文集 第 1 章

1. OF EVODIUS, ON THE FAITH AGAINST THE MANICHAEANS. One God, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, invisible, incomprehensible, ineffable, inviolable, undefilable, who alone has immortality and dwells in light inaccessible. He himself is the true light, life and truth, good, supreme, and whatever the human tongue can declare about him: which things, however, are given by him, so that they may in some way be spoken. From whom are all things, through whom are all things, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; and all things were created through him and in him, as is manifested in both Testaments to the humble and to those who seek piously. To him be glory throughout the ages of ages. Amen.

To this One Mani says there is an adversary, some prince of the nation of darkness, whom he also asserts to be unbegotten and to have no author by whom he was created. And surely if he is unbegotten and not created, he is immortal through himself. And if he is immortal through himself, he will not be God who alone has immortality, and the apostle will now be a liar, who says concerning God that he alone has immortality. But because the apostle is not a liar, God alone has immortality. And therefore he alone has the power to grant immortality to souls and to whatever bodies he wills. It is false therefore that Mani asserts that some nature of evil with its prince has no author but is unbegotten.

Furthermore, if God is unbegotten, and the nation of darkness is also even now unbegotten, then the unbegotten and the unbegotten will not be contrary, nor the seeing and the seeing, nor the reigning and the reigning, nor the living and the living, nor the eternal and the eternal. And if evil is contrary to good, then in some part good will be at variance with evil; but in much it will be joined and concordant, and it will no longer be pure evil, having so many good things in common with God. But if they say: it is unbegotten in its own kind, they say nothing. For the unbegotten and the unbegotten, the eternal and the eternal—insofar as they are unbegotten and eternal—were never contrary.

For is it that, because an emperor is great in his power and a menial is contemptible in his work, therefore the menial will not be a man, because the emperor is a man? But if anyone asks what evil is, let him hear the apostle saying: The root of all evils is covetousness, which some coveting have wandered from the faith and have entangled themselves in many sorrows. But covetousness in each man is not natural but voluntary, and therefore he said "which some coveting." For what is had by coveting, if it were not coveted, would not be had. For the Lord also, showing that it is in man's power, says: Either make the tree good and its fruit good; or make the tree evil and its fruit evil.

Also in the acts written in silence, which they themselves receive, it is thus written: For indeed beautiful figments and feigned ostentation and the compulsion of visible things does not proceed even from its own nature, but from man, who through himself has been made worse by seduction. Mani himself also could not but confess that souls—even those which he says pertain to the substance of God—sin by their own will. For thus in the second book of the Treasure he says: But those who through their negligence have in no wise permitted themselves to be purged from the stain of the aforesaid spirits, and have too little obeyed the divine commands in their integrity, and have refused to keep more fully the law given them by their liberator, and have not, as was fitting, governed themselves, and so forth.

Likewise in the Epistle of the Foundation he speaks thus concerning those souls: which by love of the world have suffered themselves to wander from their former luminous nature and have become enemies of the holy light and have openly armed themselves to the ruin of the holy elements and have given themselves over to the fiery spirit. By their hostile persecution they have also afflicted the holy Church and the elect established in it, the observers of the heavenly precepts, and they are barred from the blessedness and glory of the holy land. And because they suffered themselves to be overcome by evil, they shall persevere in the same stock of evil, that peaceful land and the immortal regions being forbidden to them. And this shall befall them because they so bound themselves by wicked works that they should be made strangers to the life and liberty of the holy light.

They will not therefore be able to be received into those peaceful kingdoms, but they shall be fixed in the aforesaid horrible globe, to which also it is necessary that a guard be set. Whence those same souls shall cling to those things which they loved, left behind in that same globe of darkness, acquiring this for themselves by their own merits. For neither did they take care to know these future things, and from these very things, when time was given, they did not separate themselves. I ask you: where these words are heard, do you still doubt that Mani was driven to confess that there is a sin of one's own will? For he said not one word about it, but so many words that he might rouse even one held by heavy sleep. He said: by their negligence; he said: in no wise permitted; he said: too little obeyed; he said: refused to keep; likewise he said:

they obeyed; he said: they suffered themselves to be overcome; he said: they bound themselves; he said: acquiring this for themselves by their own merits; he said: for neither did they take care to know these future things, and from these very things, when time was given, they separated themselves. And do you still doubt to say that one sins by one's own will? Again he himself says in the same epistle: but the secondary portion of light, that is, the sinning souls—and do you not say that they sin, but only the nation of darkness? But why should I speak about this man, who, although he erred, nevertheless by the most evident truth tried to say this? Whereas you are unwilling to understand our Lord Jesus Christ himself, saying that fire has been prepared for sinners and for the devil and his angels, all of whom he wished to be understood as sinners;

for there is no injustice with God, that he should condemn those who have sinned in nothing. For what else is it to sin except not to stand in the precepts of truth or in the truth itself? And if sinners do this not by their own will, they are judged unjustly. But that angels too pertain to judgment, the apostle shows, saying: Do you not know that we shall judge angels? But they would not pertain to the judgment by which they are judged, if they did not pertain to the sin by which they are made guilty and might deservedly be judged. For just men are not going to judge concerning just angels, to whom they shall be like, but assuredly concerning sinners. Each one therefore is the author of his own wrongdoing through covetousness. It is therefore in his power that covetousness should exist: and therefore evil too is in his power.

