Answer to an Enemy of the Law and the Prophets
Against Arianism and Other Heresies
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Revisions II
C. 58Answer to an Enemy of the Law and the Prophets, in Two BooksContra adversarium legis et prophetarum, libri duo
Interea liber quidam cuiusdam haeretici sive Marcionistae sive cuiuslibet eorum quorum error opinatur, quod istum mundum non Deus fecerit, nec Deus Legis quae data est per Moysen et Prophetarum ad eamdem Legem pertinentium verus sit Deus sed pessimus daemon, cum apud Carthaginem multis confluentibus et attentissime audientibus, in platea maritima legeretur, pervenerunt ad eum fratres studiosissime christiani eumque mihi redarguendum sine ulla dilatione miserunt, multum rogantes ut nec ego respondere differrem. Refelli eum libris duobus, quos ideo praenotavi, Contra adversarium Legis et Prophetarum, quia codex ipse qui missus est, nomen non habebat auctoris.
Meanwhile a certain book by some heretic—whether a Marcionist or one of those whose error supposes that this world was not made by God, and that the God of the Law given through Moses and of the Prophets belonging to that same Law is not the true God but a most wicked demon—was being read aloud in the seaside square at Carthage, where many were gathering and listening most attentively. Some brothers, deeply earnest Christians, brought it to me to be refuted and sent it without any delay, urgently asking that I too not put off a reply. I refuted him in two books, which I therefore entitled Answer to an Enemy of the Law and the Prophets, because the very manuscript that was sent had no author's name.
LawProphHoc opus sic incipit: Libro quem misistis, fratres dilectissimi.
This work begins thus: In the book you sent, most beloved brothers.
LawProphBk. 1On the plan and subject undertaken in the work.De suscepto operis consilio et argumento.
1. 1. Libro, quem misistis, fratres dilectissimi, nescio cuius haeretici invento, sicut scripsistis in platea maritima, cum venalis codex ipse ferretur et concurrentibus turbis periculosa curiositate et delectatione legeretur, ut quanto possem compendio responderem, prius quaesivi, cuiusnam esset erroris. Non enim soli Manichaei legem prophetasque condemnant, sed et Marcionistae et alii nonnulli, quorum sectae non ita innotuerunt populis christianis. Iste autem, cuius nomen in eodem libro non comperi, detestatur Deum mundi fabricatorem; cum Manichaei, quamvis librum Geneseos non accipiant atque blasphement, Deum tamen bonum fabricasse mundum etsi ex aliena natura atque materia confiteantur. Sed quamquam non mihi apparuerit, cuius sectae sit iste blasphemus, defendenda est adversus eius linguam Scriptura divina, quam maledicis disputationibus insectatur. Et quoniam se quoquo modo christianum videri cupit, unde et ex Evangelio et ex Apostolo ponit aliqua testimonia, etiam scripturis ad Novum Testamentum pertinentibus refellendus est, ut ostendatur in reprehensione veterum inconsideratius quam versutius insanire.
1. 1. In the book you sent, most beloved brothers, the invention of some heretic or other—which, as you wrote, was being read in the seaside square when the manuscript itself was being carried about for sale and was being read with dangerous curiosity and delight by the crowds running together—in order that I might answer it as briefly as I could, I first asked of what error it was. For it is not only the Manicheans who condemn the Law and the Prophets, but also the Marcionists and certain others, whose sects have not become so well known among Christian peoples. This man, however, whose name I did not find in that same book, detests God the maker of the world; whereas the Manicheans, although they do not accept the book of Genesis and even blaspheme it, nevertheless confess that a good God made the world, even if out of an alien nature and matter. But although it has not become apparent to me of what sect this blasphemer is, the divine Scripture, which he assails with abusive arguments, must be defended against his tongue. And since he wishes in some way to appear a Christian—whence he also sets down some testimonies from the Gospel and from the Apostle—he must be refuted from the Scriptures belonging to the New Testament as well, so that it may be shown that in his censure of the old writings he raves more rashly than cleverly.
LawProph.1.1.12. 2. Ac primum, quod pius poterat religioso, quaerit iste impius ore sacrilego, quomodo accipiendum sit quod scriptum est: In principio fecit Deus caelum et terram (Gen 1, 1), quamquam non addiderit terram, de qua post loquitur. Quaerit ergo: " quo principio? Eiusne quo idem Deus esse coepit, an ex eo quo illum esse vacuum taeduit? ". Cui respondetur, quia nec Deus esse coepit nec eum vacationis suae taeduit, qui neque aliquando non fuit nec cessando torpuit nec operando laboravit nec sine caelo sedis indiguit nec facto caelo sedem tamquam finitis erroribus peregrinus invenit. Potens est enim beatissime manere in semetipso; templo autem suo, quod sunt omnes sancti et angeli et homines, sic impertire habitationem suam, ut illi ex ipso habeant tale bonum, quo beati esse possint, non ex eis ille talem domum, sine qua beatus esse non possit (Cf. 1 Cor 3, 16-17; Eph 2, 21-22). Aut ergo sic intellegendum est quod scriptum est: In principio fecit Deus caelum et terram, ut principium sit, ex quo esse coeperunt; non enim Deo coaeterna semper fuerunt, sed facta initium, ex quo esse inciperent, acceperunt. Aut certe quia in principio sibi coaeterno fecit Deus caelum et terram, hoc est in unigenito Filio (Cf. Io 3, 16-18). Ipse est enim sapientia, de qua dicit Apostolus: Christum Dei virtutem et Dei sapientiam (1 Cor 1, 24). Et Deo qui fecit caelum et terram, dicitur in psalmo: Omnia in sapientia fecisti (Ps 103, 24). Aut si de psalmo iste non vult accipere testimonium, Apostolum audiat de Christo loquentem: Quia in ipso condita sunt omnia, in caelo et in terra, visibilia et invisibilia (Col 1, 16).
2. 2. And first, what a devout man might have asked with a reverent mouth, this impious man asks with a sacrilegious one: how we are to understand what is written, In the beginning God made heaven and earth (Gen 1:1)—though he did not add the earth, of which he speaks afterward. He asks, then: "In what beginning? In the one in which this same God began to exist, or from the time when it wearied him to exist idle?" To him the reply is that God neither began to exist nor was wearied by his own idleness, since he neither at any time was not, nor grew sluggish by ceasing, nor labored by working, nor lacked a dwelling place without a heaven, nor, once heaven was made, found a dwelling like a wanderer whose roamings were now over. For he is able most blessedly to abide in himself; yet to his temple, which is all the saints, both angels and human beings, he so imparts his own indwelling that they have from him such a good that they can be blessed, not he from them such a home without which he could not be blessed (See 1 Cor 3:16–17; Eph 2:21–22). Either, then, what is written—In the beginning God made heaven and earth—is to be understood so that "the beginning" is that from which they began to exist (for they were not always coeternal with God, but, being made, received a beginning from which they should begin to exist); or surely it is that in the beginning coeternal with himself God made heaven and earth, that is, in the only-begotten Son (See Jn 3:16–18). For he is the wisdom of which the Apostle says, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God (1 Cor 1:24). And to God who made heaven and earth it is said in the psalm, You have made all things in wisdom (Ps 104:24 (103:24)). Or if this man is unwilling to accept the testimony of the psalm, let him hear the Apostle speaking about Christ: For in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible (Col 1:16).
LawProph.1.2.22. 3. Deus igitur nec coepit esse nec desinet, sed opera eius quaedam incipientia certo fine esse desistunt, sicut tempora et temporalia; quaedam incipientia permanebunt, sicut ipsa sanctorum hominum, quam percepturi sunt, vita aeterna. Quod iste non vidit, qui putavit esse dicendum ac definiendum, nullum esse sine fine principium: nec ipsum potuit attendere numerum, cuius initium est ab uno et finis in nullo. Nullus quippe numerus quamlibet magnus vel dicitur vel si iam dici non potest cogitatur, cui non addi possit ut maior sit. Et puto quod iste quamlibet haeresim sub nomine Christi teneat contra Christum, vitam sibi promittit in Christo utique beatam, cuius tunc poterit esse principium, cum vitae huius miserae finis fuerit. Respondeat itaque, beata illa, quam non negat habituram vel habere principium, utrum habitura an non habitura sit finem? Si dixerit habituram, quomodo se audebit dicere christianum? Si dixerit non habituram, ubi est quod ausus est dicere nullum esse sine fine principium?
2. 3. God, therefore, neither began to exist nor will cease, but certain of his works, having a beginning, cease to exist at a fixed end, as do times and temporal things; certain others, having a beginning, will remain, such as the eternal life that holy human beings are to receive. This man did not see this, for he supposed that it must be said and laid down as a rule that no beginning is without an end. He could not even attend to number itself, whose beginning is from one and whose end is in no number at all. For no number, however great—whether it is stated, or, if it can no longer be stated, is conceived—is such that something cannot be added to it to make it greater. And I suppose that, whatever heresy this man holds under the name of Christ against Christ, he promises himself a life that is at any rate blessed in Christ, a life that can have its beginning only when the end of this wretched life has come. Let him answer, then, whether that blessed life, which he does not deny will have or has a beginning, is going to have an end or not. If he says it will have one, how will he dare to call himself a Christian? If he says it will not, where is what he dared to say, that no beginning is without an end?
LawProph.1.2.33. 4. Quaerit etiam: " Si mundus iste bonum aliquid est, cur non olim ex initio ab eo factum est, quod melius fuit? ". Quasi se ipso aliquid melius Deus fecerit mundum aut ideo non debuit hoc bonum fieri, quia non est aequale facienti. Quod autem quaerit, cur non istud olim ex initio factum sit, responsum habeat: immo vero olim ex initio factum est; ex initio utique suo, non Dei, cui nullum est initium. Si autem hoc initium significari potuit, eo quod dictum est: In principio fecit Deus; quid est quod calumniatur velut interrogans, in quo principio fecerit, cum ipse rursus quaerat, cur non olim ex initio factum sit? Proinde sua verba illi replicanda sunt. Nam sicut ipse propter id quod scriptum est: In principio fecit Deus caelum et terram (Gen 1, 1), argumentatur et dicit: " In principio igitur quo? ". Eiusne quo idem Deus esse coepit, an ex eo quo illum vacuum esse taeduit? Ita et nos ad id quod ait: " Cur non istud olim ex initio ab eo factum est? ". Respondeamus et dicamus ei: Ex initio igitur quo? eiusne quo idem Deus esse coepit an ex eo quo illum vacuum esse taeduit? Hoc quippe illi displicet, quod non olim ex initio fecerit Deus caelum, cum dicit: " Cur non olim ex initio? ". Tamquam ex illo initio facere debuerit, ex quo est ipse qui fecit. Cur non hic timuit, ne dicendo ex initio, ex quo est ipse Deus, eum debuisse facere caelum, diceretur ei: habet ergo Deus initium ac per hoc secundum sententiam tuam habebit et finem; tu enim dixisti nullum esse initium sine fine? Porro si Deus caret initio, quomodo faceret aliquid ex initio ex quo ipse est? Ac per hoc ex initio fecit illo ex quo fecit, id est, ex quo coepit esse quod fecit. Aut ergo Deus ipsorum nihil boni unquam fecit; aut secundum istum, quodcumque boni fecit, ex illo initio fecit, ex quo ipse est; et habenti initium metuendus est finis. Aut sanctae Scripturae verbis debet acquiescere et intellegere Deum, qui ex nullo coepit esse principio, fecisse caelum in principio, vel ex quo caelum esse coepit, vel in Filio, qui Iudaeis interrogantibus, quis esset, principium se esse respondit (Cf. Io 8, 25).
3. 4. He also asks: "If this world is something good, why was it not made by him long ago from the beginning, which would have been better?"—as though God had made the world something better than himself, or as though it ought not to have been made good because it is not equal to its maker. But as for what he asks—why this was not made long ago from the beginning—let him have his answer: on the contrary, it was indeed made long ago from its beginning—from its own beginning, that is, not from God's, who has no beginning. And if this beginning could be signified by the words In the beginning God made, why does he cavil as though asking in what beginning he made, when he himself in turn asks why it was not made long ago from the beginning? Accordingly, his own words must be turned back upon him. For just as he, on account of what is written—In the beginning God made heaven and earth (Gen 1:1)—argues and says, "In what beginning, then? In the one in which this same God began to exist, or from the time when it wearied him to be idle?"—so too let us, in response to what he says, "Why was this not made by him long ago from the beginning?" answer and say to him: From what beginning, then? From the one in which this same God began to exist, or from the time when it wearied him to be idle? For this is what displeases him, that God did not make heaven long ago from the beginning, when he says, "Why not long ago from the beginning?"—as though God ought to have made it from that beginning from which is the very one who made it. Why was he not afraid here, lest, by saying that from the beginning from which God himself exists he ought to have made heaven, it be said to him: Then God has a beginning, and thereby, according to your own opinion, he will also have an end—for you yourself said that no beginning is without an end? Moreover, if God has no beginning, how could he make anything from the beginning from which he himself exists? And so he made it from that beginning from which he made it—that is, from which began to exist what he made. Either, then, the God of these men never made anything good; or, according to this man, whatever good he made, he made from that beginning from which he himself exists, and one who has a beginning must fear an end. Or else he ought to acquiesce in the words of holy Scripture and understand that God, who began from no beginning, made heaven in the beginning—either from which heaven began to exist, or in the Son, who, when the Jews asked who he was, answered that he was the beginning (See Jn 8:25).
LawProph.1.3.43. 5. Nisi forte dicturus est aliud initium aliud vero esse principium. Si ergo ita esset scriptum: In initio fecit Deus caelum et terram, nihil contra hoc iste moveretur, qui dixit: " Cur non olim ex initio factum est? ". Quandoquidem legeret: In initio fecit Deus, non existimans impium, si credatur Deus habere initium, sed non habere principium. Quod si ita est, emendetur hoc auctore Evangelium, ubi scriptum est: In principio erat Verbum (Io 1, 1). Cur enim non etiam hic iste dicat: In principio igitur quo? Eiusne quo idem Verbum esse coepit? Et quia Deus erat Verbum, potest etiam sic dicere, quemadmodum in hoc libro dixit: " Eiusne quo idem Deus esse coepit? ". Dicat hic si placet etiam illam definitivam suam, ubi audit: In principio erat Verbum, dicat etiam hic, si audet: nullum est principium sine fine, ut ab ipsis etiam Manichaeis, qui eum fortasse, quia inimicum Legi Prophetisque reperiunt, libentissime legunt, iudicetur insanus. Quia vero displicet ei Deus qui fecit mundum, cur non displicet per quem factus est mundus? De Christo enim scriptum est: In hoc mundo erat et mundus per eum factus est (Io 1, 10).
3. 5. Unless perhaps he is going to say that one thing is "a beginning" (initium) and another "the beginning" (principium). If, then, it had been written "In the beginning [in initio] God made heaven and earth," this man would have raised no objection against it—he who said, "Why was it not made long ago from the beginning?"—since he would read "In the beginning [in initio] God made," not thinking it impious if God is believed to have a beginning (initium), but only if he has a beginning (principium). But if this is so, then on his authority the Gospel must be corrected, where it is written, In the beginning was the Word (Jn 1:1). For why should he not say here too: In what beginning, then? In the one in which the Word itself began to exist? And since the Word was God, he can say here too, just as he said in this book of his, "In the one in which this same God began to exist?" Let him state here too, if he pleases, that definitive rule of his, where he hears In the beginning was the Word; let him say here too, if he dares: no beginning is without an end—so that even by the Manicheans themselves, who perhaps read him most gladly because they find him an enemy to the Law and the Prophets, he may be judged insane. But since the God who made the world displeases him, why does the one through whom the world was made not displease him? For of Christ it is written, He was in this world, and the world was made through him (Jn 1:10).
LawProph.1.3.54. 6. Intellegat itaque Deum facere bona posse, bonis autem a se factis egere non posse, unde nec faciendis eguit, qui factis non eget. Sed summe bonus fecit omnia, sibi quidem imparia, sed tamen bona. Bonum quippe etiam non summum, immo vero etiam infimum, nisi a summo bono esse non posset. Nimis autem de Deo male sentit, qui propterea bonum esse aliquid negat, quia aequale Deo non esse cognoscit. Ita enim non erit ille summum, sed infimum bonum, si quidquid eo minus est iam non est bonum. Porro si in rebus quas condidit ea quae sunt prima bona valde sunt imparia Conditori, quia ille fecit, haec facta sunt; profecto qui talibus non eguit ad augendam beatitudinem suam, multo minus inferioribus atque omnino infimis eguisse credendus est. Quae tamen fecit tamquam bonorum omnium constitutor. Nam Dominus Iesus, per quem factus est mundus (Cf. Io 1, 10) non sola caelestia, sed etiam terrestria eorumque terrestrium quae videntur exigua, Deum creasse et creare sic indicat, cum dicit: Si ergo fenum agri, quod hodie est et cras in clibanum mittitur, Deus sic vestit, quanto magis vos modicae fidei? (Mt 6, 30) Unus ergo atque idem Deus est institutor caeli et terrae, stellarum et herbarum, quidquid mensura, forma, ordine suo constat in caelo et in terra, quidquid vivit in caelo et in terra, quidquid sentit in caelo et in terra, quidquid intellegit in caelo et in terra. Quae non solum illi, a quo sunt condita, sed nec inter se esse oportebat aequalia, et ideo sunt omnia. Nam si essent aequalia, unum genus bonorum esset, non omnia. Nunc vero ideo sunt omnia bona, quia sunt aliis alia meliora, et bonitas inferiorum addit laudibus meliorum: Et in rerum bonarum inaequalitate ipsa est iucunda gradatio, ubi minorum comparatio ampliorum est commendatio.
4. 6. Let him therefore understand that God can make good things, but cannot need the good things made by him, and so did not need to make them, since he does not need the things made. But, being supremely good, he made all things—unequal to himself, indeed, yet good. For a good thing, even one that is not the highest, indeed even the lowest, could not exist except from the highest good. But he thinks far too ill of God who denies that something is good on the ground that he recognizes it is not equal to God. For God will be not the highest but the lowest good, if whatever is less than he is no longer good. Moreover, if among the things he founded those that are the first goods are exceedingly unequal to their Founder—because he made them, while these were made—then surely one who did not need such things to increase his blessedness is much less to be believed to have needed the lower things, and the lowest things altogether. Yet he made them, as the founder of all good things. For the Lord Jesus, through whom the world was made (See Jn 1:10), shows that God created and creates not only the heavenly things but also the earthly, and even those slight earthly things that are seen, when he says: If God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is and tomorrow is cast into the oven, how much more you, O you of little faith? (Mt 6:30) One and the same God, therefore, is the founder of heaven and earth, of stars and herbs—whatever stands by its own measure, form, and order in heaven and on earth, whatever lives in heaven and on earth, whatever perceives in heaven and on earth, whatever understands in heaven and on earth. These things ought to have been equal neither to him by whom they were founded nor even to one another, and for that reason they are all things. For if they were equal, there would be one kind of good, not all things. But as it is, they are all good precisely because some are better than others, and the goodness of the lower adds to the praises of the better; and in this very inequality of good things there is a pleasing gradation, where the comparison of the lesser is the commendation of the greater.
LawProph.1.4.65. 7. Ea vero, quae dicuntur mala, aut vitia sunt rerum bonarum, quae omnino extra res bonas per se ipsa alicubi esse non possunt, aut supplicia peccatorum, quae de iustitiae pulchritudine veniunt. Sed ipsa quoque vitia testimonium perhibent bonitati naturarum. Quod enim malum est per vitium, profecto bonum est per naturam. Vitium quippe contra naturam est, quia naturae nocet, nec noceret, nisi bonum eius minueret. Non est ergo malum nisi privatio boni. Ac per hoc nusquam est nisi in re aliqua bona. Etsi non summe bona, quoniam summe bona incorruptibilis et immutabilis perseverat, ut Deus est, non tamen nisi in bona, quoniam non nocet nisi minuendo quod bonum est. Ac per hoc bona sine malis esse possunt, sicut ipse Deus et quaeque superiora caelestia; mala vero sine bonis esse non possunt. Si enim nihil nocent, mala non sunt; si autem nocent, bonum minuunt. Etsi amplius nocent, habent adhuc bonum quod minuant: etsi totum consumunt, nihil naturae remanebit cui noceatur, ac per hoc nec malum erit a quo noceatur, quando natura defuerit, cuius bonum nocendo minuatur.
5. 7. But the things that are called evils are either defects in good things—which cannot by themselves exist anywhere at all outside of good things—or the punishments of sins, which come from the beauty of justice. But even the defects themselves bear witness to the goodness of natures. For what is evil through a defect is surely good through nature. A defect, indeed, is contrary to nature, because it harms a nature, and it would not harm unless it diminished the nature's good. Evil, then, is nothing but the privation of good. And thus it is nowhere except in some good thing—even if not in a supremely good thing, since the supremely good endures incorruptible and unchangeable, as God does, yet only in a good thing, since it does no harm except by diminishing what is good. And thus good things can exist without evils, as God himself does and all the higher heavenly things; but evils cannot exist without goods. For if they do no harm, they are not evils; but if they do harm, they diminish a good. And if they harm still more, they still have a good to diminish; even if they consume the whole, no nature will remain to be harmed, and thus there will be no evil by which harm could be done, once the nature has failed whose good might be diminished by harm.
LawProph.1.5.76. 8. Utrum autem aliqua natura, hoc est substantia prorsus ad nihilum redigatur, disputatio subtilissima est. Sed fides veracissime Deo cantat: Mutabis ea et mutabuntur; tu autem idem ipse es (Ps 101, 27-28). Nec fecit igitur nec regit mutabilia bona nisi immutabile bonum, quod est Deus. Porro bona mutabilia propterea bona sunt, quoniam a summo bono facta sunt; propterea mutabilia, quia non de ipso, sed de nihilo facta sunt. Quamobrem et ipsa mortalia, quamvis ex aliqua parte poenalia sint eis, quibus sola immortalitas potest perfectae beatitudinis implere mensuram, habent tamen proprium decoris locum in pulchritudine temporum. Sed maior quam humanus est sensus, quo talis pulchritudo sentitur. Fides tamen illa, quae Deo suo dicit: Omnia in mensura et numero et pondere constituisti (Sap 11, 20), quamvis amore vivendi conditionem mortis exhorreat, Creatorem tamen omnium bonorum etiam de bonis mortalibus laudat. Nam iste ipse, qui reprehendit nec Deum esse credit, cuius terrena opera videt esse mortalia, eumdem sermonem suum, qui usque adeo illi placuit, ut eum litteris memoriaeque mandaret, nisi vocibus ad sua quaeque verba pertinentibus et incipientibus tamen et deficientibus implere non posset, ita pulchritudinem disputationis, qua vult persuadere quidquid oritur et moritur bonum esse non posse, nisi orientibus et morientibus syllabis non potuit explicare. Quid ergo mirum, si in tam magna universitate naturae est aliquod infimum bonum in ordinibus temporum, quod non permansione rerum sicut nonnulla sublimia spiritalia, sed pro decore sui generis imo atque terreno exortu occasuque sit pulchrum?
6. 8. But whether any nature—that is, substance—is reduced utterly to nothing is a most subtle question to discuss. Yet faith most truly sings to God: You will change them, and they will be changed; but you are the same (Ps 102:27–28 (101:27–28)). Nothing, therefore, either made or governs changeable goods except the unchangeable good, which is God. Moreover, changeable goods are good for this reason, that they were made by the highest good; they are changeable for this reason, that they were made not from him but from nothing. Hence even mortal things, although in some part they are penal for those whose perfect blessedness only immortality can fill out to the full measure, nevertheless have their own place of comeliness in the beauty of the ages. But the sense by which such beauty is perceived is greater than the human. Yet that faith which says to its God, You have arranged all things in measure and number and weight (Wis 11:20), although out of love of living it shrinks from the condition of death, nonetheless praises the Creator of all good things even for the good mortal things. For this very man, who reproaches God and does not believe him to be God because he sees that his earthly works are mortal, could not fill out even that discourse of his own—which pleased him so well that he committed it to letters and to memory—except with sounds that belong to each of his own words and that nevertheless both begin and pass away; thus the beauty of the discussion by which he wishes to persuade us that whatever arises and dies cannot be good, he could not unfold except with syllables that arise and die. What wonder is it, then, if in so vast a totality of nature there is some lowest good in the orders of the ages which is beautiful not by the permanence of things, like certain sublime spiritual things, but, befitting its kind, by a lowly and earthly rising and setting?
LawProph.1.6.86. 9. Quae cum ita sint, non calumnietur dicenti Scripturae: vidit Deus lucem quia bona est (Gen 1, 4). Non solum enim lucem quam vocavit diem, et firmamentum quod vocavit caelum, et solem et lunam et caetera sidera, verum etiam ligna et herbas et in aquis ac terris quaecumque mortalia et creavit Deus summe bonus et vidit, quia bona sunt in genere atque ordine suo. Nec timuit, qui spiritu Dei revelante scripsit hunc librum, futuros impios reprehensores vaniloquos et mentis seductores primitus suae deinde aliorum, quos delectat blasphema loquacitas, quia et ipsos, in quantum homines sunt, in quantum corpore atque anima rationali constant, in quantum membra corporis eorum suis distinguuntur officiis et concordissima differentia in unitatem suae pacis mirabili ordinatione consentiunt (Cf. 1 Cor 12, 12), in quantum anima eis naturali excellentia praestat atque imperat, in quantum sensus carnis quinque partitos implet ac vegetat (Cf. Gen 9, 15) dissimili potentia, sociali convenientia, in quantum etiam mente atque ratione, quod bestialis anima non potest, sapere atque intellegere potest, vidit Deus quia boni sunt, et ideo creavit. Non enim tantum creatos postea vidit, sed et creandos ante praevidit, et quod perversa voluntate et caeco errore maligni sunt, non ideo vidit, quod non essent creandi; praevidit enim ubi sint ordinandi, et sic eos ex eadem massa primae praevaricationis merito damnata fecit vasa irae, si usque in finem in hac malignitate perdurant, ut prosint vasis misericordiae, quo eorum acumina vanitatis diligentius arcana veritatis inquirant (Cf. Rom 9, 22-23). Magna quippe opera Domini exquisita in omnes voluntates eius (Ps 110, 2). Quid autem mirum est, quia displicet humanae stultitiae, quod opera sua placent divinae sapientiae? Quid est enim aliud: Vidit lucem quia bona est (Gen 1, 4), nisi quia placuit ei?
6. 9. Since these things are so, let him not cavil at Scripture when it says, God saw the light, that it was good (Gen 1:4). For God, supremely good, both created and saw to be good in their kind and order not only the light, which he called day, and the firmament, which he called heaven, and the sun and moon and the other stars, but also the trees and the herbs and whatever mortal things there are in the waters and on the lands. Nor was he afraid—he who by the revealing Spirit of God wrote this book—of future impious censurers, talkers of vanity and seducers of minds, first of their own minds and then of others', whom blasphemous loquacity delights; for these too, insofar as they are human beings, insofar as they consist of body and rational soul, insofar as the members of their body are distinguished by their own functions and, in most harmonious difference, by a marvelous ordering agree into the unity of their own peace (See 1 Cor 12:12), insofar as the soul surpasses them by a natural excellence and rules them, insofar as it fills and quickens the fivefold senses of the flesh (See Gen 9:15) with unlike power yet a fellowship of agreement, insofar as also by mind and reason—which the bestial soul cannot do—they can be wise and understand: God saw that they were good, and therefore created them. For he did not only see them after they were created, but also foresaw them before they were to be created; and that by a perverse will and blind error they are malicious, he did not for that reason see that they were not to be created, for he foresaw where they were to be ordered. And so from that same mass of the first transgression, deservedly condemned, he made them vessels of wrath—if they persevere to the end in this malice—that they might profit the vessels of mercy, in that their keen edge of vanity makes them more diligently inquire into the hidden things of truth (See Rom 9:22–23). For great are the works of the Lord, sought out in all his wills (Ps 111:2 (110:2)). But what wonder is it that what pleases the divine wisdom displeases human folly? For what else is He saw the light, that it was good (Gen 1:4), but that it pleased him?
LawProph.1.6.97. 10. Sed iste vaniloquus blasphemator, qui scripsit librum sacrilegis conviciis plenum (in quo utinam opus eius displiceret ei et non putaret quia bonum est, sed videret quia malum est), videte quid dixerit: " Adeo antea nescivit, inquit, lux quid esset, ut modo eam primum videns optimam iudicaret ". Ergo et Dominus Iesus, quando auditis verbis centurionis miratus est et dixit discipulis suis: Amen dico vobis, non inveni tantam fidem in Israel (Mt 8, 10), nescivit antea fides illa quid esset, ut tunc eam primum videns optimam iudicaret. Aut vero alius eam in corde centurionis operabatur quam ipse qui mirabatur? Et profecto amplius est, unde possint blasphemare insipientes et infideles, quod miratus est Iesus quantamcumque hominis fidem, quam quod vidit Deus lucem quia bona est. Potest enim quisque etiam solita videre quia bona sunt, hoc est, sibi ea placita comprobare; quisquis autem miratur, profecto secundum consuetudinem, qua homines loquuntur, inopinatum atque improvisum sibi esse significat quod miratur. Sed Iesus, qui omnia praesciebat, quod mirandum aliis commendabat, mirando laudabat. Quid autem Deus vidit a se factum, quod non in luce, quod ipse est, prius vidit esse faciendum? Et quid tam necessario sancta Scriptura toties repeteret, quam quod vidit Deus bona esse quae fecit, ut hinc informaretur pietas fidelium non pro humano sensu, qui saepe etiam bonis rebus offenditur, quarum causas atque ordinem nescit, de creatura visibili atque invisibili iudicare, sed laudanti Deo credere et discere? Tanto enim quisque facilius aliquid proficiendo cognoscit, quanto religiosius, antequam cognosceret, Deo credidit (Cf. Isa 9, 9). Vidit ergo Deus lucem quam fecit quia bona est, quoniam quod faciendum placebat ut fieret, factum placuit ut maneret, quantum cuique rei existendi sive manendi a tanto fabricatore fuerat constituenda mensura. Sed aliud est lux quod est Deus, aliud lux quam fecit Deus. Incomparabiliter autem melior lux ipse qui fecit, nullo modo indigeret ea luce, quam fecit. Et unde iste calumniatur, cur non ista bona tam olim, quam olim est ipse, fecerit Deus, hinc potius intellegendum est, quod non ea fecerit eorum indigus, sine quibus esse in sua perfecta beatitudine potuit sine initio sempiternus. Ideo quippe istorum faciendorum causa sola Dei bonitas fuit, quia necessitas eius ulla non fuit. Quidquid itaque iste conviciatur Deo, quod velut tunc primum lucem viderit qui fuisset lucis ignarus, quam sit insulsum et vanum videret, si lucis ipse intus aliquid haberet.
7. 10. But this empty babbler and blasphemer, who wrote a book full of sacrilegious insults—in which, would that his own work displeased him and he did not think it good but saw that it was evil—see what he has said: "So little," he says, "did he previously know what light was, that, seeing it then for the first time, he judged it best." Then the Lord Jesus too, when, having heard the centurion's words, he marveled and said to his disciples, Amen, I say to you, I have not found such great faith in Israel (Mt 8:10), did not previously know what that faith was, so that, seeing it then for the first time, he judged it best. Or was it indeed another who was working that faith in the centurion's heart than he who marveled? And surely there is greater occasion for the foolish and unbelieving to blaspheme in the fact that Jesus marveled at whatever measure of a man's faith than in the fact that God saw the light, that it was good. For anyone can see even familiar things, that they are good—that is, can approve as pleasing to him things pleasing to him; but whoever marvels surely signifies, according to the customary way human beings speak, that what he marvels at is unexpected and unforeseen by him. But Jesus, who foreknew all things, by marveling commended to others what was to be marveled at, and by marveling he praised. And what did God see made by himself that he did not first see, in the light which he himself is, was to be made? And what would holy Scripture so necessarily repeat so often as that God saw that the things he made were good—so that hereby the piety of the faithful might be formed not to judge of visible and invisible creation according to human sense, which is often offended even by good things whose causes and order it does not know, but to believe and learn from God as he praises? For the more religiously anyone has believed God before he came to know, the more easily, by making progress, he comes to know something (See Isa 9:9). God saw, then, that the light he made was good, since what it pleased him to be made, when made it pleased him to remain—to whatever measure of existing or of remaining had been appointed for each thing by so great a maker. But one thing is the light that is God, another the light that God made. And the light incomparably better, the very one who made it, would in no way need that light which he made. And from the very point on which this man cavils—why God did not make these good things as long ago as he himself has been—we ought rather to understand this: that he did not make them as one needing them, since without them he could be in his own perfect blessedness, eternal without beginning. For the sole cause of these things being made was God's goodness, precisely because there was no necessity of them for him. Whatever this man, therefore, reproaches God with—that he supposedly then for the first time saw light, having been ignorant of light—how silly and empty this is he would see, if he had within himself anything of light.
LawProph.1.7.108. 11. Quin etiam " stultitiae scribentis " assignat, " quod tenebras dixerit sine initio semper fuisse, lucem vero initium sumpsisse de tenebris ", quasi legerit in eo libro, cui calumniatur, tenebras sempiternas, cum scriptum sit: In principio fecit Deus caelum et terram. Terra autem erat invisibilis et incomposita et tenebrae erant super abyssum (Gen 1, 1-2). Ex illo ergo tenebrae esse coeperunt, ex quo confusa moles caeli esse coepit ac terrae, antequam facta esset lux, qua illuminaretur quod sine luce fuerat tenebrosum. Quid autem inconveniens, si mundanae materiae fuerant tenebrosa primordia, ut accedente luce melius quod factum est redderetur et tamquam proficientis hominis, quod postea futurum erat, hoc modo significaretur affectio? Quamquam qui munere Dei potuerit perspicacius ista rimari, inveniet fortasse in creatura, quae ita facta narratur sine intervallis temporalium morarum, distinctum mirabiliter ordinem rerum. Neque enim materies omnino nihil est, de qua in libro sapientiae legitur: Qui fecisti mundum de materia informi (Sap 11, 18). Non ergo quia informis dicta est, omnino nihil est, nec Deo fuit vel ipsa coaeterna, tamquam a nullo facta, nec alius eam fecit, ut haberet Deus, de qua faceret mundum. Absit enim ut dicatur omnipotens non potuisse facere, nisi unde faceret, inveniret. Ergo et ipsam Deus fecit. Nec mala est putanda, quia informis, sed bona est intellegenda, formabilis id est formationis capax. Quoniam si boni aliquid est forma, nonnihil est boni esse capacem boni. Sicut vox confusa est clamor sine verbis, vox vero articulata fit cum formatur in verba. Est ergo illa formabilis, ista formata, illa, quae formam capit, ista, quae habet. Nam quid horum unde fiat, in promptu est. Neque enim quisquam dixerit de verbis fieri sonum vocis, sed potius de voce fieri verba sonantia quis non intellegat?
8. 11. Furthermore, he assigns "to the foolishness of the writer" the fact "that he said darkness had always existed without a beginning, but that light took its beginning from darkness"—as though he had read in that book at which he cavils that darkness was eternal, when it is written, In the beginning God made heaven and earth. But the earth was invisible and unformed, and darkness was over the abyss (Gen 1:1–2). From that point, then, darkness began to exist, from which the confused mass of heaven and earth began to exist, before the light was made by which what had been dark without light might be illumined. But what is unfitting if the beginnings of the world's matter were dark, so that with the coming of light what was made might be rendered better, and so that in this way might be signified the disposition of one making progress—what was afterward to come to be? Although whoever, by God's gift, has been able to examine these things more keenly will perhaps find in the creation, which is recounted as made thus without intervals of temporal delays, a wonderfully distinct order of things. For matter is not altogether nothing—the matter of which we read in the book of Wisdom, You who made the world from formless matter (Wis 11:18 (11:17)). Not, then, because it is called formless is it altogether nothing; nor was it itself coeternal with God, as if made by no one, nor did another make it so that God should have something from which to make the world. For far be it that the Almighty be said to have been unable to make unless he found something from which to make. Therefore God made this too. Nor is it to be thought evil because it is formless, but is to be understood good—formable, that is, capable of receiving form. For if form is something good, it is no small good to be capable of good. Just as a confused voice is a cry without words, but the voice becomes articulate when it is formed into words. That one, then, is formable, this one formed: the one that takes form, and the one that has it. For from what each of these comes to be is plain. For no one would say that the sound of the voice comes to be from words; rather, who does not understand that the words that sound come to be from the voice?
LawProph.1.8.119. 12. Nec putandus est Deus informem prius fecisse materiam et intervallo aliquo interposito temporis formasse, quod informe prius fecerat, sed sicut a loquente fiunt verba sonantia, ubi non prius vox informis post accipit formam, sed formata profertur, ita intellegendus est Deus de materie quidem informi fecisse mundum, sed simul eam concreasse cum mundo. Non tamen inutiliter prius narratur unde aliquid fit, et postea quod inde fit; quia etsi potest utrumque simul fieri, non simul potest utrumque narrari.
9. 12. Nor is God to be thought to have first made formless matter and, with some interval of time interposed, then to have given form to what he had first made formless; but just as from one speaking sounding words come to be—where the voice is not first formless and afterward receives form, but is uttered already formed—so God is to be understood to have made the world indeed from formless matter, but to have created that matter together with the world. Yet it is not without use that there is first recounted that from which something comes to be, and afterward what comes to be from it; for although both can come to be at the same time, both cannot be recounted at the same time.
LawProph.1.9.1210. 13. Sive ergo prius nomine caeli et terrae vel terrae invisibilis et incompositae atque abyssi tenebrosae materies ipsa informis significata est rerum notarum appellationibus, (quia ipsa prorsus ignota est humanis sensibus et vix utcumque intellegitur, cum res in deterius commutantur; tamquam ei propinquet quidque deformius nec perveniat tamen ad illam informitatem quantulacumque vel visibilis remanens vel intellegibilis species), sive per caelum et terram generaliter prius insinuata sit spiritalis corporalisque natura, sive aliquid aliud, quod hic salva fidei regula intellegi potest: Deum tamen verum summum et bonum fecisse cuncta, quae cernimus et quae meliora non cernimus, quamvis modus quo ea fecerit comprehendi humana mente non possit, dubitare fas non est. Sed cum istis indoctis blasphematoribus litterarum sacrarum non ea rationum subtilitate agendum est, qua ista quaerenda sunt et inter pacificos Dei filios (Cf. Mt 5, 9) disputanda.
10. 13. Whether, then, by the name of heaven and earth, or of the invisible and unformed earth and the dark abyss, the formless matter itself was first signified by the appellations of known things (since it is utterly unknown to the human senses and is scarcely in any way understood—when things are changed for the worse, as though something more deformed were drawing near to it, yet does not reach that formlessness, remaining still some slight visible or intelligible form); or whether by "heaven and earth" spiritual and corporeal nature was first generally intimated; or whether something else that can here be understood without violating the rule of faith—nevertheless it is not lawful to doubt that the true, highest, and good God made all the things we discern, and the better things we do not discern, although the manner in which he made them cannot be grasped by the human mind. But with these unlearned blasphemers of the sacred writings we must not deal with that subtlety of reasonings with which these matters are to be inquired into and discussed among the peaceful children of God (See Mt 5:9).
LawProph.1.10.1311. 14. Sed si putat iste adversus libros Legis et Prophetarum se nosse, quod dicit se scire " summum Deum incomparabilem splendorem incomprehensibilis esse lucis ", primo audire ab eo vellem, cuius lucis existimet esse splendorem summum Deum, utrum et ipsa lux Deus sit, et utrum patrem intellegat lucem, eiusque splendorem unigenitum Filium, quem tamen confessus est summum Deum. Quod si ita sentit, approbo et laudo. Sed quod eum, quem credit esse lumen de lumine, vel incomparabilem splendorem incomprehensibilis lucis, non credit esse opificem mundi, improbo et culpo, cum ibi legat: Mundus per eum factus est (Io 1, 10), ubi legit: Erat lumen verum, quod illuminat omnem hominem venientem in hunc mundum (Io 1, 9). Improbo etiam, si nescit, magisque improbo atque detestor, si scit, et insidiatur, ut decipiat nescientes in veteribus prius divinis Litteris scriptum: Accedite ad eum et illuminamini (Ps 33, 5), et Praeceptum Domini lucidum illuminans oculos (Ps 18, 9), et Illumina oculos meos, ne unquam obdormiam in mortem (Ps 12, 4). Neque enim hoc orabat homo utique mortalis, ne unquam corpore moreretur, aut corporalibus oculis somnus ne veniret optabat, sed eos utique oculos illuminari sibi petebat, de quibus Apostolus dicit: Illuminatos oculos cordis vestri (Eph 1, 18).
11. 14. But if this man thinks that against the books of the Law and the Prophets he knows what he says he knows—that "the highest God is the incomparable splendor of incomprehensible light"—I would first wish to hear from him: of what light he supposes the highest God to be the splendor; whether the light itself is also God; and whether he understands the Father to be the light and his splendor to be the only-begotten Son, whom nevertheless he has confessed to be the highest God. If he thinks this, I approve and praise it. But that he does not believe the one whom he believes to be light from light, or the incomparable splendor of incomprehensible light, to be the maker of the world—this I disapprove and blame, since there he reads The world was made through him (Jn 1:10), where he reads He was the true light, which enlightens every human being coming into this world (Jn 1:9). I disapprove also if he does not know, and disapprove and detest still more if he does know and lies in wait to deceive those who do not know that it was written first in the old divine writings: Draw near to him and be enlightened (Ps 34:5 (33:5)), and The commandment of the Lord is clear, enlightening the eyes (Ps 19:9 (18:9)), and Enlighten my eyes, that I may never sleep in death (Ps 13:4 (12:4)). For this mortal man was surely not praying that he might never die in body, nor wishing that sleep might not come to his bodily eyes; rather, he was asking that those eyes be enlightened for him of which the Apostle says, The eyes of your heart enlightened (Eph 1:18).
LawProph.1.11.1411. 15. Porro si huic displicet lucem initium sumpsisse de tenebris - etiam hoc enim verbis garrulae vanitatis exagitat -, eidem Apostolo hoc dicat, qui scribens ad fideles ait: Fuistis aliquando tenebrae, nunc autem lux in Domino (Eph. 5, 8). Quis enim hoc fecit, nisi ille, qui cum tenebrae essent super abyssum dixit: Fiat lux. Et facta est lux (Gen 1, 3)? Quod apertius alio loco idem Apostolus expressit dicens: Deus qui dixit de tenebris lumen clarescere, claruit in cordibus nostris (2 Cor 4, 6). Si autem hoc putat Scripturis deesse propheticis, quod Filius sit lumen de lumine vel splendor lucis, legat, quod in eisdem Litteris legitur de Sapientia: Candor est enim lucis aeternae (Sap 7, 26), aut illud in prophetico psalmo: Cantate Domino canticum novum, cantate Domino, omnis terra, cantate Domino et benedicite nomen eius, bene nuntiate diem ex die salutare eius (Ps 95, 1-2). Quis est enim dies ex die, nisi Filius lumen de lumine? Salutare autem Dei esse Christum legat in Evangelio dicente simeone sene, quando illum cognovit in manibus matris, carne minimum, spiritu maximum, acceptoque in manus suas ait: Nunc dimittis servum tuum, Domine, secundum verbum tuum in pace, quoniam viderunt oculi mei salutare tuum (Lc 2, 29-30).
