Letters & Polemics (CSEL) 9 part 3/5

they may be compelled to learn that even those things which they think they say fittingly concerning the ineffable divine excellence are unworthy of the majesty of God—whose Wisdom, since it was to descend even to the human body, first descended even to human words. And when I begin to examine that word, I do not see that I have spoken properly: for nothing can descend except what can also be moved from place to place. For he who descends seems to leave a higher place and to seek a lower. But the Wisdom of God, since it is wholly present everywhere, can in no way migrate from place to place. Of it John in the Gospel speaks better, as one who shared the Lord's bosom. For he says:

'He was in this world, and the world was made through him, and the world knew him not'; and yet he himself also adds and says: 'He came unto his own, and his own received him not.' How was he here, and how did he come, unless because that ineffable sublimity, in order to be suited to men, must be signified by human sounds? But in order that it may make men gods, it must be understood by a divine silence. A reason therefore can be given why it was so said; yet nothing can be said worthily of God, which for that very reason is now unworthy, because it could be said. Take away from jealousy error and grief, and what else will remain but a will guarding chastity and vindicating conjugal purity from corruption? By what word, then, could this be better intimated than by the jealousy of God—

that we are called to wedlock with God, and he does not wish us to be corrupted by base love, and he punishes our unchastity and loves chastity? For not without reason is it commonly said even among the people: 'He who is not jealous does not love.' To this also pertains that which was said: 'a consuming fire'—about which I ought not to dispute, but rather to question the men themselves: what fire the Lord said he had come to send into this world. For this was said in the Gospel, which they cannot accuse—not to honour Christ, but to deceive Christians. And when this has been recalled to them, how the Lord said, 'I came to send fire into this world,' the wretches say: 'But that is a different thing.' To whom we reply: 'And this too is a different thing: do not be afraid.'

For Christ himself speaks also in the Old Testament when he says: 'I am a consuming fire'—the same who speaks in the Gospel that he had come to send fire into this world, that is, the Word of God, which is himself. For after his resurrection he expounded the ancient Scriptures to his disciples, beginning from Moses and all the prophets, when those very disciples confessed that they had received fire, saying: 'Was not our heart burning within us on the way, while he opened to us the Scriptures?' He himself is the consuming fire: for divine love consumes the old life and renews the man, so that from the fact that God is a consuming fire, he brings it about that we love him, and from the fact that he is jealous, he himself loves us.

Therefore do not fear the fire which is God, but fear the fire which God has prepared for heretics. Now as to that passage which Adimantus chose from the Gospel, which he might set before the unlearned as though contrary to this chapter of the Law, where the Lord says, 'No one is good but God alone'—how often the goodness of God is found in the Old Testament, who could suffice to count? Yet I will set down one. That which is daily sung in the churches: 'Give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endures forever.' Surely this too, according to the Manichaeans' opinion, seems contrary to a jealous God, and yet it is sung in the books of the Old Testament. Likewise that king,

who, when he was making a wedding for his son, found among those reclining at table a man not having a wedding garment, and at first addressing him by the name of friend, commanded him, bound hand and foot, to be cast into the outer darkness—to those who understand ill he does not seem good. And if anyone were to propose this very chapter of the Gospel and, just as Adimantus does with the Old Testament, so slanderously accuse the Gospel, praising rather the books of the Old Testament, where it is written, 'Give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endures forever,' and finding fault in the New Testament because a guest who was invited is cast into so great a torment on account of a garment—and were to do this persistently with fraudulent perversity,

so as to gather all the passages of gentleness from the Old Testament and the passages of severity from the New, and to contend that these are contrary to each other, praising the Old and censuring the New: he would likewise find unlearned men and wretchedly ignorant of the divine Scriptures, whom he might persuade that the Old Testament rather than the New is to be retained. And since these men do this from the other side—that is, censuring the Old as though contrary to the New—I marvel that they do not consider that someone might at some time read both, and, by divine help understanding both, praise both, and either grieve over the fraud and malice of these men as men, or beware of it as of heretics, or deride it as of the unlearned and proud. Concerning that which is written in Deuteronomy:

'According to the desire of your soul slay and eat all flesh according to the pleasure which the Lord has given you; but beware that you do not eat the blood, but pour it out like water upon the earth.' With these words of the Law Adimantus thinks contrary that which the Lord says in the Gospel: 'Let not your hearts be weighed down with surfeiting and drunkenness and the cares of this world'; and that which the Apostle says: 'It is good not to eat flesh nor to drink wine'; and again: 'You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons.' But we say of all these things—whether those written in the Old or those written in the New Testament—both that they were set down as their proper occasions required, and we show that they are not contrary to one another.

