書信與論戰集（CSEL） 第 13 章

The one true God, almighty, from whom are all things, through whom are all things, in whom are all things—him I have prayed, and I pray, that in refuting and confuting your heresy, O Manicheans (to whom you have perhaps clung more imprudently than maliciously), he may give me a mind at peace and tranquil, and thinking more of your correction than of your ruin. For although the Lord through his servants overthrows the kingdoms of error, yet he commands that the men themselves, insofar as they are men, be rather amended than destroyed. And whatever is divinely avenged before that last judgment—whether through the wicked or through the righteous, whether through the ignorant or the knowing, whether secretly or openly—must be believed to avail not for the destruction of men, but for their healing;

and those who spurn this healing are being prepared for the utmost punishment. Wherefore, since in this universe of things there are some which avail for bodily punishment—such as fire and poison and disease and other things of this kind—others by which within himself a man is punished not by the torments of his body but by the snares of his own desires, such as loss, exile, bereavement, insult, and the like; while certain others are not torments but as it were poultices and soothings for the ailing, such as consolations, exhortations, disputations, and whatever else there is: of all these, some things the supreme justice of God works even through the wicked who know not, but some through the good who know.

It was therefore ours to choose and desire the better things, that we might have an approach to your correction—not in strife and rivalry and persecutions, but by gently consoling, kindly exhorting, mildly disputing. As it is written: 'The servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, in meekness correcting those who think differently.' It was therefore ours to be willing to seek out these parts; it is God's to grant to those who will and ask that which is good. Let those rage against you who know not with what labor the truth is found and how difficult it is to guard against errors; let those rage against you who know not how rare and arduous it is to overcome carnal phantasms by the serenity of a devout mind;

let those rage against you who know not with how great difficulty the eye of the inward man is healed, that it may be able to behold its own sun—not that sun which you worship, shining and radiant with celestial body to fleshly eyes both of men and of beasts, but that of which it was said through the prophet: The sun of righteousness has risen for me, and of which it was said in the Gospel: There was the true light, which enlightens every man that comes into this world—: let those rage against you who know not with what sighings and groanings it comes to pass that God may be understood even in the very least degree; lastly, let those rage against you who have never been deceived by such an error as that by which they see you deceived. But I,

who, long and greatly tossed about, was at last able to look upon what that sincerity is which is perceived without the recounting of an empty fable; who scarcely, wretched man, deserved by the Lord's help to overcome the vain imaginations of my mind, gathered from various opinions and errors; who submitted myself, though so tardily, to the most merciful Physician calling and caressing me to wipe away the fog of the mind; who long wept that the unchangeable and unstainable substance might deign, in accord with the divine books, to persuade itself to me inwardly;

who, finally, both curiously sought and attentively heard and rashly believed all those fabrications which hold you entangled and bound by long habit, and urgently persuaded of them whomever I could, and against others pertinaciously and spiritedly defended them: I can by no means rage against you, whom I ought now to bear, just as I bore myself at that time, and to deal with you with as great patience as my neighbors dealt with me when I was raving and blind in your dogma. But that you may more easily grow gentle and not oppose me with a hostile spirit ruinous to yourselves, I must obtain this from you, whoever be the judge, that on both sides all arrogance be laid aside. Let none of us say that he has already found the truth;

let us so seek it as if it were unknown to both parties. For thus it can be sought diligently and harmoniously, if by no rash presumption it be believed to have been found and known. But if I cannot obtain this from you, grant me at least this: that I may hear you now for the first time as though unknown, and now for the first time examine you. I think what I ask is just, provided this condition indeed be observed: that I neither pray with you, nor hold assemblies, nor accept the name of Manichean, unless you shall have given me, concerning all things pertaining to the salvation of the soul, a clear reasoning without any fog.

For in the catholic Church—to say nothing of that most sincere wisdom, to the knowledge of which few spiritual men attain in this life, so as to know it, in the very least part indeed (because they are men), yet without doubt—for the rest of the multitude, it is not liveliness of understanding but simplicity of believing that makes them most safe—to pass over, then, this wisdom, which you do not believe to be in the catholic Church: there are many other things which most justly hold me in her bosom. The consent of peoples and nations holds me; the authority holds me, begun by miracles, nourished by hope, increased by charity, made firm by antiquity;

the succession of priests holds me, from the very see of Peter the apostle—to whom the Lord after his resurrection entrusted the feeding of his sheep—down to the present episcopate; lastly, the very name of catholic holds me, which not without cause this Church alone, among so many heresies, has so obtained that, although all heretics wish to be called catholics, yet to any stranger asking where the meeting of the catholic Church is, no heretic would dare to point out his own basilica or house. Therefore these many and so great most dear bonds of the Christian name rightly hold a man believing in the catholic Church, even if, on account of the slowness of our understanding or the merit of our life, the truth does not yet show itself most openly.

But among you, where there is none of these things to invite and hold me, only the promise of truth resounds. If indeed it is shown so manifestly that it cannot come into doubt, it is to be preferred to all those things by which I am held in the catholic Church; but if it is only promised and not exhibited, no one shall move me from that faith which binds my mind by so many and so great ties to the Christian religion. Let us see, then, what Manichaeus teaches me, and let us above all consider that book which you call the Epistle of the Foundation, wherein almost the whole of what you believe is contained. For it was read to us wretches at that time, and we were said by you to be enlightened. It certainly begins thus:

'Manichaeus, apostle of Jesus Christ, by the providence of God the Father. These are wholesome words from a perennial and living fountain.' Now with good patience, if you please, attend to what I ask. I do not believe this man to be an apostle of Christ. I beg you, do not be angry and begin to revile. For you know that I have resolved to believe nothing rashly asserted by you. I ask therefore: who is this Manichaeus? You will answer: An apostle of Christ. I do not believe it; you will have nothing left to say or do. For you were promising the knowledge of the truth, and now you compel me to believe what I do not know. Perhaps you are about to read me the Gospel and thence attempt to establish the person of Manichaeus. But if you were to find someone who does not yet believe the Gospel, what would you do to him who said to you:

'I do not believe'? I indeed would not believe the Gospel, unless the authority of the catholic Church moved me. Those therefore whom I obeyed when they said: 'Believe the Gospel,' why should I not obey them when they say to me: 'Do not believe the Manicheans'? Choose what you will. If you say: 'Believe the catholics,' they warn me to accord no faith to you; wherefore, believing them, I cannot but disbelieve you. If you say: 'Do not believe the catholics,' you will not act rightly in compelling me by the Gospel to the faith of Manichaeus, since I believed the Gospel itself through the catholics preaching it. But if you say:

'You rightly believed the catholics when they praised the Gospel, but you did not rightly believe them when they blamed Manichaeus'—do you think me so foolish that, no reason being rendered, I should believe what you wish and not believe what you do not wish? Far more justly and cautiously do I act if, since I once believed the catholics, I do not pass over to you, unless you bid me not to believe but make me most openly and most manifestly to know something. Wherefore, if you are going to render me a reason, dismiss the Gospel. If you hold to the Gospel, let me hold to those at whose bidding I believed the Gospel, and at their command I shall by no means believe you.

But if perchance you were able to find in the Gospel something most manifest concerning the apostleship of Manichaeus, you would weaken for me the authority of the catholics, who bid me not to believe you; and that authority being weakened, I could then no longer believe even the Gospel, since it was through them that I had believed it. Thus nothing will avail with me, whatever you bring forth from there. Wherefore, if nothing manifest concerning the apostleship of Manichaeus is found in the Gospel, I shall believe the catholics rather than you. But if you read there something manifest in favor of Manichaeus, I shall believe neither them nor you: not them, because they lied to me about you; but not you either, because you offer me a Scripture which I had believed through them who lied to me. But far be it that I should not believe the Gospel.

For, believing in the Gospel, I do not find how I could also believe in you; for the names of the apostles which are read there do not include among themselves the name of Manichaeus. But who succeeded into the place of the betrayer of Christ, we read in the Acts of the Apostles; and I must of necessity believe that book, if I believe the Gospel, since the catholic authority commends both Scriptures to me alike. In the same book we also hold the most widely known account of the calling and apostleship of Paul. Read to me now, if you can, in the Gospel where Manichaeus is called an apostle, or in some other book to which I confess I already give credence. Or will you read to me that passage where the Lord promised the apostles the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete?

Concerning this passage, consider how many and how great are the things which call me back and deter me from believing Manichaeus. For I ask why the beginning of this epistle is 'Manichaeus, an apostle of Jesus Christ,' and not 'the Paraclete, an apostle of Jesus Christ.' But if the Paraclete, sent by Christ, sent Manichaeus, why do I read 'Manichaeus, an apostle of Jesus Christ,' and not rather 'Manichaeus, an apostle of the Paraclete'? If you say that he who is also the Holy Spirit is himself Christ, you contradict Scripture itself, where the Lord says: 'And I will send you another Paraclete.' But if you think the name of Christ is rightly placed not because he who is also the Paraclete is himself Christ, but because both are of the same substance, that is—

—not because he is one person, but because they are one thing, then Paul too could have said, 'Paul, an apostle of God the Father,' since the Lord said, 'I and the Father are one.' Yet nowhere does he say this, nor does any of the apostles write himself an apostle of the Father. What then does this novelty intend? Does it not seem to you to smell of some deceit or other? Certainly, if he judged it to make no difference, why does he not name himself in some epistles an apostle of Christ and in others of the Paraclete? But I have heard 'of Christ' always, as often as I have heard it, and 'of the Paraclete' not even once. What cause for this do we suppose there is, except that pride, the mother of all heretics, drove the man to wish to seem not sent by the Paraclete, but so taken up that he himself might be called the Paraclete?

Just as Jesus Christ the man was sent—not by the Son of God, that is, the power and wisdom of God through whom all things were made—but was so taken up, according to the catholic faith, that he himself was the Son of God, that is, that in him the very wisdom of God appeared to heal sinners: so this man wished it to seem that he was taken up by the Holy Spirit whom Christ promised, so that now, when we hear 'Manichaeus, the Holy Spirit,' we should understand 'an apostle of Jesus Christ,' that is, one sent by Jesus Christ who promised that he would send him. What singular audacity is this, and what unspeakable sacrilege!

But nevertheless I ask: since the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are, even by our own confession, joined together in no unequal nature, why is it that you do not think it shameful to proclaim that a man, Manichaeus, taken up by the Holy Spirit, was born from both sexes, yet you dread to believe that a man, taken up by the only-begotten Wisdom of God, was born of a virgin? If human flesh, if the intercourse of a man, if the womb of a woman could not defile the Holy Spirit, how could a virgin's womb defile the Wisdom of God? This Manichaeus, then, who glories in the Holy Spirit and in the reading of the Gospel, must of necessity concede to you either that he was sent by the Holy Spirit or that he was taken up by it. If he was sent, let him call himself an apostle of the Paraclete;

if he was taken up, let him concede a human mother to him whom the only-begotten Son of God took up, if he concedes a father to him whom the Holy Spirit took up. Let him believe that the Word of God was not polluted by the virginity of Mary, if he exhorts us to believe that the Holy Spirit could not be polluted by the intercourse of his parents. But if you say that Manichaeus was taken up by the Holy Spirit not in the womb nor before the womb, but when already born, it is enough that you confess he had flesh begotten of man and woman.