11. 15. Moreover, if it displeases this man that light took its beginning from darkness—for this too he stirs up with the words of garrulous vanity—let him say this to the same Apostle, who, writing to the faithful, says, You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord (Eph 5:8). For who did this but he who, when darkness was over the abyss, said, Let there be light. And light was made (Gen 1:3)? This the same Apostle expressed more openly in another place, saying, God, who said for light to shine out of darkness, has shone in our hearts (2 Cor 4:6). But if he thinks the prophetic Scriptures lack this—that the Son is light from light or the splendor of light—let him read what is read in those same writings concerning Wisdom: For she is the brightness of eternal light (Wis 7:26), or that passage in the prophetic psalm: Sing to the Lord a new song, sing to the Lord, all the earth; sing to the Lord and bless his name, proclaim well his salvation day from day (Ps 96:1–2 (95:1–2)). For who is day from day but the Son, light from light? And that the salvation of God is Christ, let him read in the Gospel, where the aged Simeon, when he recognized him in his mother's hands—least in the flesh, greatest in spirit—and, taking him into his hands, said: Now you dismiss your servant, Lord, according to your word in peace, for my eyes have seen your salvation (Lk 2:29–30).
LawProph.1.11.1512. 16. Hic si responderit aliam esse lucem, de qua dictum est: Fuistis aliquando tenebrae, nunc autem lux in Domino (Eph 5, 8), quia spiritalis lux mentis est ista, non carnis, aliam vero illam, de qua scriptum est: Dixit Deus: Fiat lux. Et facta est lux (Gen 1, 3), quae ad oculos pertinet corporales, primo confitebitur a luce summa, quod est ipse Deus, fieri potuisse qualemcumque infimam lucem, bonam tamen. Deinde unde scit etiam qualis et quanta sit? Postremo utrum spiritalis an corporalis? Nisi forte fideles homines, qui quamdiu sunt in corpore, peregrinantur a Domino (Cf. 2 Cor 5, 6), possunt iam merito ipsius fidei lux vocari et angeli non possunt, qui semper vident faciem Patris (Cf. Mt 18, 10)? Unde ergo scit, utrum talis lux primitus facta sit? Unde scit, quomodo in illa luce vespere et mane (Gen 1, 5) possit intellegi? Quomodo denique senario numero praesentata fuerit operibus Dei, et in ea septima requieverit Deus, unde ad istos dies nobis notissimos, qui solis circuitu revolvuntur, septenarii ipsius numeri quaedam forma translata est? Sed etsi lux facta est corporalis, unde novit, quomodo esse potuerit ante solem et ante firmamentum, quod caelum postea nuncupatum est (Gen 1, 8), remota ab aspectibus terrenorum in superioribus partibus mundi, ut solus Deus inter illam tenebrasque divideret? Nam inter istas tenebras, quae nobis faciunt notissimam noctem, et lucem, quae nobis facit notissimum diem, luminaria nobis visibilia, ut dividerent, imperavit (Cf. Gen 1, 4-5. 14-18). Quis autem ferat, quamvis non sit indignandum potius quam ridendum, indicare istum nobis, quod " diem horae designent, horas autem sol discernat atque disterminet " et velle ut credamus, " quod Moyses ista nescierit, et ideo diem antequam sol fieret nominaverit (Cf. Gen 1, 5) "? Sed conveniant homines ad librum istius audiendum et proponatur eis, quid sit credibilius, utrum istum nescire quamdam lucem et quemdam diem, quem sciebat Moyses, an Moysen nescisse istam lucem ac diem, quem non solum iste, verum etiam qui verba eius non intellegunt sciunt.
12. 16. Here, if he answers that one light is that of which it was said, You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord (Eph 5:8)—because this is the spiritual light of the mind, not of the flesh—and another that of which it is written, God said: Let there be light. And light was made (Gen 1:3), which pertains to the bodily eyes: first, he will confess that from the highest light, which is God himself, some lowest light could be made, yet a good one. Then, how does he know even of what sort and how great it is? Finally, whether it is spiritual or corporeal? Unless perhaps faithful human beings, who, as long as they are in the body, are pilgrims away from the Lord (See 2 Cor 5:6), can already deservedly, by reason of their faith itself, be called light, while the angels cannot, who always see the face of the Father (See Mt 18:10)? Whence, then, does he know whether such a light was first made? Whence does he know how in that light evening and morning (Gen 1:5) can be understood? How, finally, it was presented by the number six in the works of God, and how on the seventh God rested—from which a certain form of that sevenfold number has been transferred to these days most familiar to us, which revolve by the circuit of the sun? But even if the light made was corporeal, whence does he know how it could exist before the sun and before the firmament, which was afterward called heaven (Gen 1:8), removed from the sight of earthly things in the higher parts of the world, so that God alone divided between it and the darkness? For between the darkness that makes for us the most familiar night, and the light that makes for us the most familiar day, he commanded the luminaries visible to us to divide (See Gen 1:4–5, 14–18). But who could bear—though this is to be laughed at rather than indignant over—this man's informing us that "the hours designate the day, and that the sun marks off and bounds the hours," and his wishing us to believe "that Moses did not know these things, and therefore named the day before the sun was made" (See Gen 1:5)? But let people gather to hear this man's book, and let it be put to them which is more credible: that this man is ignorant of a certain light and a certain day which Moses knew, or that Moses was ignorant of the light and the day which not only this man but even those who do not understand his words know.
LawProph.1.12.1613. 17. Quid quod etiam " de aquarum congregatione " ingerit nescio quis imperitissimus quaestionem? Immo vero non quaestionem, sed reprehensionem, tamquam " non recte dictum sit: Congregentur aquae in congregationem unam et appareat arida (Gen 1, 9), eo quod aquis omnia tenebantur ": ignorans quemadmodum aqua in aerios vapores tenuata rarescat et nebulosa caligine multum occupet spatii, exiguum vero si congregata denseatur, nec iam levis volitet, sed gravis fluitet. Quid ergo mirum, si rara terram texerat, spissata nudavit? Quid, si etiam divino nutu in magnos sinus terra subsedit atque ita, quidquid naturae humidae per totum eius iacebat, in partes concavas confluens recessit a ceteris et quod operiebat aperuit congregata in humiliora succumbentia, qua mare interflueret et circumflueret, atque altiora deserens, qua orbis emineret? Omitto quod potest hic intellegi significatum esse, quod informis illa materies aquae vel abyssi vocabulo insinuata sit et species acceperit duorum istorum gravium elementorum, humoris et humi, et ideo dictum esse: Congregetur aqua, quoniam labilis et mobilis ei species data est. Appareat autem arida, quia immobilis fixa est. Nam illud quod magis propheta libri huius auctor intendit, ut eius narratio rerum factarum esset etiam praefiguratio futurarum, non est contentiosis et infidelibus sensibus ingerendum. Cum ergo tot exitus pie quaerentibus pateant, ne temere tanta reprehendatur auctoritas, unde iste nisi diabolico instinctu in eis rebus eligit calumniari, quas non est idoneus perscrutari?
13. 17. What of the fact that some most unskilled person also raises a question "about the gathering of the waters"? Indeed not a question, but a censure, as though "it was not rightly said, Let the waters be gathered into one gathering, and let the dry land appear (Gen 1:9), on the ground that everything was held by the waters"—not knowing how water, thinned into airy vapors, grows rarefied and with a misty haze occupies much space, but very little if, gathered, it is condensed, and then no longer flits about light, but flows heavy. What wonder, then, if, being rare, it had covered the earth, and, being thickened, laid it bare? What if also, by divine command, the earth sank down into great hollows, and so whatever of moist nature lay throughout it, flowing together into the concave parts, withdrew from the rest and uncovered what it had covered—gathered into the lower places lying beneath, where the sea might flow between and around, and abandoning the higher places, where the world might stand out? I pass over the fact that it can here be understood as signified that the formless matter was intimated by the name of water or of the abyss, and received the form of those two heavy elements, water and earth; and that for this reason it was said, Let the water be gathered, since a slipping and moving form was given to it, but Let the dry land appear, because it is fixed unmoving. For that which the prophet, the author of this book, rather intended—that his narrative of things done should be also a prefiguration of things to come—is not to be thrust upon contentious and unbelieving minds. Since, then, so many exits lie open to those who inquire piously, lest so great an authority be rashly censured, whence does this man, except by diabolical instinct, choose to cavil at those matters which he is not fit to scrutinize?
LawProph.1.13.1714. 18. Quod vero " in hominis conditorem Deum " caecus et ingratus invehitur et audet dicere ei, qui se finxit: " Quare sic me fecisti? ", cum omnino quomodo sit factus ignoret, multum praecipitis mentis audacia est. Sed vasa irae permittuntur ista garrire, ut tamquam de neglegentiae somno excitentur vasa misericordiae (Rom 9, 20-23) et studio respondendi pestilentibus maledictis adhibeant curam salubribus dictis. Ecce enim in eo quod reprehendit iste " hominis conditorem, quia prohibuerit eum sumere cibum dignoscentiae boni et mali (Cf. Gen 2, 17), tamquam eum pecoribus parem esse voluisset nescientibus ista discernere, et hoc ei negasset cui potestatem dedisset in bestias (Gen 1, 26) ", quo solo homo superat bestias. Quam necessarium est vitae bene agendae, quod discimus quaedam infeliciter disci et felicius nonnulla nesciri? Morbos enim et dolores quanto felicius nesciremus? Si ergo medicus nos ab aliquo cibo prohiberet, quo accepto aegrotaturos esse praesciret et ob hoc appellaret eumdem cibum dignoscentiae sanitatis et imbecillitatis, eo quod per ipsum homo, cum aegrotare coepisset, experiendo dignosceret, quid interesset inter contractam malam valetudinem et perditam sanitatem, quod utique melius ignorasset et in illa quam perdidit sanitate mansisset credens medico per oboedientiam, non morbo per experientiam, numquid talem medicum invidisse nobis eiusmodi scientiam diceremus? Quis dubitet malum esse peccatum? Et tamen cum laude dictum est de Domino Iesu Christo, quia non noverat peccatum (2 Cor 5, 21). Non ergo noverat hoc malum atque ideo illam, unde Adam prohibitus est, boni et mali dignoscentiam non habebat. Hic si quaeratur: Quomodo quod non noverat, arguebat? Neque enim peccata non arguebat: Omnia autem, quae arguuntur, sicut dicit Apostolus, a lumine manifestantur (Eph 5, 13). Quomodo igitur a quo arguebantur, ignorabantur? Nonne rectissime respondebitur: et noverat et non noverat? Rectissime omnino: noverat enim per sapientiam, non noverat per experientiam. Huic itaque divinae sapientiae credere debuit Adam, ut ab illa mali scientia, quae fit per experientiam, praecepto Dei oboediens temperaret. Sic enim malum nescisset, nisi fecisset. Fecit autem sibi, non Deo. Nihil enim facere potuit voluntate inoboedientiae, nisi quod ipse pateretur lege iustitiae. Haec est namque poena inoboedienti homini reddita in semetipso, ut ei vicissim non oboediatur nec a semetipso. De qua re uberius in aliis et maxime in quarto decimo libro de civitate Dei disputavimus.
14. 18. But that, blind and ungrateful, he inveighs against God the creator of man and dares to say to him who formed him, "Why did you make me thus?"—though he is wholly ignorant of how he was made—is the audacity of a deeply headlong mind. But the vessels of wrath are permitted to chatter such things, so that the vessels of mercy may, as it were, be roused from the sleep of negligence (Rom 9:20–23) and, in their zeal to answer pestilent curses, bring care to wholesome words. For behold, in the very thing wherein this man reproaches "the creator of man, because he forbade him to take the food of the discernment of good and evil (See Gen 2:17), as though he had wished him to be equal to the cattle, who do not know how to distinguish these things, and had denied this to one to whom he had given power over the beasts (Gen 1:26)"—in which alone man surpasses the beasts—how necessary it is for living a good life that we learn that certain things are unhappily learned and that some things are more happily not known! For how much more happily would we not know diseases and pains? If, then, a physician were to forbid us some food which he foreknew that, once taken, would make us fall ill, and on this account were to call that same food the food of the discernment of health and weakness—because through it a man, once he had begun to be ill, would by experience discern what difference there is between the bad health he had contracted and the soundness he had lost, which he would surely have done better not to know, and would have remained in that soundness which he lost, believing the physician through obedience rather than the disease through experience—would we say that such a physician had begrudged us a knowledge of this kind? Who doubts that sin is an evil? And yet it was said in praise of the Lord Jesus Christ that he had not known sin (2 Cor 5:21). He had not known this evil, then, and therefore did not have that discernment of good and evil from which Adam was forbidden. Here, if it be asked, How did he reprove what he had not known?—for indeed he did not fail to reprove sins: but all things that are reproved, as the Apostle says, are made manifest by the light (Eph 5:13)—how, then, were the things ignorant by the one by whom they were reproved? Will it not be most rightly answered: both he knew and he did not know? Most rightly indeed: for he knew through wisdom, he did not know through experience. To this divine wisdom, therefore, Adam ought to have believed, so that, obedient to God's command, he might have refrained from that knowledge of evil which comes through experience. For thus he would not have known evil, unless he had done it. But he did it to himself, not to God. For he could do nothing by the will of disobedience except what he himself would suffer by the law of justice. For this is the punishment rendered to the disobedient man in his own self: that in turn he should not be obeyed even by himself. On this matter we have discussed more fully in other works, and especially in the fourteenth book of The City of God.
LawProph.1.14.1814. 19. Nunc autem breviter respondemus ad id quod ait iste, "hominis institutorem a magno bono prohibuisse quem fecerat, dum eum pecori similem sine dignoscentia boni et mali (Cf. Gen 2, 9) esse voluisset ". Haec enim dignoscentia non est beati hominis sapientia, sed miseri experientia. Unde lignum nomen accepit, a cuius cibo est homo prohibitus, ut oboedientia commendaretur, quae maxima est virtus et, ut sic dixerim, omnium origo materque virtutum in ea natura, cui sic datum est arbitrium liberae voluntatis, ut eam tamen necesse sit vivere sub potestate melioris. Quamquam non defuerint, quibus visum est illam dignoscentiam boni et mali magnum aliquod bonum fuisse, cuius capaces nondum fuerunt, qui hanc usurpantes contra vetitum, per inoboedientiam peccaverunt.
14. 19. But now we answer briefly to what this man says, that "the founder of man forbade to one whom he had made a great good, since he had wished him to be like the cattle, without the discernment of good and evil (See Gen 2:9)." For this discernment is not the wisdom of a blessed man, but the experience of a wretched one. Hence the tree took its name, from whose food man was forbidden, so that obedience might be commended—obedience, which is the greatest virtue and, so to speak, the origin and mother of all the virtues in that nature to which free choice of the will was so given that it is nevertheless necessary for it to live under the power of a better. Although there have not been lacking those to whom it seemed that that discernment of good and evil was some great good, of which they were not yet capable, who, usurping it against the prohibition, sinned through disobedience.
LawProph.1.14.1914. 20. Quibus autem videtur sic hominem fieri debuisse, ut peccare nollet, non eis displiceat sic esse factum, ut non posset peccare si nollet. Numquid enim, si melior esset qui non posset peccare, ideo non bene factus est qui posset et non peccare? Aut vero usque adeo desipiendum est, ut homo videat melius aliquid fieri debuisse et hoc Deum vidisse non putet, aut putet vidisse et credat facere noluisse, aut voluisse quidem, sed minime potuisse? Avertat hoc Deus a cordibus piorum. Si ergo ratio recta demonstrat rationalem creaturam illam esse meliorem, quae nulla inoboedientia deserit Deum, quam istam, quae ita deseruit, sciat quisquis hoc sapit nec illam deesse caelestibus rebus quae nunquam deserit Deum, nec istam ita esse factam, ut aliqua necessitate deserere cogeretur Deum. Et quia voluntate deseruit, nihil ex hoc diminutum sapientissimis dispositionibus Dei, qui et malis bene et perversis recte utitur et de humano genere iuste meritoque damnato familiam sanctam atque numerosam non eius merito, sed gratia sua factam, in aeternum regnum se translaturum (Cf. Col 1, 13; Io 4, 24; 1 Io 3, 14) esse testatur.
14. 20. But to those who think that man ought to have been made such that he would not will to sin, let it not be displeasing that he was made such that he could not sin if he did not will to. For surely, if one who could not sin were better, was one not therefore well made who could also not sin? Or is one to be so foolish as to think that a man sees something better that ought to have been made and yet supposes that God did not see this; or supposes that he saw it and believes he was unwilling to make it; or that he was indeed willing, but in no way able? God avert this from the hearts of the devout! If, then, right reason demonstrates that the rational creature which deserts God by no disobedience is better than the one which has so deserted him, let whoever is wise in this know both that the former does not fail among the heavenly things—the one which never deserts God—and that the latter was not so made that it should be compelled by any necessity to desert God. And because it deserted by will, nothing has been thereby diminished from the most wise dispositions of God, who uses both the evil well and the perverse rightly, and who testifies that out of the human race justly and deservedly condemned he will translate into the eternal kingdom a holy and numerous family, made so not by its own merit but by his grace (See Col 1:13; Jn 4:24; 1 Jn 3:14).
LawProph.1.14.2014. 21. Quae cum ita sint, nec Deus occultare debuit lignum, quod propter consecuturam hominis miseriam, si ex illo contra prohibitionem usurpato dignosceret a quo bono cecidisset et in quod malum incidisset, appellavit lignum dignoscentiae boni et mali (Gen 2, 9). Cur enim occultaret, de quo mandatum dabat et per quod oboedientiam commendabat? nec ignarus fuit hominem peccaturum, sed simul etiam, quid iusti et boni fuerat et de peccante facturus, summa utique divinitate praescivit. Nec instituit quod obesset, si homo sibi obesse noluisset, sed potius instituit quod prodesset, quia homo non sine bona mercede oboedientiam custodisset et non sine utili exemplo, ut eam sancti eius posteri custodirent, poenas inoboedientiae persolvisset. Nec voluit quod non potuit, hoc enim voluit, ut aut oboediens homo esset aut inoboediens impune non esset. Nec infructuose voluit quod homo non fuerat servaturus iubere, quia poena contemptoris docuit alios oboedire. Nec in homine pars Dei restitit Deo, quia si hominis anima pars Dei esset, nec a se ipsa nec ab aliquo decipi nec ad aliquid male faciendum sive patiendum ulla necessitate compelli nec in melius vel deterius mutari omnino potuisset.
14. 21. Since these things are so, God neither ought to have hidden the tree which—because of the misery that would follow for man, if, from it usurped against the prohibition, he should discern from what good he had fallen and into what evil he had fallen—he called the tree of the discernment of good and evil (Gen 2:9). For why should he hide what he gave a command about and through which he commended obedience? Nor was he ignorant that man would sin, but at the same time also foreknew, by his supreme divinity, what was just and good and what he himself would do with the sinner. Nor did he institute something that would harm, if man had been unwilling to harm himself, but rather instituted what would profit, since man would not without a good reward have kept obedience, and would not without a useful example—that his holy descendants might keep it—have paid the penalties of disobedience. Nor did he will what he could not, for this is what he willed: that man should be either obedient, or not unpunished if disobedient. Nor did he fruitlessly will to command what man was not going to keep, since the punishment of the despiser taught others to obey. Nor in man did a part of God resist God; for if man's soul were a part of God, it could in no way have been deceived either by itself or by another, nor compelled by any necessity to do or to suffer anything evil, nor changed at all for the better or the worse.
LawProph.1.14.2114. 22. Flatus autem ille Dei qui hominem animavit factus est ab ipso, non de ipso. Quia nec hominis flatus hominis pars est nec homo eum facit de se ipso, sed ex aerio halitu sumpto et effuso. Deus vero et de nihilo et vivum rationalemque potuit, quod non potest homo. Quamvis nonnulli existiment non tunc animatum primum hominem, quando Deus in eius faciem sufflavit et factus est in animam vivam (Cf. Gen 2, 7), sed tunc accepisse Spiritum sanctum. Quodlibet autem horum credibilius ostendatur, unde nunc longum est disputare, animam tamen non esse partem Dei nec de substantia et natura eius creatam sive prolatam, sed ex nihilo factam dubitare fas non est.
14. 22. But that breath of God which gave life to man was made by him, not from him. For neither is a man's breath a part of the man, nor does a man make it from himself, but from airy breath taken in and breathed out. But God was able to make it even from nothing, and living and rational—which a man cannot do. Although some suppose that the first man was not animated when God breathed into his face and he was made into a living soul (See Gen 2:7), but that he then received the Holy Spirit. But whichever of these is shown to be more credible—on which it would now take long to discuss—it is not lawful to doubt that the soul is not a part of God, nor created or brought forth from his substance and nature, but made from nothing.
LawProph.1.14.2215. 23. Non itaque, sicut ait iste blasphemus, " invenitur serpens loco meliore quam Deus, quia praevaluit decipere hominem quem fecerat Deus (Cf. Gen 3, 1-6) ". Nullo enim modo deciperetur homo, si non in se exaltato corde recessisset a Deo. Vera quippe quoniam divina est illa sententia: Ante ruinam exaltatur cor (Prov 16, 18). Et ubi contra Deum exaltatur, ibi ab illo deseritur et in se tenebratur (Cf. Rom 1, 21). Quid autem mirum, si dum tenebratur, nescit quid sequatur, quoniam non a se ipso lumen est, sed ab illo illuminatur (Cf. Io 1, 9)? Quod ergo Deus semper invictus sit (Cf. Eccli 18, 1), etiam homo victus ostendit, quia victus non fuisset, si ab invicto non recessisset. Quomodo est autem victor hominis deceptor, cum a semetipso sit etiam ipse deceptus? Unde et ille qui decepit et ille quem decepit ambo decepti sunt recedendo ab eo, qui non potest decipi; et ambo sunt victi recedendo ab eo, qui non potest vinci. A quo utique qui plus recedit, plus vincitur, quia tanto est inferior quanto deterior. Et ideo necesse est, ut qui malum alteri prius inferendo vincere videtur, amplius ipse bonum amittendo vincatur, nec fieri potest ut ei sit locus melior, cum causa sit peior. Et quod ad tempus praevaluisse visus est diabolus homine superato, etiam sic in aeternum victus est homine reparato (Cf. Apoc 20, 2). Nec Dei confitentis verba sunt, sed potius exprobrantis: Ecce Adam factus est tamquam unus ex nobis (Gen 3, 22). Sicut Apostolus ubi dicit: Donate mihi hanc iniuriam (2 Cor 12, 13), utique a contrario vult intellegi, si adsit pronuntiator doctus, non calumniator indoctus.
15. 23. It is not, then, as this blasphemer says, that "the serpent is found in a better place than God, because it prevailed to deceive the man whom God had made (See Gen 3:1–6)." For man would in no way have been deceived if, with his heart lifted up in himself, he had not withdrawn from God. For that sentence is true because it is divine: Before ruin the heart is lifted up (Prov 16:18). And where it is lifted up against God, there it is deserted by him and darkened in itself (See Rom 1:21). But what wonder is it if, while it is darkened, it does not know what follows, since it is not light from itself but is enlightened by him (See Jn 1:9)? That God, then, is always unconquered (See Sir 18:1), even conquered man shows, since he would not have been conquered if he had not withdrawn from the unconquered. But how is the deceiver of man a conqueror, when he too was deceived by himself? Hence both the one who deceived and the one whom he deceived were both deceived in withdrawing from him who cannot be deceived; and both were conquered in withdrawing from him who cannot be conquered. And whoever withdraws further from him is the more conquered, because he is so much the lower as he is the worse. And therefore it is necessary that he who seems to conquer by first inflicting evil on another is himself the more conquered by losing a good, nor can it come about that he should have a better place when his cause is worse. And though for a time the devil seemed to prevail when man was overcome, even so he was conquered for eternity when man was restored (See Rev 20:2). Nor are they the words of God confessing but rather of God reproaching: Behold, Adam has become like one of us (Gen 3:22). Just as the Apostle, where he says, Forgive me this wrong (2 Cor 12:13), surely wishes to be understood by way of irony—if a learned reader is present, not an unlearned caviler.
LawProph.1.15.2315. 24. Porro autem cui displicet peccator prohibitus a ligno vitae, quid nisi impune vult male vivere? Nec magnum erat Deo et alio quolibet modo vitam subtrahere homini quem vivere noluisset, sed quoniam rationales animae de sapientia vivunt, quarum mors est insipientia, huius rei significandae gratia lignum vitae in paradiso fructu suo mori hominem nec corpore sineret. Quod ergo inde separatus traditus est morti, consumendus aetate (Cf. Iob 13, 28), quod nequaquam illi accidisset, si semper eodem cibo frueretur, significatum est, quod prius ab spiritali vitae ligno propter peccatum anima eius exclusa est et ista quadam sua interiore morte iam mortua. Nam de sapientia scriptum est: Lignum vitae est amplectentibus eam (Prov 3, 18). Quod iste non intellegens ait: " Quatenus ergo ante maledictum immortalis homo perpetuo vivere poterat, qui nondum ex ista arbore cibum sumpserat? ". Quasi aliquis ei dixerit aut in illo libro alicubi legerit, quod nondum Adam sumpserat ex cibo arboris vitae. Quin potius intellegendus est, quoniam inde illi vita in corpore perpetua suppetebat, ne vetustate consumeretur aetatis, ad hoc inde prohibitus, ut ex peccati poena iam illi esset necessitas mortis.
15. 24. Moreover, whoever is displeased that the sinner was forbidden the tree of life—what does he want but to live wickedly with impunity? Nor was it a great thing for God to take away life in some other way from a man whom he had not wished to live; but since rational souls live from wisdom, and their death is folly, for the sake of signifying this matter he would not permit man, by the fruit of the tree of life in paradise, to die even in body. The fact, then, that, separated from it, he was handed over to death, to be consumed by age (See Job 13:28)—which would by no means have befallen him if he had always enjoyed that same food—signified that his soul had first been shut out from the spiritual tree of life on account of sin and was already dead by a certain inner death of its own. For of wisdom it is written, It is a tree of life to those who embrace it (Prov 3:18). This man, not understanding it, says: "How then, before the curse, could an immortal man live forever, when he had not yet taken food from this tree?"—as though someone had told him, or he had read somewhere in that book, that Adam had not yet taken of the food of the tree of life. Rather, he is to be understood thus: since from it perpetual life in the body was available to him, that he should not be consumed by the age of long years, he was forbidden it for this end—that from the punishment of sin there should now be for him the necessity of death.
LawProph.1.15.2415. 25. " Quomodo ", inquit, " ex Dei maledicto mori coeperit, cum vita ipsa nunquam ex ipso initium sumpserit? ". Quasi optaverit ei Deus mortem, sicut homo homini; ac non Dei verba ad sententiam pertinent punientis, non ad iram maledicentis. Punire autem morte corporali fuit a vitae arbore separare, cum iam fuisset spiritaliter mortuus, animo utique separatus ab alimento sapientiae. Deus itaque, quid ei contigisset in animo, significare voluit separando eum a ligno vitae, quo significabatur sapientia.
15. 25. "How," he says, "did he begin to die from God's curse, when life itself never took its beginning from God?"—as though God had wished death upon him, as one man does to another, and as though the words of God did not pertain to the sentence of one punishing rather than to the anger of one cursing. But to punish with bodily death was to separate him from the tree of life, when he had already been spiritually dead, separated in mind from the nourishment of wisdom. God, therefore, wished to signify what had befallen him in his mind by separating him from the tree of life, by which wisdom was signified.
LawProph.1.15.2515. 26. " Sed ista ", inquit, " arbor quae in paradiso vitae fructus ferebat, cui proderat? ". Cui, nisi prius illis primis hominibus, masculo et feminae, qui in paradiso fuerant constituti (Cf. Gen 2, 15; 2, 22)? Deinde istis de paradiso pro merito suae iniquitatis eiectis mansit ad memoriam significandae spiritalis arboris vitae: quod est, ut diximus, ipsa sapientia, beatarum cibus immutabilis animarum. Utrum autem illo cibo nunc vescatur aliquis, nisi forte Enoch et Elias (Gen 5, 21-24; 3 Reg 17; 4 Reg 2), non temere asseverandum puto; ligno tamen illo vitae, quod est in spiritali paradiso, nisi alerentur animae beatorum, non pro munere pietatis et fidelissimae confessionis latronis animae credentis in Christum legeremus paradisum eodem die fuisse concessum: Amen, inquit, dico tibi, hodie mecum eris in paradiso (Lc 23, 43). Esse autem ibi cum Christo, hoc est esse cum vitae ligno. Ipse est quippe sapientia, de qua, ut superius commemoravi, scriptum est: Lignum vitae est amplectentibus eam (Prov 3, 18).
15. 26. "But this tree," he says, "which in paradise bore the fruits of life—whom did it profit?" Whom, if not first those first human beings, the male and the female, who had been established in paradise (See Gen 2:15; 2:22)? Then, after they were cast out of paradise for the merit of their iniquity, it remained as a reminder, to signify the spiritual tree of life: which is, as we have said, wisdom itself, the unchangeable food of blessed souls. But whether anyone now feeds on that food—except perhaps Enoch and Elijah (See Gen 5:21–24; 1 Kgs 17; 2 Kgs 2)—I do not think should be rashly asserted; yet unless the souls of the blessed were nourished by that tree of life which is in the spiritual paradise, we would not read that, as a gift for his devotion and most faithful confession, paradise was granted that same day to the soul of the thief who believed in Christ: Amen, he said, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise (Lk 23:43). But to be there with Christ is to be with the tree of life. For he is wisdom, of which, as I recalled above, it is written, It is a tree of life to those who embrace it (Prov 3:18).
LawProph.1.15.2616. 27. Numquidnam et hoc refellendum est, quod velut acute, ut sibi videtur, irridet? Primo, " Deum non praescisse quod contigit ", deinde, " implere non valuisse quod magnopere cogitavit ", tertio, "ad maledictum se convertisse superatum ". Unde scit Deum non praescisse quod contigit? An quia contigit? Quin immo si non contigisset, nullo modo id praescisset futurum, quia non erat futurum. Aut si putat propterea non praescisse, quia si praescisset, ne contingeret providisset, potest hoc et de Christo dicere, qui talentum dedit homini nihil acquisituro (Cf. Mt 25, 14-18); quod propterea utique dederat, ut eius augeretur pecunia, quidquid est quod illa significat. Ergo quia contigit, ut ille sua pigritia nihil acquireret, hoc non praescivit ille qui dedit? Dicere etiam potest non implesse de hoc lucro Christum quod magnopere cogitavit. Potest et illum tertium, " ad maledictum se convertisse superatum ", quoniam dixit: Ligate illi manus et pedes et proicite eum in tenebras exteriores (Mt 25, 30). Sicut de Adam dictum est, ut a ligno vitae separatus morte etiam corporis plecteretur (Cf. Gen 3, 24-19). Huic enim homini diserto deficientis maledictum videtur potentis imperium. Dicat ergo impotentem Christum, quoniam de acquirenda spiritali pecunia non potuit quod cupiebat efficere. Dicat aemulum ac malitiosum, quod servo suo inviderit lucem ac salutem, quem proici iussit in tenebras, ubi esset fletus et stridor dentium (Cf. Gen 25, 30). Si autem de Christo ista non dicit, ne hoc modo se indicet non esse christianum, cur audet dicere de hominis conditore et peccati merito damnatore, quod non audet dicere de hominis redemptore (Cf. Ps 18, 15) et, si eius praecepta contempserit, poena aeternae mortis ultore, eodem ipso scilicet? Nam in quem alium nisi in Christum haec maledicta nesciens iste iaculatur? Quandoquidem ille ait: Si crederetis Moysi, crederetis et mihi; de me enim ille scripsit (Io 5, 46). Quid enim Pater sine Filio vel tunc fecit vel unquam facit? Si ergo salubriter non solum bonitatem verum etiam severitatem Dei sancta Scriptura commendat, quoniam et amatur Deus utiliter et timetur, unde Apostolus eodem loco utrumque commemorat dicens: Vides ergo bonitatem et severitatem Dei (Rom 11, 22), quid est quod iste insanus et praeceps, cum christianum esse se iactet, hoc reprehendit in Deo Prophetarum, quod in Deo invenit Apostolorum; quoniam idem Deus est de illorum et istorum?
16. 27. Must we also refute this, which he derides as cleverly, so it seems to him? First, "that God did not foreknow what happened"; then, "that he could not accomplish what he had greatly purposed"; third, "that, being overcome, he turned to cursing." Whence does he know that God did not foreknow what happened? Is it because it happened? On the contrary, if it had not happened, he would in no way have foreknown it as future, because it would not have been future. Or if he thinks that for this reason God did not foreknow it—because, if he had foreknown it, he would have provided that it should not happen—he can say this also of Christ, who gave a talent to a man who would acquire nothing (See Mt 25:14–18); which he had surely given for this end, that his money—whatever it is that the money signifies—might be increased. So because it happened that the man by his laziness acquired nothing, did the one who gave it not foreknow this? He can also say that Christ did not accomplish, regarding this gain, what he had greatly purposed. He can also say that third thing—that "being overcome he turned to cursing"—since he said, Bind his hands and feet and cast him into the outer darkness (Mt 25:30). Just as it was said of Adam, that, separated from the tree of life, he should also be punished with the death of the body (See Gen 3:24–19). For to this eloquent man the command of one who is powerful seems the curse of one who is failing. Let him therefore call Christ powerless, since he could not accomplish what he desired regarding the spiritual money to be acquired. Let him call him envious and malicious, because he begrudged his servant light and salvation, the servant whom he ordered to be cast into the darkness, where there would be weeping and gnashing of teeth (See Mt 25:30). But if he does not say these things of Christ, lest in this way he show that he is not a Christian, why does he dare to say of the creator of man and the condemner of him for the merit of sin what he does not dare to say of the redeemer of man (See Ps 19:15 (18:15)) and—if anyone despises his precepts—the avenger by the punishment of eternal death, that very same one, namely? For against whom but Christ does this man, in his ignorance, hurl these curses? Since Christ himself says, If you believed Moses, you would believe me also; for he wrote about me (Jn 5:46). For what did the Father do then, or ever do, without the Son? If, then, holy Scripture wholesomely commends not only God's goodness but also his severity, since God is both usefully loved and feared—whence the Apostle in that same place mentions both, saying, You see therefore the goodness and the severity of God (Rom 11:22)—how is it that this insane and headlong man, while he boasts that he is a Christian, reprehends in the God of the Prophets what he finds in the God of the Apostles, since it is the same God of these and of those?
LawProph.1.16.2716. 28. Quod autem de isto commemoravi, quem pigrum servum misit in tenebras exteriores (Cf. Mt 25, 30) severitas Dei, ubi nec futurorum improvidus dicitur, quia tali pecuniam suam credidit, nec impotens, quia ut bene ageret non ipse rexit, ipse correxit, nec aemulus ac malitiosus, quod a luce separatum in tenebras misit: hoc de omnibus poenis hominum, quae leguntur in propheticis Libris inflictae fuisse peccantibus, debet fidelis lector advertere. Hoc ergo etiam de diluvio. Neque enim Dominus Iesus non tale aliquid futurum in suo praenuntiavit adventu, quando ait: Sicut in diebus Noe: manducabant, bibebant, novellabant, aedificabant, nubebant, uxores ducebant; venit diluvium et perdidit omnes: sic erit et adventus Filii hominis (Lc 17, 26-27). Hoc et de obduratione cordis pharaonis (Cf. Ex 7, 13). Neque enim Novi Testamenti litterae non dicunt de quibusdam: Tradidit illos Deus in reprobam mentem, ut faciant quae non conveniunt (Rom 1, 28). Hoc de spiritu mendaci, quem Deus, qui bene utitur etiam malis, iustissimo iudicio ad impium regem decipiendum misit, sicut Michaeas propheta sibi in visione prophetica demonstratum esse testatur (Cf. 3 Reg 22, 19-23). Neque enim dubitavit tale aliquid dicere apostolus Paulus, cum se sciret verissime dicere, ubi ait: Mittet illis Deus operationem erroris, ut credant mendacio, et iudicentur omnes, qui non crediderunt veritati, sed consenserunt iniquitati (2 Thess 2, 11-12). Hoc de facto per Moysen, cui Deus dixit: Accipe omnes duces populi, et victima illos Domino contra solem (Num 25, 4), hoc est in manifesto per diem. Vel quod factum idolum Moyses ita vindicavit, ut nec proximo suo quisque parceret, ferro perimens impios (Cf. Ex 32, 25-28). Neque enim et Dominus Iesus non dixit: Eos autem qui noluerunt me regnare sibi, adducite et interficite coram me (Lc 19, 27). Ubi profecto, quia mortem significat animarum, magis est utique illa fidelibus horrenda et metuenda quam corporum. Unde idem Dominus dicit: Nolite timere eos, qui occidunt corpus, animam autem non possunt occidere; sed potius eum timete, qui potest animam et corpus perdere in gehennam (Mt 10, 28).
16. 28. But what I recalled about this servant whom the severity of God sent, lazy, into the outer darkness (See Mt 25:30)—where God is said to be neither improvident of the future, since he entrusted his money to such a one; nor powerless, since to make him act well he did not himself rule him, but he did himself correct him; nor envious and malicious, in that he sent into the darkness one separated from the light—this the faithful reader ought to observe regarding all the punishments of human beings which we read were inflicted on sinners in the prophetic books. This, then, also concerning the flood. For the Lord Jesus did indeed foretell that something of the kind would come at his advent, when he said: As in the days of Noah: they were eating, drinking, planting, building, marrying, taking wives; the flood came and destroyed them all: so will be the advent of the Son of man also (Lk 17:26–27). This also concerning the hardening of Pharaoh's heart (See Exod 7:13). For the writings of the New Testament do indeed say of certain people: God handed them over to a reprobate mind, to do what is not fitting (Rom 1:28). This concerning the lying spirit, which God, who uses even evils well, by a most just judgment sent to deceive an impious king, as the prophet Micaiah testifies was shown to him in a prophetic vision (See 1 Kgs 22:19–23). For the apostle Paul did not hesitate to say something of the kind, since he knew he was saying it most truly, where he says: God will send them a working of error, so that they may believe a lie, and all may be judged who have not believed the truth but consented to iniquity (2 Thess 2:11–12). This concerning the deed done through Moses, to whom God said, Take all the leaders of the people, and offer them as victims to the Lord against the sun (Num 25:4)—that is, openly, by day. Or that Moses so avenged the idol that was made that no one spared even his neighbor, slaying the impious with the sword (See Exod 32:25–28). For the Lord Jesus too said: But those who did not want me to reign over them, bring here and slay before me (Lk 19:27). Where surely, because it signifies the death of souls, that death is certainly more to be dreaded and feared by the faithful than the death of bodies. Hence the same Lord says: Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; but rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell (Mt 10:28).
LawProph.1.16.2816. 29. Huius generis mortes, per quas animae mittuntur in gehennam, si quis fideli mente ut dignum est cogitaverit, valde viliter aestimabit quamlibet ingentissimam stragem et sanguinis fluvios mortalium corporum, et quomodocumque quandocumque moriturorum. Quas caedes iste exaggerans et scholastica vanitate describens ad blasphemandum Deum, qui talibus mortibus eos, quibus huiusmodi terror utilis fuerat, flagellabat, horrorem incutit mortalibus sensibus et aliquid se agere putat calces adversus stimulum iaciendo (Cf. TERENZIO, Phormio, 77), ut cum de morte carnis accusat Dei providentiam, morte cordis mittatur in gehennam. Quis autem utriuslibet sexus homo non mallet gladio trucidari, etiam illo modo, quo trucidavit sacerdos phinees fornicarios, in ipso complexu nefariae voluptatis, terribile constituens adversus exsecrandas libidines ultionis exemplum (Num 25, 8), propter quod maxime Deo placuit: quis, inquam, non mallet tali genere mortis interfici, quis non postremo igne consumi vel ferinis morsibus per ipsa pudenda laniari, quam mitti in gehennam ignis aeterni (Cf. Mt 25, 41)? Cur igitur Deus christianorum peccantes talibus mortibus puniat, ut post corporis interitum transitorium sequatur in gehenna sine fine supplicium, nisi quia Testamenti utriusque unus est Deus? Nam possent Iudaei dicere adversus huius impietatem, quantumlibet exaggeret bella, caedes, vulnera, funera, sanguinem, longe incomparabiliter Deo nostro Deum se habere mitiorem, longe scilicet mitius punientem transitoriis mortibus corporum quam flammis perpetuis gehennarum.
16. 29. If anyone considers, with a faithful mind, as is fitting, deaths of this kind—through which souls are sent into hell—he will reckon as very cheap any slaughter, however vast, and rivers of blood of mortal bodies that are going to die in any case in some way at some time. These slaughters this man heaps up and, with a schoolman's vanity, describes, in order to blaspheme God, who with such deaths scourged those for whom terror of this sort was useful; he strikes horror into mortal senses and thinks he is accomplishing something by kicking his heels against the goad (See Terence, Phormio, 77), so that, while he accuses God's providence concerning the death of the flesh, he may by the death of the heart be sent into hell. But what human being of either sex would not rather be cut down by the sword—even in that manner in which the priest Phinehas cut down the fornicators in the very embrace of nefarious pleasure, setting a terrible example of vengeance against execrable lusts (Num 25:8), on account of which especially he pleased God—who, I say, would not rather be killed by such a kind of death, who would not finally rather be consumed by fire or torn through the very private parts by the bites of beasts, than be sent into the hell of eternal fire (See Mt 25:41)? Why, then, does the God of Christians punish sinners with such deaths, so that after the transitory destruction of the body there follows in hell a punishment without end—except because of both Testaments there is one God? For the Jews could say against this man's impiety, however much he heaps up wars, slaughters, wounds, deaths, blood, that they have a God incomparably milder than our God—punishing, namely, far more mildly with the transitory deaths of bodies than with the perpetual flames of hells.
LawProph.1.16.2916. 30. At enim " propterea videtur " huic " Deus Legis et Prophetarum ", qui unus et verus est Deus, " crimine crudelitatis arguendus, quia propter levissimas causas vel etiam erubescendas poenam mortis vel corporalis inflixit, quod David populum numerasset (Cf. 2 Reg 24), quod infantes ", sicut iste dicit, " filii Heli sacerdotis, de ollis vel cacabis Deo praeparatis aliquid degustassent (Cf. 1 Reg 2, 12-17) ". Qua in re non disputo, quantum et quam perniciosum elationis vitium tam sancto viro, ut vellet Dei populum numerare, subrepserit eorumque mortibus non aeternis, sed iamiamque humana conditione venturis et celeriter transituris, fuerit flagellatus, quorum fuerat multitudine inflatus. Nec dico filios Heli non fuisse infantes, ut iste loquitur, nesciens quid loquatur, sed eius aetatis, qua possent et deberent, pro sacrilego ausu, quo se Domino Deo in sacrificiis praeferebant, digna coercitione cohiberi; quod neglectum Deus non sibi consulens, sed populo, cui religio pietasque profuisset, bello etiam vindicavit: ubi Dei timorem potuerunt augere victuri, per eorum mortes, qui fuerant, etsi senescerent, post non longa temporum spatia morituri. Mortibus quippe corporum legimus alios etiam mortuos, propter non sua, sed aliena peccata (Cf. 1 Reg 2-4): ubi magis est in dolore cordis plaga viventium quam in resolutione carnis poena morientium; ubi animae de corporibus exeuntes suas causas habent vel malas vel bonas, non propterea gravatae, quia exutae; animarum vero morte alius pro alio plectitur nemo. Sed hoc dico, quantum existimet iste fuisse peccatum, quod in convivio nuptiali inventus est homo non habens vestem nuptialem (Cf. Mt 22, 11): puto, si humana consideratione ista metiamur, huic aliquantulum sufficere debuit erubescere; et ut plurimum invitantis indignatio protenderetur, vestem mutare compelli: et tamen dictum est: Ligate illi manus et pedes et proicite eum in tenebras exteriores; ibi erit fletus et stridor dentium (Mt 22, 13). Sed dicet: Non levem culpam significat vestem non habuisse nuptialem, quoniam ista parva magnarum signa sunt rerum. Sic ergo et sacrificia visibilia, cum sint in terrenis rebus exigua, magnarum quoniam divinarum signa sunt rerum, in quibus filii sacerdotis se ipsi Deo, cuius honor in sacrificiis attenditur, praeferebant. Non autem ille conviva se praetulit sponso, sed tantum non congruit, qui nuptialem tunicam non habebat. Verumtamen inter ipsas poenas, quibus utrumque vindicatum est, ille quid distet advertit, quamque incomparabiliter ista illam vincat intellegit, qui corporalibus et temporalibus spiritalia et sempiterna praeponit.