Although even he himself, in those words which he cited from the Old Testament, could have observed that what was said—'according to the desire of your soul slay and eat all flesh'—does not pertain to immoderate gluttony, since there follows: 'according to the pleasure which the Lord has given you.' For the Lord has not given you immoderate pleasure, but only so much as suffices for the sustenance and health of nature. But whoever pursues immoderate voracity pursues his own vice, not that pleasure which the Lord has given: and therefore that which is set down in the Gospel is not contrary: 'Let not your hearts be weighed down with surfeiting and drunkenness and the cares of this world.'

For when anyone fills himself only with that pleasure which the Lord has given—that is, with moderate and natural pleasure—his heart is not weighed down with surfeiting and drunkenness and the cares of this world. But as to what the Apostle says about not eating flesh and not drinking wine, he did not command this because he judged those things unclean, as these men suppose and, erring, hurl into error those whom they have persuaded of such things. But since he himself set down the reason why he said this, this sentence need not be interpreted or expounded by us. For it is enough to weave into this discourse the whole passage from the Apostle's epistle, so that both the reason why the Apostle said this may plainly appear, and the fraud of these men, who select certain little scraps from the Scriptures,

by which they deceive the unlearned, not connecting what is written above and below, from which the will and intention of the writer might be understood. Thus, then, the Apostle says: 'Him that is weak in faith receive, not in disputes over thoughts. For one believes he may eat all things; but he who is weak eats vegetables. Let not him who eats despise him who does not eat, and let not him who does not eat judge him who eats: for God has received him. Who are you to judge another's servant? To his own lord he stands or falls. But he shall stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand. One indeed judges between day and day; another judges every day alike. Let each one abound in his own understanding.'

'He who regards the day, regards it unto the Lord; and he who eats, eats unto the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who does not eat, does not eat unto the Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives to himself, and none dies to himself. For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; or whether we die, we die unto the Lord. Whether therefore we live or die, we are the Lord's. For to this end Christ died and rose again, that he might have dominion over both the dead and the living. But you, why do you judge your brother? Or why do you despise your brother? For we shall all stand before the tribunal of the Lord. For it is written: As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God. So then each of us shall render account of himself.'

'Let us not therefore judge one another any more; but judge this rather, that you put not a stumbling-block or occasion of falling before your brothers. I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is common of itself; save that to him who thinks anything to be common, to him it is common. For if because of food your brother is grieved, you no longer walk according to love. Do not by your food destroy him for whom Christ died. Let not then our good be blasphemed. For the kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. For he who in this serves Christ pleases God and is approved by men. Let us therefore follow after the things that make for peace, and the things that are for mutual edification. Do not for the sake of food destroy the work of God.'

'All things indeed are clean; but it is evil for the man who eats with offence. It is good not to eat flesh nor to drink wine, nor anything by which your brother is offended. The faith which you have, keep to yourself before God. Blessed is he who does not condemn himself in that which he approves. But he who doubts, if he eats, is condemned, because it is not of faith; and whatever is not of faith is sin.' Is there any need of anyone's interpretation for it to be understood, both why the Apostle said this, and with how great malice these men pluck certain sure passages from the Scriptures, by which they may circumvent the unlearned?

