On that which is written: 'In the beginning God made heaven and earth,' up to that which is written: 'And there was evening and there was morning, one day.' The most foolish Manichaeans suppose that this chapter of the Law is contrary to the Gospel, saying that in Genesis it is written that God by himself made heaven and earth and light, whereas in the Gospel it is written that the world was fashioned through our Lord Jesus Christ, where it is said: 'And the world was made through him, and the world knew him not.' For they are refuted in three ways. First, because when it is said 'In the beginning God made heaven and earth,' the Christian understands the Trinity itself, where not the Father alone, but also the Son and the Holy Spirit are understood.
For we do not believe in three gods, but in one God: Father and Son and Holy Spirit—although the Father is Father, and the Son is Son, and the Holy Spirit is Holy Spirit. Concerning this unity of the Trinity it is too long to dispute in this place. Next, because where it is said 'God said: Let it be, and it was made,' there it is necessary to understand that he made through the Word what he made. And the Word of the Father is the Son. Therefore this chapter of Genesis, where it is written 'And God said: Let it be, and it was made,' is not opposed to that passage of the Gospel where it is said 'And the world was made through him,' that is, through our Lord, because he himself is the Word of the Father, through whom all things were made. Finally, if for this reason the Son is not understood in Genesis, because it was not said
that God made through the Son, then neither in the Gospel does God feed the birds and clothe the lilies and the countless other things through the Son—things which the Lord himself says God the Father does, although he does not say that he does them through the Son. But as for the testimony of the Apostle which they add, in that he says of our Lord Jesus Christ: 'He is the firstborn of all creation; and all things were made through him in the heavens and on earth, things visible and invisible'—and they say this chapter too is opposed to Genesis, where God is said to have made the world in such a way that the Son is not specifically named there—they err vehemently; they do not see this. If it were so, the Apostle himself would be contrary to himself, since in another place he speaks of one:
'From whom are all things, through whom are all things, in whom are all things'—and he does not name the Son. But just as here the Son is not named, yet is nonetheless understood, so also in Genesis; and just as these two chapters of Paul do not oppose each other, so neither does Genesis oppose the Gospel. On that which is written: 'And God completed on the sixth day all his works which he had made, and on the seventh he rested from all those same works of his which he had made.' To this passage also the Manichaeans raise a false charge and say that it is contrary to the New Testament, in that in Genesis it is written that God rested on the seventh day from all his works which he made, whereas the Lord in the Gospel says: 'My Father works even until now.' Which is in no way contrary.
For the Lord refutes the error of the Jews, who supposed that God rested on the seventh day in such a way that from then on he wrought absolutely nothing. But he rested from all his works which he made, so that he no longer made the world with all the things that are in it—yet not so as also to rest from the administration of the world. For it is not written 'God rested from all his works' so that thenceforth he should not work, but it is written 'God rested from all his works which he made,' so that thereafter he might work not in making the world (from which work he had ceased after its completion), but in administering it—in which work the Lord intimated that he is engaged. Nor does that rest mean that God, as it were, sought a pause after labor,
but it signifies that he ceased from establishing the natures of things after the completion of those things—although even until now he works in administering them. But the Jews did not understand the observance of the Sabbath, they who supposed that one ought to cease even from those works which avail for the salvation of men. Whence the Lord in other places also refuted them with a marvelous comparison concerning the sheep that fell into a pit and the beast of burden that must be loosed so as to be led to water. But the Sabbath was not repudiated but understood by the Christians: it ceased indeed to be observed carnally, but is retained spiritually by the saints, who understand the voice of the Lord calling to rest and saying: 'Come to me, you who labor, and I will refresh you;
take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you shall find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.' This Sabbath—that is, this rest—is what that Scripture signifies, which the Jews did not understand and, according to the dispensation of the times, followed carnally as a shadow; and the body, as it were, of that shadow—that is, the truth—was to be given to us. But just as that rest of God after the fashioning of the world is intimated, so the rest which is promised to us we shall attain after the works which we have in this world, if they shall have been just—namely in the seventh and likewise last part of the age, concerning which it is long to dispute.
