Saint Augustine (354-430)

Against Faustus

Translated by Richard Stothert

Book XVI

Chapter 15

I still hold that there is a reference to Christ in the passage which you select for refutation, where God says to Moses, “I will raise up unto them from among their brethren a prophet like unto thee.” The string of showy antitheses with which you try to ornament your dull discourse does not at all affect my belief of this truth. You attempt to prove, by a comparison of Christ and Moses, that they are unlike, and that therefore the words, “I will raise up a prophet like unto thee,” cannot be understood of Christ. You specify a number of particulars in which you find a diversity: that the one is man, and the other God; that one is a sinner, the other sinless; that one is born of ordinary generation, the other, as we hold, of a virgin, and, as you hold, not even of a virgin; the one incurs God’s anger, and is put to death on a mountain, the other suffers voluntarily, having throughout the approval of His Father. But surely things may be said to be like, although they are not like in every respect. Besides the resemblance between things of the same nature, as between two men, or between parents and children, or between men in general, or any species of animals, or in trees, between one olive and another, or one laurel and another, there is often a resemblance in things of a different nature, as between a wild and a tame olive, or between wheat and barley. These things are to some extent allied. But there is the greatest possible distance between the Son of God, by whom all things were made, and a beast or a stone. And yet in the Gospel we read, “Behold the Lamb of God,” and in the apostle, “That rock was Christ.” This could not be said except on the supposition of some resemblance. What wonder, then, if Christ condescended to become like Moses, when He was made like the lamb which God by Moses commanded His people to eat as a type of Christ, enjoining that its blood should be used as a means of protection, and that it should be called the Passover, which every one must admit to be fulfilled in Christ? The Scripture, I acknowledge, shows points of difference; and the Scripture also, as I call on you to acknowledge, shows points of resemblance. There are points of both kinds, and one can be proved as well as the other. Christ is unlike man, for He is God; and it is written of Him that He is “over all, God blessed for ever.” Christ is also like man, for He is man; and it is likewise written of Him, that He is the “Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.” Christ is unlike a sinner, for He is ever holy; and He is like a sinner, for “God sent His Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, that by sin He might condemn sin in the flesh.” Christ is unlike a man born in ordinary generation, for He was born of a virgin; and yet He is like, for He too was born of a woman, to whom it was said, “That holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” Christ is unlike a man, who dies on account of his own sin, for He died without sin, and of His own free-will; and again, He is like, for He too died a real death of the body.

Book XVI Chapter 14

Book XVI Chapter 16