Against Faustus the Manichaean 19.4–19.17

And yet, if one of the Nazarenes, whom others call Symmachians, had raised this objection against me, that Jesus said he had not come to abolish the law, I would for a while have hesitated, unsure what to answer him. And not without reason; for he came covered with the law and the prophets in body and mind alike. For such people as I mean both bear circumcision and keep the sabbath and abstain from pork and from other things of that kind which the law commanded, deceived under the profession of the Christian name, as one is given to understand, by this very chapter, by which you also are deceived, namely that Christ said he had come not to abolish the law but to fulfil it. Therefore with such people I would have had no small struggle, as I said, until I had shaken off the trouble of this chapter. But with you I should by no means be afraid to engage; for you rely on no strength and attack rather with impudence, so that I would more easily think myself being tempted by you than forced to believe that Christ said what I do not see that even you have believed. For you put forward nothing of those things by which the law and the prophets would seem not to be abolished but fulfilled, and yet you rebuke me as idle and a transgressor on the strength of this chapter. Or do you too now glory in that obscene little seal of mutilated groins, like a Jew or a Nazarene? Or do you raise your eyebrow over keeping the sabbath? Or do you rejoice with a clear conscience about abstaining from pork? Or, finally, do you exult that you have glutted the God of the Jews with the blood of victims and the smoke of burnt offerings? But if you have done none of these things, why do you so insist that Christ did not come to abolish the law but to fulfil it?

So I give unfailing thanks to my teacher, who held me back when I was likewise slipping, so that I am a Christian today. For I too, when I read this chapter unwarily, had almost resolved, as you have, to become a Jew. And not without reason; for if Christ did not come to abolish the law but to fulfil it, and fulfilling is never said of an empty vessel but of one partly filled, it seemed to me that only an Israelite could become a Christian, who, filled for the most part with the law and the prophets, would come to Christ to be filled up by him with what he still seemed to have room for, provided, that is, that he too did not abolish the earlier things; otherwise this would not be fulfilment in his case but emptying out. But I, coming from the Gentiles, thought I had approached Christ in vain, because I brought nothing of the kind that he could fill up in me with his additions. Seeking, then, what that earlier measure was, I find sabbaths, circumcision, sacrifices, new moons and baptisms, the eating of unleavened bread, distinctions of foods, of drinks, of garments, and other things that would take long to run through. I concluded, then, that this, and nothing else, was what Christ said he had not come to abolish but to fulfil. And not without reason; for what is the law without commandments? What are the prophets without their predictions? Besides this, I find there also a bitter curse laid against those “who do not abide in all the things that are written in the book of that law, to do them.” So, fearing the curse on the one side as coming from God, and on the other hearing Christ, as his Son, saying that he had not come to abolish these things but to fulfil them, see whether anything could any longer have stopped me from becoming a Jew. But from this danger the venerable faith of Mani rescued me.

But I ask with what confidence you raise these objections, or why you think that this is against me alone, when it seems no less against you. If it is not Christ’s part to abolish the law and the prophets, certainly it is not Christians’ part either. Why then do you abolish them? Or are you gradually admitting that you are not Christians? Why do you profane with every kind of work that day of the sabbath, held sacred by the law and all the prophets, on which they testify that God himself, the maker of the world, rested, fearing neither the penalty of death which it laid down against its violators nor the disgrace of the curse? Why do you defend your private parts from that disgraceful little seal of circumcision, honored by the law and all the prophets, and above all by Abraham after his supposed faith, especially since the God of the Jews declares that everyone of his people will perish who has not been marked beforehand with this ignominy? Why do you also scorn the ordinances of sacrifice, which neither Moses and the prophets under the law nor Abraham under his faith held as secondary? Why do you pollute your souls by treating foods as indifferent, if, as you believe, Christ did not come to abolish all these things but to fulfil them? Why do you also violate the yearly rule of unleavened bread and the rite of slaughtering the lamb, which the law and the prophets command to be kept for ever? Why, finally, do you take so little care not to break through new moons and baptisms and the feast of tabernacles and the other carnal sacraments of the law and the prophets of this kind, if Christ did not destroy them? So I would rightly say that if you want your contempt for these things to stand on a reason, you must either deny that you are disciples of Christ or at last admit that he first destroyed all these things. And when you have admitted this, then this too follows: that you must admit either that it is falsely written that he said he had not come to abolish the law but to fulfil it, or that he meant something far different from what you think.

