De Altercatione Ecclesiae Et Synagogae Dialogus

The Dialogue of the Altercation of the Church and the Synagogue. I seem to have undertaken the case of two matrons before you as judges, about to unfold the business of each with great breadth, so that whatever truth, demanded by your judgment, shall decide, one of the two shall observe. Therefore, in this assembly of yours, I recite the law, I offer the tablets. Let it be conducted by law, because the contention is about possession; and I shall not delay in reviewing the sentences by imperial sanction, so that whatever the order of truth shall perceive, the sentence of your assembly may be promulgated according to the divinely given law. One, caught in adultery at certain times, had violated the laws by a premature invasion of our possession; the other, by merit of chastity, through the sentence of the donor, had, by a clandestine fraud, deprived that woman who seems to you exacted before the world, of no small amount. She is daily compelled to restitution; and still, what she had restored, she owes. For we abjure everything that she had defended for possession. Therefore, if you wish to hear the face of the case, the front of the parable: the Gentiles once powerful, rich in gold, the woman Synagogue, invaded our inheritance, possession, and boundaries of the land granted to us by Augustal right. Soon we supplicated, we hold petitions in our hands; the introduction of the estate immediately followed, possession held consists in our right. Nevertheless, we do not wish to dissolve whatever ornaments the restless woman invaded. When she was demanded to return them, she paid them out more slowly than she ought.

Now therefore to this mother of the household and widow, our mother of the household, that is, to the Synagogue, the Church said: Recite what you have deserved, and I will recite what I have deserved. The Synagogue answered: The Prophets all came to me, which you will never be able to deny. The Church said: It is certain that the Prophets, while they came to you, ran to you as to a hostess for a temporary stay: for I prove that the same young men, the reapers of my spouse, that is, the bearers of Christ’s letters, also the carriers of his commandments, were killed by you out of envy. Would any of them have been able to be killed by you if they had come to you? But because they were coming to me, since you could not bear that my people be received, you struck them with the sword and with clubs. The Synagogue answered: Even if I did what you assert, I sinned rightly and honorably: because I knew the king, whose letters I had frequently received: and you were reported as a dweller of the woods, who, in the manner of Barbarians, in the countryside, on the hills, within pathless and secret places, once dwelt in a rustic hut. For what was ever more rustic than you?

You with the nations, with whom I have often fought, followed, I believe, bleating flocks in a pastoral manner: I, supported by scepter and legions, reigned at Jerusalem clothed in purple; I possessed the Roman empire; I killed kings, soldiers, and leaders of foreign nations; Persia and India brought me gold, gems, ivory, silver, and silk, and all their wealth: you, rustic, mountainous, fit for flocks; you dwelt only in narrow valleys, anxious; you, from a dense rock, to whom a mossy stone once provided a fearful shelter, ate cheese from milk, bilberries with acorns: I killed Pharaoh in his chariots, I killed the Egyptians, I killed the Canaanites, the Jebusites, the Hittites, and the Perizzite kings. The Church said: I recognize what you speak, and I cannot deny your praises. I know that you have seen your cities, your ambitious forums, and your lofty Capitols: the impression of your arms, and the gleaming signs of shields, javelins, swords, the hurling of thrown spears, the expressed groan of equestrian armies, laid low great commanders and tyrants. I know your power, which that Jerusalem belched forth with pompous pride. For I know that once the Roman world trembled at you, and the terror of nations palpitated. But you ought to remember what you did at Shechem because of one woman, Dinah: you laid waste, in the manner of brigands, to unarmed men, shining with the honor of their innocence (Gen. 34:26).