16. 30. But indeed "for this reason," it seems to this man, "the God of the Law and the Prophets," who is the one and true God, "is to be charged with the crime of cruelty, because for the most trifling causes, or even shameful ones, he inflicted the penalty of death, even of bodily death: that David had numbered the people (See 2 Sam 24); that the infant sons," as this man says, "of Eli the priest had tasted something from the pots or pans prepared for God (See 1 Sam 2:12–17)." On this matter I do not discuss how great and how pernicious a vice of pride crept upon so holy a man, that he wished to number the people of God, and how he was scourged by the deaths—not eternal, but already at hand by the human condition and quickly to pass—of those whose multitude had puffed him up. Nor do I say that the sons of Eli were not infants, as this man says, not knowing what he says, but of an age at which they could and should, for the sacrilegious presumption by which they preferred themselves to the Lord God in the sacrifices, have been restrained by a fitting coercion; which, being neglected, God avenged even by war, not consulting for himself but for the people, whom religion and devotion would have profited: where those who were to live could increase the fear of God through the deaths of those who, even if they grew old, were after no long spaces of time going to die. For we read that others too died by the deaths of bodies on account of sins not their own but others' (See 1 Sam 2–4): where there is more in the grief of heart, the wound of the living, than in the dissolution of the flesh, the punishment of the dying; where souls going out from bodies have their own causes, either evil or good, not weighed down because stripped; but by the death of souls no one is punished in another's stead. But this I say: how great a sin this man would reckon it to have been that a man was found at the wedding feast not having a wedding garment (See Mt 22:11): I think that, if we measure these things by human consideration, it should have sufficed for this man to blush a little; and at most, that the indignation of the inviter should be stretched so far as to compel him to change his garment. And yet it was said: Bind his hands and feet and cast him into the outer darkness; there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Mt 22:13). But he will say: To have lacked the wedding garment signifies no light fault, since these small things are signs of great things. So, then, the visible sacrifices too, although in earthly things they are slight, since they are signs of great things—divine things—in which the sons of the priest preferred themselves to God, whose honor is regarded in the sacrifices. But that guest did not prefer himself to the bridegroom; only, the one who had no wedding tunic did not match the occasion. Nevertheless, amid the very punishments by which both were avenged, he notices what difference there is, and understands how incomparably the latter surpasses the former, who prefers spiritual and everlasting things to bodily and temporal ones.
LawProph.1.16.3016. 31. Verum quid opus est de mysticis significationibus sacrificiorum vestisque nuptialis inconvenientem carnalibus sensibus velle inculcare sermonem? Ecce quod est manifestius proferamus: Evangelium Legi veteri comparans Dominus et non illud malum quod homines ante didicerant, sed quod ipse docebat, perfectius esse contestans: Audistis, inquit, quia dictum est antiquis: Non occides, qui autem occiderit, reus erit iudicio. Ego autem dico vobis: quicumque iratus fuerit fratri suo, reus erit iudicio; qui autem dixerit racha, reus erit concilio; qui autem dixerit fatue, reus erit gehennae ignis (Mt 5, 21-22). Quid tam parvum in peccatis, quam fratri dicere fatue? Quid tam magnum in suppliciis quam gehenna ignis? Si in Lege et Prophetis iste invenisset aliquem, quoniam dixisset fratri suo fatue, lapidari iussum fuisse divinitus, quantae Deum crudelitatis argueret? Quis non autem non dico lapidari, sed per singulos artus, immo per singula corporis frustra paulatim atque minutatim vivens et sentiens dilaniari consumique maluisset, quam gehennae ignibus mancipari? Absit tamen, ut crudeliorem quisquam dicat Evangelii Deum quam Legis Deum intellegens utriusque esse unum et eumdem Deum, in Lege terrentem carnalibus, in Evangelio spiritalibus poenis et ibi et hic fidelem, nusquam crudelem.
16. 31. But what need is there to wish to drive home, to carnal senses, an unsuitable discourse about the mystical significations of the sacrifices and of the wedding garment? Behold, let us bring forward what is more manifest. The Lord, comparing the Gospel to the old Law and testifying that not what men had learned before was evil, but that what he himself was teaching was more perfect, says: You have heard that it was said to the ancients: You shall not kill, and whoever kills shall be liable to judgment. But I say to you: whoever is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment; whoever says Raca shall be liable to the council; but whoever says You fool shall be liable to the hell of fire (Mt 5:21–22). What is so small among sins as to say to one's brother, You fool? What is so great among punishments as the hell of fire? If in the Law and the Prophets this man had found someone ordered by God to be stoned because he had said to his brother, You fool, of how great a cruelty would he charge God? But who would not rather—I do not say be stoned, but be torn apart limb by limb, indeed piece by piece of the body, little by little and bit by bit, alive and feeling, and be consumed—than be handed over to the fires of hell? Far be it, however, that anyone should call the God of the Gospel crueler than the God of the Law, understanding that of both there is one and the same God, in the Law terrifying with bodily punishments, in the Gospel with spiritual ones, and both there and here faithful, nowhere cruel.
LawProph.1.16.3116. 32. Quid illud? Nonne si a Christo linguam reperiret alienam in eumque blasphemam et qualis est huius impia garrulitate damnabilem, acerbius et amarius exagitaretur, quam quod iste de obsonio sacrificii praegustato corporalem temporalemque poenam pro sacrilegio sic indignatur ingestam, ubi venturum se Dominus et ad sinistram positis Gentibus minatur esse dicturum: Ite in ignem aeternum, qui paratus est diabolo et angelis eius (Mt 25, 41)? Huius tanti supplicii quaeris causam? Esurivi, inquit, et non dedistis mihi manducare (Mt 25, 42). Ecce pro esca temporali non ablata, sed non data aeternum et horrendum supplicium comminatur. Et recte, si consulas veritatem. Perparvum est enim quod in eleemosynis datur; sed cum pie datur, aeternum inde meritum comparatur. Et ideo potius, quia parvum est quod datur, magna impietate non datur. Unde non mirum est, quod tantae sterilitati velut infructuosarum arborum ignis aeterni supplicium praeparatur. Si autem consulas hominem, ut de suo respondeat tibi: Omnis homo mendax (Cf. Ps 115, 11), contemnit culpam, exaggerat poenam; illam quippe non videt mente carnali, hanc exhorret carne mortali. Talis est iste in omnium hominum, qui puniuntur vel corripiuntur in Vetere Testamento, longe mitioribus quam leguntur in Evangelio corporalibus poenis. Quod enim diluvium comparari aeternis ignibus potest? Quae caedes, quae vulnera, quae corporum mortes cruciatibus sempiternis? Viginti quattuor milia (Cf. Num 25, 9) cadentium tanto buccarum strepitu inflat insanus, quasi non innumerabilia milia cottidie moriantur toto orbe terrarum? Sed transitoria ista corporis mors est: quis vero aestimare possit, quot milia stabunt ad sinistram ex omnibus Gentibus, quae sempiternis damnanda sunt ignibus?
16. 32. What of this? If he found in Christ a tongue alien to him and blasphemous against him, and—such as his is—condemnable by its impious garrulity, would it not be assailed more harshly and more bitterly than the fact that this man is so indignant that a bodily and temporal punishment was imposed for the sacrilege of food from the sacrifice tasted beforehand—where the Lord, threatening that he will come, says he will say to the gentiles set on the left: Go into the eternal fire, which is prepared for the devil and his angels (Mt 25:41)? Do you ask the cause of so great a punishment? I was hungry, he says, and you did not give me to eat (Mt 25:42). Behold, for food temporal not taken away but not given, he threatens an eternal and horrendous punishment. And rightly, if you consult the truth. For very small is what is given in alms; but when it is given devoutly, an eternal merit is thereby gained. And therefore precisely because what is given is small, it is by great impiety not given. Hence it is no wonder that for such great barrenness, as of unfruitful trees, the punishment of eternal fire is prepared. But if you consult man, that he may answer you out of himself: Every man is a liar (See Ps 116:11 (115:11))—he makes light of the fault, he exaggerates the punishment; for he does not see the former with his carnal mind, while he shudders at the latter in his mortal flesh. Such is this man in regard to all the human beings who are punished or corrected in the Old Testament with bodily punishments far milder than those we read of in the Gospel. For what flood can be compared to the eternal fires? What slaughters, what wounds, what deaths of bodies to everlasting torments? Twenty-four thousand (See Num 25:9) falling—the madman puffs up with so great a noise of his cheeks, as though innumerable thousands did not die daily in the whole world? But this death of the body is transitory: who indeed could reckon how many thousands from all the gentiles will stand on the left, to be condemned to everlasting fires?
LawProph.1.16.3216. 33. Eat iste et clamet ore aperto et oculis clausis, quasi "confessus sit Deus suam crudelitatem, quia dicit per prophetam: Exacuam sicut fulgur gladium meum, inebriabo sagittas meas sanguine et gladius meus manducabit carnes de sanguine vulneratorum (Deut 32, 41-42) ". De quibus verbis sic iste accusat " Deum ", velut " semper humanum sanguinem esurientem " quasi dixerit: " Inebriabo me sanguine "; aut: " manducabo carnes de sanguine vulneratorum ". Sed quantumlibet hanc utilem " Dei comminationem tamquam facinoris avidam et ", ut dicit, " in sola crudelitate malis tantummodo gloriantem ", vanus et vesanus exhorreat; quid aut quantum valet verbis comparata dicentis: Discedite a me, maledicti, in ignem aeternum, qui paratus est diabolo et angelis eius (Mt 25, 41)? Ibi non sanguine inebriabuntur sagittae, sed non satiabuntur membris omnibus flammae; nec carnes gladius manducabit sensum doloris citius auferens mortuis quam inferens vulneratis, sed nemo cruciatibus saltem moriendo subtrahitur, ne in moriente simul etiam ipsa poena moriatur. Cur non hic dicit: Colendum ne istum an potius exsecrandum fugiendumque esse dicemus? An timet de Christo ista dicere, ne ipsius ignis aeterni supplicium non evadat, quo ille impios praeparat mittere, et ignorat miser haec dicendo de Deo Prophetarum de ipso se dicere, cuius tam tremendam severitatem in Evangelio formidat offendere?
16. 33. Let this man go and cry out with open mouth and closed eyes, as though "God confessed his own cruelty, because he says through the prophet: I will sharpen my sword like lightning, I will make my arrows drunk with blood, and my sword will devour flesh from the blood of the wounded (Deut 32:41–42)." From these words this man so accuses "God," as though he were "always hungering for human blood," as if he had said, "I will make myself drunk with blood," or, "I will devour flesh from the blood of the wounded." But however much this useful "threat of God, as though greedy for crime and," as he says, "glorying only in cruelty toward the evil," the empty and frenzied man may shudder at it—what or how much does it amount to, compared with the words of him who says, Depart from me, accursed, into the eternal fire, which is prepared for the devil and his angels (Mt 25:41)? There the arrows will not be made drunk with blood, but the flames will not be sated by all the limbs; nor will the sword devour flesh, taking away the sense of pain from the dead more quickly than inflicting it on the wounded; rather, no one is withdrawn from the torments even by dying, lest in the dying the punishment itself should also die. Why does he not say here: Shall we say that this one is to be worshiped, or rather to be execrated and fled? Or does he fear to say these things of Christ, lest he not escape the punishment of that same eternal fire into which Christ prepares to send the impious—and the wretch does not know that by saying these things of the God of the Prophets he says them of that very one whose so dreadful severity in the Gospel he is afraid to offend?
LawProph.1.16.3317. 34. Reprehendit etiam, quod " poenas impiorum significatas per uvam fellis et botrum amaritudinis et furorem draconum atque aspidum collectas dicit esse Deus apud se et signatas in thesauris suis, reddendas in tempore, cum lapsus fuerit pes eorum (Cf. Deut 32, 32-35) "; ignorans thesauros hic appellatas occultas dispositiones Dei, qui disponit reddere unicuique secundum opera eius. Unde Apostolus dicit: Tu autem secundum duritiam cordis tui et cor impoenitens thesaurizas tibi iram in die irae et revelationis iusti iudicii Dei, qui reddet unicuique secundum opera eius (Rom 2, 5-6). Apud quem sibi enim thesaurizat iram cor impoenitens, nisi apud eum qui vivos est iudicaturus et mortuos (Cf. 2 Tim 4, 1)? Neque enim nesciunt etiam illi veteres libri thesaurum desiderabilem, de quo ibi scriptum est, quod requiescat in ore sapientis (Cf. Prov 21, 20 [sec. LXX]). Et in Proverbiis legitur, quia Deus thesaurizat diligentibus se salutem (Prov 8, 21); et Isaias propheta dicit: In thesauris salus nostra; ibi sapientia et disciplina et pietas ad Dominum. Hi sunt thesauri iustitiae (Isa 33, 6). Sed vaniloqui et mentis seductores adversantes litteris sacris, quas intellegere nolunt, eligunt ex eis aspera, quae ibi leguntur ad commendandam severitatem Dei, et de litteris evangelicis atque apostolicis lenia, quae ibi leguntur ad commendandam bonitatem Dei, et apud homines imperitos hinc ingerunt horrorem, inde quaerunt favorem; quasi difficile sit, ut quisquam similiter blasphemus atque impius eo modo adversetur Novo Testamento, quo iste Veteri carpens de Vetere, quibus ibi commendatur Dei bonitas, et e contrario de Novo, quibus ibi commendatur Dei severitas; et clamet invidiosus atque venosus: Ecce qui Deus colendus est, misericors et miserator, longanimis et multae misericordiae; qui non in finem irascetur neque in aeternum indignabitur; qui non secundum peccata nostra fecit nobis, neque secundum iniquitates nostras retribuit nobis; sed quantum distat oriens ab occidente, longe fecit a nobis peccata nostra; qui sicut miseratur pater filios, sic miseratur timentes se (Ps 102, 8-13); qui dicit: Nolo mortem impii, quantum ut revertatur et vivat (Ez 18, 23; 33, 11). Non ille qui propter lucrorum avaritiam etiam eum servum, qui non perdidit talentum quod acceperat, tantum quia non amplius acquisivit, ligatis manibus et pedibus proici iussit in tenebras exteriores, ubi esset ei fletus et stridor dentium (Cf. Mt 25, 14-30), et qui hominem non habentem vestem nuptialem de convivio suo tollit et similiter alligatum simili supplicio punit (Cf. Mt 22, 11-13), et qui venientibus ad se et pulsantibus et dicentibus: Domine, aperi nobis, respondet: Non vos novi (Cf. Mt 25, 11-12), tantum quia oleum secum quod infunderent suis lampadibus, non tulerunt, et qui propter unum contumeliosum verbum mittit in gehennam (Cf. Mt 5, 22), et qui pro temporali cibo non accepto igne damnat aeterno (Cf. Mt 25, 41-42). Haec atque huiusmodi si quis vesana mente sacrilegus inde lenia hinc aspera colligat ac sic homines utrarumque Litterarum imperitos a Christo tamquam saevo et crudeli conetur avertere et ad Deum Prophetarum misericordem mitemque convertere, nonne et huic ipsi, qui hoc facit Veteri Testamento, quod ab homine similiter sacrilego posset fieri Novo, impurus atque impius apparebit? Qui autem recte colit Deum, et profecto utriusque Testamenti invenit unum Deum et eiusdem unius Dei in utroque diligit bonitatem, in utroque metuit severitatem, in illo intellegens promissum Christum, in isto accipiens redditum Christum.
17. 34. He also reproaches the fact that "God says the punishments of the impious, signified by the grape of gall and the cluster of bitterness and the fury of dragons and asps, are gathered up by him and sealed in his treasuries, to be repaid in time, when their foot has slipped (See Deut 32:32–35)"—not knowing that here "treasuries" are the names given to the hidden dispositions of God, who arranges to repay each according to his works. Hence the Apostle says: But you, according to the hardness of your heart and your impenitent heart, are storing up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and of the revelation of the just judgment of God, who will repay each according to his works (Rom 2:5–6). With whom does the impenitent heart store up wrath for itself but with him who is to judge the living and the dead (See 2 Tim 4:1)? For those old books too are not ignorant of a desirable treasure, of which it is there written that it rests in the mouth of the wise (See Prov 21:20 (Septuagint)). And in Proverbs it is read that God stores up salvation for those who love him (Prov 8:21); and the prophet Isaiah says: In the treasuries is our salvation; there is wisdom and instruction and devotion toward the Lord. These are the treasuries of righteousness (Isa 33:6). But the talkers of vanity and seducers of minds, opposing the sacred writings, which they are unwilling to understand, choose out of them the harsh things which are read there to commend the severity of God, and out of the writings of the Gospel and the apostles the gentle things which are read there to commend the goodness of God, and among unskilled people from the one source they instill horror, from the other they seek favor; as though it were difficult for anyone similarly blasphemous and impious to oppose the New Testament in the manner in which this man, carping at the Old, opposes the Old—from the Old citing the things by which God's goodness is commended, and on the contrary from the New the things by which God's severity is commended—and to cry out, envious and swollen-veined: Behold the God who is to be worshiped, merciful and compassionate, long-suffering and of great mercy; who will not be angry forever nor be indignant for eternity; who has not done to us according to our sins, nor repaid us according to our iniquities; but as far as the east is from the west, so far has he put our sins from us; who, as a father pities his children, so pities those who fear him (Ps 103:8–13 (102:8–13)); who says, I do not will the death of the impious, but rather that he turn back and live (Ezek 18:23; 33:11). Not the one who, for greed of gains, ordered even that servant who did not lose the talent he had received—only because he did not acquire more—to be cast, with hands and feet bound, into the outer darkness, where there would be for him weeping and gnashing of teeth (See Mt 25:14–30); and who takes from his feast the man not having a wedding garment, and, likewise bound, punishes him with a like punishment (See Mt 22:11–13); and who, to those coming to him and knocking and saying, Lord, open to us, answers, I do not know you (See Mt 25:11–12), only because they did not bring with them oil to pour into their lamps; and who, for one insulting word, sends into hell (See Mt 5:22); and who, for temporal food not given, condemns to eternal fire (See Mt 25:41–42). If anyone with a frenzied, sacrilegious mind should gather such things and the like—gentle ones from the one source, harsh ones from the other—and so try to turn away from Christ, as though savage and cruel, people unskilled in both writings, and to convert them to the merciful and gentle God of the Prophets, will not this very man, who does to the Old Testament what could be done likewise to the New by a man similarly sacrilegious, appear impure and impious? But whoever rightly worships God indeed finds one God of both Testaments and loves the goodness of the same one God in both, fears his severity in both, understanding in the one Christ promised, receiving in the other Christ rendered.
LawProph.1.17.3417. 35. Nonne prius in illis veteribus libris lectum est non reddendum malum pro malo, ubi praecipitur, ut si iumentum inimici sui errare quisque invenerit, revocet domino eius, et si cecidisse in via, non pertranseat, sed levet cum illo (Ex 23, 4-5)? nonne ibi prius scriptum est, quod Apostolus ponit: Si esurierit inimicus tuus, ciba illum, si sitit, potum da illi (Prov 25, 21; Rom 12, 20)? Nonne ibi prius homo Dei Deo suo quod ei utique scit placere dicit: Domine Deus meus, si feci istud, si est iniquitas in manibus meis, si reddidi retribuentibus mihi mala (Ps 7, 4-5)? Nonne ibi prius Ieremias propheta describit sancti patientiam praebentis percutienti se maxillam (Cf. Lam 3, 30)? Nonne ibi prius per alium prophetam praecipitur, ut malitiam unusquisque fratris sui non reminiscatur (Cf. Lev 19, 18)? Quid est ergo quod iste blasphemus haec tamquam contraria Veteri Testamento de Novo colligit, aut utrasque Litteras nesciens aut ut decipiat imperitos se scire dissimulans? A quo tamen si quaeratur, utrum non reddat malum pro malo, qui pro cibo non accepto in ignem mittit aeternum (Cf. Mt 25, 41-42), profecto turbabitur et admonebitur incomparabiliter esse mitius oculum pro oculo, dentem pro dente (Cf. Ex 21, 24) homini auferre, ubi mensura vindictae modum non transit iniuriae, quam propter non exhibitam humanitatem tantam reprehendere severitatem, ubi transitoria est culpa et finem non habet poena; atque ita discet, si pervicax non est, in utroque Dei unius Testamento et amandam bonitatem et timendam severitatem. Quamvis enim in Vetere Testamento propter temporalium bonorum promissionem malorumque comminationem servos pariat temporalis Ierusalem, in Novo autem, ubi fides impetrat caritatem, qua Lex possit impleri non magis timore poenae quam dilectione iustitiae (Cf. Gal 5, 6), liberos pariat aeterna Ierusalem (Cf. Gal 4, 22-31), tamen et illis temporibus fuerunt iusti spiritales, quos non occidebat littera iubens, sed vivificabat spiritus iuvans (Cf. 2 Cor 3, 6). Unde et fides venturi Christi habitabat utique in Prophetis venturum praenuntiantibus Christum (Cf. Hab 2, 3; Agg 2, 8; Hebr 10, 37); et nunc sunt plurimi carnales, qui vel haereses faciunt non intellegendo Scripturas, vel in ipsa Catholica aut adhuc parvuli lacte nutriuntur aut tamquam palea perseverans futuris ignibus praeparantur (Cf. Mt 3, 12; Lc 3, 17). Sicut autem Deus unus et verus creator bonorum est et temporalium et aeternorum, ita idem ipse auctor est amborum Testamentorum, quia et Novum in Vetere est figuratum et Vetus in Novo est revelatum.
17. 35. Was it not first read in those old books that evil is not to be repaid for evil, where it is commanded that, if anyone finds his enemy's beast straying, he should bring it back to its owner, and if it has fallen on the road, he should not pass by but lift it up with him (Exod 23:4–5)? Was it not first written there what the Apostle sets down: If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he thirsts, give him drink (Prov 25:21; Rom 12:20)? Was it not there first that the man of God says to his God what he surely knows is pleasing to him: Lord my God, if I have done this, if there is iniquity in my hands, if I have repaid those who repaid me with evils (Ps 7:4–5)? Was it not there first that the prophet Jeremiah describes the patience of a holy man offering his cheek to the one striking him (See Lam 3:30)? Was it not there first commanded, through another prophet, that each one should not remember the malice of his brother (See Lev 19:18)? What is it, then, that this blasphemer gathers these things from the New as though contrary to the Old Testament—either being ignorant of both writings, or, that he may deceive the unskilled, pretending to know them? Yet if it be asked of him whether one does not repay evil for evil who, for food not received, sends into eternal fire (See Mt 25:41–42), he will surely be disturbed and admonished that it is incomparably milder to take from a man eye for eye, tooth for tooth (See Exod 21:24), where the measure of the vengeance does not pass beyond the measure of the injury, than to reprehend so great a severity, on account of kindness not shown, where the fault is transitory and the punishment has no end; and so he will learn, if he is not obstinate, that in each Testament of the one God both goodness is to be loved and severity is to be feared. For although in the Old Testament, on account of the promise of temporal goods and the threat of evils, the temporal Jerusalem brings forth slaves; while in the New, where faith obtains love, by which the Law can be fulfilled not so much by fear of punishment as by love of righteousness (See Gal 5:6), the eternal Jerusalem brings forth free children (See Gal 4:22–31)—nevertheless even in those times there were spiritual righteous men, whom the commanding letter did not kill, but the helping spirit gave life (See 2 Cor 3:6). Hence also the faith of the Christ to come dwelt indeed in the Prophets foretelling the Christ to come (See Hab 2:3; Hag 2:8; Heb 10:37); and now there are very many carnal people who either make heresies by not understanding the Scriptures, or, in the Catholic Church itself, are either still as little ones nourished with milk, or, like persisting chaff, are prepared for the future fires (See Mt 3:12; Lk 3:17). But just as the one true God is the creator of good things both temporal and eternal, so the same one is the author of both Testaments, since the New was prefigured in the Old and the Old was revealed in the New.
LawProph.1.17.3517. 36. Ignoscendi autem misericors mansuetudo, propter quam dictum est non solum septies, verum etiam septuagies septies fratri remittenda esse peccata, non ad hoc valet, ut sit iniquitas impunita aut torpens et dormiens disciplina, quod potius obsit quam diligens vigilansque vindicta. Claves quippe regni caelorum sic dedit Christus Ecclesiae, ut non solum diceret: Quae solveritis super terram, soluta erunt et in caelis, ubi apertissime bonum, non malum pro malo reddit Ecclesia, verum et adiungeret: Quae ligaveritis in terra, erunt ligata in caelo (Mt 18, 18), quia bona est et vindicandi iustitia. Illud enim quod ait: Si nec Ecclesiam audierit, sit tibi tamquam ethnicus et publicanus (Mt 18, 17), gravius est quam si gladio feriretur, si flammis absumeretur, si feris subrigeretur. Nam ibi quoque subiunxit: Amen dico vobis, quae ligaveritis super terram, erunt ligata et in caelis (Mt 18, 18), ut intellegeretur, quam gravius sit punitus, qui velut relictus est impunitus. Hic dicat iste, si placet: siccine mandata Salvatoris accepimus iubentis: Nemini reddideritis malum pro malo; sed si quis vos percusserit in unam maxillam, praebete et alteram (Cf. Mt 5, 39; 18, 35); et: Dimittite iniurias fratribus vestris? Ecce ab hominibus non reddentibus malum pro malo alligatur homo amarius et infelicius Ecclesiae clavibus, quam quibuslibet gravissimis et durissimis ferreis vel adamantinis nexibus. " Absit ", inquit, " ut hoc dicam, quoniam christianus sum ". Hoc si vere esset, nec illa dixisset. Quoniam Deus Prophetarum, quorum scripta blasphemat, ipse est Deus Apostolorum, quorum scripta blasphemare formidat.
17. 36. But the merciful gentleness of forgiving, on account of which it was said that sins must be forgiven a brother not only seven times but even seventy times seven, does not avail to this end—that iniquity should go unpunished, or that discipline should be sluggish and asleep, which would harm rather than a diligent and watchful vengeance. For Christ so gave the keys of the kingdom of heaven to the Church that he not only said, What you loose upon earth shall be loosed also in heaven—where most openly the Church repays good, not evil for evil—but also added, What you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven (Mt 18:18), because the justice of avenging is also good. For that which he says, If he will not hear even the Church, let him be to you as a heathen and a tax collector (Mt 18:17), is graver than if he were struck with the sword, consumed by flames, exposed to wild beasts. For there too he added, Amen I say to you, what you bind upon earth shall be bound also in heaven (Mt 18:18), so that it might be understood how much more gravely he is punished who is, as it were, left unpunished. Here let this man say, if he pleases: Is it thus that we have received the commands of the Savior, who orders, Repay no one evil for evil; but if anyone strikes you on one cheek, offer the other also (See Mt 5:39; 18:35); and, Forgive the wrongs done to your brothers? Behold, by men who do not repay evil for evil a man is bound more bitterly and more unhappily by the keys of the Church than by any most grievous and hardest bonds of iron or adamant. "Far be it," he says, "that I should say this, since I am a Christian." If this were truly so, he would not have said those other things either. For the God of the Prophets, whose writings he blasphemes, is himself the God of the Apostles, whose writings he is afraid to blaspheme.
LawProph.1.17.3618. 37. " Sed David, inquit, Deum rogavit et non est exauditus nisi oblato sacrificio, ut hominibus qui non peccaverant, parceretur, et ideo non est credendus Deus verus qui sacrificiis delectatur " (Cf. 2 Reg 24). Iam de poena occisorum hominum, quibus quandoque morituris mors illa non obfuit et eorum tamen mortibus cor regis sese extollentis merito vapulavit, superius respondimus. De sacrificio autem valde iste nihil sapit, et ideo fallitur, quia iam sacrificia talia non offert Dei populus Deo, posteaquam venit unicum sacrificium, cuius umbrae fuerunt illa omnia (Cf. Hebr 8, 5) non hoc improbantia, sed hoc significantia. Sicut enim res una multis locutionibus et multis linguis significari potest, sic unum verum et singulare sacrificium multis est antea sacrificiorum significatum figuris. De quibus singulis hic disputare quam sit longum videtis. Unum tamen sciant insipientes, tardi ad intellegendum et praecipites ad reprehendendum, quod daemon sibi sacrificium non exigeret, nisi vero Deo deberi sciret (Cf. Mt 4, 10). Falsus enim deus sic se vult honorari ab eis quos decipit, quomodo verus Deus honoratur ab eis quibus consulit; et maxime sacrificium est quod praecipue debetur Deo. Nam obsequia cetera, quae divinitati exhibentur, ausi sunt sibi etiam superbiae fastu homines arrogare. Rarissimi autem commemorantur, qui sibi ut sacrificaretur, cum regia potestate possent, ausi fuerint imperare. Quicumque tamen ausi sunt, per hoc se deos haberi voluerunt. Sacrificiis autem Deum non egere quis nesciat? Sed nec laudibus nostris eget. Verum sicut nobis, non illi utile est laudare Deum, sic nobis non illi utile est offerre sacrificium Deo. Quoniam singulari et solo vero sacrificio pro nobis Christi sanguis effusus est (Cf. Mt 26, 28; Mc 14, 24), ideo primis temporibus ad hoc sacrificium talibus significationibus prophetandum immaculatorum animalium sacrificia Deus sibi iussit offerri (Cf. Lev 1, 3), ut quemadmodum illa immaculata erant a corporum vitiis, ita speraretur immolandus esse pro nobis, qui solus immaculatus fuerat a peccatis (Cf. Hebr 8, 1-10; 1 Pt 1, 19). Quae tempora per prophetam sic praenuntiantur: Deus deorum Dominus locutus est et vocavit terram a solis ortu usque ad occasum; ex Sion species decoris eius (Ps 49, 1-2). Et paulo post in eodem psalmo: Audi, populus meus, et loquar tibi; Israel, et testificabor tibi: quoniam Deus Deus tuus ego sum. Non super sacrificia tua arguam te; holocausta autem tua in conspectu meo sunt semper. Non accipiam de domo tua vitulos, neque de gregibus tuis hircos. Quoniam meae sunt omnes bestiae silvae, pecora in montibus et boves. Cognovi omnia volatilia caeli et species agri mecum est. Si esuriero, non dicam tibi. Meus est enim orbis terrae et plenitudo eius. Numquid manducabo carnes taurorum aut sanguinem hircorum potabo? Immola Deo sacrificium laudis et redde Altissimo vota tua (Ps 49, 7-14). Et iterum in fine psalmi eius: Sacrificium, inquit, laudis honorificabit me et ibi via qua ostendam illi salutare Dei (Ps 49, 23). Iam de hoc salutari Dei, quod ipse sit Christus, supra commemoravi atque monstravi. Quod est autem sacratius laudis sacrificium quam in actione gratiarum? Et unde maiores agendae sunt Deo gratiae quam pro ipsius gratia per Iesum Christum Dominum nostrum (Cf. Io 1, 17)? Quod totum fideles in Ecclesiae sacrificio sciunt, cuius umbrae fuerunt omnia priorum genera sacrificiorum. Isti autem vaniloqui reprehensores Veteris Testamenti etiam si cetera quae commemoravi de hoc psalmo minus intellegunt, sufficiat eis quantum ad praesentem quaestionem attinet, quia Deus Prophetarum, qui Deus est etiam Apostolorum, non manducat taurorum carnes nec sanguinem potat hircorum. Talem quippe eum noverant sancti, qui pleni eius spiritu ista dicebant. Unde illud quod David obtulit, ut populo parceretur, umbra erat futuri, qua significatum est, quod per unum sacrificium, cuius illa figura erat, saluti populi spiritaliter parcitur. Ipse est enim Christus Iesus, qui traditus est, sicut Apostolus dicit, propter delicta nostra, et resurrexit propter iustificationem nostram (Rom 4, 25), propter quod etiam dicit: Pascha nostrum immolatus est Christus (1 Cor 5, 7).
18. 37. "But David," he says, "asked God and was not heard except when a sacrifice was offered, that the men who had not sinned might be spared; and therefore he is not to be believed the true God who is delighted by sacrifices" (See 2 Sam 24). Concerning the punishment of the men slain—men who were going to die at some time, whom that death did not harm, and yet by whose deaths the heart of the king, exalting himself, was deservedly beaten—we have answered above. But concerning the sacrifice this man understands nothing at all, and therefore is deceived, because the people of God no longer offer such sacrifices to God, after the one sacrifice came, of which all those were shadows (See Heb 8:5)—not disapproving this one, but signifying it. For just as one thing can be signified by many expressions and many languages, so the one true and singular sacrifice was signified beforehand by many figures of sacrifices. You see how long it would be to discuss these one by one here. Yet let the foolish, slow to understand and headlong to reprehend, know this one thing: that a demon would not demand a sacrifice for himself unless he knew it was owed to the true God (See Mt 4:10). For a false god wishes to be honored by those whom he deceives in the manner in which the true God is honored by those for whom he provides; and most of all it is sacrifice that is owed especially to God. For the other homages rendered to the divinity men have dared, in the arrogance of pride, even to claim for themselves. But very few are recorded who, when they could by royal power, have dared to command that sacrifice be made to themselves. Yet whoever have dared, through this they have wished to be held as gods. But who does not know that God has no need of sacrifices? But neither does he need our praises. Rather, just as it is useful to us, not to him, to praise God, so it is useful to us, not to him, to offer sacrifice to God. Since by a singular and sole true sacrifice the blood of Christ was poured out for us (See Mt 26:28; Mk 14:24), therefore in the first times God commanded sacrifices of unblemished animals to be offered to him (See Lev 1:3), that this sacrifice might be prophesied by such significations—so that, just as those were unblemished by defects of body, so there might be hoped to be immolated for us the one who alone had been unblemished by sins (See Heb 8:1–10; 1 Pet 1:19). Which times are foretold through the prophet thus: The God of gods, the Lord, has spoken and called the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting; out of Zion is the form of his beauty (Ps 50:1–2 (49:1–2)). And a little after, in the same psalm: Hear, my people, and I will speak to you; Israel, and I will testify to you: that I am God, your God. I will not reprove you over your sacrifices; but your holocausts are always in my sight. I will not take calves from your house, nor he-goats from your flocks. For all the beasts of the forest are mine, the cattle on the mountains and the oxen. I have known all the birds of the air, and the beauty of the field is with me. If I am hungry, I will not tell you. For mine is the world and its fullness. Shall I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of he-goats? Offer to God a sacrifice of praise, and pay your vows to the Most High (Ps 50:7–14 (49:7–14)). And again at the end of that psalm: A sacrifice of praise, he says, will honor me, and there is the way by which I will show him the salvation of God (Ps 50:23 (49:23)). Now concerning this salvation of God—that it is Christ himself—I have recalled and shown above. But what is more sacred than a sacrifice of praise in the giving of thanks? And for what are greater thanks to be given to God than for his grace through Jesus Christ our Lord (See Jn 1:17)? All of which the faithful know in the sacrifice of the Church, of which all the kinds of earlier sacrifices were shadows. But these talkers of vanity, these reprehenders of the Old Testament, even if they understand the rest that I have recalled from this psalm too little, let it suffice them, as far as concerns the present question, that the God of the Prophets, who is also the God of the Apostles, does not eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of he-goats. For the saints, who, full of his Spirit, said these things, knew him to be such. Hence what David offered, that the people might be spared, was a shadow of what was to come, by which it was signified that through the one sacrifice—of which that was the figure—the salvation of the people is spiritually spared. For he himself is Christ Jesus, who was handed over, as the Apostle says, for our offenses, and rose again for our justification (Rom 4:25), on account of which he also says, Christ our Pasch has been immolated (1 Cor 5:7).
LawProph.1.18.3719. 38. Unde autem iste probare conatus est " evidenter servisse daemoniis, qui sacrificiis ea promeruerit ", volens hoc intellegi de sancto David ibi evidentius, quanta fraude imperitorum animis insidietur, ostendit. Adhibuit enim Apostolum testem eo quod dixerit: Vide Israel carnaliter nonne qui edunt hostias, participes sunt altaris? Quid ergo? Dico, quod idolum sit aliquid? Sed qui sacrificant, daemonibus sacrificant. Quod non ita scriptum est, sed ita: Videte Israel secundum carnem: nonne qui de sacrificiis manducant, socii sunt altaris? Quid ergo? Dico quia idolis immolatum est aliquid, aut idolum est aliquid? Sed quia quae immolant daemoniis, et non Deo immolant. Nolo vos socios daemoniorum fieri (1 Cor 10, 18-20). Potuit autem accidere, ut secundum interpretationum varietatem non in rebus, sed in verbis, quod ego dixi, secundum carnem, alii codices habeant carnaliter; et quod ego dixi qui de sacrificiis manducant, aliqui habeant edunt hostias; quod ipse posuit et quod ego socii sunt altaris, habeant aliqui, participes sunt altaris; et quod ego posui: Quid ergo? Dico quia idolis immolatum est aliquid? minus ille posuerit, aut minus codex eius habuerit, et ideo tantummodo posuit quia " idolum est aliquid ". Quod vero sequitur multum ad rem pertinet, quia id aliter posuit. Ait enim Apostolus: Sed quia quae immolant daemoniis et non Deo immolant. Iste autem dixit: Sed qui sacrificant, daemonibus sacrificant; quasi omnes qui sacrificant, non sacrificent nisi daemonibus. Non enim ait Apostolus: qui sacrificant, sed quae sacrificant, vel, sicut a me positum est, immolant: illi scilicet qui idola colunt, quae sacrificant daemoniis et non Deo, sacrificant sive, immolant. Et ideo subiunxit: Nolo vos socios daemoniorum fieri; eos quippe ab idololatria prohibebat. Propter quod eis ostendere voluit ita illos fieri socios daemoniorum, si idolothyta sacrificia manducaverint (Cf. 1 Cor 8, 7), quomodo Israel carnalis socius erat altaris in templo, qui de sacrificiis manducabat. Ideo quippe addidit, carnaliter vel secundum carnem, quia est Israel spiritaliter vel secundum spiritum, qui veteres umbras iam non sequitur, sed eam consequentem quae illis umbris praecedentibus significata est veritatem. Hinc enim coepit, ut hoc diceret: Propter quod, dilectissimi mihi, fugite ab idolorum cultura (1 Cor 10, 14). Deinde secutus ostendit, ad quod sacrificium iam debeant pertinere dicens: Quasi prudentibus dico, iudicate vos, quod dico. Calix benedictionis quem benedicimus nonne communicatio est sanguinis Christi? Panis quem frangimus nonne communicatio est corporis Domini? Quia unus panis unum corpus multi sumus; omnes enim de uno pane participamus (1 Cor 10, 15-17). Et propter hoc subiunxit: Videte Israel secundum carnem: nonne qui de sacrificiis manducant, socii sunt altaris? (1 Cor 10, 18) Ut intellegerent ita se iam socios esse corporis Christi, quemadmodum illi socii sunt altaris. Et quia ut hoc diceret ab idolatria prohibebat, unde locus iste sermonis eius, sicut commemoravi, sumpsit exordium: ne putarent ideo non esse curandum, si de sacrificiis ederent idolorum, quia idolum nihil est, existimantes sibi haec velut superflua non nocere, confirmavit quidem et ipse nihil esse idolum, nec ideo se ista prohibere, quia idolis immolantur quae non habent sensum, sed quia quae immolant, inquit, id est idolorum cultores, daemoniis et non Deo immolant. Nolo vos socios daemoniorum fieri (1 Cor 10, 20). Istum sensum veritas ipsa declarat, quia in templo cui serviebat carnaliter Israel, non utique idolum colebatur. Nam si sacrificia, quae in illo templo secundum veterem Legem offerebantur Deo tamquam idolorum sacrificia damnarentur vel tamquam daemoniis immolata, nullo modo ipse Dominus Christus leproso quem mundaverat diceret: Vade, ostende te sacerdoti et offer munus quod praecepit Moyses in testimonium illis (Mt 8, 4). Nondum enim dederat pro sacrificiis illis omnibus sui corporis sacrificium, nondum suscitaverat sui corporis templum (Cf. Io 2, 21). Nec de illo templo eiciens eos, qui boves et columbas vendebant, diceret: Domus mea domus orationis vocabitur, vos autem fecistis illam speluncam latronum (Mt 21, 13).
19. 38. But how this man tried to prove that "he evidently served demons who by sacrifices earned their favor," wishing this to be understood there of holy David, shows more evidently with how great a fraud he lies in wait for the minds of the unskilled. For he brought forward the Apostle as a witness, in that he said: See Israel carnally: are not those who eat the victims partakers of the altar? What then? Do I say that an idol is anything? But those who sacrifice, sacrifice to demons. Which is not written thus, but thus: See Israel according to the flesh: are not those who eat of the sacrifices partners of the altar? What then? Do I say that something immolated to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? But that the things which they immolate, they immolate to demons and not to God. I do not want you to become partners of demons (1 Cor 10:18–20). Now it could happen that, according to the variety of translations—not in substance but in words—what I said, according to the flesh, other manuscripts have as carnally; and what I said, those who eat of the sacrifices, some have as they eat the victims; what he set down and what I have, partners of the altar, some have, partakers of the altar; and what I set down, What then? Do I say that something immolated to idols is anything? he set down less of, or his manuscript had less of, and therefore he set down only that "an idol is anything." But what follows pertains much to the matter, because he set it down otherwise. For the Apostle says, But that the things which they immolate, they immolate to demons and not to God. This man, however, said, But those who sacrifice, sacrifice to demons—as though all who sacrifice sacrifice to none but demons. For the Apostle does not say, those who sacrifice, but the things which they sacrifice, or, as it is set down by me, immolate: namely, those who worship idols, the things which they sacrifice to demons and not to God, they sacrifice or immolate. And therefore he added, I do not want you to become partners of demons; for he was forbidding them idolatry. On account of which he wished to show them that they became partners of demons in this way—if they ate the sacrifices offered to idols (See 1 Cor 8:7)—in the way in which carnal Israel was a partner of the altar in the temple, the one who ate of the sacrifices. For he added carnally or according to the flesh precisely because there is an Israel spiritually, or according to the spirit, which no longer follows the old shadows but the truth that follows—the truth that was signified by those preceding shadows. For from this he had begun, so as to say this: On account of which, my beloved, flee from the worship of idols (1 Cor 10:14). Then, continuing, he showed to which sacrifice they ought now to belong, saying: I speak as to the prudent; judge for yourselves what I say. The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a communion of the body of the Lord? Because there is one bread, we, though many, are one body; for we all partake of the one bread (1 Cor 10:15–17). And for this reason he added: See Israel according to the flesh: are not those who eat of the sacrifices partners of the altar? (1 Cor 10:18) So that they might understand that they were now partners of the body of Christ in the way in which those are partners of the altar. And since, in order to say this, he was forbidding idolatry—from which this passage of his discourse, as I have recalled, took its beginning—lest they should think there was no need to be concerned if they ate of the sacrifices of idols, on the ground that an idol is nothing, supposing that these things did not harm them as being, so to speak, superfluous, he himself confirmed indeed that an idol is nothing, and that he was not forbidding these things for the reason that the things which have no sense are immolated to idols, but because the things which they immolate, he says—that is, the worshipers of idols—they immolate to demons and not to God. I do not want you to become partners of demons (1 Cor 10:20). The truth itself declares this sense, since in the temple which carnal Israel served, an idol was certainly not worshiped. For if the sacrifices which in that temple were offered to God according to the old Law were condemned as sacrifices of idols, or as immolated to demons, the Lord Christ himself would in no way have said to the leper whom he had cleansed: Go, show yourself to the priest, and offer the gift which Moses commanded, as a testimony to them (Mt 8:4). For he had not yet given, for all those sacrifices, the sacrifice of his own body, had not yet raised up the temple of his body (See Jn 2:21). Nor, casting out of that temple those who sold oxen and doves, would he have said: My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves (Mt 21:13).
