On the Morals of the Catholic Church.

 St. AUGUSTIN:

 

 Chapter 1.—How the Pretensions of the Manichæans are to Be Refuted. Two Manichæan Falsehoods.

 Chapter 2.—He Begins with Arguments, in Compliance with the Mistaken Method of the Manichæans.

 Chapter 3.—Happiness is in the Enjoyment of Man’s Chief Good. Two Conditions of the Chief Good: 1st, Nothing is Better Than It 2d, It Cannot Be Lost

 Chapter 4.—Man—What?

 Chapter 5.—Man’s Chief Good is Not the Chief Good of the Body Only, But the Chief Good of the Soul.

 Chapter 6.—Virtue Gives Perfection to the Soul The Soul Obtains Virtue by Following God Following God is the Happy Life.

 Chapter 7.—The Knowledge of God to Be Obtained from the Scripture. The Plan and Principal Mysteries of the Divine Scheme of Redemption.

 Chapter 8.—God is the Chief Good, Whom We are to Seek After with Supreme Affection.

 14. Come now, let us examine, or rather let us take notice,—for it is obvious and can be seen, at once,—whether the authority of the Old Testament too

 Chapter 10.—What the Church Teaches About God. The Two Gods of the Manichæans.

 Chapter 11.—God is the One Object of Love Therefore He is Man’s Chief Good. Nothing is Better Than God. God Cannot Be Lost Against Our Will.

 Chapter 12.—We are United to God by Love, in Subjection to Him.

 Chapter 13.—We are Joined Inseparably to God by Christ and His Spirit.

 Chapter 14.—We Cleave to the Trinity, Our Chief Good, by Love.

 Chapter 15.—The Christian Definition of the Four Virtues.

 Chapter 16.—Harmony of the Old and New Testaments.

 Chapter 17.—Appeal to the Manichæans, Calling on Them to Repent.

 Chapter 18.—Only in the Catholic Church is Perfect Truth Established on the Harmony of Both Testaments.

 Chapter 19.—Description of the Duties of Temperance, According to the Sacred Scriptures.

 Chapter 20.—We are Required to Despise All Sensible Things, and to Love God Alone.

 Chapter 21.—Popular Renown and Inquisitiveness are Condemned in the Sacred Scriptures.

 Chapter 22.—Fortitude Comes from the Love of God.

 Chapter 23.—Scripture Precepts and Examples of Fortitude.

 Chapter 24.—Of Justice and Prudence.

 Chapter 25.—Four Moral Duties Regarding the Love of God, of Which Love the Reward is Eternal Life and the Knowledge of the Truth.

 Chapter 26.—Love of Ourselves and of Our Neighbor.

 Chapter 27.—On Doing Good to the Body of Our Neighbor.

 Chapter 28.—On Doing Good to the Soul of Our Neighbor. Two Parts of Discipline, Restraint and Instruction. Through Good Conduct We Arrive at the Knowl

 Chapter 29.—Of the Authority of the Scriptures.

 Chapter 30.—The Church Apostrophised as Teacher of All Wisdom. Doctrine of the Catholic Church.

 Chapter 31.—The Life of the Anachoretes and Cœnobites Set Against the Continence of the Manichæans.

 Chapter 32.—Praise of the Clergy.

 Chapter 33.—Another Kind of Men Living Together in Cities. Fasts of Three Days.

 Chapter 34.—The Church is Not to Be Blamed for the Conduct of Bad Christians, Worshippers of Tombs and Pictures.

 Chapter 35.—Marriage and Property Allowed to the Baptized by the Apostles.

Chapter 29.—Of the Authority of the Scriptures.

59. Attend, then, ye Manichæans, if perchance there are some of you of whom your superstition has hold so as to allow you yet to escape. Attend, I say, without obstinacy, without the desire to oppose, otherwise your decision will be fatal to yourselves. No one can doubt, and you are not so lost to the truth as not to understand that if it is good, as all allow, to love God and our neighbor, whatever hangs on these two precepts cannot rightly be pronounced bad. What it is that hangs on them it would be absurd to think of learning from me. Hear Christ Himself; hear Christ, I say; hear the Wisdom of God: "On these two commandments," He says, "hang all the law and the prophets."88 Matt. xxii. 40.

60. What can the most shameless obstinacy say to this? That these are not Christ’s words? But they are written in the Gospel as His words. That the writing is false? Is not this most profane blasphemy? Is it not most presumptuous to speak thus? Is it not most foolhardy? Is it not most criminal? The worshippers of idols, who hate even the name of Christ, never dared to speak thus against these Scriptures. For the utter overthrow of all literature will follow, and there will be an end to all books handed down from the past, if what is supported by such a strong popular belief and established by the uniform testimony of so many men and so many times, is brought into such suspicion, that it is not allowed to have the credit and the authority of common history. In fine, what can you quote from any writings of which I may not speak in this way if it is quoted against my opinion and my purpose?89 [The strong testimony borne by Augustin against the perverse subjective criticism of the Manichæns has an important application to the present time.—A.H.N.]

61. And is it not intolerable that they forbid us to believe a book widely known and placed now in the hands of all, while they insist on our believing the book which they quote? If any writing is to be suspected, what should be more so than one which has not merited notoriety, or which may be throughout a forgery, bearing a false name? If you force such a writing on me against my will, and make a display of authority to drive me into belief, shall I, when I have a writing which I see spread far and wide for a length of time, and sanctioned by the concordant testimony of churches scattered over all the world, degrade myself by doubting, and, worse degradation, by doubting at your suggestion? Even if you brought forward other readings, I should not receive them unless supported by general agreement; and this being the case, do you think that now, when you bring forward nothing to compare with the text except your own silly and inconsiderate statement, mankind are so unreasonable and so forsaken by divine Providence as to prefer to those Scriptures not others quoted by you in refutation, but merely your own words? You ought to bring forward another manuscript with the same contents, but incorrupt and more correct, with only the passage wanting which you charge with being spurious. For example, if you hold that the Epistle of Paul to the Romans is spurious, you must bring forward another incorrupt, or rather another manuscript with the same epistle of the same apostle, free from error and corruption. You say you will not, lest you be suspected of corrupting it. This is your usual reply, and a true one. Were you to do this, we should assuredly have this very suspicion; and all men of any sense would have it too. See then what you are to think of your own authority; and consider whether it is right to believe your words against these Scriptures, when the simple fact that a manuscript is brought forward by you makes it dangerous to put faith in it.