SYNAGOGA responded: The power of the kingdom has taken the audacity of permitted liberty. Do you believe that I sinned in this, if under my command I stained those I wished, or perhaps killed my own rebels? He who gave the power to rule had certainly granted to the dignity the ability to do whatever I wished. Or tell me: if one who rules by his own command has no law, and one who possesses everything must necessarily extend the power of the kingdom wherever he wishes. ECCLESIA said: In this I rejoice that I have been exalted, that I have been made higher than the high, and I have cast down the kingdoms of rulers: and behold, you, once a purple-clad queen, are now under my feet. For he is the king of kings who has begun to command that one who once saw herself reigning. You reigned, I admit: the Roman land lay beneath you, kings and princes fell; and if ever you clashed, the captive enemy succumbed. Do not be angry, if you, who were once the mistress, now appear to me as a handmaid.

SYNAGOGA responded: Since you have declared yourself with such great praise, prove that I am the handmaid, and I acknowledge you as the mistress. ECCLESIA said: I have the tablets, I recite the testament, which a prophet, once your scribe, wrote, and which Aaron, with his magistracy present, signed. SYNAGOGA responded: I know that the testament was written under my kingdom, but I wish to learn where the author of the volume commanded me to serve. ECCLESIA said: Read what was said to Rebecca when she was giving birth: "Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples will be divided from your belly, and one people will overcome the other, and the greater will serve the lesser" (Gen. 25:23). Certainly you said a little earlier that you, the greater, reigned, triumphed, held the scepter, possessed the purple; I, the lesser, once lay hidden in valleys, or dwelt among the rocks of the hills: you shone with gold, ornament, linen, silk, and noble gems; I, the lesser, lived on the milk of flocks. I possessed sheep and cattle, you possessed soldiers. Hence it is that I, the lesser and poorer, and you, the greater and richer, are subjugated to me, so that you may choose to serve the lesser people.

SYNAGOGA responded: I recognize the title of the Testament, I see the letters which I myself preserved in my treasury and in my library. But tell me how I serve you, when I still recognize my children as free. They are free for business, the power of navigation is free, they know no fetters, no one tears apart the vine of laborious necessity with digging; I do not know whether I am subjected to servitude to you. ECCLESIA said: You recall the Testament, you recognize the letters, and still you do not accept servitude! SYNAGOGA responded: You tell me what you assert. I recognize Moses, I hear, and I cannot flee; but I cannot know how I should serve you. ECCLESIA said: You cannot change yourself; you always deny and deceive, you always contend about falsehood. Certainly you said earlier that you reigned, when the people of Israel held the place of empire. If you still reign, recognize yourself as free, and not yet subjected to servitude to me. Otherwise, if the Christian people rightly reign over the people of Israel, it is established that you are a handmaid, not a free woman, whom I see subjected to servitude. Look at the standards in the legions, consider the name of the Savior, note the Christ-worshipping emperors, and consider that you have been cast out from the kingdom: and to us, according to the faith of the Testament which you preserve, confess: you pay tribute to me, you do not approach the empire, you cannot have a prefecture. It is not permitted for a Jew to be a Count; the senate is forbidden to you to enter; you do not know a prefecture; you are not admitted to military service.

You do not touch the wealth of the rich; you have lost the order of the charismata; nothing is permitted to you; we grant you only a few things to eat, so that you might live, even badly. Therefore, if you have lacked those things which are highest, which are first, read what was said to Rebecca when she bore twins: "Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples will be divided from your belly, and one people will overcome the other, and the elder will serve the younger." SYNAGOGA responded: Yet what had I done, that the divinity should cast me out of the kingdom and deprive me of rule? ECCLESIA said: If you have sinned so gravely that the penalty of servitude under the sentence of death is so severe, you can be neither a handmaid nor free. For when Moses first received the double tablets of the decalogue inscribed on Mount Sinai, you, against God, demanded idols, saying to Aaron: "Make us gods who will go before us" (Exod. 32:1). SYNAGOGA responded: Here I acknowledge that I wretchedly erred: but soon those who demanded idols were seized by destruction, the penalty of damnation unto final death. What then did the posterity do, if those elders who committed that act immediately received the due of their punishment?