It is therefore within our power to do what ought not to be in our will; for evil cannot be a nature, nor a substance, nor a life, since these things are good insofar as they exist. But even if we call some people evil by nature, we say this on account of the origin of the old sin, into which our mortality is already born. And so, the whole of what is called evil in human beings is sin and its punishment. Sin is committed by the rational soul, which has free choice of the will; and punishment is inflicted by the justice of God, who does nothing unjustly. Against these truths the Manichaeans bark with their accustomed blindness; and when they are refuted, shown that nature is not evil but that it lies within a person's power to do well or ill, they say that the soul has no free will, and they do not see their own blindness.

For who would not cry out that it is foolish to give commands to one who is not free to do what is commanded, and that it is unjust to condemn one who had no power to fulfill what was ordered? And these wretches do not understand that they are ascribing such injustices and iniquities to God. But what is true except that the Lord both gives commands, and that souls are of free will, and that nature is not evil, but that evil is a turning away from the commands of God, and that the judgment of God is just, by which He condemns those who sin? Meanwhile, this same Manichaeus says that God abounds in all good things, with nothing in His kingdoms being eminent yet wanting or set in a lowly state, and likewise that His most splendid ages were so firmly founded that they could never be shaken or moved by anything.

In another place, a little after, he adds and says: "But the Father of the most blessed light, knowing the great ruin and devastation that would rise up out of the darkness to threaten His holy ages, unless He should set against it some excellent and illustrious power, mighty in strength, by which He might overcome and at once destroy the stock of darkness; and when it was extinguished, rest would be prepared for the inhabitants of the light." Surely, then, the kingdoms of the Manichaeans' god could never have been shaken or moved by anyone. For if they could, he lied in saying that those kingdoms could not be shaken by anyone. And if they were shaken by necessity or by fear, then He will not be God who could be so shaken.

For we see that the god of Manichaeus, according to Manichaeus himself, was pressed by the evil of necessity, since ruin and devastation threatened his ages and he had nothing else he could do, so that he gave a part of himself to the battle, in order that even in this way he might procure rest for the inhabitants of the light. But that very part of him—that is, light from light, good from good, holy from holy, eternal from eternal, God from God, omnipotent from omnipotent—was corrupted, was put to death, was mingled throughout all the bodies of the world, from the highest to the lowest, from heaven down to dung, so that even harlots in the theaters and in baser places have within themselves an oppressed god, baser still, who perhaps cannot be set free.

For he says at the end of that letter, from which we have already cited one chapter, that this very part of God which has been mingled cannot wholly be recalled to its former liberty. Behold the victory, behold the triumph, such as the god of Manichaeus has achieved! For after losing his part he is in mourning, as Manichaeus himself says: he holds a veil before himself to temper his grief, lest he behold the corruption of his part. For today the divine substance which he mentions lies subject to the race of darkness, like clay to the potter. This is written in their first book, the Treasury. Meanwhile, what sort of foulness, which he wrote in that same Treasury among other foul things in the seventh book, speaking thus:

"Then that blessed Father, who has the shining ships as His lodgings and dwellings according to their magnitudes, out of the clemency innate in Him brings aid, by which He is unclothed and set free from the impious fetters and constraints and torments of His living substance. And so by His invisible nod He transforms those powers of His which are held in this most brilliant ship, and makes them appear to the hostile powers which are set in order throughout the several regions of the heavens."

Since these consist of both sexes, of males and females, He therefore commands the aforesaid powers, partly in the appearance of beardless boys, to appear to the opposing race of females, and partly in the form of shining virgins to the contrary race of males—knowing that all those hostile powers are most easily captured, on account of the deadly and most filthy lust innate in them, by those same most beautiful appearances which appear to them, and thus be enslaved, and in this manner dissolved. Know also that this same blessed Father of ours is one and the same with even His own powers, which for a necessary cause He transforms into the unsullied likeness of boys and virgins. And He uses these as His own weapons, and through them He accomplishes His will.

Of these divine powers, which are set in the manner of a marriage-bond against the infernal races, and which with eagerness and ease accomplish in the very same moment whatever they have conceived, the shining ships are full. And so, when reason demands that these same holy powers appear to the males, at once they display also their own figure in the guise of most beautiful virgins. Again, when they come to the females, setting aside the appearance of virgins, they show the appearance of beardless boys. And by this comely sight the ardor and lust of those powers grows, and in this manner the bond of their most wicked thoughts is loosed; and the soul which was held in their members, freed by this occasion, escapes, and being released, mingles with its own purest air.

There, the wholly cleansed souls ascend to the shining ships, which are prepared for their conveyance and for the passage to their own homeland. But that part which still carries the stains of the opposing race descends bit by bit through the heat and warmth, and is mingled with the trees and the other plantations and all the crops, and is stained with various colors. And in the same way that out of this great and most brilliant ship the figures of boys and virgins appear to the contrary powers which dwell in the heavens and have a fiery nature, so from this comely sight the part of life which is held in their members is released and led down through the heat into the earth.

In the same way also that most exalted power, which dwells in the ship of living waters, in the likeness of holy boys and virgins, through its angels appears to those powers whose nature is cold and moist and which are set in order in the heavens. And indeed to those which are female, in them appears the form of boys, but to the males the form of virgins. By this change and diversity of the divine and most beautiful persons, the male or female princes of the moist and cold stock are dissolved, and that which is living in them flees away; but whatever remains, being released, is led down into the earth through the cold, and is mingled with all the kinds of the earth.

