Chapter X.—He Reproves the
Triflings of the Manichæans as to the Fruits of the
Earth.
18. These things being ignorant of, I derided
those holy servants and prophets of Thine. And what did I gain by
deriding them but to be derided by Thee, being insensibly, and
little by little, led on to those follies, as to credit that a
fig-tree wept when it was plucked, and that the mother-tree shed
milky tears? Which fig notwithstanding, plucked not by his own but
another’s wickedness, had some “saint” eaten and mingled with his
entrails, he should breathe out of it angels; yea, in his prayers
he shall assuredly groan and sigh forth particles of God, which
particles of the most high and true God should have remained bound
in that fig unless they had been set free by the teeth and belly of
some “elect saint”! And I, miserable one, believed that
more mercy was to be shown to the fruits of the earth than unto
men, for whom they were created; for if a hungry man—who was not
a Manichæan—should beg for any, that morsel which should be
given him would appear, as it were, condemned to capital
punishment.