The Church said: I am certain that you have read, but you cannot retain what you have read, and I recognize that very thing. But recall the scripture: "And the sons of their sons shall announce, because the sins of their parents have grown in the children, and I will not release them, says the Lord" (Jeremiah 32:29). And elsewhere it says: "The parents ate sour grapes, and the children's teeth were set on edge" (Ezekiel 18:2). The Synagogue responded: In what do you take pride, under whose reign you hold power, that Christ first came to me, or to my people? The Church said: It was fitting that divine wisdom should anticipate everything that was to be built up. For if Christ had come principally to me, and had wished to reject you under that very first coming, today you would say: "He did not come to me; I did not know what to worship; for if he had deigned to come to my people, whom the Prophets had called God, I would confess." He came to you; he raised your dead by the power of his miracles, he made the mute eloquent, he restored the lame to walking, he gave sight to the blind, he freed the paralyzed with loosened limbs, he restored lepers to health; and you, with a profane mind, said he was not God, whom you had read was God. Therefore, because you said the Savior and Lord came first to you, I recall and again contend with your own statement. Read what Esdras wrote to you from the person of the Savior: "I came to my own, and my own did not receive me. What shall I do for you, Jacob? Judah did not want to hear me; I will transfer myself to another people" (4 Ezra 1:24).

Hence you see that you ought not to boast because you have seen Christ. For it is a greater crime to see whom you serve and to despise the servitude you owe. Perhaps you would defend yourself if you said, "I do not know the Lord, I did not know that the Prophets were honeyed." But you both knew the Prophets and the Lord whom the Prophets had sung, and with his wonders you recognized him, and with a miserable little rebuttal you blasphemed: you see that you cannot excuse yourself under the guilt of such a crime. The Synagogue replied: The Prophets indeed said that he would come, but anointed of God, a holy child from a virgin. Whence I was utterly ignorant whether the Lord himself wished to come. The Church said: Rightly therefore Isaiah says, "Go and say to this people, 'With your ears you will hear, and you will not understand; and seeing you will see, and you will not know.' For the heart of this people has grown thick, and they have heard heavily with their ears, and they have closed their eyes, lest perhaps they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and turn back from their error" (Isaiah 5). For also Jeremiah says, "They have abandoned me, the fountain of living water; they have dug for themselves cisterns of decay, and they could not carry water" (Jeremiah 2:13). And what did the same prophet add? "The kite knows its time; the turtledove and the swallow, the cranes, the sparrows have kept the times of their entry: but my people have not known me" (Jeremiah 8:7).

For in Solomon, I believe you have read, who says, "The wicked seek me, and do not find me; for they have hated wisdom, and have not received the word of the Lord" (Proverbs 1:28-29). You see, therefore, that you have rejected God the Son of God with blasphemous eyes and a profane heart. Therefore, if you read Isaiah, if you read the Prophets, you have frequently heard God Christ: for he speaks thus, so that I may answer you concerning both the virgin and the son, as you yourself have said: "A virgin will bear a son, and his name will be called Emmanuel," which is interpreted, "God with us" (Isaiah 7:14). And David says, "Therefore, God, your God, has anointed you" (Psalm 44:8). And in Genesis it says thus: "And God made man in his own image" (Genesis 1:27). Synagoga replied: I do not want you to be carried away by such applause from the readings; but to turn to that which I think will benefit me. Look at yourself: you have neither received the Law, nor have you merited circumcision, by which sign the Gentile world is separated. Hence it is that I have my sign, and I do not lose the law which Moses delivered.