Augustine replied: Since you now agree that Christ said, “I did not come to abolish the law or the prophets, but to fulfil them” (for it seems hard to you to go against the authority of the gospel), let it also seem hard to you to go against the apostle when he says, “All these things were figures of us”; and again when he says of Christ, “For in him it was not Yes and No, but in him it was Yes: for as many as are the promises of God, in him they are Yes,” that is, in him they were displayed, in him they were fulfilled. Then you will see without any fog both what law he came to fulfil and how he fulfilled it. Nor will you go on stretching yourself over three kinds of law and three kinds of prophets, looking for a way out and not finding it. For it is plain, and the scripture of the New Testament too often testifies to it more clearly than light, what law and what prophets Christ came not to abolish but to fulfil. For the very law that was given through Moses became grace and truth through Jesus Christ; it is, I say, the very law given through Moses, of whom Christ says, “For he wrote of me.” Certainly it is the very law that “came in so that the offense might abound”, words which you, understanding nothing, are accustomed to have in your mouths to find fault with it. Read there, then, and see that it is the very law of which it is said: “So the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good. Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means. But sin, that it might appear as sin, worked death in me through what is good.” For the law did not command the offense so that, when it came in, the offense might abound; but the addition of a holy and just and good commandment had made the proud, who attributed much to themselves, guilty of transgression as well, so that, humbled in this way, they might learn that it belongs to grace through faith that they should no longer be subject to the law through guilt, but joined to the law through righteousness. For the same apostle says that “before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up for the faith that was afterwards revealed. So the law,” he says, “was our tutor in Christ Jesus; but after faith came, we are no longer under a tutor,” because the guilt of the law does not bind us, who are now set free by grace. For before we, humbled, received spiritual grace, the letter, commanding what we could not fulfil, did nothing but put us to death. Hence the same apostle says: “The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” Again, these are the words of the same apostle: “For if a law had been given that could give life, righteousness would indeed be from the law; but scripture shut up all things under sin, so that the promise from the faith of Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.” Again, these are his words: “For what was impossible for the law, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sent his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, so that from sin he might condemn sin in the flesh, in order that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” See, this is what “I did not come to abolish the law but to fulfil it” means. For the law which bound the proud with the guilt of transgression as well, by increasing sin when it commands what they cannot fulfil, has its righteousness fulfilled by the grace of the Spirit in those who learn from Christ to be meek and humble of heart, who came not to abolish the law but to fulfil it. Then, since even for those placed under grace it is difficult in this mortal life to fulfil in every way what is written in the law, “You shall not covet,” he, made a priest through the sacrifice of his flesh, obtains forgiveness for us, fulfilling the law in this way too, so that what we can do less fully through our weakness is restored through the perfection of him whose members, as of our head, we have been made. Hence John says: “Little children, I write these things to you so that you may not sin; and if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; he is the propitiation for our sins.”

He fulfilled the prophecies in this way: in him the promise of God became truth. I mentioned this a little earlier from the apostle, who says: “For as many as are the promises of God, in him they are Yes.” Again he says: “For I say that Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the sake of the truth of God, to confirm the promises made to the fathers.” So what was promised in the prophets, whether openly or through figures either of speech or of action, was fulfilled in him who came not to abolish the law and the prophets but to fulfil them. But you do not understand this: that if certain acts and celebrations which were figures foretelling things to come were still performed by Christians, they would signify nothing except that the things foretold at that time by those figures had not yet come. For what is still foretold as to come either has not yet come, or, if it has already come, is foretold needlessly or falsely. Therefore, the very thing from which it seems to you that Christ did not fulfil the prophets, namely that certain things are not done by Christians which were instituted through the prophets to be done by the Hebrews, proves rather that he did fulfil them. For whatever was prophesied through figures of this kind has been fulfilled to such a degree that it is no longer prophesied through them. To this belongs also what the Lord himself says: “The law and the prophets were until John.” For the law, which shut up transgressors under abounding guilt for the faith that was afterwards revealed, became grace through Jesus Christ, through whom grace superabounded; and so it was fulfilled through liberating grace, when it was not fulfilled through the commanding letter. Likewise all the prophecy in the law itself, which promised the coming of the Savior not only in words but also in figures of certain actions, became truth through Jesus Christ. “For the law was given through Moses; but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” From his coming, the kingdom of God now began to be proclaimed, because “the law and the prophets were until John”: the law, to make guilty those who would desire salvation; the prophets, to promise the Savior. But who does not know that other prophets appeared in the church after Christ’s ascension? Of them Paul says: “And he appointed some in the church, first apostles, then prophets, third teachers,” and so on. So it was not of them that it was said, “The law and the prophets were until John,” but of those who prophesied the first coming of Christ; and that coming, once fulfilled, could certainly no longer be prophesied.

