# On Two Souls - Author: [Augustine of Hippo](https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/authors/augustine-of-hippo/) - Latin title: *De duabus animabus* - Date: ca. 391–392 (approximate) - Source: Joseph Zycha, ed., Sancti Aureli Augustini opera, sect. VI, pars 1, CSEL 25.1 (Vienna: Tempsky; Leipzig: Freytag, 1891) (Latin text: Joseph Zycha, De duabus animabus (CSEL 25.1, 1891), digitized by Open Greek and Latin (csel-dev, University of Leipzig), CC BY-SA 4.0) - Translation: Claude, from the original text, unless a passage says otherwise; each passage below gives the translator - Work page: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/augustine-duabus-animabus/ - Passages: 24 ## On Two Souls 1 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/augustine-duabus-animabus/1/#p-1 - Source: CSEL 25:51–52 - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27 Summary: Restored to the catholic Church, Augustine laments that he did not see that every soul, being alive, must come from God, the source of life, and through Christ, who is the life. ### Latin text Opitulante dei misericordia disruptis et derelictis Manichaeorum laqueis tandem catholicae gremio restitutum libet considerare nunc saltem ac deplorare illam miseriam meam. multa enim erant, quae facere debui, ne tam facile ac diebus paucis religionis uerissimae semina mihi a pueritia salubriter insita errore uel fraude falsorum fallaciumue hominum effossa ex animo pellerentur. nam primo animarum illa duo genera, quibus ita singulas naturas propriasque tribuerunt, ut alterum de ipsa dei esse substantia, alterius uero deum ne conditorem quidem uelint accipi. si mecum sobrie diligenterque considerassem mente in deum subplici et pia, fortasse mihi satagenti adparuisset nullam esse qualemlibet uitam, quae non eo ipso, quo uita est et in quantum omnino uita est, ad summum uitae fontem principiumque pertineat: quod nihil aliud quam summum et solum et uerum deum possumus confiteri. quapropter illas animas, quae a Manichaeis uocantur malae, aut carere uita et animas non esse neque quicquam uelle seu nolle. adpetere uel fugere, aut si uiuerent, ut et animae esse possent et aliquid tale agere, quale illi opinarentur nullo modo eas nisi uita uiuere; ac si Christum dixisse constaret, ut constat: ego sum uita. nihil esse causae, cur non omnes animas, cum animae nisi uiuendo esse non possint. per Christum, id est per uitam creatas et conditas fateremur. ### English translation (Claude) Now that, by the help of God's mercy, the snares of the Manichaeans have been broken and left behind, and I have at last been restored to the bosom of the catholic Church, I wish at least now to consider and lament that misery of mine. For there were many things I ought to have done so that the seeds of the truest religion, implanted in me healthfully from boyhood, should not have been so easily, and in a few days, dug up and driven out of my mind by the error or fraud of false and deceitful men. For first, as to those two kinds of souls, to which they assigned such separate and proper natures that one is of the very substance of God, while God is not even willing to be accepted as the creator of the other: if I had considered this with myself soberly and carefully, with a mind humble and devout toward God, perhaps it would have become clear to me, as I strove, that there is no life of any kind which, by the very fact that it is life and insofar as it is life at all, does not belong to the highest fount and principle of life; and this we can confess to be nothing other than the highest, only, and true God. Therefore those souls which the Manichaeans call evil either lack life, and are not souls, and neither will nor refuse anything, neither seek nor flee anything; or, if they live, so that they can both be souls and do anything such as those people imagine, they live by nothing but life. And if it were established that Christ said, as it is established that he said, “I am the life,” there would be no reason why we should not confess that all souls, since they cannot be souls except by living, were created and founded through Christ, that is, through the life. ### Scripture references - John 14:6: quotation, high confidence ### Translation notes - Augustine wrote this soon after his ordination (ca. 391–392) against the Manichaean teaching of two kinds of souls, one of God's substance and one evil and not made by God. John 14:6 (cf. 11:25). ### Citation (SBL) Augustine, Duab. an. 1 (CSEL 25:51–52; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/augustine-duabus-animabus/1/#p-1). ## On Two Souls 2 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/augustine-duabus-animabus/1/#p-2 - Source: CSEL 25:52–53 - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27 Summary: Since life and soul are known by the intellect, which surpasses the bodily senses, souls must rank above the visible light that the Manichaeans ascribe to God, and so must also be from God. ### Latin text Quod si tempore illo quaestionem de ipsa uita et de participatione uitae mea cogitatio ferre ac sustinere non posset — quae profecto magna est et multum serenae disputationis inter doctissimos indigens — illud dispicere fortasse ualuissem, quod omni homini sese sine studio partium bene consideranti manifestissime adparet omne, quod scire et nosse dicimur aut sensu corporis aut intellegentia nos habere conprehensum. sensus autem corporis etiam uulgo quinque numerari: uisum, auditum, odoratum. gustatum atque tactum: quibus omnibus intellegentiam longe alteque praestare et excellere, quis mihi non uel ingratus inpiusque concederet? quo constituto atque firmato illud consequi, ut cuncta, quae tactu et uisu uel quolibet alio modo corporaliter sentirentur. tanto essent