Against Faustus the Manichaean 17.1–19.3

Seventh. Faustus said: “Why do you not accept the law and the prophets, when Christ said that he had not come to destroy them but to fulfil them?” Who testifies that Jesus said this? Matthew. Where did he say it? On the mountain. Who was present? Peter, Andrew, James and John; these four only, for he had not yet chosen the others, nor Matthew himself. Of these four, one, namely John, wrote a gospel. Does he mention this anywhere? Nowhere. How then is it that what John, who was on the mountain, does not attest, Matthew wrote, who followed him a long interval after Jesus came down from the mountain? And for this reason it is first of all doubtful whether Jesus said any such thing, since the fit witness is silent while the less fit one speaks. Meanwhile, let us allow that we have wronged Matthew, until we prove that he did not write these things either, but someone else, I know not who, under his name; which the indirect narration of that same reading of Matthew also shows. For what does it say? “And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man sitting at the tax office, named Matthew, and called him; and he at once rose and followed him.” And who, writing about himself, would say, “he saw a man and called him and he followed him,” and not rather, “he saw me and called me and I followed him,” unless because it is established that Matthew did not write these things, but someone else, I know not who, under his name? Since, then, even if Matthew wrote this, it would not be true, as he was not present when Jesus spoke these things on the mountain, how much less is it to be believed, since not even Matthew wrote it, but another under the names both of Jesus and of Matthew!

What of this, that from the very saying in which he commanded them not to think that he had come to destroy the law, it is given rather to be understood that he did destroy it? For the Jews could not have suspected this if he had done nothing of the kind. But, “Do not think,” he says, “that I have come to destroy the law.” Come then, suppose the Jews had said to him: “But what are you doing of this kind, from which we could suspect it? Is it that you mock circumcision, violate the Sabbath, reject sacrifices, confuse foods?” Is this, then, “Do not think”? And what more or what more manifest could be done for the destruction of the law and the prophets? Or if this is fulfilling the law, what will destroying it be? What of this, that the law and the prophets do not even welcome fulfilment, so full and complete do they seem to themselves? Their author and father is no less indignant at anything being added to them than at anything being taken away, so that, writing in Deuteronomy, he says: “These commandments which I command you today, Israel, you shall observe; and take care not to turn aside from them either to the left or to the right, and do not add anything to them or take anything away, but persevere in them, so that the Lord your God may bless you.” Therefore, whether Jesus added something to the law and the prophets in order to fulfil them, he seems to have slipped to the right; or whether he took something away in order to destroy them, to the left; either way he certainly offended the author of the law. And so either this saying means something else, or it is false.

Augustine replied: O marvellous madness, to refuse to believe Matthew when he tells something about Christ, and to want to believe Mani! If Matthew was not there when Christ said, “I have not come to destroy the law or the prophets, but to fulfil,” and for that reason he is not to be believed, was Mani there, or even yet born, when Christ appeared among men? By this law of your faith, then, you ought to have believed nothing he testified about Christ. We, however, do not say that Mani is not to be believed because he was not present at the words and deeds of Christ and was born long after, but because he speaks about Christ against Christ's disciples and against the gospel confirmed by their authority. For we have the voice of the apostle, who saw in the Holy Spirit that such men would come; hence he said to the faithful: “If anyone preaches to you a gospel other than what you received, let him be anathema.” For if no one tells the truth about Christ but one who saw and heard him in person, no one today tells the truth about him. Further, if true things are told about him to his faithful today because those who saw and heard spread them by preaching or by writing, why could not Matthew hear true things about Christ from the mouth of John, his fellow disciple, where John was present and he was not, if from John's book we can speak the truth about Christ, not only we who were born so long after, but others too who will be born after us? For on this ground not only Matthew's gospel but also those of Luke and Mark, who followed those same disciples, have been received with no unequal authority. Besides, the Lord himself could have told Matthew what he had done with those he had called earlier, before he called him. “But,” he says, “John himself ought to have put this in his gospel, if he had heard this said by the Lord, being present when it was said.” As if it could not happen that, since he could not write everything he had heard from the Lord, among other things he passed over he passed over this too, being intent on writing other things. Did he not himself conclude his gospel thus: “And there are many other things that Jesus did; if they were written one by one, I do not think the world itself could contain the books that would be written”? Here certainly he shows that he knew he had passed over many things. But if John's authority on the law and the prophets pleases you, believe John testifying to the law and the prophets. He wrote that Isaiah saw Christ's glory. In his gospel you have the passage we treated a little earlier: “If you believed Moses, you would believe me too; for he wrote about me.” Your evasion is beaten down on every side. Say openly that you do not believe the gospel of Christ; for those who believe in the gospel what they want, and do not believe what they do not want, believe themselves rather than the gospel.

