Against the Manichaeans 1 part 1/4

Of our father among the saints, John, monk and priest, of Damascus, Against the Manichaeans. Orthodox:

Since we have come together to hold a reasoned discussion with one another, I ask you:

What is the question at issue? The Manichaean:

To exercise reason concerning the faith, so that we may find the truth.

What, then, is truth? Manichaean:

The discernment and acknowledgment of that which is.

Is falsehood contrary to truth? Manichaean:

How do you mean this? Manichaean:

Because truth is knowledge of the things that are, while falsehood is [knowledge] of that which is not

truth is knowledge of the things that are, while falsehood is knowledge of that which is not;

for that which is not is not known.

What, then, is falsehood? Orthodox:

If, then, truth is knowledge of the things that are, and falsehood is ignorance of that which is, tell me:

Is knowledge a possession? Manichaean:

If knowledge is a possession, then ignorance is certainly a privation.

What is ignorance? Manichaean:

Is the [particle] 'not' privative, or is it affirmative and expressive of a possession? Manichaean:

Do we call 'not-being' that which is deprived of being? Manichaean:

Therefore, if ignorance is the not-having of knowledge, and 'not' is privative, then ignorance is accordingly a privation and not a possession.

If, then, truth is knowledge, it is clearly a possession;

and if falsehood is ignorance, it is a privation, according to the definition of truth.

Truth, then, will be a possession, and falsehood a privation; and truth will be being, while falsehood will be non-being.

Is evil falsehood, or is it truth? Manichaean:

Evil, then, is not being, but a privation of being, that is, non-being; and as a privation it is opposed, as to a possession, to the good.

But let us return to the matter at hand.

Do you say the things that are have one principle, or two? Manichaean:

Two: one good and one evil;

and the good one I call a good tree, containing and producing everything good, unable to produce evil fruit;

and the evil one [I call] darkness, corruption, an evil tree, containing everything evil and all wickedness, unable to produce good fruit.

Do these two principles have communion with one another, or not? Manichaean:

They are utterly without communion, and exist as contraries to one another.

Are they in one another and with one another, or are they separated? Manichaean:

They were separated from the beginning, each within its own boundaries.

How, then, are they now mixed together? Manichaean:

The Good One was in his own place, in all goodness and blessedness, while matter, that is, evil, was lifeless, motionless, foul, an ill-formed darkness, without perception for many ages;

but afterward matter rose up in strife against itself, and its fruits made war upon one another; and as some pursued and others fled, they reached the borders of the light, and, seeing the light, they desired its beauty and ceased their war against one another, and, agreeing together, attacked the light;

and the Good One sent forth a power from himself, and when the encounter took place, the rulers of darkness devoured a portion of the light.

For the Good One, out of fear, permitted a power to be seized from himself, lest they should gain dominion over his own place.

And he did this so that, through the portion he had handed over, he might gain dominion over evil.

And thus a mingling of the good and the evil came about;

for souls came into being from the portion of the good, while bodies came into being from the substance of evil.

In how many senses is 'principle' used? Manichaean:

'Without principle' is that which has never had a beginning; but the term 'principle' is used equivocally, in many senses;

for 'principle' is used with reference to time, as when we call the rising of the sun the principle of the day, and likewise the principle of the year.

'Principle' is also used with reference to place, as we say:

the principle of a road; and we call Paradise the principle of the Phison.

'Principle' is also said with reference to rank and authority, as we say that the king, too, is a principle over his subjects.

'Principle' is also said of that which is by nature prior, as in the case of number.

For if there are two, the one will necessarily exist; but if there is one, it is not necessarily the case that there are two;

for two will be one and one, but the one is not two.

'Principle' is also said with reference to order, as the rank of reader is first, then that of subdeacon, then that of deacon, and so that of priest, and so that of bishop.

'Principle' is also said with reference to cause, and this in three ways: either natural, as the father is the principle of the son; or productive, as the creator is the principle of the creation; or imitative, as that which is represented is the principle of its image.

'Principle,' then, being spoken of in so many ways, that alone is properly called truly without principle

which is called 'without principle' according to every one of these senses.