The Church said: You testify that you have received the Law, but the Law of the Old Testament; I, however, have received the new law of the Gospels. And so that you may know that the old is suppressed by the new, read Isaiah, who says to you: "Those old things have passed away; behold, new things have been made; now they arise" (Isaiah 43:19). For as to what you say—that you have received the sign of circumcision for the salvation of the people—today I prove that your stupidity was deceived. If, therefore, eternity was granted through circumcision, you see that you have received a head, not feet, and that you were mutilated with one eye or one hand; you have lived halfway, and halfway you have been dead. For if you say that your people are to be saved by the sign of your passion, what will your virgins do, what will your widows shave, what will the mothers of the Synagogue do, if you testify that the sign of circumcision has advanced your people toward eternal life? Therefore, it is not fitting for Jewish women to have it; for men are circumcised, but women do not admit the foreskin: therefore, they cannot be saved, if you are saved by circumcision. You see, therefore, that you can have Jewish men, that is, circumcised ones; but women, who cannot be circumcised, I declare to be neither Jewish nor Christian, but pagan. Listen, I teach you most clearly the insignia of circumcision; if you could have received that circumcision, you would never have fallen from the kingdom through such a monstrous fate.

Consider what Jeremiah says: "Thus says the Lord to the Jewish men who dwell in Jerusalem: 'Renew yourselves among yourselves with newness, and do not sow in vain; circumcise yourselves for your God, and circumcise the foreskin of your heart'" (Jeremiah 4:3-4). And what Moses himself says, whom you likewise followed, although he bore commandments for me: "It will be," he says, "in the last days, God will circumcise your heart, and the heart of your seed, to love your Lord God" (Deuteronomy 30:6). And the Apostle Paul says: "You have been circumcised with a circumcision not made by hand, not in the stripping away of flesh, but in the circumcision of Christ" (Colossians 2:11). What do we say to this, Synagogue? Behold, it was not a circumcision of the flesh, but of the heart that was commanded, namely that you cut off the vices of the heart, that you excise lust, that you remove the head of idolatry, that you tear the tunic of fornication. Because the prophet says, "You have fornicated with stone and with wood" (Jeremiah 3:9). You see, therefore, that you have not received circumcision as a sign of salvation, but rather as a sign of shame and disgrace. For you think it is a sign that is read about in clothing, that is not uttered out of modesty, that is known to be owed only to a wife; because I have often seen your prostitutes and your women, with shaved and bald heads, condemned on donkeys?

Certainly if that which debauched an adulteress, which violated and ravished a virgin, is a sign of salvation, then a woman who shamefully toyed with the salvation of circumcision ought not to be condemned, nor should the man who cast the adulteress, violated by the saving sign of circumcision, even into death be punished. I do not know whether that could have been a sign of salvation, from which the crimes committed are condemned. But my people, bearing the sign of salvation on the forehead, defend the whole man, men and women, from the height of the sign, chastely from the heights and with public freedom. Synagoga replied: I would like to learn where you have received the sign of the forehead, or which prophet incised that sign which you speak of, that is, the sign of the forehead, with the seal of sanctification. Ecclesia said: You have the prophet Ezekiel, who, from the presence of majesty, exclaims: "Go and smite, and do not spare your eyes. Do not spare the elders; kill the young men, virgins, little ones, and women to the point of annihilation; but do not touch anyone upon whom the sign is written on the forehead" (Ezekiel 9:5-6). Likewise, the same prophet says: "Go through the midst of Jerusalem, and mark a sign on the forehead of the men who groan and mourn because of the iniquities that are committed in their midst" (Ibid. 4). Also in the Apocalypse: "I saw the Lamb standing on Mount Zion, and with him one hundred forty-four thousand, and they had his name and the name of his Father written on their foreheads" (Revelation 14:1).