But what an elegant thing Faustus thought he was saying, when he wanted it not to be believed that Matthew wrote these things because, speaking of his own election, he did not say, “He saw me and said to me, Follow me,” but, “He saw Matthew and said to him, Follow me.” I do not know whether he said this from the error of ignorance or from the habit of deceit. But I would not think him so ignorant as never to have read or heard that writers of history, when they come to their own person, usually present themselves as if telling about another what they tell about themselves. I rather think, then, that he wished, not as an ignorant man but for the ignorant, to spread a mist, hoping to catch more people who did not know these things. Examples of such narration are found even in the history of secular affairs; but there is no need for me to remind our people or refute this man from another kind of literature. He himself, a little earlier, brought forward certain testimonies from the books of Moses in such a way as not to deny that Moses wrote them, but rather to affirm it, while contending that they did not concern Christ. Let them read, then, in those same books, what Moses wrote about himself: whether he wrote, “I said,” or “I did this or that,” and not rather, “Moses said,” and “Moses did”; or, “The Lord called me,” or “The Lord said to me,” and not rather, “The Lord called Moses,” and “The Lord said to Moses,” and all the rest in the same way. So Matthew too wrote of himself as of another; and John did the same. For near the end of his book he too speaks thus: “Peter, turning, saw the disciple whom Jesus loved, who also had reclined at the supper on his breast and had said to the Lord, Who is it that will betray you?” Did he say here, “Peter, turning, saw me”? Or perhaps for this reason they think he too did not write this gospel? But a little after he says: “This is the disciple who testifies about Jesus and who wrote these things; and we know that his testimony is true.” Did he say, “I am the disciple who testify about Jesus and who wrote these things,” and, “We know that my testimony is true”? Certainly it is plain that this was the custom of writers when they narrated events. And how many things the Lord himself says of himself in the same manner of speech, who could count? “When the Son of Man comes,” he says, “do you think he will find faith on earth?” He did not say, “When I come, do you think I will find?” And: “The Son of Man came eating and drinking”; he did not say, “I came.” And: “The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live”; he did not say, “my voice”; and many things of this kind. So I think what has been said is enough both to remind the studious and to refute the slanderous.

Now who does not see how weak is his saying that Christ could not have said, “Do not think that I have come to destroy the law or the prophets; I have not come to destroy but to fulfil,” unless he had already done something of the kind, so that he could fall under this suspicion? As if we denied that to the Jews, who did not understand, Christ could seem to be a destroyer of the law and the prophets. But this is the very reason why he, truthful and the Truth, could not have said of another law and other prophets that he did not destroy them, but only of those which they suspected him of destroying. This is also confirmed enough by what follows there, where he says: “Amen, amen I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one iota or one stroke will pass from the law until all things come to pass. Whoever then breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” For he was thinking of the Pharisees when he said this, who broke the law by their deeds and taught it by their words; of whom he says in another place: “What they say, do; but what they do, do not do; for they say, and do not do.” For this reason here too it follows thus: “For I tell you, unless your righteousness abounds more than that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven”: that is, unless you do and so teach what they do not do and yet so teach, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. So the very law which the Pharisees taught and did not do, Christ says he did not come to destroy but to fulfil, because it belongs to the chair of Moses, in which the Pharisees, sitting and speaking but not doing, are to be heard, not imitated.

Nor does Faustus understand, or perhaps he pretends not to understand, what fulfilling the law is, since he thinks it is to be taken of adding words, because it is written that nothing should be added to God's scripture or taken away; hence he says that what is commended as so perfect that nothing is to be added or subtracted ought not to have been fulfilled. These men do not know, then, how one fulfils the law who lives as the law commanded. For love is the fulfilment of the law, as the apostle says. This love the Lord deigned both to show and to give, by sending the Holy Spirit to his faithful. Hence the same apostle says again: “The love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” And the Lord himself: “By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” So the law is fulfilled either when the things commanded there are done, or when the things prophesied there are displayed. For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. The law itself, when fulfilled, became grace and truth. Grace belongs to the fullness of love, truth to the fulfilment of the prophecies. And because both came through Christ, therefore he did not come to destroy the law or the prophets but to fulfil them: not that things lacking might be added to the law, but that the things written might be done. His very words testify to this. For he did not say, “Not one iota or one stroke will pass from the law until what is lacking is added,” but, “until all things come to pass.”