Who would not laugh, or rather grieve and detest this man who utters such horrible and execrable things about the divine substance? So then, according to your error and your fabrication, the substance of eternal light, the part of God in captivity, in calamities, in hardships, in pressures, in filth and uncleanness, could not otherwise be daily relieved unless the blessed Father, who has the shining ships as His lodgings—whom you call the third legate—and the most exalted power should transform their powers into a nature of the opposite sex; powers which indeed you call unsullied, yet which, after the manner of harlots, by their beauty mutually inflame the deadly and most filthy lust of the princes of darkness, all in confusion!

For you have not found the truth, by which you might at some point have stated so great a foulness more honorably. And for what cause do they do this? So that, when these powers have been stirred up to lust, the divine substance may find an occasion for liberation. What else does this amount to, except that the divine majesty should find ways of escape even through the genitals of demons? O great God, come to the aid of souls that believe such foul things, that follow such unspeakable doctrines! Who would not shudder at these things? I ask you. Who is so blind as to believe these things? I ask you. But let at least this be answered to me by those who follow Manichaeus himself: if God is incorruptible, or every nature of the highest good is inviolable, immaculate, unapproachable, unstainable, incomprehensible:

what evil could the nature of evil have done to so great a nature, if it had not wished to fight against it, lest it be led down to such great disgrace? This I have said: what would the race of darkness have done to God, if He had not wished to fight against it? If to me it is said "nothing," I ask, why today is His part—that is, the God of God—set in calamities, in pressures, in captivity, in subjection, so that it is even so shamefully set free, and yet not even thus can it all be set free, nor can the Father Himself, so that he has mourning on account of his aforesaid part—a mourning which Manichaeus most openly proclaims in his books? Someone has said: "Nothing could be done to Him, but in order to show that He had foreknowledge of the thoughts of the princes of darkness, and to demonstrate that He feared nothing, He therefore fought."

To him I said: He who was able to see the thoughts of the princes of darkness and to fear no one, why did He not foresee the mourning that was about to come upon Him from the misfortune of His part, which He suffers today? Which part of His He will indeed not receive back whole, because something remains there—as he himself says—which cannot be purged, and which will be condemned in the lump of darkness for eternity. What great foreknowledge—or rather, what ignorance and what wretched weakness! This is the whole of it, that He feared no one. Surely, if He could not protect Himself in any way, He should have asked that He be spared, lest that integrity and the glory of all His adornments be led down to such great disgrace. Likewise it has been said by a certain one:

"The race of darkness could do nothing to Him, but He Himself was unwilling to endure an evil thing near His own borders, and He sent forth one to wage war on it." To him I said: If it is as you say, then He Himself is rather found to be evil, who wished to destroy a neighboring thing that was doing Him no harm. And just as He was evil toward it, so He was cruel toward His own, or ignorant of its coming calamity. For when He thinks He can accomplish a good thing—namely, to extend His own region into the kingdom of evil, which was doing Him no harm—first He did not foresee the misfortune which daily presses upon that aforesaid part of His; and then that He could never receive it all back into its former liberty. But since no answer can in the least be given to this objection, they bring forward their accustomed ignorance:

"What would the Jews have done to Christ, if He had not wished to suffer at their hands?" Oh, would that they could see what they would easily see, were they not blinded by the mists of contentiousness—what it is to be pressed by the necessity of a threatening evil (which they assert their god suffered), and what it is to be the most kindly office of mercy, which the Wisdom and Power of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, by His will and ineffable power, through the man whom He took from a virgin, deigned to display to the human race, so that to men, through a man, He might show an example of patience. For this was fitting, and this was just:

that men, through the patience of humility, might overcome the difficulty of the weakness of their own flesh, into which they had fallen through the exaltation of pride, just as our Scripture indicates concerning Adam, the first man. Can you also say: "Because there were certain men whom God wished to teach patience, therefore He willed to suffer such great evils at the hands of the race of darkness, just as the Lord did at the hands of the Jews"? Or can you say that God took on some passible nature in which He might suffer at the hands of the race of darkness whatever it could do to Him, yet in such a way that He Himself was in no part changed in His substance, just as the Word of God, who is the Son of God, He too, like the Father, immutable, took on a mortal man?

so that, with His deity whole and inviolate in mortal flesh, He might teach mortals through patience to conquer death, and might show forth, by the resurrection, the future change for the better of that same weak flesh? Therefore, since in Himself He was invisible, He appeared visible in a man, whom He deigned to take from a woman, as we read in the Gospel. The Apostle also says: "made of a woman." And these people say: "Why did he not say 'of a virgin'?"—not understanding that it was said in the customary manner, according to the proper usage of the language of the Scriptures, just as it was said of Eve: "He formed her into a woman," before she was even shown to the man.

Although Mary is not inappropriately called a woman on account of childbearing, yet she is a virgin, because she knew no union with a man, nor was her virginity corrupted in giving birth. And as for what the angel and Elizabeth said to Mary—"Blessed art thou among women"—there is no question, because in truth she is blessed as a virgin among women. But do not say: "Just as the angels appeared, so He had a body, lest He be born of a woman." What then? If it should be said to you: where have you read that Christ came in the flesh? Will you not say: in the Gospel? You are answered, then, that it is written there that Christ was born of a virgin. But with your accustomed foulness you will say that this very Scripture is false.