So when you ask why a Christian is no longer circumcised in the flesh, if Christ did not come to abolish the law but to fulfil it, I answer: on the contrary, a Christian is no longer circumcised precisely because what was prophesied by that circumcision Christ has now fulfilled. For the stripping away of carnal generation, which was figured in that act, has now been fulfilled in the resurrection of Christ; and what is to take place in our resurrection is commended to us by the sacrament of baptism. For the sacrament of new life ought not to have been taken away entirely, because the future resurrection of the dead still remains for us; and yet it ought to have been changed for the better by baptism taking its place, because something has now happened that had never happened before: in the resurrection of Christ an example of the future eternal life has been given to us. When you ask why a Christian does not keep the rest of the sabbath, if Christ did not come to abolish the law but to fulfil it, I answer: on the contrary, a Christian does not keep it for this very reason, that what was prophesied by that figure Christ has now fulfilled. For we have our sabbath in him who said: “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you; take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”

When you ask why a Christian does not observe the distinction of foods commanded in the law, if Christ did not come to abolish the law but to fulfil it, I answer: on the contrary, a Christian does not observe it for this reason, that what was prophesied by those figures Christ has now fulfilled, by not admitting into his body, the body that he predestined in his saints to eternal life, whatever was signified in human conduct by those animals. When you ask why a Christian does not offer God sacrifices of flesh and blood from slain animals, if Christ did not come to abolish the law but to fulfil it, I answer: on the contrary, the Christian ought all the more no longer to offer these, because what they prophesied by such figures Christ fulfilled by the sacrifice of his own flesh and blood. When you ask why a Christian does not keep unleavened bread like the Jews, if Christ did not come to abolish the law but to fulfil it, I answer: on the contrary, the Christian all the more does not keep it, because what was prophesied by that figure Christ fulfilled, purging out the leaven of the old life and showing the new life. When you ask why a Christian does not celebrate the Passover with the flesh of a lamb, if Christ did not come to abolish the law but to fulfil it, I answer: on the contrary, the Christian no longer celebrates the Passover in that way for this reason, that what was foretold by that figure Christ, the spotless lamb, fulfilled by his passion. When you ask for what reason a Christian does not celebrate the new moons commanded in the law, if Christ did not come to abolish the law but to fulfil it, I answer: on the contrary, the Christian no longer celebrates them for this reason, that what they were celebrated to foretell Christ has now fulfilled. For the celebration of the new moon foretold the new creation, of which the apostle says: “So if anyone is a new creation in Christ, the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come.” When you ask why a Christian does not observe those baptisms for each and every kind of uncleanness that are commanded in the law, if Christ did not come to abolish the law but to fulfil it, I answer that the Christian does not observe them rather for this reason, that they were figures of things to come which Christ fulfilled. For he came to bury us together with himself through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ rose from the dead, so we too may walk in newness of life. When you ask what reason there is that the feast of tabernacles is not a solemn feast of Christians, if the law was fulfilled by Christ and not abolished, I answer that the tabernacle of God is his faithful, in whom, joined together by love and in a way built into one, he deigns to dwell; and therefore it is all the more not observed by Christians, because Christ has now fulfilled in his church what that figure promised prophetically.

For now, so that these things should not be passed over in silence in the task we have undertaken, we have touched on them as briefly as we could. But discussed limb by limb and joint by joint, they have filled many great books which show nothing else in that scripture but Christ prophesied. So it turns out that all the things in that scripture which you think are not observed by Christians because Christ abolished them are found rather not to be observed by Christians because Christ fulfilled them. For the very observance of such figures was a foretelling of Christ. Hence what is surprising, what is absurd, or rather what is not fitting and consistent, if after his coming there ceased whatever was done in order to foretell his coming? Therefore the figures of things, which were observed so that by their very observance the Christ who was to come might be prophesied, must so little be thought unfulfilled by Christ’s coming because they were not observed when he came, that, if they had not been fulfilled by Christ’s coming, they would still be observed. Now people cannot be gathered together in any name of religion, whether true or false, unless they are bound together by some sharing of visible signs or sacraments; and the power of these sacraments is unspeakably great, and therefore, when they are despised, it makes men sacrilegious. For that is despised impiously without which piety cannot be made complete.

