Heresy IV, Of the Prophetic Books

OF THE PROPHETIC BOOKS — Heresy IIII (De Libris Propheticis. Haeresis IIII)

That the books of the Prophets have nothing in themselves for the sake of which they ought to be received.

ASSERTORES HVIVS HAERESEOS [The Assertors of this Heresy]

And this also is a heresy of the Manichaeans, which before the rest Faustus, and the Anonymous disciple of Fabritius, defended. With these a certain Theodore of Mopsuestia (Theodorus Mopsuestites) seems to consent, who — as is read in the Acts of the Fifth Synod — asserted that nothing is contained in the prophets which is evidently pronounced concerning Christ, but that our elders drew, out of their own will, to Christ those things which had been said of other matters; for which heresy he was deservedly condemned in the Fifth Synod. But that in all the prophets there are innumerable prophecies, presages, and oracles concerning Christ — to whom, as Peter says, all the prophets give testimony — and moreover many examples of honest life; and that, for this cause, their books are exceedingly necessary to us, as much for the truth and firmness of faith as for living well and justly: [all this] we have abundantly proved above from the authority of the new testament. It remains, therefore, that we see how slight are those things which the Manichaeans object against the books of the prophets. ¹

OBJECTIONS OF THE HERETICS (Obiectiones Haereticorum)

1. If the books of the prophets are to be received, they are to be received chiefly on account of two [reasons]: either that they confer to the testification of faith, or that they confer to the information [instruction] of life; of which, since the books of the prophets furnish neither, no cause offers itself which might make them commended to us. For what need have we of their writings on account of testimonies concerning Christ the Savior, which are none in them? Or, if perchance there be any, we nevertheless neither need them for the confirmation of faith, nor ought to use them. For it is [the mark] of an inert faith not to believe in Christ without witness and argument. For since you yourselves are wont to say that nothing is to be curiously sought out, because Christian credulity is simple and absolute, how is the simplicity of faith not destroyed by propping it up with indications and witnesses — and especially with the Jews? ²

2. Whose testimonies certainly are so useless to us for faith that they profit nothing, neither after faith nor before faith concerning Christ received. For if to a Gentile, before faith received, it is to be believed in Christ on account of the testimonies of the Hebrew prophets, which you think to be found in their books, then those [Gentiles] will have to believe the prophets before Christ. But say, I ask: if you think that Christ is to be received by me through the prophets, the prophets themselves — through whom shall I receive [them]? and who will make faith for me on their behalf? Certainly not other prophets — because then the question would go off into infinity, we asking again and again who should render testimony on behalf of those prophets [just] recently brought in. But if you say that they are to be received from the testimony of Christ, so that mutually — that is, those prophets commend Christ, and Christ [commends] those [prophets] — the Gentile, certainly, free by [being bound to] the condition of each, would believe neither the scriptures of the Hebrew prophets speaking of Christ, nor Christ testifying about their scriptures. Wherefore it sufficiently appears that the testimonies of the Jewish prophets are useless before faith in Christ; because before faith, when we were Gentiles, ³ we could not believe them, as [being] Hebrews; but after faith, since now we believe in Christ, the testimonies are superfluous, since we no longer need them, that we should believe those things which we have already believed.

3. But if any one should say to us that testimonies are needed, after faith received, for the stabilizing of the undertaken firmness of belief — I ask, what necessity compels that from external, obscure, and uncertain Hebrew witnesses we should beg superfluous testimonies? — as if there were not enough for us the most abundant and most faithful witnesses whom we have. For who can be a more faithful witness to us than God himself concerning his own son? — who, not through a seer, nor through an interpreter, but of his own accord, by a voice bursting forth from heaven, when he sent him upon earth, said: “This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him.” And Christ himself also says of himself: “I went out (Exivi) from the Father, and I came into the world”; and many things of this kind. To which [words], when the Jews said, “Thou givest testimony of thyself; thy testimony is not true,” he himself responded: “And if I testify of myself, my testimony is true, because I am not alone. For also in your law it is written, The testimony of two men is true. I am [he] who testify of myself, and [the Father] testifies of me who sent me.” He did not, moreover, say “the prophets,” but “the Father.” To these things he also calls his own works to himself for a testimony: “If you believe not me (Si mihi non creditis) (saying), believe the works.” He did not say, “If you believe not me, believe the prophets.” Wherefore, since we have as witness the Father and the Son, we do not need external testimonies for faith. ⁴