You see, therefore, a sign given to me, and the distinguished cross, which, after you were dismissed and abandoned, the passion of the Savior adorned. Synagoga replied: Asked about the sign on the forehead, you have proposed the sign of the cross, as if the most ancient prophets had not proclaimed the signs before the Savior came. And so tell me, if you have read that Christ would suffer and would hang on the cross. Ecclesia said: Listen, Synagoga, and not that you may be taught, but that you may be punished; attend to the law, and you will find where the Savior with hands extended figuratively prophesied the cross. For thus Isaiah says in the person of the Savior: "I have stretched out my hands all day to a contumacious and contradicting people, who walked in ways not good, but after their sins" (Isaiah 65:2). For Jeremiah also says: "Come, let us put wood into his bread" (Jeremiah 11:19). And in Deuteronomy, since you used the Pentateuch: "And it will be," he says, "your life hanging before your eyes day and night" (Deuteronomy 28:66). Thus also the Psalmist relates: "I cried out to you, Lord; all day I stretched out my hands to you" (Psalm 87:10). For in Numbers, that is, in your Law, which you had received first, that Christ would be suspended and would hang on the cross, it says thus: "Not as a man of God is he suspended, nor as a son of man does he suffer threats" (Numbers 3:49). And elsewhere the prophet says: "The Lord has reigned from a tree" (Psalm 95:10).

Behold the miracles of the passion, behold the mirror of light, behold the wicked fabrications of your people, that they might suspend the Son of God on a cross. Synagoga replied: I recall the deeds, and I likewise recognize the words, but who are you who seem to rebuke me? You are rustic, you were once a mountain-dweller, you are alien to the laws of God, you who lived according to Gentile custom: I dwelt in the Law, the Prophets came to me, and they brought commands and precepts to me. Ecclesia said: Hear, Synagoga, hear, widow, hear, abandoned one: I am what you were unable to be, I am the queen who deposed you from the kingdom, I am the bride who, having abandoned idols, came down from the forest and the mountain: as your Patriarch says, "Behold, the scent of my son is like the scent of a field full of fragrance which the Lord has blessed" (Gen. 27:27). Whence do you come, virgin with milk, with flowers, untouched young woman, from a dark grove, simple citizen, elegant, composed in a snowy pallium? My spouse, beautiful beyond the sons of men, the king of kings, who adorned my head with a mitre and immediately clothed me in purple, received me as I came.

Synagoga replied: How will you be able to prove that you are a bride, and that Christ appears as a bridegroom in the Law? Ecclesia said: If the Prophets had run principally to me, today you would say that you were ignorant of the Law, that you had no Prophets, and that you did not know what was written. Therefore, review and recognize your own Prophets. Hear, then, what the Prophets have commanded concerning the bridegroom and the bride. For thus the Prophet Joel says: Sound the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast, and proclaim a prayer, gather the people, sanctify the Church, receive the elders, gather the little ones and infants: let the bridegroom proceed from his chamber, and the bride from her bridal chamber (Joel 2:15, 16). For I am certain that you are that Jerusalem, of which both bridegroom and bride are spoken, as David says: And he himself, like a bridegroom proceeding from his chamber, rejoiced as a giant to run the course. His going forth is from the highest heaven; and his meeting is unto its highest point, nor is there anyone who hides from his heat (Psalm 18:6, 7). And in the Apocalypse John says: Come, I will show you the new bride, the spouse of the Lamb. And he led me in spirit onto a great mountain, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem descending from heaven, having the brightness of God (Revelation 21:9-11). Thus also John himself says: The Lord God Almighty will reign; let us exult and rejoice, let us give him glory; for the nuptials of the Lamb have come, and his wife has prepared herself (Revelation 19:6, 7).