Nevertheless, because the visible sacraments of piety can be present even in the impious, as we read that even Simon the magician had holy baptism, such people become what the apostle describes: “having the form of piety, but denying its power.” And the power of piety is “the end of the commandment, that is, love from a pure heart and a good conscience and faith unfeigned.” Hence the apostle Peter, when he was speaking of the sacrament of the ark in which Noah’s household was delivered from the flood, says: “So baptism, in a like form, saves you also.” And so that they should not think the visible sacrament enough for them, through which they had the form of piety, while by living wickedly with evil morals they denied its power, he at once added: “not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the questioning of a good conscience.”

So the first sacraments, which were observed and celebrated under the law, foretold the Christ who was to come; and when Christ had fulfilled them by his coming, they were taken away, and they were taken away because they were fulfilled; for he did not come to abolish the law but to fulfil it. And others were instituted, greater in power, better in usefulness, easier in practice, fewer in number, since the righteousness of faith has been revealed and the children of God have been called into freedom, and the yoke of slavery, which suited a hard people given to the flesh, has been taken away.

Yet consider the righteous men of old, who understood that those sacraments foretold the coming revelation of faith, by which, though it was still covered and hidden, yet understood by the gift of piety, they themselves lived even then, since in this life no one can be righteous except the one who lives by faith. If, then, the righteous men of old were ready to suffer all hard and dreadful things for those foretelling sacraments and figures of things not yet fulfilled, and many of them did suffer; if we praise the three young men and Daniel because they would not be defiled by the king’s table, which was against the sacrament of that time; if we hold up the Maccabees with great admiration because they would not touch foods which Christians now lawfully use, because then, in that prophetic time, it was not lawful: how much more ready ought a Christian now to be to endure all things for the baptism of Christ, for the eucharist of Christ, for the sign of Christ, since those were promises of things to be completed, and these are tokens of things completed? For what is still promised to the church, that is, to the body of Christ, and is proclaimed for its manifestation, has certainly already been completed in the very head of the body, the Savior, that is, in the very mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. For what is promised except eternal life from the resurrection of the dead? This has already been completed in that flesh in which the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Then, therefore, the faith was hidden; for all the righteous and holy men even of those times believed the same things and hoped for the same things; and all those sacraments and that whole ritual of sacred rites were promises. But now the faith has been revealed, for which the people was shut up when it was kept under the law; and what is promised to the faithful at the judgment has already been completed as an example through him who came not to abolish the law and the prophets but to fulfil them.

Hence there is indeed a question among those who search the holy scriptures: whether faith in Christ, who was to suffer and to rise again, which the righteous men of old learned either by revelations or understood in the prophets, was as profitable to them as faith in him who has suffered and been raised is profitable now; or whether the very shedding of the blood of the Lamb of God, which took place, as he himself says, for many for the forgiveness of sins, either gave or added some benefit and cleansing even to those who had departed this life believing that it would happen, before it happened; and whether his death visited even the dead to set them free. But to discuss this question now by treating it thoroughly, or to settle it by confirming something found in it, would be long and is not necessary for this work.

Meanwhile, against the slanderous ignorance of Faustus, it will be enough to show how wildly mistaken they are who think that, because the signs and sacraments have been changed, the realities themselves are different, which the prophetic rite foretold as promised and the gospel rite has announced as fulfilled; or who judge that, since the realities are the same, they ought not to have been announced as completed by sacraments other than those by which they were foretold as still to be completed. For if the sounds of the words we speak are changed according to the time, and the same thing is announced in one way as to be done and in another as done (just as these very two words I have used, “to be done” and “done,” did not sound with equal lengths of time nor with the same or the same number of letters or syllables), what wonder is it if the passion and resurrection of Christ were promised as future by some sacramental seals of the mysteries and are announced as already accomplished by others, since the very words “future” and “accomplished,” “about to suffer” and “has suffered,” “about to rise” and “has risen,” could not be drawn out equally nor sound alike? For what are bodily sacraments but a kind of visible words, sacred indeed, yet changeable and temporal? For God is eternal; and yet the water, and all that bodily action which is performed when we baptize, both happens and passes away, and is not eternal; where again even those syllables that sound quickly and pass away when “God” is said, unless they are said, there is no consecration. All these things are done and pass away, sound and pass away; yet the power that works through them abides continually, and the spiritual gift that is conveyed through them is eternal. So whoever says, “If Christ had not abolished the law and the prophets, those sacraments of the law and the prophets would remain in the assemblies and celebrations of Christians,” can say, “If Christ had not abolished the law and the prophets, he would still be promised as one who will be born, will suffer, and will rise again”; whereas he did not abolish these things but rather fulfilled them precisely because he is no longer promised as one who will be born, will suffer, will rise, as those sacraments once proclaimed, but it is announced that he has been born, has suffered, has risen, as these sacraments performed by Christians now proclaim. He, then, who came not to abolish the law and the prophets but to fulfil them, by that very fulfilment took away the things through which what is now known to be fulfilled was still being promised as to be fulfilled; just as if he took away the words “will be born, will suffer, will rise,” which were rightly said while these things were future, and ordained that “has been born, has suffered, has risen” be said, which are rightly said now that those things are completed and therefore taken away.