For since you do not fear the inward parts and blood of Manichaeus coming from human intercourse, and the entrails full of dung which that flesh carried, and yet do not believe that the Holy Spirit—by whom you believe that man was taken up—was contaminated by all these things: why should I shrink from a virginal womb and untouched genitals, and not rather believe that the Wisdom of God, having taken up a man in those very maternal inward parts, remained immaculate and pure? Wherefore, since whether your Manichaeus affirms himself sent or taken up by the Paraclete, he will be able to make good none of these claims, I am now more cautious and believe him neither sent nor taken up. For as to what he added, saying 'by the providence of God the Father,' what else did he aim at, once Jesus Christ had been named,

—of whom he says he is the apostle—and 'God the Father,' by whose providence he says he was sent by the Son, except that we should believe the Holy Spirit himself to be the third? For thus he writes: 'Manichaeus, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the providence of God the Father.' The Holy Spirit is not named, who most of all ought to have been named by him who commends his own apostleship to us by the promise of the Paraclete, so as to press the unlearned with Gospel authority. And when this is asked of you, you reply of course that, once Manichaeus the apostle is named, the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, is named, because he deigned to come in him.

I ask therefore, as I said above, why you shudder when the catholic Church says that he in whom the divine Wisdom came was born of a virgin, whereas you do not at all shudder that he in whom you proclaim the Holy Spirit to have come was born of a woman mingled with a man. What else, then, am I to suspect—I know not—except that this Manichaeus, who through the name of Christ seeks entry into the minds of the unlearned, wished to be worshipped in place of Christ himself? Whence I infer this, I shall say briefly. When I often asked you, in that time when I used to listen to you, what the reason was—

—that you for the most part celebrated the Lord's Pascha with no observance, or now and then with a very lukewarm celebration by a few, appointing no vigils, no more prolonged fast for the hearers, and no more festive preparation at all; whereas your Bema—that is, the day on which Manichaeus was killed—you would attend with great honours, its tribunal set up with five steps and adorned with costly cloths, set out in full view and offered to those who worshipped. When I asked this, the answer was given that the day of passion of him who had truly suffered ought to be celebrated; but that Christ, who had not been born, and had shown to human eyes not true but only feigned flesh, had not undergone but had feigned his passion. Who would not groan that men—

—who wish to be called Christians, that they fear lest truth be defiled by a virgin's womb, yet do not fear falsehood? But, to return to the matter, who would not suspect, upon careful attention, that Manichaeus denied that Christ was born of a woman and had a human body precisely for this reason: lest his passion—which is now the most festive season of the whole world—should be celebrated by those who believed in him, and lest so great a devotion should honour, with a longed-for solemnity, the day of his death? For this was what pleased us most in that celebration of the Bema, that it was observed in place of the Pascha, since we the more vehemently desired that festal day once the other—which used to be the sweetest—had been taken away. Perhaps you may say to me: When, then, did the Paraclete promised by the Lord come?

Here, if I had nothing else to believe, I would more readily wait for him as still to come than grant that he had come through Manichaeus. But as it is, since in the Acts of the Apostles the coming of the Holy Spirit is most manifestly proclaimed, what necessity compels me to believe heretics so perilously and so easily? For in the book mentioned it is thus written: 'The former discourse, O Theophilus, we made concerning all that Jesus began to do and to teach, on the day on which, through the Holy Spirit, he chose the apostles and commanded them to preach the Gospel,'

'to whom also, after his passion, he showed himself alive by many proofs, being seen by them over forty days and speaking of the kingdom of God'—how he conversed with them and commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to await the promise of the Father, 'which you have heard,' he says, 'from my mouth; for John indeed baptized with water, but you shall begin to be baptized with the Holy Spirit,' which also you shall receive not many days from now, up to Pentecost. They indeed, when they had come together, questioned him, saying: 'Lord, if at this time you will present yourself again, and when will the kingdom of Israel?' But he said: 'No one can know the time which the Father has placed in his own power;'

'but you shall receive the power of the Holy Spirit coming upon you, and you shall be my witnesses at Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the whole earth.' Behold, you have where he reminded the disciples of the paternal promise, which they had heard from his mouth concerning the Holy Spirit that was to come. Now let us see when he was sent. For a little after it follows and says: 'At that time, when the day of Pentecost was fulfilled, they were all with one accord together in one place; and suddenly there was made a sound from heaven, as of a violent rushing wind, and it filled the whole place in which they were sitting; and there appeared to them divided tongues, as it were of fire, which also sat upon each one of them.'

'And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in tongues, as the Spirit gave them to utter. Now there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, men out of every nation which is under heaven. And when this voice was made, a crowd came together and was confounded, because each one heard them speaking in his own speech and in his own tongues. And they were astonished and marvelled, saying to one another: Are not all these who speak Galileans by nation? And how do we recognize in them the speech in which we were born? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and those who inhabit Mesopotamia, Armenia and Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the regions of Africa which is toward Cyrene;'

'and those who had come as Romans and Jews, both native-born and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—they heard them speaking in their own tongues the mighty works of God. And they were astonished and hesitated on account of what had happened, saying: What does this mean to be? But others mocked, saying: These are all full of new wine.' Behold where the Holy Spirit came. What more do you wish? If Scriptures are to be believed, why should I not rather believe these which are confirmed by the most robust authority, which, together with the Gospel itself—where we equally believe the Holy Spirit was promised—deserved to become known to the peoples, to be commended to posterity, and to be proclaimed?

