Indeed, after the conversion of so many great philosophers, it is permitted neither to you nor to your descendants to doubt concerning our faith, nor does such a struggle any longer seem necessary. Why, in the secular disciplines, do you trust everything to their authority, yet are not moved to faith by their examples, saying with the Prophet: 'Neither are we better than our fathers'? Philosopher: We do not grant their authority in such a way that we refrain from examining their sayings by reason before we approve them. Otherwise we would cease to philosophize, if indeed, setting aside the investigation of arguments, we were to make the greatest use of the 'topics' of authority — which are judged inartificial and wholly disjoined from the matter itself, resting in opinion rather than in truth.
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nor would we believe that even our own forefathers were led to the confession of your faith by reason so much as drawn by force, as your own histories also agree. For before the conversion of emperors or princes to your faith through miracles (as you claim), your preaching gained few or none of the wise, although at that time the nations could easily be torn away from the most manifest errors of idolatry and transferred to the worship of any one God. Hence your Paul, prudently seizing the occasion of his rebuke of the Athenians, thus began: 'Men of Athens, in all things I perceive that you are too superstitious,' and so forth.
For already by then the knowledge of the natural law and of divine worship had vanished, and the multitude of those in error had altogether destroyed or oppressed the small number of the wise; and — to speak from our own conviction and to grant no small fruit to Christian preaching — we do not doubt that it was chiefly through this preaching that idolatry was then abolished in the world. Christian: Add also what is evident: that both the natural law was revived and the perfect discipline of morals — that very thing on which you say you alone rely, and which you believe sufficient for salvation — were handed down by none other than Him; and whoever have been instructed by Him as by the true wisdom, that is, the Wisdom of God, are to be called the true philosophers. Philosopher:
And would that, as you say, you could so prove it, that you might show yourselves to be truly logicians and armed with the reasonings of words by that very supreme Wisdom — which in Greek you call the Logos, and in Latin the Word of God! And do not presume to put forward to me that saying of your Gregory, the common refuge of the wretched. 'Faith,' he says, 'has no merit when human reason supplies it with proof.' For since among you they are not able to discuss the faith they assert, they at once take up this Gregorian saying as a consolation for their own incompetence. According to their interpretation, what else does this accomplish, except that we should acquiesce in any preachings of faith whatsoever, the foolish equally with the sound?
For if faith is by no means to be examined by reason, lest it lose its merit, and what ought to be believed is not to be examined by the judgment of the mind, but assent is to be given at once to whatever is preached, then it makes no difference what errors the preaching may sow — one accepts them; for one is not permitted to refute by reason where one is not permitted to apply reason. Let an idolater say of a stone or a piece of wood or any created thing: 'This is the true God, the Creator of heaven and earth'; or let him preach any manifest abomination — who will be able to refute it, if nothing of faith is to be examined by reason? At once he will throw in the face of one arguing against him, and most of all against a Christian, that very thing which was laid down: 'faith has no merit,' and so forth.
At once the Christian will be confounded by his own defense, since he says that the other's reasonings are by no means to be heard in such matters, while he himself wholly forbids them to be brought forward; nor can anyone rightly assail the faith with reasonings while he by no means permits himself to be assailed. Christian: As that greatest of the wise men says: 'There are ways of a man which seem right, but their ends lead down to death.' So too very often reasonings seem to be — that is, things seem to be said reasonably and fittingly — when it is by no means so. Philosopher: And what of those very things which are held as authorities? Is there not much error in them too? Otherwise there would not be so many different sects of faith, if all used the same authorities.
But according as each one deliberates by his own reason, individuals choose the authorities they follow. Otherwise the opinions of all Scriptures would have to be accepted indiscriminately, unless reason — which is naturally prior to them — first had to pass judgment upon them. For even those who wrote earned authority — that is, the worthiness of being at once believed — only from the reason in which their opinions are seen to abound. And so much is reason set above authority, even by their own judgment, that, as your Antony remarks:
'since human reason was the inventor of letters, for one whose reason is sound, letters are by no means necessary.' In every philosophical disputation this kind of argument is judged to hold the last place or none at all, so that those who, trusting in their own powers, disdain the refuge of another's aid are wholly ashamed to bring in arguments drawn from the judgment of the matter, that is, from authority.