LawProph.1.19.3820. 39. Sane de apocryphis iste posuit testimonia, quae sub nominibus apostolorum Andreae Iohannisque conscripta sunt. Quae si illorum essent, recepta essent ab Ecclesia, quae ab illorum temporibus per episcoporum successiones certissimas usque ad nostra et deinceps tempora perseverat et immolat Deo in corpore Christi sacrificium laudis (Cf. Ps 49, 14), ex quo Deus deorum locutus vocavit terram a solis ortu usque ad occasum (Ps 49, 1). Haec quippe Ecclesia est Israel secundum spiritum; a quo distinguitur ille Israel secundum carnem, qui serviebat in umbris sacrificiorum, quibus significabatur singulare sacrificium, quod nunc offert Israel secundum spiritum, cui dictum atque praedictum est: Audi, populus meus, et loquar tibi; Israel, et testificabor tibi (Ps 49, 7), et cetera, quae iam supra commemoravi. De huius enim domo non accipit vitulos neque de gregibus eius hircos (Cf. Ps 49, 9). Iste immolat Deo sacrificium laudis non secundum ordinem Aaron, sed secundum ordinem Melchisedec (Cf. Ps 109, 4-6; Hebr 5, 6). Quod in eo psalmo positum est, quem Dominus Iesus in Evangelio de se conscriptum esse testatur quaerens a Iudaeis respondentibus Christum filium esse David, quod solum de illo carnaliter noverant, quomodo eum David in spiritu dixerit Dominum. Tunc enim huius psalmi commemoravit exordium: Dixit Dominus Domino meo: Sede a dextris meis, donec ponam inimicos tuos scabellum pedum tuorum (Mt 22, 44; Ps 109, 1.4). Ibi quippe et hoc dictum est: Iuravit Dominus, et non paenitebit eum: Tu es sacerdos in aeternum secundum ordinem Melchisedec (Ps 109, 4; Hebr 5, 6). Noverunt qui legunt, quid protulerit Melchisedec, quando benedixit Abraham (Cf. Gen 14, 18); et si iam sunt participes eius, vident tale sacrificium nunc offerri Deo toto orbe terrarum. Dei autem iuratio incredulorum est increpatio. Et quod Deum non paenitebit, significatio est quia hoc sacerdotium non mutabit. Mutavit quippe sacerdotium secundum ordinem Aaron. Unde alius propheta dicit ad eum qui carnaliter est Israel: Non est mihi voluntas in vobis, dicit Dominus omnipotens, et hostiam non accipiam de manibus vestris (Mal. 1, 10). Ecce quod est secundum ordinem Aaron. Cur autem hoc non accipiat, addit et dicit: Quia ab ortu solis usque ad occasum glorificatum est nomen meum in Gentibus et in omni loco incensum offertur nomini meo et hostia pura; quia magnum est nomen meum in Gentibus, dicit Dominus omnipotens (Mal 1, 10-11). Ecce quod est secundum ordinem Melchisedec. Incensum enim quod est Graece
sicut exponit Iohannes in Apocalypsi, orationes sunt sanctorum (Apoc 5, 8). Deus quippe ille, sicut canitur in psalmo, qui vocavit terram a solis ortu usque ad occasum, cui terrae id est cui populo diffuso a solis ortu usque ad occasum diceret: Non accipiam de domo tua vitulos; immola Deo sacrificium laudis (Ps 49, 1. 9. 14). Ipse per hunc prophetam quod certissime futurum erat iam velut factum praedicans ait: Ab ortu solis usque ad occasum glorificatum est nomen meum in Gentibus et in omni loco incensum offertur nomini meo et hostia pura; quia magnum est nomen meum in Gentibus (Mal 1, 11).
sicut exponit Iohannes in Apocalypsi, orationes sunt sanctorum (Apoc 5, 8). Deus quippe ille, sicut canitur in psalmo, qui vocavit terram a solis ortu usque ad occasum, cui terrae id est cui populo diffuso a solis ortu usque ad occasum diceret: Non accipiam de domo tua vitulos; immola Deo sacrificium laudis (Ps 49, 1. 9. 14). Ipse per hunc prophetam quod certissime futurum erat iam velut factum praedicans ait: Ab ortu solis usque ad occasum glorificatum est nomen meum in Gentibus et in omni loco incensum offertur nomini meo et hostia pura; quia magnum est nomen meum in Gentibus (Mal 1, 11).
20. 39. To be sure, this man set down testimonies from apocryphal writings, which were composed under the names of the apostles Andrew and John. If these were theirs, they would have been received by the Church, which from their times, through most certain successions of bishops, persists up to our own and subsequent times and immolates to God, in the body of Christ, a sacrifice of praise (See Ps 50:14 (49:14)), from which the God of gods has spoken and called the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting (Ps 50:1 (49:1)). For this Church is Israel according to the spirit; from which is distinguished that Israel according to the flesh, which served in the shadows of sacrifices, by which was signified the singular sacrifice which Israel according to the spirit now offers—to which it was said and foretold: Hear, my people, and I will speak to you; Israel, and I will testify to you (Ps 50:7 (49:7)), and the rest which I have already recalled above. For from this Israel's house he does not take calves, nor he-goats from its flocks (See Ps 50:9 (49:9)). This one immolates to God a sacrifice of praise, not according to the order of Aaron but according to the order of Melchizedek (See Ps 110:4–6 (109:4–6); Heb 5:6). This is set down in that psalm which the Lord Jesus in the Gospel testifies was written about him, asking of the Jews—who answered that Christ was the son of David, which alone they knew of him carnally—how David in the spirit called him Lord. For then he recalled the beginning of this psalm: The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand, until I place your enemies as a footstool for your feet (Mt 22:44; Ps 110:1, 4 (109:1, 4)). For there too this was said: The Lord has sworn, and it will not repent him: You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek (Ps 110:4 (109:4); Heb 5:6). Those who read know what Melchizedek brought forth when he blessed Abraham (See Gen 14:18); and if they are now partakers of him, they see that such a sacrifice is now offered to God in the whole world. But God's swearing is the rebuke of unbelievers. And that it will not repent God is a signification that he will not change this priesthood. For he did change the priesthood according to the order of Aaron. Hence another prophet says to the one who is Israel carnally: I have no pleasure in you, says the Lord almighty, and I will not accept an offering from your hands (Mal 1:10). Behold, this is what is according to the order of Aaron. But why he does not accept this, he adds and says: Because from the rising of the sun to its setting my name is glorified among the gentiles, and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure offering; because great is my name among the gentiles, says the Lord almighty (Mal 1:10–11). Behold, this is what is according to the order of Melchizedek. For the incense which in Greek is
—as John explains in the Apocalypse—is the prayers of the saints (Rev 5:8). For that God, as is sung in the psalm, who called the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting, to which earth—that is, to which people, spread from the rising of the sun to its setting—would say: I will not take calves from your house; offer to God a sacrifice of praise (Ps 50:1, 9, 14 (49:1, 9, 14)). He himself, through this prophet, foretelling as though already done what was most certainly to be, says: From the rising of the sun to its setting my name is glorified among the gentiles, and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure offering; because great is my name among the gentiles (Mal 1:11).
LawProph.1.20.39—as John explains in the Apocalypse—is the prayers of the saints (Rev 5:8). For that God, as is sung in the psalm, who called the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting, to which earth—that is, to which people, spread from the rising of the sun to its setting—would say: I will not take calves from your house; offer to God a sacrifice of praise (Ps 50:1, 9, 14 (49:1, 9, 14)). He himself, through this prophet, foretelling as though already done what was most certainly to be, says: From the rising of the sun to its setting my name is glorified among the gentiles, and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure offering; because great is my name among the gentiles (Mal 1:11).
20. 40. Non enim sicut hominem paenitet Deum; sed sicut Deum, quemadmodum non sicut homo irascitur nec sicut homo miseretur nec sicut homo zelat, sed omnia sicut Deus. Paenitentia Dei non est post errorem; ira Dei non habet perturbati animi ardorem; misericordia Dei non habet compatientis miserum cor, unde in latina lingua nomen accepit, zelus Dei non habet mentis livorem. Sed paenitentia Dei dicitur rerum in eius potestate constitutarum hominibus inopinata mutatio; ira Dei est vindicta peccati; misericordia Dei est bonitas opitulandi; zelus Dei est providentia, qua non sinit eos, quos subditos habet, impune amare quod prohibet. Unde iste qui tam loquaciter exagitavit Dei paenitentiam, discat primo vix inveniri aliquid, quod digne de Deo dici possit, sed plurima et paene omnia nos de illo dicere loquendi necessitate, quae magis homines ex hominibus metiuntur, sicut autem de illo intellegenda sunt, vix a paucis et spiritalibus intelleguntur. Propter quod providentissime Scriptura divina de illo ineffabili loquens ad quaedam etiam verba descendit, quae iam hominibus et ipsis carnalibus, cum de Deo sermo est, videntur absurda et indigna: ut, cum timentur ista sic accipi quomodo in hominibus solent, et discutiuntur quemadmodum de Deo bene accipi possint, ibi discatur etiam illa, quae humanis sensibus in eisdem scripturis Deo digna videbantur, non secundum hominum mores intellegi vel credi oportere. Cito enim videtur paenitentia, sicut ab hominibus agitur, non cadere in Deum, sed non cito videtur etiam misericordia, sicut homines miserentur, non cadere in Deum. Ex illo ergo quod requirendum fatetur, discit homo et hoc requirere, quod iam sufficere arbitrabatur. Sic ergo quando eum paenitet, non mutatur et mutat; sicut quando irascitur, non movetur et vindicat; et quando miseretur, non dolet et liberat; et quando zelat, non cruciatur et cruciat.
20. 40. For it does not repent God as it does a man, but as it does God; just as he is not angry as a man is, nor merciful as a man is, nor jealous as a man is, but all as God is. The repentance of God is not after error; the anger of God does not have the heat of a disturbed mind; the mercy of God does not have a heart that suffers with the wretched—whence in the Latin tongue it received its name—the jealousy of God does not have the envy of the mind. But the repentance of God is the change, unexpected to human beings, of things set in his power; the anger of God is the vengeance of sin; the mercy of God is the goodness of helping; the jealousy of God is the providence by which he does not allow those whom he has as subjects to love with impunity what he forbids. Hence let this man, who so loquaciously stirred up the repentance of God, first learn that scarcely anything is found which can be worthily said of God, but that we say very many things—indeed almost all—about him by the necessity of speech, which human beings measure rather from human beings, while how they are to be understood of him is understood scarcely by a few and spiritual people. On account of which divine Scripture, most providently speaking of that ineffable one, descends even to certain words which to human beings, and to carnal ones at that, when there is a discourse about God, seem absurd and unworthy: so that, when it is feared that these are taken in the way they are wont to be in human beings, and it is discussed how they can be well taken of God, there may there be learned also that those things which to human senses seemed in those same Scriptures worthy of God ought not to be understood or believed according to human customs. For it quickly seems that repentance, as it is enacted by human beings, does not befall God; but it does not quickly seem that mercy too, as human beings are merciful, does not befall God. From that, then, which he confesses must be inquired into, a man learns to inquire also into this, which he was already supposing to suffice. So, then, when it repents him, he is not changed yet changes; just as when he is angry, he is not moved yet avenges; and when he is merciful, he does not grieve yet delivers; and when he is jealous, he is not tormented yet torments.
LawProph.1.20.4020. 41. Numquid autem in libris Testamenti Novi desunt haec verba, quae si accipiantur sicut in hominibus intellegi solent, nullo modo congruunt divinitati et gravem pariunt offensionem? Cum enim de Christo verissime dicat evangelista, quod non opus habebat ut ei quisquam testimonium perhiberet de homine (Io 2, 25); ipse enim sciebat quid esset in homine, cur ipse quibusdam dicit: Nescio vos (Mt 25, 12)? Ipsos denique sanctos suos cum praescierit et elegerit ante mundi constitutionem (Cf. Rom 8, 29), quid est quod dicit Apostolus: Nunc autem cognoscentes Deum, immo cogniti a Deo (Gal 4, 9); quasi nunc eos cognoverit, quos antea nesciebat? Quod vero ait: Spiritum nolite extinguere (1 Thess 5, 19), tamquam extingui Spiritus possit, quis ferat nisi qui ea prudenter intellegit? Nonne in Evangelio scriptum est: Qui credit in Filium, habet vitam aeternam; qui autem incredulus est Filio, non videbit vitam, sed ira Dei manet super eum (Io 3, 36)? Calumnietur ergo et huic verbo iste blasphemus et dicat: Qualis est qui irascitur cum scriptum sit: Iracundia viri iustitiam Dei non operatur (Iac 1, 20)? Calumnietur isto modo et Apostolo dicenti: Numquid iniquus Deus, qui infert iram? (Rom 3, 5) Iam porro si quisquam diceret: Confundetur Christus et hoc eo tempore, quo iudicaturus est vivos et mortuos, quis eum christianus patienter audiret? Tamen in Evangelio: Qui me, inquit, confusus fuerit et mea verba in generatione ista adultera et peccatrice, et Filius hominis confundetur eum cum venerit in gloria Patris sui cum angelis sanctis (Mc 8, 38). Cur autem orantes dicimus: Sanctificetur nomen tuum (Mt 6, 9), si semper est sanctum, nisi quia verum est et quod scriptum est de quibusdam, quia polluerunt nomen Domini Dei sui (Ez 43, 8)? Et cur dictum est Domino: Memento mei, cum veneris in regnum tuum (Lc 23, 42), si nihil obliviscitur, nisi quia non insipienter, sed intellegenter ei dicitur: Oblivisceris inopiam nostram et tribulationem nostram (Ps 43, 24)? Ergo et scienter nescit; et quod semper scivit, aliquando cognoscit; et cum extinguitur a negantibus, inextinguibilis permanet; et tranquille irascitur; et confundi non potest, etiam quando confunditur; et nomen eius pollui non potest, etiam quando polluitur; et oblivisci non potest, etiam quando obliviscitur; et meminit, etiam quando admonetur. Sic est ineffabilis. Haec enim de illo dicuntur, de quo nihil ab homine vel homini dici satis digne et satis competenter potest. Quae cum ita sint, quis religiosus non istum exsufflet ut pulverem, quem proicit ventus a facie terrae (Ps 1, 4), qui tumens et elatus atque irruens in oculos infirmorum eosque perturbans videtur sibi aliquid dicere, arguendo verba in Vetere Testamento quae non intellegit, nec intuendo quae in Novo intellegit?
20. 41. But are these words lacking in the books of the New Testament—words which, if they are taken as they are wont to be understood in human beings, in no way befit the divinity and beget a grave offense? For while the evangelist says most truly of Christ that he had no need that anyone should bear witness to him about man (Jn 2:25)—for he himself knew what was in man—why does he himself say to certain people, I do not know you (Mt 25:12)? Finally, since he foreknew and chose his own saints before the foundation of the world (See Rom 8:29), what is it that the Apostle says, But now knowing God, or rather being known by God (Gal 4:9)—as though he now knew those whom before he did not know? But that he says, Do not quench the Spirit (1 Thess 5:19), as though the Spirit could be quenched—who would bear it but one who understands these things prudently? Is it not written in the Gospel: He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who is unbelieving toward the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God remains upon him (Jn 3:36)? Let this blasphemer therefore cavil at this word too and say: What sort of being is he who is angry, when it is written, The wrath of a man does not work the righteousness of God (Jas 1:20)? Let him cavil in this way also at the Apostle, who says: Is God unjust, who inflicts wrath? (Rom 3:5) Moreover, if anyone should say: Christ will be confounded—and that at the time when he is to judge the living and the dead—what Christian would patiently hear him? Yet in the Gospel he says: Whoever is confounded of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of man will be confounded also when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels (Mk 8:38). But why, when we pray, do we say, Hallowed be your name (Mt 6:9), if it is always holy, except because what is written of certain people is also true—that they polluted the name of the Lord their God (Ezek 43:8)? And why was it said to the Lord, Remember me when you come into your kingdom (Lk 23:42), if he forgets nothing, except because it is said to him not foolishly but understandingly, You forget our want and our tribulation (Ps 44:24 (43:24))? Therefore he both knowingly does not know; and what he has always known, he at some time comes to know; and when he is quenched by those who deny, he remains unquenchable; and he is tranquilly angry; and he cannot be confounded, even when he is confounded; and his name cannot be polluted, even when it is polluted; and he cannot forget, even when he forgets; and he remembers, even when he is reminded. Thus he is ineffable. For these things are said of him of whom nothing can be said by man or to man sufficiently worthily and sufficiently fittingly. Since these things are so, what devout person would not blow this man away like the dust which the wind casts from the face of the earth (Ps 1:4)—this man who, swelling and puffed up and rushing into the eyes of the weak and disturbing them, seems to himself to be saying something, by reproving words in the Old Testament which he does not understand, and by not regarding those in the New which he does understand?
LawProph.1.20.4120. 42. Hoc autem de paenitentia Dei, unde factum est ut loqueremur, cum commemoraremus prophetiam de Christo, ubi dictum est: Iuravit Dominus et non paenitebit eum, tu es sacerdos in aeternum, secundum ordinem Melchisedec (Ps 109, 4), ad commendandum sacrificium salutare, in quo pro nobis sacer sanguis effusus est, cuius umbrae fuerant sacrificia (Cf. Hebr 8, 5), quae de pecoribus immaculatis iussa sunt immolari (Cf. Lev 1, 3): hoc ergo de paenitentia Dei, ne sic eam putaret accipiendam, ut ex eo quod non intellegit in blasphemiarum latratus rabidus insaniret, habebat unde commoneretur in proximo. Ipse quippe commemoravit Deum dixisse: Paenitet me unxisse Saul in regem (1 Reg 15, 11). Hoc autem scriptum est Samueli sancto dictum fuisse, per quem Deus arguit Saulem, quod homini quem Deus occidi iusserat pepercisset, exhibens velut misericordiam contempta oboedientia; quasi vero melius nosset, quid de homine fieri debuerit, quam ille qui hominem fecit. Ubi quod saluberrimum est discimus, ut semper divinum praeceptum humanum in nobis vincat affectum. Idem tamen Samuel, cui dixerat Deus: Paenitet me unxisse Saul in regem, dicit evidenter Deum non paenitere. Nam ita scriptum est: Et factum est verbum Domini ad Samuel dicens: Paenitet me quod constituerim Saul in regem, quoniam aversus est a me et verba mea non custodivit: et paulo post Sauli dixit ipse Samuel: Disrupit Dominus regnum Israel de manu tua hodie et dabit illud proximo tuo bono super te et dividetur Israel in duo et non convertetur neque paenitebit eum, quoniam non est sicut homo, ut paeniteat eum (1 Reg 15, 10-11. 28, 29; cf. Num 23, 19). Ecce qui noverat intellegere Deum sine miseria miserantem, sine ira irascentem, sine zelo zelantem, sine oblivione obliviscentem, sine ignorantia nescientem, sine paenitentia paenitentem; non iste qui secundum verbum Dei non loquendo et Litteras eius non considerando et voces earum non advertendo factus est mutus latrator, caecus lector, surdus auditor.
20. 42. But on this matter of the repentance of God—whence it came about that we should speak of it, when we were recalling the prophecy about Christ, where it was said, The Lord has sworn and it will not repent him, you are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek (Ps 110:4 (109:4)), to commend the saving sacrifice in which the sacred blood was poured out for us, of which sacrifice the sacrifices were shadows (See Heb 8:5) that were commanded to be immolated from unblemished cattle (See Lev 1:3)—on this matter, then, of the repentance of God, lest he should think it must be so taken that, from what he does not understand, he might rage rabid into the barkings of blasphemies, he had close at hand something by which he might be admonished. For he himself recalled that God had said, It repents me that I anointed Saul as king (1 Sam 15:11). But this is written to have been said to holy Samuel, through whom God rebuked Saul because he had spared a man whom God had ordered to be killed, displaying a kind of mercy by despising obedience; as though he knew better what ought to be done with the man than the one who made the man. Here we learn what is most wholesome: that the divine precept should always conquer in us the human affection. Yet the same Samuel, to whom God had said, It repents me that I anointed Saul as king, says evidently that it does not repent God. For it is written thus: And the word of the Lord came to Samuel, saying: It repents me that I appointed Saul as king, since he has turned away from me and has not kept my words: and a little after, Samuel himself said to Saul: The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from your hand today and will give it to your neighbor, better than you, and Israel will be divided in two and will not turn back, nor will it repent him, since he is not like a man, that it should repent him (1 Sam 15:10–11; 15:28–29; see Num 23:19). Behold one who knew how to understand God being merciful without misery, angry without anger, jealous without jealousy, forgetful without forgetfulness, ignorant without ignorance, repentant without repentance; not this man, who, by not speaking according to the word of God, and not considering his writings, and not heeding their voices, has become a mute barker, a blind reader, a deaf hearer.
LawProph.1.20.4220. 43. " Obliviosus ", inquit, " Deus et emortua memoria arcum posuit in nubibus, qui iris dicitur, unde commoneatur non amplius humanum genus delere diluvio (Cf. Gen 9, 12-17), quid agat omnino nesciens, cui merito opus sit assiduo monitore ". Iste vero non memoria, sed anima mortua quid loquatur nesciens, si in rebus apertioribus calumniatur, quanto magis caligat in nubibus et delirare compellitur? Cui tamen ut cito respondeam ita dico Deum se admoneri voluisse, quamvis non sit oblitus, sicut Christus doceri se voluit, ubi Lazarus positus fuerit, quamvis non esset ignarus (Cf. Io 11, 34). Nolo enim dicere, quos arcus ille significet resplendens e nubibus fulgore et radiis luminis, quo roscida illustratur obscuritas, grata quodam modo confessione respondens, et quomodo Deus non perdat orbem diluvio spiritali, dum est eorum memor, quorum illuminatae nubes figuram gerunt, horum enim nomina scripta sunt in caelis (Cf. Lc 10, 20; Apoc 20, 12), ut memor sit eorum Pater qui est in caelis, quoniam non de suo lucere se sciunt, sed de sole iustitiae, sicut illae nubes de sole visibili. Sed ex illo quod commemoravi urgendus est, quomodo accipiat Dominum dicentem de Lazaro: Ubi posuistis eum? (Cf. Io 11, 34) Et locus ei, tamquam ignoret, ostenditur. Nisi enim aliquid eum ista, qua nesciens videbatur, inquisitione significasse fateamur, quomodo praedicamus Christum non solum scisse praesentia, verum etiam futura praescisse? Maxime quia iste in eam se praecipitavit mirabili caecitate sententiam, ut diceret: "Nemo nisi ignarus interrogat ". Ubi cogitare non potuit, quotiens Christus interrogaverit. Annon interrogat qui dicit: Quid vobis videtur de Christo? Cuius est filius? (Mt 22, 42) Quid hoc testimonio manifestius? Quod si nimium durus est, numquid etiam ibi negabit interrogasse Christum, ubi se ipse interrogare testatur dicens: Interrogabo vos et ego unum sermonem: quem si dixeritis mihi et ego vobis dicam, in qua potestate haec facio: baptisma Iohannis unde erat? E caelo an ex hominibus? (Mt 21, 24-25) Ubi nunc se abscondet loquacissimus contra Deum et desperatissimus disputator? Ubi est quod ait: " Nemo nisi ignarus interrogat "? Ecce Christus ignarus non est et tamen interrogat. His nempe oculis reprehendit Prophetarum Deum, quibus non videt Christum. Sed in talibus interrogationibus apertissime doctor est Christus. In his autem quando ait: Ubi posuistis eum? (Cf. Io 11, 34) Et: Quis me tetigit? (Lc 8, 45) Et si quid dixisse huiusmodi legitur, videtur doceri velle quod nescit et tamen scit. Sic ergo et in illis Libris Deus tamquam oblitus admonetur, sed tamen absit, ut quidquam unquam obliviscatur.
20. 43. "The forgetful God," he says, "and dead in memory, set a bow in the clouds, which is called the rainbow, that he might be reminded not to destroy the human race any further by a flood (See Gen 9:12–17)—not knowing at all what he is doing, one who deservedly needs a constant monitor." But this man, not in memory but dead in soul, not knowing what he says, if he cavils at more open matters, how much more does he grow dim in the clouds and is driven to rave? Yet, that I may answer him quickly, I say thus: that God willed to be reminded, although he had not forgotten, just as Christ willed to be taught where Lazarus had been laid, although he was not ignorant of it (See Jn 11:34). For I do not wish to say what that bow signifies, shining from the clouds with brightness and rays of light, by which the dewy darkness is illumined, answering in a kind of pleasing confession; and how God does not destroy the world by a spiritual flood, while he is mindful of those whose figure the illumined clouds bear—for the names of these are written in heaven (See Lk 10:20; Rev 20:12), that the Father who is in heaven may be mindful of them, since they know that they shine not from their own light but from the sun of righteousness, as those clouds shine from the visible sun. But from what I have recalled he must be pressed: how he understands the Lord saying about Lazarus, Where have you laid him? (See Jn 11:34) And the place is shown to him, as though he did not know. For unless we acknowledge that he signified something by that inquiry in which he seemed not to know, how do we preach that Christ not only knew present things but also foreknew future ones? Especially since this man hurled himself, by a marvelous blindness, into this opinion, that he said: "No one but one who is ignorant asks a question." Here he could not consider how often Christ asked questions. Does he not ask a question who says, What do you think about Christ? Whose son is he? (Mt 22:42) What is more manifest than this testimony? But if he is too obstinate, will he deny even there that Christ asked a question, where he himself testifies that he asks, saying: I too will ask you one word: which, if you tell me, I also will tell you by what power I do these things: the baptism of John, whence was it? From heaven or from men? (Mt 21:24–25) Where now will he hide himself, this most loquacious and most desperate disputant against God? Where is what he says, "No one but one who is ignorant asks a question"? Behold, Christ is not ignorant, and yet he asks. With these eyes, indeed, he reproaches the God of the Prophets—the eyes with which he does not see Christ. But in such questions Christ is most openly a teacher. But in these, when he says, Where have you laid him? (See Jn 11:34) And, Who touched me? (Lk 8:45) And whatever of this kind is read to have been said, he seems to wish to be taught what he does not know, and yet he knows. So, then, in those books too, God, as though forgetful, is reminded; but yet far be it that he should ever forget anything.
LawProph.1.20.4320. 44. Quid illud ipsum quod dixit Dominus discipulis suis: Gaudete, quia nomina vestra scripta sunt in caelis (Cf. Lc 10, 20; Cf. Apoc 20, 12); nonne videtur tamquam ex illo arcu, qui refulget ex nubibus, velut quibusdam in caelo Deus litteris admoneri? Nisi haec pie accipiantur, donec fides impetret ut intellegantur, nonne ut fabulosa ridentur? Quibus ridentibus, nisi insipientibus et eo ipso, quo sapientes sibi videntur, magis magisque dementibus? quis enim cogitat, quomodo ad memoriam Dei scribantur in caelis sequentes Dominum, derelinquentes autem Dominum scribantur in terra, de quibus propheta Ieremias dicit: Universi qui derelinquunt te confundantur; recedentes super terram scribantur (Ier 17, 13)? Quos bene intellegitur significasse Iesus, quando Iudaei victi atque confusi, cum audissent: Qui sine peccato est, prior in illam lapidem iaciat, unus post alterum recesserunt. Tunc autem ille ostendens de quo numero essent digito scribebat in terra (Cf. Io 8, 7-9).
20. 44. What of that very thing which the Lord said to his disciples: Rejoice, because your names are written in heaven (See Lk 10:20; see Rev 20:12); does it not seem that, as though from that bow which shines back from the clouds, God is reminded as though by certain letters in heaven? Unless these things are taken devoutly, until faith obtains that they be understood, are they not laughed at as fabulous? By whom laughed at, except by the foolish, and by that very thing in which they seem to themselves wise becoming more and more demented? For who considers how those who follow the Lord are written in heaven to God's memory, while those who forsake the Lord are written on the earth, of whom the prophet Jeremiah says: All who forsake you will be confounded; those who depart will be written on the earth (Jer 17:13)? Whom Jesus is well understood to have signified when the Jews, conquered and confounded, having heard, Let him who is without sin first cast a stone at her, withdrew one after another. But he then, showing of what number they were, was writing with his finger on the earth (See Jn 8:7–9).
LawProph.1.20.4421. 45. " Si putamus, inquit, merito conversationis suae homines diluvii excepisse sententiam et Noe iustum ad reparationem creaturae melioris esse servatum (Cf. Gen 6-9), cur exinde peiores oriuntur et in eodem actu vitae sordentis humani generis etiam nunc nativitas revolvitur "? Ita hoc dicit, tamquam vixerit cum eis qui diluvio perierunt et inde noverit, quod nunc peiores oriuntur. Sed sive in peiore sive in eodem sive in meliore actu post diluvium genus versetur humanum, puto Dei dimittendum esse iudicio, qui novit retribuere unicuique secundum merita eius, non huic cani rabido adversus Dominum suum latranti vel asino stulto adversus stimulum calcitranti. Apostolus clamat: O altitudo divitiarum sapientiae et scientiae Dei! quam inscrutabilia sunt iudicia eius et investigabiles viae eius! quis enim cognovit sensum Domini aut quis consiliarius eius fuit? (Rom 11, 33-34) Et iste illi, cui nullus est consiliarius, audet esse adversarius. Quid autem interest morituris cunctis, quantum ad mortem attinet corporis, utrum singillatim an simul omnes pariterque moriantur, nisi quod cum singuli moriuntur, et omnes mortem et omnes de mortuis patiuntur dolorem; cum autem simul universos rapit unus interitus, saltem nemini relinquitur luctus? Verum etiam altius in illo diluvio consilium Dei fuit, quam cor infidelium vel novit vel capit. Sed nolo me, apostolum Petrum potius audiat iste dicentem: In diebus Noe cum fabricaretur arca, octo animas salvas factas per aquam; quod et vos, inquit, simili forma baptisma salvos facit, non carnis depositio sordium, sed conscientiae bonae interrogatio in Deum per resurrectionem Iesu Christi (1 Pt 3, 20-21). Ecce habet expositum diluvii sacramentum. Ubi propterea est additum, per resurrectionem Iesu Christi, ut diem intellegeremus octavum; quod significavit in arca numerus hominum: octavo enim die, hoc est, post septimum sabbati Dominus resurrexit. Sic illa quae gesta commemorantur, si quis intellegat, etiam prophetiae fuerunt. Sed iste praeter arcam, id est, praeter Ecclesiam constitutus, submersus est diluvio, non ablutus.
21. 45. "If we suppose," he says, "that human beings received the sentence of the flood for the merit of their conduct, and that the righteous Noah was saved for the restoration of a better creation (See Gen 6–9), why thereafter are worse ones born, and why even now is the birth of the human race rolled round again into the same act of a filthy way of life?" He says this as though he had lived with those who perished in the flood and from there knew that worse ones are now born. But whether the human race after the flood is engaged in a worse, or the same, or a better act, I think it should be left to the judgment of God, who knows how to repay each according to his merits—not to this rabid dog barking against his Lord, nor to this foolish ass kicking against the goad. The Apostle cries out: O depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How inscrutable are his judgments and unsearchable his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor? (Rom 11:33–34) And this man dares to be an adversary to him to whom there is no counselor. But what difference does it make to all who are going to die, as far as concerns the death of the body, whether they all die one by one or together and equally—except that, when they die one by one, all suffer both death and grief over the dead; but when one destruction snatches all together, grief is at least left to no one? But indeed there was in that flood a counsel of God deeper than the heart of unbelievers either knows or grasps. But I do not want—let this man rather hear the apostle Peter saying: In the days of Noah, when the ark was being built, eight souls were saved through water; and that, he says, in a like form, baptism saves you—not the putting off of the filth of the flesh, but the appeal of a good conscience to God through the resurrection of Jesus Christ (1 Pet 3:20–21). Behold, he has the mystery of the flood explained. Where for this reason there is added, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, so that we might understand the eighth day, which the number of human beings in the ark signified: for on the eighth day, that is, after the seventh of the Sabbath, the Lord rose again. Thus those things which are recalled as done were also, if one understands, prophecies. But this man, established outside the ark—that is, outside the Church—was submerged by the flood, not washed.
LawProph.1.21.4522. 46. De testimonio quoque Isaiae prophetae calumniatur atque blasphemat eo, quod dixerit: " Filios genui et exaltavi, ipsi autem me spreverunt; et eosdem paulo post appellaverit semen pessimum (Cf. Isa 1, 2-4), tamquam se ostendens genitorem malorum, cuius filii sunt semen pessimum ": nesciens ob hoc eos dici semen pessimum, quoniam gratiae Dei, qua filii facti erant, peccando degeneres exstiterunt, eorum filii facti, quorum imitatores esse voluerunt. Unde illis alio loco dicitur: Pater tuus Amorrhaeus et mater tua Cethaea (Ez 16, 3), quarum Gentium sunt impietatem malitiamque sectati, ex quibus tamen carnis originem non ducebant. Sed solvat iste quaestionem evangelicam, ubi Dominus dicit: Si vos cum sitis mali, nostis bona data dare filiis vestris, quanto magis Pater vester qui in caelis est dabit bona petentibus se? (Lc 11, 13) Dicat quemadmodum sit bonus Deus malorum pater; utrumque enim Veritas dixit. Annon erant mali quibus ait: Si ergo vos cum sitis mali (Lc 11, 13)? Annon habebant Deum bonum patrem quibus ait: Quanto magis Pater vester qui in caelis est, dabit bona petentibus se? (Lc 11, 13) Porro si mali appellati sunt propter peccata, sine quibus non est in hac infirmitate mortalium quorumlibet etiam vita iustorum, quanto convenientius semen pessimum diceretur, quod nasceretur impia voluntate et moribus exsecrabilibus pullularet?
22. 46. He also cavils and blasphemes concerning the testimony of the prophet Isaiah, in that he said: "I have begotten and exalted sons, but they have spurned me; and a little after he called these same ones a worst seed (See Isa 1:2–4), as though showing himself the begetter of the evil, whose sons are a worst seed"—not knowing that they are called a worst seed for this reason: because, by sinning, they became degenerate from the grace of God by which they had been made sons, becoming the sons of those whose imitators they wished to be. Hence it is said to them in another place: Your father is the Amorite and your mother the Hittite (Ezek 16:3)—nations whose impiety and malice they followed, though they did not draw their fleshly origin from them. But let this man resolve the gospel question, where the Lord says: If you, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him? (Lk 11:13) Let him say how God is the good father of the evil; for the Truth said both. Were they not evil to whom he said, If, then, you, being evil (Lk 11:13)? Did they not have God as a good father, to whom he said, How much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him (Lk 11:13)? Moreover, if they were called evil on account of sins—without which, in this weakness of mortals, even the life of any of the righteous does not exist—how much more fittingly would that be called a worst seed which was born of an impious will and sprouted up with execrable morals?
LawProph.1.22.4622. 47. Sed " hunc ", inquit, " Deum Dominus Christus appellavit arborem malam facientem fructus malos ". Immo vero huius talia sentientis tamquam malae arboris iste ipse sermo blasphemus fructus est malus. Nam hominem malum dixisse Dominum arborem malam, cuius fructus mali essent opera mala, et hominem bonum arborem bonam, cuius fructus boni essent opera bona (Cf. Mt 7, 15-20), id est, ipsas hominum voluntates vel malam mali hominis vel bonam boni hominis diversas esse arbores diversos fructus ferentes satis evidenter ipse testatur dicens: Bonus homo de bono thesauro cordis sui profert bona, et malus homo de malo thesauro cordis sui profert mala (Mt 12, 35). Quomodo autem diceret: Aut facite arborem bonam et fructum eius bonum aut facite arborem malam et fructum eius malum (Mt 12, 33), nisi homo posset nunc in hoc, nunc in illud mutata voluntate converti?
22. 47. But "this God," he says, "the Lord Christ called a bad tree making bad fruits." On the contrary, this very blasphemous discourse of this man, who thinks such things, is, as it were, the bad fruit of a bad tree. For that the Lord called a bad man a bad tree, whose bad fruits were bad works, and a good man a good tree, whose good fruits were good works (See Mt 7:15–20)—that is, that the very wills of human beings, whether the bad will of a bad man or the good will of a good man, are different trees bearing different fruits—he himself testifies clearly enough, saying: A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil things (Mt 12:35). But how would he say, Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad (Mt 12:33), unless a man could be converted, by a changed will, now into this, now into that?
LawProph.1.22.4723. 48. " Sed ipse Deus ", inquit, " per eumdem prophetam fatetur et dicit: Ego sum Deus faciens bona et creans mala (Isa 45, 7) ". Ita plane: ipse est enim Deus, de quo dicit Apostolus: Vides ergo bonitatem et severitatem Dei (Rom 11, 22). Haec autem severitas eius damnabilibus mala est, quia malum illis damnationis importat. Nam quia iusta est, alio modo reperitur bona; omne enim iustum bonum. Quam vero eleganter sibi videtur iste verba discutere atque discernere nesciens quid loquatur? Quandoquidem hoc ipsum, quod ita posuit hoc testimonium, ut non diceretur: faciens bona et mala aut creans bona et mala aut creans bona et faciens mala, sed: Faciens bona et creans mala (Isa 45, 7), vult vertere in crimen et conatur ostendere quod fit forinsecus fieri, quod autem creatur, apud ipsum esse creatorem atque inde procedere, ut videlicet Deus Prophetarum tamquam extranei a se boni factor aliquando fuisse videatur, creator autem mali tamquam natura malus de se ipso proferens quod creavit. Quae verba si ex consuetudine consideremus locutionis humanae, et fieri et creari, non solum filii quos de semetipso quisque generat, verum etiam magistratus dicuntur atque urbes et quaeque alia, quae non exeunt de gignente, sed forinsecus fiunt. Si autem quomodo Scripturae sanctae, quibus iste insidiatur, loqui soleant, perscrutemur, aut hoc est facere quod creare, a quo tamen distinguitur gignere, et variandi verbi causa, non ad aliquam rerum differentiam dici potuit: Faciens bona et creans mala, cum dici etiam posset, creans bona et faciens mala; aut si ullam voluisset propheticus Spiritus hic esse distantiam, multo accommodatius sic acciperentur haec verba, ut intellegeremus id fieri, quod si non fieret, omnino non esset, creari autem ex eo quod erat condi aliquid atque constitui, sicut diximus creari magistratus atque urbes. Nam et illi ex his, qui iam homines erant, constituuntur in honoribus, cum magistratus creantur; et ligna et lapides, quibus construuntur urbes, utique iam erant, sed nondum in illam rerum faciem, quam videmus in urbibus, quodam ordine et compositione venerant, quod cum fit creari urbes dicuntur. Quod enim Graeci appellant
, hoc nostri aliquando creare, aliquando constituere, aliquando condere interpretantur, quod saepissime idem significat in illis Litteris, quod est facere. Nam et fecit Deus hominem ad imaginem Dei (Sap 2, 23; Gen 1, 27) et Deus creavit hominem inexterminabilem (Sap 2, 23), legimus; et si aliquando cum aliqua differentia dicitur, hoc rectius potest interesse quod dixi, ut facere sit quod omnino non erat, creare autem ex eo quod iam erat ordinando aliquid constituere. Ideoque hoc loco dictus est Deus creans mala, quoniam peccantibus ea convertit in malum dispositione severitatis suae, quae bonitatis eius largitate bona facta sunt. Unde dicit apostolus Paulus: Christi bonus odor sumus in omni loco et in his qui salvi fiunt et in his qui pereunt. Quibusdam quidem odor vitae in vitam, quibusdam vero odor mortis in mortem. Sed cum continuo sequatur et dicat: Et ad haec quis idoneus? (2 Cor 2, 15-16) Nonne importuni quodam modo sumus ingerere ista carnalibus non studiosis, sed contentiosis nullo modo idoneis ea capere, quae utinam saltem desinerent carpere?
, hoc nostri aliquando creare, aliquando constituere, aliquando condere interpretantur, quod saepissime idem significat in illis Litteris, quod est facere. Nam et fecit Deus hominem ad imaginem Dei (Sap 2, 23; Gen 1, 27) et Deus creavit hominem inexterminabilem (Sap 2, 23), legimus; et si aliquando cum aliqua differentia dicitur, hoc rectius potest interesse quod dixi, ut facere sit quod omnino non erat, creare autem ex eo quod iam erat ordinando aliquid constituere. Ideoque hoc loco dictus est Deus creans mala, quoniam peccantibus ea convertit in malum dispositione severitatis suae, quae bonitatis eius largitate bona facta sunt. Unde dicit apostolus Paulus: Christi bonus odor sumus in omni loco et in his qui salvi fiunt et in his qui pereunt. Quibusdam quidem odor vitae in vitam, quibusdam vero odor mortis in mortem. Sed cum continuo sequatur et dicat: Et ad haec quis idoneus? (2 Cor 2, 15-16) Nonne importuni quodam modo sumus ingerere ista carnalibus non studiosis, sed contentiosis nullo modo idoneis ea capere, quae utinam saltem desinerent carpere?
23. 48. "But God himself," he says, "through the same prophet confesses and says: I am the God who makes good things and creates evils (Isa 45:7)." Quite so: for he is the God of whom the Apostle says, You see therefore the goodness and the severity of God (Rom 11:22). But this severity of his is evil to the damnable, because it brings them the evil of damnation. For because it is just, it is found good in another way; for everything just is good. But how elegantly this man thinks he sifts and distinguishes words, not knowing what he says! Since this very thing—that the testimony was so set down that it was not said, "making good things and evils," or "creating good things and evils," or "creating good things and making evils," but, Making good things and creating evils (Isa 45:7)—he wishes to turn into a charge, and tries to show that what is made is made externally, but that what is created is, in himself, the creator, and proceeds from him; so that, namely, the God of the Prophets might seem at some time to have been the maker of a good external to himself, but the creator of evil as being by nature evil, bringing forth from himself what he created. If we consider these words from the custom of human speech, both to be made and to be created are said not only of the sons whom anyone begets from himself, but also of magistrates and cities and whatever other things which do not come out of the begetter but are made externally. But if we examine how the holy Scriptures, at which this man lies in wait, are wont to speak, either to make is the same as to create—from which, however, to beget is distinguished—and for the sake of varying the word, not for any difference in things, it could be said, Making good things and creating evils, when it could also be said, "creating good things and making evils"; or, if the prophetic Spirit had wished there to be any distinction here, these words would much more fittingly be so taken that we should understand that to be made which, if it were not made, would simply not exist, but to be created that something be founded and established out of what already was, as we said that magistrates and cities are created. For both those men, from among those who were already human beings, are established in honors when magistrates are created; and the wood and stones from which cities are constructed already existed, surely, but had not yet come, by a certain order and arrangement, into that appearance of things which we see in cities, and when this happens cities are said to be created. For what the Greeks call
, our people sometimes render "to create," sometimes "to establish," sometimes "to found"—which very often signifies the same in those writings as does "to make." For we read both God made man to the image of God (Wis 2:23; Gen 1:27) and God created man imperishable (Wis 2:23); and if it is sometimes said with some difference, that distinction which I have stated can more rightly hold: that to make is what was not at all, but to create is to establish something out of what already was, by ordering it. And therefore in this place God was said to be creating evils, since for sinners he turns into an evil, by the disposition of his severity, the things which were made good by the bounty of his goodness. Hence the apostle Paul says: We are the good odor of Christ in every place, both among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. To some, indeed, an odor of life unto life, but to others an odor of death unto death. But since there immediately follows and he says, And for these things who is sufficient? (2 Cor 2:15–16)—are we not, in a way, importunate to thrust these things upon carnal people who are not studious but contentious, in no way fit to grasp the things which—would that they at least ceased to carp at!