You see, therefore, that both bride and wife were spoken of through the Law: bride, because I pledge my faith that I will render it to the Lord Savior; wife, because through the conception of Baptism, with the spirit marrying, I will produce daughters of my womb, with the laver surging. In which childbirth of a more gracious generation, the spirit and the flesh are joined in nuptial union. Synagoga replied: I desire to know this, lest perhaps you think I have forgotten what you said, so that I may seem to examine everything: what is it that you contend the Prophet said, what is it that he says in Deuteronomy, "And your life will be hanging before your eyes day and night" (Deut. 28:66)? Ecclesia said: Not that I teach you, do I contend to speak or utter; but lest silence draw a line of doubt: and thus I convict you from your own Testament. For the Savior hung day and night on the cross, that is, on the sixth day through the day, and through the night of this day up to the Sabbath, on which you said that according to the Law it is not permitted for a man to hang on wood. Let these things seem to you to have been said, as you have done, for the time being: for to the cause of truth and to the knot of doctrine, contemplate this which we say: "And," it says, "your life will be hanging before your eyes day and night." For in one day there was day and night. The light of day distinguished itself with the horror of nocturnal darkness, just as when the Savior was suspended on the wood, from the sixth hour of the day to the ninth hour, darkness was made (Matt. 27:45), night took away the light, and a funereal and mournful darkness blinded the whole day.

You see, therefore, that in one day there was both day and night. Rightly, on account of this same passion, it says in Deuteronomy: And your life will hang before your eyes day and night. Synagoga replied: Therefore, if he was suspended on the cross, if he hung, if he was killed, how did he rise again? How do you claim that he lives, that he has risen, and that he sits at the right hand of the Father in heaven? Teach me, then, if he conquered death, if he rose again, he who is seen to have been killed—yet in such a way that you assign to me what you say from the Prophets. Ecclesia said: Hear, wretched one; listen, most unhappy one; hear, parricidal woman, who still doubts concerning the death of Christ, concerning the resurrection. Read what David said from the person of the Savior in the fifteenth psalm: You will not leave my soul in hell, nor will you allow your Holy One to see corruption. Who is the wounded one, if not Christ? Who is the incorrupt one, if not the Son of God? As it says in the twenty-ninth psalm: Lord, you have led my soul back from the underworld. Likewise in the third psalm: I slept, and I took sleep; and I arose, because the Lord supported me. And again the same David, from the person of the Father to the Son, says: Arise, my glory, arise: I will arise at dawn (Ps. LVI, 9). For "at dawn," which he says, this is after the third day, with death trampled and the underworld condemned, about to come again alive from the dead, as the Prophet says: In the evening weeping will dwell, and in the morning joy (Ps. XXIX, 6).

Synagoga replied: I had asked one thing, and you have introduced another. I have learned about the resurrection, and I have understood that He overcame the underworld. But since you said that the Lord Savior rose on the third day, whether that happened, I do not know. Ecclesia said: I know that you remember; but out of a desire for penance you are unwilling to confess what you know. Error torments the conscience, and guilt takes away memory. Therefore, hear that Christ rose from the underworld on the third day to give us life. Read the prophet Hosea, who says: "He gave us life on the third day" (Hosea 6:5). And in Deuteronomy it says thus: "The Lord said to Moses: 'Go down and sanctify my people, sanctify them today and tomorrow, and they shall wash their garments and be ready on the third day,' that is, on the day after tomorrow; for on the third day the Lord will descend on Mount Sinai" (Exodus 19:10-11). And in the Gospel it says thus: "A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign, and a sign will not be given to it, except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For just as Jonah was in the belly of the whale for three days and three nights, so the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights" (Matthew 12:39-40; Luke 11:29-30).

Synagoga replied: I acknowledge that what the prophecy recounts to me is true. Now I desire to know where He is, where Christ, who rose from the earth, lies hidden; for I wish to see whether afterward, through the Prophets, He has any power after the Passion or after the Resurrection. For I have read that Elijah, the anointed of God, is to come to save the people. Ecclesia said: Therefore, wretched one, confess what you cannot deny; and hear all that truth cannot conceal: the whole of freedom extends itself up to the heavens of glory. Read Daniel, who says: “I was seeing in a vision of the night, and behold, in the clouds of the sky, as it were a Son of man coming, came up to the Ancient of Days, and stood in his sight, and those who were in attendance presented him. And royal power was given to him, and all the kings of the earth by race, and all glory serving him; and his power is eternal, which shall not be taken away; and his kingdom is eternal, which shall not be corrupted” (Daniel 7:13–14).