Therefore the Lord does not annul the Scripture of the Old Testament, but compels it to be understood; nor does he dissolve the Sabbath so that what was figured should perish, but rather he opens it, so that what was covered may appear. On that which is written in Genesis: 'And God said: It is not good for man to be alone; let us make him a helper.' And God sent a sleep upon Adam, and he fell asleep; and he took one of his ribs, from which he formed Eve, whom he brought to Adam and said: 'Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife.' To this passage again the Manichaeans raise a false charge, saying that this sentence is against the New Testament—the sentence in which God is written both to have formed the woman and to have joined her to the man—because in the Gospel the Lord says:
'Everyone who has left house or wife or parents or brothers or children for the kingdom of heaven shall receive sevenfold as much in this time, and in the age to come shall possess eternal life.' In which false charge I marvel that they are so blinded—or rather I do not marvel, for their malice has blinded them, as it is written. But yet who would not see how many precepts there are in the New Testament about loving one's wife? Why then do they rather say that the Old Testament is contrary to this sentence of the Lord, in which he says that the wife is to be left for the kingdom of heaven, and not that the New Testament itself is contrary to itself?—which it is impious to say. For things which seem to the unskilled to be contrary must be understood, not rashly accused.
For the Lord too, when asked by the Jews whether it pleased him that a wife be dismissed upon a bill of divorce being given, answered them saying: 'Have you not read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said: For this reason shall a man leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and the two shall be in one flesh? And so they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder.' And they say to him: 'Why then did Moses command that a bill of divorce be given and that she be dismissed?' Jesus says to them: 'Because for the hardness of your heart Moses permitted you to dismiss your wives; but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you:
whoever dismisses his wife, except for the cause of fornication, makes her commit adultery; and he himself, if he takes another, commits adultery.' Behold, they have the sentence of the Old Testament confirmed by the Lord himself against the ignorance of the Jews. At the same time he also bore witness to Moses, in that he permitted the divorce to be given on account of their hardness. Do they say that even the Gospel is contrary to the Gospel? But if they say that this chapter is false and was added by corruptors of the Scriptures—for this they are wont to say when they do not find what to answer—what then? If another should say that that which they themselves put forward is spurious and false, where the Lord says:
'Everyone who has left house or wife or parents or children for the kingdom of heaven,' and the rest—is spurious and false? The wretched men do not understand how, in saying these things, they are trying to overthrow the whole Christian faith. But the true faith and the discipline of the Catholic Church confirms that both are true and were spoken by the Lord, and that in no way are they contrary; for both the joining of husband and wife is from the Lord, and the leaving of a wife for the kingdom of heaven is from the Lord. For just as, because Jesus Christ raised the dead and gave them life, life itself is not on that account not to be relinquished for the kingdom of heaven—so therefore, although the Lord gave a wife to a man, she is nonetheless to be left, if there is need, for the kingdom of heaven.
For this is not always necessary. As the Apostle says: 'If any believer has an unbelieving wife, and she consents to dwell with him, let him not dismiss her.' By this he signifies that, if she does not consent to dwell with him—that is, if she abhors in him the faith of Christ and does not tolerate him because he is a Christian—she is to be left for the kingdom of heaven; just as the same Apostle says in what follows: 'But if the unbeliever departs, let him depart; for a brother or sister is not enslaved in such cases.' If, therefore, anyone relinquishes the kingdom of heaven while unwilling to relinquish a wife who cannot bear a Christian husband, he is disapproved by the Lord;
and likewise, if any man leaves his wife by giving a bill of divorce when the cause of either fornication or of obtaining the kingdom of heaven does not exist, he is similarly disapproved by the Lord. Thus neither are these two Gospel chapters found to be contrary to each other, nor is the Gospel contrary to the Old Testament, because there the wife is joined to the man so that together they may deserve to possess the kingdom of heaven; and thus the wife is commanded to be left if she should hinder the man from possessing the kingdom of heaven. And therefore, when the Apostle admonishes both Christians—that is, husbands and wives—does he not speak thus: 'Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the Church and gave himself up for her'? And: 'Let wives be subject to their husbands as to the Lord.'
'For the Church too is subject to Christ.' Does not that very thing which these wretched men mock in the Old Testament—that which is written: 'Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and the two shall be in one flesh'—the same Apostle take in a great mystery, when he says: 'This is a great sacrament; but I speak in Christ and in the Church'? Then he adds: 'Nevertheless, let each one love his own wife as himself, and let the wife fear her husband.' Does he not in another place most evidently show that both the nature and the joining of either sex subsists from the Lord God, its creator and orderer, when he says: 'Nevertheless, neither is the woman without the man, nor the man without the woman, in the Lord.