When therefore I read these Acts of the Apostles, joined to the Gospel by equal authority, I find that the Holy Spirit was not only promised to those true apostles, but also so manifestly sent that no room was left on this matter for errors. For the glorification of our Lord among men is his resurrection from the dead and his ascension into heaven. And it is written in the Gospel according to John: 'But the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.' If, then, the Spirit was not yet given for this reason, that Jesus was not yet glorified, then, Jesus being glorified, of necessity he was at once given. And on account of that very twofold glorification—according to the man and according to God—the Holy Spirit too was given twice:

once after he had risen from the dead, when he breathed upon the face of the disciples, saying, 'Receive the Holy Spirit'; and again after he had ascended into heaven, ten days having passed—which number signifies perfection, since to the number seven, by which all created things stand established, is added the Trinity of the Creator. Concerning these matters many things are treated piously and cautiously among spiritual men. But I will not depart from my proposal; for I undertook first to deal with you in such a way that I should not teach you—which perhaps you deem arrogant—but as though I myself were eager to learn from you what for nine years I could not learn. Wherefore I have writings in which to believe concerning the coming of the Holy Spirit;

and if you forbid me to believe these, lest I rashly believe what I do not know—for so you are wont to admonish—then far less will I believe your writings. Wherefore, either take away all books from our midst and by argument lay open the truth about which I cannot doubt, or bring forth such books as impose upon me with no arrogance what I am to believe, but display without fraud what I am to learn. Perhaps, you say, this epistle too is such. I do not wish, then, to linger any longer on its threshold: let us look at the interior. 'These,' it says, 'are wholesome words from the perennial and living fountain; and whoever shall have heard them, and first believed them, and then shall have kept what they instill, shall never be subject to death, but shall enjoy eternal and glorious life.'

'For assuredly he is to be judged blessed, who shall have been instructed by this divine knowledge, being liberated through which he shall remain in life everlasting.' And this, as you see, is a promise, not yet an exhibition of the truth; and you too can most easily observe that under such a veil any errors whatever may be painted over, so that they may secretly creep into the minds of the unlearned through an adorned doorway. For if it said: 'These are pestilential words from a poisonous fountain; and whoever shall have heard them, and first believed them, and then shall have kept what they instill, shall never be restored to life, but shall be afflicted with a penal and wretched death—for assuredly he is to be judged wretched, who shall have been ensnared by this infernal ignorance,'

'—being drowned through which he shall remain in everlasting torments'—if, then, it said this, it would speak the truth, but it would not only win no reader for this book, but would stir up into the greatest hatred all into whose hands it might fall. Wherefore let us pass on to what follows, and let not those words deceive us which can be common to good and bad, learned and unlearned. What then follows? 'Peace,' it says, 'of the invisible God, and knowledge of the truth, be with the holy and dearest brethren, who alike believe and serve the heavenly commandments.' So be it, as it says. For this too is a kindly and most acceptable wish. Only let us remember that these things can be said both by good teachers and by deceivers.

And so, if he said nothing but such things, I would grant that it should be read and embraced by all. Nor would I disapprove of those things which follow to this effect; for he adds: 'But may the right hand of light also protect you and rescue you from every malign incursion and from the snares of the world.' And in general, whatever is written in the beginning of this epistle, until the matter itself is reached, I do not wish to censure, lest much labour be consumed on lesser things. Now, then, let us look at the man's most evident promise. 'Concerning that, therefore,' he says, 'most beloved brother Patticius, which you signified to me, saying that you desired to know of what sort is the birth of Adam and Eve—whether they were brought forth by a word, or begotten in body—you shall be answered as is fitting.'

'For concerning these matters it has been inserted and recorded in various Scriptures and revelations by very many, in differing ways. Wherefore the truth of this matter, as it stands, is unknown to nearly all nations and to all who have even long and much disputed about it. For if it had fallen to them to know manifestly about the generation of Adam and Eve, they would never be subject to corruption and death.' He promises us, therefore, manifest knowledge of this matter, that we may not be subjected to corruption and death. And if that is still too little, see what follows. 'Of necessity, therefore,' he says, 'more things must first be recalled, so that this mystery may be reached without any ambiguity.'

This is what I was saying, that the truth ought thus to be demonstrated to me, so that I may reach it without any ambiguity. But if he himself did not promise this, I ought nevertheless to demand and insist upon it, that for so great a reward of most evident and most certain knowledge I should not be ashamed to become a Manichaean from a catholic Christian, whoever might contradict. Now, therefore, let us hear what he brings forward. 'Whence, if it seems good to you,' he says, 'listen first to what things existed before the constitution of the world, and in what manner the battle was waged, so that you may be able to separate the nature of light and of darkness.' Now he has set forth things incredible and altogether false. For who would believe that any battle was joined before the constitution of the world?

And yet, if it were credible, we should want not to believe it, but to know it. For he who says that the Persians and Scythians warred with each other many years ago says a credible thing, yet one which we can believe as either heard or read, not know as experienced and grasped. Since, then, I would repudiate this man if he said any such thing—for he did not promise things I should be compelled to believe, but things I could know without any ambiguity—how shall I not repudiate him when he says things not only uncertain but even incredible? But what if by some reasonings he will make these things clear and known? Let us hear then, if we can, with all patience and gentleness, what follows.

'These indeed,' he says, 'in the beginning were two substances divided from each other. And the empire of light God the Father held in his holy stock, everlasting, magnificent in power, true by his very nature, ever exulting in his proper eternity, containing within himself wisdom and vital senses, through which he also comprehended the twelve members of his light—the overflowing riches, namely, of his own kingdom. And in each of his members are stored thousands of innumerable and immense treasures.'

'But the Father himself, preeminent in his own praise, incomprehensible in greatness, has joined to himself blessed and glorious ages, to be estimated neither by number nor by extent, with whom the same holy and illustrious Father and Begetter dwells, none in his kingdoms being set as either needy or lowly among his notables. And so his most splendid kingdoms are founded upon the shining and blessed earth, so that they can never by any be either moved or shaken.' Whence is he going to prove these things to me, or whence did he himself learn them? Do not terrify me with the name of the Paraclete. First, because I approached, made more fearful by you yourselves, not to believe things unknown but to know things certain.