Synagoga replied: I cannot deny that the Anointed of God, that is, Christ, has glory; but tell me this: after He suffered and rose again, was He able to obtain and hold that glory? Ecclesia said: Read the prophet Isaiah, who speaks in the person of the Savior: "Now I shall arise, says the Lord, now I shall be glorified and exalted, now you will see, now you will understand, now you will be confounded, the strength of your spirit will be vain, fire will consume you" (Isaiah 33:10). And David says: "The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet. The Lord will send forth the rod of your strength from Zion, and you will rule in the midst of your enemies" (Psalm 110:2). Synagoga replied: Therefore, both God and the Son of God. Ecclesia said: Indeed, foolish one. He who is born of a man is a man; so too, he who arises from God is surely marked as God. Synagoga replied: I do not believe assertions, but I desire to be refuted by the Law. For I contend to hear not you, but the Prophets.

Ecclesia said: Look at what the Psalmist says, and you will know that the Lord God is the Savior. "Arise," he says, "O God, and let your enemies be scattered, and let those who hate you flee from your face. Let them vanish like smoke, and like wax melts before the face of fire, so let sinners perish before the face of God. Sing to God, chant to his name, make way for him who ascends above the sunset; the Lord is his name. He who brings forth the bound in strength, who dwell in tombs" (Psalm 67:2, 5, 5, 7). And again the same David: "Arise, O Lord, and judge the earth, for you will inherit among all nations" (Psalm 37:22). And elsewhere: "God of gods, the Lord has spoken" (Psalm 49:1). And, "A virgin will bear a Son, and his name will be called Emmanuel, which is interpreted, God with us" (Isaiah 6:9). And, "Therefore your God has anointed you, O God" (Psalm 44:8). So you have both God, and Lord, and King.

Synagoga replied: I acknowledge both God and Lord; but I desire to have the King proven to me. Ecclesia said: Most foolish of women, if you confess God, should you not also confess the King? Or can God exist unless He has reigned? Every kingdom lies under the judgments of God; and whatever kingdoms hold, the majesty of God possesses. Therefore, do you doubt the King, whom you certainly know to be God? Synagoga replied: I do not doubt, indeed, but I wish Israel to be marked for me by the truth. Ecclesia said: Read David, and you will find in the seventy-first Psalm: "God, give your judgment to the King, and your justice to the King's son." And in the seventy-second Psalm it says: "But our God before the ages has wrought salvation in the midst of the earth." And in the second Psalm: "But I have been appointed King by Him over Zion, His holy mountain, proclaiming His command." And in Malachi it says thus: "I am a great King, says the Lord, and I will proclaim my name among the nations" (Malachi 1:14). And in the ninety-sixth Psalm: "The Lord has reigned; let the earth rejoice, let the many islands be glad." And elsewhere: "My heart has belched forth a good word; I speak my works to the King" (Psalm 44:2).

Synagoga replied: You have anticipated me; I can answer nothing. I seem to be condemned not by an assertion of words, but by the Law. Ecclesia said: Ask whatever you wish, and I will refute you from your own Testament. Synagoga replied: Surely you say that you cannot deny that Christ is God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob. Abraham was indeed a Jew; how then do you say that I am to be condemned? Ecclesia said: Good, that you have now begun to exchange speeches, and to feel out the limbs through the obliqueness of words and the twists of parables. For both Peter and Paul, my preachers, were Jews, but having abandoned you, they came together to the font of eternal life and grace. For Abraham, whom you named, when he was a pagan and would break idols, thus flew to the friendships of divine majesty, and then, safe and already a friend of God, approached you again; but afterward he commanded that he return from you to the Gentiles, that is, to us. For thus in Genesis it says: "The Lord God said to Abraham," it says, "Go out from your land, and from your kindred, and from your father's house, and go into that land which I will show you; and I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you, and I will magnify your name" (Gen. 12:1-2). You see, therefore, the command to Abraham, that he go out from your land, and from your kindred, and from your father's house; and come to the land of the Gentiles, and become prince over the Gentiles, and receive a great name.

