But lest men should despair even of those very branches that were broken off, a little later he says: 'And they also, if they continue not in unbelief, shall be engrafted; for God is able to engraft them in again. For if you were cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and were engrafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree, how much more shall these, who are according to nature, be engrafted into their own olive tree?' Behold from what source even he himself glories in being delivered from the breaking-off and restored to the fatness of the root. Let those, then, among you whom impiety has broken off from it return and be engrafted anew; but those who were never there, let them come, cut off from natural barrenness, and become partakers of the fruitfulness to be. BOOK TEN. FAUSTUS said: Why do you not accept the Old Testament?
Because both from it and from the New Testament we have learned not to covet what belongs to another. But what, you say, does the Old Testament possess that belongs to another? Nay rather, what does it possess that does not belong to another? It promises riches and fulness of belly and sons and grandsons and long life, and along with these the kingdom of Canaan—but all these things to those who are circumcised, who keep the sabbaths, who offer sacrifice for themselves, who abstain from swine's flesh and the like. And since I neglect these things—as does every Christian—as being foolish and having nothing to do with the soul's salvation, I therefore recognize that neither are the things it promises any longer to be awaited by me; mindful, too, that there is a commandment:
'You shall not covet what belongs to another.' To the Jews I have willingly and gladly left their own goods to possess, being content, of course, with the Gospel alone and with the splendid inheritance of the kingdom of heaven. For just as, to a Jew, if he should usurp the Gospel to himself, I would justly rebuke him and say, 'You wicked man, what have you to do with that whose precepts you do not keep?'—so I fear lest a Jew should rebuke me with the same words for holding the Old Testament, whose commandments I despise. AUGUSTINE replied: This man is not ashamed to repeat the same empty things again and again; but it wearies me to answer with the same words, however true, again and again. Whoever, therefore, seeks a reply even to these things, let him read what we have said above. But to a Jew who says to me:
'Why do you hold the Old Testament, whose precepts you do not keep?'—I answer that even the precepts of the conduct of life are kept by Christians out of those very books; but the precepts for the signifying of life were then rightly observed, when they were foretelling those things which have now been revealed. Wherefore even these things I do not observe for religion's sake, yet I hold to them for the sake of attestation—just as also the carnal promises which are contained therein, whence it is properly called the Old Testament. Although eternal things are made known to me to be hoped for, I nevertheless read those other things too as bearing witness thereto, 'which happened to them in a figure, but were written for our sake, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.' And so, if you have heard what we reply to the Jews, hear also what I object against the Manichees.
Certainly Faustus said that we could be embarrassed if the Jews should say to us: 'Why do you hold the Old Testament, whose precepts you do not observe?' To whom we reply by venerating and preserving the authority of that same Scripture. But what do you reply, when it is said to you: 'Why do you hold the evangelical books, whose adherents you feign yourselves to be in order to deceive the ignorant, and yet the things written therein you not only do not believe, but even assail with all the might you can muster?' Surely you see that you are rather unable to answer objections drawn from the New Testament than we objections drawn from the Old. For all the things that are written in the Old, we both say to be true and divinely commanded and dispensed at fitting times.
But you, when objections have been raised to you from the things written in the books of the New Testament, which are not accepted by you, failing in your reply and with your throats gagged by manifest truth, gasping with a wounded breath, declare them to have been falsified. What else could suffocated throats of liars breathe out? Or rather, what else could stab-riddled corpses of the dead give off but stench? And yet Faustus confessed that he had learned not to covet what belongs to another, not only from the New Testament but even from the Old—which surely he could not have learned from his own god. For that god, if he coveted not what belonged to another, why did he construct new ages upon the land of darkness, where they had never before existed? Or will he say: The race of darkness itself first coveted my kingdom,
which was foreign to it? Then he imitated the race of darkness, so that he too coveted what belonged to another? Or had the kingdom of light previously been too narrow? Then war was to be desired, so that a breadth of dominion might be acquired from victory. But if that breadth is good, it could have been coveted even before; yet he waited until the hostile race should first burst out into war, that so it might be assailed as with greater justice. But if it is not good, why, when the enemy was conquered, did he wish his kingdom to grow over another's land, when previously, content with his own bounds, he had lived in full felicity? But would that these men were willing to learn from those very writings these very precepts of the conduct of life—of which one is,
that we should not covet what belongs to another—then assuredly they would grow gentle, and being made mild would understand also those precepts for the signifying of life, at which their taking of offence barks, and would see that they were fitting to be observed in that former time, and fitting to be understood in this present time. But how do we covet the Old Testament as belonging to another, when we read the things 'which happened to them in a figure, but were written for our sake, upon whom the ends of the ages have come'? I think that he does not covet what belongs to another who reads that which was written for his own sake. BOOK ELEVEN. FAUSTUS said: Do you accept the Apostle? Yes indeed, and most of all. Why then do you not believe that the Son of God was born of the seed of David according to the flesh?