Just like these words, then, those sacraments of the former people, because they have now been fulfilled through him who came not to abolish the law and the prophets but to fulfil them, had for that reason to be taken away and changed. As for the first Christians who had believed from among the Jews, the apostles allowed them to keep their ancestral rite and tradition, until they could gradually be persuaded against so long-standing a custom and led to a perfect understanding, and because they had been born and brought up so; and they advised those for whom it was needed to conform to their slowness and customs. Hence the apostle even circumcised Timothy, born of a Jewish mother and a Greek father, for the sake of the people of that kind to whom he had come with him, and he himself kept such a custom among them, not with deceitful pretence but with prudent counsel; for these things were not harmful to those born and brought up so, although they were no longer necessary for signifying things to come. Indeed it would have been more harmful to forbid them as harmful in the case of those people until whom they had to last; for Christ, who had come to fulfil all those prophecies, had found them already initiated in this way, so that from then on those who were bound by no such tie, but came from the opposite wall, as it were, that is, from the uncircumcision, to that cornerstone who is Christ, should be compelled to nothing of the kind. But if those who had come from the circumcision and were still devoted to such sacraments were willing of their own accord, like Timothy, to show such conformity, they were not forbidden; but if they thought that their hope and salvation lay in works of the law of this kind, they were forbidden, as from certain ruin. Hence the apostle’s words: “Behold, I Paul say to you that if you are circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing”: circumcised, that is, as they themselves wished, as they had been persuaded by certain perverted men, that they could not be saved without these works of the law. For when the Gentiles were coming to the faith of Christ, chiefly through the preaching of the apostle Paul, in the way they ought to come, so as to be burdened with no observances of this kind (both because grown men, dreading these unaccustomed things, especially circumcision, would have been deterred from the faith, and because, not having been born so as to be imbued with such sacraments, if they became proselytes in the old manner, it would be as though Christ were still being promised as one to come through those mysteries), when, then, they were coming to the faith in the way in which it was now right for people to come from the Gentiles, those who had come from the circumcision, not understanding why these things were permitted to themselves and why they were not to be imposed on the Gentiles, had begun to disturb the church with certain carnal factions, because the Gentiles who were joining the people of God did not formally become proselytes by circumcision of the flesh and other observances of the law of this kind. And among them were some who insisted strongly that this be done because they feared the Jews among whom they lived. Against these the apostle Paul wrote much; for he corrected with brotherly rebuke even Peter, who had been drawn into their pretence. But after the apostles had gathered together and decided in their council that the Gentiles were not to be compelled to works of the law of this kind, it displeased some Christians of the circumcision, who were unable to see in their minds that only those were not to be forbidden such observances whom the faith, when it was revealed, had found already imbued with them, so that the prophetic action itself might be brought to its end in those whom it had already held before the fulfilment of the prophecy; lest, if it were removed from them too, it should seem condemned rather than ended, and lest, if it were imposed on the Gentiles too, it should be thought either not to have been instituted for the sake of promising Christ, or still to promise Christ. So the first people of God, before Christ came to fulfil the law and the prophets, was commanded to observe all those things that promised him: free in those who understood to what they referred, but slave in those who did not understand this. The later people, then, coming to the faith by which Christ was now preached as having come, suffered, and risen, was neither compelled nor forbidden to observe these things in the case of those people whom that faith had found already trained in such sacraments; but in the case of those who had believed while free of such things, held by no tie of birth, custom, or conformity, it was even forbidden, so that through them it might now begin to appear that all those things had been instituted for the sake of promising Christ, and that, now that he had come and fulfilled these promises, they must cease. When this tempering and moderation of the Holy Spirit working through the apostles displeased some believers from the circumcision who did not understand these things, they persisted in the perversity of compelling even the Gentiles to judaize. These are the people whom Faustus mentioned under the name of Symmachians or Nazarenes, who have lasted down to our own times, now indeed in small numbers, but still lasting even in their fewness.