Hence the philosophers rightly judged that the 'topics' of such arguments — to which an orator rather than a philosopher is compelled to resort — are wholly external, disjoined from the matter, and destitute of all force, inasmuch as they rest in opinion rather than in truth and require no skill of ingenuity for the discovery of one's arguments, since he who brings them in uses not his own words but another's. Hence your Boethius too, embracing in his 'Topics' both the Themistian and the Tullian division of topics, says:
'Those arguments which are drawn from the judgment of the matter,' he says, 'as it were furnish testimony, and are inartificial topics, wholly disjoined, following opinion and judgment rather than the matter itself.' Again, the same author on the same topic, following Tully: 'There remains a topic,' he says, 'which he said is assumed from without. This rests upon judgment and authority, and is wholly probable, containing nothing necessary.' And after some words: 'This topic is said to be established from without, since it is not taken from those terms which are predicated or subjected, but comes from a judgment placed outside.
Hence,' he says, 'it is also called inartificial and devoid of art, since here the orator does not construct the argument for himself, but uses testimonies already prepared and laid down.' But as for what you said — that in discerning or recognizing reasonings too one sometimes errs — that is certainly true and clear. But this happens to those men who lack skill in rational philosophy and discernment of arguments — such as the Jews profess themselves to be, who demand signs in place of arguments, and all who place their safeguard in the sayings of another, as though it were easier to judge of the authority or writing of one who is absent than of the reasoning or opinion of one who is present, and as though the meaning of the former could be inquired into better than that of the latter.
But while, so far as we are able, anxious for our own salvation, we seek God, His grace surely supplies what our own efforts cannot, and helps the willing that they may be able — He who even inspires this very thing, that they may be willing. And He who often draws the unwilling does not reject the willing, and stretches out His right hand to one who strives, whose negligence He cannot reproach. Concerning Him, that very Truth which you speak of, Christ, making you secure, after a fitting similitude set forth, added: 'Ask, and you shall receive; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it shall be opened.' Expounding these preceding words, I recall, Augustine says in a certain treatise of his, On Mercy:
'Ask by praying, seek by disputing, knock by praying.' Hence, preferring the art of disputing above the other disciplines in the second book On Order, and commending it as though it alone knows or makes others to know, he says: 'The discipline of disciplines, which they call dialectic. This teaches how to teach, this teaches how to learn. In this reason shows herself, and alone knows what she is, what she wills. And she not only wills, but is also able, to make others knowing.' The same author, in the second book On Christian Doctrine, showing it to be very necessary for sacred reading, says: 'There remain,' he says, 'those things which pertain not to the senses of the body but to reason, where the discipline of disputation and of number reigns.
But the discipline of disputation is of the greatest value for all kinds of questions that must be penetrated in the sacred writings. Yet there one must beware of the lust for wrangling and a certain childish ostentation of deceiving one's adversary. For there are many things called sophisms — false conclusions of reasonings, and for the most part imitating true ones, so that they deceive not only the slow but even the clever who are less attentive. This kind of captious conclusions Scripture, as I judge, detests in that place where it is said: He who speaks sophistically is hateful.' Christian:
Surely none of us who is discerning forbids faith to be investigated and examined by reasonings, nor does one reasonably acquiesce in things that are doubtful, unless a reason is first set forth why one ought to acquiesce. And this reason, indeed, when it produces conviction in a doubtful matter, itself becomes that which is called by you an 'argument.' For in every discipline, controversy thrusts itself in concerning both the written text and the meaning, and in any clash of disputation the truth of reason, once rendered, is firmer than authority that is merely displayed. For it does not matter, for establishing faith, what is in the truth of the matter, but what can come into opinion; and very many questions arise from the very words of authority, so that they must be judged before judgment can be passed by means of them.
But after a reason has been rendered — even if there be not a real reason but only the appearance of one — no question remains, since no doubt is left. With you, however, one must proceed by authority all the less, the more you lean upon reason and the less you acknowledge the authority of Scripture. For no one can be argued against except from what he has conceded, nor is anyone to be convinced except through the things he accepts; and one must contend in one way with you, in another way among ourselves. What Gregory or the rest of our teachers, or even Christ Himself or Moses, may assert, we know does not yet pertain to you, so that you should be compelled to faith by their sayings.
