Against the Epistle of Manichæus, Called…

 St. AUGUSTIN:

 Chapter 1.—To Heal Heretics is Better Than to Destroy Them.

 Chapter 2.—Why the Manichæans Should Be More Gently Dealt with.

 Chapter 3.—Augustin Once a Manichæan.

 Chapter 4.—Proofs of the Catholic Faith.

 Chapter 5.—Against the Title of the Epistle of Manichæus.

 Chapter 6.—Why Manichæus Called Himself an Apostle of Christ.

 Chapter 7.—In What Sense the Followers of Manichæus Believe Him to Be the Holy Spirit.

 Chapter 8.—The Festival of the Birth-Day of Manichæus.

 Chapter 9.—When the Holy Spirit Was Sent.

 Chapter 10.—The Holy Spirit Twice Given.

 Chapter 11.—Manichæus Promises Truth, But Does Not Make Good His Word.

 Chapter 12.—The Wild Fancies of Manichæus. The Battle Before the Constitution of the World.

 Chapter 13.—Two Opposite Substances. The Kingdom of Light. Manichæus Teaches Uncertainties Instead of Certainties.

 Chapter 14.—Manichæus Promises the Knowledge of Undoubted Things, and Then Demands Faith in Doubtful Things.

 Chapter 15.—The Doctrine of Manichæus Not Only Uncertain, But False. His Absurd Fancy of a Land and Race of Darkness Bordering on the Holy Region and

 Chapter 16.—The Soul, Though Mutable, Has No Material Form. It is All Present in Every Part of the Body.

 Chapter 17.—The Memory Contains the Ideas of Places of the Greatest Size.

 Chapter 18.—The Understanding Judges of the Truth of Things, and of Its Own Action.

 Chapter 19.—If the Mind Has No Material Extension, Much Less Has God.

 Chapter 20.—Refutation of the Absurd Idea of Two Territories.

 Chapter 21.—This Region of Light Must Be Material If It is Joined to the Region of Darkness. The Shape of the Region of Darkness Joined to the Region

 Chapter 22.—The Form of the Region of Light the Worse of the Two.

 Chapter 23.—The Anthropomorphites Not So Bad as the Manichæans.

 Chapter 24.—Of the Number of Natures in the Manichæan Fiction.

 Chapter 25.—Omnipotence Creates Good Things Differing in Degree. In Every Description Whatsoever of the Junction of the Two Regions There is Either Im

 Chapter 26.—The Manichæans are Reduced to the Choice of a Tortuous, or Curved, or Straight Line of Junction. The Third Kind of Line Would Give Symmetr

 Chapter 27.—The Beauty of the Straight Line Might Be Taken from the Region of Darkness Without Taking Anything from Its Substance. So Evil Neither Tak

 Chapter 28.—Manichæus Places Five Natures in the Region of Darkness.

 Chapter 29.—The Refutation of This Absurdity.

 Chapter 30.—The Number of Good Things in Those Natures Which Manichæus Places in the Region of Darkness.

 Chapter 31.—The Same Subject Continued.

 Chapter 32.—Manichæus Got the Arrangement of His Fanciful Notions from Visible Objects.

 Chapter 33.—Every Nature, as Nature, is Good.

 Chapter 34.—Nature Cannot Be Without Some Good. The Manichæans Dwell Upon the Evils.

 Chapter 35.—Evil Alone is Corruption. Corruption is Not Nature, But Contrary to Nature. Corruption Implies Previous Good.

 Chapter 36.—The Source of Evil or of Corruption of Good.

 Chapter 37.—God Alone Perfectly Good.

 Chapter 38.—Nature Made by God Corruption Comes from Nothing.

 Chapter 39.—In What Sense Evils are from God.

 Chapter 40.—Corruption Tends to Non-Existence.

 Chapter 41.—Corruption is by God’s Permission, and Comes from Us.

 Chapter 42.—Exhortation to the Chief Good.

 Chapter 43.—Conclusion.

Chapter 26.—The Manichæans are Reduced to the Choice of a Tortuous, or Curved, or Straight Line of Junction. The Third Kind of Line Would Give Symmetry and Beauty Suitable to Both Regions.

What more is to be got? we have now heard what is on the border. Make what shape you please, draw any kind of lines you like, it is certain that the junction of this boundless mass of the region of darkness to the region of light must have been either by a straight line, or a curved, or a tortuous one. If the line of junction is tortuous the side of the region of light must also be tortuous; otherwise its straight side joined to a tortuous one would leave gaps of infinite depth, instead of having vacuity only above the land of darkness, as we were told before. And if there were such gaps, how much better it would have been for the region of light to have been still more distant, and to have had a greater vacuity between, so that the region of darkness might not touch it at all! Then there might have been such a gap of bottomless depth, that, on the rise of any mischief in that race, although the chiefs of darkness might have the foolhardy wish to cross over, they would fall headlong into the gap (for bodies cannot fly without air to support them); and as there is infinite space downwards, they could do no more harm, though they might live for ever, for they would be for ever falling. Again, if the line of junction was a curved one, the region of light must also have had the disfigurement of a curve to answer it. Or if the land of darkness were curved inwards like a theatre, there would be as much disfigurement in the corresponding line in the region of light. Or if the region of darkness had a curved line, and the region of light a straight one, they cannot have touched at all points. And certainly, as I said before, it would have been better if they had not touched, and if there was such a gap between that the regions might be kept distinctly separate, and that rash evildoers might fall headlong so as to be harmless. If, then, the line of junction was a straight one, there remain, of course, no more gaps or grooves, but, on the contrary, so perfect a junction as to make the greatest possible peace and harmony between the two regions. What more beautiful or more suitable than that one side should meet the other in a straight line, without bends or breaks to disturb the natural and permanent connection throughout endless space and endless duration? And even though there was a separation, the straight sides of both regions would be beautiful in themselves, as being straight; and besides, even in spite of an interval, their correspondence, as running parallel, though not meeting, would give a symmetry to both. With the addition of the junction, both regions become perfectly regular and harmonious; for nothing can be devised more beautiful in description or in conception than this junction of two straight lines.21 [This discussion of the lines bounding the Kingdom of Light and the Kingdom of Darkness seems very much like trifling, but Augustin’s aim was to bring the Manichæan representations into ridicule.—A.H.N.]