Nor do you see that some blind man like yourselves could do this very thing—namely, declare false the things which you have called true, and declare true the things which you call false—and so you would open the doors to every error or crime of men, so that each one, just as he wishes or as he is pleased, may accept the divine Scriptures themselves, but reject whatever, not understanding and being offended, he has thought to be evil; and there would be found no rule by which such errors of yours might be corrected. Receive the canonical Scriptures whole, if you desire to be whole. For if you understood, or surely believed, what the Apostle said—that our race was deceived through a woman (for he says: "I fear lest, as the serpent seduced Eve by his cunning,

so also your minds should be corrupted")—you would be able to understand that it was fitting for our race to be set free through a woman, so that, since death came through a woman, life might be recovered through a woman; and thus it might be shown that it is not the female creature itself that is to be blamed (of which God is the Creator), but the will by which Eve sinned. But they are afraid to believe that that unstainable and ineffable power of the majesty was in a virginal womb, lest it be polluted by her blood—although it both has dwelt and now dwells in the apostles and in many worthy women, who certainly have bodies and have blood. For if it could be defiled in Mary, it could be defiled in all of them; but if it could not be defiled in them, then surely it could not be defiled in Mary either.

In whose womb the Wisdom of God wrought the taking-on of a body. Certainly they will not deny that Manichaeus himself was born of a father and a mother—whose soul, according to their error, they likewise will not deny to be omnipotent God. He who boasts, with marvelous pride, that he was taken up by his Twin, that is, by the Holy Spirit. And surely, if he is the twin of the Holy Spirit, then he too is the Holy Spirit and he too is omnipotent God, as the Holy Spirit is. Yet this Manichaeus had flesh, in which, if the Holy Spirit was defiled, or his soul the twin of the Holy Spirit, then they worship a defilable god. But if God is nowhere defiled—since even the light of the heavenly bodies reaches down to the earth and is not defiled—

since it is manifest that this very sun, to which they bend the knee, spreads its rays over all dung and stenches and is nowhere defiled by them: let them cease to blaspheme, and let them entreat God that they be set free from error. For the unstainable substance is not undefiled for this reason—that it touches nothing—but because it remains in its own cleanness, whatever sort the thing be that it touches. Just as of an invulnerable or impenetrable body, do we say that it is one that is not struck by iron? No, rather, one that, even when it is struck, is not penetrated.

And therefore it is the more proven that the Son of God cannot be defiled by the blood of a woman, precisely because He was born through a woman—whereas, if He had not been born through a woman and had avoided those members, He would seem to have indicated that He could be polluted from that source, and would be called unstainable by us with less confidence. But He consecrated virginity, because He willed to be born of a virgin, and a mother alone was to be chosen for Him on earth for the taking-on of the man—He who already had a Father in heaven. But they say: "Why then did He deny His mother, when He said to her: 'What is it to me and to thee, woman?' and when, on being told that she wished to see Him, He answered: 'Who is my mother, or who are my brethren?'"

Rather, He reckoned among that affection those who did the will of His Father, because by His own example He was already teaching that earthly parents are to be denied for God's sake. For to one doing the divine works, earthly affection ought not to be an obstruction. For if He had no mother because He denied His mother, then neither did Peter and the other apostles have fathers, because He admonished them, saying: "And call no man your father upon earth; for one is your Father, who is in heaven." What therefore He admonished them concerning the earthly father, He did first concerning His mother. This therefore we say: that the Wisdom of God was not defiled by taking on a man;

but out of mercy, for the salvation of men, He took on a man, so that, as the Apostle says, there might be a Mediator of God and men, the man Jesus Christ. For He who said "I am the Truth" could not lie to His doubting disciple, when He offered the scars of His wounds for him even to touch with his hand. For how could we have faith in Him secure in anything, if He had so lied to His disciple? Far be such blasphemy! And may it not hold guilty for eternity even those very ones who dare to assert or to believe this; but let them at some point awaken and understand by what wicked perversity these things are believed.

But we believe that the Lord Christ took on a true man, and that in him He, the invisible, appeared visibly to men; that in him He dwelt among men; that in him He endured human things at the hands of men; that in him He taught men from whom they should withdraw, what they should endure, whither they should strive. And all this He did under no necessity. Whence He Himself says: "For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of myself; I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again." Therefore He did not lose it through the necessity of evil.

For He willed that all the things which were done in His passion should be done for the teaching of human nature, not for the guarding of His own. For just as we, who consist of soul and body—since we are invisible according to the soul, but visible according to the body—all the things which we visibly receive, whether of honor or of benefits, or which we suffer of insult or injury, must be referred to the soul, which is invisible,

as to a ruler, since it is the soul that holds rule over the body—for even though according to the soul we are immortal, yet when we have died in body, we are said to be dead—so also the Lord, according to the flesh and the form of a servant which He deigned to take on, is manifested both to have suffered insults and bonds and scourgings, and to have died:

so that, as Truth, He may be believed to have done all things truthfully and nothing falsely; because by His power and will the Word was made flesh, and was born and suffered and died and rose again under no necessity of His own, but by His will and power—of whom no part was ever plundered, no part is even now captive, not only of His divine nature, but not even of that mortal nature which He took on; nor will it ever be able to be captured, except by those who through faith have willed to be joined to Him with a pure heart. Not like the god of Manichaeus, who, pressed by the evil of necessity, today is here partly—which they cannot deny—wallowing in miseries and calamities. Understand well, if you can, even among men themselves, how great a difference there is between necessity and will.

