45. Faustus has an evasive objection, which he no doubt thinks a most ingenious way of eluding the force of the clearest evidence of prophecy, but of which one is unwilling to take any notice, because answering it may give it an appearance of importance which it does not really possess. What could be more irrational than to say that it is weak faith which will not believe in Christ without evidence? Do our adversaries, then, believe in testimony about Christ? Faustus wishes us to believe the voice from heaven as distinguished from human testimony. But did they hear this voice? Has not the knowledge of it come to us through human testimony? The apostle describes the transmission of this knowledge, when he says: "How shall they call on Him on whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe on Him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? and how shall they preach except they be sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of them who publish peace, who bring good tidings!" [483] Clearly, in the preaching of the apostles there was a reference to prophetic testimony. The apostles quoted the predictions of the prophets, to prove the truth and importance of their doctrines. For although their preaching was accompanied with the power of working miracles, the miracles would have been ascribed to magic, as some even now venture to insinuate, unless the apostles had shown that the authority of the prophets was in their favor. The testimony of prophets who lived so long before could not be ascribed to magical arts. Perhaps the reason why Faustus will not have us believe the Hebrew prophets as witnesses of the true Christ, is because he believes Persian heresies about a false Christ.
46. According to the teaching of the Catholic Church, the Christian mind must first be nourished in simple faith, in order that it may become capable of understanding things heavenly and eternal. Thus it is said by the prophet: "Unless ye believe, ye shall not understand." [484] Simple faith is that by which, before we attain to the height of the knowledge of the love of Christ, that we may be filled with all the fullness of God, we believe that not without reason was the dispensation of Christ's humiliation, in which He was born and suffered as man, foretold so long before by the prophets through a prophetic race, a prophetic people, a prophetic kingdom. This faith teaches us, that in the foolishness which is wiser than men, and in the weakness which is stronger than men, is contained the hidden means of our justification and glorification. There are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, which are opened to no one who despises the nourishment transmitted through the breast of his mother that is, the milk of apostolic and prophetic instruction; or who, thinking himself too old for infantile nourishment, devours heretical poison instead of the food of wisdom, for which he rashly thought himself prepared. To require simple faith is quite consistent with requiring faith in the prophets. The very use of simple faith is to believe the prophets at the outset, while the understanding of the person who speaks in the prophets is attained after the mind has been purified and strengthened.
47. But, it is said, if the prophets foretold Christ, they did not live in a way becoming their office. How can you tell whether they did or not? You are bad judges of what it is to live well or ill, whose justice consists in giving relief to an inanimate melon by eating it, instead of giving food to the starving beggar. It is enough for the babes in the Catholic Church, who do not yet know the perfect justice of the human soul, and the difference between the justice aimed at and that actually attained, to think of those men according to the wholesome doctrine of the apostles, that the just lives by faith. "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness. For the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thy seed shall all nations be blessed." [485] These are the words of the apostle. If you would, at his clear well-known voice, wake up from your unprofitable dreams, you would follow in the footsteps of our father Abraham, and would be blessed, along with all nations, in his seed. For, as the apostle says, "He received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had, yet being uncircumcised, that he might be the father of all that believe in uncircumcision; that he might be the father of circumcision not only to those who are of the circumcision, but also to those who follow the footsteps of the faith of our father Abraham in uncircumcision." [486] Since the righteousness of Abraham's faith is thus set forth as an example to us, that we too, being justified by faith, may have peace with God, we ought to understand his manner of life, without finding fault with it; lest, by a premature separation from mother-Church, we prove abortions, instead of being brought forth in due time, when the conception has arrived at completeness.