How, then, can you say that the two principles are without principle? Manichaean:

According to all these senses;

for only thus will they be without principle.

But you have lied against your own head,

and having begun from a falsehood, your conclusion will be unsound.

What do you mean by this? Orthodox:

By saying 'two,' you began from number; but 'two' is not a principle;

for the principle of 'two' is something else, namely the monad.

Therefore, when discoursing about the principle, name one principle, so that the principle may be complete;

for by nature the monad is the principle of the dyad.

If, then, there are two principles, where is the principle that is prior by nature, that is, the monad? Manichaean:

You, then, speak of three hypostases — how then do you say that one must begin from the monad? Orthodox:

Even though I speak of three hypostases, I nevertheless affirm one principle;

for the Father is the principle of the Son and the Spirit, not according to time, but according to causation.

For the Word and the Spirit are from the Father, even though not after the Father [in time].

For just as light comes from fire, and fire does not precede light in time — for it is impossible for fire to be without light, yet fire is the principle and cause of the light that comes from it — so also the Father is the principle and cause of the Word and the Spirit (for the Word and the Spirit are from the Father), yet he does not precede them in time;

For it is impossible for the Father to be from the Son, or the Word from the Spirit.

I confess, then, one principle, namely the Father, as the natural cause of the Word and the Spirit.

But you do not say that the evil is from the good, nor the good from the evil.

That it is not possible, with respect to time, for your two principles to be without beginning, we shall know as follows:

That which has not begun to be is unchangeable;

for if it changed, it is not altogether without beginning.

For that which changes from incorporeal to body, or from formless to form, or from unmoved to motion, or from repose and stillness to a fixed posture, begins to become that which it was not before.

And that which changes from being without beginning into having a beginning is not without beginning;

for that which receives a beginning and has begun is not without beginning.

What then? Has not your God changed, in begetting a Son and bringing forth a Spirit? Orthodox:

He did not become Father later, not having been Father before; rather, He always was, having from Himself His own Word, and, through His Word, His Spirit proceeding from Himself.

Then did He not also change, when He later created creation, becoming a Creator? Orthodox:

How do you mean this? Orthodox:

Because He did not bring forth creation out of His own essence, but, by His will, out of non-being into being.

Then, when He willed creation to come to be, did He not change, in willing what He had not willed before? Orthodox:

For He did not first not will, and later will; rather, He always willed that, at

the time appointed by Himself, creation should come to be.

That it is likewise not possible, with respect to place, for two principles to be without beginning, we shall know as follows:

The two are either in one another — but it is impossible for light and darkness to be in one another,

for the presence of light dissolves darkness — or else each of them is in its own particular place.

Each, then, is bounded within its own place, and the end of the one's place becomes the beginning of the other's place.

But it is also impossible for light to remain unmixed with darkness unless there is some partition preventing them from being commingled with one another.

There must, then, be the light and its place, and the darkness and its place, and the partition that walls off and marks the boundary of each of their places;

and there will be, not two principles, but five.

What then? Will not your God, and His Son, and His Spirit, fall into the very same difficulties? Orthodox:

For I do not say that the Divine exists in a place — since it is without quantity and incomprehensible — nor do I say that the three hypostases are separated from one another; rather, just as the word, being begotten from the mind, does not depart from it nor is separated from it, but is begotten from it and exists within it, so too the Son and the Spirit are from the Father and exist within Him.

For the essence is one, and the hypostases are without interval, since the powers of the mind are without interval from it.

For, in a manner surpassing nature, the Word and the Spirit are both powers of the Father that never depart from Him, and also perfect hypostases, since it is fitting that the powers of the God who surpasses nature should themselves, in a manner surpassing nature, be hypostases.

Therefore, although there are three hypostases, yet there is one God, and not three.

For the mind, and its word, and its spirit, are one mind and not three minds — just as the rose plant, and the flower, and the fragrance of each of them, are called, and are, 'rose,' and are not counted as three roses when reckoned together, but the root, the branch, and the flower are one rose.

