Against the Epistle of Manichæus, Called…
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 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 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 28.—Manichæus Places Five Natures in the Region of Darkness.
Chapter 29.—The Refutation of This Absurdity.
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 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 33.—Every Nature, as Nature, is Good.
36. But the consideration we wish most to urge is the truth of the Catholic doctrine, if they can understand it, that God is the author of all natures. I urged this before when I said, I join with you in your condemnation of destructiveness, of blindness, of dense muddiness, of terrific violence, of perishableness, of the ferocity of the princes, and so on; join with me in commending form, classification, arrangement, harmony, unity of structure, symmetry and correspondence of members, provision for vital breath and nourishment, wholesome adaptation, regulation and control by the mind, and the subjection of the bodies, and the assimilation and agreement of parts in the natures, both those inhabiting and those inhabited, and all the other things of the same kind. From this, if they would only think honestly, they would understand that it implies a mixture of good and evil, even in the region where they suppose evil to be alone and in perfection: so that if the evils mentioned were taken away, the good things will remain, without anything to detract from the commendation given to them; whereas, if the good things are taken away, no nature is left. From this every one sees, who can see, that every nature, as far as it is nature, is good; since in one and the same thing in which I found something to praise, and he found something to blame, if the good things are taken away, no nature will remain; but if the disagreeable things are taken away, the nature will remain unimpaired. Take from waters their thickness and muddiness, and pure clear water remains; take from them the consistence of their parts, and no water will be left. If then, after the evil is removed, the nature remains in a purer state, and does not remain at all when the good is taken away, it must be the good which makes the nature of the thing in which it is, while the evil is not nature, but contrary to nature. Take from the winds their terribleness and excessive force, with which you find fault, you can conceive of winds as gentle and mild; take from them the similarity of their parts which gives them continuity of substance, and the unity essential to material existence, and no nature remains to be conceived of. It would be tedious to go through all the cases; but all who consider the subject free from party spirit must see that in their list of natures the disagreeable things mentioned are additions to the nature; and when they are removed, the natures remain better than before. This shows that the natures, as far as they are natures, are good; for when you take from them the good instead of the evil, no natures remain. And attend, you who wish to arrive at a correct judgment, to what is said of the fierce prince himself. If you take away his ferocity, see how many excellent things will remain; his material frame, the symmetry of the members on one side with those on the other, the unity of his form, the settled continuity of his parts, the orderly adjustment of the mind as ruling and animating, and the body as subject and animated. The removal of these things, and of others I may have omitted to mention, will leave no nature remaining.