4. Then, how can we read them for an exemplar of honest life, whose flagitious deeds we know to have been so openly damned by Christ? For the Savior himself, striking at the life and morals of all the prophets at once by a single sentence, called them robbers and thieves, saying: “All (Omnes), as many as came before me, are thieves and robbers.” ⁵

THE DILUTING OF THE OBJECTIONS (Dilutio Obiectorum)

1. It is [the mark] of a most demented man to say that it is [the mark] of an inert faith not to believe without a witness. For how can the knowledge of Christ come to us without a human witness? How, indeed, will they believe him whom they have not heard? and how will they hear without a preacher? Wherefore, when we say that a simple faith is necessary to the Christian, we do not persuade [men] that the testimonies of the old testament are not to be believed, but we admonish that the Christian mind ought first to be nourished by a simple faith, so that it may be rendered capable of understanding the supernal [things]. For thus says the prophet: “Unless (Nisi) you shall have believed, you shall not understand.” This is that simple faith, by which we believe ⁶ before we know the super-eminent knowledge of the charity of Christ, in whom are all the treasures of the wisdom and knowledge of God hidden away — which are opened to none, if he shall have contemned, for himself, the food conveyed through the maternal flesh (that is, [the food] through the apostolic and prophetic udders of milk-nourishments), and, as [one] disdaining infantile victus, as if by reason of his over-great age fastidious [squeamish], shall have rushed sooner into the poisons of the heretics than into the wisdom for which he judges himself fit.

2. But as to what they contend — that the prophets of the Hebrews profit neither before nor after faith — asking who indeed [would make], for a Gentile (who believes neither Christ nor the prophets), faith of the prophets out of the scriptures: we easily refute [them], saying that the very scripture of the prophets conciliates [wins] faith for itself, and its own [faith], among all ⁷

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[the very scripture of the prophets conciliates faith for itself, and its own faith, among all peoples,] to commend [its] authority to all nations, while it fore-announces all those things which, through the successions of times, came to pass — so long before they were done, as [things] to be done: and those especially which, in these most recent days, the Gentiles themselves both know and confess to have been completed. As concerning the propagation of the Christian religion, which they themselves see; and concerning the persecutions stirred up against it by kings, of which frequent memory exists in the histories of the Gentiles, and the laws of the emperors, committed to their letters, testify; likewise concerning the faith of the emperors, and the most salubrious servitude under Christ, and concerning the name of Christ diffused far and wide into all nations, concerning the abolition of idols, and the blindness and captivity of the Jews. All which things, if I were to press upon a Gentile out of the scriptures of the prophets before those things had been done — so that he might believe those things which he had not yet seen done — he might perhaps deservedly say: “What [have I to do] with these scriptures, from which [source] you [claim to] prove [them] truthful is not shown to me?” But when so great and so many things which they said have now been brought to fulfillment, plainly that [Gentile], if he were perverse, would be unwilling, nor would he in any way contemn those [scriptures] which, by foreseeing so long before, and by fore-announcing with so great an apparatus, deserved to be commended. For we believe nothing more prudently — whether concerning things past, which were done of old, or concerning future things, which are not yet done — than [those things which] they [the prophets], to us who [take] from them faith of their words in so many and great [matters] (which, foretold by them, are now done), have proved. There are, therefore, the prophetic scriptures, before faith, useful to the Gentiles in [believing] Christ. But neither, after faith, are they on that account superfluous, because we now believe. Otherwise it would behoove those who believe to cast away all the books through which it came to pass that they should believe. For if this were true, I do not see why even the gospel itself should be read by the faithful of Christ: before faith, indeed, it is useless, because that Gentile whom the Manichaeans bring in does not believe in Christ; but after faith, [it would be] superfluous, if even by true preachings concerning Christ it is now superfluously believed, when it has [already] been believed in him. Here perhaps they will say: But the gospel ought to be read [by one] already faithful, lest he forget what he believed. So, therefore, O insane [men], he ought also to read the true testimonies of the prophets, lest he forget why he believed. But if he shall have forgotten [it], that which he believed will not be able to be firm with him. ⁸

