CONTENTS OF ACTS OR DISPUTATION AGAINST FORTUNATUS THE MANICHEAN. DISPUTATION OF THE FIRST DAY.. p. 113. Augustin and Fortunatus are at variance with reference to the subject for discussion, the former having proposed Fortunatus makes a confession of his faith, in which he confesses to believe that God is incorruptible, lucid, DISPUTATION OF THE SECOND DAY. . p. 119. Fortunatus reiterates his Dualism, and yet denies that he teaches the corruptibility of God. Augustin states ACTS OR DISPUTATION AGAINST FORTUNATUS, THE MANICHEAN. [ACTA SEU DISPUTATIO CONTRA FORTUNATUM MANICHEUM.] A.D. 392.1 DISPUTATION OF THE FIRST DAY. ON THE FIFTH OF SEPTEMBER, THE MOST RENOWNED MEN ARCADIUS AUGUSTUS (THE SECOND TIME) AND RUFINUS BEING CONSULS, A DISPUTATION AGAINST FORTUNATUS, AN ELDER OF THE MANICHEANS, WAS HELD IN THE CITY OF HIPPO REGIUS, IN THE BATHS OF SOSSIUS, IN THE PRESENCE OF THE PEOPLE. 1. AUGUSTIN said: I now regard as error another race of darkness, whatever it may what formerly I regarded as truth. I desire to hear from you who are present whether my supposition is correct. First of all I regard it as the height of error to believe that Almighty God, in whom is our one hope, is in any part either violable, or contaminable, or corruptible. This I know your heresy affirms, not indeed in the words that I now use; for when you are questioned you confess that God is incorruptible, and absolutely inviolable, and incontaminable; but when you begin to expound the rest of your system, we are compelled to declare Him corruptible, penetrable, contaminable. For you say that This Disputation seems to have occurred shortly after the writing of the preceding treatise. It appears from the Retractations that Fortunatus had lived for a considerable time at Hippo, and had secured so large a number of followers that it was a delight to him to dwell there. The Disputation is supposed to be a verbatim report of what Augustin and Fortunatus said during a two days' discussion. The subject is the origin of evil. Augustin maintains that evil, so far as man is concerned, has arisen from a free exercise of the will on man's part; Fortunatus, on the other hand, maintains that the nature of evil is co-eternal with God. Fortunatus shows considerable knowledge of the New Testament, but no remarkable dialectic powers. He appears at great disadvantage beside his great antagonist. In fact, he is far from saying the best that can be said in favor of dualism. We may say that he was fairly vanquished in the argument, and at the close confessed himself at a loss what to say, and expressed an intention of more carefully examining the problems discussed, in view of what Augustin had said. Augustin is more guarded in this treatise than in the preceding in his statements about free will. He found little occasion here, therefore, to retract or explain. Fortunatus often expresses himself vaguely and obscurely. If some sentences are difficult to understand in the translation, they will be found equally so in the Latin.--A. H. N. be, has rebelled against the kingdom of God; but that Almighty God, when He saw what ruin and desolation threatened his domains, unless he should make some opposition to the adverse race and resist it, sent this virtue, from whose commingling with evil and the race of darkness the world was framed. Hence it is that here good souls labor, serve, err, are corrupted: that they may see the need of a liberator, who should purge them from error, loose them from this commingling with evil, and liberate them from servitude. I think it impious to believe that Almighty God ever feared any adverse race, or was under necessity to precipitate us into afflictions. FORTUNATUS said: Because I know that you have been in our midst, that is, have lived as an adherent among the Manichæans, these are the principles of our faith. The matter now to be considered is our mode of living, the falsely alleged crimes for which we are maltreated. Therefore let the good men present hear from you whether these things with which we are charged and which we have thrown in our teeth are true or false. For from your instruction, and from your exposition and explanation, they will have been able to gain more correct information about our mode of life, if it shall have been set forth by self; that the Word born from the foundayou. 