ST. AUGUSTIN: ON THE MORALS OF THE MANICHEANS. [DE MORIBUS MANICHÆORUM]. A.D. 388. TRANSLATED BY REV. RICHARD STOTHERT, M.A., BOMBAY. CONTENTS OF THE MORALS OF THE MANICHEANS. PAGE CHAP. I.-The supreme good is that which is possessed of supreme existence. 69 CHAP. IV.—The difference between what is good in itself and what is good by participation. CHAP. V.-If evil is defined to be corruption, this completely refutes the Manichæan heresy. CHAP. IX.-The Manichæan fictions about things good and evil are not consistent with themselves. CHAP. X.-Three moral symbols devised by the Manichæans for no good. CONTAINING A PARTICULAR REFUTATION OF THE DOCTRINE OF THESE HERETICS REGARDING THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF EVIL; AN EXPOSURE OF THEIR PRETENDED SYMBOLICAL CUSTOMS OF THE MOUTH, OF THE HANDS, AND OF THE BREAST; AND A CONDEMNATION OF THEIR SUPERSTITIOUS ABSTINENCE AND UNHOLY MYSTERIES. LASTLY, SOME CRIMES BROUGHT TO LIGHT AMONG THE MANICHEANS ARE MENTIONED. CHAP. 1.—THE SUPREME GOOD IS THAT WHICH | jects have their vision damaged and dulled IS POSSESSED OF SUPREME EXISTENCE. by silly notions, and by perversity of will, let us try as we can to gain some little knowledge of this great matter by degrees and with caution, making our inquiries not like men able to see, but like men groping the dark. CHAP. 2.—WHAT EVIL IS. 1. EVERY one, I suppose, will allow that the question of things good and evil belongs to moral science, in which such terms are in common use. It is therefore to be wished that men would bring to these inquiries such THAT EVIL IS THAT a clear intellectual perfection as might enable WHICH IS AGAINST NATURE. IN ALLOWING them to see the chief good, than which nothing is better or higher, next in order to which THIS, THE MANICHÆANS REFUTE THEMSELVES. comes a rational soul in a state of purity and 2. You Manichæans often, if not in every perfection. If this were clearly understood, case, ask those whom you try to bring over it would also become evident that the chief to your heresy, Whence is evil? Suppose I good is that which is properly described as had now met you for the first time, I would having supreme and original existence. For ask you, if you please, to follow my example that exists in the highest sense of the word in putting aside for a little the explanation which continues always the same, which is you suppose yourselves to have got of these throughout like itself, which cannot in any subjects, and to commence this great inquiry part be corrupted or changed, which is not with me as if for the first time. You ask me, subject to time, which admits of no variation Whence is evil? I ask you in return, What in its present as compared with its former is evil? Which is the more reasonable quescondition. This is existence in its true sense. tion? Are those right who ask whence a For in this signification of the word existence thing is, when they do not know what it is; there is implied a nature which is self- or he who thinks it necessary to inquire first contained, and which continues immutably. what it is, in order to avoid the gross absurdSuch things can be said only of God, to whom ity of searching for the origin of a thing unthere is nothing contrary in the strict sense known? Your answer is quite correct, when of the word. For the contrary of existence is you say that evil is that which is contrary to non-existence. There is therefore no nature nature; for no one is so mentally blind as not contrary to God. But since the minds with to see that, in every kind, evil is that which which we approach the study of these sub-is contrary to the nature of the kind. But the establishment of this doctrine is the overthrow of your heresy. For evil is no nature, [This statement has a complete parallel in Clement of Alexandria, and along with what follows, is Neo-Platonic.-A. H. N.] |