That there cannot be two principles with respect to dignity and power either, we know as follows:

There being only two — God and Matter — either the one held power over and ruled the other, or neither ruled the other, or there were also other things, subject to and ruled by the two principles, coeternal with them (and then there would be, not merely two, but more: two ruling and others ruled), or, if the things ruled were not coeternal with the principles, then there was once a time when they were not yet principles.

Then will not the very same consequences befall your God as well? For either His creation, subject to His hand, was coeternal with Him, or there was a time when He did not rule.

Creation, indeed, is not coeternal with Him; but He always was, and always will be, Lord, having authority over being, bringing substances from non-being into being by His Word and by the Spirit of His mouth.

Nor is His Word an uttered word, but essential and hypostatic; nor is His mouth a bodily member; nor is His Spirit a breath that dissolves; but all that belongs to Him who is beyond being is itself beyond being — even though we understand the things above us by means of the things that pertain to us.

But your two principles cannot exist by natural and essential causation either;

for the Father is the begetter of a consubstantial Son — eternal begetting eternal, incorporeal begetting incorporeal.

If, then, your two principles are, by natural causation, the principles of all beings, then all things will be consubstantial and coeternal with your principles.

And if they are eternal, they will also be unchangeable, and opposed to one another, and incommunicable, and rulers rather than ruled, and masters rather than slaves.

But if your two principles are principles of beings by way of efficient causation, then souls are not from the essence of God, nor bodies from the essence of matter, but were brought from non-being into being; and matter neither warred against light, nor seized a part from it and made souls out of it.

And how did things opposed and incommunicable come together for the making of one world? Or how did the evil one fashion the body,

while the good one fashioned the soul, and together they completed one living being, man? But if your principles are causes by way of imitation, as an archetype is the cause of an image, then your two principles are themselves other worlds, after whose likeness this world came to be.

For there is not one form, nor merely one or two shapes, among existing things, but innumerable ones.

And how, then, are the innumerable forms images of your two principles? Thus your doctrine concerning the two principles is impossible and incoherent.

Ask, then, the innocent multitude of children who know nothing of evil:

'Is the dyad a principle, or the monad?' And they will say that the monad is the principle of every number.

O you who are more childish and more foolish than infants!

And answer us this too, when we ask:

Is the rule of many good, and stable, and orderly, or is the rule of one? It is clear to all that the rule of many is, in fact, anarchy, and seditious, and a cause of war and strife and evils and dissolution; whereas the rule of one is firm and lawful, and a cause of peace and order and calm and justice and growth toward the better.

If, then, according to you there are two principles without beginning, then the rule of many is the principle of beings, and the principle of all things is wickedness — and thus wickedness becomes the one principle.

How, moreover, do you say that the two principles which you yourselves have fabricated are altogether without communion?

For if this one is an unoriginate principle, and that one likewise, and the same essence applies to both — namely, to be an unoriginate and eternal principle — then they are not altogether without communion.

For they share in common both being, and being a substance, and being an unoriginate and eternal principle; and thus your doctrine has been shown to be false in every respect.

If there are two principles without beginning, each rejoices and delights in what is its own, and reckons its own constitution to be good;

for to each thing, that which constitutes its own nature is good.

So too, in your system, both the good one and the evil one — each rejoices in himself, and delights in what is his own, and reckons his own things to be good.

Who, then, is the one who judges the one to be good and the other evil? That one, rather, is God, greater than both;

for the lesser is judged by the greater, and that which is ruled by that which rules.

Do your two principles have communion with each other, or are they altogether without communion? Manichaean:

They were altogether without communion;

for the one was in the fullness of good things, and the other in the fullness of evil things; but afterward a mingling took place.

Set aside, for now, the account of the mingling.

Is being opposed to being with respect to being, or is non-being opposed to being? Manichaean:

The being that is evil is opposed to the being that is good.

I did not ask whether they are opposed in respect of being evil and good, but in respect of being as such.

For beings are not altogether opposed to one another;

for in respect of being itself they share communion with one another; but to being, non-being is opposed.