Faustus said: “I have not come to destroy the law but to fulfil it.” But you should know that to believe that Christ said this, unless perhaps it means something else, is no less contrary to you than to me. For each of us is a Christian on this view, because we have thought that Christ came for the destruction of the law and the prophets. And if you will not admit this in word for the present, yet you show it by your works. That is why you yourself also despise the precepts of the law and the prophets; that is why we both confess that Jesus established a New Testament: and in this what else do we confess but the destruction of the Old Testament? Since this is so, how shall we believe that Christ said that, unless we first condemn ourselves for a foolish opinion in the past, return to repentance, submit afresh to the law and the prophets, and take care to observe their commandments, whatever they are? When we have done this, then at last we shall truly have believed that Jesus said that he did not come to destroy the law but to fulfil it. But as it is, it is false, since you do not believe it either, though you accuse me alone of not doing so.

But suppose it was permissible to have erred in the past. What now, then? Do you want to go under the law, if Christ did not so much destroy it as fulfil it? Do you want to be circumcised, that is, to mark shameful parts with a shameful mark, and to believe that God delights in such sacraments? Do you want to take up the idleness of Sabbaths and put your hands into Saturn's chains? Do you want, for the gluttony of the Jews' demon (for not of God), to lay low with knives now bulls, now rams, now even goats, not to say men also, and to practise now more cruelly under the prophets and the law the very thing for which we hate idols? Do you want, finally, to consider some funeral foods clean and to hold some as unclean and contaminated, among which the law and the prophets declare pork more defiled? You will certainly say that none of these things must be done by us, if we wish to persevere in being what we are; since you hear Christ saying that he who is circumcised becomes doubly a son of gehenna, and you see that he neither kept the Sabbath himself nor anywhere commanded it to be kept; likewise about foods you hear him assert that a man is defiled by none of the things that enter the mouth, but rather that the things which come out of the mouth pollute; and likewise about sacrifices his frequent saying is that God desires mercy, not sacrifice. If, then, these things are so, where will be his saying that he did not come to destroy the law and the prophets but to fulfil them? If he said it, he either said it meaning something else, or (far be it!) said it lying, or did not say it at all. But that Jesus lied, no one, at least no Christian, would say; and therefore either it was said otherwise, or not said at all.

And yet the Manichaean faith has already made me safe against the necessity of this passage; for from the beginning it persuaded me not to believe indiscriminately everything that is read as written in the Saviour's name, but to test whether it is true, whether sound, whether uncorrupted; for there are very many tares which a sower going about by night has scattered through almost all the scriptures to infect the good seed. And therefore not even here has this saying frightened me, although it bears the inscription of a revered name, because I am still free, on principle, to test whether this too is from the sower by day, the good one, or from that one by night, the worst. But you, who rashly believe everything, who condemn reason, nature's gift, in men, for whom it is a matter of religion not to judge between true and false, and for whom separating good from its contrary is no less a terror than bogeys to infants, what will you do when necessity drives you into the straits of this passage? I mean, when a Jew, or anyone else not ignorant of this saying, challenges you: why do you not keep the precepts of the law and the prophets, when Christ says that he did not come to destroy them but to fulfil them? Surely you will be compelled either to give in to an empty superstition, or to declare the passage false, or to deny that you are Christ's disciple.

Augustine replied: Since you repeat things so often exploded and refuted, we too shall not be reluctant to repeat the arguments by which we refuted them. Christians do not do those things from the law and the prophets by which the things they do were signified. For those were figures of things to come, which had to be taken away once the realities themselves were revealed and presented through Christ, so that by the very fact that they were taken away the law and the prophets might be fulfilled. For there this too is written, that God would give a new covenant, “not like the one,” he says, “which I gave to their fathers.” For that people, because of their heart of stone, had received many precepts more suited to them than good, by which, however, future things were figured and prophesied; but they were celebrated by people who did not understand them. But when the things signified by them came and were made plain, those things are no longer commanded to be done, but are read to be understood. Hence it is said there of this future thing too: “I will take away from them the heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh,” that is, not a heart without feeling but a heart with feeling. From this the apostle drew when he said: “not on tablets of stone but on fleshly tablets of the heart.” For what else did he say but “heart of flesh”? Since, then, this too was foretold, the law and the prophets would rather not be fulfilled if those things were not taken away from our celebration, because what they foretold would not happen; but since this too happens, they are understood to be fulfilled in the very thing by which they seem to you not to be fulfilled.