For as the woman is from the man, so also is the man through the woman; but all things are from God.' If these men were willing to consider this, they would not, by certain chapters taken separately and set against one another with great fraud, make darkness for the unskilled, but would perceive that all things, both in the Old and in the New Testament, were written and commended by one Holy Spirit. For in the Old Testament also they have, in the prophet Isaiah, how great things are promised to eunuchs—lest they should suppose that in the New Testament alone are such praised by the Lord, where he says that there are some who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven, and adds: 'He who can receive it, let him receive it.' For Isaiah too speaks thus: 'These things says the Lord to the eunuchs:
those who keep my precepts and choose the things that I will, and who are receptive of my covenant—to them I will give in my house and within my wall a most renowned place, much better than sons and daughters: an eternal name I will give them, and it shall never fail.' For by certain shadows and figures of things, before the Lord's coming, according to a marvelous and most orderly distribution of the times, that people was held bound which received the Old Testament; yet in it there is so great a preaching and foretelling of the New Testament, that no precepts and promises, however lofty and divine, are found in the Gospel and the apostolic discipline, which are wanting even in those ancient books.
But the holy Scriptures desire not rash and proud accusers, but diligent and pious readers. On that which is written in Genesis: 'And God said to Cain: What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood cries out to me from the earth. Now you are cursed from the face of the earth, which has swallowed up and received your brother's blood from your hand's slaughter; for you must needs till the earth, since it will give you barren fruits.' To this chapter of Genesis, in which Cain received a curse so that he might be punished with the barrenness of the earth, the Manichaeans, raising a false charge and wishing to demonstrate it contrary to the Gospel, do not truly seem to me to consider that they are dealing with human beings, but altogether as though those who heard them or read their writings were cattle:
so have they abused those men's inexperience and slowness of wit, or rather blindness of mind. For they have said that to this chapter that saying in the Gospel is contrary, where the Lord says to his disciples: 'Do not be anxious about tomorrow; for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Consider the birds of heaven, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns.' As though indeed Cain the fratricide were to be compared to the disciples of Christ, so that, because he deserved the punishment of the earth's barrenness, it should follow that these too should suffer the same barrenness—they who, following our Lord Jesus Christ, the giver of laws, were being prepared for preaching the Gospel.
Nay rather, even in these two chapters—of which they set the one from Genesis and the other from the Gospel as though hostile to each other—so great a friendship and concord is found that no greater could be desired. For what is more fitting, what more suitable, than that barrenness should follow, even in the land where he labored, that man by whose crime his brother had been slain; but that fruitful land should serve those—through whose ministry, in preaching the word of God, brothers were being set free—who took no thought at all even for the morrow?
But if in the Old Testament they shudder at the barren land made so for the sinner by God's curse, why do they not in the New Testament shudder at the fig tree made dry by the curse of our Lord Jesus Christ, though it had committed no sin against its Lord? Likewise, if they delight in the Lord's sentence in which he tells his disciples not to be anxious about the morrow, since God takes care for their sustenance, why do they not also delight in the prophetic sentence in which he sang, saying: 'Cast your care upon the Lord, and he will feed you'—so that in this way, if they can, the wretched men may understand both that those things which they detest as spoken about God in the Old Testament are so entirely right that they are found even in the New, and that those things which they praise and proclaim in the New are found also in the Old:
whence to those who understand well there will become clear the manifest concord of both Testaments. On that which is written in Genesis: 'Let us make man to our image and likeness.' This passage, where it is written in Genesis that man was made to the image and likeness of God, the Manichaeans say to be contrary to the New Testament, because the Lord in the Gospel says to the Jews: 'You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you will do; he was a murderer from the beginning, and stood not in the truth, because the truth is not in him'—and because in another place the Jews are called broods of serpents and vipers.