Among us, who accept this, these things have their place, and especially that faith must sometimes be established or defended by reasonings — concerning which, I recall, against those who deny that faith is to be investigated by reasonings, the second book also of the Christian Theology treats more fully, both by the force of reasonings and by the authority of writings, and convinces the rebellious. Now, if it please you, let us return to the matter proposed. Philosopher: Indeed, because it pleases — and above all things one ought to please, as far as we can — let us strive, and from the documents of a truer ethics let us endeavor to draw out the natural law.
And we believe this will be rightly and orderly accomplished if, in accordance with the summary of ethics which you grasped above — namely, what is the highest good and by what way one must arrive there — we discuss these, so that in these matters our treatise on ethics may be twofold. Christian: I approve with you what you approve. But since, according to the agreement of our earlier proposal, our opinions are to be compared with yours, that we may be able to choose the better, and since you have claimed for yourself the first place on the ground of the antiquity of the natural law — it is yours, who are content (as you say) with the prior law, that is, the natural law, and use that alone, to bring forward into the open your own opinions, or those of your school, upon this matter, and afterwards to hear the reasonings of our teachers, if we differ in anything. Philosopher:
They defined the highest good, or the end of good — that is, its consummation or perfection — as that to which whoever has come is blessed (just as, on the contrary, the highest evil is that the attainment of which makes one wretched). And each of these we earn by our characters. Now characters are agreed to be called virtues, or the vices contrary to them. Yet some of our number — as Augustine too remarks in the eighth book of the City of God — called virtue itself the highest good, others called pleasure so. Christian: Why, I beg, did they understand it as pleasure? Philosopher:
Not, as most suppose, the dishonorable and base delight of carnal enticements, but a certain inner tranquillity of the soul, by which amid adversity and prosperity it remains quiet and content with its own goods, while no consciousness of sin gnaws at it. For far be it that philosophers — the greatest despisers of earthly happiness and the chief tamers of the flesh — should set the highest good in the basenesses of this life, as many through ignorance impute to Epicurus and his followers, that is, the Epicureans, not at all understanding what those men, as we said, named pleasure.
Otherwise, as we said, Seneca — that greatest builder of morals and (as you yourselves also profess) of a most continent life — would by no means so frequently bring in the opinions of Epicurus, as though of his own master, for the instruction of morals, if that man, as is alleged, had so departed from the path of sobriety and honor. Christian: Be it as you estimate; but open this to me, I beg: whether those who understand pleasure in this way differ from those who name it virtue in meaning also, as well as in words. Philosopher: There is no difference, or but a small one, between them as to the substance of the opinion. For this very thing — to abound in virtues — is to have this tranquillity of soul, and conversely. Christian:
There is therefore one and the same opinion of both concerning the highest good, but a different naming of the true thing; and thus those two opinions which seemed to be about the highest good are reduced to one. Philosopher: So I estimate. Christian: And what way, I ask, did they establish for arriving at this highest good, that is, virtue? Philosopher: Precisely the study of moral reading, or the exercise of taming the flesh, so that a will solidified into a settled disposition of good may be called virtue. Christian: And whom do they define as blessed? Philosopher: They call 'blessed' (beatum) as it were 'well-fitted' (bene aptum), that is, one who conducts himself well and easily in all things; so that to be blessed is the same as to abound in good characters, that is, in virtues. Christian:
Do they at all estimate anything concerning the immortality of the soul and a certain blessedness of a future life, and do they expect it as the reward of their merits? Philosopher: Indeed they do; but what of it? Christian: Do they judge the blessedness of that life to be greater — where, namely, no pain of suffering afflicts them once they are received there — so that we should expect there rather than here the highest good of man and true blessedness? Philosopher: The rest of that life is indeed the greatest, free (as you said) from all suffering; but when affliction ceases, they by no means say that blessedness is increased, unless virtue grows; nor is anyone said by them to be made more blessed, unless he is made better by virtue. For this very thing, as I said, they define as being blessed: to abound in virtues.