So that, if evil is altogether opposed to the good, and the good exists, then evil does not exist.

So that evil is a privation of being, and is called evil only in this sense;

and if the good is a substance, evil is without substance — or else the two are not altogether opposed.

Is not evil seen among the things that are? Orthodox:

Complete evil is not seen among the things that are;

for neither is God, who truly is and is the cause of being, evil, nor is anything that has come to be evil in respect of having come to be; but the cause of all things is good, and all things that have come to be by him are good.

And all the things that are were brought by him from non-being into being, and all things are good, indeed exceedingly good.

But evil is nothing other than the voluntary rejection and privation of the things bestowed by God upon rational nature, just as poverty is the loss of wealth;

for wealth is the possession of existing things — gold and silver and translucent stones and various garments, male and female servants, cattle and fields and the like — each of which is a substance;

Wherefore also he who has acquired these is called rich;

as one might say "much-substanced," having much substance about him.

But poverty — partial poverty is partial

loss of these, while complete poverty is complete privation of these; and just as the wholeness of the body is good, so the loss of one member is a partial evil that does not subsist [as a substance], but is the privation of what did subsist.

It is seen, or rather perceived, in the existing thing not as a being, but as something that has ceased to be — just as the eye and sight subsist and exist, while blindness is not a substance, but the loss of the eye that had existed.

It is contemplated in the constituted and existing body not as a being, but as the privation of an eye that had existed.

And thus, part by part, the increase of the privation of the members is called an increase of evil;

for evil does not exist [as a substance], but rather the non-existence of the things lost is said and contemplated in the remaining body, not as being but as non-being, not as a positive state but as a privation.

Thus also vice, or rather sin, is the voluntary [privation] of the good things bestowed by God upon rational nature;

for in the case of irrational and inanimate things one cannot speak of the voluntary, but [only] in the case of rational beings.

Evil, then, is the misuse of the natural powers.

For if we use the powers given by God to the soul for the purpose for which we received them, that is, according to the law of the giver, it is good.

But if we use them not for the purpose for which we received them, but contrary to the law of the giver, it is evil;

and it is not the powers themselves, nor even the use of them, that is evil, but the evil manner of the use, which is contrary to the law of God who gave them.

For if God is good, his law also is good, being natural and being from him who is.

But disobedience to this is a privation of the law that existed for us. For instance, desire and anger and action and activity, and before these, reasoning, are not evil but good, if we use them, for the purpose for which we received them, according to the law of the giver;

and they are not evil in themselves, but what is evil is not using them according to the law of the giver.

For if we use food, drink, sleep, and the like for the sustenance of life, each of these is good.

And if we use desire and love toward God, who alone is by nature desirable, and toward our neighbor, according to the law of God, it is good.

And if we use intercourse with our own wives for the procreation of children, according to the law given by God to nature, it is good;

but if we use desire toward what belongs to others, contrary to the law of God, it is evil.

You shall not covet your neighbor's field, nor his wife, nor whatever is his. Fornication is evil not because of the union itself, but because of being united with one who belongs to another.

Vainglory is evil not because of loving glory, but because of not loving the glory that comes from God.

Hatred and anger, if directed against those who hinder the soul's salvation and its union with God through obedience to him, and who estrange it from God — that is, against the devil and his servants — are good.

Have I not hated those who hate you, O Lord, and pined away because of your enemies? I hated them with perfect hatred; they became enemies to me. And the holy martyrs were angry against the tyrants, being justly angry.

And if I am angered against my own reasoning when it separates me from God, it is good.

If someone deprives me of salvation, it is good to be angry and to hate;

but if he grieves me according to the world and becomes an occasion of benefit by depriving me of material things, I will love him rather than hate him.

For it belongs to God alone to separate the soul from the body, since it is he also who bound them together;

but if I kill when commanded by God, it is good;

for everything that is from the good is good.

It is evil, then, to desire to seize what is not ours, but God's,

for judgment belongs to God alone, and it is evil for those to whom the power to judge has not been given by God to seize God's prerogative.

Vainglory and pride are evil;

for exaltation and glory befit God alone.

