should rather be believed what he says Christ said and did—since even the apostle Paul himself, called from heaven after the Lord's ascension, if he had not found in the flesh apostles by communicating with whom, and by conferring with whom, it might appear that his Gospel was of the same fellowship, the Church would not have believed him at all?
But when it had come to be known that he announced this very thing which they too announced, and that he lived in their communion and unity, with such signs as they too wrought being added even through him, thus, with the Lord commending him, he obtained authority, so that his words are today so heard in the Church as though in him Christ, as He most truly said Himself, were heard speaking. And Manichaeus thinks that he ought to be believed by the Church of Christ, when he speaks against the Scriptures established by so great and so well-ordered an authority—through which it is especially commended to it that whosoever shall announce to it anything beside what it has received, let him be anathema. But 'I bring forward,' he says, 'a reason by which I may demonstrate that those Scriptures are not to be believed.'
Surely you do not argue? And yet even in your very argumentation you are overcome. For to this is all your argumentation reduced: that in the end the soul should believe that it is wretched in this world for this reason—because by its wretchedness it came to the aid of its god, lest he be deprived of his kingdom; and that his nature and substance are so far mutable, corruptible, violable, defilable, that a certain part of it cannot even be cleansed, and is punished by that very one who knowingly mingled it—innocent, drawn from his own bowels and sinning nothing against him—into so great a contamination, with the eternal punishment of the mass. This is the end of all your argumentations and fables:
of which would that there might be an end—but in your heart and in your mouth, so that at some time you may cease to believe and to speak such execrable blasphemies. But 'from those very writings,' he says, 'I prove how they are not everywhere to be believed, since they speak things contrary to themselves.' Why then do you not rather say that they are nowhere to be believed, as inconstant witnesses contradicting themselves? But 'this,' he says, 'I choose, which I see to be consonant with the truth.' With what truth? With your fable, forsooth, which has at its head the war of god, in its middle the contamination of god, at its end the damnation of god; and 'nowhere,' he says, 'are writings believed that are adverse and contrary to themselves.' But it seems so to you for this reason, because you do not understand; for whatever you have brought forward,
which seemed to be of that sort, it has been demonstrated how you do not understand it; and whatever you shall bring forward will likewise be demonstrated. There is therefore no cause why we should not believe those writings endowed with so great an authority; and plainly this is the greatest cause why we should anathematize those who announce something else. BOOK TWENTY-NINE. FAUSTUS said: Therefore it was magic, that He was seen and suffered, if He was not born. The same argumentation is turned back upon you in turn, so that that too was magic which was carried in the womb or brought forth, if He was not sown. It is established to be beyond the law of nature that a virgin gave birth, and much more that she was found a virgin even after childbirth.
Why then do you not also will this to have happened beyond nature—that He was able to suffer willingly, without the lot of being born? Believe me, as far as the matter pertains, we both profess things contrary to nature in this. But this is the difference: that we do so honorably, you shamefully; we render some reason for His passion, and a probable one; you render for His birth either none or a false one. In short, we confess Him to have suffered only in appearance, and not truly to have died; you believe for certain that there was a childbirth and that He was carried in a female womb. Or if it is not so, confess, you too, that this also was done imaginarily, so that He might seem to be born, and all our contention will be laid low.
For that indeed which you are often accustomed to affirm—that He was necessarily born, because otherwise He could not have been seen by men or have spoken—is ridiculous, since, as has already been proved by our people, angels are shown many times both to have been seen by men and to have spoken. AUGUSTINE said: It is not said to you that it is magic, that one who was not born should die; for we have already recalled above that this was done in Adam. But even if it had never been done, and the Lord Christ had willed so to come, that—not from a virgin's assumed flesh, but nevertheless appearing in true flesh—He might redeem us by a true death, who would dare to say that He could not? But that was better, which He did, that He should be born also of a virgin,
and would deign also to commend both sexes, for whose liberation He had died, by being born—by His masculine body procreated from a woman, speaking most of all by the very deed against you yourselves and overthrowing you, who proclaim that male and female are the work not of God but of the devil. But this is what you are said to assert which is like magic: that His passion and death were done only in appearance and, as you say, deceptively feigned, so that He might seem to die who was not dying. From which it follows that you say His resurrection too was shadowy, imaginary, and deceptive; for there cannot be a true resurrection of one who did not truly die.