For you know how vehemently you are wont to mock those who believe rashly, especially since he himself, who has now begun to narrate uncertain things, promised full and firm knowledge a little before. Next, because, if faith is to be commanded of me, that Scripture rather terrifies me, where I read that the Holy Spirit came and inspired the apostles, to whom the Lord had promised he would send him. Wherefore, either prove to me that the things he says are true, so that you may show what I cannot believe, or prove to me that he who says them is the Holy Spirit, so that I may believe what you cannot show. For I profess the catholic faith and presume that through it I shall arrive at certain knowledge;

but you, who try to shake my faith, hand over certain knowledge, if you can, so that you may convince me that I have rashly believed what I did believe. There are two things which you offer me: one, when you say that it is the Holy Spirit who speaks, and the other, when you say that the things he speaks are manifest. Both of these I ought to know from you without any doubt; but I am not greedy—teach me one of these. Show that this is the Holy Spirit, and I will believe that the things he says are true, even if I do not know them; or show that the things he says are true, and I will believe that he is the Holy Spirit, even if I do not know it. Can there be any fairer or more benevolent dealing with you? But you are able to show neither this nor that. You have chosen nothing else but to praise what you believe and to mock what I believe.

When, therefore, I in turn shall have praised what I believe and mocked what you believe, what do you suppose is to be judged by us, or what is to be done, except that we leave behind those who invite us to know certain things and afterward command that we believe uncertain things—and follow those who invite us first to believe what we are not yet able to behold, so that, made stronger by that very faith, we may deserve to understand what we believe, no longer by men, but by God himself inwardly illuminating and strengthening our mind? And since I have asked whence he may prove it to me, now I ask whence he himself has come to know it.

If he says that it was revealed to him by the Holy Spirit and that his own mind was divinely illuminated, so that he might know as certain and manifest the things he says, he himself indicates what the difference is between knowing and believing. For he himself knows, to whom these things are shown most openly; but to those to whom he narrates them, he does not instill knowledge, but persuades to credulity. And whoever rashly consents to him is made a Manichaean, not by knowing certain things, but by believing uncertain things—just as he once deceived us, unlearned young men. He ought therefore not to have promised us knowledge, nor manifest cognition, nor an arrival at what is sought without any ambiguity,

—an arrival, without any ambiguity, at what is sought; but rather he ought to have said that these things were shown to him, but that those to whom they are narrated ought to believe him concerning what they do not know. But if he said this, who would not reply to him: If, then, I am going to believe things unknown, why should I not rather believe those things which are now celebrated by the consent of learned and unlearned alike and are confirmed among all peoples by the weightiest authority? Fearing lest this be said to him, he pours out fogs upon the unlearned, first promising the knowledge of certain things, and afterward commanding the belief of uncertain things. Yet if it be said to him that he should at least teach that these things were shown to him, he likewise fails, and commands us to believe this too. Who would endure such deceit and such pride?

What? If, with the help of God our Lord, I shall have shown that the things he says are not only uncertain but even false, what more wretched thing can be found than this superstition, which not only does not exhibit the knowledge and truth which it promises, but says things which are vehemently contrary to knowledge and truth? This will appear more manifestly in what follows. For he speaks thus: 'Along one part and side of that illustrious and holy earth was the land of darkness, deep and of immense magnitude, in which dwelt fiery bodies—pestilential kinds, that is. Here were infinite shadows flowing from the same nature, immeasurable, with their own offspring; beyond which were miry and turbid waters with their inhabitants;'

'within which were horrible and violent winds with their prince and progenitors. Again, a fiery and corruptible region with its leaders and nations. In like manner, further within, a race full of gloom and smoke, in which dwelt the monstrous prince of all and leader, having around him innumerable princes, of all of whom he himself was the mind and origin: and these were the five natures of the pestilential land.' If he said that the nature of God was an airy or even ethereal body, he would assuredly be laughed at by all who are able—with whatever keenness of a now more serene mind—to behold the nature of wisdom and truth, extended and diffused through no spaces of places, great and magnificent without any mass, neither lesser in a part nor greater in a part, but through all things equal to the supreme Father,

having neither one thing here and another elsewhere, but everywhere whole, everywhere present. But what shall I say of truth and wisdom, which surpass all the powers of the soul—since the very nature of the soul, which is found to be mutable, in no way occupies the spaces of places with any mass of its own? For whatever is of any thickness whatever cannot but be diminished part by part, having one thing here and another elsewhere. For a finger is less than the whole hand, and one finger is less than two, and this finger is in one place, that in another, and the rest of the hand in another. Which we see not only in the jointed masses of bodies, but even this part of the earth is not there where that part is, because each thing occupies its own place;

and a smaller part of a liquid is in a smaller place, and a greater in a greater; and one part is around the bottom, another around the rims of the cup. Likewise the parts of air each fill their own places. Nor can it come to pass that the air with which this house is filled can have with it, in the same house, also that air which the neighbours have. And of light itself, one part is poured through this window, another through that, and a greater through a greater, a lesser through a lesser. Nor can there be at all any body—whether celestial or terrestrial or airy or watery—which is not less in a part than in the whole:

nor could it in any way have in the place of this part another part at the same time, but, having one thing here and another elsewhere, it is stretched out through any spaces of places whatever by a mass that is distant and divided, or rather, so to speak, sectile. But the nature of the soul—even if that power of it be not considered by which it understands truth, but that lower power by which it holds together the body and perceives in the body—is in no way found to be stretched out through the spaces of places by any mass. For it is wholly present to the several particles of its body, since it wholly perceives in the several parts; nor is a lesser part of it in the finger and a greater in the arm, just as the finger itself is smaller than the arm, but everywhere it is as great, because everywhere it is whole. For when a finger is touched,