So then, evil is nothing other than using the natural powers contrary to nature and to the law — which is not a substance, but our own practice.

For one must know that both the good and the evil are spoken of in two ways;

for that is called good in the proper sense which is bestowed by God, who is good by nature.

Just as all light is illumined from the sun or from fire, so all good has its existence from the boundless and incomprehensible ocean of goodness, and whatever comes from God is good in the proper and true sense.

But that is called good not in the proper sense, but by misuse and according to our custom, which appears pleasant to our sense-perception and desire — which delights for a time, but afterward yields bitter fruit, coming about contrary to the law of the Creator and seeming to be good, though it is not good, but properly evil;

that is properly evil, and is called evil, which occurs contrary to the law of the Creator.

That is called evil not in the proper sense, but according to our custom, which is toilsome and painful to our sense-perception — which for the present brings pain, but afterward yields the fruit of salvation and everlasting joy.

Is the principle of every thing one or two? For instance, is the principle and cause of the soul one or two? Manichaean:

For if two, how does one and the same thing proceed from two contraries? For things that are utterly contrary have an activity admitting of no communion [with each other];

for how will the immaterial soul come to be from what is immaterial and from matter? Or how did the contraries, not being of one accord, produce the same thing? For things contrary by nature are utterly without communion [with one another].

[Is there] one principle for each and every one of the things that are? Manichaean:

Is being the principle of the two principles according to you, or are the two principles the principles of being? Manichaean:

To what, then, does this tend? Orthodox:

If being is the principle of your two principles, behold, there is one principle and not two.

For if being is the principle of being, then it is comprised in a single principle;

for I do not mean being in such-and-such a manner — that is, being evil or being good — but being itself, simply.

If, then, being is the principle of your two principles, there is one principle and not two.

But if your two principles are the principles of being, then there will be two contraries of the same thing.

For just as substance, simply considered, being one, is receptive of different qualities, and on this account many substances are spoken of, so also being, simply considered, is one, even though, being contemplated in different [subjects], it causes the many existing things to be named derivatively from itself.

I define, then, the activity of contraries as being utterly without communion [with each other]; being does not come especially from two principles, and contrary ones at that, but from one.

For being is not the cause of the existent [thing];

for being did not pre-exist the existent [thing].

For in what would it have been contemplated? But being, contemplated in the unoriginate existent, has its subsistence in him and from him as cause.

There is, then, one principle of being, and its contrary does not exist.

Is the principle of the motion of each existing thing one or two — existential, temporal, local, and operative? Existential, [namely,] that of each thing's coming-into-being; temporal, [namely,] from what time it began; local, [namely,] from what place those things that begin from a place began; and operative, [namely,] from what activity the thing acting acts. Take, for example, the first existence of man: from what time he came to be, and from what place he began to move — to walk, say — and [the principle] of the activity of walking. Manichaean:

for it is impossible for there to be two principles of the existence of one thing.

Is this observed in the case of each of the things that are, or not? Manichaean:

In the case of each and every one of the things that are.

What, then, is observed in each and every one, will also be observed in common in all — just as what each individual man has, the whole of humanity also has, such as living and reasoning; and what each substance has, the common [notion of] substance also has, such as self-subsistence and not having its being in another.

So then, if each of the things that exist is constituted from one principle, then all existing things are constituted from one principle and not from two, and there will not be two principles, but one.

Why is God without beginning? Orthodoxos:

Because that which is not does not have being of itself.

That which does not have being of itself, then, how will it exist of itself? Therefore that which is not must receive being from some existing thing;

but the first thing that imparts being, having being of itself, will always be without beginning.

Why is there one principle and not two? Orthodoxos:

Because the dyad proceeds from the monad as the monad's offspring, and the monad is the principle of the dyad, and the monad is altogether prior to the dyad; and because the principle of every thing is one, and if each of the things that exist has one principle, then of all things too there will be one principle;

for the principle assigned in the case of each existing thing will also be assigned in the case of all.

But if discord is the principle of existing things, then evil is the principle of existing things;

It is fitting, then, that God should be and possess something greater than all that is said or conceived.