LawProph.1.23.48, our people sometimes render "to create," sometimes "to establish," sometimes "to found"—which very often signifies the same in those writings as does "to make." For we read both God made man to the image of God (Wis 2:23; Gen 1:27) and God created man imperishable (Wis 2:23); and if it is sometimes said with some difference, that distinction which I have stated can more rightly hold: that to make is what was not at all, but to create is to establish something out of what already was, by ordering it. And therefore in this place God was said to be creating evils, since for sinners he turns into an evil, by the disposition of his severity, the things which were made good by the bounty of his goodness. Hence the apostle Paul says: We are the good odor of Christ in every place, both among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. To some, indeed, an odor of life unto life, but to others an odor of death unto death. But since there immediately follows and he says, And for these things who is sufficient? (2 Cor 2:15–16)—are we not, in a way, importunate to thrust these things upon carnal people who are not studious but contentious, in no way fit to grasp the things which—would that they at least ceased to carp at!
23. 49. Quantus quippe conflictus adversus Arianos fuerit excitatus, ne unigenitum Filium dicerent esse creaturam idem putantes creatum esse quod genitum, iste fortassis ignorat. Sed ut eius regula fallax atque distorta ex eodem prophetico et evangelico testimonio quod ipse posuit percussa frangatur, sic Deus loquitur per prophetam: Ego creans lucem et faciens tenebras, faciens pacem et creans mala (Isa 45, 7). Quod ipse nec totum nec sicut illic legitur posuit. Atque illud quidem facile dissimulandum est, quod pro pace posuit bona, quoniam pax bona est. Sed illud praetereundum non est, quia huius sententiae partem superiorem dolo potuit praeterire, ne diceret creans lucem, quia cum sit lux etiam confitente ipso utique bona, ab eo creatam noluit confiteri, quem non vult creare nisi mala. Magis ergo indifferenter id positum debemus accipere, creare et facere, distinctionis tamen, quam sibi iste fecit, regula fracta est, quoniam Deus Prophetarum, quem de verbo quod non intellegit culpat, ibi legitur creator bonorum, quod negat. Itemque ex Evangelio. Nempe nobis, tamquam plurimum suis partibus faveret, opposuit quod Dominus ait: Arbor bona bonos fructus facit, et arbor mala malos fructus facit (Mt 7, 17). Cur ergo non secundum istum creat dixit, non facit, si vera est eius differentia, qua facientem a creante distinguit dicens quod fit alienum esse a faciente, quoniam de foris accedit, quod autem nascitur, proprium eius esse qui generat? Hinc enim existimat Deum generatorem malorum, quia dictum est creans mala, putans, quod et Ariani putaverunt, in scripturis illis nihil interesse, utrum generari dicatur aliquid an creari, sed certe in eo, quod Dominus arborem bonam fructus bonos, malam malos non dixit creare, sed facere, videat iste suam regulam fractam et comprimat linguam. Quid enim stultius quam dicere Deum Prophetarum esse arborem malam et id velle intellegi in eo quod Dominus ait: Arbor mala fructus malos facit, et rursus dicere: " Non facit mala, sed creat; quia si faceret, aliena ab illo essent eique forinsecus accederent; cum vero creat, ipse illa de se ipso tamquam radicitus generat "? Non ergo de isto Deo Dominus ait: Arbor mala malos fructus facit, quoniam creat mala iste, non facit. Ecce qui audet accusare Prophetas, qui ex Evangelio productis a se testibus refragatur.
23. 49. For how great a conflict was stirred up against the Arians, lest they should say that the only-begotten Son is a creature—thinking that "created" was the same as "begotten"—this man perhaps does not know. But that his fallacious and distorted rule may be struck and broken by the very prophetic and gospel testimony which he himself set down, God speaks thus through the prophet: I, creating light and making darkness, making peace and creating evils (Isa 45:7). Which this man set down neither in full nor as it is read there. And that, indeed, must be easily passed over—that for "peace" he put good things, since peace is a good. But this must not be passed over: that he was able by guile to pass over the upper part of this sentence, so as not to say creating light, because, since light is—even by his own confession—surely a good, he was unwilling to confess it created by him whom he wishes to create nothing but evils. We ought, then, rather to take it that "create" and "make" are set down indifferently; yet the rule of the distinction which this man made for himself is broken, since the God of the Prophets, whom he blames over a word he does not understand, is there read to be the creator of good things, which he denies. And likewise from the Gospel. Indeed, as though he were favoring his own side greatly, he set against us what the Lord says: A good tree makes good fruits, and a bad tree makes bad fruits (Mt 7:17). Why, then, according to this man, did he say "makes," not "creates," if his distinction is true—the one by which he distinguishes the maker from the creator, saying that what is made is alien to the maker, since it accedes from without, but that what is born is the proper offspring of him who begets? For from this he supposes that God is the begetter of evils, because it was said creating evils, thinking—as the Arians too thought—that in those Scriptures it makes no difference whether something is said to be begotten or created. But surely in this, that the Lord said the good tree does not "create" but "make" good fruits, and the bad tree bad ones, let this man see his rule broken and restrain his tongue. For what is more foolish than to say that the God of the Prophets is a bad tree, and to want this understood in what the Lord says, A bad tree makes bad fruits, and again to say, "He does not make evils but creates them; for if he made them, they would be alien to him and would accede to him from without; but when he creates, he himself begets them, as it were by the root, from himself"? Therefore the Lord did not say of this God, A bad tree makes bad fruits, since, according to this man, God creates evils, he does not make them. Behold one who dares to accuse the Prophets, who is refuted by the witnesses he himself has brought forward from the Gospel.
LawProph.1.23.4924. 50. Item verba quaedam ex libro Deuteronomio velut impura exhorrescens impurus exagitat, quasi Deus verecundari debuerit, pudenda impiis irrogare vel praenuntiare tormenta, nec eo comminari modo, ut diceret: Quae mollis in vobis et tenera nimis fuerit, cuius experimentum non accepit pes eius ambulare super terram prae teneritudine et mollitie, zelabit oculo suo virum suum et filium suum et filiam suam et secundas suas et quod exierit per femora eius comedet (Deut 28, 56-57). Immo vero quanto est horribilius, tanto est terribilius. Neque enim a propheta monendo dictum est, sed minando, non ut haec homines facerent, sed ne illa facerent, quae sensus perversus exercet, et ad haec pervenirent, quae sensus humanus exhorret. Quis autem digne eloqui possit, quam sit mentis exsecrabilior foeditas, poenas exhorrere meritorum et merita non cavere poenarum? Dicat plane Spiritus sanctus intaminatus et intaminabilis, quod audire anima recusat immunda et esse non recusat immunda. Immunditiam quippe aversatur carnis offensis sensibus carnis, et immunditiam diligit suam extinctis sensibus cordis. Dicat haec Spiritus Dei et per horrorem talia mala patiendi incutiat timorem malefaciendi.
24. 50. Likewise, the impure man, shuddering at certain words from the book of Deuteronomy as though they were impure, stirs them up, as though God ought to have been ashamed to impose or to foretell shameful torments upon the impious, and ought not to have threatened in such a way as to say: The woman among you who is soft and too tender, whose foot has not attempted to walk upon the earth for tenderness and softness, will look with grudging eye upon her husband and her son and her daughter and her afterbirth and what comes out from between her thighs, and will eat it (Deut 28:56–57). On the contrary, the more horrible it is, the more terrible it is. For it was said by the prophet not by way of admonishing but of threatening, not that human beings should do these things, but that they should not do those things which a perverse sense practices, and arrive at these things which the human sense shudders at. But who could worthily express how much more execrable is the foulness of a mind that shudders at the punishments of misdeeds and does not beware of the misdeeds that earn punishments? Let the Holy Spirit, surely, untainted and untaintable, say what the unclean soul refuses to hear and does not refuse to be. For it turns away from uncleanness of the flesh by the offended senses of the flesh, and loves its own uncleanness with the senses of the heart extinguished. Let the Spirit of God say these things and, through the horror of suffering such evils, strike in the fear of doing evil.
LawProph.1.24.5024. 51. Idem namque Spiritus etiam per Apostolum loquens sensus impios non est verecundatus offendere, dum pios vellet instruere, ubi commemorata impietate quorundam, qua coluerunt et servierunt creaturae potius quam Creatori (Rom 1, 25), subiunxit atque ait: Propter hoc tradidit illos Deus in passiones ignominiae. Nam feminae eorum immutaverunt naturalem usum in eum usum, qui est contra naturam. Similiter autem et masculi relinquentes naturalem usum feminae, exarserunt in appetitum suum in invicem, masculi in masculos deformitatem operantes et mercedem mutuam quam oportuit erroris sui in semetipsis recipientes (Rom 1, 26-27). Si quisquam inimicus Apostoli vellet ex his verbis talia dicere, qualia dicit ex Librorum veterum quibusdam locis iste blasphemus, nonne haberet amplam materiam, in qua loquaciter insaniret, et quanto sibi videretur disertiora dicere, tanto detestabiliora maledicta iactaret, maxime quia dictum est: Mercedem mutuam quam oportuit erroris sui in semetipsis recipientes? Oportuisse quippe non est veritus dicere Apostolus, ut qui creaturae potius quam Creatori servierunt, erroris sui mercedem (Rom 1, 27) non inviti haec turpia patiendo, sed libenter faciendo reciperent; iudicio scilicet non alicuius hominis immundissimi, quem talia delectarent, sed iustissimi Dei, qui tradidit eos in passiones ignominiae, ut crimina criminibus vindicentur et supplicia peccantium non sint tormenta, sed incrementa vitiorum. Sapiens autem cum haec audit, ipsam magis in hac vita iram Dei timet, qua homo non patitur quod acriter dolet, sed facit quod turpiter libet; et eius, cui talia iudicia displicent, verba insana contemnit, quia et in ipso poenam pharaonis, hoc est indurati cordis (Cf. Ex 7, 13) agnoscit. Si enim quosdam, qui non probaverunt Deum habere in notitia, tradidit Deus in reprobam mentem, ut faciant quae non conveniunt (Rom 1, 28), quid mirum, si et istum qui divina blasphemat eloquia, tradidit Deus in reprobam mentem, ut dicat quae non conveniunt? Sic enim oportet haereses esse, ut probati (1 Cor 11, 19), inquit Apostolus, manifesti fiant in vobis. Sic vasa irae locis congruis et temporibus ordinantur, ut etiam de ipsis notas faciat Deus divitias gloriae suae in vasa misericordiae (Cf. Rom 9, 23), quae de massa eiusdem damnationis fiunt in honorem gratia illius, non meritis suis. Ille quippe donat prodesse nobis non solum quod docet veritas, verum etiam quod obstrepit vanitas, ut cum respondetur inquietissimae vanitati, auscultetur sincerissimae veritati.
24. 51. For the same Spirit, speaking also through the Apostle, was not ashamed to offend impious senses while wishing to instruct devout ones, where, having recalled the impiety of certain people by which they worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator (Rom 1:25), he added and said: For this reason God handed them over to passions of dishonor. For their women exchanged the natural use for that use which is against nature. And likewise the males too, abandoning the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust toward one another, males working shamefulness upon males and receiving in themselves the mutual recompense which was due for their error (Rom 1:26–27). If any enemy of the Apostle wished to say, from these words, such things as this blasphemer says from certain passages of the old books, would he not have ample material in which loquaciously to rage, and the more eloquent he seemed to himself, the more detestable would be the curses he hurled—especially because it was said, Receiving in themselves the mutual recompense which was due for their error? For the Apostle was not afraid to say that it was "due" that those who served the creature rather than the Creator should receive the recompense of their error (Rom 1:27) by suffering these shameful things not unwillingly but by doing them gladly—by the judgment, namely, not of some most unclean man whom such things would delight, but of the most just God, who handed them over to passions of dishonor, so that crimes might be avenged by crimes and the punishments of sinners might be not torments but increases of vices. But the wise man, when he hears these things, rather fears in this life that very wrath of God by which a man does not suffer what he bitterly grieves over but does what he shamefully delights in; and he despises the insane words of the one to whom such judgments are displeasing, because in this man too he recognizes the punishment of Pharaoh—that is, of a hardened heart (See Exod 7:13). For if God handed over certain people who did not approve of having God in their knowledge to a reprobate mind, so that they do what is not fitting (Rom 1:28), what wonder if he handed over this man too, who blasphemes the divine words, to a reprobate mind, so that he says what is not fitting? For thus it is fitting that there be heresies, so that the approved (1 Cor 11:19), says the Apostle, may be made manifest among you. Thus the vessels of wrath are arranged in fitting places and times, so that even from them God may make known the riches of his glory upon the vessels of mercy (See Rom 9:23), which are made out of the mass of the same damnation, unto honor by his grace, not by their own merits. For he grants that there profit us not only what truth teaches but also what vanity clamors against it, so that, when reply is made to most restless vanity, attention may be given to most sincere truth.
LawProph.1.24.5124. 52. De turpi maledicto arguit vanitas, sed turpe non esse, quibusdam rebus turpibus nominatis cavendam ostendere turpitudinem, misericors indicat veritas et vecors vincitur vanitas. Nam de turpi maledicto potest a verbosis impiis reprehendi et apostolus Paulus, ubi ait: Utinam et abscindantur qui vos conturbant (Gal 5, 12), quod etsi bene intellegentibus benedictio magis apparet, ut fiant spadones propter regnum caelorum (Cf. Sap 3, 14); potest tamen garrula caecitas etiam in Apostolo hoc reprehendere contendens, quod non debuerit rem honestam turpi verbo enuntiare. Possunt et ipsum Dominum, qui eiusdem continentiae donum commendans ait: Sunt qui se ipsos castraverunt propter regnum caelorum (Mt 19, 21). Legunt quippe isti litteriones -sic enim potius quam litterati appellandi sunt qui legendo litteratos nihil sapere didicerunt - legunt ergo apud Ciceronem tale aliquid, unde sibi videantur docte Christi verba culpare, perditi potius quam periti. Ille namque cum doceret, in translatione verborum obscoenitatem esse vitandam: Nolo, inquit, dici morte africani castratam esse rem publicam (CICERONE, De orat. 3, 41, 164). Sed si hoc verbum ipse quod vitari volebat, ut vitandum ostenderet, non vitavit, et quod dici noluit coactus est dicere, quanto magis res, quae verbo eodem recte significatur, ut ab audiente possit intellegi, suo verbo enuntiatur? Atque ut ad illud redeamus, quod iste in Deuteronomio (Cf. Deut 28, 56-57) reprehendit: Si Cicero vir eloquentissimus et verborum vigilantissimus appensor et mensor, quod dici noluit, dixit, ne diceretur, quanto melius Deus magis morum quam verborum pulchritudinem quaerens atque munditiam turpe aliquid non turpiter, sed minaciter dixit, ut hoc horreretur, ne aliud committeretur, propter quod ad illa quae audire horroris est, veniretur? Et tamen cum legitur, aures infidelitas claudit, avertit faciem, exasperat vultum, linguam vibrat, blasphemias iaculatur. Videte si non sunt isti ex illo genere hominum, qui loquente Christo de sacramento corporis et sanguinis sui dixerunt: Durus est hic sermo; quis potest eum audire? (Io 6, 60) Nisi quod excusabiliores sunt, qui verba divina quae non intellegebant, non in maledictione, sed in benedictione horribilia non ferebant. Mirum enim non est, si maledictum quando auditur horretur; nec exigendum est ut verbis non horrendis dicatur, quod ad hoc dicitur, ut ab exhorrente timeatur. Dominus autem talia dicebat, quae amari praeciperet, non timeri; et tamen quae infidelitas sufferat: Caro mea vere cibus est, et sanguis meus vere potus est; et: Nisi manducaveritis carnem meam et biberitis sanguinem meum, non habebitis vitam in vobis (Io 6. 56. 53)? Si ergo Dei sapientia verbis sacramento congruis pascens animam credentem non curavit insipientiam nauseantem, quanto magis eadem ipsa sapientia, ubi locus et tempus timoris fuerat, non amoris, salubrem volens importare terrorem non curavit insipientis errorem, quamvis eius praevideret horrorem? Quis autem istorum spiritalem novit horrere animae foeditatem, cum velut sua quadam fame atque egestate compellitur comedere, quae de suis carnalibus cogitationibus tamquam de femoribus exeunt (Cf. Deut 28, 56-57)? Nam illius maledicti, quod iste velut turpe reprehendit, rarus effectus est; vix enim aliquando tam magnum est flagellum famis, ut ad nefanda illa compellat; ista vero fame, qua miserorum animae inopes veritatis ea pro veritate comedunt, quae carnalibus sensibus pariunt, usquequaque plena sunt omnia, tanto infelicius, quanto nocet amplius et horretur minus.
24. 52. Vanity reproaches a shameful curse; but that it is not shameful—by naming certain shameful things, to show that a shamefulness must be avoided—merciful truth declares, and senseless vanity is conquered. For concerning a shameful curse even the apostle Paul can be reprehended by verbose impious men, where he says, Would that those who are disturbing you might even be cut off (Gal 5:12)—which, even though to those who understand well it appears rather a blessing, that they might become eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven (See Wis 3:14), garrulous blindness can nevertheless reprehend even in the Apostle, contending that he ought not to have stated an honorable matter with a shameful word. They can reprehend even the Lord himself, who, commending the gift of the same continence, says: There are those who have castrated themselves for the kingdom of heaven (Mt 19:12). For these little scribblers—for so, rather than learned men, are they to be called who by reading have learned to be learned men knowing nothing—these, then, read in Cicero something of the sort by which they think they learnedly blame the words of Christ, ruined rather than skilled. For he, when teaching that obscenity must be avoided in the figurative use of words, says: I do not want it said that by the death of Africanus the republic was castrated (Cicero, De oratore 3.41.164). But if he did not himself avoid the very word he wished to be avoided—so as to show it must be avoided—and was compelled to say what he did not want said, how much more is a thing which is rightly signified by that same word, so that it can be understood by the hearer, stated by its own word? And, to return to what this man reprehends in Deuteronomy (See Deut 28:56–57): if Cicero, a most eloquent man and a most vigilant weigher and measurer of words, said what he did not want said, in order that it should not be said, how much better did God, seeking the beauty and cleanness of morals rather than of words, say something shameful not shamefully but threateningly, so that this might be shuddered at, lest something else be committed, on account of which one would come to those things which it is a horror to hear? And yet, when it is read, unbelief closes its ears, turns away its face, hardens its countenance, darts its tongue, hurls blasphemies. See whether these people are not of that kind of men who, when Christ was speaking of the sacrament of his body and blood, said: This is a hard saying; who can hear it? (Jn 6:60) Except that more excusable are those who could not bear the divine words they did not understand as horrible—not in a curse, but in a blessing. For it is no wonder if a curse is shuddered at when it is heard; nor is it to be required that what is said for this end—that it may be feared by one who shudders—be said in words not to be shuddered at. But the Lord was saying such things as he commanded to be loved, not feared; and yet such as unbelief cannot bear: My flesh is truly food, and my blood is truly drink; and, Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you will not have life in you (Jn 6:56, 53)? If, then, the wisdom of God, feeding the believing soul with words fitting for the sacrament, took no heed of the nauseating folly, how much more did that same wisdom, where there had been a place and time for fear, not for love, wishing to bring in a wholesome terror, take no heed of the foolish man's error, although it foresaw his horror? But who of these people knows how to shudder at the spiritual foulness of the soul, when, as if by a kind of hunger and want of its own, it is compelled to eat the things which come out, as from its thighs, from its carnal thoughts (See Deut 28:56–57)? For the effect of that curse, which this man reprehends as shameful, is rare; for scarcely ever is the scourge of hunger so great that it compels to those unspeakable deeds; but with that hunger by which the wretched souls of those destitute of truth eat, in place of truth, the things which their carnal senses bring forth, all things everywhere are full—so much the more unhappily as it harms the more and is shuddered at the less.
LawProph.1.24.5224. 53. Sed puto me uni libro illius quem misistis nostro non uno, ne nimium prolixus sit, respondere debere. Proinde hic faciamus huius finem, ut ex his, quae discutienda restant, alius inchoetur. Nescio quo enim modo ita libri termino reficitur lectoris intentio, sicut labor viatoris hospitio.
24. 53. But I think that I ought to answer the one book of the man you sent with more than one of my own, lest it be too long. Accordingly, let us here make the end of this book, so that, from the matters which remain to be sifted, another may be begun. For somehow the reader's attention is refreshed by the ending of a book, just as the traveler's labor is by an inn.
LawProph.1.24.53Bk. 2Which the Apostle himself did not do, but judged them to be old wives' tales.Quod Apostolus ipse non fecit, sed esse aniles fabulas iudicavit.
1. 1. Iam nunc ea discutienda sunt, quae iste de Novi Testamenti libris suffragari sibi arbitratur adversus propheticas Litteras, tamquam eas Apostoli Christi sua sententia condemnaverint. Quod ergo " profanas et aniles fabulas et genealogias infinitas appellasse Apostolum existimat " divina " eloquia Legis et Prophetarum, quia dixit: Profanas et aniles fabulas devita; et alio loco: Ne intendas fabulis iudaicis et genealogiis infinitis, quae quaestiones praestant magis quam aedificationem", quis ita nisi haereticus multum caecus erraret? Cur enim hoc Apostolus ipse non fecit, si has esse aniles fabulas iudicavit? Cur dicit ad Galatas: Dicite mihi, sub Lege volentes esse: Legem non audistis? Scriptum est enim quod Abraham duos filios habuit, unum de ancilla et alium de libera; quae sunt in allegoria: haec enim sunt duo Testamenta. Et ad Corinthios: Nolo enim vos ignorare, fratres, quia patres nostri omnes sub nube fuerunt et omnes per mare transierunt et omnes per Moysen baptizati sunt in nube et in mari et omnes eumdem cibum spiritalem manducaverunt et omnes eumdem potum spiritalem biberunt: bibebant enim de spiritali sequenti petra; petra autem erat Christus?
1. 1. Now those things must be sifted which this man thinks support him from the books of the New Testament against the prophetic writings, as though the Apostles of Christ had condemned them by their own opinion. For that "he thinks the Apostle called" the divine "words of the Law and the Prophets profane and old wives' tales and endless genealogies, because he said, Avoid profane and old wives' tales; and in another place, Do not give heed to Jewish fables and endless genealogies, which furnish questions rather than edification"—who but a heretic, very blind, would so err? For why did the Apostle himself not do this, if he judged these to be old wives' tales? Why does he say to the Galatians: Tell me, you who wish to be under the Law: have you not heard the Law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and another by a free woman; which things are an allegory: for these are the two Testaments. And to the Corinthians: For I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink: for they drank from the spiritual rock following them; and the rock was Christ?
LawProph.2.1.11. 2. Nescit autem habere praeter Scripturas legitimas et propheticas Iudaeos quasdam traditiones suas, quas non scriptas habent, sed memoriter tenent et alter in alterum loquendo transfundit, quas deuterosin vocant, ubi etiam dicere audent et credere Deum primo homini duas creasse mulieres; ex quibus texunt genealogias, vere, sicut ait Apostolus, infinitas parientes infructuosissimas quaestiones. Sed si huic talia nunquam evenit audire, numquid et contra Evangelium sic obsurdescere debuit, ut non adverteret verba Domini Christi, quibus arguit Iudaeos, quod de parentibus non honorandis impietatem docerent filios suos? Ibi quippe et Dei praeceptum, quod in Lege conscriptum est, attestando commemoravit. Nec ob aliud eos arguit, nisi quod reicerent mandatum Dei, ut statuerent traditiones suas. Cum enim interrogassent Pharisaei et Scribae: Quare discipuli tui non ambulant iuxta traditionem seniorum, sed communibus manibus manducant panem? Ille respondens dixit eis: Bene prophetavit Isaias de vobis hypocritis, sicut scriptum est: Populus hic labiis me honorat, cor autem eorum longe est a me. In vanum autem me colunt docentes doctrinas et praecepta hominum. Relinquentes enim mandatum Dei tenetis traditionem hominum, baptismata urceorum et calicum, et alia similia his facitis multa. Et dicebat illis: Bene irritum facitis praeceptum Dei, ut traditionem vestram servetis. Moyses enim dixit: Honora patrem tuum et matrem tuam, et: Qui maledixerit patri aut matri, morte moriatur. Vos autem dicitis: Si dixerit homo patri aut matri, corban (quod est donum) quodcumque ex me, tibi profuerit: et ultra non dimittitis eum quidquam facere patri suo aut matri, rescindentes verbum Dei per traditionem vestram, quam tradidistis, et similia huiusmodi multa facitis. Ubi evidenter Christus ostendit et illam Dei esse Legem, quam profanus iste blasphemat, et Iudaeos habere suas traditiones a Libris propheticis et legitimis alienas, quas appellasse Apostolum profanas fabulas et aniles et genealogias interminatas non haereticus, sed catholicus lector intellegit. Porro si velim testimonia cuncta colligere, quibus ostendam, quemadmodum et ipse Dominus et Apostoli eius Lege usi fuerint et Prophetis, quas iste aniles fabulas putat, quando sufficio, aut cui non sufficiant ista quae diximus?
1. 2. But he does not know that the Jews have, besides the legitimate and prophetic Scriptures, certain traditions of their own, which they do not have written but hold by memory, and which one transfers to another by speaking—which they call the Deuterosis—where they even dare to say and believe that God created two women for the first man; from which they weave genealogies that are truly, as the Apostle says, endless, bringing forth most unfruitful questions. But if it never happened to this man to hear such things, ought he also to have become so deaf to the Gospel that he did not notice the words of the Lord Christ, by which he reproved the Jews because they taught their sons impiety about not honoring their parents? For there he also recalled, by way of attestation, the precept of God which is written in the Law. Nor did he reprove them for anything else than that they rejected the commandment of God in order to establish their own traditions. For when the Pharisees and Scribes had asked, Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with common hands? he, answering, said to them: Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. And in vain they worship me, teaching the doctrines and precepts of men. For, forsaking the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men, the washings of pitchers and cups, and you do many other things like these. And he said to them: Well do you make void the precept of God, that you may keep your tradition. For Moses said: Honor your father and your mother; and: Whoever curses father or mother, let him die the death. But you say: If a man says to father or mother, Corban (which is a gift), whatever benefit you might have had from me: and you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, annulling the word of God by your tradition, which you have handed down, and you do many such things like these. Where Christ evidently shows both that the Law which this profane man blasphemes is God's, and that the Jews have their own traditions alien to the prophetic and legitimate books, which traditions the Apostle called profane and old wives' tales and endless genealogies—as not a heretic but a catholic reader understands. Moreover, if I should wish to gather all the testimonies by which I might show how both the Lord himself and his Apostles used the Law and the Prophets, which this man thinks old wives' tales, when would I have enough time—or to whom would what we have said not be enough?
LawProph.2.1.22. 3. Nec iste adversus lucem vocemque dominicam vel apostolicam tam caecus et surdus est, ut ignoret, quemadmodum a Christo et Apostolis in libris ad Novum Testamentum pertinentibus confirmetur Legis ac Prophetarum et commendetur auctoritas. Proinde excogitasse se existimat, quo pacto subterfugiat moles testimoniorum in evangelicis et apostolicis Litteris de Libris veteribus positorum, quibus eius velit nolit cervicata lingua conteritur. Ait quippe "Apostolum pro qualitatibus ingeniorum in quinque personis locutum: Insinuans enim rudi adhuc populo ", inquit, " quae Dei sunt, non debuit a perfectioribus incipere et consuetudinem ab eis vetustatis excludens a difficilioribus inchoare, ne novos adhuc ad fidem perfecta doctrina turbaret ". Deinde volens quasi probare, quod dixit, eumdem Apostolum dicentem commemorat: Cum liber sim ex omnibus, omnibus me subieci, ut plures lucrifacerem; et factus sum Iudaeis tamquam iudaeus, ut Iudaeos lucrifaciam, et iis, qui sub Lege sunt, tamquam qui sub Lege essem, cum ipse non sim sub Lege, ut eos, qui sub Lege sunt, lucrifaciam, et iis, qui sine Lege sunt, tamquam sine Lege essem, cum sine Lege non sim, sed sim in Lege Christi, ut lucrifaciam eos, qui sine Lege sunt. Factus sum infirmis infirmus, ut infirmos lucrifaciam; omnibus omnia factus sum, ut omnes lucrifaciam 11. Has quattuor personas vult intellegi, in quibus Apostolum locutum putat, unam Iudaeorum, alteram eorum, qui sub Lege sunt, tertiam eorum, qui sine Lege sunt, quartam infirmorum. Quinta debetur, quoniam quinque promiserat: " hanc, ut adderet, alio loco ", inquit, " superius iam dixit: Sapientiam loquimur inter perfectos, ut perfectorum videatur quinta persona ". Hoc totum propterea molitus est, ut si quando aliquid de apostolica proferretur Epistola, ubi attestantur Evangelio Lex et Prophetae, hoc dicat Apostolum, non sapientibus et perfectis, sed Iudaeis locutum fuisse quasi Iudaeum vel eis, qui sub Lege essent, tamquam esset et ipse sub Lege, ac per hoc subdole atque mendaciter simulantem se apud imperfectos aedificare, quod apud perfectos non mentiendo, sed vera dicendo destrueret. Hanc ei videlicet erroris machinationem nescio quis Fabricius fabricavit, quem velut magistrum veritatis Romae se invenisse gloriatur. Quis non hoc monstrum, non dico sensus christianus, sed qualiscumque humanus exhorreat?
2. 3. Nor is this man so blind and deaf to the light and voice of the Lord or the Apostle that he does not know how, in the books belonging to the New Testament, the authority of the Law and the Prophets is confirmed and commended by Christ and the Apostles. Accordingly, he thinks he has devised a way to escape the mass of testimonies, drawn from the old books, set down in the writings of the Gospel and the apostles, by which his stiff-necked tongue, will it or not, is worn down. For he says "that the Apostle spoke in five persons, according to the qualities of dispositions: For, introducing the things of God," he says, "to a people still untrained, he ought not to have begun from the more perfect, and, excluding from them the custom of antiquity, to have begun from the more difficult, lest a perfect teaching disturb those still new to the faith." Then, wishing as it were to prove what he said, he recalls the same Apostle saying: Since I am free from all, I have made myself subject to all, that I might gain the more; and I became to the Jews as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews, and to those who are under the Law as one under the Law, though I myself am not under the Law, that I might gain those who are under the Law, and to those who are without the Law as one without the Law, though I am not without the Law, but am in the Law of Christ, that I might gain those who are without the Law. I became weak to the weak, that I might gain the weak; I became all things to all, that I might gain all. He wants four persons to be understood, in which he supposes the Apostle spoke: one of the Jews, another of those who are under the Law, a third of those who are without the Law, a fourth of the weak. A fifth is owed, since he had promised five: "this," he says, "so as to add it, he already stated above in another place: We speak wisdom among the perfect, so that the fifth person, of the perfect, may appear." All this he has contrived for this reason: that if at any time something should be brought forward from an apostolic epistle, where the Law and the Prophets attest to the Gospel, he may say that the Apostle spoke this not to the wise and perfect but to the Jews as a Jew, or to those who were under the Law as though he himself were under the Law—and thereby that, slyly and lyingly pretending, he built up among the imperfect what among the perfect he would tear down, not by lying but by speaking the truth. This contrivance of error was, evidently, fabricated for him by some Fabricius or other, whom he boasts of having found at Rome as a master of truth, as it were. Who would not shudder at this monstrosity—I do not say a Christian sense, but any human sense whatever?
LawProph.2.2.32. 4. Primo enim considerandum est, quam se fraudulentissimum et mendacissimum profiteatur, qui mentientem putat et laudat Apostolum; et quod ille dixit non fallentis astu, sed compatientis affectu, quia diversis animarum morbis tam misericordi corde subvenit, quam sibi subveniri voluisset, si errore vel infirmitate simili laboraret, hic in fallaciam detestabilem vertit. Deinde quaero, ad Romanos, Corinthios, Galatas, Ephesios, Colossenses, Philippenses, Thessalonicenses quomodo loquebatur Apostolus? In qua illarum quinque personarum eos esse deputabat? Procul dubio quoniam in praeputio Gentes erant, non in circumcisione Israelitae. Ad hos quippe sibi distributum ministerium fuisse testatur, ubi dicit, quod ei et barnabae dextras societatis dederint Petrus et Iacobus et Iohannes, ut ipse quidem cum barnaba ad Gentes, illi autem ad circumcisionem irent. Et alio loco apertissime dicit: Quamdiu ego sum Gentium Apostolus, et multis aliis locis proprio quodam munere doctorem Gentium se esse testatur. Cum ergo essent sine Lege tot Gentes, quibus Evangelium praedicabat, quid opus erat, ut eis Legem et Prophetas de Christo introduceret testes eisque importaret ignaris vinculum, sicut ista pestis arbitratur, erroris, a quo eos fuisse liberos magis debuit gratulari? Quid opus erat, ut ad Romanos sic fuisset exorsus: Paulus servus Christi Iesu vocatus Apostolus segregatus in Evangelium Dei, quod ante promiserat per Prophetas suos in Scripturis sanctis de Filio suo, qui factus est ei ex semine David secundum carnem? Quare non sibi potius personam imponit illorum? Quare se facit tamquam sub Lege eis, qui fuerant sine Lege? Utquid eis dicit: Vobis enim dico Gentibus: quamdiu quidem ego sum Gentium Apostolus, ministerium meum glorificabo, si quo modo ad aemulationem provocare potero carnem meam, ut salvos faciam aliquos ex illis. Si enim reiectio illorum reconciliatio est mundi, quae erit assumptio, nisi vita ex mortuis? Si autem delibatio sancta est, et conspersio, et si radix sancta est, et rami. De Israelitis quippe ista dicit, de quibus ante iam dixerat: Quid ergo amplius est iudaeo aut quae utilitas circumcisionis? Multum per omnem modum. Primum quidem, quia credita sunt illis eloquia Dei. Quid enim si quidam illorum non crediderunt? Numquid incredulitas illorum fidem Dei evacuabit? Deinde hic, quod commemorare coeperam, sequitur et dicit: Quod si aliqui ex ramis fracti sunt, tu autem cum esses oleaster, insertus es in illis et socius radicis factus es et pinguedinis oleae, noli gloriari adversus ramos. Quod si gloriaris, non tu radicem portas, sed radix te. Dicis ergo: Fracti sunt rami, ut ego inserar. Bene, incredulitate fracti sunt. Tu autem fide stas; noli altum sapere, sed time. Nam si Deus naturalibus ramis non pepercit, neque tibi parcet. Vides ergo bonitatem et severitatem Dei, in eos quidem, qui ceciderunt, severitatem, in te autem bonitatem, si permanseris in bonitate; alioquin et tu excideris. Et illi, si non permanserint in incredulitate, inserentur. Potens est enim Deus iterum inserere illos. Nam si tu ex naturali incisus es oleastro et contra naturam insertus es in bonam olivam, quanto magis illi, qui secundum naturam sunt, inserentur suae olivae? Nolo enim vos ignorare, fratres, sacramentum hoc ut non sitis vobis sapientes, quia caecitas ex parte in Israel facta est, donec plenitudo Gentium intraret, et sic omnis Israel salvus fieret, sicut scriptum est: veniet ex Sion, qui eripiat et avertat impietatem ab Iacob; et hoc illis a me Testamentum, cum abstulero peccata eorum. Nimis longum est cuncta percurrere vel, sicut per Scripturas apostolicas ubique sparsa sunt, ea in unam faciem congregare. Quid opus erat haec dicere Gentibus? Cur eis non potius sine Lege factus est, quemadmodum erant illi sine Lege? Cur non potius deos eorum laudavit eorumque sacrificia praedicavit, si et ista scriptura, quam populus Israel accepit, et illa sacra Gentium, sicut iste dicit, ad daemonia pertinebant? Quid, quod Deum Israel audet infelix dicere non solum daemonem, verum etiam ceteris daemonibus peiorem? cur ergo Apostolus, qui omnibus omnia, non misericordia compatiente, sicut veritas ostendit, sed astutia fallente, sicut iste desipit, factus erat, non potius illorum daemonum, quos colebant Romani, quos daemones putat iste mitiores, servum se esse confinxit, ut fieret tamquam illi ac sic eos lucrifaceret?
2. 4. For first it must be considered how most fraudulent and most lying he professes himself to be, who thinks the Apostle lies and praises him for it; and what the Apostle said not by the craft of a deceiver but by the affection of one who feels with others—because he came to the aid of the various diseases of souls with as merciful a heart as he would have wished aid given to himself, were he laboring under a like error or weakness—this man turns into a detestable falsehood. Then I ask: To the Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians, Philippians, Thessalonians, how was the Apostle speaking? In which of those five persons did he reckon them to be? Without doubt, since they were in the foreskin, they were gentiles, not Israelites in the circumcision. For he testifies that to these a ministry was assigned to him, where he says that Peter and James and John gave to him and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship, that he indeed with Barnabas might go to the gentiles, but they to the circumcision. And in another place he says most openly: As long as I am the Apostle of the gentiles; and in many other places he testifies that he is, by a certain proper office, the teacher of the gentiles. Since, then, there were so many gentiles without the Law to whom he preached the Gospel, what need was there for him to introduce to them the Law and the Prophets as witnesses about Christ, and to bring upon them, in their ignorance, the bond—as this plague supposes—of error, from which he ought rather to have rejoiced that they were free? What need was there for him to have begun thus to the Romans: Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called an Apostle, set apart for the Gospel of God, which he had promised before through his Prophets in the holy Scriptures concerning his Son, who was made for him from the seed of David according to the flesh? Why does he not rather put on himself their person? Why does he make himself as though under the Law to those who had been without the Law? Why does he say to them: For I say to you gentiles: as long indeed as I am the Apostle of the gentiles, I will glorify my ministry, if by any means I may provoke to jealousy my own flesh, that I may save some of them. For if the rejection of them is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be, but life from the dead? But if the firstfruit is holy, so also is the lump, and if the root is holy, so also are the branches. For he says these things of the Israelites, of whom he had already said before: What advantage, then, has the Jew, or what is the profit of circumcision? Much in every way. First, indeed, because the words of God were entrusted to them. For what if some of them did not believe? Will their unbelief make void the faith of God? Then here, where I had begun to recall, it follows and he says: But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, though you were a wild olive, were grafted in among them and became a partner of the root and of the richness of the olive, do not boast against the branches. But if you do boast, it is not you who carry the root, but the root you. You will say, then: The branches were broken off, that I might be grafted in. Well; by unbelief they were broken off. But you stand by faith; do not be high-minded, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. See, therefore, the goodness and the severity of God: toward those who fell, indeed, severity, but toward you goodness, if you remain in goodness; otherwise you too will be cut off. And they, if they do not remain in unbelief, will be grafted in. For God is able to graft them in again. For if you were cut from the naturally wild olive and grafted contrary to nature into a good olive, how much more will these, who are according to nature, be grafted into their own olive? For I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, of this mystery, that you may not be wise in your own eyes: that blindness in part has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the gentiles should come in, and so all Israel should be saved, as it is written: There will come out of Zion one who will rescue and turn away impiety from Jacob; and this is my covenant to them, when I take away their sins. It is far too long to run through it all, or to gather into one view the things which are scattered everywhere through the apostolic Scriptures. What need was there to say these things to the gentiles? Why did he not rather become without the Law to them, as those were without the Law? Why did he not rather praise their gods and proclaim their sacrifices, if both this Scripture which the people of Israel received, and those rites of the gentiles, as this man says, pertained to demons? What of the fact that the unhappy man dares to call the God of Israel not only a demon but even worse than the other demons? Why, then, did the Apostle, who had become all things to all—not by a compassionating mercy, as the truth shows, but by a deceiving cunning, as this man foolishly thinks—why did he not rather pretend himself to be a servant of those demons whom the Romans worshiped, whom this man thinks milder demons, so as to become like them and thus gain them?
LawProph.2.2.42. 5. Nonne item dicit ad Ephesios: Propter quod memores estis, quia vos quando Gentes eratis in carne, qui dicimini praeputium ab ea, quae dicitur circumcisio in carne manu facta; qui eratis illo in tempore sine Christo alienati a societate Israel et peregrini testamentorum et promissionis spem non habentes et sine Deo in hoc mundo; nunc autem in Christo Iesu vos, qui aliquando eratis longe, facti estis prope in sanguine Christi. Ipse est enim pax nostra, qui fecit utraque unum et medium parietem maceriae solvens, inimicitiam, in carne sua Legem mandatorum in decretis evacuans, ut duos conderet in se in unum novum hominem faciens pacem, ut commutaret utrosque in uno corpore Deo per crucem interficiens inimicitias in semetipso: et veniens evangelizavit pacem vobis qui eratis longe, et pacem his qui prope; quia per ipsum habemus accessum ambo in uno Spiritu ad Patrem. Igitur iam non estis peregrini et inquilini, sed estis cives sanctorum et domestici Dei superaedificati supra fundamentum Apostolorum et Prophetarum, ipso summo angulari lapide existente Christo Iesu? Dicat iste blasphemus, quomodo prope dicit inventos Israelitas, qui peiori, quemadmodum blasphemat, daemoni serviebant et longe erant Gentes, quae mitioribus daemonibus subditae fuerant? Quomodo dicit alienatos fuisse a societate Israel et peregrinos testamentorum et promissionis, quando erant spem non habentes et sine Deo in hoc mundo, si Israel non Dei et Christi populus erat? Contra istam tubam clarissimam et excellentissimam veritatis perstrepit atque insultat insanus dicens in personis quinque locutum Apostolum, ut alias ex aliis falleret, fingendo se esse, quod non erat, cum videat eum Gentibus, quae longe fuerant a Deo Israelitarum, eumdem Deum, eamdem Legem, eosdem Prophetas, testamenta eadem praedicare. Quis de angulari lapide prior locutus est? Nonne propheta spiritu Dei plenus, quem pestis ista blasphemat? Ait enim: Ecce pono in Sion lapidem angularem, electum, pretiosum; et qui crediderit in eum, non erubescet. Quod testimonium commemoravit et apostolus Petrus. Nonne prius in psalmo pertinente ad Litteras sacras populi prioris dictum est: Lapidem, quem reprobaverunt aedificantes, hic factus est in caput anguli? His enim Litteris eruditus Paulus apostolus posuit, quod paulo ante commemoravi, ipso summo angulari lapide existente Christo Iesu. Unde ipse Dominus Iudaeos, in quibus caecitas ex parte facta erat, convicit, confusosque reddidit dicens: Nunquam legistis in Scripturis: Lapidem, quem reprobaverunt aedificantes, hic factus est in caput anguli; a Domino factum est istud, et est mirabile in oculis nostris? " Haec ergo omnia mendaciter Christus ex Lege ac Prophetis, mendaciter Apostoli proferebant ", sicut iste blasphemat, " quia videlicet infirmi nondum poterant solidam capere veritatem? ". Itane caecus ignorat, quod aliud sit nutrire parvulos, aliud decipere credulos; aliud alere, ut crescant, aliud agere, ne vivant? Talia quippe iste dicit ac sentit de Deo Legis ac Prophetarum ac de ipsis omnino Litteris, ut secundum eius sententiam, quam de illis habet, quando Apostoli praedicabant credentibus Legis ac Prophetarum Deum et confirmabant auctoritatem talium Scripturarum, non lac potandum videantur dedisse parvulis, sed venenum. Quod de illis quisquis credit, desipit, vanescit, insanit.