For the Apostle also said that all things are clean according to faith, and that to him who thinks them unclean they are unclean, and that then one must abstain from them, when they are received with offence—that is, when some weak person thinks he must abstain from all flesh, lest he fall upon flesh that has been sacrificed to idols; and therefore he who eats it can be judged to do so in honour of idols, and from this be gravely offended—whereas that sacrificial flesh itself, if it be received in faith by one who is ignorant of it, defiles no one. Wherefore in another place the same Apostle forbids that inquiry be made,

when something is bought from the market, or when someone invited to the table of an unbeliever sees flesh set before him which these men reckon unclean—not on account of its being sacrificed, but because it is flesh—although the Apostle cries out that all things are clean, and that every creature of God is good, and that all things are sanctified through the word and prayer, and yet that one must abstain from them if perchance some weak person is offended. And in a certain place he most plainly designated these men, when he says that in the last times there shall be certain ones forbidding to marry, abstaining from the foods which God has created.

For he properly designates those who abstain from such foods not in order to curb their own concupiscence or to spare the weakness of another, but because they think that the flesh itself is unclean and deny that God is its creator. But let us hold to the apostolic teaching which says that all things are clean to the clean, keeping the evangelical moderation, so that our hearts be not weighed down with surfeiting and drunkenness and the cares of this world. Now as to that which the same Apostle says: 'You cannot communicate with the table of the Lord and the table of demons,' I do not see why they should have believed it must be set against, and as it were contrary to, this passage of the Law. For the Law does not speak of things sacrificed, when it is said in Deuteronomy:

'According to the desire of your soul slay and eat all flesh according to the pleasure which the Lord has given you,' but it speaks of the foods that pertain to man's nourishment. But since the Manichaeans, even when any animals are prepared for a man's dinner, call it a sacrifice, according to their own understanding they have thought these things contrary. For this reason they also cited that passage where the Apostle says: 'The things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God'—although the Apostle was most plainly speaking of victims which are offered in the temple to demons, not of those foods which men prepare for themselves. For thus he says: 'What then? Do I say that anything is sacrificed to idols, or that an idol is anything?'

'But because the things which they sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God, I do not wish you to become partners with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons; you cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he? All things are lawful, but not all things are expedient; all things are lawful, but not all things edify. Let no one seek what is his own, but what is another's. Whatever is sold in the market, eat, asking no question for conscience' sake; for the earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof. If any of the unbelievers invites you, and you are willing to go, eat whatever is set before you, judging nothing for conscience' sake. But if anyone says to you,

"This is a thing sacrificed to idols," do not eat, for the sake of him who showed it, and for conscience' sake; conscience, I say, not your own, but the other's. For why is my liberty judged by another's conscience? If I partake with thanksgiving (grace), why am I blasphemed for that for which I give thanks?' 'Whether therefore you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.' Let the Manichaeans attend to these things and see how it was said in Deuteronomy: 'According to the desire of your soul slay and eat all flesh according to the pleasure which the Lord has given you.' Now as to what was commanded the Jews about not eating certain flesh, and which was called unclean,

it has value as a signification of unclean men, who are signified through figures in the old Scriptures. For just as that ox, whose mouth is forbidden to be muzzled while it treads out the grain, signifies the evangelist, as the Apostle most plainly expounds, so also those things which were prohibited signify certain uncleannesses of men, which are not received into the fellowship of the body of Christ, that is, into the stable and everlasting Church. For as regards food, it most manifestly appears that nothing at all is unclean, but that it is evil for the man who eats with offence. Concerning that which is written in Leviticus: 'Separate the unclean from the clean, and let no one eat the flesh of the camel, the ass, the hare, the pig, the eagle, the kite, the raven, the vulture, and the rest.'

Nowhere can the soul of this man, most full of guiles and frauds, be caught more manifestly—who, as though contrary and opposed to himself, cast up chapters from both Testaments—than in this passage, where he mentioned that it is written in Leviticus that one should abstain from the flesh of certain animals. For to this sentence he thought that passage from the Gospel should be opposed, where the Lord says: 'Nothing that enters into a man defiles him, but the things which proceed from him defile him.' If he did this unwittingly, nothing is blinder; but if knowingly, nothing is more wicked. Had he not himself a little before set down the Apostle's testimony saying, 'It is good, brothers, not to eat flesh nor to drink wine,' while he desires to set the New Testament against the Old,