Which, then, is greater: to make substances out of things that are not, in a manner befitting God, or, in a human manner, to busy oneself with matter by a creative — or rather, a carpenter's — craft? Manichaeus:

Certainly, that which is made out of things that are not [is greater].

Therefore it is fitting for God to make substances out of things that are not, and matter did not exist [of itself], but came into being by God.

Is God without beginning in every respect, or in one respect yes and in another no? Orthodoxos:

If he is not without beginning in every respect, he is both without beginning and not without beginning.

But if he is without beginning in every respect, he is truly without beginning and without beginning by nature.

And that which is without beginning is also without end;

for beginning and end are of one and the same kind.

Therefore everything that has a beginning also has an end according to its own nature, and everything that has an end also has a beginning.

And so the angels too, having a beginning, also have an end according to their own nature, even though by divine grace they again begin to be and are renewed.

For just as a motionless body, when it begins to move, began from a place — that is, the circular [body] — and when it reaches the place from which it began, it has completed the circumference and the circle, and then begins its motion again and makes a new beginning of motion, and thus continues moving until he who commands it to move so wills; so too the angels, moving vitally and reaching the natural end of their own existence, begin [again] their vital motion, until, by the command of him who made them, they shall again cease from motion.

For they always receive from God both being and vital and noetic motion, not having this of themselves.

And just as a wheel, once set in motion, moves and then stops — but if it possesses perpetual motion, it moves forever, not having the motion of itself — so too the angels, not having being of themselves, move insofar as their maker moves them;

but if he does not move them, they cease from motion.

So that whatever has a beginning altogether also has an end, and whatever has an end altogether also has a beginning.

And that which is by nature without beginning is without beginning in every respect — in cause, in time, in place, and in authority.

The two principles, then, will either be within one another, or will be circumscribed by place, and [in either case] they are not without beginning.

How, then, can light and darkness be within one another? For light is destructive of darkness.

If there are no boundaries of the light and boundaries of the darkness, then neither is the light uncircumscribed, since it is not everywhere, nor is the darkness.

And so they are not altogether without beginning, having a spatial beginning.

For it is impossible, if there is no partition-wall and dividing wall, for light and darkness to be altogether unmixed.

For if we light a lamp at night, the place around the lamp will be brighter, but at a small distance it will become darker, until the light finally fails and pure darkness, unmixed with light, comes to be.

For either darkness was mixed with light from the beginning, and these are not altogether opposite and incommunicable, or there was, from the beginning, some other dividing wall separating them, and then there are no longer two principles, but three.

That which is naturally constituted does not change; but that which changes is not so by nature.

Light and darkness have no communion with one another — how then did they come to commune afterward? How was one living being, man, brought to completion out of good and evil? For if they were brought into concord, they communed with one another;

for concord is a communion of will.

And neither did the good [principle] remain purely and perfectly good, nor the evil [remain purely evil], but both were changed.

But that which changes is neither without beginning nor God;

for God, foreknowing all that is in our power, determines all that is not in our power.

Is being opposite to being, or is being opposite to not-being? Manichaeus:

Then, of your two altogether opposite principles, the one will exist, and the other will not exist.

Is being opposite to being? Manichaeus:

Being evil is opposite to being good.

Then the opposites coexist and share the same substance in one and the same [subject].

And how then are they opposite? Manichaeus:

For they must exist and be so named.

How, then, is that which is not opposite to that which is? For things opposite to one another must first exist, and then be opposite, and then be called opposite;

for that which is not something at all is not named.

When you said 'not-being,' did you name [something] or not? Manichaeus:

I named it by way of negation, not by way of affirmation.

Does affirmation signify possession, and negation signify privation? Manichaeus:

Is possession opposite to privation? Manichaeus:

Then is not-being opposite to being as possession is to privation? Manichaeus:

Is evil spoken of in terms of possession, or in terms of privation? Manichaeus:

Is the good spoken of in terms of possession, or in terms of privation? Manichaeus:

Then evil is not in every way opposite to the good;

for possession is not opposite to possession.