2. 5. Does he not likewise say to the Ephesians: On account of which, remember that you, when you were gentiles in the flesh, who are called the uncircumcision by that which is called the circumcision made by hand in the flesh; you who were at that time without Christ, alienated from the society of Israel and strangers to the covenants and to the promise, having no hope and without God in this world; but now, in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been made near in the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who made both one and broke down the dividing wall of the barrier, the enmity, in his flesh, abolishing the Law of commandments in decrees, that he might found the two in himself into one new man, making peace, that he might reconcile both in one body to God through the cross, slaying the enmities in himself: and coming, he preached peace to you who were far off, and peace to those who were near; because through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. Therefore you are now no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens of the saints and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief cornerstone? Let this blasphemer say how he calls the Israelites, who served a worse demon, as he blasphemes, found near, and the gentiles, who had been subject to milder demons, far off. How does he say they had been alienated from the society of Israel and strangers to the covenants and to the promise, when they were having no hope and without God in this world, if Israel was not the people of God and of Christ? Against this most clear and most excellent trumpet of truth the madman blares and insults, saying that the Apostle spoke in five persons, so as to deceive some by means of others, pretending himself to be what he was not—when he sees that the Apostle preaches to the gentiles, who had been far from the God of the Israelites, the same God, the same Law, the same Prophets, the same covenants. Who spoke first about the cornerstone? Was it not the prophet, full of the Spirit of God, whom this plague blasphemes? For he says: Behold, I lay in Zion a cornerstone, chosen, precious; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame. Which testimony the apostle Peter also recalled. Was it not first said in a psalm belonging to the sacred writings of the former people: The stone which the builders rejected, this has become the head of the corner? For instructed by these writings, the apostle Paul set down what I recalled a little before, Christ Jesus himself being the chief cornerstone. Hence the Lord himself convicted the Jews, in whom blindness in part had come, and rendered them confounded, saying: Have you never read in the Scriptures: The stone which the builders rejected, this has become the head of the corner; this was done by the Lord, and it is marvelous in our eyes? "All these things, then, Christ brought forward lyingly from the Law and the Prophets, and lyingly the Apostles brought them forward," as this man blasphemes, "because, namely, the weak could not yet grasp the solid truth?" Is he so blind that he does not know that it is one thing to nourish little ones, another to deceive the trusting; one thing to feed, that they may grow, another to act, that they may not live? For this man says and thinks such things about the God of the Law and the Prophets and about those writings altogether that, according to his opinion which he holds about them, when the Apostles preached to believers the God of the Law and the Prophets and confirmed the authority of such Scriptures, they would seem to have given the little ones not milk to drink but poison. And whoever believes this about them is foolish, grows empty, is insane.
LawProph.2.2.52. 6. Ergone, ait aliquis, frustra dixit Apostolus: Non potui vobis loqui quasi spiritalibus, sed quasi carnalibus, quasi parvulis in Christo lac vobis potum dedi, non escam; nondum enim poteratis. Et: sapientiam loquimur inter perfectos. Et: Animalis homo non percipit, quae sunt spiritus Dei? Absit, ut putemus inaniter eum nec veraciter ista dixisse. Numquid tamen ideo credendus est quemquam sibi credentium fallere voluisse? Dedit igitur parvulis parva, non falsa, lactea, non noxia, nutritoria, non peremptoria. Porro autem, si verum non est, quod ait, Filium Dei secundum carnem factum esse ex semine David; si non est verum, quod naturales rami propter incredulitatem fracti sunt, ut in radice sancta Israelitarum ex Gentibus veniens fidelis insereretur oleaster et fieret particeps pinguedinis oleae; si " non sunt eloquia Dei, sed nescio cuius ", ut iste blasphemat, " pessimi daemonis ", de quibus dicit: Primum quidem quia credita sunt illis eloquia Dei: profecto, qui haec parvulis dabat, qui haec tamquam vera praedicabat, qui credi volebat, delebat miseros, non alebat. Quod a fide atque doctrina veracium Christi Apostolorum quoniam esse scimus alienum, restat, ut istum tamquam pestem atque hostem fidei christianae vehementissime detestemur, qui tanta excaecatur et praecipitatur amentia, ut non videat ipsum saltem Timotheum, cui putat auctoritate apostolica fuisse praeceptum, ut tamquam fabulas aniles veterem Legem Prophetasque devitet, ab eodem Apostolo non fuisse fallendum, et in illa quinta perfectorum persona fuisse deputandum, ut ei non mendaciter loqueretur dicens: Memor esto Iesum Christum resurrexisse a mortuis ex semine David secundum Evangelium meum. Si enim Christus ex semine David fabulis anilibus praedicatur, quomodo eas iubetur iste devitare, quibus iubetur memoriter credere? Si autem Christus ex semine David veraciter praedicatur, ibi est radix, in qua oleaster inseritur, nec aniles sunt fabulae, nisi praeter illas Scripturas deliramenta Iudaeorum, ad eam, quam vocant deuterosin, pertinentia: non illa eloquia Dei, quae credita sunt circumcisioni, ubi etiam carnales Iudaei Christum ex semine David venturum esse didicerant, sicut interroganti Domino respondebant, quamvis eum Dominum ipsius David, non secundum carnem, sed secundum divinitatem intellegere non valerent; utrumque tamen est in illis eloquiis et quod credebant et quod non intellegebant et: De fructu ventris tui ponam super sedem tuam, propter Christum ex semine David; et: Dixit Dominus Domino meo: Sede ad dextram meam, propter Christum, Dominum etiam ipsius David.
2. 6. Then, someone says, did the Apostle say in vain: I could not speak to you as to spiritual people, but as to carnal, as to little ones in Christ I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able. And: We speak wisdom among the perfect. And: The animal man does not perceive the things which are of the Spirit of God? Far be it that we should think he said these things emptily and untruthfully. Yet is he therefore to be believed to have wished to deceive any of those who believed him? He gave, then, to little ones small things, not false; milky, not harmful; nourishing, not destructive. Moreover, if it is not true that the Son of God was made according to the flesh from the seed of David; if it is not true that the natural branches were broken off on account of unbelief, so that the believing wild olive, coming from the gentiles, might be grafted into the holy root of the Israelites and become a sharer in the richness of the olive; if "they are not the words of God, but of some most wicked demon or other," as this man blasphemes, of which he says, First, indeed, because the words of God were entrusted to them: then surely he who gave these to the little ones, who proclaimed them as true, who wished them to be believed, was destroying the wretched, not nourishing them. And since we know this to be alien to the faith and teaching of the truthful Apostles of Christ, it remains for us most vehemently to detest this man as a plague and an enemy of the Christian faith, who is so blinded and hurled headlong by madness that he does not see that even Timothy himself—to whom he thinks it was commanded by apostolic authority that he should avoid the old Law and the Prophets as old wives' tales—was not to be deceived by the same Apostle, and was to be reckoned in that fifth person of the perfect, so that he might not lyingly speak to him, saying: Remember that Jesus Christ rose from the dead, from the seed of David, according to my Gospel. For if Christ is proclaimed from the seed of David by old wives' tales, how is this man ordered to avoid the very things which he is ordered faithfully to remember? But if Christ is truly proclaimed from the seed of David, there is the root into which the wild olive is grafted, nor are these old wives' tales—unless, besides those Scriptures, the ravings of the Jews pertaining to what they call the Deuterosis: not those words of God which were entrusted to the circumcision, where even the carnal Jews had learned that Christ would come from the seed of David, as they answered the Lord's question, although they were unable to understand him as the Lord of David himself, not according to the flesh but according to the divinity; yet both are in those words—both what they believed and what they did not understand—both, Of the fruit of your womb I will set upon your throne, on account of Christ from the seed of David; and, The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand, on account of Christ, the Lord even of David himself.
LawProph.2.2.62. 7. Itane vero fallaciter dicebat Apostolus: Veritatem dico in Christo, non mentior, contestante mihi conscientia mea in Spiritu sancto, quia tristitia est mihi magna et continuus dolor cordi meo. Optabam enim ego ipse anathema esse a Christo pro fratribus meis cognatis secundum carnem, qui sunt Israelitae, quorum est adoptio et gloria et testamenta et Legis constitutio et obsequium et promissiones; quorum patres et ex quibus Christus secundum carnem, qui est super omnia Deus benedictus in saecula, Amen? Veritatem se dicere clamat Apostolus in capite huiusce sententiae et hoc in Christo, qui est ipsa veritas, contestante sibi conscientia sua in Spiritu sancto eamque sententiam per amen concludit in fine; et dicit iste: "Non sunt vera, quae hic Apostolus loquitur, fallit infirmos, quia non possunt capere veritatem; parvulos vanitatibus lactat et esurientibus filiis diabolicorum mendaciorum virus infundit, ut nutriat ". O portentum non solum a christianorum auribus, verum etiam a finibus christiani orbis arcendum! haeccine adoptio, haec gloria, haec testamenta, haec Legis constitutio, hoc obsequium, hae promissiones, hi patres, ex quibus Christus secundum carnem, qui est super omnia Deus benedictus in saecula, fabulae sunt aniles? Quod iubetur praecipue tenere, qui iubetur devitare fabulas aniles, fabulae sunt aniles?
2. 7. Was the Apostle, then, speaking deceitfully when he said: I speak the truth in Christ, I do not lie, my conscience bearing witness to me in the Holy Spirit, that there is great sadness for me and continual grief to my heart. For I myself was wishing to be anathema from Christ for my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites, whose are the adoption and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the Law and the worship and the promises; whose are the fathers, and from whom is Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever, Amen? The Apostle cries out at the head of this sentence that he is speaking the truth, and this in Christ, who is truth itself, his conscience bearing witness to him in the Holy Spirit, and he concludes that sentence with an "Amen" at the end; and this man says: "The things which the Apostle here speaks are not true; he deceives the weak, because they cannot grasp the truth; he suckles the little ones with vanities and pours the poison of diabolical lies into the hungry sons, so as to nourish them." O monster, to be kept away not only from Christian ears but even from the bounds of the Christian world! Are this adoption, this glory, these covenants, this giving of the Law, this worship, these promises, these fathers, from whom is Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever—are these old wives' tales? Is that which one is especially ordered to hold, who is ordered to avoid old wives' tales, an old wives' tale?
LawProph.2.2.72. 8. Sed quid mirum, si tanta impietate delirat, qui Legis vult esse destructor, si quosdam idem Apostolus dicit volentes esse Legis non destructores, sed doctores, non intellegere neque quae loquuntur neque de quibus affirmant? Verum nos illud, quod secutus adiunxit, adversus utrosque teneamus. Continuo quippe ne quis existimaret ideo illos non intellegere, quae loquuntur, neque de quibus affirmant, quoniam Legis malae volunt esse doctores: Scimus autem, inquit, quia bona est Lex, si quis ea legitime utatur. Haec sententia et illos refutat, qui Lege utuntur male, et eos, qui eam opinantur malam. Porro si bona est, qua dementia negatur Deus bonus, qui dedit Legem bonam? Quae potest videri sufficere damnatio his hominibus, qui Legem quam sic Apostolus laudat anilium fabularum nomine accusant? Et hoc se existimant facere eiusdem epistolae testimonio, ubi eam sic Apostolus laudat, volentes esse Legis non doctores, sed blasphematores non intellegendo, quae loquantur, neque de quibus affirment?
2. 8. But what wonder is it if he raves with such great impiety, who wishes to be a destroyer of the Law, when the same Apostle says that certain people, wishing to be not destroyers but teachers of the Law, understand neither the things they say nor the things about which they make assertions? But let us hold against both that which he subsequently added. For at once, lest anyone should suppose that those people do not understand the things they say, nor the things about which they make assertions, for the reason that they wish to be teachers of a bad Law: But we know, he says, that the Law is good, if anyone uses it lawfully. This sentence refutes both those who use the Law badly and those who think it bad. Moreover, if it is good, by what madness is the God denied to be good who gave the good Law? What condemnation can seem to suffice for these men, who accuse, under the name of old wives' tales, the Law which the Apostle so praises? And they think they do this by the testimony of the same epistle, where the Apostle so praises it, wishing to be not teachers but blasphemers of the Law by not understanding the things they say, nor the things about which they make assertions?
LawProph.2.2.83. 9. " Sed fieri non potuit ", inquit, " ut a Iudaeorum Prophetis Salvatoris nostri annuntiaretur adventus ". Cur fieri non potuit, cum dicat Apostolus: Quia credita sunt illis eloquia Dei? " Sed ante Salvatoris adventum ", inquit, " Spiritus sanctus ac divinus non erat super terram ". Hoc vanitas, non veritas loquitur. Nam quo nisi Spiritu sancto Prophetas suos Dominus implevit, de quibus in epistolae exordio dictum est ad Romanos, quod et supra commemoravi: Paulus servus Christi Iesu, vocatus apostolus, segregatus in Evangelio Dei, quod ante promiserat, per Prophetas suos in Scripturis sanctis de Filio suo, qui factus est ei ex semine David secundum carnem. Et hoc quidem testimonium etiam iste posuit prohibens eum, ad quem scribit, aliis Prophetis credere de Christo, praeter illos, quos Prophetas eius ad Romanos dicit Apostolus, quos credo non arbitratur Prophetas fuisse Iudaeorum. Sed cuiuslibet eos fuisse Gentis opinetur, cur ibi non advertit: quod ante promiserat per Prophetas suos? Per quoslibet enim Prophetas suos si ante promisit Evangelium de Filio suo, quid est quod iste dicit sanctum ac divinum Spiritum super terram non fuisse ante Salvatoris adventum? Et tamen isti unde potuerunt esse prophetae annuntiantes Christum ex semine David secundum carnem, nisi cuius Gentis erat ipse David, de cuius semine Christus a Prophetis Dei promissus est esse venturus?
3. 9. "But it could not have come about," he says, "that the advent of our Savior should be announced by the Prophets of the Jews." Why could it not have come about, since the Apostle says, Because the words of God were entrusted to them? "But before the Savior's advent," he says, "the Holy and divine Spirit was not upon the earth." This vanity, not truth, says. For with what but the Holy Spirit did the Lord fill his Prophets, of whom it was said at the beginning of the epistle to the Romans, which I have also recalled above: Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called an Apostle, set apart for the Gospel of God, which he had promised before, through his Prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his Son, who was made for him from the seed of David according to the flesh. And this testimony indeed this man too set down, forbidding the one to whom he writes to believe other Prophets about Christ, besides those whom the Apostle calls his Prophets in the letter to the Romans—whom, I believe, he supposes were not Prophets of the Jews. But of whatever nation he may suppose them to have been, why does he not there notice: which he had promised before through his Prophets? For if through any of his Prophets he promised beforehand the Gospel about his Son, what is it that this man says, that the Holy and divine Spirit was not upon the earth before the Savior's advent? And yet whence could these have been prophets announcing Christ from the seed of David according to the flesh, except of that nation of which David himself was—from whose seed Christ was promised by the Prophets of God to be going to come?
LawProph.2.3.93. 10. " Sed Lex ", inquit, " per Moysen data est; veritas autem ab Iesu Christo est ". Non ita scriptum est, sed ita: Lex per Moysen data est, gratia et veritas per Iesum Christum facta est. Lex igitur data est per Moysen, facta est autem gratia per Iesum Christum, cum per eius Spiritum caritate diffusa in cordibus nostris fit, ut quod Lex praecipit impleatur. Quod enim per litteram iubetur, non littera, sed Spiritu impletur. Unde illud quod scriptum est: Non concupisces. Per Moysen Lex est quia iubetur, sed per Christum fit gratia, quando quod iubetur impletur. Veritas autem facta est per Christum propter illa, quae in prophetia Legis sunt promissa, quia in Christo eminent reddita.
3. 10. "But the Law," he says, "was given through Moses; but the truth is from Jesus Christ." It is not written thus, but thus: The Law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came about through Jesus Christ. The Law, therefore, was given through Moses, but grace came about through Jesus Christ, when, through his Spirit, with love poured out in our hearts, it comes about that what the Law commands is fulfilled. For what is commanded through the letter is fulfilled not by the letter but by the Spirit. Hence that which is written: You shall not covet. Through Moses there is Law, because it is commanded; but through Christ grace comes about, when what is commanded is fulfilled. But the truth came about through Christ on account of those things which are promised in the prophecy of the Law, because in Christ they stand out, rendered.
LawProph.2.3.103. 11. Apostolus vero quod ait ad Romanos: Quomodo invocabunt, in quem non crediderunt? Aut quomodo credent, quem non audierunt? de Gentibus dixit, non de Iudaeis, sicut hic somniat. Eos enim volebat refellere Doctor Gentium, qui putabant genti tantummodo Iudaeorum, non etiam incircumcisis gentibus Evangelium praedicandum. Quod volens ostendere non ad Iudaeos tantum, sed ad omnes Gentes pertinere, prius posuit testimonium de propheta: Erit omnis, qui invocaverit nomen Domini, salvus erit. Ac deinde cum dixisset: Quomodo autem invocabunt, in quem non crediderunt? aut quomodo credent, quem non audierunt? Continuo subiunxit: Quomodo autem audient sine praedicante? Aut quomodo praedicabunt, nisi mittantur? 58 Ita refutans eos, qui negabant ad incircumcisas Gentes praedicatores Christi esse mittendos.
3. 11. But as for what the Apostle says to the Romans, How will they call upon him in whom they have not believed? Or how will they believe him whom they have not heard?—he said this of the gentiles, not of the Jews, as this man dreams here. For the Teacher of the gentiles wished to refute those who thought the Gospel was to be preached only to the nation of the Jews, not also to the uncircumcised gentiles. Wishing to show that it pertains not to the Jews only but to all the gentiles, he first set down a testimony from the prophet: Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. And then, when he had said, But how will they call upon him in whom they have not believed? Or how will they believe him whom they have not heard? he immediately added: But how will they hear without a preacher? Or how will they preach unless they are sent? Thus refuting those who denied that preachers of Christ were to be sent to the uncircumcised gentiles.
LawProph.2.3.113. 12. Illud quoque sicut imperitissimus non intellegit, quod scriptum est: Primum Apostolos, deinde Prophetas. Putat enim ante Apostolos non fuisse Prophetas nesciens eos Prophetas illic commemoratos esse ab Apostolo, qui post Christi adventum fuerunt. Quos qui vult nosse, actus apostolorum legat et illud, quod ait ad Corinthios: Prophetae autem duo aut tres loquantur. Si autem non fuerunt Prophetae ante Apostolos, qui erant illi, per quos ante Deus promisit Evangelium de Filio suo, qui factus est ei ex semine David secundum carnem, quis erat qui dixit: Lapidem, quem reprobaverunt aedificantes, hic factus est in caput anguli? Quis erat, qui dixit: Thronus tuus, Deus, in saeculum saeculi, virga directionis, virga regni tui. Dilexisti iustitiam et odisti iniquitatem, propterea unxit te Deus, Deus tuus, oleo exsultationis prae participibus tuis? Quomodo Deus, cuius thronus est in saeculum saeculi, ungitur a Deo nisi Christus Iesus, qui ex ipsa unctione Christi nomen accepit? Chrisma quippe unctio est, Christus unctus est. Quis erat, qui dixit, quod ipse Christus de se testatur esse praedictum: Dixit Dominus Domino meo: Sede a dextris meis, donec ponam inimicos tuos sub pedibus tuis? Et hoc David in Spiritu dixisse confirmat, quem Spiritum negat iste fuisse super terram ante Domini adventum. Quid est, quod ait Apostolus: Dicit autem Isaias: Erit radix Iesse et qui exsurget regnare in Gentibus, in eum Gentes sperabunt? Quis erat Spiritus, qui per eumdem Isaiam tanto ante praedixit: Iste peccata nostra portat et pro nobis dolet; et nos putavimus eum esse in dolore et in plaga et in afflictione. Ipse vulneratus est propter peccata nostra et infirmatus est propter iniquitates nostras; disciplina pacis nostrae super eum, et livore eius sanati sumus; omnes quasi oves erravimus, homo in via sua erravit; et Dominus tradidit eum propter iniquitates nostras. Et ipse propter afflictionem non aperuit os: Sicut ovis ad victimam ductus est et sicut agnus coram tondente mutus, sic non aperuit os suum. In humilitate iudicium eius sublatum est, generationem illius, quis enarrabit, quia tolletur de terra vita eius? Ab iniquitatibus populi mei ductus est ad mortem; et cetera, quae contexere longum est. Ubi etiam de Ecclesia tanto ante praedictum est, quod ab Apostolo legimus commemoratum et nunc iam videmus impletum: Laetare, sterilis quae non paris; erumpe et exclama, quae non parturis, quia multi filii desertae magis quam eius quae habet virum. Dixit enim Dominus: Dilata locum tabernaculi tui et aulaeorum tuorum, fige, ne parcas, protende funiculos et clavos tuos conforta. Adhuc in dextris et sinistris dilata, et semen tuum possidebit Gentes et civitates desertas habitari facies. Noli timere, quia confusa es, neque reverearis, quia exprobratum tibi est. Confusionem enim aeternam oblivisceris et opprobrii viduitatis tuae memor non eris. Quia Dominus, qui fecit te, Dominus Sabaoth nomen ei; et qui eruit te, Deus Israel, Deus omnis terrae vocabitur. Quis est, qui dixit: videbam in visu noctis et ecce cum nubibus caeli ut Filius hominis erat veniens, et usque ad vetustum dierum pervenit et in conspectu eius praelatus est. Et ipsi datus est principatus et honor et regnum, et omnes populi, tribus, linguae ipsi servient; potestas eius potestas perpetua, quae non transibit, et regnum eius non corrumpetur? Haec et alia multa atque manifesta de Christo et Ecclesia unde praedicta sunt, quae sic videmus impleta et consonantibus evangelicis atque apostolicis Litteris etiam speramus implenda, si Spiritus Dei ante adventum Christi non fuit super terram, vel si a Prophetis Israel non est Christi praenuntiatus adventus, sicut hic desipit, qui Christum negando ante promissum non habet, unde asserat missum? Et merito, quia ipse quem praedicat nec missus est nec promissus; verus non est quippe sed fictus.
3. 12. This too, like a most unskilled man, he does not understand—what is written: First Apostles, then Prophets. For he thinks that there were no Prophets before the Apostles, not knowing that those Prophets are recalled there by the Apostle who lived after Christ's advent. Whoever wishes to know them, let him read the Acts of the Apostles, and that which he says to the Corinthians: But let two or three Prophets speak. But if there were no Prophets before the Apostles, who were those through whom God promised the Gospel beforehand about his Son, who was made for him from the seed of David according to the flesh? Who was it who said: The stone which the builders rejected, this has become the head of the corner? Who was it who said: Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, a rod of uprightness is the rod of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated iniquity, therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows? How is the God whose throne is forever and ever anointed by God, except Christ Jesus, who received the name Christ from the very anointing? For chrism is anointing, Christ is the anointed one. Who was it who said—what Christ himself testifies was foretold about him: The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand, until I place your enemies under your feet? And he confirms that David said this in the Spirit—the Spirit which this man denies was upon the earth before the Lord's advent. What is it that the Apostle says: But Isaiah says: There will be a root of Jesse, and one who will rise up to rule the gentiles; in him will the gentiles hope? What Spirit was it who, through the same Isaiah, foretold so long before: He bears our sins and grieves for us; and we thought him to be in grief and in stroke and in affliction. He was wounded on account of our sins and weakened on account of our iniquities; the discipline of our peace was upon him, and by his bruise we are healed; we all like sheep have gone astray, each man has gone astray in his own way; and the Lord handed him over on account of our iniquities. And he, on account of the affliction, did not open his mouth: he was led as a sheep to the victim, and as a lamb before its shearer is mute, so he did not open his mouth. In humility his judgment was taken away; his generation, who will recount it, since his life is taken from the earth? From the iniquities of my people he was led to death; and the rest, which it is long to weave together. Where also about the Church it was foretold so long before, which we read recalled by the Apostle and now already see fulfilled: Rejoice, barren one who does not bear; break forth and cry out, you who do not travail, because many are the children of the desolate one, more than of her who has a husband. For the Lord said: Enlarge the place of your tent and of your hangings; fix them, do not spare; stretch out your cords and strengthen your stakes. Spread out still to the right and the left, and your seed will possess the gentiles, and you will make the deserted cities to be inhabited. Do not fear, because you have been confounded, nor be abashed, because you have been reproached. For you will forget your eternal confusion, and you will not remember the reproach of your widowhood. For the Lord who made you, the Lord of hosts is his name; and he who rescued you, the God of Israel, will be called the God of all the earth. Who is it who said: I was watching in a vision of the night, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there was one coming as the Son of man, and he came up to the Ancient of days and was brought forward in his sight. And to him was given dominion and honor and a kingdom, and all peoples, tribes, and tongues will serve him; his power is a perpetual power, which will not pass away, and his kingdom will not be corrupted? These and many other manifest things about Christ and the Church—whence were they foretold, which we thus see fulfilled, and which, with the gospel and apostolic writings agreeing, we also hope to be fulfilled, if the Spirit of God was not upon the earth before the advent of Christ, or if the advent of Christ was not foretold by the Prophets of Israel, as this man foolishly thinks—who, by denying Christ promised beforehand, has no source from which to assert him sent? And rightly so, because the one he himself proclaims was neither sent nor promised; for he is not true but invented.
LawProph.2.3.124. 13. Iam illud non miror, quod homo ineruditus de Prophetis Iudaeorum existimat dictum, quod ait Apostolus: Dixit quidam ex ipsis proprius eorum propheta: Cretenses semper mendaces, malae bestiae, ventres pigri; testimonium hoc verum est. Ignorans dictum esse de quodam epimenide, qui Cretensis fuit, in cuius libris hoc invenitur; qui homo inter Prophetas Dei non invenitur, nec ad illa eloquia Dei pertinet, quae Iudaeis dicit credita, qui non mentitur. Ideo non commemoravit Apostolus nomen eius, sicut solet commemorare Prophetas Dei aliquando dicens: Sicut et David dicit, Isaias autem audet et dicit, sicut et osee dicit, vel tacitis eorum nominibus cum dicit: Sicut scriptum est; et ea Scriptura intellegitur, in qua est auctoritas Dei, aut evidenter Deum dicere asserit, cum aliquod adhibet testimonium de Lege vel Prophetis Dei, quale est illud: bovi trituranti os non infrenabis. Numquid de bobus, inquit, cura est Deo? An propter nos Scriptura dicit? Ostendens utique in eadem scriptura Deum loqui. Vel illud: Providens autem Scriptura, quia ex fide iustificat Gentes Deus, praenuntiavit Abrahae dicens: In semine tuo benedicentur omnes Gentes. Ipsam scripturam pro Deo posuit, quia Dei est. Vel illud de Abraham: In promissione inquit, Dei non haesitavit incredulitate, sed confortatus est fide dans gloriam Deo et plenissime credens, quia quae promisit potens est et facere. Contra quam divinam et apostolicam vocem canis iste rabiosus oblatrans ausus est dicere " Abraham Deo suo promittenti prolem non credidisse ", ignorans illud quod ait: Si mihi centum annos habenti nascetur filius, admirantis esse gaudium, non diffidentiam dubitantis. Vel illud: Non potest excidere verbum Dei. Non enim omnes, qui ex Israel, ii sunt Israel, neque quia sunt semen Abraham, omnes filii; sed in Isaac vocabitur tibi semen: hoc est, non ii, qui filii carnis, hi filii Dei, sed filii promissionis deputantur in semen. Vel illud de Elia: Sed quid dicit illi responsum divinum? Reliqui mihi septem milia virorum, qui non curvaverunt genua ante baal. His atque huiusmodi attestationibus Dei veri et boni esse Scripturas illas, quas iste blasphemat, apostolica commendat auctoritas. Ubi autem aliquid etiam de auctoribus Gentium dicit Apostolus, non eos appellat Prophetas Dei nec illarum Scripturarum Deum dicit auctorem, quamvis ibi aliqua vera reperiat, sicut de isto Cretensi ait: Dixit quidam ex ipsis proprius eorum propheta: Cretenses semper mendaces; non ergo Iudaeorum proprius, sed Cretensium, quod utique ad hoc dictum est, ne Dei propheta putaretur. Et in Actibus Apostolorum cum loqueretur atheniensibus, ait de Deo: In illo enim vivimus et movemur et sumus: sicut et quidam secundum vos dixerunt.
4. 13. Now I do not wonder at this—that an untaught man supposes it was said of the Prophets of the Jews, what the Apostle says: One of themselves, their own prophet, said: The Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy bellies; this testimony is true. He is ignorant that it was said about a certain Epimenides, who was a Cretan, in whose books this is found; which man is not found among the Prophets of God, nor does he pertain to those words of God which the Apostle says were entrusted to the Jews—who does not lie. For this reason the Apostle did not recall his name, as he is wont to recall the Prophets of God, sometimes saying, As David too says, But Isaiah dares and says, As Hosea too says, or, with their names left unspoken, when he says, As it is written; and that Scripture is understood in which there is the authority of God; or he asserts that God evidently speaks, when he brings forward some testimony from the Law or the Prophets of God, such as this: You shall not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treads the grain. Is God concerned about oxen? he says. Or does the Scripture say it on account of us? Showing, surely, that in the same Scripture God speaks. Or that: But the Scripture, foreseeing that God justifies the gentiles by faith, foretold to Abraham, saying: In your seed all the gentiles will be blessed. He put the Scripture itself in place of God, because it is God's. Or that about Abraham: In the promise of God, he says, he did not hesitate through unbelief, but was strengthened by faith, giving glory to God and believing most fully that what he promised he is able also to do. Against which divine and apostolic voice this rabid dog, barking, dared to say that "Abraham did not believe his God promising him offspring,"—ignorant of that which he says: If a son will be born to me who am a hundred years old, which is the joy of one marveling, not the distrust of one doubting. Or that: The word of God cannot fail. For not all who are of Israel are Israel, nor, because they are the seed of Abraham, are all sons; but in Isaac will your seed be called: that is, it is not those who are the sons of the flesh who are the sons of God, but the sons of the promise are reckoned as the seed. Or that about Elijah: But what does the divine answer say to him? I have left myself seven thousand men, who have not bent their knees before Baal. By these and similar attestations the apostolic authority commends that those Scriptures, which this man blasphemes, are of the true and good God. But where the Apostle says something also about the authors of the gentiles, he does not call them Prophets of God, nor does he say that God is the author of those Scriptures, although he finds some true things there, as he says about this Cretan: One of themselves, their own prophet, said: The Cretans are always liars; therefore not the prophet proper to the Jews, but to the Cretans—which was surely said for this purpose, that he should not be thought a prophet of God. And in the Acts of the Apostles, when he was speaking to the Athenians, he says of God: For in him we live and move and are: as some too among you have said.
LawProph.2.4.134. 14. " Sed Apostolis ", inquit, " Dominus noster interrogantibus de Iudaeorum Prophetis, quid sentiri deberet, qui de adventu eius aliquid cecinisse in praeteritum putabantur, commotus talia eos etiam nunc sentire, respondit: Dimisistis vivum, qui ante vos est et de mortuis fabulamini". Quid mirum (quandoquidem hoc testimonium de Scripturis nescio quibus apocryphis protulit), si de Prophetis Dei talia confinxerunt haeretici, qui easdem Litteras non accipiunt? Nam in Evangelio Dominus, quod non est apocryphum, sed in luce veritatis omnibus notum, etiam post resurrectionem discipulis in itinere comitatus, incipiens a Moyse per omnes Prophetas haec de se, quae facta fuerant, praedicta monstravit.
4. 14. "But to the Apostles," he says, "when they were asking about the Prophets of the Jews what ought to be thought—who were supposed to have sung something in the past about his advent—our Lord, disturbed that they still even now thought such things, answered: You have dismissed the living one who is before you, and you tell tales about the dead." What wonder is it—since he brought forward this testimony from some apocryphal Scriptures or other—if heretics, who do not accept those same writings, invented such things about the Prophets of God? For in the Gospel the Lord—which is not apocryphal but known to all in the light of truth—even after the resurrection, accompanying his disciples on the road, beginning from Moses through all the Prophets, showed that these things about himself, which had been done, were foretold.
LawProph.2.4.144. 15. " De ipso ", inquit, " iterum arguit, ubi dicit: Multi mihi dicent in illa die: Domine, in nomine tuo daemonia eiecimus et in tuo nomine prophetavimus et in tuo nomine virtutes multas fecimus. Et tunc dicam illis: Recedite a me, quoniam nunquam vos scivi, quia operati estis iniquitatem". Absit, ut ista de Prophetis sanctis, in quibus erat Moyses et ceteri, Dominus dixerit; sed dictum est de iis, qui post eius Evangelium praedicatum in eius nomine sibi loqui videntur nescientes quid loquantur; in quibus et iste sibi locum periturus invenit.
4. 15. "About this," he says, "he reproves again, where he says: Many will say to me in that day: Lord, in your name we cast out demons and in your name we prophesied and in your name we did many mighty works. And then I will say to them: Depart from me, since I never knew you, because you have worked iniquity." Far be it that the Lord said these things about the holy Prophets, among whom were Moses and the rest; but it was said about those who, after his Gospel was preached, seem to themselves to speak in his name, not knowing what they say; among whom this man too, doomed to perish, finds a place for himself.
LawProph.2.4.154. 16. Illud quoque ait dixisse Dominum: " Ego sum ianua ovium, omnes alii quotquot ante me venerunt, fures sunt et latrones ". Non autem ita scriptum est, sed ita: Omnes quotquot venerunt, fures sunt et latrones. Venisse quippe hoc loco intellegi voluit eos, qui missi non fuissent, quos arguit etiam Ieremias dicens: Haec dicit Dominus de prophetis, qui prophetant in nomine meo et ego non misi eos. Illi autem, quos insanus iste blasphemat, a Domino missi sunt, non sponte venerunt. Quos et Dominus per parabolam quidem, sed apertissima significatione declarat, ubi dicit: Aliam parabolam audite: Homo erat paterfamilias, qui plantavit vineam et sepem circumdedit ei et fodit in ea torcular et aedificavit turrim et locavit eam agricolis et peregre profectus est. Cum autem tempus fructuum appropinquasset, misit servos suos ad agricolas, ut acciperent fructus eius. Et agricolae apprehensis servis eius alium ceciderunt, alium occiderunt, alium vero lapidaverunt. Iterum misit alios servos plures prioribus et fecerunt illis similiter. Novissime autem misit ad eos filium suum dicens: verebuntur filium meum. Agricolae autem videntes filium, dixerunt intra se: Hic est heres, venite, occidamus eum et habebimus hereditatem eius. Et apprehensum eiecerunt eum foras extra vineam et occiderunt. Cum ergo venerit Dominus vineae, quid faciet agricolis illis? Aiunt illi: Malos male perdet et vineam suam locabit aliis agricolis, qui reddant ei fructus temporibus suis. Dicit illis Iesus: Nunquam legistis in Scripturis: Lapidem, quem reprobaverunt aedificantes, hic factus est in caput anguli. A Domino factum est istud et est mirabile in oculis nostris? Ideo dico vobis, quia auferetur a vobis regnum Dei et dabitur Genti facienti fructus eius. Quid hoc apertius? Quid clarius? Quid evidentius? Sed iste de illorum numero est, qui servos patrisfamilias huius lapidaverunt. Hoc enim facit non ictibus saxeis, sed maledictionibus duris. Nam et primitus in gente Iudaeorum vineam Dei esse plantatam missosque Prophetas ante ipsius salvatoris adventum parabola ista testatur. Et cum dicit: Auferetur a vobis regnum Dei et dabitur Genti facienti fructus eius, quod regnum dicit, nisi quod sperabant, non quod acceperant, id est, vitae aeternae? Unde alibi dicit: Scrutamini Scripturas, in quibus putatis vos habere vitam aeternam; ipsae testimonium perhibent de me. Et alibi: Vae vobis legisperitis, qui tulistis clavem scientiae. Ipsi non introistis et eos, qui introibant, prohibuistis. Istis ne molibus testimoniorum non atteritur impudens vanitas? Quis hunc audit, nisi qui Scripturas sanctas non audit aut tam male audit, quam in eas iste caecus incurrit?
4. 16. He also says that the Lord said: "I am the door of the sheep; all the others, as many as came before me, are thieves and robbers." But it is not written thus, but thus: All, as many as came, are thieves and robbers. For in this place he wished those to be understood to have "come" who had not been sent—whom Jeremiah too reproves, saying: Thus says the Lord about the prophets who prophesy in my name, and I did not send them. But those whom this madman blasphemes were sent by the Lord, they did not come of their own accord. Whom the Lord also declares—by a parable, indeed, but with a most open signification—where he says: Hear another parable: There was a man, a householder, who planted a vineyard and put a hedge around it and dug a winepress in it and built a tower and let it out to farmers and went abroad. But when the time of the fruits drew near, he sent his servants to the farmers, that they might receive its fruits. And the farmers, having seized his servants, beat one, killed another, and stoned another. Again he sent other servants, more than the first, and they did to them likewise. But last of all he sent to them his son, saying: They will respect my son. But the farmers, seeing the son, said among themselves: This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and we shall have his inheritance. And having seized him, they cast him out of the vineyard and killed him. When, therefore, the lord of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those farmers? They say to him: He will badly destroy the bad men and will let out his vineyard to other farmers, who will render to him the fruits in their seasons. Jesus says to them: Have you never read in the Scriptures: The stone which the builders rejected, this has become the head of the corner. This was done by the Lord, and it is marvelous in our eyes? Therefore I say to you that the kingdom of God will be taken from you and will be given to a nation producing its fruits. What is more open than this? What clearer? What more evident? But this man is of the number of those who stoned the servants of this householder. For he does this not with blows of stones but with hard curses. For this parable testifies both that the vineyard of God was first planted in the nation of the Jews and that the Prophets were sent before the advent of the Savior himself. And when he says, The kingdom of God will be taken from you and will be given to a nation producing its fruits, what kingdom does he mean but that which they hoped for, not that which they had received—that is, of eternal life? Hence elsewhere he says: Search the Scriptures, in which you think you have eternal life; these bear witness about me. And elsewhere: Woe to you lawyers, who have taken away the key of knowledge. You yourselves did not enter, and those who were entering you prevented. Is impudent vanity not worn down by these masses of testimonies? Who listens to this man, except one who does not listen to the holy Scriptures, or listens to them as badly as this blind man rushes against them?
LawProph.2.4.165. 17. " Sed ait eis Dominus ", inquit, " parentes vestri manna manducaverunt et mortui sunt docens neminem ipsorum ad Dominum pertinuisse, quibus mors dominata est ". Neminem plane, sed parentum illorum, quibus talia loquebatur; parentes quippe infidelium, quos nisi infideles volebat intellegi? Unde alio loco dicit: vae vobis, scribae et pharisaei hypocritae, qui aedificatis sepulcra Prophetarum et ornatis monumenta iustorum et dicitis: Si fuissemus in diebus patrum nostrorum, non essemus socii eorum in sanguine Prophetarum. Itaque testimonio estis vobismetipsis, quia filii estis eorum, qui Prophetas occiderunt 98. Filios utique dixit imitatione sceleris, non propagine generis. Non enim quod ex illis secundum carnem nati erant, hoc eis esse poterat crimini, sed quod eis se similes infideli crudelitate monstrabant. Ideoque connectit ac dicit: Et vos implete mensuram patrum vestrorum. Serpentes, genimina viperarum, quomodo fugietis a iudicio gehennae? Ideo ecce ego mitto ad vos Prophetas et sapientes et scribas et ex illis occidetis et crucifigetis et ex illis flagellabitis in synagogis vestris et persequemini de civitate in civitatem, ut veniat super vos omnis sanguis iustus, qui effusus est super terram, a sanguine Abel iusti usque ad sanguinem Zacariae filii Barachiae, quem occidistis inter templum et altare. Amen dico vobis, venient haec omnia super generationem istam. Nempe constat, nempe manifestum est imitando esse istos filios malorum, a quibus Prophetae sancti et iusti, ab ipso abel quem frater occidit, usque ad Zachariam quem isti occiderunt, persecutiones impiissimas et sceleratissimas pertulerunt. Nam quomodo super istos venit illorum sanguis, qui longe ante vixerunt quam isti vel nascerentur, nisi quia unum genus, una conspersio, una massa est impiorum imitatione sibimet connexorum? Simul etiam declaratur in eodem populo fuisse iustos atque prophetas Dei, quorum isti, quibus haec loquitur Dominus, aedificabant sepulcra ornabantque monumenta. Peior ergo iste et immanior, qui eos defunctos lingua maledicta lacerat, quibus honorem etiam impii deferebant. Et in animam suam crudeliter saeviens eos blasphemat, cum velit videri christianus, quos Prophetas et iustos asserit Christus.
5. 17. "But the Lord said to them," he says, "Your parents ate manna and died—teaching that none of those over whom death held sway pertained to the Lord." None, indeed, but of those parents to whom he was speaking such things; for whom did he wish the parents of the unbelieving to be understood as, except unbelievers? Hence in another place he says: Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, who build the tombs of the Prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous and say: If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been their partners in the blood of the Prophets. Therefore you are witnesses to yourselves that you are the sons of those who killed the Prophets. He called them sons, surely, by imitation of the crime, not by propagation of lineage. For it could not be a charge to them that they were born of those according to the flesh, but that they showed themselves like them in unbelieving cruelty. And therefore he connects and says: And you, fill up the measure of your fathers. Serpents, brood of vipers, how will you flee from the judgment of hell? Therefore, behold, I send to you Prophets and wise men and scribes, and some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city, so that upon you may come all the righteous blood which has been shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Barachiah, whom you killed between the temple and the altar. Amen I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation. Surely it is established, surely it is manifest, that these men are sons, by imitating, of the evil ones at whose hands the holy and righteous Prophets—from Abel himself, whom his brother killed, to Zechariah, whom these killed—endured most impious and most wicked persecutions. For how does the blood of those who lived long before these were even born come upon these, except because there is one kind, one lump, one mass of the impious, connected to one another by imitation? At the same time it is also declared that among the same people there were righteous men and Prophets of God, whose tombs these men—to whom the Lord speaks these things—were building, and whose monuments they were adorning. Worse, then, and more monstrous is this man, who lacerates with a cursing tongue those dead men to whom even the impious paid honor. And, cruelly raging against his own soul, he blasphemes—while he wishes to seem a Christian—those whom Christ asserts to be Prophets and righteous men.
LawProph.2.5.175. 18. Iam vero quod adiungere voluit sanctos patriarchas Abraham, Isaac et Iacob, his de quibus Dominus ait: Patres vestri manducaverunt manna in deserto et mortui sunt, quia et isti patres mortui sunt, utrum fraudulentus an caecus sit potius iudicandus, incertum est. Sed quodlibet eorum eligat, detestandus est. Hinc enim hoc ostendere voluit, quia Dominus commemoratis eisdem patribus ait: Non est Deus mortuorum, sed vivorum, cum potius eos vivere dixerit. Adhibito quippe testimonio de Lege, ubi scriptum est: Ego sum Deus Abraham et Deus Isaac et Deus Iacob, adiunxit: Non est Deus mortuorum, sed vivorum, et adiecit: Omnes enim illi vivunt. Vita utique vera, qua iusti vivunt, etiam quando corpore moriuntur. Sed quando haec diceret iste, si viveret?