If, for example, someone is, by the deserving of his own sin, cast into prison at the command of justice, and another, a holy man, be present, who enters that same prison for the sake of consoling or freeing the former—are both established in prison from one and the same cause? The one was sent in, the other entered; the one suffers punishment, the other performs an act of mercy; the one entered when he willed, and went out when he willed; the other cannot by any right be set free unless pardon intervenes. And this men are able to do, and they freely bestow the benefit, even when at times they desire nothing to be bestowed upon themselves. Consider, therefore, now, whether God can suffer any necessity,

since men are able to do good by will, hired by no reward, compelled by no necessity. Therefore God suffers no necessity, nor does He do by necessity the things He does, but by His supreme and ineffable will and power. And yet you, above all, according to your own error, ought not to have raised that objection in which you say: "What would the Jews have done to Christ, if He had not wished to suffer at their hands?"—since, according to the blasphemies of this same Manichaeus, Christ had no flesh, nor suffered anything at the hands of the Jews. For thus he says in the Letter of the Foundation: "The enemy, indeed, who hoped he had crucified this same Savior, the Father of the just, was himself crucified—at which time one thing was done and another shown."

"And so the prince of darkness was fastened to the cross, and he likewise wore a crown of thorns with his companions, and had a scarlet garment; he also drank vinegar and gall, which some have supposed the Lord drank. And all the things which He was here seen to undergo were inflicted upon the leaders of darkness, who were also wounded with nails and a lance." Why, then, do you raise the objection, saying: "What would the Jews have done to Christ, if He had not wished to suffer at their hands?"—when you hold such a view about His passion, namely, that it was not God Himself who suffered anything in His body, but you suppose that the prince of darkness suffered all those things? And how can you raise these objections against our faith? For we believe, as it is written in the Gospel, that Christ willed to suffer, and, when He willed, He suffered;

for it was not when the Jews willed it that they brought about that passion. They did indeed wish to seize Him and to kill Him, and according to their own will they had already accomplished the crime which they were attempting, and were already guilty of a most monstrous sin, because they willed it, even if they had done nothing; yet He who had the power to lay down His own life, when He willed, permitted them to act—He who was able to command legions of angels that the Jews should perish, or by a single word of His to destroy them all. The Lord Christ, therefore, suffered according to the man whom He took on; and no member of His mortal body, which He had taken on, is held today by the Jews, as we said above.

For your god, O Manichaeans, was pressed by threatening ruin and devastation; he did not advance to battle by free will, but was compelled by necessity; nor did he wish to bestow anything, but was trying to resist—he who, even in his own substance, not in an assumed mortal body, was devoured and mingled; who is held in part today, and in part will forever be held in the lump. And yet, who could bear such incredible blasphemies as these men do not hesitate to utter concerning the very passion of the Lord? All the apostles, all rational tongues cry out that the Lord Christ suffered; all sound faith confesses that Christ suffered for us; while Manichaeus asserts that all those demons endured all those sufferings. For he does not say that they suffered for this reason—

namely, because the Lord triumphed over them, and taught us through patience to triumph over them; but because they deny that the Lord Christ had mortal flesh. To whom we say: If He had no mortal flesh, what was it that the Jews held? What was it that hung on the cross? What was it that was fastened with nails to the wood? What is it that was struck with the lance, from which blood and water flowed? For if these things only seemed to happen and did not happen, they will be a phantasm—which it is wicked to believe. But if they truly happened—yet not in mortal flesh, but, as you say, in the very divine substance—then you say that the divine substance is mutable, and visible to fleshly eyes, and palpable to fleshly hands, and woundable by iron:

which again it is wicked to believe. And therefore, while Manichaeus is afraid to say that these things did not happen, and again is afraid to say that they happened in the divine substance, and is unwilling to confess—because he could not even understand—how the Son of God, through whom all things were made, took on a man with flesh without any change or defilement of His own divine substance: he was forced to say that it was not Christ, but the prince of darkness with his companions, who suffered all those things. Wretches! Do you not fear lest it be said to you in the judgment: "I set you free, on whose behalf I suffered; go, let that one set you free,

to whom you ascribe my sufferings." You say, with great error—yet you do say it—that Christ is born daily, suffers daily, dies daily. Perhaps among those who believe and who suffer tribulations and death for His name? "No," they say, "but in gourds and leeks and in purslane and other such things." Great absurdities, great blindness! Above, by the sufferings of demons; here, by the sufferings of vegetables, men are set free from sins! Likewise, when we say to them: "What would the race of darkness have done to God, if He had not wished to fight against it?" they say: "Nothing could be done to the incorruptible God. For if, for example, someone should wish to tear a solid glass sphere with his nails, the savagery of his nails would never do anything to it at all."

But even if they were to imagine the divine substance to be such that all the savagery of the race of darkness were to it as the nails of one tearing are to a glass sphere, then the god of Manichaeus would not today endure mourning over the cutting-off or loss of his part—a part which they say, when it has been in fruits or in herbs (that is, in a melon or a beet or such things), knows both its own beginning and its middle and its end; but when it has come into flesh, it loses all understanding. And for this reason a teacher has been sent to men, because the part of God in them has become foolish; and for this reason he was not sent to melons, because they have a wise soul! Who would believe these things, or that they could ever be said by men, or among men?

But nevertheless, how does the substance of your god suffer no evil, when it is both bound in fruits and blinded in flesh, or when, willing to return, it is cast down to the earth by the race of darkness? But if no evil befell or befalls it, then all the things are false which Manichaeus said in the Letter of the Foundation—which is the head of all his empty fables—or in the Treasury, which Treasury is of all foulnesses and blasphemies, or in all his other books, in which, with such great loquacity, he affirms nothing else than the misfortune of the substance of God, which he says is mingled with the princes of darkness, and the sadness in the divine powers on account of that great anxiety that it might be set free.