They do not understand that the former was said of man before he sinned—that he was made to the image and likeness of God—whereas the latter, which is in the Gospel, 'You are of your father the devil,' is said to sinners and unbelievers. For in the holy Scriptures the name of 'sons' is taken in three ways: one according to nature, as Isaac is the son of Abraham, or even the other Jews who come from the same origin; another according to teaching, so that each is called the son of him from whom he has learned something, as the Apostle calls those his sons who have learned the Gospel from him; a third according to imitation, as the Apostle calls us sons of Abraham, because we imitate his faith.
In two ways, therefore, are the sinful, unbelieving Jews called sons of the devil by the Lord: either because from him they learned impiety—as the Apostle says of the devil himself: 'who now works in the sons of unbelief'—or because they imitate him, which pertains more to that which was said of him: 'and he stood not in the truth,' since the Jews themselves also stood not in the truth of the law which was given to them, the same Lord attesting and saying: 'If you believed Moses, you would believe me also; for he wrote of me.' According to the venom of these same sinners they are also called broods of serpents and vipers. But that man was made to the image of God, not only Genesis but also the Apostle proclaims, when he says: 'A man indeed ought not to veil his head,
since he is the image and glory of God, but the woman is the glory of the man.' And that it may be manifestly understood that man was made to the image of God not according to the oldness of sin, which is corrupted, but according to spiritual conformation—likewise the Apostle admonishes us, that having put off the habit of sins, that is, the old man, we may put on the new life of Christ, whom he calls the new man. And to teach that we once lost this, he calls it a renewal. For thus he speaks: 'Putting off yourselves the old man with his deeds, put on the new, who is renewed unto the knowledge of God according to the image of him who created him.' The sons of God, therefore, are men renewed unto his image and made like unto him, even to the love of the enemy.
Just as the Lord says that we ought to love our enemies, so that we may be like our Father who is in heaven. And that this is placed within our power by God himself, Scripture teaches when it says: 'He gave them power to become sons of God.' But men are called sons of the devil when they imitate his impious pride and fall away from the light and loftiness of wisdom and do not believe the truth—such as those whom the Lord reproves, when he says: 'You are of your father the devil,' and the rest. With which Gospel passage the prophet agrees, saying: 'I said, You are gods and all of you sons of the Most High; but you shall die like men, and shall fall like one of the princes.' On that which is written in Exodus: 'Honor your father and your mother.'
To this passage too, where God commanded concerning the honoring of parents, the Manichaeans say that that place in the Gospel is contrary, where the Lord, to a certain man saying 'I will go first to bury my father,' answered: 'Let the dead bury their dead; but you, come and announce the kingdom of God.' Which is resolved in the same way as that earlier one, where it was said about leaving a wife for the kingdom of heaven. For we both ought to honor our parents, and yet, for the sake of the announcement of the kingdom of God, we despise them with no impiety. For if, on account of that sentence, the Gospel is contrary to the Old Testament, it begins to be contrary also to the Apostle, who both admonishes children to honor their parents, and parents to love their children.
Moreover, the Lord too will seem to be at odds with himself — which it is impious to believe — because in another place he says to a man seeking eternal life: 'If you wish to come to life, keep the commandments,' among which he also mentions this: 'Honour your father and mother.' Yet once these commandments are fulfilled, one grows also toward the love of God, in which lies all perfection; for love of neighbour is a sure step toward the love of God. And therefore, when the man replied that he had kept all those commandments, the Lord tells him that one thing is lacking to him, if he wishes to be perfect: that he sell all that he has and give it to the poor and follow him.
From this it is manifest both that honour toward parents is to be preserved in its proper degree, and yet that they must nonetheless, when set against the love of God — especially if they are a hindrance — be scorned without any hesitation. For in the ancient Scriptures too you find it written: 'He who says to father or mother, "I do not know you," and does not acknowledge his own sons — that man has recognized your covenant.' Therefore, if in the New Testament love of parents is commended, and in the Old contempt of parents is commended, the two Testaments agree with each other from both headings. Concerning what is written in Exodus: 'I am a jealous God, requiting upon the sons of the third and fourth generation the sins of the parents who hate me.' The Manichaeans say that this passage of the Gospel is contrary to this one.