I would not indeed believe that the apostle of God could have written things contrary to himself and could have held now this, now that opinion concerning our Lord. But since it so pleases you—who never hear without vexation that anything in the Apostle has been tampered with—know that not even this is contrary to us, if indeed this seems to be an old and ancient opinion of Paul's about Jesus, when he too, like the rest, thought him to be the son of David. Yet when he had learned this to be false, he corrects and weakens it, and writing to the Corinthians he says: 'We henceforth know no man according to the flesh; and even if we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him so no more.' Wherefore you ought to consider how great a difference there is between these two passages.
Of these, the one presents Jesus as the son of David according to the flesh, while the other declares that he now knows no man according to the flesh. If both are Paul's, either they will be so for the reason I have stated, or one of them will not be Paul's. He continues finally: 'Therefore,' he says, 'if there is any new creature in Christ, the old things have passed away; behold, all things are made new.' You see, then, that he calls old and transitory that former faith—namely, to have believed Jesus to be of the seed of David according to the flesh—but this second and abiding faith he calls new, because he now knows no man according to the flesh. Wherefore also elsewhere he says: 'When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child;
but when I became a man, I put away the things of a child.' And if this is so, what wrong then do we also do, if, holding to Paul's newer and better confession, we cast off that older and inferior one? Or if it is dear to your heart to believe according to what he writes to the Romans, why should it not be lawful for us to hold as doctrine according to what he writes to the Corinthians? Although I have made even this reply in deference to your obstinacy; for otherwise, far be it that the apostle of God should ever destroy what he has built, lest he set himself up as a transgressor, as he has solemnly testified. Yet if that former opinion is his, it has now been amended; but if it is not lawful to say that Paul ever spoke anything unamended, then it is not his. AUGUSTINE replied: This is what I said a little before.
For when these men are thus suffocated by manifest truth, so that, hemmed in by the plain words of the holy Scriptures, they can find no way out for their falsehood in them, they answer that the testimony which has been produced is false. O voice fleeing from truth, obstinate in madness! To such a degree are the things unconquerable which are brought forth against you from the divine books, that there is nothing else for you to say except that they have been falsified. What authority of writings can be opened, what sacred book can be unrolled, what document of any Scripture can be brought forward to refute errors, if this voice is admitted, if it is reckoned to be of any weight? It is one thing not to accept the books themselves and to be held by no bond of them—which the pagans do with regard to all our books,
which the Jews do with regard to the New Testament, which, finally, we ourselves do with regard to your books and those of other heretics, if they have any of their own and proper to them, or with regard to those which are called apocryphal—not because they are to be held in any secret authority, but because, being declared by no light of attestation, they have been brought forth out of some secret or other by the presumption of I know not whom. It is one thing, therefore, not to be bound by the authority of any books or men, and another thing to say: This man indeed, a holy man, wrote all things true, and this epistle is his, but in that very epistle this is his, this is not his. Where, when you hear from the opposite side:
'Prove it'—you would not have recourse to more accurate copies, whether of the majority of manuscripts, or of the more ancient ones, or of the preceding language from which this was translated into another tongue; but you would say: I prove that this is his and that is not his, because this sounds in my favour and that against me. Are you, then, the rule of truth? Whatever shall be against you, is it not true? What? If another, with like madness—yet one by which nevertheless your obstinacy might be broken—should arise and say: Nay rather, that which sounds in your favour is false, but this which is against you is true—what will you do? Unless perhaps you are going to bring forward another book, where whatever you read may be understood according to your own opinion.