48. This is a brief reply to Faustus in behalf of the character of the patriarchs and prophets. It is the reply of the babes of our faith, among whom I would reckon myself, inasmuch as I would not find fault with the life of the ancient saints, even if I did not understand its mystical character. Their life is proclaimed to us with approval by the apostles in their Gospel, as they themselves in their prophecy foretold the future apostles, that the two Testaments, like the seraphim, might cry to one another, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts." [487] When Faustus, instead of the vague general accusation which he makes here, condemns particular actions in the lives of the patriarchs and the prophets, the Lord their God, and ours also, will assist me to reply suitably and appropriately to the separate charges. For the present, the reader must choose whether to believe the commendation of the Apostle Paul or the accusations of Faustus the Manichæan. [488]
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[404] Matt. iii. 17.
[405] John xvi. 28.
[406] John viii. 13-18.
[407] John x. 38.
[408] Rom. i. 21.
[409] Lib. xi.
[410] Rom. i. 1-3.
[411] Rom. ix. 1-5.
[412] Gal. iv. 4, 5.
[413] Rom. iii. 1, 2.
[414] John v. 46.
[415] Luke xxiv. 44.
[416] 2 Cor. iii. 15, 16.
[417] Luke xvi. 27-31.
[418] Rom. iii. 21.
[419] 2 Cor. i. 20.
[420] Rom. ix. 6-8.
[421] Gal. iii. 16.
[422] Col. iii. 10.
[423] John vi. 53.
[424] Rom. v. 14.
[425] Eph. v. 31, 32.
[426] Phil. ii. 6, 7.
[427] Vulg.
[428] Matt. ix. 12, 13.
[429] John viii. 34, 36.
[430] Ps. xli. 4.
[431] John ix. 31.
[432] Gal. iii. 10.
[433] 2 Cor. xiii. 4.
[434] Ps. lxvi. 9.
[435] Ps. xxxvi. 11.
[436] Ps. xiii. 4.
[437] Ps. xvi. 8.
[438] Ps. xxx. 6, 7.
[439] 2 Cor. vi. 11.
[440] Rom. v. 5.
[441] Isa. xi. 2, 3.
[442] Eph. iv. 3.
[443] Matt. xii. 30.
[444] 1 Cor. i. 23-25.
[445] Eph. ii. 12, 19, 20.
[446] 1 Cor. xi. 19.
[447] John i. 47-51.
[448] Gen. xxviii. 11-18.
[449] 1 Cor. iii. 1-3.
[450] 2 Cor. v. 13-15.
[451] Ps. cxix. 83.
[452] 1 Cor. x. 1-4.
[453] John iii. 14.
[454] John i. 29.
[455] John xix. 36.
[456] Luke xi. 20.
[457] John xvi. 33.
[458] Rom. xi. 5.
[459] 2 Cor. ix. 7.
[460] Matt. iii. 10.
[461] 1 Tim. ii. 1-4.
[462] Ps. xxx. 11, 12.
[463] 1 Cor. x. 10, 6.
[464] 2 Cor. iii. 16.
[465] Gen. xxii. 18.
[466] Gen. xxvi. 4.
[467] Gen. xxviii. 14.
[468] Ex. iii. 6.
[469] Gen. xxiv. 2.
[470] Gen. xlix. 1, 2, 8-12.
[471] Prov. xxx. 30.
[472] Isa. i. 18.
[473] Isa. liii.
[474] Ps. xxii.
[475] Ps. lvii. 4. (Vulg.).
[476] Ps. lvii. 4.
[477] Ps. ii. 8, 9.
[478] Baruch iii. 37, 38.
[479] Dan. vii. 13, 14.
[480] Matt. xxiv. 15.
[481] Dan. ix. 24-27.
[482] Wisd. ii. 18-21.
[483] Rom. x. 14, 15.
[484] Isa. vii. 9 (Vulg.).
[485] Gal. iii. 6, 8.
[486] Rom. iv. 11, 12.
[487] Isa. vi. 3.
[488] [It is unnecessary to point out in detail the vicious elements in Augustin's allegorizing and typologizing. It should be said that his exegetical fancies were not original, but were derived from Philo, Origen, and their followers.--A.H.N.]