For in truth the substance of God neither could nor ever will be able to suffer any evil, nor does it have any enemy who might corrupt its unbegotten part; rather, it is men who are enemies of God, or rather of themselves, by not obeying the commandments of God and by corrupting themselves through their desires rather than corrupting God. But if you, O Manichaeans, were willing to consider the harmony of the two Testaments with a single eye, you would see it most easily. For you rage furiously against what is written: 'The Spirit of God was borne over the water,' and: 'God saw that it was good,' and: 'Adam, where art thou?' and: 'a jealous God,' and: 'a consuming fire,' and: 'my sword,' and other such things, without considering that, if anyone else were so blind as to wish to censure that saying of the Lord which is spoken in the Gospel:

'Thou shalt not swear by heaven, for it is the seat of God; nor by the earth, for it is the footstool of his feet,' and were to say what you are accustomed to say with marvellous madness, 'Where was God before heaven and earth existed?'; or what is written: 'And Jesus marvelled' — though no one is wont to marvel except at a thing that was unknown to him; whereas to see that it was good belongs not to one who is ignorant, but means that what he had made pleased him; or that which is written when the Lord says: 'Who touched me?' and concerning Lazarus: 'Where have you laid him?' and: 'I came not to send peace upon the earth, but a sword,' and: 'I came to send fire into the world,' and: 'I came that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind,' and: 'Sell your goods and buy for yourselves swords,' and the Apostle:

'I am jealous over you with the jealousy of God,' and: 'The wrath of God shall be revealed from heaven against all ungodliness,' and countless other things said or done by the Lord himself or by the Apostles, which men, not understanding, will be able most insanely to accuse. For the greedy or the dissolute too can take in another sense what the Lord says — that if anyone forsakes what he has, he may receive sevenfold or even a hundredfold in this age; or such a one might wish to leave a wife, a maidservant, or even harlots for the Lord's sake in the hope of that multiplication, rather than from love of righteousness. Those who understand badly can even shudder at what he says: 'Unless a man eat my flesh and drink my blood, he shall not have life in himself.' For as to what he says:

'Whoever says to his brother, Thou fool, shall be liable to the fire of Gehenna' — if foolish men say, 'Behold, for a reproach he threatens Gehenna! Yet you call him merciful and ready to forgive sins,' do they not fail to perceive where their own head is? And yet they fancy they are saying something. Or that he handed over so many souls to be slain by demons in the swine — though you say that the souls of swine are like those of men. Or that, finding no fruit on the tree because it was not the season, he made it wither by a word — a tree which you say possesses an understanding soul! Behold how great are the things that most wicked and blind men can say of the divine oracles, as you do concerning that.

Being ignorant of the things that were mystically done or said in the ancient books, you rush headlong to accuse rashly what you do not understand; yet when these same things are urged against you out of the New Testament, you say that they signify divine and spiritual realities. But you deny that the holy writings of the Old Testament can be taken figuratively — although the Lord himself said certain things from it figuratively, and the Apostle Paul wrote that all those things happened to that people 'as a figure.' For he himself, showing the rule, expounded many things from it. But perhaps, speaking with your accustomed vanity and dull heart against the authority of the Lord or the Apostle, you say that the sayings of the Old Testament cannot be expounded at all, but that only the New can be so expounded.

And you do not consider that you would have nothing to say if it were said to you by other impious men that, on the contrary, the Old can be expounded but not the New. But a sound mind, considering both Testaments, will without doubt make clear in the one whatever interpretation it has found admissible in the other. Your inexperience, or rather your malice, shows itself greatly. Mark, in the Acts of Leucius, which he writes under the name of the apostles, what manner of things they are that you accept concerning Maximilla the wife of Egetes. When she would not render her husband his due — although the Apostle has said:

'Let the husband render to the wife her due, and likewise the wife to the husband' — she put in her own maidservant in her place to her husband, a girl named Euclia, adorning her, as it is written there, with hostile allurements and cosmetics, and substituting her by night as her surrogate, so that he, not knowing it, might lie with her as with his wife. There it is also written that, when this same Maximilla and Iphidamia had gone together to hear the apostle Andrew, a certain beautiful boy — whom Leucius wishes to be understood as God or at least an angel — commended them to the apostle Andrew and went off to the praetorium of Egetes, and entering their bedchamber feigned a woman's voice, as of Maximilla murmuring about the pains of the female sex, with Iphidamia replying.

When Egetes had heard these conversations, believing them to be there, he departed. What do you say to this, I ask you? Why was Maximilla not afraid to bind souls in the flesh through the most disgraceful pandering of her maidservant? And since you believe that little boy lied so basely, who would believe you when you speak — when, if you lie, you claim that you are imitating the Lord? But you, full of rashness, still rush in upon the ancient books, so that you labour rather to accuse than to learn what you do not know. Consider what miracles are there, if you are delighted by the miracles of the New Testament. There the dead were first raised, there lepers were first cleansed, and many other things which become known, to the building up of faith, to those who seek carefully and devoutly.

But if you are delighted by good precepts, those two precepts which the Lord sublimely praises — concerning the love of God and of one's neighbour — were first written there. There is the leaving of house, parents, and children, and the rest for the Lord's sake; there is the not rendering evil for evil; there is the praying for enemies; there is the forgiving of an enemy; there is the offering of the cheek to receive a blow — and whatever precepts are in the New Testament were not only commanded there, but even fulfilled with all vigilance by holy men. Will your malice be able to say even this, that whatever good and magnificent things are written there are false and interpolated, but that those things alone, which you think evil because you do not understand them, are true?