it does not perceive throughout the whole body, and yet it wholly perceives. For that touch does not escape the whole; which would not happen unless it were wholly present. Nor is it so wholly present, when the finger is touched and it perceives in the finger, that it should for the rest desert the body and gather itself together to that one place in which it perceives. But when the hand wholly perceives in the finger, if another place be touched in the foot, it does not there cease to perceive wholly; and thus in the several distant places it is wholly present at the same time, not deserting the one so as to be whole in the other, nor holding both in such a way as to have one part here and another elsewhere, but sufficing to exhibit itself wholly to the several places at the same time, since—because it wholly perceives in the several parts—it sufficiently shows that it is not held by the spaces of places. What?

What if we consider its memory—not of intelligible things, but of these corporeal ones, which even beasts are perceived to have? For beasts too proceed without error through known places, and beasts return to their own lairs, and dogs recognize the bodies of their masters, and while sleeping they often mutter and sometimes burst into barking—which they could in no way do, unless images of things seen, or somehow perceived through the body, were turning in their memory. Who could worthily consider where those images are received, where they are carried, or where they are formed? For if they could not be greater than the quantity of our body could hold, one might say that within the very spaces of its own body, by which the soul too is enclosed,

the soul shapes and preserves these images. But as it is, since the body occupies a very tiny portion of the earth, the mind revolves images of immense regions and of heaven and earth, which, departing and succeeding in troops, do not make it cramped; and hence it shows itself not to be diffused through places, because it is not, as it were, captured by the images of the greatest places, but rather captures them—not by any fold or recess, but by an ineffable power, by which it is permitted to them both to add whatever it will and to take away, and to contract them into a narrow space and to expand them through immense extents, and to arrange them as it wishes, and to disturb and multiply them, and to reduce them to fewness or singularity. What now shall I say of that power—

By what faculty is truth understood — that faculty by which, when the very images drawn from bodily sense set themselves up in place of truth, they are resisted with great vigour? By what faculty is it seen that the true Carthage, for instance, is one thing, and that which a man fashions by thinking and, according to his own pleasure, changes with complete ease is another; that from this same ease there come the innumerable worlds through which the thought of Epicurus wandered without number; and — not to pursue many examples — that from this same ease there come both that earth of light spread abroad through infinite spaces and the five dens of the race of darkness with their inhabitants, in which the Manichaeans have dared to usurp for their phantasms the name of truth? What then is this power that discerns these things?

Assuredly, however great it be, it is both greater than all these things and is conceived without any such imagining of material things. Find spaces for it, if you can; spread it out through places; stretch it by the swelling of an infinite mass. Assuredly, if you think rightly, you cannot. For whatever such thing occurs to you, you judge by that very act of thinking that it can be cut into parts, and there you make one part smaller and another larger, as much as you please; but that very faculty by which you judge these things you perceive to be above them — not by loftiness of place, but by the dignity of its power. Wherefore, if the soul, so often changeable — whether by the crowd of its varied wills, or by its affections bending itself according to the abundance or want of things, or by the innumerable plays of phantasms themselves,

or by forgetfulness and memory, or by learning and ignorance — if, then, you perceive that the soul, as I said, though so often changeable by these and suchlike motions, is nevertheless not spread out and extended through places, but by the vigour of its power surpasses all such spaces, what must be thought or judged concerning God himself, who, abiding unshaken and unchangeable above all rational minds, bestows on each what is to be bestowed? Him the soul dares more easily to utter than to see, and the more sincerely it has been able to see him, the less does it utter him.

Yet if, as the phantasms of the Manichaeans clamour, he were bounded on one side by place and stretched on the others through immeasurable space, then however many little portions and innumerable fragments there might be in him, some greater, some smaller, they would be measured according to the thinker's arbitrary will, so that, for example, a two-foot part in him would be eight parts smaller than a ten-foot part. For this must necessarily befall all natures which, being diffused through such spaces, cannot be wholly everywhere — which is not found in the soul itself, and which is shamefully and basely believed of it by those who lack the strength to consider these matters.

Nevertheless, with carnal minds one must perhaps not proceed thus, but rather descend to the thoughts of those who, in their thinking, either do not dare or are not yet able to pursue an incorporeal and spiritual nature — so much so that they do not even consider their own thought by that same thought and find it, though it occupies no space of place, judging concerning the very spaces of place. Let us therefore descend to their manner of perceiving and ask them: on which part, or on which side, according as the Manichaean says, was the land of darkness alongside that illustrious and holy land? For he says, "On one part and side," but does not say which part or which side — right or left. But whichever they choose, this at least is manifest: that one is not said to be one side

unless there is where there is another side. But where there are either three or more sides, either the circuit of a figure is understood to be bounded on every side, or, if on some part it lies open into the immeasurable, it must nevertheless be bounded by those which are called sides. Let them tell us, then: on the other side, or on the other sides, what was joined to the land of light, if on one side there was the race of darkness? They do not say; but when they are pressed to say it, they say that the other sides of that land which they call the land of light are infinite — that is, that it is stretched out through infinite spaces and confined by no limit. Nor do they understand that then these are no longer sides — a thing most obvious even to any slow wits; for they would be sides only if they were bounded by their limits. "What is it to me," he says, "if there are no sides?"

But when you said "on one part and side," you compelled another part too, or parts, and another side, or sides, to be understood. For if there was only one side, it ought to have been said simply "alongside the side," not "alongside one side." Just as in our body we rightly say that something is alongside one eye, because there is another eye, or alongside one breast, because there is another. But if we should say alongside one nose or alongside one navel, when there is no other, we shall be laughed at by learned and unlearned alike. But I do not press you with words; for perhaps you meant "one" as "only." What, then, was alongside that side of the land which you call illustrious and holy? "The land," he says, "of darkness." What? Do you at least grant concerning this land that it was corporeal?