Hence anyone, while he suffers for the sake of justice and by suffering is said to merit the more, is equally blessed amid torments, as was said before, because he is equally good. For although his virtue now appears greater than before, yet it by no means grew from the torment, but from the torment it appeared how great it was. For far be it that anything pertaining to bodily rest or affliction should either increase or diminish our blessedness, if virtue keeps the mind in the same purpose. Did your very Christ diminish His blessedness by suffering, or increase it by rising again? By no means, therefore. Because there those bodily afflictions cease, you should not on that account reckon that we shall be more blessed there, if we are not going to be better. Christian:
What, if we are? Philosopher: More blessed, certainly, because better. Christian: That life, as I said, you expect for your merits as though due, as though here there is a struggle with vices, there the crown of victory. Philosopher: So it is evident to all. Christian: In what way, then, is the reward of the contests to be received there, if life is not to be lived there more happily, nor is that life better and more blessed than the present? But if it is more blessed than this present life, then surely those too who enjoy it are seen to be more blessed than they are here. Philosopher: More blessed certainly, as I said — if better. Otherwise we by no means receive it.
For neither is one who has obtained the crown therefore endowed with greater virtue than he had before in the contest, nor has his fortitude been made greater — though it was never before so much tested or known, indeed perhaps even diminished by the very burden of the conflict; nor is the life of one triumphing better than that of one fighting, although it is sweeter. Christian: Want, infirmity, death, and the other troubles of adversities or sufferings, both your teachers and ours alike, and all in general, reckon among evils; and on account of those things which are contrary to the virtues, there are many vices both of soul and of body, which are nonetheless to be reckoned among evils — such as lameness of body or blindness, dullness of mind or forgetfulness.
Concerning contraries, Aristotle, discoursing in his Categories, says: 'To the good, evil is contrary of necessity; and this is plain by the induction of particulars — as sickness to health, injustice to justice, weakness to fortitude. And likewise in the others. But to an evil, sometimes a good is contrary, sometimes an evil. For to want, which is an evil, excess is contrary, which is itself an evil. But anyone will observe this only in a few cases. In most cases, however, evil is always contrary to good.' And in his Topics, Tully, when he assigned the topic from contraries, says: 'If health is good, sickness is bad':
The Lord Himself too, concerning the peace which He grants to the obedient and the persecutions which He sends upon the rebellious, says through the prophet: 'I, the Lord, making good and creating evil.' And in the Gospel the Lord says concerning earthly goods and evils to the rich man: 'You received good things in your life, and Lazarus likewise evil things.' That Augustine too — first yours and afterwards ours — asserts that death is an evil. 'Just as the law,' he says, 'is not an evil, even though it increases the concupiscence of sinners, so neither is death a good, even though it increases the glory of those who endure it and makes martyrs. The law indeed is good, because it is a prohibition of sin; but death is evil, because it is the wages of sin. But just as the unjust use even good things badly, so also the just use evil things well.
Hence it comes about that the evil use the law badly, although the law is good, and the good die well, although death is an evil.' Philosopher: To what end, I beg, are these things? Christian: That you may understand, I say, that life to be the better — that life which is agreed to be wholly free from these evils, and so utterly removed from sin that there one not only does not sin but cannot even sin. And unless that life is better than the present or more pleasing, it is set in retribution to no purpose. But if it is more pleasing and yet not better, then it is preferred to this one irrationally, and those who desire it more act without discernment. Philosopher: Certainly, to confess the truth, now for the first time I find you a philosopher, and it is not fitting to oppose so manifest a reasoning shamelessly.
But there rather than here, according to your proposed reasoning, the highest good of man is to be expected. And perhaps this was the opinion of Epicurus, who called the highest good pleasure — namely, because the tranquillity of soul is so great that neither does bodily affliction disquiet it from without, nor does any consciousness of sin disquiet the mind within, nor does any vice stand in the way, so that its best will is wholly fulfilled. But so long as anything resists our will or is lacking to it, there is by no means true blessedness. And this surely always happens while one lives here, when the soul, weighed down by the mass of an earthly body and shut up as in a kind of prison, does not enjoy true liberty.
For who does not at some time desire warmth when he is too cold, or conversely; or fair weather when he is burdened with rain; or, for food or clothing, often more than he has? Innumerable too are the other things which, if we do not resist manifest truth, are forced upon us against our will or denied to us though we will them. But if, as reason holds, that good of the future life is to be esteemed by us the highest, I think the way by which one arrives there is the virtues, with which we are here adorned. Concerning these we shall have to confer more diligently afterwards. Christian: Behold, our disputation has been brought to this: that we set down as the highest good of man, or its very end of good (as was said), the blessedness of the future life, and as the way by which one arrives there, the virtues.