Nor does your taunt frighten us, when you call the rest of the Sabbath Saturn's chains. For it is empty and inept; and it would not have come into your mind to say this, were it not that you worship the sun on the day they call the Sun's day. But just as we call that same day the Lord's day, and on it venerate not this sun but the Lord's resurrection, so the rest of the Sabbath was observed by the fathers without veneration of Saturn, when it had to be observed so; for it was a shadow of things to come, as the apostle testifies. For the Gentiles gave the names of their gods to these days, whose number seven comes round in a cycle; of whom the apostle says that they worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator. In this you too imitate them, except that you worship with them the two brighter lights, but not the other stars with them. They also gave the names of their gods to the months. For in honour of Romulus, because they believed him the son of Mars, they dedicated the first month to Mars and called it March. Then April, from the name of no god of theirs, but from the thing itself, as if “aperilis,” because then most of the buds open into flower. Then the third month May, because they worship Maia, Mercury's mother, as a goddess. Then the fourth June, from Juno; then the rest up to December they named from numbers. But of these Quintilis and Sextilis were called July and August from the names of men to whom they had decreed divine honours. For the seventh, September, and the others, as I said, up to December, are named by the names of numbers in order. Further, January was named from Janus, February from the februa, the rites of the Luperci. Do you want, then, to be said to worship Mars in the month of March? For in that month you celebrate your Bema with great festivity. But if you think you may consider something else in the month of March, not Mars, why do you try to bring Saturn into the divine scriptures from the seventh day, which was named Sabbath from rest, because the Gentiles called that day Saturn's? Surely now you see with what impiety you rave.

As for the sacrifices of animals, which of us does not know that they were imposed rather as suited to a perverse people than offered to a God who desired them? Yet even in these there were figures of us, because without blood there is no cleansing for us and no propitiation of God; but the truth of those figures is Christ, by whose blood we have been redeemed and cleansed. For in the figures of the divine oracles he is called a bull, because of the power of the cross, with whose horns he tossed the impious; and a ram, because of the pre-eminence of innocence; and a goat, because of the likeness of sinful flesh, so that from sin he might condemn sin. And if you mention any other kind of sacrifice more expressly, I will show you that Christ was prophesied in that too. Therefore, whether circumcision or Sabbath or distinction of foods or the offering of sacrifices, all these things were figures of us and prophecies, which Christ came not to destroy but to fulfil, when he fulfilled what was foretold by them. Consider whom you are contradicting: with the apostle, from the apostle, I say: all these things were figures of us.

For just as Mani taught you an impious perversity, so that from the gospel you accept what does not hinder your heresy and do not accept what does hinder it, so the apostle taught us a devout precaution, that whoever announces to us anything other than what we received, let him be anathema. Hence Catholic Christians count you too among the tares; for the Lord explained that the tares are not some falsehoods put into true scriptures, as you interpret, but men, sons of the evil one, that is, imitators of the devil's falsehood. Nor do they believe everything rashly; and therefore they certainly do not believe Mani and the other heretics. Nor do they condemn reason in men; but what you call reason they prove to be error. Nor do they think it impious to judge between true and false; therefore they judge your sect most false and the Catholic faith most true. Nor do they fear to separate good from its contrary; but they understand that evil is not a nature, because it is against nature; not some race of darkness or other, born from its own principle and rebelling against the divine kingdoms, which truly brought greater terror to your god than bogeys to infants; for you say that he set a veil before himself, so as not to see his members captured and laid waste by its onslaught. So they suffer no straits from this passage, as though they did not keep the precepts of the law and the prophets; because by the grace of Christ they have the lawful love of God and of neighbour, on which two commandments the whole law hangs and the prophets; and whatever was prophesied there figuratively, whether by events or by the celebration of sacraments or by modes of speech, they know to be fulfilled in Christ and the church. Hence we neither give in to an empty superstition, nor say that passage of the gospel is false, nor deny that we are Christ's disciples; because, by that reasoning of truth which I have so often set out as well as I could, it was not another law or other prophets than those which Catholic authority holds that he came not to destroy but to fulfil.