For in the figure of the Saviour, Isaac blessed Jacob: "Peoples shall serve you," he said, "and princes shall adore you, and you shall be lord over your brothers, and the sons of your mother shall adore you" (Gen. 27:29). Synagoga replied: Therefore all have come to you, and I, who had so many and such great sons, and gloried in the multitude of sons, am despised as abandoned, I who was mother of peoples: or if it is commanded in the Law that you should have more sons, you must prove it from the Law. Ecclesia said: Now you will be bent, now your ancient stiffness exalts you, soon you are turned back to malice. For the Lord says: "Enlarge the place of your tabernacle, and make the measures of your curtains long, and strengthen your stakes still further to your right, and extend to your left: and your seed shall possess the nations, and you shall inhabit deserted cities. Do not fear, because you are conquered; nor be afraid, because you are cursed: for you will forget eternal confusion" (Isa. 54:2-4). Indeed, I was cursed when I followed idols; I was confused when I did not know the commands of the divinity; I was barren because I did not have Baptism, by which I might nourish sons under the command of majesty: now I am exalted in sons, and through the Lord Christ I have received eternal kingdoms. And rightly, in the book of Kings, it says: "The barren woman bore seven; and she who had very many sons was weakened" (1 Sam. 2:5). And the Apostle sends letters to the seven Churches (Rev. 2:11).

And Jacob took two wives: the elder, Leah, with weaker eyes, a type of the Synagogue; and the younger, the beautiful Rachel, a type of the Church, who remained barren for a long time and afterward gave birth and was blessed (Gen. 29:23, 28). Rightly it is said in Genesis: "And the Lord said to Rebecca, 'Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples shall be divided from your belly; and one people shall surpass the other, and the greater shall serve the lesser'" (Gen. 25:23). Likewise in the prophet Hosea: "I will call," he says, "not my people, my people, and not beloved, beloved" (Hos. 2:2), etc. ADMONITION ON THE FOLLOWING BOOK. This work is attributed to Augustine in previous editions, but falsely, as Bellarmine, Vindingus, and others prove. For it is not listed among his small works, neither in the Retractations nor in Possidius's Index. The style is also different from Augustine's, and the method of argument weaker. Yet the author strove to imitate Augustine, expressing not only his sense but sometimes even his very words, especially from that book which was written against the Manichaeans, On the Nature of the Good. In ancient codices it is found in the next place after Augustine's Treatise on the Faith and the Creed, with an annotation inserted, which in a codex from Fossanova eight hundred years old reads thus: "Here ends, in Christ Jesus Son of God, the Treatise of Aurelius Augustine, bishop, on the Catholic Faith.

Here begins the work Against the Manichaeans: where, when the punctuation of the words is examined, one cannot easily determine whether that treatise On the Catholic Faith which ends is so called, or that which begins. And for this reason we think it has happened that the following book was attributed to Augustine and inscribed On the Faith. But this inscription suited the preceding book well, not the following one, and that it belongs to the preceding book is indicated by other manuscripts in which the punctuation is more accurate; most especially by the very ancient Corbie manuscript, by whose authority Sirmondus, in the Historia Praedestinatiana, chapter 1, says that this book is by Evodius, bishop of Uzalis. For from that clause which is appended to the preceding book, "Here ends the Treatise of Aurelius Augustine On the Catholic Faith, in the Lord Christ Son of God," after a space of about seven verses left blank, the title of the following book is displayed separately at the head of another folio, in this manner: "Here begins the same author's Against the Manichaeans." Whether it is by the same author, whether by the holy Evodius, is unknown. The Corbie manuscript agrees with the Colbert manuscript, and several other manuscripts, bearing the same doubt concerning the author, Augustine or Evodius, and presenting it.