5. 18. But now, as for the fact that he wished to join the holy patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to those of whom the Lord says, Your fathers ate manna in the desert and died, on the ground that these fathers too died—whether he is to be judged fraudulent or rather blind is uncertain. But whichever of these he may choose, he is to be detested. For by this he wished to show that the Lord, having recalled these same fathers, says: He is not the God of the dead but of the living—when he rather said that they live. For, having brought forward a testimony from the Law, where it is written, I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, he added: He is not the God of the dead but of the living, and added: For all those live. The true life, surely, by which the righteous live, even when they die in body. But when would this man say these things, if he were alive?
LawProph.2.5.185. 19. In hanc sententiam vult accipi et quod ait Dominus ad Iudaeos: Neque me nostis neque Patrem meum, sed nec verbum Dei habetis in vobis manens. Quod utique contrarium non est ei quod dixit: Tulistis clavem scientiae; ipsi non introistis et eos, qui introibant, prohibuistis. In semetipsis enim verbum Dei non habebant, sed habebant in Litteris, quas legebant. Nam si haberent in semetipsis, et ipsi intrarent et alios intrare permitterent. Non intrare est autem non intellegere. Ecce quare nec ipsum noverant nec eius Patrem; quia non intellegebant, quod legebant, non quia Deum et Christum non praedicaverant, quos legebant. Hoc est ergo intrare, non esse contentum superficie litterae, sed ad interiora intellegentiae pervenire.
5. 19. In this sense he wishes to take also what the Lord says to the Jews: You know neither me nor my Father, nor do you have the word of God abiding in you. Which is surely not contrary to what he said: You have taken away the key of knowledge; you yourselves did not enter, and those who were entering you prevented. For they did not have the word of God in themselves, but they had it in the writings which they read. For if they had it in themselves, they would both enter and permit others to enter. But not to enter is not to understand. Behold why they knew neither him nor his Father: because they did not understand what they read, not because they had not preached the God and the Christ whom they read of. This, then, is to enter: not to be content with the surface of the letter, but to arrive at the interior things of understanding.
LawProph.2.5.195. 20. Argumentatur etiam " de Iohanne Baptista, quia Dominus ait: In natis mulierum non exsurrexit maior Iohanne Baptista. Qui autem minor est in regno caelorum, maior illo est". Ita velut ratiocinando " tamquam Iohannes non pertineat ad regnum caelorum et ob hoc multo minus ceteri Prophetae illius populi, quibus maior est Iohannes ". Haec autem verba Domini duobus modis possunt rectissime intellegi. Aut enim regnum caelorum appellavit eo loco Dominus, quod nondum accepimus et in quo nondum sumus; unde et in fine dicturus est: Venite, benedicti Patris mei, percipite regnum; et quia ibi sunt sancti angeli, quilibet in eis minor, maior est utique quolibet sancto et iusto portante corpus, quod corrumpitur et aggravat animam. Aut si regnum caelorum in ea sententia illic intellegi voluit, qua et in hoc tempore significatur Ecclesia, cuius filii sunt omnes ab institutione generis humani usque nunc, quotquot iusti et sancti esse potuerunt; profecto se ipsum Dominus significavit, quia nascendi tempore minor erat Iohanne, maior autem divinitatis aeternitate et dominica potestate. Proinde secundum priorem expositionem ita distinguitur: In natis mulierum nemo exsurrexit maior Iohanne Baptista; qui autem minor est in regno caelorum, ac deinde subinfertur: Maior illo est. Secundum hanc autem posteriorem ita: In natis mulierum non exsurrexit maior Iohanne Baptista: qui autem minor est, ac deinde subinfertur: In regno caelorum maior illo est. Sed uterque intellectus quam congruit veritati, tam refellendae huius sufficit vanitati. Sive enim quilibet angelus ceteris minor, Iohanne sit maior, sive hic Dominus intellegatur, Iohanne praecursore suo aetate minor, maiestate maior, nihil inde Prophetis ceteris derogatur. Potuerunt enim esse Iohanni aliqui aequales, aliqui eo minores; nullus autem maior propter sententiam Domini: omnes tamen sancti et iusti et boni.
5. 20. He also argues "about John the Baptist, that the Lord says: Among those born of women there has not arisen one greater than John the Baptist. But he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he." Thus, reasoning as it were, "as though John did not pertain to the kingdom of heaven, and on this account much less the other Prophets of that people, than whom John is greater." But these words of the Lord can be most rightly understood in two ways. For either the Lord in that place called "the kingdom of heaven" that which we have not yet received and in which we are not yet—whence at the end he is going to say, Come, blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom; and because the holy angels are there, anyone less among them is surely greater than any holy and righteous person bearing a body which is corrupted and weighs down the soul. Or, if in that sentence he wished "the kingdom of heaven" to be understood as that by which the Church is also signified in this present time—whose children are all, from the foundation of the human race until now, who could be righteous and holy—then surely the Lord signified himself, because in the time of his birth he was less than John, but greater in the eternity of his divinity and the lordly power. Accordingly, by the former exposition it is punctuated thus: Among those born of women none has arisen greater than John the Baptist; but he who is least in the kingdom of heaven, and then it is subjoined: is greater than he. But by this latter exposition thus: Among those born of women there has not arisen one greater than John the Baptist; but he who is least, and then it is subjoined: in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. But however much each understanding accords with the truth, so much does it suffice to refute this man's vanity. For whether any angel less than the rest is greater than John, or whether here the Lord is understood, less in age than John his forerunner but greater in majesty, nothing is thereby disparaged in the other Prophets. For there could have been some equal to John, some less than he; but none greater, on account of the Lord's pronouncement: yet all holy and righteous and good.
LawProph.2.5.206. 21. " Sed Moyses ", inquit, " omnem spem futurae resurrectionis in hominibus exstinxit, qui mortalem esse animam pronuntiavit, qui eam esse sanguinem dixit ". Deinde ratiocinando magnis viribus conatur ostendere, " non esse animam sanguinem ", et laborat in re manifesta non intellegens Legem. Sic enim dictum est: Anima omnis carnis sanguis est, quomodo dictum est: Petra erat Christus, non quia hoc erat, sed quia hinc significabatur. Non autem frustra Lex animam voluit significare per sanguinem, rem scilicet invisibilem per rem visibilem, nisi quia sanguis per venas omnes ab ipso corde diffusus in nostro corpore plus ceteris humoribus principatur, ita, ut ubicumque fuerit vulnus inflictum, non humor alius, sed ipse procedat. Itaque anima quia omnibus quibus constamus invisibiliter praevalet, illo melius significatur, quod omnibus quibus constamus visibilibus praevalet.
6. 21. "But Moses," he says, "extinguished in human beings all hope of a future resurrection, who pronounced that the soul is mortal, who said that it is the blood." Then, by reasoning, he tries with great force to show "that the soul is not the blood," and labors over a manifest matter, not understanding the Law. For it was said, The soul of all flesh is the blood, in the way it was said, The rock was Christ—not because it was this, but because by it this was signified. But the Law did not wish to signify the soul by the blood—namely, an invisible thing by a visible thing—without reason, but because the blood, diffused through all the veins from the heart itself, holds the chief place in our body more than the other humors, so that wherever a wound has been inflicted, no other humor but the blood itself comes forth. And so the soul, because it invisibly prevails over all the things of which we are composed, is better signified by that which visibly prevails over all the things of which we are composed.
LawProph.2.6.216. 22. Illud autem, quod Apostolus ait (nam et hoc testimonium iste posuit): Caro et sanguis regnum Dei non possidebit, non facit de anima, sed de resurrectione corporis quaestionem. Verum et ista duobus modis solvitur. Aut enim carnis et sanguinis nomine corruptionem carnis et sanguinis nuncupavit, quae in resurrectione non erit, aut carnem et sanguinem, homines ad omnes illecebras saecularium voluptatum carni et sanguini deditos, qui regnum Dei non possidebunt. Totus autem iste locus apostolici sermonis, ubi scriptum est: Caro et sanguis regnum Dei non possidebit, si consideretur diligentius, magis persuadebit corruptionem carnis, sicut nunc est, his eum vocabulis appellare voluisse atque ad exponendum quid diceret adiunxisse: Neque corruptio incorruptionem possidebit. Quia cum facta fuerit, quae in resurrectione speratur, illa mutatio, non utique remanebit ulla corruptio. Quamvis ergo et post resurrectionem Dominus dixerit discipulis suis: Palpate, et videte, quia spiritus carnem et ossa non habet, sicut me videtis habere; tamen secundum substantiam caro erit, non secundum corruptionem, quae nunc carni hoc nomen imponit. Unde ait propheta: Omnis caro fenum. Numquid enim et Domini quam levavit in caelum? Quo ergo modo appellavit propheta carnem, ubi ait: Omnis caro fenum; dicturus utique: Fenum aruit, eo modo et Apostolus ait: Caro et sanguis regnum Dei non possidebit; quia non ibi erit corruptio, qua nunc sicut fenum natura carnis arescit. Non enim alia sententia est: Neque corruptio incorruptionem possidebit; sed haec repetitio, sententiae superioris est expositio, ut quod ibi dictum est: Caro et sanguis, intellegamus corruptionem, non substantiam carnis; et quod ibi dictum est: Regnum Dei, intellegamus incorruptionem. Atque ita nihil aliud dictum putemus: Caro et sanguis regnum Dei non possidebit, quam si diceretur: Corruptio incorruptionem non possidebit, id est corruptio carnis et sanguinis in illius regni incorruptione non erit propter immutationem scilicet, de qua mox locutus adiunxit: Oportet corruptibile hoc induere incorruptionem. Ita corruptio, quae carnis et sanguinis nomine significata est, in regni illius incorruptione non erit quia caro, quae nunc corruptibilis est, tunc mutata incorruptibilis erit.
6. 22. But that which the Apostle says (for this testimony too this man set down), Flesh and blood will not possess the kingdom of God, raises a question not about the soul but about the resurrection of the body. But this too is resolved in two ways. For either by the name of flesh and blood he named the corruption of flesh and blood, which will not exist in the resurrection; or by "flesh and blood" he named human beings given over to flesh and blood, to all the enticements of worldly pleasures, who will not possess the kingdom of God. But this whole passage of the apostolic discourse, where it is written, Flesh and blood will not possess the kingdom of God, if it be considered more diligently, will rather persuade us that he wished to call by these names the corruption of the flesh as it now is, and to add, in order to explain what he meant: Nor will corruption possess incorruption. Because, when that change which is hoped for in the resurrection has come about, no corruption at all will remain. Although, then, even after the resurrection the Lord said to his disciples, Handle me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see me to have, nevertheless according to substance it will be flesh, not according to corruption, which now imposes this name on the flesh. Hence the prophet says, All flesh is grass. For is even the Lord's flesh, which he raised up to heaven, grass? In the way, then, that the prophet called it flesh when he said, All flesh is grass—being about to say, surely, The grass has withered—in that way the Apostle too says, Flesh and blood will not possess the kingdom of God, because there will be no corruption there, by which now, like grass, the nature of the flesh withers. For it is not another sentence, Nor will corruption possess incorruption; rather, this repetition is an exposition of the previous sentence, so that what was there said, Flesh and blood, we may understand as the corruption, not the substance, of the flesh; and what was there said, The kingdom of God, we may understand as incorruption. And thus let us think that nothing else was said by Flesh and blood will not possess the kingdom of God than if it were said, Corruption will not possess incorruption—that is, the corruption of flesh and blood will not exist in the incorruption of that kingdom, on account, namely, of the change of which, speaking soon after, he added: This corruptible must put on incorruption. Thus the corruption which was signified by the name of flesh and blood will not exist in the incorruption of that kingdom, because the flesh, which is now corruptible, will then, changed, be incorruptible.
LawProph.2.6.226. 23. Moyses autem homo Dei si animam credidisset esse mortalem, quod utique credidisset, si eam sanguinem, non significationis, sed proprietatis causa esse dixisset, non alio loco diceret: Omnis, qui tetigerit mortuum ab omni anima hominis et mortuus fuerit et non fuerit purificatus, tabernaculum Domini polluit: exteretur anima illa ex Israel; quoniam aqua aspersionis non est circumspersa super eum, immundus est, adhuc immunditia eius in ipso est. Adhuc utique dixit, etiam post mortem, quia non est purificatus, ubi praefiguratum lavacrum regenerationis intellegit, quod nunc accipiunt, qui baptizantur in Christo, quisquis audit fideliter: Si crederetis Moysi, crederetis et mihi; de me enim ille scripsit.
6. 23. But Moses, the man of God, if he had believed the soul to be mortal—which he would surely have believed, if he had said it was the blood not for the sake of signification but of proper nature—would not in another place say: Everyone who touches a dead man, anyone who has died from any human soul, and has not been purified, pollutes the tabernacle of the Lord: that soul will be cut off from Israel; since the water of sprinkling has not been sprinkled around upon him, he is unclean, his uncleanness is still in him. "Still," he surely said—even after death, since he is not purified—where he understands the prefigured bath of regeneration, which those now receive who are baptized in Christ, whoever faithfully hears: If you believed Moses, you would believe me also; for he wrote about me.
LawProph.2.6.237. 24. Quid autem mirum, si iste infelix a luce veritatis aversus et ob hoc luci veritatis adversus ea, quae non intellegit in Novo Testamento, obicit Veteri Testamento? Sicut etiam illud de apostolo Paulo, ubi ait ad Corinthios: Quod si ministratio mortis in litteris formata lapideis facta est in gloria, ita ut non possent filii Israel intendere in faciem Moysi propter gloriam vultus eius, quae destruitur, quare non magis ministratio spiritus erit in gloria? Nam si ministratio damnationis gloria est, multo magis ministratio iustitiae abundabit in gloria. Etenim non glorificatum est in hac parte id quod declaratum est propter excellentem claritatem. Nam si id quod destruitur in gloria est, multo magis illud quod manet in gloria est. Hoc modo iste posuit verba apostolica nec a meliore interpretatione plurimum distat. Quia ergo dicta est: Ministratio mortis in litteris formata lapideis, hinc existimat, quod morti ministraverit Moyses, id est mortis auctori, maligno scilicet spiritui, quem mundi huius iste opinatur auctorem, ignorans ministrationem mortis dictam Legem, secundum illud, quod alibi dicit: Littera occidit, spiritus autem vivificat. Lex enim quamvis iusta et sancta et bona praevaricatoribus intulit mortem, quos Dei gratia non adiuvit ad iustitiam Legis implendam. Oportebat enim ut Testamento Vetere Lex imponeretur superbis, et de suae voluntatis virtute fidentibus, quae non daret iustitiam, sed iuberet, ac sic morte praevaricationis impliciti ad gratiam confugerent, non iubentem tantummodo, sed iuvantem, quae Novo Testamento est revelata. Hinc putant isti divinorum eloquiorum blasphematores malam fuisse Legem, quae data est per Moysen, quia dicta est ministratio mortis in litteris figurata lapideis, non intuentes propter eos esse dictum, qui suo libero arbitrio Legem sufficere arbitrabantur et spiritu gratiae non adiuti rei praevaricationis sub eiusdem Legis littera tenebantur. Unde alibi dicit: Lex iram operatur. Ubi enim Lex non est, nec praevaricatio, hinc ostendens, unde dixerit: Lex iram operatur. Neque enim eius praevaricatio mala esset, nisi Lex ipsa bona esset.
7. 24. But what wonder is it if this unhappy man, turned away from the light of truth and on that account opposed to the light of truth, casts up against the Old Testament the things which he does not understand in the New Testament? As also that passage from the apostle Paul, where he says to the Corinthians: But if the ministry of death, formed in letters on stones, was made in glory, so that the children of Israel could not gaze upon the face of Moses on account of the glory of his countenance, which is being abolished, why will not the ministry of the spirit rather be in glory? For if the ministry of condemnation is glory, much more will the ministry of righteousness abound in glory. For even what was glorified was, in this respect, not glorified, on account of the surpassing brightness. For if that which is being abolished is in glory, much more is that which remains in glory. In this way this man set down the apostolic words, and does not differ much from the better interpretation. Because, then, it was said, The ministry of death, formed in letters on stones, he thinks from this that Moses ministered to death—that is, to the author of death, namely the malign spirit, whom this man supposes to be the author of this world—not knowing that the Law was called the ministry of death, according to that which he says elsewhere: The letter kills, but the spirit gives life. For the Law, although just and holy and good, brought death to the transgressors, whom the grace of God did not help to fulfill the righteousness of the Law. For it was fitting that in the Old Testament the Law be imposed upon the proud, and upon those trusting in the strength of their own will, a Law which would not give righteousness but command it, and that thus, entangled in the death of transgression, they might flee to grace—a grace not merely commanding but helping—which was revealed in the New Testament. Hence these blasphemers of the divine words think that the Law given through Moses was bad, because it was called the ministry of death, figured in letters on stones, not considering that it was said on account of those who supposed that the Law was sufficient by their own free choice and, not helped by the spirit of grace, were held guilty of transgression under the letter of the same Law. Hence he says elsewhere: The Law works wrath. For where there is no Law, neither is there transgression—showing thereby why he said, The Law works wrath. For the transgression of it would not be bad, unless the Law itself were good.
LawProph.2.7.247. 25. Multum est et nimis longum cuncta colligere, quae in hanc sententiam beatus dicit Apostolus Legem distinguens a gratia, eo quod sub illa elidantur elati, sub ista erigantur elisi, et quod illa in tantum bona sit, ut bona iubeat, haec in tantum, ut bona conferat. Illa iustitiae facit auditorem, ista factorem. Et ideo sub illa peccator, insuper etiam praevaricator amissa excusatione ignorantiae convictus iacet. Sub ista vero et parcente et opitulante nec quia mala est operatus exstinguitur, et ut bona operetur accenditur. Quid ergo est mirum, si illa dicta est ministratio mortis, ubi littera occidit, malum prohibendo quod fit, et bonum imperando quod non fit. Ista vero dicta est ministratio spiritus utique vivificantis, ut a praevaricationis morte surgamus et iustitiam non rei legamus in tabulis, sed liberi in cordibus et in moribus habeamus? Hoc est Testamentum Novum distans a Vetere; quia ibi vetus homo formidinis coartatur angustiis, hic novus homo spatiatur latitudine caritatis.
7. 25. It is much, and too long, to gather all the things which the blessed Apostle says in this sense, distinguishing the Law from grace—in that under the former the lifted-up are dashed down, under the latter the dashed-down are raised up; and that the former is good to such a degree that it commands good things, the latter to such a degree that it confers good things. The former makes a hearer of righteousness, the latter a doer. And therefore under the former the sinner—indeed, moreover, the transgressor—lies convicted, having lost the excuse of ignorance. But under the latter, both sparing and helping, he is not destroyed because he has worked what is bad, and is kindled to work what is good. What wonder is it, then, if the former was called the ministry of death, where the letter kills, by forbidding the evil that is done and commanding the good that is not done; but the latter was called the ministry of the spirit—the spirit, namely, that gives life—so that we may rise from the death of transgression and not read righteousness as guilty persons on tablets, but, as free persons, have it in our hearts and in our morals? This is the New Testament differing from the Old; because there the old man is confined in the straits of dread, here the new man walks abroad in the breadth of love.
LawProph.2.7.257. 26. Quod autem dictum est de ministro Veteris Testamenti Moyse, quod non poterant intendere filii Israel in faciem eius propter gloriam vultus eius signum erat, quia in Lege Christum intellecturi non erant. Et ideo velamen inter faciem Moysi et ipsos positum erat, ut non intenderent, sicut scriptum est, filii Israel usque in finem. Finis autem Legis quis est? Ad hoc non ego, sed Apostolus ipse respondeat: Finis enim Legis, inquit, Christus ad iustitiam omni credenti. Finis perficiens, non interficiens. Finis quippe dicitur, propter quem fiunt omnia, quaecumque aliquo fiunt officio. Nam inter officium et finem hoc distat, quod officium est in eis, quae facere debemus, finis propter quem facimus. Quia itaque illa omnia propter Christum fiebant, quem filii Israel in eis quae fiebant non intellegebant, hoc significabat velamen, quod eos usque in finem non sinebat intendere, id est, usque ad faciem Moysi, quae significabat Christum. Sed ideo dictum est, quod evacuetur haec gloria, quia omnes umbrae significantes evacuantur, cum res quae significatur advenerit. Quemadmodum enim scientia quae nunc est evacuabitur, sicut idem dicit Apostolus, cum venerit illa quam dicit, facie ad faciem; sic et ista quae in umbris tradita erant Iudaeis in Vetere Testamento, necesse fuit evacuari revelatione Testamenti Novi.
7. 26. But that which was said about Moses, the minister of the Old Testament—that the children of Israel could not gaze upon his face on account of the glory of his countenance—was a sign that they were not going to understand Christ in the Law. And therefore a veil was placed between the face of Moses and them, so that, as it is written, the children of Israel should not gaze up to the end. But who is the end of the Law? To this let not I but the Apostle himself answer: For Christ, he says, is the end of the Law unto righteousness for everyone who believes. An end perfecting, not destroying. For "end" is so called as that for the sake of which all things are done, whatever are done by some function. For between a function and an end there is this difference: that a function is in the things which we ought to do, the end is that for the sake of which we do them. Since, then, all those things were done for the sake of Christ, whom the children of Israel did not understand in the things that were being done, this the veil signified, which did not allow them to gaze to the end—that is, up to the face of Moses, which signified Christ. But it was said that this glory is done away with, because all the signifying shadows are done away with when the thing which is signified has come. For just as the knowledge which now is will be done away with, as the same Apostle says, when that comes which he calls "face to face," so too those things which had been handed down to the Jews in shadows in the Old Testament had necessarily to be done away with by the revelation of the New Testament.
LawProph.2.7.267. 27. Nec sane omnes in illo populo non intellegebant Christum per illas umbras Testamenti Veteris figuratum: neque enim haec ipse Moyses et ceteri Prophetae non intellegebant, qui eum posteris praenuntiabant. Nam in ipsa Epistola ad Corinthios, ubi haec dicuntur, quae iste non intellegens posuit tamquam adversa et inimica Veteri Testamento, cur dicit: Habentes autem eumdem spiritum fidei, secundum quod scriptum est: Credidi, propter quod et locutus sum, et nos credimus, propter quod et loquimur? Ubi enim scriptum est: Credidi, propter quod et locutus sum? Utique in psalmis ad illa Dei eloquia pertinentibus, quae credita sunt Iudaeis. Eumdem, inquit, spiritum fidei habentes: quid est eumdem, nisi quem habebant etiam illi, per quos haec ministrata sunt? Cur etiam in eadem epistola de Lege posuit testimonium, cum praemisisset: Ut vestra abundantia sit ad illorum inopiam, ut et illorum abundantia fiat in vestram inopiam, ut fiat aequalitas, subiungens et dicens: Sicut scriptum est: Qui multum, non abundavit, et qui modicum, non defuit illi? Cur eis importat Legis auctoritatem, quam dicit fuisse ministrationem mortis, si eo modo intellexit, quomodo ista pestis intellegit?
7. 27. Nor indeed did all in that people fail to understand Christ figured through those shadows of the Old Testament: for these things were not unknown to Moses himself and the other Prophets, who foretold him to those who came after. For in that very Epistle to the Corinthians, where these things are said which this man, not understanding, set down as though adverse and hostile to the Old Testament, why does he say: But having the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, I believed, on account of which I also spoke, we too believe, on account of which we also speak? For where is it written, I believed, on account of which I also spoke? Surely in the psalms, which belong to those words of God that were entrusted to the Jews. Having the same spirit of faith, he says: what is "the same," unless that which those also had through whom these things were ministered? Why also in the same epistle did he set down a testimony from the Law, when he had premised, That your abundance may be for their want, that their abundance too may come to be for your want, that there may be equality, subjoining and saying, As it is written: He who had much did not have too much, and he who had little did not lack? Why does he bring upon them the authority of the Law, which he says was a ministry of death, if he understood it in the way this plague understands?
LawProph.2.7.277. 28. Atque ut omnes auferantur ambages, quonam modo et Lex ministratio mortis recte dicta sit et tamen sancta et iusta et bona sit, illud recolamus, quod in Epistola positum est ad Romanos. Cum enim dixisset: Ita ut serviamus in novitate spiritus et non in vetustate litterae, quae sententia simillima est illi, quam iste non intellegens posuit, continuo prospexit istos futuros verbosos atque blasphemos, qui putaturi essent ex hoc Legem fuisse reprehensam, moxque subiunxit: Quid ergo dicemus? Lex peccatum est? Absit: sed peccatum non cognovi nisi per Legem. Nam concupiscentiam nesciebam, nisi Lex diceret: Non concupisces. Occasione autem accepta peccatum per mandatum operatum est in me omnem concupiscentiam. Sine Lege enim peccatum mortuum est. Ego autem vivebam aliquando sine Lege, adveniente autem mandato peccatum revixit. Ego autem mortuus sum et inventum est mihi mandatum, quod erat in vitam, hoc esse in mortem. Peccatum enim occasione accepta per mandatum fefellit me et per illud occidit. Itaque Lex quidem sancta et mandatum sanctum et iustum et bonum. Quod ergo bonum est, mihi factum est mors? Absit: sed peccatum ut appareat peccatum, per bonum mihi operatum est mortem. Ecce quid est ministratio mortis, ecce quid est littera occidit; ecce quemadmodum Lex non est peccatum, et mandatum erat in vitam, et Lex sancta, et mandatum sanctum et iustum et bonum. Et tamen quia de ipso bono interficitur inoboediens anima, ubi Dei non adiuvat gratia, ministratio mortis facta est Lex in Vetere Testamento propter occidentem litteram; et ministratio vitae facta est gratia in Novo Testamento propter vivificantem spiritum. Quod est autem ministratio mortis et ministratio damnationis, hoc est occasione accepta peccatum per mandatum operatum est in me omnem concupiscentiam, hoc est adveniente mandato peccatum revixit, hoc est inventum est mihi mandatum quod erat in vitam, hoc esse in mortem, hoc est occasione accepta peccatum per mandatum fefellit me et per illud occidit, hoc est Lex subintravit, ut abundaret delictum, hoc est Lex iram operatur, hoc est virtus peccati Lex. Prohibitio enim peccati, quod est Lex, auget profecto desiderium peccandi, quod non exstinguitur nisi contrario desiderio recte faciendi, ubi fides per dilectionem operatur. Hoc autem non praestat littera iubens, sed spiritus iuvans: non Lex ergo, sed gratia, non Vetus Testamentum in servitutem generans, quod est Agar, sed Novum, in quo non sunt ancillae filii, sed liberae, qua libertate Christus nos liberavit. Et tamen Lex sancta est et mandatum sanctum et iustum et bonum. Per hoc mandatum sanctum et iustum et bonum in his, qui non habent spiritum Christi, operatur peccatum omnem concupiscentiam. Qualem se fuisse in Vetere Testamento etiam ipse Apostolus ostendens, occasione, inquit, accepta peccatum per mandatum operatum est in me omnem concupiscentiam. Per quod mandatum, nisi quod ait: Concupiscentiam nesciebam, nisi Lex diceret: Non concupisces? Numquid malum est non concupiscere? Immo maxime bonum. Bona est ergo Lex, quae hoc dicit, sed ubi non adest vivificans spiritus, haec ipsa Lex, quae bonum dicit, occidit, quia peccati virtus est, cum per illam operatur omnem concupiscentiam inflammando prohibitione; quod non exstinguitur per iubentem litteram timore poenae, sed per iuvantem spiritum dilectione iustitiae. Ideo ait: Peccatum ut appareat peccatum, per bonum mihi operatum est mortem. Non enim ait, per malum, sed per bonum. Hic evigilent, si possunt, qui Legem Dei atque eius ministrum Moysen caeco et furioso corde reprehendunt. Ideo quippe est ministratio mortis, quia peccatum per bonum operatum est mortem. Ideo est ministratio damnationis, quia peccatum per bonum operatum est damnationem.
7. 28. And, that all ambiguities may be removed as to in what way the Law was both rightly called the ministry of death and yet is holy and just and good, let us recall that which is set down in the Epistle to the Romans. For when he had said, So that we may serve in newness of the spirit and not in the oldness of the letter—which sentence is most similar to the one which this man, not understanding, set down—he at once foresaw that these verbose and blasphemous men would be, who would suppose from this that the Law had been reprehended, and soon subjoined: What then shall we say? Is the Law sin? Far be it: but I did not know sin except through the Law. For I would not have known concupiscence, unless the Law said: You shall not covet. But sin, having taken occasion, worked in me through the commandment all concupiscence. For without the Law sin is dead. But I was once alive without the Law; but when the commandment came, sin revived. But I died, and the commandment which was unto life was found by me to be unto death. For sin, having taken occasion, deceived me through the commandment and through it killed me. And so the Law indeed is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good. Did then that which is good become death to me? Far be it: but sin, that it might appear sin, worked death in me through the good. Behold what the ministry of death is, behold what the letter kills is; behold how the Law is not sin, and the commandment was unto life, and the Law holy, and the commandment holy and just and good. And yet because by that very good the disobedient soul is killed, where the grace of God does not help, the Law was made the ministry of death in the Old Testament on account of the killing letter; and grace was made the ministry of life in the New Testament on account of the life-giving spirit. But what the ministry of death and the ministry of condemnation is, this is: sin, having taken occasion, worked in me through the commandment all concupiscence; this is, when the commandment came, sin revived; this is, the commandment which was unto life was found by me to be unto death; this is, sin, having taken occasion, deceived me through the commandment and through it killed me; this is, the Law entered in, that the offense might abound; this is, the Law works wrath; this is, the strength of sin is the Law. For the prohibition of sin, which is the Law, surely increases the desire of sinning, which is not extinguished except by the contrary desire of doing rightly, where faith works through love. But this the commanding letter does not supply, but the helping spirit: not the Law, then, but grace; not the Old Testament, generating unto slavery, which is Hagar, but the New, in which the children are not of the slave woman but of the free woman, by which freedom Christ has set us free. And yet the Law is holy and the commandment holy and just and good. Through this holy and just and good commandment, in those who do not have the Spirit of Christ, sin works all concupiscence. Showing what he himself had been in the Old Testament, the Apostle too says, sin, having taken occasion, worked in me through the commandment all concupiscence. Through what commandment, but that which he says: I would not have known concupiscence, unless the Law said: You shall not covet? Is it bad not to covet? On the contrary, it is supremely good. The Law, then, is good which says this; but where the life-giving spirit is not present, this very Law, which says what is good, kills, because it is the strength of sin, when through it sin works all concupiscence by inflaming through prohibition; which is not extinguished through the commanding letter by fear of punishment, but through the helping spirit by love of righteousness. Therefore he says, Sin, that it might appear sin, worked death in me through the good. For he does not say, "through the bad," but "through the good." Here let them awake, if they can, who with a blind and raging heart reprehend the Law of God and his minister Moses. For it is the ministry of death precisely because sin worked death through the good. It is the ministry of condemnation precisely because sin worked condemnation through the good.
LawProph.2.7.287. 29. Non autem omnes, qui christiani appellantur, ad Christum transeunt, sed quibus aufertur velamen, quod in lectione Veteris Testamenti manet. Qui enim sunt in Vetere Testamento impediente velamine nec Vetus intellegunt nec Novum; qui autem transeunt ad Christum remoto velamine per Novum intellegunt et Vetus et Novum. Utinam et isti caeci oppugnatores Legis et Prophetarum sic transeant ad Christum, ut non sint in eis, in quibus obvelatum est et ipsum Evangelium. In his enim qui pereunt, est obvelatum, ait Apostolus, in quibus Deus saeculi huius excaecavit mentes infidelium, ut non fulgeat illuminatio Evangelii gloriae Christi, qui est imago Dei. Ubi miser iste Deum saeculi huius vult intellegi malum: tamquam illi servierit Moyses in Vetere Testamento, quasi hoc Apostolus dixerit. Ubi si necesse esset intellegi Deum saeculi huius, deum impiorum, hoc est diabolum, quoniam omnes dii Gentium daemonia et utique multo maxime princeps daemoniorum; non mirum esset, quandoquidem quorundam deus etiam venter est dictus; ait enim Apostolus, quorum deus venter est; nec ideo Deus venter est. Ita si potest dici deus huius saeculi diabolus, non ideo diabolus deus est; quia nec daemonia sunt dii, quamvis dii Gentium sint daemonia. Potest quippe saeculum in malo intellegi; unde dicit apostolus [Petrus]: Eripiet vos de praesenti saeculo maligno. Sed cum alter pateat intellectus, quid necesse est hic diabolum putare significatum ac non potius Deum verum, iustum et bonum, qui excaecaverit mentes infidelium saeculi huius, ut non hic distinguatur, in quibus Deus saeculi huius, ac deinde subinferatur excaecavit mentes infidelium; sed ita potius in quibus Deus, ac deinde subinferatur saeculi huius excaecavit mentes infidelium, hoc est infidelium saeculi huius mentes excaecavit.
7. 29. But not all who are called Christians pass over to Christ, but those from whom the veil is removed which remains in the reading of the Old Testament. For those who are in the Old Testament, with the veil hindering, understand neither the Old nor the New; but those who pass over to Christ, the veil removed, understand through the New both the Old and the New. Would that these blind assailants of the Law and the Prophets too might so pass over to Christ that they not be among those in whom the Gospel itself is veiled. For among those who perish it is veiled, says the Apostle, in whom the God of this age blinded the minds of the unbelievers, so that the illumination of the Gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, may not shine. Here this wretch wishes the God of this age to be understood as evil—as though Moses had served him in the Old Testament, as though the Apostle had said this. Here, if it were necessary to understand the God of this age as the god of the impious—that is, the devil, since all the gods of the gentiles are demons, and surely much most of all the prince of demons—it would be no wonder, since the belly too is called the god of certain people; for the Apostle says, whose god is the belly; nor is the belly therefore a god. So, if the devil can be called the god of this age, the devil is not therefore a god; because neither are demons gods, although the gods of the gentiles are demons. For "age" (saeculum) can be understood in an evil sense; whence the apostle [Peter] says: He will rescue you from the present evil age. But since another understanding lies open, what need is there here to think the devil signified, and not rather the true, just, and good God, who blinded the minds of the unbelievers of this age—so that it should not be punctuated here, "in whom the God of this age," and then subjoined, "blinded the minds of the unbelievers," but rather thus, "in whom God," and then subjoined, "blinded the minds of the unbelievers of this age"—that is, blinded the minds of the unbelievers of this age?
LawProph.2.7.298. 30. Sed istis non placet, ut Deus bonus mentes excaecet aliquorum. Non enim attendunt Salvatoris verba dicentis: In iudicium ego in hunc mundum veni, ut qui non vident, videant, et qui vident, caeci fiant. Ille igitur, qui secundum apostolicam sententiam, cuius vult miseretur, et quem vult obdurat, procul dubio quem vult illuminat et quem vult excaecat. Sed non est iniquitas apud Deum, cui dicit Ecclesia: Misericordiam et iudicium cantabo tibi, Domine. Illuminat ergo misericordia, excaecat iudicio, utique aequissimo etsi occultissimo. Inscrutabilia enim sunt iudicia eius. Cui tamen dicitur: Sedisti super thronum, qui iudicas aequitatem.
8. 30. But it does not please these people that the good God should blind the minds of some. For they do not attend to the words of the Savior saying: For judgment I came into this world, so that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind. He, therefore, who—according to the apostolic sentence—has mercy on whom he wills, and hardens whom he wills, without doubt enlightens whom he wills and blinds whom he wills. But there is no injustice with God, to whom the Church says: Mercy and judgment I will sing to you, O Lord. He enlightens, then, by mercy, blinds by judgment—a judgment most just, even if most hidden. For his judgments are inscrutable. To whom nevertheless it is said: You have sat upon the throne, you who judge with equity.
LawProph.2.8.308. 31. Huic Deo servivit Moyses ceterique Prophetae, quos iustos sine dubio Dominus ipse testatur. Horum quippe Iudaei sepulcra construebant et monumenta ornabant, quibus dicit: Aedificatis sepulcra Prophetarum et ornatis monumenta iustorum 180. Sed illi omnes, etsi pro temporis dispensatione Veteris Testamenti ministrabant figuras, ad Novum tamen Testamentum quamvis nondum revelatum per Dei gratiam pertinebant, ad quod pertinebat Abraham. Hinc quippe isti, si remoto velamine legerent, intellegerent ita non esse inimicum Evangelium Legi, quae data est per Moysen, sicut inter se non sunt inimici Abraham et ipse Moyses; quos utique et isti eumdem coluisse confitentur Deum, quamvis eum sic blasphement, ut esse Deum negent. Et tamen Apostolus promissiones, quae factae sunt Abrahae, quia Novum Testamentum significabant, sic opponit Legi per Moysen datae, ut haec duo inter se inimica videantur. Quid enim aliud ad Romanos dicit? Non enim per Legem promissio Abrahae aut semini eius, ut heres esset mundi, sed per iustitiam fidei. Si enim qui per Legem, heredes sunt, exinanita est fides et evacuata est promissio. Lex enim iram operatur. Ubi enim Lex non est, nec praevaricatio. Attendant, quemadmodum sic disputat, veluti contra Legem, ut eam priore illa quae facta est ad Abraham promissione convincat, quod non sint heredes ex Lege quicumque sint heredes Dei, sed ex promissione. Itemque ad Galatas: Fratres, inquit, secundum hominem dico; tamen hominis confirmatum Testamentum nemo irritum facit aut superordinat. Abrahae dictae sunt promissiones et semini eius. Non dicit: et seminibus, tamquam in multis, sed tamquam in uno: et semini tuo, quod est Christus. Hoc autem dico, Testamentum confirmatum a Deo, quae post quadringentos et triginta annos facta est Lex, non infirmat ad evacuandam promissionem. Si enim ex Lege hereditas, iam non ex promissione. Abrahae autem per repromissionem donavit Deus. Quid ergo Lex? Transgressionis gratia proposita est, donec veniret semen cui promissum est. Nescio utrum isti, qui Legem non intellegentes criminantur, inveniant aliquid ex Evangelio vel ex apostolicis Litteris, quod ita videatur eidem Legi adversum esse atque contrarium, quemadmodum hoc videtur, quod ex promissionibus, quae Abrahae factae sunt, opponit Apostolus. Si ergo Legem oderunt, Abraham diligant.
8. 31. This God Moses served, and the other Prophets, whom the Lord himself testifies without doubt to be righteous. For the Jews were building their tombs and adorning their monuments, to whom he says: You build the tombs of the Prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous. But all those, although for the dispensation of the time they ministered the figures of the Old Testament, nevertheless pertained, by the grace of God, to the New Testament, though not yet revealed—to which Abraham pertained. For from this, if they read with the veil removed, these men would understand that the Gospel is no more hostile to the Law given through Moses than Abraham and Moses himself are hostile to each other—whom even these men confess to have worshiped the same God, although they so blaspheme him as to deny that he is God. And yet the Apostle so sets the promises which were made to Abraham, because they signified the New Testament, against the Law given through Moses, that these two seem hostile to each other. For what else does he say to the Romans? For not through the Law was the promise made to Abraham or to his seed, that he should be the heir of the world, but through the righteousness of faith. For if those who are by the Law are heirs, faith is emptied and the promise is made void. For the Law works wrath. For where there is no Law, neither is there transgression. Let them attend to how he thus argues, as though against the Law, so as to convict it by that earlier promise which was made to Abraham, that whoever are heirs of God are heirs not from the Law but from the promise. And likewise to the Galatians: Brothers, he says, I speak after the manner of man; yet a man's confirmed testament no one annuls or adds to. To Abraham the promises were spoken, and to his seed. He does not say, And to seeds, as in many, but as in one: And to your seed, which is Christ. But this I say: a testament confirmed by God, the Law, which came four hundred and thirty years after, does not invalidate so as to void the promise. For if the inheritance is from the Law, it is now no longer from the promise. But to Abraham God granted it through a promise. Why then the Law? It was set forth for the sake of transgression, until the seed should come to whom the promise was made. I do not know whether these men, who accuse the Law without understanding it, find anything from the Gospel or from the apostolic writings which seems so adverse and contrary to the same Law as does this, which the Apostle sets against it from the promises which were made to Abraham. If, then, they hate the Law, let them love Abraham.
LawProph.2.8.319. 32. Sed nec hoc volunt. Nam et ipsi patri Gentium, ad quem promissiones factas nunc in omnibus Gentibus videmus impleri, crimen fornicationis obiciunt. Iste quippe procul dubio, cui respondemus, ex illis se esse manifestat de quibus praedictum est Apostolo dicente: Spiritus autem manifeste dicit, quia in novissimis temporibus recedent quidam a fide, attendentes spiritibus seductoribus et doctrinis daemoniorum in hypocrisi mendaciloquorum, cauteriatam habentes conscientiam suam, prohibentes nubere. Non enim reperitur Abraham aliquo se contaminasse adulterio, quoniam non lubrico libidinis amavit ancillam, sed ab uxore accepit, quando uxor eius fecit de suo iure quod voluit, volens habere filios de marito suo, quamvis ex utero alieno: ubi nulla omnino lasciviendi, sed sola cogitata est causa generandi. Iste autem " Abrahae etiam usque ad decrepitam senectutem fornicationis obicit crimen, profecto quia et post mortem Sarae alteram duxit". Ubi etsi nullum intellegeretur rei abditae sacramentum, propter hoc solum id facere debuit Abraham, ne putarent haeretici adversus Apostolum, quibus etiam Tertullianus astipulator assistit, post uxoris mortem crimen esse ducere uxorem. Sed sicut sibi iste videtur invenire in apostolicis Litteris, quae dicat contra Legem per Moysen datam vel contra Testamentum Vetus, inveniat tale aliquid adversum Abraham, quod ex evangelicis Litteris sonare videatur: omnino non inveniet. Ubicumque ille nominatur in libris Testamenti Novi, cum honore debito nominatur, ita ut Iudaeis diceret ipse Dominus: Si filii Abrahae estis, facta Abrahae facite. Ac per hoc iste, qui blasphemat Abraham, Christum profecto blasphemat, qui tale testimonium perhibet Abrahae.
9. 32. But they do not want this either. For they even cast the charge of fornication against the very father of the gentiles, to whom the promises were made which we now see fulfilled in all the gentiles. For this man, surely, to whom we are answering, shows himself to be of those of whom it was foretold, the Apostle saying: But the Spirit manifestly says that in the last times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons, in the hypocrisy of liars, having their conscience cauterized, forbidding to marry. For Abraham is not found to have defiled himself by any adultery, since he did not love the slave woman by the slipperiness of lust but received her from his wife, when his wife did what she wished with her own right, wishing to have children by her husband, though from another womb: where there was thought of no wantonness at all, but only of begetting. But this man "casts against Abraham, even up to decrepit old age, the charge of fornication—surely because even after Sarah's death he took another wife." Where, even if no sacrament of a hidden matter were understood, for this reason alone Abraham ought to have done it: lest the heretics—against the Apostle, whom Tertullian too stands by as an abettor—should think it a crime to take a wife after a wife's death. But just as this man thinks he finds in the apostolic writings things he may say against the Law given through Moses or against the Old Testament, let him find something of the kind against Abraham that may seem to sound from the gospel writings: he will not find it at all. Wherever Abraham is named in the books of the New Testament, he is named with due honor, so that the Lord himself said to the Jews: If you are the sons of Abraham, do the works of Abraham. And thereby this man, who blasphemes Abraham, surely blasphemes Christ, who bears such testimony to Abraham.
