Against Felix the Manichaean

Contents

Reading pages: 1.1–1.13 · 1.14–2.5 · 2.6–2.17 · 2.18–2.22

1. 1.1The public debate opens: Felix recognizes Mani's Letter of the Foundation, and Augustine asks him to prove that Mani is an apostle of Christ.
2. 1.2Felix demands proof that the promised Paraclete is found in some scripture other than Mani's; Augustine agrees to show when the Spirit was sent.
3. 1.3Augustine reads Luke's account of the risen Christ promising to send the Father's promise, linking it to John's promise of the Paraclete.
4. 1.4Augustine reads Acts 1, on the ascension, the promise of the Spirit, and Matthias's election in the place of Judas.
5. 1.5Augustine reads the Pentecost account and calls on Felix to keep his promise and reject Mani's scripture.
6. 1.6Felix asks for an apostle who teaches “the beginning, the middle, and the end”; Augustine offers to refute Mani's letter himself, and Felix answers that every man is a liar.
7. 1.7Augustine reads 1 Timothy 4 as a prophecy of those who forbid marriage and certain foods, and asks Felix whether intercourse with a wife is sin.
8. 1.8Felix argues that Mani never “departed from the faith” because he belonged to no prior sect; Augustine replies that Mani's teaching has led catholics away and presses his questions again.
9. 1.9Felix explains that Manichees received Mani as the promised Paraclete because Paul spoke only “in part” and Mani taught the origin of the world and the courses of sun and moon.
10. 1.10Augustine argues that Christ promised to make Christians, not astronomers, and challenges Felix, if he has the Spirit of all truth, to say how many stars there are.
11. 1.11Augustine reads 1 Corinthians 13 to show that knowledge “in part” belongs to this life and full knowledge to the life to come, and asks Felix whether he now sees God face to face.
12. 1.12Felix pleads that he cannot stand against a bishop and the imperial laws; Augustine reviews the debate, denies that Felix faces any coercion, and points to Peter's courage once filled with the Spirit.
13. 1.13Felix refuses to give up his law before receiving a better one; Augustine uses the image of a vessel that must be emptied and presses for the reading of Mani's letter.
14. 1.14Felix appeals to Mani's five books, especially the Treasure; Augustine refuses proof from Mani's own writings and proposes to show Mani's errors from the Letter of the Foundation itself.
15. 1.15Felix asks for judges; Augustine offers the listening congregation, and the reading of the letter resumes.
16. 1.16The greeting of Mani's letter is read; Augustine calls it the sheep's clothing of deceit and insists on reading further to judge it.
17. 1.17On Mani's “bright and blessed land,” Felix reads Genesis 1:1–2 as two earths; Augustine explains that verse 2 describes the one earth God made and asks whether the land of light was made, begotten, or coeternal.
18. 1.18Felix states that the land of light, the air, the Father, and his offspring are coeternal, unbegotten, and of one substance, and he quibbles over whether the land can be “moved” or “shaken.”
19. 1.19Mani's letter describes the Father of light fearing the race of darkness; Augustine asks how it could harm an incorruptible God, Felix replies that otherwise baptism and the Eucharist would be pointless, and asks for time.
20. 1.20Felix is granted a delay until 12 December, agrees that flight would mean defeat, chooses a guarantor named Boniface, and both sign the record of the first day.
21. 2.1On the second day (12 December) in the Church of Peace, Felix pleads that his books were confiscated, and Augustine restates his question: why would an incorruptible God mingle part of himself with the darkness?
22. 2.2Felix defends Mani's two natures from the two trees, the weeds sown by an enemy, the judgment of sheep and goats, and Paul's sayings on the flesh, the god of this world, and the angel of Satan.
23. 2.3Augustine answers that the scriptures speak of sinners, not of two natures: God made every nature, and rational creatures sin by free choice, as even Mani admits.
24. 2.4Augustine reads Christ's “make the tree good or bad” as a statement of free choice, not of two natures, within God's ordered creation.
25. 2.5Augustine quotes Mani's Treasure, where those who “were unwilling” to keep the law are blamed, as proof that Mani himself admitted free choice.
26. 2.6Augustine quotes the apocryphal Acts ascribed to Leucius, accepted by the Manichees, to show that man became worse by his own will through the devil's seduction.
27. 2.7Augustine sets out what he calls the Manichaean beginning, middle, and end — God's substance mingled with darkness, its shameful liberation in the sun, and the final condemnation of what could not be cleansed — and presses his question.
28. 2.8Felix charges the catholic doctrine of eternal fire with the same cruelty; Augustine replies that the damned are those who by free choice refused repentance and healing, while sin is not possible at all on Manichaean premises.
29. 2.9Augustine explains that the Son, unable to suffer in his divine nature, took flesh in order to suffer for us out of mercy, whereas the Manichaean part of God descends to be bound and polluted.
30. 2.10Felix asks who held humanity captive, if not a power foreign to God, and who the lawgiver is that curses everyone hanged on a tree.
31. 2.11Augustine explains that humanity was held by the devil through its own consent under God's just judgment, that Christ took up the curse and death to undo them, and that the law is good, revealing sin so that the proud might repent.
32. 2.12Felix insists that no one should be forced to become a Christian; Augustine agrees that he is not forced and urges him to weigh the arguments freely.
33. 2.13Felix asks to be shown the truth; Augustine says Manichaean falsehood is plain and invites him to anathematize it and begin from faith.
34. 2.14Augustine leads Felix to agree that anyone who says the nature and substance of God is corruptible must be anathematized.
35. 2.15Felix concedes that the part of God mixed with darkness is God; Augustine uses John 1:5 to show that Mani, who says the light was comprehended and polluted by darkness, falls under the anathema Felix accepted.
36. 2.16Felix says the uncleansed light is not condemned but set to guard the darkness; Augustine distinguishes the creature Christ cleanses from the nature of God, which cannot be polluted.
37. 2.17Augustine distinguishes what God begot of himself (the Word, equal to him and incapable of pollution) from what he made (the soul and all creatures), which could be polluted by sin and remade through the incarnate Word.
38. 2.18Augustine explains three kinds of making — from oneself (begetting), from something, and from nothing — and argues that the soul and all creation, made from nothing, are changeable while God alone is unchangeable.
39. 2.19Augustine repeats that God begot a Son equal to himself but made the world from nothing, and presses Felix either to anathematize Mani or share his condemnation.
40. 2.20Felix likens the polluted part of God to the polluted soul that Christ cleanses; Augustine insists that the soul is God's work, not a part of God, and that Felix must anathematize Mani.
41. 2.21Felix asks whether the soul belongs to God and is from God; Augustine answers that it is from God as his work, not of God as a part, and holds Felix to his earlier admission.
42. 2.22At the end of the debate Augustine and then Felix, each in his own hand, anathematize Mani and his doctrine, and both sign the record.