If you do this, you will hear one contradicting and crying out—not about some particular portion of it, but about the whole—that it is false. What will you do? Whither will you turn? What origin of the book you have brought forward, what antiquity, what series of succession will you cite as witness? For if you attempt to do this, you will accomplish nothing, and you will see in this matter what the authority of the Catholic Church avails, which is confirmed from the very best-founded seats of the apostles down to the present day by a succession of bishops succeeding one another and by the consent of so many peoples. And so, if a question were raised concerning the trustworthiness of the copies,
as in some cases—which are few, and very well known to those who study the sacred writings—there are varieties of readings, our doubt would be adjudicated either from the manuscripts of other regions, whence the doctrine itself came, or, if there too the manuscripts should vary, the more numerous would be preferred to the fewer, or the more ancient to the more recent; and if the variety were still uncertain, the preceding language, from which that was translated, would be consulted. In this way do those inquire who wish to find that which moves them in the holy Scriptures, established by such great authority—so that they may have whence they may be instructed, not whence they may wrangle.
But this which is brought forward against your impiety from the epistle of the apostle Paul—that the Son of God is of the seed of David according to the flesh—all the manuscripts, both new and old, contain; all the churches read it; all the languages agree upon it. Strip off, therefore, the cloak of falsehood, wherewith Faustus was clothed when, having set before himself as one asking and saying, 'Do you accept the apostle Paul?' he replied, 'Yes indeed, and most of all.' For why did he not rather reply, 'No, and least of all'—unless because, being deceitful, he could answer nothing other than that which was false? For what has he accepted of the apostle Paul? Not the first man, whom Paul calls 'of the earth, earthy,' of whom he likewise says:
'The first man Adam was made a living soul.' But he announces some first man or other, neither 'of the earth, earthy,' nor 'made a living soul,' but existing out of the very substance of God, that same thing which God is—one whose members, or garments, or arms (that is, the five elements, since these too were nothing other than the substance of God) were sunk in the race of darkness, so that, being defiled, they might be captured. It is not according to the man whom Paul calls 'from heaven,' whom he also calls 'the last Adam, a quickening spirit,' whom he calls 'made of the seed of David according to the flesh,' 'made of a woman, made under the law, that he might redeem those who were under the law'; of whom he says to Timothy:
'Remember that Jesus Christ of the seed of David rose again from the dead according to my gospel'; in whose example he also proclaims our resurrection, saying: 'For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.' And a little later he infers why he said this: 'But if Christ is preached, that he rose from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?' But this man, who, when asked whether he accepts the apostle Paul, replies, 'Yes indeed, and most of all,' denies all these things.
He is unwilling to accept that Jesus was of the seed of David, nor that he was made of a woman—whom Paul calls a woman not because she was corrupted either by intercourse or by giving birth, but because he speaks after the manner of the Scriptures, which are accustomed so to name that very sex; just as in Genesis it is written of Eve: 'He formed her into a woman,' although she had not been joined with a man. Nor does he accept the very death of Christ and his burial and resurrection, seeing that he says Christ neither had a mortal body, wherein that true death might be, nor that those scars were real which after the resurrection he showed to the disciples, when he appeared to them alive—as Paul also records;
nor does he accept that this our very flesh shall rise again, changed into a spiritual body, as the same apostle most plainly says: 'It is sown a natural body, it rises a spiritual body.' Whence, distinguishing between the natural body and the spiritual, he wove in what I have already mentioned concerning the first Adam and the last Adam; then he added: 'But this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot possess the kingdom of God.' And lest anyone should have believed that the very appearance of the flesh and its very substance cannot rise again, wishing to express what he had now called flesh and blood—because he wished corruption itself to be understood, which then, in the resurrection of the just, shall not be—he immediately wove in: 'Neither shall corruption possess incorruption.'
And lest anyone should still suppose that not that which was buried shall rise again, but that, as it were, one tunic is laid aside and another and better one received, wishing most plainly to declare that this very thing shall be changed into something better—just as Christ's garments on the mountain were not laid aside and others taken up, but the very same ones that had been were glorified into something better—he goes on and weaves in, saying: 'Behold, I tell you a mystery: we shall all indeed rise again, but we shall not all be changed.' And lest it should still be uncertain who they are that shall be changed, he says: 'In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall rise incorruptible, and we shall be changed.'
