34. De catechizandis rudibus 4.8 (CCL 46:128); my trans.
Against the Manichees 225
(32.47) Thanks be to You, O Lord! We see heaven and earth, either the higher and lower corporeal parts, or spiritual and corporeal creation. And for the adornment of these parts, by which either the whole bulk of the world or the entire created universe is constituted, we see light made and separated from darkness. We see the firmament of heaven, the original body of the world, . . . or this stretch of atmosphere (for it is also called heaven, through which the birds of the heavens fly about aimlessly between the waters which are carried above them in vapor and which even fall in dew on calm nights), and those waters which are heavy and flow upon the earth.
We behold the beautiful form of the waters gathered upon the plains of the sea and the dry land, either bare [of vegetation] or formed so as to be visible and ordered, the mother of plants and trees. We see the luminous bodies shining on high: the sun is adequate for the day, the moon and stars console the night—and periods of time are marked and indicated by all these. We see the moist part of nature, teeming in every portion with fish and animals and birds, because the density of the atmosphere which supports the flight of birds thickens by means of the evaporation of the waters. We see that the face of the earth is adorned by earthly animals and that the human person, in Your image and likeness, is placed above all irrational living things by this image and likeness of Yours, namely, the power of reason and of understanding. And just as there is one thing in his soul which rules by virtue of the act of deliberation and there is another which is made subject so that it may obey, so also there was also made for man, corporeally, woman—who had, indeed, a nature equal in mental capacity of rational intelligence but made subject, by virtue of the sex of her body, to the male sex in the same way that the appetite for action is made subject in order to conceive by the rational mind the skill of acting rightly. We see these things, and they are individually good; but all together, they are very good.33
The Unity of the Testaments
In debating the Manichees, Augustine had to work out principles for the unity of the Testaments. He eventually encapsulated his view in a favorite one-liner: "In the Old Testament the New is concealed, and in the New the Old is revealed."34 Here is an earlier account. From On the Advantage of Believing:
(3.9) These wicked [Manichees], while they try to render the Law null and void, . . . note the saying that those who are under the Law are in servitude,
33. Conf. 13.28.43–32.47 (CCL 27:267–70); trans. Bourke, FOTC 21:447–52. 34. De catechizandis rudibus 4.8 (CCL 46:128); my trans.
and they air widely one final passage in preference to others: "You who are justified in the law are empty, separated from Christ. You have fallen from grace" (Gal 5:4). We grant all this to be true, and we do not say the Law is necessary except for those for whom its servitude is still profitable. For this reason was the Law well enacted, that people who could not be recalled by reason from sin had to be forced by such a law, that is, by the threats and terrors of those penalties which even fools can understand. And when the grace of Christ frees us from these, it does not condemn the Law, but invites us to be obedient to its love, not to be a slave to a fear of the Law. This itself is a grace, that is, a blessing, that they who still desire to be under the chains of the Law do not realize it has providentially come to them. Paul rightly rebukes these as unbelievers because they do not believe that they have now been set free through Jesus Christ our Lord from the servitude to which, for a fixed period, they had been subjected according to the very just dispensation of God. Hence that statement of the Apostle: "For the Law was our pedagogue in Christ" (Gal 3:24). God thus gave people a pedagogue to fear; later He gave them a teacher to love. And yet in these precepts and commandments of the Law—things that are not now lawful for Christians to use, such as sabbath or circumcision or sacrifices or anything of this kind—such great mysteries are contained that every faithful person realizes that nothing is more dangerous than to take whatever is there literally, that is, according to its wording, while nothing is more health-giving than what is revealed by the spirit. Thus, the saying: "The letter kills, but the spirit gives life" (2 Cor 3:6).35 And also: "The same veil remains when they read the Old Testament and there is no revealing, yet in Christ it is taken away" (2 Cor 3:14). What is taken away in Christ is not the Old Testament but its veil so that through Christ it may be understood and, as it were, laid bare—what, without Christ, would be obscure and covered over. And so the same Apostle immediately adds: "But whenever you are converted to Christ, the veil will be taken away" (2 Cor 3:16). But he does not say, "The Law will be taken away" or "The Old Testament will be taken away." These, then, have not been taken away through the grace of the Lord as though they concealed useless things. Rather, what was removed was their covering under which useful things were hidden. This is the regimen followed in the case of those who seek the meaning of the Scriptures studiously and faithfully, not wildly or rashly. A painstaking demonstration can be made of the order of things—of the reasons for deeds and words and of the agreement of the Old Testament with the New—so that not a point is left where there is not harmony, where among the figures such secret truths are con-
35. " 'The letter kills . . .' " (2 Cor 3:6): See conf. 6.4.6 (cited in Chapter 1), where Augustine notes that Ambrose routinely cited this text "as though he were most carefully commending it as a rule" of exegesis.