You must needs say this, since you assert that all bodies derive their origin thence. What then, I ask? Though slow, though carnal men, have you never even at any time noticed this — that these two lands could not be joined to each other by sides unless each were corporeal? Why then was it told us, perverted as we were by some blindness, that only the land of darkness had been or was corporeal, but that the one which was called the land of light ought to be believed incorporeal and spiritual? Let us at last wake up, good men, at least when admonished — which is very easy. Let us attend to the fact that two lands cannot be joined to each other by sides unless each is a body. Or if we are too gross and dull even for these things, I ask:

whether the land of darkness itself also had one side and the rest infinite, like the land of light. They do not believe so, for they fear lest it should seem equal to God. They say therefore that it is immeasurable in depth and in length; but upward, above it, they affirm spaces of infinite emptiness. And lest even it should seem to hold a single measure while the land of light held a double, they narrow it on two sides as well — as if, say, a single loaf (for what is being said can more easily be seen thus) were formed crosswise into four squares, of which three were white, one black. Now from the three white ones remove the distinction and make them infinite both upward and downward and everywhere behind: thus by them is the land of light believed to be.

But that black square make infinite downward and behind, while having above itself an immeasurable emptiness: thus they suppose the land of darkness to be. But these things they display, as it were as secrets, only to those who inquire very attentively and eagerly. Nevertheless, if it is so, it appears that the land of darkness is touched by the land of light on two sides; and surely if it is touched by two, it also touches by two. Certainly the land of darkness was alongside one side. Then how foul the figure of the land of light appears! — like a cloven hoof pinched below by a certain black wedge, bounded only there where it is cleft, gaping too and lying open above with an emptiness set between: whatever there is immeasurably upward from the surface of the land of darkness.

Then how much better is shown the figure of the land of darkness itself, since indeed the one cleaves, the other is cleft; the one is inserted, the other lies open between; the one gives place within itself to no emptiness, the other is not loose only in its lower part, where it is filled up by the hostile wedge. Unlearned men, then, and greedy, when they assign greater honour to a multitude of parts than to unity, so as to give six parts to the land of light — three downward, three upward — they preferred that the land of light be penetrated rather than penetrate. For by such a figure, even though they deny it to be commingled, yet they cannot deny it to be penetrated. Compare now the men of the catholic faith, though not spiritual,

in whom, as far as the mind can in this life, one discerns that the divine substance and nature is stretched out by no spaces of place, figured by no dimensions of outline. But compare our carnal and little ones, who, on hearing certain members of our body spoken of allegorically — as when the eyes of God and the ears of God are mentioned, and who by the license of imagination are wont to figure God to themselves under the form of a human body — compare these now with those Manichaeans, who are wont to describe these trifles to attentive and curious men as though they were great secrets; and consider which of them feel more tolerably and more honourably concerning God: whether those who think of him under a human form endowed with the highest dignity in its own kind, or those

who think of him as diffused in an infinite mass, yet not on every side, but infinite and dense in three squares, while cleft on one side — lying open, gaping, loose above with emptiness, wedged below with the land of darkness; or, if it is better so to speak, open above by its own nature, entered below by an alien one? Behold, I laugh together with you at carnal men, who cannot yet think spiritual things, judging God to be of human form; but do you too laugh with me, if you can, at those who imagine so misshapen and base a fissure or rent of God — so emptily gaping above, so dishonourably stopped up below — with a most pitiable act of thought; since there is also this difference, that those carnal men who think of God in human form,

if content within the bosom of the catholic Church, where they must be nourished with milk, do not cast themselves headlong into rash opinions, but there nourish a pious zeal of seeking — there let them seek that they may receive, there let them knock that it may be opened to them — begin to understand the allegories and parables of the Scriptures spiritually, and gradually to perceive that the divine powers are fittingly named now by the term of ears, now of eyes, now of hands or feet or even of wings and feathers, of shield too and sword and helmet and the rest of such innumerable things. The more they advance in this understanding, the more they are confirmed to be catholics; whereas the Manichaeans, once they have abandoned the imagining of that figure, will not be able to be Manichaeans.

For they ascribe this as something proper and pre-eminent to the praises of their founder: that they say those divine mysteries which were placed figuratively in the books by the ancients were reserved to be unravelled and shown by him who was to come last; and that on this account, after this man, no teacher would henceforth come from God, because he had said nothing through figures and allegories, since he both opened up the ancient things which had been such, and set forth his own plainly and manifestly. These men, then, have no interpretations to which they may resort, when it is read to them concerning their founder: "But alongside one part and side of that illustrious and holy land was the land of darkness."

Wherever they turn, it is inevitable that, cramped by the misery of their phantasms, they fall into clefts, or abrupt truncations and junctures, or most base props — things which it is most wretched to believe not, I will say, of the unchangeable nature of God, but of any incorporeal nature whatever, however changeable, as the soul is. And yet, if I could not strain myself toward higher things, nor unfold my thoughts out of the false imaginings which, fixed by memory, I carry through the bodily senses, into the liberty and sincerity of a spiritual nature, how much better would I think of God under the form of a human body than affix to him that black wedge of his lower cleft, and, finding no way to plug up his upper vastest looseness,

whence I might stop it up, and so leave it lying open and gaping with an immeasurable emptiness — how much better would that be! What is more foul than that opinion? What more dark can be said or feigned than this error? Then I wish it to be told me — since I read of God the Father and of his kingdoms founded above the luminous and blessed land — whether the Father and his kingdoms and the land are of one and the same substance and nature. And if it is so, then it is no longer some other nature, as it were a body of God, that the wedge of the race of darkness cleaves and penetrates — which itself would already be most base with unspeakable deformity — but the very nature of God altogether that the wedge of the land of darkness cleaves and penetrates.