LawProph.2.9.329. 33. Sed dicat, si potest, quam personam illarum quinque gerebat Apostolus, cum sic praedicaret Abraham? Si enim eis, qui sine Lege fuerant, factus erat quasi esset et ipse sine Lege, illi Abraham non noverant. Ergo aliquem principem, sive Romanorum sive Graecorum sive aliquem philosophorum debuit invenire quem talibus praedicaret, ut eis, sicut huic placet, talem se, quales ipsi erant fingendo, congrueret: non Abraham nescio quem alienigenam patrem gentis Hebraeae, longe ab eorum moribus, longe ab eorum ritibus, longe ab eorum cognationibus alienum. Si autem Iudaeis tamquam iudaeus factus erat aut eis qui sub Lege erant, tamquam esset et ipse sub Lege, utquid dicebat non esse heredes ex Lege? Utquid dicebat: Lex iram operatur? Utquid dicebat: Lex praevaricationis gratia proposita est? Quod aequo animo ferre non possent, qui gloriabantur in Lege. Quod si ut infirmus loquebatur infirmis et sic eos, ut fallacibus placet, fallendo lactabat, cur eos ab umbris veteribus, in quibus infirmi quiescebant, sic proturbabat, ut diceret: Ecce ego Paulus dico vobis, quia si circumcidamini, Christus vobis nihil proderit? Si autem in illa persona quinta perfectis sapientiam loquebatur, quales solos iste dignos putat quos non fallat Apostolus, quare a contrario vult esse ipse perfectus, ut blasphemet Abraham, quem sic perfectis laudat Apostolus, maxime in illis duobus filiis eius, uno de ancilla, alio de libera? Si displicet illi cum Ismaele Testamentum Vetus, cum Isaac placeat Testamentum Novum.
9. 33. But let him say, if he can, which of those five persons the Apostle was bearing when he so proclaimed Abraham. For if he had become to those who had been without the Law as though he himself were without the Law, those people did not know Abraham. He ought, then, to have found some chief—whether of the Romans or of the Greeks—or some philosopher, whom he might proclaim to such people, so as to suit himself to them, as this man pleases, by pretending himself such as they were: not Abraham, some foreigner or other, father of the Hebrew nation, far from their morals, far from their rites, far from their kinships, an alien. But if he had become as a Jew to the Jews, or, to those who were under the Law, as though he himself were under the Law, why did he say they were not heirs from the Law? Why did he say, The Law works wrath? Why did he say, The Law was set forth for the sake of transgression? Which those who gloried in the Law could not bear with an even mind. But if, as a weak man, he was speaking to the weak and thus, as it pleases the deceivers, was suckling them by deceiving them, why did he so drive them from the old shadows in which the weak rested, as to say: Behold, I Paul say to you that if you are circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing? But if, in that fifth person, he was speaking wisdom to the perfect—whom alone this man thinks worthy not to be deceived by the Apostle—why, on the contrary, does he himself wish to be perfect, so as to blaspheme Abraham, whom the Apostle so praises among the perfect, especially in those two sons of his, one by the slave woman, the other by the free woman? If the Old Testament with Ishmael displeases him, let the New Testament with Isaac please him.
LawProph.2.9.339. 34. An et contra Apostolum propositurus est cathedram pestilentiae et disputaturus de qualitate figurarum atque dicturus non eum debuisse figuras rerum honestarum de rebus turpibus ducere? Res enim turpis huic videtur etiam cum ipsa Sara concubitus coniugalis, quam liberam matrem nostram aeternam Ierusalem significare testatur Doctor Gentium, quamvis narium rugas et frontis obducat et crispato vultu hanc parabolam exhorreat doctor pestilentium, et multo amplius et aspernabilius, quando audit eumdem Gentium Doctorem, quod scriptum est de masculo ac femina: Erunt duo in carne una, addere et dicere: Sacramentum hoc magnum est, ego autem dico in Christo et in Ecclesia. Itane vero ubi essent cognoscenda tantae rei sacramenta, id est, sacra signa et in re pudenda atque in eis verbis, quibus verecundia debetur, cognosci non debuisse nec dici, homo iste sciebat et beatus Apostolus nesciebat? Eat plane iste retro cum suis similibus sociis, qui dixerunt: Durus est hic sermo, quis eum potest audire? Nos autem audiamus et intellegamus duo Testamenta in duobus filiis Abrahae, duabusque mulieribus eius commixtione fetatis: sicut duos in carne una, Christum et Ecclesiam, istis nolentibus sine ulla obscoenitate cognoscimus, sicut mediatorem Dei et hominum hominem Christum Iesum carnem suam nobis manducandam bibendumque sanguinem dantem fideli corde atque ore suscipimus, quamvis horribilius videatur humanam carnem manducare quam perimere et humanum sanguinem potare quam fundere; atque in omnibus sanctis Scripturis secundum sanae fidei regulam figurate factum vel dictum si quid exponitur, de quibuslibet rebus et verbis, quae sacris paginis continentur, expositio illa ducatur non aspernanter, sed sapienter audiamus; et relinquamus istum inania garrientem et nesciendo quid loquatur quadam, si dici potest, imperita peritia de figurarum qualitate tractantem. Qui cum dicit rebus congruis non contrariis aliquid esse significandum, potest vanus dicere semper Deum lucido auro, nunquam nigro atramento scribi oportere, quoniam Deus lux est et tenebrae in eo non sunt ullae. Homo est enim, qui putat Apostolum, ut congrueret infirmis et imperfectis, multa falsa et improbanda dixisse, quia testimoniis, quae de Lege ac Prophetis ponit, quam venerabiliter Scripturas illas accipiat, per epistolas eius apparet. Nec cogitat tam perverso sensu posse defendi etiam illa, quae in veteribus Dei Libris immundus atque impius quasi pius et mundus horrescit. Nam si ei quispiam dicat similis eius: ea, quae te offendunt in Lege ac Prophetis, falsa sunt, sed propter infirmos et imperfectos sic ea Spiritus sanctus poni voluit, quid pari suo vano respondeat, non habebit. Convincitur enim regula falsa, sed sua, nec sapientis ac docti, sed stulti, sicut ipse est, atque ineruditi manu, suo tamen gladio iugulatur.
9. 34. Or is he going to set up against the Apostle a chair of pestilence and dispute about the quality of the figures and say that he ought not to have drawn figures of honorable things from shameful things? For even conjugal intercourse with Sarah herself seems to this man a shameful thing—Sarah, whom the Teacher of the gentiles testifies signifies the free woman, our mother, the eternal Jerusalem—although the teacher of the pestilent wrinkles his nose and his brow and, with a crinkled countenance, shudders at this parable; and much more, and more contemptuously, when he hears the same Teacher of the gentiles, regarding what is written about male and female, The two will be in one flesh, add and say, This is a great sacrament, but I speak in Christ and in the Church. Did this man, then, know—and the blessed Apostle not know—that where the sacraments of so great a matter were to be made known, that is, the sacred signs, even in a shameful matter and in those words to which modesty is owed, they ought not to have been made known or said? Let this man surely go back, with his like companions who said, This is a hard saying; who can hear it? But let us hear and understand the two Testaments in the two sons of Abraham and his two women made fruitful by his union: just as we know—without any obscenity, though these men are unwilling—the two in one flesh, Christ and the Church; just as we receive, with a faithful heart and mouth, the mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus, giving us his flesh to eat and his blood to drink, although it may seem more horrible to eat human flesh than to kill it, and to drink human blood than to shed it; and in all the holy Scriptures, if anything is expounded as having been figuratively done or said, according to the rule of sound faith, concerning whatever things and words are contained in the sacred pages, let us hear that exposition drawn out not contemptuously but wisely; and let us leave this man babbling empty things and treating, by a kind of—if it may be said—unskilled skill, of the quality of figures, not knowing what he says. For when he says that something is to be signified by congruent, not contrary things, the empty man can say that God ought always to be written in bright gold, never in black ink, since God is light, and there is no darkness at all in him. For he is a man who thinks that the Apostle, in order to suit the weak and imperfect, said many false and reprehensible things; for how venerably he accepts those Scriptures appears through his epistles by the testimonies which he sets down from the Law and the Prophets. Nor does he consider that by so perverse a sense even those things can be defended at which, unclean and impious, he shudders as though he were devout and clean, in the old books of God. For if someone like him should say to him: those things which offend you in the Law and the Prophets are false, but on account of the weak and imperfect the Holy Spirit wished them so set down—he will have nothing to answer his fellow empty man. For he is convicted by a false rule, but his own, and is throttled—not by the hand of one wise and learned, but of one foolish, as he himself is, and untaught—yet by his own sword.
LawProph.2.9.3410. 35. Post haec sane sacrilegi et vani hominis sacrilega vaniloquia, quibus me respondisse sufficienter existimo: hoc est, de initio Geneseos, de lucis fabrica, de die vel sole, de causa constituendi hominem, de peccato adae, de fabrica hominis, de persuasu serpentis, de maledicto in homine et de vitae arbore, de paenitentia Dei, de diluvio, de arcu in nubibus, de induratione cordis pharaonis, de spiritu mendacii secundum michaeam prophetam, de testimonio Isaiae prophetae, propter quod ait: Filios genui et exaltavi, quibus rursum dicit: Filii scelesti, semen pessimum; et quod item apud eum scriptum esse dixit: Ego sum Deus faciens bona et creans mala, de perditione populi mandata Moysi, de maledicto, quod turpe existimat, de Dei quam putat confessa crudelitate, de studio quod putat malitiae iuxta David regem, de eo, quod scriptum est: Paenitet me quod constituerim Saul in regem; de spiritu Moysi, cuius Scripturas putat dixisse Apostolum fabulas aniles, de qualitate figurarum, de Abraham, de filiis Heli sacerdotis, de sacrificiis, quae putat non nisi daemonibus exhiberi, de Prophetis Dei, quos putat ante adventum Domini non fuisse, de eo quod in Lege positum est sanguinem esse animam, de Deo, cui Moyses servivit, quem putat Deum verum non fuisse, de varietate personarum, in quibus putat Apostolum locutum esse fallaciter. Quae omnia non hoc ordine persecutus sum, qui est in libro eius, sed sicut nostrae disputationis sibimet connexa series postulavit.
10. 35. After these sacrilegious empty words, indeed, of a sacrilegious and empty man, to which I think I have sufficiently replied—that is, about the beginning of Genesis, about the fashioning of light, about the day or the sun, about the reason for establishing man, about the sin of Adam, about the fashioning of man, about the serpent's persuasion, about the curse on man and about the tree of life, about the repentance of God, about the flood, about the bow in the clouds, about the hardening of Pharaoh's heart, about the lying spirit according to the prophet Micaiah, about the testimony of the prophet Isaiah, on account of which he says, I have begotten and exalted sons, to whom again he says, Wicked sons, a worst seed; and what he likewise said is written in him, I am the God who makes good things and creates evils, about the destruction of the people commanded to Moses, about the curse which he thinks shameful, about the cruelty which he thinks God confessed, about the zeal which he thinks malice in the case of King David, about that which is written, It repents me that I appointed Saul as king; about the spirit of Moses, whose Scriptures he thinks the Apostle called old wives' tales, about the quality of the figures, about Abraham, about the sons of Eli the priest, about the sacrifices which he thinks are offered to none but demons, about the Prophets of God, whom he thinks did not exist before the Lord's advent, about that which is set down in the Law, that the blood is the soul, about the God whom Moses served, whom he thinks was not the true God, about the variety of persons in which he thinks the Apostle spoke deceitfully. All of which I have pursued not in the order which is in his book, but as the interconnected series of our discussion required.
LawProph.2.10.35Post haec ergo omnia titulum posuit ita se habentem: "Discretio spirituum malignitatis et bonitatis ". Et coepit contrariis inter se brevibus crebrisque sententiis laudare Christum et accusare Legis Deum, hoc modo velut eum ad quem scribebat exhortans: "Quare igitur, frater ", inquit, " recedentes ab iniquitate praeteriti erroris intendamus Christum verum ac summum Deum, non huius saeculi principem et mundi factorem, in quo nos peregrinari saepissime declaratum est. Intendamus, inquam, illum pium ac mitem, qui nos suae cognationis ostendens mundi lumen vocavit; non illum, qui secundum Scripturas iudaicas terrenum nobis initium assignans in terra nobis finem indixit. Qui nos fratres appellans vigilare ac divina sapere persuasit; non illum, qui nec dignoscentiae quidem sensum habere permisit ". Atque hoc modo cetera multa contexuit.
After all these things, then, he set down a title reading thus: "The discernment of the spirits of malignity and of goodness." And he began, by short, frequent sentences set against one another, to praise Christ and to accuse the God of the Law, in this manner, as it were exhorting the one to whom he was writing: "Why then, brother," he says, "withdrawing from the iniquity of past error, let us attend to Christ, the true and highest God, not the prince of this age and maker of the world, in which it has been most often declared that we are pilgrims. Let us attend, I say, to that devout and gentle one, who, showing us to be of his kindred, called us the light of the world; not to him who, according to the Jewish Scriptures, assigning us an earthly beginning, decreed for us an end in the earth. Who, calling us brothers, persuaded us to be watchful and to be wise about divine things; not to him who did not even permit us to have the sense of discernment." And in this manner he wove together many other things.
LawProph.2.10.3511. 37. Cui loco libri eius ita respondendum putavi, ut etiam ego vos exhortarer: intendamus Christum verum et summum Deum, veri et summi Dei unicum Filium, non huius saeculi malignum principem, sed tamen mundi, hoc est caeli terraeque factorem, qui nos tamquam peregrinos vitam temporalem in hac agere mortalitate praecepit. Intendamus, inquam, illum misericordem ac mitem, qui nos fratres suos fecit gratia, non natura. Ipse est enim, non alius, sicut hic putat, qui secundum Scripturas terrenum nobis corpus, animam vero flatu dedit, utrumque faciens, non eorum aliquid gignens. Qui nos vigilare ac divina sapere iussit et fecit. Ipse est enim, non alius, sicut hic putat, qui dignoscentiam boni ac mali ne peccando experiremur admonuit. Qui nos ad immortalitatem vocans caelestia nobis regna promisit. Ipse est enim, non alius, sicut hic putat, qui nos post peccatum reos ab aeternae vitae felicitate secrevit et terreno labore punivit. Qui nos, non sicut iste dicit, nihil ignorare, sed utilia scire praecepit: nec sicut iste sentit atque a veritate dissentit, scientiam damnavit in nobis, quae fit sapiendo iustitiam, sed quae fit experiendo peccatum. Qui nos quod errore moriebamur miseratus est. Ipse est enim, non alius, sicut hic putat, qui nos morti, non ex quo sapere coepimus, quod iste ait, sed ex quo deliquimus, destinavit. Qui nos proprias facultates hortatur spernere, immo vero loco tutiore recondere, cum ipse sit, non alius, ut hic putat, qui se non tantum caelestium, verum etiam terrenorum Dominum ostendens ea, quae impii possidebant exspoliatione plectendi, suos, quibus hoc pro tempore congruebat, auferre atque habere sive iussit sive permisit. Qui donat delicta conversis: cum ipse sit, non alius, ut hic putat, qui in tertiam et quartam progeniem retribuit digna perversis. Qui non omnium, sicut iste ait, sed eorum, quos ante praescivit et praedestinavit, delicta dimittit.
11. 37. To this passage of his book I have thought to respond in such a way that I too should exhort you: let us attend to Christ, the true and highest God, the only Son of the true and highest God—not the malign prince of this age, but nevertheless the maker of the world, that is, of heaven and earth, who commanded us, as pilgrims, to lead a temporal life in this mortality. Let us attend, I say, to that merciful and gentle one, who made us his brothers by grace, not by nature. For he it is, not another, as this man thinks, who, according to the Scriptures, gave us an earthly body but a soul by his breath, making both, begetting neither of them. Who commanded and made us to be watchful and wise about divine things. For he it is, not another, as this man thinks, who admonished us about the discernment of good and evil, lest we should learn it by sinning. Who, calling us to immortality, promised us the heavenly kingdom. For he it is, not another, as this man thinks, who, after sin, separated us as guilty from the felicity of eternal life and punished us with earthly labor. Who commanded us not, as this man says, to be ignorant of nothing, but to know useful things: nor, as this man thinks—and dissents from the truth—did he condemn in us the knowledge which comes from being wise about righteousness, but the knowledge which comes from experiencing sin. Who had mercy on us because we were dying by error. For he it is, not another, as this man thinks, who destined us to death not from the time we began to be wise—which this man says—but from the time we transgressed. Who exhorts us to spurn our own goods—indeed, rather to store them up in a safer place—since he himself it is, not another, as this man thinks, who, showing himself to be the Lord not only of heavenly but also of earthly things, either commanded or permitted his own people, to whom this was fitting for the time, to take away and have the things which the impious possessed, who were to be punished by despoiling. Who forgives offenses to the converted: since he himself it is, not another, as this man thinks, who repays to the perverse what is fitting, unto the third and fourth generation. Who forgives the offenses not of all, as this man says, but of those whom he foreknew and predestined beforehand.
LawProph.2.11.37Ipse est autem, non alius, sicut hic putat, qui delicta quorundam ad poenalem animi dolorem terroremque maiorem etiam illorum, qui ea non admiserant, non spiritalibus, sed corporalibus mortibus vindicavit, ut conditio mortalium, qua fuerant post paululum morituri, etiam isto modo serviret Dei providentiae et in usum cederet disciplinae. Qui nos non in totum irasci prohibuit, quandoquidem et ipse iratus est, ubi oportuit, sed irasci et non peccare praecepit. Ipse est autem, non alius, non qui vindicandi causas, sicut iste affirmat, inquirit, sed vindicandas causas, quando ipse novit, advertit. Qui nos, ne quando iuraremus, monuit, ut quoniam falli possumus, longe fieremus a periurio non iurando. Ipse est autem, non alius, ut hic putat, qui suae sententiae veritatem ad incredulos increpandos, ubi opus esse iudicavit, etiam iurando firmavit. Sicut autem homo iurans adhibet testem Deum, ita se ipsum Deus. Qui nos in fide verbi veri stare iussit. Ipse est enim, non alius, sicut hic putat, non qui voluntatem suam, sicut iste blasphemat, sed qui res quas voluit, non mutata voluntate mutavit. Qui nos viam veritatis docuit. Ipse est enim et Deus Prophetarum, qui nunquam, sicut iste calumniatur, falsis promissionibus suos decipit. Qui nos irreprehensibiles esse mandavit. Ipse est enim et Deus Prophetarum, qui nunquam, sicut iste criminatur, se ipse reprehendit nec eum sicut hominem quidquam paenituit, sed rerum futurarum mutationem, quas se mutaturum sine ulla sui mutatione ab aeternitate praescivit, velut humana hominibus locutione praedixit. Qui nobis iram Dei metuendam et in Evangelio commendavit. Ipse est enim et Prophetarum Deus, qui non sui animi perturbationem, sed iustam severamque vindictam irae vel indignationis nomine nuncupavit. Qui alterum ab altero non utcumque laedi, sed iniuria laedi noluit. Ipse est enim et Prophetarum Deus, qui sive per homines sive per angelos sanctos etiam temporalibus corporum mortibus quos voluit utiliter aut multavit aut terruit.
But he it is, not another, as this man thinks, who avenged the offenses of certain people, for the penal grief of mind and the greater terror even of those who had not committed them, not by spiritual but by bodily deaths, so that the condition of mortals—by which they were, after a little while, going to die—might in this way too serve the providence of God and turn to the use of discipline. Who did not forbid us to be angry altogether, since he himself too was angry where it was fitting, but commanded us to be angry and not to sin. But he it is, not another—not one who seeks out causes for avenging, as this man asserts, but who attends to causes to be avenged when he himself knows them. Who admonished us never to swear, so that, since we can be deceived, we might be made far from perjury by not swearing. But he it is, not another, as this man thinks, who confirmed even by swearing the truth of his pronouncement, for rebuking the unbelieving, where he judged it to be needful. But as a man who swears brings God as a witness, so God brings himself. Who commanded us to stand in the faith of the true word. For he it is, not another, as this man thinks—not one who, as this man blasphemes, changed his will, but who changed the things which he willed, without any change of his will. Who taught us the way of truth. For he it is also the God of the Prophets, who never, as this man cavils, deceives his own people with false promises. Who commanded us to be irreproachable. For he it is also the God of the Prophets, who never, as this man charges, reproached himself, nor did anything repent him as it does a man, but he foretold, as by a human manner of speaking to human beings, the change of future things which he foreknew from eternity that he would change without any change of himself. Who in the Gospel too commended to us the wrath of God as to be feared. For he it is also the God of the Prophets, who named not a disturbance of his own mind but a just and severe vengeance by the name of wrath or indignation. Who willed that one should be harmed by another not in any way whatever, but harmed by injury. For he it is also the God of the Prophets, who—whether through human beings or through holy angels—usefully either punished or terrified, even by the temporal deaths of bodies, those whom he willed.
LawProph.2.11.37Qui docuit ad concupiscendum non videndam esse mulierem. Ipse est enim qui et in Lege dixit: Non concupisces; nec, sicut iste criminatur, indixit septenas singulis nuptias, sed propagandi causa connubia casta permisit. Patres autem filiarum maritos non solum ipse non fecit, verum etiam ne fieret sicut alia incesta prohibuit. Qui nos secundum interiorem renovationem in spiritu mentis nec masculos nec feminas esse docuit, et sicut angelos in aeternum secum futuros esse promisit. Ipse est enim et Prophetarum Deus, qui masculum et feminam propagandi generis causa nuptiali castitate coniunxit, et secundas nuptias, quae in Novo quoque Testamento permittuntur, licitas esse monstravit. Uxores autem fratrum sed sine filiis defunctorum ad excitandam defuncti posteritatem non libidinis, sed pietatis affectu in matrimonium sibi copulare praecepit; patres vero filiarum coniugiis misceri omnino prohibuit. Qui nos super omne genus serpentum calcare spiritaliter iussit. Ipse est enim et Prophetarum Deus, qui populo infideli ad significanda peccata, quorum veneno invisibiliter moriebantur, visibiles serpentes, quibus admonerentur, immisit, et plaga emendatoria mortes animarum mortibus corporum figuravit. Qui dixit: Date eleemosynam; et ecce omnia munda sunt vobis. Ipse est enim et Prophetarum Deus, qui talia etiam Prophetarum voce mandavit. Nec sibi voluit primogenitos hominum filios immolari, sed consecrari significans primogenitum a mortuis, in quo oportebat omnes a morte perpetua liberari. Qui corruptibilibus cibis incorruptibiles anteposuit. Ipse est enim et Prophetarum Deus, qui sacrificia quibus non indiguit ad significandum verum sacrificium in umbris futurorum praecedere voluit, et disciplinae severitate mortibus corporum longe mitioribus quam sunt aeterna supplicia gehennarum, perpetrata sacrilegia vindicavit. Qui terrenas divitias non, sicut iste dicit, damnari iussit, sed spiritales caelestesque praeposuit. Ipse est enim et Prophetarum Deus, qui facit et divites benignissime largiendo et pauperes iustissime vel non dando vel auferendo.
Who taught that a woman is not to be looked at so as to covet her. For he it is who also in the Law said, You shall not covet; nor, as this man charges, did he decree seven marriages for each man, but permitted chaste wedlock for the sake of propagation. But the fathers of daughters he himself not only did not make their husbands, but even forbade that it should come about, as other incestuous unions. Who taught us, according to the inner renewal in the spirit of the mind, to be neither male nor female, and promised that we will be with him forever like the angels. For he it is also the God of the Prophets, who joined male and female, for the sake of propagating the race, by nuptial chastity, and showed that second marriages—which in the New Testament too are permitted—are lawful. But he commanded that the wives of brothers who had died without children be joined to oneself in matrimony, for raising up the dead man's posterity, not by the affection of lust but of devotion; while he altogether forbade the fathers of daughters to be mingled in marriages with them. Who commanded us spiritually to tread upon every kind of serpent. For he it is also the God of the Prophets, who, for an unbelieving people, in order to signify the sins by whose venom they were invisibly dying, sent visible serpents by which they might be admonished, and by a corrective stroke figured the deaths of souls by the deaths of bodies. Who said, Give alms, and behold, all things are clean to you. For he it is also the God of the Prophets, who commanded such things also by the voice of the Prophets. Nor did he wish the firstborn sons of human beings to be immolated to himself, but consecrated, signifying the firstborn from the dead, in whom it was fitting that all be freed from perpetual death. Who set incorruptible foods before corruptible ones. For he it is also the God of the Prophets, who willed that sacrifices, which he did not need, should go before, in shadows of things to come, to signify the true sacrifice, and who, by the severity of discipline, avenged sacrileges committed by deaths of bodies far milder than are the eternal punishments of the hells. Who commanded that earthly riches be not, as this man says, condemned, but set spiritual and heavenly things before them. For he it is also the God of the Prophets, who makes both the rich, by most kindly bestowing, and the poor, by most justly either not giving or taking away.
LawProph.2.11.37Qui nos pro inimicis orare iussit. Ipse est enim et Prophetarum Deus, qui filios parentum manibus immolari sibi, ut iste criminatur, non solum nunquam voluit, verum etiam ne id fieret, in Lege constituit. Qui sine acceptione personarum benefaciendum omnibus intimavit. Ipse est enim et Prophetarum Deus, qui quando sine discretione aetatis aut sexus occidi homines iussit, unde scit iste vel quisquam quid eis post mortem bonae compensationis attribuit, quorum mortibus viventes aut emendavit aut terruit? Qui nos aequo animo iniurias sustinere et donare praecepit. Ipse est enim et Prophetarum Deus, qui oculum pro oculo, dentem pro dente modum posuit poenae, ne quisquam sibi amplius putaret deberi vindictae, quam pertulisset iniuriae. Et hoc ideo, quia de sapientia Dei dictum est, quod legem et misericordiam in lingua portet. Nec per misericordiam debita debitoribus nostris scienter dimitteremus, nisi per Legem ipsa debita discerneremus. Qui in tanta potestate se humilians ad confortandos nos factus homo, cum hominibus est locutus. Ipse est enim et Deus Prophetarum, qui cum primis patribus est locutus: ideo praeter se dicens non esse alium Deum, quia etiam summa Trinitas manente personarum proprietate unus est Deus. Qui Apostolis suis ut gratis darent quae gratis acceperant, iussit, ad sustentationem tamen suam nec aliam tunicam secum ferre ideo constituit, quia secutus adiunxit: Dignus est enim operarius mercede sua, ut qui Evangelium annuntiabant, ex Evangelio viverent. Deo tamen munera offerenda esse monstravit, qui nullius indiget et munera sumendo plus confert. Ipse est enim et Prophetarum Deus, qui et munera suos accipere vetat, quibus excaecantur oculi iudicantium; et munera ipse, quamvis non egeat, accipit, ut pietate faciat opulentas animas offerentium. Qui sabbatis hominem curavit ostendens iam esse tempus, ut secundum prophetiam cantici canticorum aspiraret dies et removerentur umbrae.
Who commanded us to pray for our enemies. For he it is also the God of the Prophets, who not only never willed that sons be immolated to him by the hands of their parents, as this man charges, but even established in the Law that it should not be done. Who intimated that good is to be done to all without respect of persons. For he it is also the God of the Prophets, who—when he commanded human beings to be killed without distinction of age or sex—how does this man, or anyone, know what good recompense he allotted to them after death, by whose deaths the living were either amended or terrified? Who commanded us to bear injuries with an even mind and to forgive. For he it is also the God of the Prophets, who set, as the measure of punishment, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, lest anyone should think more owed to him for vengeance than he had suffered of injury. And this for the reason that it was said of the wisdom of God that it carries law and mercy on its tongue. Nor would we knowingly forgive their debts to our debtors by mercy, unless we discerned those very debts by the Law. Who, in such great power, humbling himself to strengthen us, having become man, spoke with human beings. For he it is also the God of the Prophets, who spoke with the first fathers: therefore saying that besides himself there is no other God, because even the highest Trinity, with the property of the persons remaining, is one God. Who commanded his Apostles to give freely what they had freely received, yet, for their own sustenance, decreed that they should not carry even another tunic—for this reason, that, following, he added, For the laborer is worthy of his wages—so that those who announced the Gospel should live from the Gospel. Yet he showed that gifts are to be offered to God, who needs nothing and, by taking gifts, confers more. For he it is also the God of the Prophets, who both forbids his own people to take gifts, by which the eyes of judges are blinded, and himself takes gifts, although he has no need, so that by devotion he may make wealthy the souls of those who offer. Who healed a man on the Sabbath, showing that it was now the time when, according to the prophecy of the Song of Songs, the day should breathe and the shadows be removed.
LawProph.2.11.37Ipse est enim et Prophetarum Deus, qui hominem ligna sabbatis colligentem, quia nondum duorum Testamentorum tempora distinguebat, sed Legem Dei contumaci et impia mente contempserat, lapidandum esse mandavit; eiusque corporali morte (quam post paululum omni homini quis dubitet affuturam) sanxit timore oboedientiam ceteris profuturam. Qui propter salvandos homines se venisse dixit. Ipse est enim et Prophetarum Deus, qui iusto iudicio quos vult obdurat, sicut in Evangelio: venit in iudicium, non solum ut qui non vident videant, sed etiam qui vident caeci fiant. Qui mandata vitae perpetuae nobis dedit. Ipse est enim et Prophetarum Deus, qui mandata sancta et iusta et bona superbis tamen non de ipsius gratia, sed de sua virtute fidentibus, non quibus viverent, sed quibus morerentur, ut convincerentur dedit. Sicut Apostoli, dicente uno ipsorum, bonus odor Christi erant, et in his, qui salvi fiebant et in his, qui peribant; aliis quidem odor vitae in vitam, aliis odor mortis in mortem. Qui vitiatorum salus apparuit dans incessum claudis, linguam mutis, auditum surdis, lumen caecis. Ipse est enim et Prophetarum Deus, qui eadem vitia non solum misericordissime sanat, verum etiam iustissime importat. Neque enim debet eum quisquam non minus impia vanitate Christo putare contrarium et istum bonum dicere, Christum autem malum; eo quod iste in virga Aaron aridum lignum et nulla radice subnixum florem ferre fecit et fructum, Christus autem arborem maledicto arefecit, quia nihil in ea pomorum, quorum nondum erat tempus, invenit.
For he it is also the God of the Prophets, who commanded that a man gathering wood on the Sabbath—because he did not yet distinguish the times of the two Testaments, but had despised the Law of God with a contumacious and impious mind—was to be stoned; and by his bodily death (which who doubts will come, after a little while, to every man) he sanctioned, by fear, an obedience that would profit the rest. Who said that he had come for the sake of saving human beings. For he it is also the God of the Prophets, who by a just judgment hardens whom he wills, as in the Gospel: he came for judgment, not only so that those who do not see may see, but also so that those who see may become blind. Who gave us the commands of perpetual life. For he it is also the God of the Prophets, who gave commands holy and just and good to the proud—who nevertheless trusted not in his grace but in their own strength—not for them to live by, but for them to die by, so that they might be convicted. Just as the Apostles, as one of them says, were the good odor of Christ both among those who were being saved and among those who were perishing; to some, indeed, an odor of life unto life, to others an odor of death unto death. Who appeared as the salvation of the maimed, giving gait to the lame, tongue to the mute, hearing to the deaf, light to the blind. For he it is also the God of the Prophets, who not only most mercifully heals these same defects but also most justly brings them on. For no one ought, with an impiety no less than the others, to think him contrary to Christ and to call this one good but Christ evil, on the ground that this one made the dry wood of Aaron's rod, supported by no root, bear flower and fruit, but Christ withered a tree by a curse, because he found on it none of the fruits whose time had not yet come.
LawProph.2.11.3712. 38. Dicens autem " alium esse pacis et caritatis patrem, alium belli et furoris auctorem, illum " volens intellegi " Christum, hunc autem Legis et Prophetarum Deum ": potest vanus dicere ipsum Christum sibi esse contrarium aut duos fuisse, non unum, inter se scilicet repugnantes; alium, qui dixit: Pacem do vobis; et alium, qui dixit: Non veni pacem mittere in terram, sed gladium; maxime quia displicet ei res aliquas bonas malarum nominibus figurari. Quod vero " alium " dicit " esse incestus et adulteriorum conscium, alium vero pudicae castitatis et sanctimoniae dominum " illum diabolum intellegat; Prophetarum autem Deum noverit non minus castitatis et sanctimoniae dominum esse quam Christum, quia Deus Apostolorum idem ipse et Prophetarum, priorum illis tempore, sed fide sociorum; ipse est Deus in utroque Testamento iusti actus et piarum orationum, ipse est in utroque auctor religiosorum sacrificiorum.
12. 38. But when he says "that one is the father of peace and love, another the author of war and fury," wishing the former to be understood as "Christ, but the latter as the God of the Law and the Prophets," the empty man can say that Christ himself is contrary to himself, or that there were two, not one, namely repugnant to each other: one who said, Peace I give to you; and another who said, I came not to send peace upon the earth, but a sword; especially because it displeases him that some good things should be figured by the names of bad things. But as for his saying that "one is privy to incest and adulteries, but another is the lord of chaste purity and holiness," let him understand the former as the devil; but let him know that the God of the Prophets is no less the lord of chastity and holiness than Christ, because the God of the Apostles is the same as the God of the Prophets—those earlier in time than these, but their associates in faith; he is in both Testaments the God of just action and of devout prayers; he is in both the author of religious sacrifices.
LawProph.2.12.3812. 39. Videte sane, unde probare voluerit humanorum corporum vitia non ad Deum auctorem, sed potius ad diabolum pertinere, quia Dominus ait in Evangelio de muliere, quam sanam fecit, quod eam satanas alligaverat decem et octo annos, propter quod erat incurva nec se erigere poterat. Quasi satanas, cum habeat semper cupiditatem nocendi, nocere cuiquam possit, nisi ab Omnipotente acceperit potestatem. Nam quid aliud non solum in libro Iob, quem profecto iste non accipit, sed etiam magis in ipso Evangelio declaratum est, ubi spiritus immundi nec in porcos irent, nisi hoc illis benignus ipse Salvator petentibus, quos certe in abyssum posset relegare, concederet, rem necessariam docere nos volens, ut scilicet noverimus multo minus eos posse sua potestate nocere hominibus, qui nec pecoribus qualibuscumque potuerunt? Hanc autem potestatem Deus bonus occulta nobis iustitia dare potest, iniuste non potest.
12. 39. See indeed from what he wished to prove that the defects of human bodies pertain not to God as their author but rather to the devil: because the Lord says in the Gospel, about the woman whom he made whole, that Satan had bound her for eighteen years, on account of which she was bent over and could not raise herself. As though Satan, since he always has the desire of harming, could harm anyone unless he had received power from the Almighty. For what else was declared not only in the book of Job—which this man surely does not accept—but even more in the Gospel itself, where the unclean spirits would not go even into the swine unless the kindly Savior himself granted it to them at their request—those whom he could certainly have banished into the abyss—wishing to teach us a necessary thing, namely that we may know they can far less harm human beings by their own power, who could not harm even cattle of any kind whatever? But this power the good God can give by a justice hidden from us; he cannot give it unjustly.
LawProph.2.12.3912. 40. Deinde quod " de antichristi adventu et elatione impia " dixit Apostolus, vult iste ad hoc trahere, ut " ipsum intellegamus Prophetarum Deum ", unde potius convincitur illud Dei esse templum, ubi hominem peccati, filium interitus, extollentem se super omnem Deum et quod colitur Apostolus sessurum esse praedixit. Deus enim verus est, in cuius templo falsus ille sessurus est: ad quem pertinet etiam iste, qui sub nomine Christi, quod est nomen Dei, hoc est, christianum se videri volens, superextollitur contra Christum, seque ostendit antichristum, non unum illum maiorem ceteris, sed ex his aliquem de quibus dicit Iohannes evangelista: Nunc antichristi multi facti sunt. Eos enim dicebat haereticos, qui temporibus Apostolorum esse iam coeperant. Hi autem coeperunt esse post ascensionem dumtaxat in caelum Domini Iesu Christi, ab illo simone mago, quem legimus in apostolorum actibus baptizatum. Post hunc autem fuerunt nonnulli discipuli eius in eadem impietate posteriores prioribus succedentes, quorum in successione quartus exstitit basilides, qui primus apertius ausus est dicere Deum, quem gens iudaea coluit, non fuisse verum Deum. Post istos fuit quidam etiam carpocrates, qui negavit istum visibilem mundum a summo Deo creatum, sed a quibusdam virtutibus daemoniorum, negans etiam Legem, quae per Moysen data est, Deum dedisse. Cerdon postea surrexit, qui primus invenitur dixisse duos deos, unum bonum et alterum malum, longe antequam haeresis manichaeorum emersisset, quorum in hoc furioso deliramento error est notior. Huius cerdonis marcion discipulus fuit. Apelles quoque talia docuit. Fuerunt etiam a quodam patricio nonnulli patriciani vel sunt, similiter adversantes divinis veteribus Libris. Hi omnes apertissime contra Deum sentiunt Legis et Prophetarum, hoc est, Deum verum, a quo factus est mundus. De aliqua istorum haeresi est iste, nam non eum puto esse Manichaeum.
12. 40. Then, as for what the Apostle said "about the advent and impious exaltation of the antichrist," this man wishes to drag it to this, that "we should understand him to be the God of the Prophets"—whence rather it is proved to be the temple of God where the Apostle foretold that the man of sin, the son of perdition, exalting himself above every God and what is worshiped, would sit. For it is the true God in whose temple that false one will sit: to whom this man too pertains, who, under the name of Christ—which is the name of God, that is, wishing to seem himself a Christian—exalts himself against Christ and shows himself an antichrist, not that one greater than the rest, but one of those of whom the evangelist John says: Now many antichrists have come to be. For he called those heretics who had already begun to exist in the times of the Apostles. But these began to exist after the ascension into heaven of the Lord Jesus Christ, from that Simon Magus, whom we read was baptized in the Acts of the Apostles. But after him there were certain disciples of his in the same impiety, the later succeeding the earlier, in whose succession the fourth was Basilides, who first more openly dared to say that the God whom the Jewish nation worshiped was not the true God. After these there was also a certain Carpocrates, who denied that this visible world was created by the highest God, but by certain powers of demons, denying also that God gave the Law which was given through Moses. Cerdo arose afterward, who is found to have been the first to say there are two gods, one good and the other evil, long before the heresy of the Manicheans had emerged, whose error in this raging delirium is the more notorious. Of this Cerdo, Marcion was a disciple. Apelles too taught such things. There were also, from a certain Patricius, some Patriciani—or there are—similarly opposing the divine old books. All these most openly are minded against the God of the Law and the Prophets, that is, the true God, by whom the world was made. This man is of some heresy of these; for I do not think he is a Manichean.
LawProph.2.12.4012. 41. Sed cuiuslibet sit haeretici erroris vel ipse vel Fabricius nescio quis, cuius se gloriatur esse discipulum, quantum ad hunc librum attinet quem misistis, satis ei puto esse responsum. Ea quippe furoris eius deiecta sunt robora, ex quibus omnes, quas in eo volumine scripsit, blasphemiae pullularunt impiissimis in Deum maledictis atque conviciis varia loquacitate frondentes. Quarum omnes singillatim ramos ferire nimis longum fuit; sed radices ipsae fuerant amputandae. Si autem recenseatis, quae contra Faustum manichaeum scripsimus et contra Adimantum, qui Manichaei sectator cum ille viveret fuisse iactatur, multa reperietis quae adversus istum pariter valeant. Et fortasse si illa legerentur vel non omnino vel non multum necessarium fuisset haec scribere.
12. 41. But of whatever heretical error he may be—whether he himself or that Fabricius or other, whose disciple he boasts of being—as far as concerns this book which you sent, I think it has been sufficiently answered. For those props of his fury have been cast down, from which all the blasphemies that he wrote in that volume sprouted, leafing out with a varied loquacity in most impious curses and insults against God. To strike each of their branches one by one was too long; but the very roots had to be cut off. But if you review what we wrote against Faustus the Manichean and against Adimantus—who is boasted to have been a follower of Mani while he lived—you will find many things which avail equally against this man. And perhaps, if those works were read, it would have been either not at all or not much necessary to write these.
LawProph.2.12.4112. 42. Sane post finem libri, in quo fine paucitatem hominum in suo errore commendat, quia videlicet paucorum est sapientia, quod omnibus haereticis adversariis Ecclesiae catholicae, quae per omnes terras copiosa fertilitate diffunditur, in sua cuique propria vanitate commune est - omnes enim de paucitate gloriantur, et ut seducere possint multitudinem quaerunt - post hunc ergo finem libri rursus alterius apparet exordium, eiusdem forsitan hominis auctoris, eiusdem tamen, quod non dubitatur, erroris. Disputare autem coeperat, quod caro alium haberet fabricatorem, non Deum. Unde cum perpauca dixisset, in ipso exordio coepta finita sunt. Sed utrum ipse auctor an scriptor codicis non potuerit implere quod coeperat, nescio. De hac tamen dementia hominum non considerantium quid loquantur adversus manichaeos multa iam scripsimus. Et in huius ipsius operis initio idonea, quantum existimo, iacta sunt fundamenta, quibus prudens et pius lector intellegat non ideo subtrahendam carnem operibus Dei, quod spiritus natura sit potior, nec ideo mala esse ista temporalia, quia merito eis praeponuntur aeterna, nec ideo bona terrestria detestanda, quia sunt caelestia meliora, cum Deus creaverit omnia bona, magnus in magnis, sed non parvus in parvis. Iam illud aliud, quod in eodem codice scribi coeperat, Adimanti opus est, illius discipuli Manichaei, qui proprio nomine Addas dictus est, ubi de utroque Testamento velut inter se contraria testimonia proferuntur versipelli dolositate, velut inde ostendatur utrumque ab uno Deo esse non posse, sed alterum ab altero. Contra hoc autem malignum machinamentum iam olim scripsimus, ut paulo ante commemoravi, et ipsum opusculum nostrum habere vos credo. Quamvis quaedam sint perpauca in fine ipsius operis Adimanti, quibus non respondi, nescio quibus enim, ut fieri solet, incurrentibus, quae magis videbantur urgere, illa interrupta sic remanserunt. Sed ut dixi, in fine perpauca sunt, quae si Dominus voluerit, quantocius explicare curabo.
12. 42. Indeed, after the end of the book—in which ending he commends the fewness of those in his error, because, namely, wisdom belongs to the few (which is common, to each in his own proper vanity, to all the heretical adversaries of the Catholic Church, which is spread through all lands in copious fertility—for all of them glory in fewness, and seek a multitude that they may be able to seduce it)—after this end of the book, then, there appears again the beginning of another, by the same man as author perhaps, but at least of the same error, which is not doubted. He had begun to argue that the flesh had another maker, not God. Whence, when he had said very few things, the things begun were finished in the very beginning. But whether the author himself, or the copyist of the manuscript, could not complete what he had begun, I do not know. About this dementia, however, of human beings not considering what they say, we have already written many things against the Manicheans. And in the very beginning of this work, suitable foundations, as I reckon, have been laid, by which the prudent and devout reader may understand that the flesh is not to be withdrawn from the works of God on the ground that the nature of spirit is superior, nor that these temporal things are evil because eternal things are deservedly preferred to them, nor that earthly goods are to be detested because heavenly ones are better, since God created all things good, great in great things but not small in small things. Now that other thing, which had begun to be written in the same manuscript, is the work of Adimantus, that disciple of Mani who by his own name was called Addas, where, concerning each Testament, testimonies as though contrary to one another are brought forward with crafty deceitfulness, as though from this it were shown that both cannot be from one God, but one from one and the other from another. But against this malign contrivance we have already long since written, as I recalled a little before, and I believe you have that little work of ours. Although there are some very few things at the end of that work of Adimantus to which I did not respond—for, as is wont to happen, certain other matters running up which seemed more pressing, those were thus left interrupted. But, as I said, at the end they are very few, which, if the Lord wills, I will take care to unfold as soon as possible.
LawProph.2.12.42