"You ought to say plainly that you do not believe the gospel of Christ. For to believe what you please, and not to believe what you please, is to believe yourselves, and not the gospel."

     St. Augustine, Contra Faustum 17.3, trans. Richard Stothert, NPNF, 1 ser., vol. 4, p. ; cf. WSA 1.20, trans. Roland Teske, S.J. (Hyde Park, NY:  New City Press, 2007), p. .  Context:  "Faustus rejects Christ’s declaration that He came . . . to fulfill [the law and the prophets], on the ground that [the statement that He came not to destroy but to fulfill them] is found only in Matthew, who was not present when the words purport to have been spoken" (Stothert).  He had to, because "Manicheism. . . . went on to reject the Old Testament itself as well as everything it considered 'Jewish interpolations' in the New Testament.  The proof of the evil origin of the rejected scriptures lay in their content, for they presented a god who was subject to anger, jealousy, revenge, and the like, and who encouraged acts of immorality, such as the slaying of enemies, polygamy, and procreation" (Augustine through the ages:  an encyclopedia, sv Mani, Manicheism (p. 524), by J. Kevin Cole).

aperte dicite non uos credere Christi euangeliio; nam qui in euangelio, quod uultis, creditis, quod uultis, non creditis, uobis potius quam euangelio creditis.

     CSEL 25/1 (1891), p. 486.
   
     Facebook meme:  "If you believe what you like in the gospel, and reject what you don't like, it is not the gospel you believe, but yourself."