0' advisedly, for what is more brutish than the opinion that the soul is material?" and more to the same purpose. In his De Civ. Dei, xix 18, he contrasts the uncertainty ascribed to the doctrines of these teachers with the certainty of the Christian faith. See Burton's Bampton Lectures, note 33, and Archer Butler's Ancient Philosophy, ii. 313, 348, etc. See also vii. sec. 13, note, below.
64 See iii. sec. 21, above.`
65 See iv. secs. 3, 12, and 31, above.
66 See iv. 26, note 2, above.
67 See above, sec. 12, note.
68 The dualistic belief of the Manichaean ever led him to contend that Christ only appeared in a resemblance of flesh, and did not touch its substance so as to be defiled. Hence Faustus characteristically speaks of the Incarnation (Con. Faust. xxxii. 7) as "the shameful birth of Jesus from a woman," and when pressed (ibid. xi 1) with such passages as, Christ was "born of the seed of David according to the flesh" (Rom. i. 3), he would fall back upon what in these days we are familiar with as that "higher criticism," which rejects such parts of Scripture as it is inconvenient to receive. Paul, he said, then only "spoke as a child" (I Cor. xiii. 11), but when he became a man in doctrine, he put away childish things, and then declared, "Though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we Him no more." See above, sec. 16, note 3.
69 See iii. sec. 14, above.
70 On this matter reference may be made to Con. Faust. xviii. 1, 3; xix. 5, 6; xxxiii. 1, 3.
71 They might well not like to give the answer in public, for, as Augustin remarks (De Mor. Eccles. Cath. sec. 14), every one could see "that this is all that is left for men to say when it is proved that they are wrong. The astonishment that he experienced now, that they did "not bring forward any uncorrupted copies," had fast hold of him, and after his conversion he confronted them on this very ground. "You ought to bring forward," he says (ibid. sec. 61), "another manuscript with the same contents, but incorrupt and more correct, with only the passage wanting which you charge with being spurious....You say you will not, lest you be suspected of corrupting it. This is your usual reply, and a true one." See also De Mor. Manich. sec. 55; and Con. Faust. xi. 2, xiii. 5, xviii. 7, xxii. 15, xxxii. 16.
72 See above, sec. 19, Fin..
73 Ps. cxxxix. 22
74 Ps. iv. 7, and civ. 15.
75 Ps. cxix. 155.
76 I Cor. xiii. 12, and 2 Cor. iii. 6. See vi. sec. 6, note, below.
77 He frequently alludes to this scoffing spirit, so characteristic of these heretics. As an example, he says (in Ps. cxlvi. 13): "There has sprung up a certain accursed sect of the Manichaeans which derides the Scriptures it takes and reads. It wishes to censure what it does not understand, and by disturbing and censuring what it understands not, has deceived many." See also sec. 16, and iv. sec. 8, above.
78 See above, sec. 19, and note.
79 See vi. sec. 2, note, below.
80 In his Benefit of Believing, Augustin adverts to the above experiences with a view to the conviction of his friend Honoratus, who was then a Manichaean.