3. But now, when they ask why, after the testimony of the Father and the Son, we follow the external testimonies of the Jews, we respond: not that this is done by us because we do not believe the testimony of Christ without another witness, or because we prefer the testimonies of others to the testimony of Christ, but because a twofold cause impels us to this. THE FIRST, indeed, [is] that I may know why we have believed these things which they handed down to us, [things] which we now believe; and, knowing this, [that] we may be more stably confirmed in the faith of those things which they handed down to us. For since we neither heard that voice of the Father brought from heaven, nor saw the works of Christ, we needed the testimony of those who had seen and heard those things — so that, from their preaching, we might hear that Christ had done such things; and, hearing, might believe in Christ, before unknown to us. And for this cause the preaching of the apostles was made to [reach] all; which — lest it should be contemned by men, and thought fabulous — the vaticinations and testimonies of the prophets were necessary to the apostles, by which they might demonstrate those things which they themselves preached to have been fore-predicted ⁹ long before by the prophets. For although the miracles put forth by them attested the preaching of the Apostles, nevertheless there would not have been lacking certain [men] (as even now still certain [people] mutter) who would attribute all those things to magic power, unless such a thought of theirs were overcome by the prophetic contestation. For that they [the Apostles] had, by magic arts, constituted prophets for themselves long before they were born, by whom their preaching should be fore-announced, no one indeed would say. This, therefore, is one cause. But THE OTHER is, that by the authority of the old testimonies we may sweetly invite all infidels — as much Hebrews as Gentiles — [if] not resisting, to embrace the faith of Christ; or, [if] resisting and contradicting, may strongly repel [them]: the Hebrews, indeed, while we show to them that those [scriptures] which we believe were not written by us as [if] after the event, as [being] afterward warned, but by their own codices we prove that they were most openly proved by their own prophets; but the Gentiles, while — out of the books of our enemies, kept by them with such diligence that they could not be vitiated by us — we show fore-announced, so long a time before, [those things] which the Gentiles themselves now see completed: namely, concerning the vocation of the nations to Christ, concerning the overthrow of idols, concerning the persecutions of the Church (which the histories of the Gentiles describe), and concerning ¹⁰ the excellence of our Church, and the rest of this kind — which they have before [their] eyes, and, even if they wish, cannot deny.

4. That also they malignly add — that the Lord said, “All (Omnes) who came before me are thieves and robbers” — for it is not so written, but thus: “All (Omnes), as many as came, are thieves and robbers.” For in this place he willed those to be understood who had not been sent — whom Jeremiah also rebukes, saying: “Thus saith the Lord concerning the prophets who prophesy in my name, and I sent them not.” But those [true prophets] whom these insane [men] blaspheme were sent by the Lord, [and] came not of their own accord. Or, if it be written, “All, as many as came before me, are thieves and robbers” — as the Greek now has, πάντες ὅσοι πρὸ ἐμοῦ ἦλθον (pantes hosoi pro emou elthon) — he wishes those to be understood [as coming] “before” who came not with him, but wished by pride to precede him, and were unwilling to come with Christ (that is, with the Word of God), but, since God did not send them, brought their own lies to men; but the holy prophets came not before Christ, but with Christ, because they did not wish by pride to precede him, but bore him humbly, [him] speaking through them. ¹¹