But first, concerning this highest good, I wish to compare our discipline — that is, the Christian — with yours, so that whichever has the richer teaching or exhortation concerning this good may be held the more perfect, and may be the more obeyed. Now concerning the old law, in which the Jews glory, you judge that you have very well shown that no reward of this blessedness was there promised, nor was any exhortation thereto employed there. But the Lord Jesus, when He delivered the new Testament, at the very outset laid down such a foundation of His teaching as would equally incite both to contempt of the world and to desire for this blessedness, saying: 'Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.' And after some words:
'Blessed are they who suffer persecution for the sake of justice, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.' And if we attend diligently to these things, all His precepts and exhortations are employed so that, in hope of that supernal and eternal life, all prosperity may be despised and all adversity endured. This, I think, your teachers by no means attained, nor did they equally invite your minds to this end of good.
But if they were such, then point it out, running through all the institutions of your ethics; or, if you cannot point it out, then confess the teaching of Christ to be so much the more perfect and better, as it exhorts us to the virtues with a better cause or hope — whereas you rather hold that the virtues or their contraries are to be sought or shunned for their own sake rather than for the sake of anything else. Hence you also hold that the former ought to be called honorable, the latter dishonorable. For you call honorable that which pleases through itself and is to be sought for its own sake, not for the sake of anything else; just as, on the contrary, dishonorable is that which is to be fled on account of its own baseness. For those things which are to be sought or shunned for the sake of something else, you rather name useful or useless.
Philosopher: So indeed it seemed to our elders, as M. Tully sets forth more fully in the second book of his Rhetoric. But surely, when it is said: 'Virtue is to be sought for its own sake, not for the sake of anything else,' the reward of merits is not at all excluded, but the aim at earthly advantages is removed. Otherwise we would not rightly establish as the end of the virtues — that is, the final cause — blessedness, as in the second book of his Topics your Boethius, following Themistius, records. For there, when he set forth an example of the topic 'from the end,' he says: 'If to be blessed is good, justice too is good.' For here, he says, the end of justice is that, if anyone lives according to justice, he may be brought to blessedness.
'Behold, here he openly shows that blessedness is set as the retribution of a just life, and that our intention is to live justly, so that we may arrive at it.' This blessedness, as I think, Epicurus names pleasure, your Christ names the kingdom of heaven. But what does it matter by what name it is called, provided the thing itself remains the same, and the blessedness is not different, nor is a different intention of living justly set before philosophers than before Christians? For just as you, so we too here resolve to live justly, that there we may be glorified, and we fight against vices, that there we may be crowned by the merits of the virtues, having attained that highest good as a reward. Christian:
On the contrary — as far as I perceive — our intention in this and yours, as well as our merits, are very different, and concerning the highest good itself too we disagree not a little. Philosopher: Open this, I beg, if you can. Christian: No one rightly calls that the highest good, than which something greater is found. For that which is in any respect lower or less than something can in no way be called supreme or highest. But it is agreed that every human blessedness or glory is far and ineffably transcended by the divine. No blessedness, therefore, except that one, is rightly to be called the highest; or, apart from Him, nothing is by right called the highest good. Philosopher: In this place we do not intend the highest good absolutely, but the highest good of man. Christian:
But neither do we rightly call that the highest good of man, than which some greater good of man is found. Philosopher: So indeed it is clear. Christian: I ask, therefore, whether in that blessedness one is more blessed than another — just as here it happens that one is more just or more holy than another — so that, according to the diversity of merits, there is also a diverse remuneration. Philosopher: What if it is so? Christian: Nay, since it is so, you must grant that there one man is made more blessed than another; and on this account the blessedness of that man which is the lesser is by no means to be called the highest good of man. Hence neither is it fitting that he who is less blessed than another should now be called blessed.
For you defined the highest good as that, when anyone has come to which, he is blessed. Either, then, you will grant that he who is there lesser than another has attained the highest good, or you will grant that he is by no means blessed — but only that one than whom no one there is more blessed. For if that which he has attained makes him blessed, then surely, according to the definition set forth above, it is fitting to call it the highest good. Philosopher: Hold on a little, I beg, and attend to what I just now subjoined to my latest question. One may even correct things ill-said, since (as was said) we confer for the investigation of truth, not for the display of ingenuity. Christian: I approve and grant what you say.