For you ought to consider that other impious men could do the same thing with the New Testament: that whatever things are there which they have, not understanding them, thought evil, these they would censure and say that these alone there are true; but all those things which are there openly magnified they would say are false and inserted by lovers of the Lord, lest everything should seem to be shunned — so that both you and they, struck with such blindness, already judged and condemned, would be shunned. At last be vigilant, and cease from blasphemies, and receive the authority of all the holy canonical Scriptures, if you mean to be Christians, and do not wish to accuse what you do not understand; but rather desire the understanding of them.

For what kind of thing is even this, that you deny the resurrection of the flesh? Paul the Apostle cries out: 'It is sown in corruption, it rises in incorruption; it is sown in dishonour, it rises in glory; it is sown in weakness, it rises in power; it is sown a natural body, it rises a spiritual body.' And you cry out against this, that the flesh of man cannot rise again, and that it has the prince of darkness as its author — although the Apostle says that this same flesh is the members of Christ and the temple of the Holy Spirit. 'Do you not know,' he says, 'that your bodies are the members of Christ?'

This he says not indeed according to the weakness of the present corruption, which descends from the penalty of original sin, but according to the adoption of the future resurrection, as he also says elsewhere: 'And we ourselves groan within ourselves, awaiting the adoption, the redemption of our body.' Elsewhere too he compared this same flesh to the Church, when he was speaking of marriage, saying: 'For no man ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, even as Christ does the Church.' As for what he says in another place: 'The flesh',

'lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh' — he does not condemn the flesh, that we should regard it as an enemy, but rather admonishes us to subjugate it to ourselves, so that, like a spouse, it may serve the spirit for the conceiving and bringing forth of good works — which he says cannot come to pass except by the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. For it is not the nature of the flesh, but its penalty, that struggles against us, because by sin we have deserved to be mortal. For again he says: 'Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in us.' And yet, although the flesh itself is called 'hay' on account of its present weakness, you believe that John made honey out of hay, and you do not believe that almighty God can make a spiritual body out of a natural body.

For on account of that very transformation of the flesh which is to come — since God is going to make a heavenly body out of this flesh, when we shall be equal to the angels of God — for this reason the same Apostle says most truly: 'Flesh and blood shall not possess the kingdom of God.' But it is no wonder that you are so blind as to think these things cannot be done by almighty God, since you even say that God could not have made the world, or all the things that were made, in any other way except by great and pitiable necessity, and unless there were a matter that helped him toward the working of the world, so that from it he might free his own part. Choose therefore now what you wish to follow:

a God less powerful and weak, who, by the necessity of his own part placed in misery, was helped by a matter which he himself had not made, in order to make the world; or an almighty God, who, by no necessity, but by his own will and supreme power, spoke, and they were made; commanded, and they were created — who calls those things that are not as though they were. Flee therefore, you men who have been deceived by this impiety of Manichaeus; hasten, while it is permitted, lest you deserve eternal damnation from that just Judge. Let us repent of your sins, if you desire to be set free, and do not listen to the Manichaeans who say: 'We do not sin' — that is, the souls of light — 'but the race of darkness sins.' For if it is so, why do they terrify us, that we should believe them?

For they cannot say that unbelief is not a sin, since it is written: 'He that believes not is already judged.' If, therefore, unbelief is a sin, and none sins except the race of darkness, it remains that the part of light should be found immune from all sin. All, then, return to the kingdom, since they themselves do not sin, and nothing is to be feared by any soul, since none sins; and the things which Manichaeus says are false — namely, that the cut-off part of light, that is, the sinful souls, are condemned to the guarding of the globe, so that at length some security may be procured for the divine realms set in peril. It is necessary, therefore, that either the part of light should sin, or the part of darkness. But if the part of light sins, God sins — which it is wicked to say.

But if the part of darkness sins, that very part is called to the kingdom by him who said: 'I came not to call the righteous, but sinners,' for the healthy have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. But that divinity sprung from divinity, that light from light, degenerating into the race of darkness, is joined to it forever. O the detestable error of mind of those who believe such things! Yet I would wish that you would attend and be willing to see that he whom you say to be by nature the supreme evil cannot possibly become evil — since, if whatever he does, he does in such a way that he cannot depart from his own nature and act otherwise, he sins absolutely nothing; but if he sins nothing, he does no evil; and therefore, if he did no evil, he is assuredly not evil.

It remains, therefore, that the part of God, which is understood to be God, which you call the soul, alone is guilty of all sins, and that all those things which you most insanely think ought to be accused, you pour back upon your God. But what does truth cry out? That the body, when it is lifeless, cannot sin, but that through it sin can be committed; that the irrational soul indeed cannot sin, because it can neither receive the precepts of reason nor attain to blessedness, but in its own degree preserves the order of nature which it has received; but that the rational soul, because it can perceive the rational precepts of right deeds and by right deeds attain to eternal blessedness, if by sinning it has refused this,

is justly condemned to lower things, because nothing separates between it and God except a depraved will. Read, O Manichaeans, and with all vigilance examine these things, and more and more read and examine, but with an even mind, not with a hostile mind. Read it, attending to this: that in the future judgment this writing will be a witness to you, if, recognising that the things which have been said are true, you do not hasten with all speed to the bosom of the mother, the Catholic Church, which alone teaches the truth. Judge at last, then, and choose, O Manichaeans, whom you wish to follow: the unbegotten Father, the only-begotten Son, the Holy Spirit common in the unity of the Father and the Son — one God almighty, incorruptible, unapproachable, unchangeable, eternal, good, holy,

