On the Morals of the Manichæans.
On the Morals of the Manichæans.
Chapter 1.—The Supreme Good is that Which is Possessed of Supreme Existence.
Chapter 4.—The Difference Between What is Good in Itself and What is Good by Participation.
Chapter 5.—If Evil is Defined to Be Corruption, This Completely Refutes the Manichæan Heresy.
Chapter 6.—What Corruption Affects and What It is.
Chapter 8.—Evil is Not a Substance, But a Disagreement Hostile to Substance.
Chapter 9.—The Manichæan Fictions About Things Good and Evil are Not Consistent with Themselves.
Chapter 10.—Three Moral Symbols Devised by the Manichæans for No Good.
Chapter 12.—Manichæan Subterfuge.
Chapter 14.—Three Good Reasons for Abstaining from Certain Kinds of Food.
Chapter 15.—Why the Manichæans Prohibit the Use of Flesh.
Chapter 16.—Disclosure of the Monstrous Tenets of the Manichæans.
Chapter 17.—Description of the Symbol of the Hands Among the Manichæans.
Chapter 18.—Of the Symbol of the Breast, and of the Shameful Mysteries of the Manichæans.
Chapter 1.—The Supreme Good is that Which is Possessed of Supreme Existence.
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 a clear intellectual perfection as might enable them to see the chief good, than which nothing is better or higher, next in order to which comes a rational soul in a state of purity and perfection. 1 This statement has a complete parallel in Clement of Alexandria, and along with what follows, is Neo-Platonic.—A.H.N.] If this were clearly understood, it would also become evident that the chief good is that which is properly described as having supreme and original existence. For that exists in the highest sense of the word which continues always the same, which is throughout like itself, which cannot in any part be corrupted or changed, which is not subject to time, which admits of no variation in its present as compared with its former condition. This is existence in its true sense. For in this signification of the word existence there is implied a nature which is self-contained, and which continues immutably. Such things can be said only of God, to whom there is nothing contrary in the strict sense of the word. For the contrary of existence is non-existence. There is therefore no nature contrary to God. But since the minds with which we approach the study of these subjects have their vision damaged and dulled 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.