So it follows that He showed even false scars to the doubting disciples, and that Thomas was not confirmed by truth but deceived by deception when he cried out, 'My Lord and my God.' And yet you try to persuade us that with your tongue you speak the truth, while you say that Christ lied with His whole body. These are the things objected to you, who have feigned for yourselves such a Christ, of whom you cannot be true disciples unless you too be liars. But the flesh of man born of a virgin cannot therefore be thought magic, because the flesh of Christ alone was so born—just as neither is it magic, that Christ's flesh alone rose again on the third day, never thereafter to die. Otherwise all the miracles of God will be magical, because they were done uniquely;
but they were truly done and showed the truth, they did not delude the eyes of men with deceptive illusions—things which indeed are often called 'against nature,' not because they are opposed to nature, but because they exceed the measure of nature which is customary to us. Let the Lord therefore repel from the minds of His little ones what Faustus, as though by admonition, has tried to persuade—that we too should profess an imaginary, not a true, nativity of Christ, and that thus all contention between us should be ended; nay rather, let there remain for us, against those men, a contest for the truth, rather than with them a concord in falsehood. Yet I ask of them: if our contention is ended when we shall have said this, why do they not say the same themselves?
Why do they themselves affirm that Christ's death was not true but imaginary, yet chose to say His nativity was not even such, but altogether none at all? If they blushed at the weight of the Gospel's authority, and therefore did not dare to say that Christ did not even suffer in imagination, His nativity too the same evangelical authority attests. For even though two evangelists narrated the very childbirth of Mary, yet none of the evangelists was silent about the fact that Jesus had a mother. Or was it displeasing to them to preach even this as simulated, because Matthew traces one line of generations, Luke another, whence they seem not to agree with each other? But grant a man
who does not understand, he will think that even in many things which pertain to Christ's passion the evangelists do not agree with one another; but grant one who understands, and everywhere they agree. Or is it because to simulate death is honorable, but to simulate nativity is even base? Why then does he exhort us to confess this, whereby our contention may be laid low? Whence, then, it seems to me that he willed to preach Christ's nativity not even as simulated like His death, but altogether none, will appear in the following discourse, where we shall answer another question. But far be it that in the members of the saints, even the genital ones, there should be any baseness. They are indeed called dishonorable, because they have not that appearance of comeliness which the members that are placed in the open have.
But see what the apostle says, when from the very unity and framework of the members of our body he persuades the Church to charity. 'Much more,' he says, 'those members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary; and those which we think to be the less honorable members of the body, upon these we bestow more abundant honor; and our unseemly parts have more abundant seemliness; but our seemly parts have no need. But God has tempered the body together, giving to that which lacked the greater honor, that there should be no schisms in the body.'
And so the use of those members that is unlawful and not subject to the laws of temperance is shameful, not the members themselves; for these are kept in surpassing wholeness not only by the celibate and by virgins, but even the married holy fathers and mothers used them, taking thought thereby for generation alone, in such a way that that natural motion was in no wise shameful, since it served not lust but reason. How much more, then, in the holy Virgin Mary, who conceived the flesh of Christ by faith, did her members have nothing of shamefulness, seeing that they served not a human and lawful conception, but a divine childbearing alone?
Rightly indeed was she thus honoured, that she might transmit to us also in the body Christ—whom by believing with whole hearts we should conceive, and by confessing should in a manner bring forth—her integrity being preserved even bodily. For in no way would Christ by being born make His mother worse, so as to take away from her the glory of virginity from her to whom He had brought the gift of fruitfulness. These things were done truly, not deceitfully; but they are new, they are unwonted, they are contrary to the well-known course of nature, because they are great, because they are wondrous, because they are divine, and for that reason all the more true, certain, and firmly established. 「And angels,」 he says, 「were seen and spoke, although they were not born.」 As though we said that Christ, unless He were born of a woman, could neither be seen nor speak. He could have, but He would not;
and this that He willed is better. That He willed this is certain for this reason, that He did it—He who as God would do nothing by necessity, as your god does, but all things by will. And that He did this we do not doubt for this reason, that we believe not any heretic, but His own Gospel. BOOK THIRTY. FAUSTUS said: Concerning you Paul wrote long ago, that certain shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared, forbidding to marry, abstaining from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by the faithful.
I should never at all have granted to you that these things were spoken by the apostle, unless you first confess that Moses and the prophets themselves brought forward doctrines of devils and were interpreters of a seducing and malignant spirit, seeing that they anxiously teach that one must abstain from swine's flesh and the other flesh which they call unclean. About these things, then, you must first deliberate, and long and much consider, in what sense these words are to be taken, and whether they seem to have been spoken in God or in a devil. For on this footing either both Moses and the prophets will be condemned along with us, or we too shall be absolved along with them.