merciful, just; who has no parts, because he is one; nor can any particle of him be separated from him, because he is inseparable; nor can anything of him be changed, because he is wholly unchangeable; nor can even the slightest portion of his substance be corrupted, because he is wholly incorruptible; who willed, and all things were made — whatsoever things are, whatsoever things live, whatsoever things understand — for he himself is the supreme substance, the supreme life, the supreme truth; who commanded, and all things were ordered, good, in their own places and times; who has deigned to set the rational creature over every other creature;

who deigned mercifully to speak to that rational creature when, through pride, it had fallen by its own will from his laws and was pursuing visible things — speaking through his ministers and through himself, by certain signs visibly shown, and by examples and precepts, by which it might have power to rise again and be recalled to eternal life: this is the God whom the Catholic faith proclaims. Or [will you follow] that god who is falsely called incorruptible, since afterwards he is found oppressed by the necessity of evil; timid, because, when ruin and devastation threatened, he was compelled to war; full of ignorance, since he could not foresee what might befall his own part; cruel, if he foresaw the coming misery of his part and yet, though he could have rested secure with it, nevertheless sent it forth to a pitiable battle;

evil, if, though nothing could be done to him by the nature of evil, he nevertheless himself attempted to destroy it; rash, who dared to engage in combat with that by which his own part would both be held captive and forever defiled; changeable, because he has already in part been changed; corruptible, because he has already in part been corrupted; in part playing the harlot, in part lying, in part blaspheming, in part committing all crimes, because he has in part been mingled with all these; mourning, covered with a veil of grief; subject to demons as clay to the potter, and driven by necessity even to a shameful guise, so that, transfigured into boys and virgins, he might inflame the lust of demons — this is the god whom Manichaeus proclaims.

Or certainly, if your conscience can, with the true eternal God as your witness, who is about to judge all, deny one of these things to your own selves. But if the things we say are true, then at last look back, at last see in what death you are established. Be humble, if you desire to be set free, and do not say, proudly and impiously, that we ourselves are the almighty God — for this you do say, when you assert that your souls are parts of him; for God is not greater in one part and lesser in another. But rather say to yourselves: God is unchangeable, we are changeable; God is incorruptible, we are corrupted by our own desires; God is undefilable, we are defiled by our own sins;

God is wisdom itself, we are foolish and strive to attain to wisdom; God is eternal and blessed life itself, we, by our sins, are wretched and long to become blessed. We are not, therefore, a part of his substance. For if you are his parts and yet suffer all these great things, it remains that he himself too already in part suffers all these things, and could suffer still more of what has befallen his part, unless he provided for himself through your misery. See, then, what you are. If you are parts of him, you are God; if you are begotten of him, likewise you are God: why are you disfigured by such great corruption of sins? But if you were made by him, confess this, and you will no longer be Manichaeans.

For Manichaeus says there are two natures, one good and the other evil: the good, which made the world; the evil, out of which the world was made. But if God made us, Manichaeus does not find out from what God made us. For if he made you out of himself, you are what he himself is; you ought not, therefore, to be disfigured by such great corruption of sins, as has already been said. But if he made you out of another's substance, you do not belong to him, because he made you just as he made the world. But if he made you neither out of himself nor out of another's substance, but only willed it by his omnipotence, and you were made — say this to Manichaeus and renounce his error. For thus it befits the Almighty to make whatever he willed, as the Catholic Church says: 'He himself spoke, and they were made; he himself commanded, and they were created.'

Say to yourselves: we are not parts of him, but we are his works. Say to yourselves: if God suffered by necessity and could not escape otherwise except by suffering the loss of his own part, who could ever be set free from such necessities? Or who will there be to protect a God who is not able to protect himself? Or when will he be able to free me from this necessity of captivity, who could not keep me safe in the intact realms? For he did not send me away from there as one sinning, but sent me into sins themselves. Or when will he be able to profit me, miserably set among alien things, who, that he might profit himself, gave me up to so great a ruin, that it might not fight?

If God himself is incorruptible, what harm was that nature of evil going to do to him, if he had been unwilling to fight with it, so that I might not now be tortured thus? Or what injustice is this, that I am condemned to the globe, while he, that he may be just a little secure for the moment, makes me here endure such great things? Surely, since I too am what he himself is, since I am a part of him, let us — with no one set among his splendid realms in want or in a lowly place — suffer this misery by turns, so that both I may rest a little and those realms may be at peace without danger. And yet it is to be feared that this nature of evil cannot be kept guarded even when shut up in the globe itself.

For if it corrupted the incorrupt realms and violated the inviolate substance of God, how shall that part of light — that is, the sinful souls, which, being corrupted, are fixed to the guarding of the globe, weak and feeble — how shall they not be absorbed by it, so that, with none any longer able to resist, it may throw all those divine realms again into utter confusion? For who would now dare to advance to war, when with that part which had advanced it was so unjustly dealt with — that, for the sake of its rest, none of its own citizens were condemned to the everlasting guarding of the globe? Or if it cannot break through the globe, so as to reach that bright covering of the condemned souls, what need is there for it to be covered over by the condemnation of the divine members?

But if it can break through the globe, who, being wounded, will resist it, who wounded those that were whole? Far be so grievous and so abominable a blasphemy! Do not admit this iniquity to your ears; do not entangle yourselves in such a deadly affair. Flee Manichaeus, and with all your longing fly together to the breasts of the Catholic truth.