I beg you, consider these things — you are men — I beg you, consider these things and flee them; and tear out and drive away from your faith the sacrileges of such phantasms with breasts rent, if it can be done. Or will you say that those three are not of one and the same nature, but that the Father is of one, the kingdoms of another, the land of another, so that each has its own diverse natures and substances, ranked by grades of excellence? But if that is true, then Manichaeus ought to have proclaimed not two, but four natures. If, however, the Father and the kingdoms have one nature, but the land alone a different one, then three natures ought to have been proclaimed.

Or if for this reason he preferred to say two — because the land of darkness does not pertain to God — I ask, how does the land of light pertain to God? For if it both has a different nature and he neither begot it nor made it, then it does not pertain to him, and his kingdoms are situated in another's domain. Or if it pertains for this reason, that it is near, then let the land of darkness pertain too, which touches the land of light not only by nearness, but even furrows it through by penetration. But if he begot it, it ought not to be believed to have a different nature; for what God begot, that ought to be believed to be what God is, just as concerning the only-begotten Son it is believed in the catholic faith.

And so necessity recalls you to fleeing and detesting that baseness, so that it is not a land, as it were another and diverse, but the very nature of God that the black wedge cleaves. But if God did not beget it, but made it, I ask, whence did he make it? If out of himself, what else is that than to have begotten it? If out of some alien nature, I ask, whether good or evil. If good, then there was some good nature which did not pertain to God — which you will in no way dare to say. But if evil, then that race of darkness was not the only evil nature. Or perhaps God had already taken from it some part which he might convert into the land of light and establish his kingdoms upon it? Then he would have done it out of the whole, so that even long ago there would have been no evil nature at all.

But if he did not make the land of light out of an alien substance, it remains that he made it out of nothing. Wherefore, if you are now persuaded that Almighty God can make something good out of nothing, come into the catholic Church and learn that all the natures which God made and founded are ranked by grades of excellence from the highest to the lowest, all good, but some more excellent than others; and that they were made out of nothing, since God the Artificer, by his wisdom, wrought, so to speak, potentially, so that what was not might be, and, insofar as it existed, might be good; but insofar as it should be defective, might show that it was not begotten of God, but made by him out of nothing.

For if you consider it, you find nothing that holds you back: since you can neither say that the land of light which you describe is this which God is — lest the foulness of that square be crammed into the very nature of God; nor that it was begotten of him — lest none the less it be compelled to be understood as this which God is, and return to the same deformity; nor that it is alien from him — lest we press you to say that he placed his kingdoms in another's domain, and to speak not of two but of three natures; nor that it was made by him out of an alien substance — lest either there be another good besides God, or an evil besides the race of darkness. It remains, therefore, for you to confess that God made the land of light out of nothing — and you are unwilling to believe it.

But if God could make out of nothing some great good, which nevertheless would be inferior to himself, he could also — because he is good and envies no good — make another good which would be inferior to that former one; he could make a third too, to which the second would be preferred; and then he could lead the order of created natures down to the lowest good, until the universe of them should not flow away uncertain with an indefinite number, but stand fixed, bounded by a certain limit. But if you are unwilling to confess that God made even this land of light out of nothing, there will be no way out by which you may escape such basenesses and such sacrilegious opinions.

Or at least see — since it is free for carnal thought to imagine phantasms of whatever kind it pleases — whether perhaps you can find some other figure for this conjunction of the two lands, lest so detestable and abominable an appearance of things present itself to the mind: namely, that the land of God — whether it be of the same nature as God, or of a different one, in which nevertheless the kingdoms of God are founded — lies with so vast a mass through the immeasurable, that it lies with limbs stretched out and laid open through the infinite, by which, most foully and most basely, it receives from the lower part even that crammed-in wedge of the land of darkness, itself of immeasurable magnitude. But whatever other figure you may find,

by which these two lands may be joined to each other, you certainly cannot blot out the writings of Manichaeus — I do not say others in which he described these things more expressly (for perhaps, because they are known to fewer, they may seem to have less danger) — but these very ones now under discussion, of the Epistle of the Foundation, which is wont to be most well known to nearly all who among you are called the enlightened. For here it is written thus: "But alongside one part and side of that illustrious and holy land was the land of darkness, deep and of immeasurable magnitude." What do we wait for further? For we hold what was alongside the side.

Now feign figures however you please and describe outlines of whatever sort; that immeasurable mass of the land of darkness was assuredly joined to the land of light either by a straight side, or by a curved, or by a crooked one. But if by a crooked one, then that holy land too has a crooked side; for if it has a straight side and is touched by the crooked side of this one, then certain deep caverns lie open between, empty through the infinite, and there was no longer emptiness only above the land of darkness, as we used to hear. But if it is so, how much better would it have been that the land of light should remove itself somewhat farther off, and that so great an emptiness should lie between, so that it could not be touched at all in any part by the land of darkness!

Nay rather, so great a space of empty depth might lie open that, if any wickedness of that race should arise — even if the princes of darkness should rashly wish to leap across into that land (since bodies cannot fly unless they are borne up by corporeal air) — being cast headlong through that void and, because it would be infinite downward, never at any time reaching any bottom, then, even if they could always live, yet, while they are always borne downward, they could never do harm. But if it was joined by a curved side, then the land of light too received it misshapenly in a curved bosom. Or if this one was curved inward as it were in the shape of a theatre, it embraced the curved part of the land of light, received in such a bosom, with a coupling no less misshapen.