where it is said, 'According to the desire of your soul slay and eat all flesh'? How then does the Lord's sentence now please him, in which he says that nothing entering into a man defiles him, but that those things defile which proceed from a man? Where will this fellow hide himself from this sentence? Whither will he flee? Let him tell me, when by perverse and superstitious imagination of continence he commands that the uncleanness of flesh is to be shunned and separated from the foods of the saints. For surely, if it is true that those things which enter into a man do not defile, the Manichaeans, with great error, call foods unclean when men feed on flesh. But if such foods are unclean, what will they do with that testimony,

which was brought forth by evangelical and divine authority, where the Lord says that a man is not defiled by those things which enter into him, but by those things which proceed from him? Or will they perhaps say, as they are wont to say when the authority of the Scriptures presses them, that this chapter was inserted into the Gospel by the corrupters of the Scriptures? Why then does Adimantus use this chapter as a witness, and from it attempt to assail the Old Testament—from which he himself is overthrown? For when any catholic Christian, a venerator and understander of both Scriptures, shall have answered him that these things are not contrary,

namely that those things about the flesh of certain animals, which the people, still carnal, were commanded not to eat, were set down to signify human characters, which the Church, which is the body of the Lord, cannot receive into the stable and everlasting bond of its unity, rejecting them as unclean foods and not converting them into its own inward parts—so that all those precepts imposed on the carnal people might prophesy the future discipline of the spiritual people; and therefore that they do not conflict with the Lord's sentence, in which he most truly says that a man is not defiled by those things which through food enter into him. For that sentence imposes burdens on servants; this one now shakes off from free men the yoke of servitude.

And yet that was so said that the burdens of servants might foretell the faith of the free. For all these things, as the Apostle says, happened to them in a figure for our sake, upon whom the end of the ages has come. If therefore the things they suffered happened in a figure, the things of which they were admonished they received in a figure. When therefore I shall have answered these things, and shall have shown in this manner that these two chapters, compared from the several Testaments, are not contrary, what will this fellow do—against whom the most weighty testimony of the witness whom he himself produced against his adversary speaks? For he himself cited from the Gospel the testimony, with the Lord saying that a man is not defiled by those foods which enter into him;

and yet he does not cease to admonish and teach that one must abstain from flesh as from unclean foods. And nevertheless he felt how great a blow he inflicted on himself, and with how great a stroke, struck back, he wounded himself. For lest anyone should question him and say: 'How then do you forbid the eating of flesh, if the Lord says, as you yourself relate, that nothing entering into a man defiles him, but the things which proceed from him defile?'—he wished, as it were, to apply a medicine without cause to a deadly wound. For thus he set down that very evangelical testimony: 'In the Gospel,' he says, 'the Lord says to the crowd: Hear and understand, nothing entering into a man defiles him,' and so forth. In that, therefore, he mentioned that the Lord said this to the crowd,

shows nothing else than that he did what he did not out of ignorance but out of malice, so that afterward he might say to his hearers that the Lord spoke these things to the crowd, not to the few saints—such as they themselves wish to appear—so that, since they permit their own hearers, as though still unclean, to feed on flesh, but for themselves, as though now clean, they reckon it wicked and abominable, it might also seem that the Lord thought thus, because he taught these things not to a few saints but to the crowds. O most wicked man, confident in the negligence of the human race for concealing his deceptions!

For he did not believe that anyone would exist who would take up the Gospel and read what follows and find the man in those very meadows, in which the Lord feeds his flocks, hiding snares for the incautious and less provident. For the disciples, moved by these words and not believing that the Lord had spoken properly but rather figuratively when he said that a man is not defiled by those things which through foods enter into him—since the disciples themselves were also Jews, who from childhood had received it as an ingrained thing that the foods of certain flesh were to be shunned—came to him and said to him: 'Do you know that the Pharisees, having heard the word, were scandalized?' But he answering said: 'Every plant which my heavenly Father has not planted shall be rooted up. Leave them:

they are blind and leaders of the blind. But if a blind man gives leadership to a blind man, both fall into a pit.' When therefore he called the unbelief of the Jews a planting which the heavenly Father had not planted, yet Peter, still thinking it to be a parable and that the Jews were on that account rebuked and called blind because they could not understand it, answering said to him: 'Explain to us this parable.' And he, most manifestly showing that it was not a parable but proper speech, said to them: 'Are you also still without understanding? Do you not understand that everything which enters into the mouth goes into the belly and is cast out into the privy? But the things which proceed from the mouth come out of the heart, and these defile a man.'