Faustus said: “I did not come to abolish the law and the prophets, but to fulfil them.” See, I now agree that it was said. Yet we must ask why Jesus said it. Was it to soothe the fury of the Jews, who, seeing their sacred things trampled by him, were indignant and thought that he, as an impious and unsound man, should not even be listened to, much less followed? Or was it to instruct and train us, who believed in him from among the Gentiles, to take on patiently and obediently the yoke of commandments which the law of the Jews and the prophets would place on our necks? But I do not believe that even you think this, that Jesus uttered this word to bind us over to the law of the Hebrews or to the prophets. And therefore, if this was not the reason for saying it, the reason must be the other one, which I gave. For there is no one who does not know that the Jews constantly lay in wait, fiercely, for the words and works of Christ. Since they gathered from these that their law and prophets were being abolished by him, they were bound to be indignant; and therefore it would not have been out of place for him to have said, in order to check their fury, that they should not think he had come to abolish the law but to fulfil it. Nor did he lie or deceive in saying this: for he named “the law” without distinction and absolutely.

Now there are three kinds of law. One is that of the Hebrews, which Paul calls the law of sin and death; another is that of the Gentiles, which he calls natural. “For the Gentiles,” he says, “do by nature what belongs to the law; and not having a law of this kind, they are a law to themselves, who show the work of the law written in their hearts.” The third kind of law is the truth, which the apostle likewise indicates when he says: “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death.” Since, then, there are three laws, and Jesus assures us that he did not come to abolish the law but to fulfil it, no small care and diligence is needed to understand which of them he meant. Likewise, some prophets are those of the Jews, others those of the Gentiles, others those of the truth. Of the Jews’ prophets no one will ask, for it is well known. But if anyone doubts about those of the Gentiles, let him hear Paul, who, writing to Titus about the Cretans, says: “One of their own, a prophet of theirs, said: Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy bellies.” And therefore there is no doubt that the Gentiles too have their prophets. Moreover, that the truth too has its prophets is shown as much by Paul himself as by Jesus: by Jesus where he says, “Behold, I send you wise men and prophets, and some of them you will kill in various places”; and by Paul when he says, “The Lord himself appointed first apostles, then prophets.”

With the law divided in three and the prophets divided in three, it is not quite clear which of them Jesus meant; yet it may be inferred from what follows. For if he had at once named circumcision and sabbaths and sacrifices and the Hebrew observances, and had put forward something about them by way of fulfilment, there would have been no doubt that he spoke of the law and the prophets of the Jews, saying that he came not to abolish them but to fulfil them. But since he mentions none of these, and lists only the more ancient precepts, that is, “You shall not kill, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not swear falsely” (and these existed of old among the nations, as is easy to prove, having been promulgated long ago through Enoch and Seth and other righteous men like them, to whom illustrious angels handed them down to tame the savagery in human beings), who would not think that he spoke of the law of truth and its prophets? Finally, his fulfilment is proved to concern the very things he promised. For what does he say? “You have heard that it was said to the ancients: You shall not kill; but I say to you, do not even be angry”: that is fulfilment. “You have heard that it was said: You shall not commit adultery; but I say to you, do not even desire”: that is fulfilment. “It was said: You shall not swear falsely; but I say to you, do not swear at all”: that too is fulfilment. For in these he both strengthens the earlier precepts and adds what was lacking. But where he seems to have named some precepts of the Jews, he did not fulfil them, but even uprooted them entirely by commanding the opposite. For what follows? “You have heard that it was said: An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth; but I say to you: whoever strikes you on the cheek, offer him the other also”: this now is destruction. “It was said,” he says, “You shall love your friend and hate your enemy; but I say to you: love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you”: this too is destruction. “It was said: Whoever wishes to put away his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce; but I say: whoever puts away his wife, except for the cause of sexual immorality, both makes her commit adultery, and he himself will be an adulterer if he afterwards marries another.” These, then, are plainly precepts of Moses, and therefore destroyed; the others belong to the ancient righteous men, and therefore are fulfilled. If you too are pleased to understand it so, it will not be out of place that Jesus also said that he did not come to abolish the law but to fulfil it. But if this explanation of ours displeases you, look for another: only do not let yourself be forced to say that Jesus lied, or find it necessary to become a Jew, so that you do not persist even now in abolishing the law which he himself did not abolish.