Perhaps they may still say that we are changed at the resurrection not according to this mortal and corruptible body, but according to the soul—although the Apostle did not propose this as the thing about which he was speaking, but from the very beginning of the question spoke concerning the body, as his very proposition indicates: 'But someone will say,' he says, 'how do the dead rise? and with what body do they come?' Here, however, he consequently points out, as with a finger, of what he was speaking, and adds, saying: 'For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.' Since, then, this man denies these things, and since the very God of whom Paul says:
'to the immortal, incorruptible, only God be honour and glory, amen'—this man proclaims corruptible, seeing that in his detestable and abominable fable he dreams that God's substance and nature, having wholly feared lest it be corrupted by the race of darkness, and in order that it might be provided for the rest, was in part corrupted: what is it that in this matter too he attempts to deceive the unlearned and those less instructed in the divine Scriptures, so that, when asked whether he accepts the apostle Paul, he answers 'most of all,' and is found to mean 'least of all'?
But there is, he says, a sure argument by which I may show that the apostle Paul either, by way of advancing, changed his opinion and, writing to the Corinthians, amended what he had written to the Romans, or else did not at all write that which is brought forward as his—namely, that the Son of God is of the seed of David according to the flesh. By what argument, pray, does he show this? Because, he says, both cannot be true—both that which is in the epistle to the Romans: 'concerning his Son, who was made to him of the seed of David according to the flesh,' and that which he says to the Corinthians: 'Therefore we henceforth know no man according to the flesh; and even if we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him so no more.' It remains, then, for us to demonstrate how both can be true, and how these two are not contrary to each other.
For that one of them is not Paul's we can in no way say, since no authority of manuscripts varies concerning it. For even if in certain Latin copies it is read not 'made,' but 'born of the seed of David,' whereas the Greek has 'made'—whence the Latin translator wished to render not word for word, but according to the sense, by saying 'born'—nevertheless that Christ is of the seed of David according to the flesh, the authority of all books and all languages agrees. But that Paul at some time erred in this and, by advancing, changed his opinion—far be it that we should say so! And even Faustus himself perceived how wickedly and impiously that would be said, and preferred to say that Paul's epistle was corrupted by the falsehood of others rather than faulty through his own error.
For of these books it can be said that they contain something not consonant, perhaps, with a more hidden and more difficult-to-discern truth, which has either so remained or has been corrected in later ones—books which are written by us not with the authority of prescribing, but with the exercise of advancing. For we are among those to whom the same Apostle says: 'And if in anything you are otherwise minded, this also God will reveal to you.' Which kind of writings is to be read not with the necessity of believing, but with the liberty of judging.
Yet lest the way should be closed to it, and lest there should be taken away from posterity that most wholesome labour of tongue and pen for treating and discussing difficult questions, the excellence of the canonical authority of the Old and New Testaments has been distinguished from the books of later writers. This authority, confirmed in the times of the apostles through the successions of bishops and the propagation of churches, has been established, as it were, upon a certain lofty throne, which every faithful and pious understanding is to serve. There, if anything as it were absurd should disturb one, it is not permitted to say: 'The author of this book did not hold the truth,' but rather: 'Either the manuscript is faulty, or the translator erred, or you do not understand.'
But in the works of later writers, which are contained in innumerable books but are in no way to be equalled to that most sacred excellence of the canonical Scriptures, even in whichever of them the same truth is found, the authority is nevertheless far unequal. And so in these, if perchance some things are thought to be discordant from the truth, because they are not understood as they were said, the reader or hearer nevertheless has free judgment there, whereby either he may approve what has pleased him, or disapprove what has offended him.
And therefore all things of this kind, unless they are defended either by sure reason or by that canonical authority—so that it may be shown either that it is altogether so, or that it could have been so, whatever is there either argued or narrated—if it displeases anyone, or he is unwilling to believe it, he is not blamed. But in that canonical eminence of the sacred writings, even if a single prophet or apostle or evangelist is declared, by the very confirmation of the canon, to have set down something in his writings, it is not permitted to doubt that it is true; otherwise there will be no page whereby the weakness of human ignorance may be governed, if the most wholesome authority of the books is either utterly abolished by being despised, or thrown into confusion by being made boundless.
Wherefore, whoever you are who have been disturbed by these things as though contradictory—that in one place it is written 'the Son of God of the seed of David,' but in another, 'and even if we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him so no more'—even if both were not brought forward from the writings of one and the same apostle, but one of them had been said by Paul, the other by Peter, or Isaiah, or any other of the apostles or prophets, since all things so agree together in canonical authority that they are believed, as though spoken with one mouth, with the most just and most prudent piety, and are found, with the most serene understanding, and are demonstrated, with the most skilful diligence: it would not be permitted to doubt either of them.