They allege that the Lord says: 'Be kind, as your heavenly Father, who makes his sun to rise upon the good and the evil'; and that other saying which the Lord likewise utters: that not only seven times must one forgive a brother who sins, but even seventy times seven. Yet if I should ask of them whether God does not punish his enemies, they would without doubt be thrown into confusion. For they themselves say that God prepares an eternal prison for the race of darkness, which they call God's enemy; and it is not enough for them: they do not hesitate to say that he will also punish his own members together with that very race. But when they come to the chapters of the Old and New Testament, in order to deceive the untaught and to slander them as being mutually opposed, they pretend to be exceedingly kind. But let them tell us: to whom is the Lord going to say:
'Go into the eternal fire, which was prepared for the devil and his angels,' if he spares everyone and condemns no one? Hence it must be understood that this too was rightly said: that God will requite the sins of the parents upon the sons who hate him. For from the fact that he added 'who hate me,' it is understood that those are punished by the sins of the parents who chose to persevere in the same perversity as their parents. For such men are punished not by God's cruelty but rather by his justice and by their own iniquity, as the prophet says:
'For the holy spirit of discipline will flee from the deceitful, and will withdraw itself from thoughts that are without understanding, and will be rebuked when iniquity comes upon it' — that is, a man is chastened when his own iniquity comes upon him, once the Holy Spirit has departed from him. And in another place: 'These things they thought and went astray; for their own malice blinded them.' And in another place: 'Each one is bound by the cords of his own sins.' With these testimonies of the Old Testament the Apostle from the New agrees, saying: 'God gave them up to the lusts of their heart.' By this concord of both Testaments it is sufficiently shown that God is not cruel, but that each man rages against himself by sinning.
But as for what is written, that vengeance proceeds unto the third and fourth generation, I judge that nothing else is signified than that from Abraham himself, who begins to be the father of the Jewish people, there are four ages, counting this present one which is now unfolding, which the evangelist Matthew distinguishes. One is from Abraham to David, another from David to the migration into Babylon, a third from the migration into Babylon to the coming of the Lord; and from there to the end a fourth is reckoned, as it were the old age of the world, longer than the other ages. These ages we believe to have been set down in place of generations, although each is composed of several generations.
And since the third age begins from the migration to Babylon, when the captivity of the Jews took place, while in the fourth age — that is, after the coming of our Lord — the Jewish nation was utterly uprooted from its own soil: from this it is given to understand what was said, that God would repay the sins of the parents unto the third and fourth generation, namely, to those who lawfully and deservedly so — those who chose to hold fast perseveringly to the sins of their parents rather than to follow the justice of God. For that a father's sins do not pertain to a son who lives justly, the prophet Ezekiel most plainly shows. But as for what is said in the Gospel: 'Be kind, as your heavenly Father, who makes his sun to rise upon the good and the evil,' it is not contrary to the Old Testament.
For God does this in order to invite men to repentance, as the Apostle says: 'Do you not know that the patience of God invites you to repentance?' Nor, however, is it therefore to be believed that God will not punish those who, as the same Apostle says, 'treasure up for themselves wrath against the day of wrath and of the revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to each according to his works.' For this patience and goodness of God the prophet too proclaims, saying: 'But you spare all, because all things are yours, O you who love souls' — and countless other passages, by which it is understood that both in goodness and in severity each Testament proclaims the mercy and the justice of God. But if they are troubled by what was said:
'I am a jealous God,' let them also be troubled by that which the Apostle Paul said: 'I am jealous for you with the jealousy of God; for I betrothed you to one husband, to present you a chaste virgin to Christ.' For holy Scripture, speaking with our words, shows even by these words that nothing worthy can be said of God. For why should not these words too be spoken of that Majesty, of which whatever is said is said unworthily, because it surpasses all the riches of all tongues by its ineffable sublimity? For since husbands are wont by jealousy to guard the chastity of their wives, the Scriptures have called that power and discipline of God — by which he does not suffer the soul to commit fornication with impunity — the jealousy of God.
Now the fornication of the soul is its turning away from the fruitfulness of wisdom and its turning toward the conception of temporal enticements and corruptions. But as for what he says — that one must forgive a brother not only seven times but even seventy times seven — he says this, to be sure, of one who repents. God, however, said that he would requite their sins upon those who hate him, not upon those who are reconciled to him through repentance. For in the prophet too the Lord says: 'I do not desire the death of the sinner, so much as that he should turn back and live.' From which it easily appears, both in that patience which invites to repentance, and in that indulgence which pardons the penitent, and in that justice —