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394 Credibility of the Gospel History.
' married to Christ, who is rich; and she is contented with
' the estate of her husband : nor will she hold any strange
' correspondence, or receive either presents or letters from
' another.'
The Manichees'' took great liberties in reviling the patriarchs
and the kings of Israel for the practice of polygamy :
and they unmercifully aggravated the faults, which some
good men of the Old Testament were surprised into, and
misrepresented some other things. Faustus is very copious
in his declamations upon these points.'
And Augustine tells us that"^ when he Avas young they
Mould come to him, and ask, ' if he thought they were
' righteous men who had more than one wife at a time!'
Jerom informs us that' they alleged- those words of our
Lord in John x. 8, " All that ever came before me are
thieves and robbers." And in fact the Manicheean bishop
and author, so often quoted already, fails not to insist upon'"
this text, and to apply it particularly to Moses.
Jerom represents the Manichees arguing" that" it was
allowed the law of Moses was abolished, and therefore we
ought to receive the New Testament only.
The catholic christians maintained the authority of the Old
Testament, and put the Manichees in mind of divers things
contained in the New; as those words of our Lord himself,
Matth. V. 17: "1 came not to destroy the law, but to
fulfil."
This is in the" Acts of Archelaus, where Mam by way of
Sordent ei Testamenti Veteris et ejus auctoris miinera ; famaeque suae ciistos
diligentissima, nisi sponsi sui non accipit literas. Faust. 1. 15. c. i.
^ soceros dormire cum nuribus, tanquam Judas ; patres cum filia-
bus, fanquam Loth ; prophetas cum fornicatricibus, tanquam Osee ; maritos
uxonim suarum noctes amatoribus vendere, tanquam Abraham ; duabus
germanis sororibus unum miseri maritum, tanquam Jacob ; rectores populi,
et quos maxime entheos credas, millenis etcentenis volutari cum scortis, tanquam
David et Solomon. Faust. 1. 32. c. 4. Vid. et 1. 22. c. 3. 5. 1. 12. c. 1.
' ac per hoc et Judaeorum patres, Abraham scihcet et Isaac et Jacob
— quanquam fuerunt ipsi flagitiosissimi ; ut fere Moses indicat eorum pronepos,
sive quis alius historiae ejusconditor est, quae dicitur Geneseos, qui eorum
vitas nobis odio onmi fastidioque dignissimas scripsit. Faust. 1. -33. c. 1.
^ cum a me qusrerent, et utrum justi existimandi essent, qui
haberent uxores multas simul. Confess. 1. 3. c. 7. n. 12.
' detrahens prophet is ejus, quasi auctoritate testimonii evangellci, in
quo salvator ait : Omnes, qui veneruiit ante me, fures fuerunt et latrones. Hier.
in Is. T. 3. p. 171. "" Quippe cum et ipsum dicentem audirem,
fures fuisse et latrones omnes, qui venerunt ante se. Qua sententia primum
omnium video feriri Moysen. Faust. 1. 16. c. 2.
" Manichffius nobis consurgit repente, qui legem dicit abolitam, et solos
Novi Testamenti legendoslibros. Adv. Pelag. 1. 2. T. 4. p. 510. m.
° Ego, audiens, dicebam eis sermonem evangclicum, quomodo dixit Dominus
noster Jesus Christus, Non veni solvere legem, sed adimplere. lUe vero