Accordingly, since both statements are drawn from the canonical epistles of the apostle Paul—that is, from epistles truly Paul's—and we cannot say either that the manuscript is corrupt (for all the corrected Latin copies read thus) or that the translator erred (for all the corrected Greek copies read thus), it remains that you do not understand, while from me an explanation is demanded: namely, how neither statement is discordant with the other, but how both agree within the very same rule of sound faith. For if you too were to inquire devoutly, you would be able to discover how these things, once searched out, become clear. For that the Son of God was made man from the seed of David, both the same apostle says in more than one place, and the other holy Scriptures most plainly proclaim. But as for what he says:
'Even though we had known Christ according to the flesh, yet now henceforth we know Him so no longer'—the very context of that passage of Scripture sufficiently shows what the apostle is speaking of. For after his manner he contemplates our future life, which has already been fulfilled in the very Man, the Mediator Christ Jesus, our Head, in His rising again, contemplating it with such sure hope as though it were already present and held before Him. That life assuredly will not be according to the flesh, just as Christ's life is now no longer according to the flesh. For in this place by 'flesh' he does not mean the very substance of our body—which the Lord even after His resurrection calls flesh, saying:
'Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have bones and flesh, as you see Me have'—but rather he means the corruption and mortality of the flesh, which then will not be in us, just as it is now no longer in Christ. For it was flesh in this proper sense that he was naming, even when he was speaking clearly enough about the resurrection itself and said what I recalled above: 'Flesh and blood cannot possess the kingdom of God, neither shall corruption possess incorruption.' When, therefore, that shall have come to pass which he goes on to say in that place: 'Behold, I tell you a mystery: we shall indeed all rise, but we shall not all be changed, in an atom—that is, in a moment—in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall rise incorrupt, and we shall be changed;'
'for this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality': then, according to the sense in which he calls 'flesh' not the substance of the body itself but the very corruption of mortality, there will indeed no longer be flesh, because when changed it will no longer have the corruption of mortality. But according to the origin of the substance and body itself it will be the same flesh, because that same flesh will rise and that same flesh will be changed; for that also is true which the Lord said after He had risen: 'Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have bones and flesh, as you see Me have,' and this too is true which the apostle says: 'Flesh and blood cannot possess the kingdom of God.' For the former was said according to the substance itself:
which will still exist even then, because it will itself be changed; but the latter was said according to the fleshly quality of corruption, which then will no longer exist, because the changed flesh will not be corrupted. We had therefore known Christ according to the flesh, that is, according to the mortality of the flesh, before He rose again; but now henceforth we know Him so no longer, because, as the same apostle says, 'Christ rising from the dead dies now no more, and death shall no longer have dominion over Him.' For if you hold fast to the strict sense of the words, he lied when he said, 'We had known Christ according to the flesh,' if Christ was never according to the flesh; for no one knew what did not exist. But he did not say, 'We thought Christ was according to the flesh,' but 'We had known Him.'
Nevertheless, that I may not press the word too hard, lest anyone assert that the apostle spoke by a loose use of language, so as to say 'we had known' for 'we thought'—I marvel that blind men do not attend to this; or rather I do not marvel that the blind do not see it: namely that, if Christ therefore had no flesh because the apostle said he now no longer knew Christ according to the flesh, then neither did those have flesh of whom he says in the same place: 'Therefore from now on we know no one according to the flesh.' For it was not of Christ alone that, wishing this to be understood, he could say, 'We know no one according to the flesh'; but because he was contemplating as though present his own and their future life together, who rising again will be transformed: 'From now on,' he says, 'we know no one according to the flesh,' that is:
we hold so sure a hope of our future incorruption and immortality that from now on we already rejoice in that very knowledge. Whence in another place he says: 'But if you have risen with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God; savour the things that are above, not the things that are upon the earth.' We have surely not yet risen as Christ has, yet nevertheless, according to the hope which we have in Him, he has testified that we have already risen with Him. Whence also he says: 'According to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration.' But who would not understand that in the washing of regeneration there is given to us the hope of future salvation, not yet that very salvation which is promised?