2. AUGUSTIN said: I was among you, but faith and morals are different questions. I proposed to discuss faith. But if those present prefer to hear about morals, I do not decline that question. FORTUNATUS said: I wish first to purge myself in your conscience in which we are polluted, by the testimony of a competent man, (who even now is competent for me), and in view of the future examination of Christ, the just judge, whether he saw in us, or himself practiced by imitation, the things that are now thrown in our teeth? tion of the world, when He had formed the world, after the formation of the world came among men; that He has chosen souls worthy of Himself according to His own holy will, sanctified by celestial command, imbued with the faith and reason of celestial things; that under His leadership those souls will return hence again to the kingdom of God according to the holy promise of Him who said: "I am the way, the truth, and the door;" and "No one can come unto the Father, except through me." These things we believe because otherwise, that is, through another mediator, souls cannot return to the kingdom of God, unless 3. AUGUSTIN said: You call me to some- they find Him as the way, the truth, and the thing else, when I had proposed to discuss door. For Himself said: "He that hath seen faith, but concerning your morals only those me, hath seen my Father also;" and "whowho are your Elect can fully know. But you soever shall have believed on me shall not know that I was not your Elect, but an Audi- taste death forever, but has passed from death tor. Hence though I was present at your unto life, and shall not come into judgment." 5 prayer meetings,' as you have asked (whether These things we believe and this is the reason separately among yourselves you have any of our faith, and according to the strength of prayer meetings, God alone and yourselves our mind we endeavor to act according to His can know); yet in your prayer meetings commandments, following after the one faith where I have been present I have seen nothing of this Trinity, Father and Son and Holy shameful take place; but only that the faith Spirit." that I afterwards learned and approved is 4. AUGUSTIN said: What was the cause of denounced, and that you perform your ser- those souls being precipitated into death, vices facing the sun. Besides this I found whom you confess come through Christ from out nothing new in your meetings, but who- death to life? ever raises any question of morals against you, raises it against your Elect. But what you who are Elect do among yourselves, I have no means of knowing. For I have often heard from you that you receive the Eucharist. But since the time of receiving it was concealed from me, how could I know what FORTUNATUS said: Nay but do you deign you receive? So keep the question about to say whether there is anything besides God, morals, if you please, for discussion among or all things are in God. your Elect, if it can be discussed. You gave me a faith that I to-day disapprove. This I proposed to discuss. Let a response be made to my proposition. FORTUNATUS said: Hence now deign to go on and to contradict, if there is nothing besides God. 5. AUGUSTIN said: Nay, do you deign to answer the question put to you: What cause has given these souls to death? 6. AUGUSTIN said: This I can reply, that the Lord wished me to know that God cannot suffer any necessity, nor be violated or corrupted in any part. Which, since you also acknowledge, I ask by what necessity He sent hither souls that you say return through Christ? FORTUNATUS said: And our profession is this very thing: that God is incorruptible, lucid, unapproachable, intenible, impassible, that He inhabits His own eternal lights, that FORTUNATUS said: What you have said: nothing corruptible proceeds from Him, that thus far God has revealed to you, that neither darkness, demons, Satan, nor any- He is incorruptible, as He has also revealed thing adverse can be found in His kingdom. to me; the reason must be sought, how and But that He sent forth a Saviour like Him-wherefore souls have come into this world, so that now of right God should liberate them I The word used is oratio, by which is evidently meant the religious services to which Auditors were admitted, prayer (oratio) › being the prominent feature.-A. H. N. 2 The allusion here is doubtless to the probably slanderous charge that the Manichæans were accustomed to partake of human semen as a Eucharist. The Manichæan view of the relation of the substance mentioned to the light, and their well-known opposition to procreation, give a slight plausibility to the charge. Compare the Morals of the Manichæans, ch, xviii., where Augustin expresses his suspicions of Manichæan shamelessness. See also further references in the Introduction.-A. H. N. A. 3 This is, of course, a mixture of two passages of Scripture.- 6 As remarked in the Introduction, the Manichæans of the West, in Augustin's time, sustained a far more intimate relation to Christianity than did Mani and his immediate followers. Far as Fortunatus may have been from using the above language in the ordinary Christian sense, yet he held, by profession at least, enough of Christian truth to beguile the unwary. A. H. N. |