'For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false testimonies, blasphemies; these are the things which defile a man. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man.' Now the Jews had raised a question about unwashed hands, on the occasion of which the Lord spoke his sentence generally about those things which enter into the mouth and go into the belly and are cast out into the privy—that is, about our foods. Although, therefore, it is written that, when the crowds had been called together to him, he said that not what enters into the mouth defiles a man, but what proceeds from the mouth, yet with what fear this fellow added this to his own words, by which he cited a testimony of this kind, sufficiently appears, as was said a little before,

so that he might have something to answer to those who should raise a question to him, why the chief men of the Manichaeans hold it wicked for themselves to feed on flesh—namely so that what the Lord said might seem to have been conceded only to the crowds, not to the elect. But since from what follows it has been declared that the Lord answered thus even to Peter questioning apart, and with the disciples hearing him—whom indeed he was bringing forward to the summit of the Church—so that he both attested that he had not said those things by a parable and showed that they pertain to all: these men have nothing whence they may take away foods from the throats of men and bind them with the noose of superstition. Perhaps some one of them may say:

'Explain then what the flesh of the pig and the camel and the hare and the kite and the raven and the rest signify, from which the Law commands abstinence.' I will not, because it is long. But suppose I cannot: is anyone therefore unable? And there are already innumerable volumes in which these things have been expounded. Yet for us, to refute these men, it is enough that those observances are a shadow of things to come—not I, but the Apostle, says so, since he also forbids them to be observed in a servile manner, but nevertheless declares that they signify something, saying: 'Let no one therefore judge you in food or in drink, or in respect of a feast day or a new moon or Sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come.'

Those future things, therefore, which were signified in those observances, were, after they came through Christ the Lord of the laws, taken away as servile observances; yet their interpretations are still held by the free. For whatever signified the Church that was to be is prophecy. And you have the same Apostle saying: 'Quench not the Spirit; despise not prophecy; but prove all things: hold fast that which is good.' The divine Scripture, then, must be read, the dispensation of the Holy Spirit must be understood, and prophecy must be regarded; and carnal bondage must be cast off, while the understanding proper to free men must be retained. Concerning that which is written in Deuteronomy: 'Observe and sanctify the day which the Lord thy God hath commanded thee.'

'Six days shalt thou labour and do all thy work; but on the seventh day, the sabbath, thou shalt feast unto the Lord thy God, doing no work — neither thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, thine ox and thine ass and all thy cattle, and the stranger that sojourneth with thee. So let thy servant and thy handmaid rest even as thou. Remember that thou wast a servant in Egypt, and the Lord thy God brought thee out with a mighty hand and a stretched-out arm; therefore the Lord commanded thee to keep the seventh day.' And again in Genesis it is written, as He speaks to Abraham concerning circumcision: 'Keep my covenant,' He says, 'thou and thy seed after thee. This is my covenant which thou shalt keep between me and thee and thy seed:'

'Every male among you shall be circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, and it shall be a token of the covenant between me and you. And on the eighth day ye shall circumcise every male in your nation, so that ye circumcise also the servant born in the house and the one bought with money, besides the stranger; and this shall be my covenant in your nation. And every male who shall not circumcise his foreskin, his soul shall perish from the midst of the people, because he hath broken my covenant.' All these words of the Old Testament Adimantus sets forth so that he may oppose them by the New Testament, and he affirms that those things are contrary which the Lord says in the Gospel concerning the proselyte: 'Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte;'

'and when he is made so, ye make him twofold more a child of hell than yourselves.' As though, forsooth, the Lord calls the proselyte a child of hell because he is circumcised and keeps the sabbath, and not rather because he is compelled to imitate the depraved ways of the Jews and their perverse manner of living — not in that they observe the precepts of the Law, but in that they act against the Law. This the Lord says most plainly of them in another place, where He says that they reject the commandment of God to establish their own ordinance; for whereas the Law had commanded that father and mother be honoured, they themselves devised how parents might be dishonoured. And likewise when He says to them: 'Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, who hold the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and neither enter yourselves, nor suffer others to enter.'