inferiora his, quae intellegendo adsequeremur. quanto ipsos sensus intellegentiae cedere uideremus. quamobrem cum omnis uita et ob hoc omnis anima nullo corporis sensu, sed solo intellectu percipi queat, sol autem iste atque luna omnisque lux. quae mortalibus his oculis cernitur, ab ipsis quoque Manichaeis uero et bono deo tribuenda esse dicatur: summam esse dementiam id praedicare pertinere ad deum, quod per corpus intuemur, quod uero non solum animo. sed ipsa sublimitate animi, mente scilicet atque intellegentia caperemus, id est uitam, qualiscumque illa diceretur. tamen uitam eodem deo auctore priuandam et uiduandam putare. num enim quid sit uiuere quamque secretum ab omni corporis sensu quamque omnino incorporeum, si me ipsum inuocato deo interrogarem, respondere non possim? aut non illi quoque fateantur non solum uiuere illas, quas detestantur animas, sed etiam inmortaliter uiuere? quodque a Christo dictum est: dimitte mortuos sepelire mortuos suos, non de omnino non uiuentibus, sed de peccantibus dictum, quae inmortalis animae sola mors est scribente Paulo: mortua est uidua, quae in deliciis uiuit; simul enim et mortuam esse dixit et uiuere. quare non ego quanto decoloratius uiuat peccatrix anima, sed illud ipsum tantum, quod uiuit adtenderem. quod si percipere nisi intellegendo non possem, credo, ueniret in mentem tanto esse quamlibet animam luci, quam per hos sentimus oculos, praeferendam, quanto intellegentiam ipsis oculis praeferremus. Lucem autem illam illi quoque a patre Christi esse confirmant: egone tandem, quod ab eo esset quaecumque anima, dubitarem? ego uero non modo de anima, sed de quouis etiam corpore, quin ab ipso esset, nihil omnino ne tum quidem homo scilicet illius inperitiae atque illius aetatis ambigerem, si forma quid esset quidue formatum, quid species et quid indutum specie, deinde quid horum cui causa esset, pie cauteque cogitarem. ### English translation (Claude) But if at that time my thought could not bear and sustain the question of life itself and of participation in life (which is certainly a great question, needing much calm discussion among the most learned), perhaps I could have made out what is most plainly evident to every person who considers it well without partisan zeal: that everything we are said to know and understand we hold as grasped either by the sense of the body or by the intelligence. The senses of the body, even in common speech, are counted as five: sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch; and who, unless ungrateful and impious, would not grant me that intelligence far and deeply surpasses and excels all of them? Once this is settled and established, it follows that all things perceived bodily, by touch and sight or in any other way, are as much inferior to the things we attain by understanding as we see the senses themselves yield to the intelligence. Therefore, since all life, and for that reason every soul, can be perceived by no bodily sense but by the intellect alone, while this sun and moon and every light seen by these mortal eyes are said even by the Manichaeans themselves to be attributed to the true and good God, it is the height of madness to proclaim that what we behold through the body belongs to God, but to think that what we grasp not merely with the mind but with the very summit of the mind, that is, with the reason and intelligence, namely life, of whatever kind it is said to be, must be deprived and bereft of that same God as its author. For if I invoked God and questioned myself, could I not answer what it is to live, and how removed it is from every bodily sense, and how wholly incorporeal? Or would not they too admit that those souls they detest not only live but live immortally? And what Christ said, “Let the dead bury their dead,” was said not of those who do not live at all but of those who sin, which is the only death of the immortal soul, as Paul writes: “The widow who lives in pleasures is dead”; for he said at once that she is dead and that she lives. So I should have attended not to how much more discolored the life of a sinful soul is, but only to the fact that it lives. And if I could not perceive this except by understanding, it would, I believe, have come into my mind that any soul whatever is to be preferred to the light we perceive through these eyes as much as we prefer the intelligence to the eyes themselves. But they too affirm that that light is from the Father of Christ: should I, then, have doubted that any soul whatever was from him? Indeed, even then, a man, of course, of that inexperience and that age, I would not have hesitated at all, not only about the soul but about any body whatever, that it was from him, if I had thought devoutly and carefully what form is and what is formed, what beauty is and what is clothed with beauty, and then which of these is the cause of which. ### Scripture references - Matt 8:22: quotation, high confidence - Luke 9:60: quotation, medium confidence - 1 Tim 5:6: quotation, high confidence ### Translation notes - Matt 8:22 (Luke 9:60); 1 Tim 5:6. The distinction between species (“beauty”, “form”) and forma follows Augustine's usage; translated by sense. ### Citation (SBL) Augustine, Duab. an. 2 (CSEL 25:52–53; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/augustine-duabus-animabus/1/#p-2). ## On Two Souls 3 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/augustine-duabus-animabus/1/#p-3 - Source: CSEL 25:53–55 - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27 Summary: Augustine sets out the argument he should have pressed on the Manichaeans: souls are known by the mind, the sun and moon by the eyes, so even the “evil” soul is better than the light they worship. ### Latin text Sed de corpore interim taceo; de anima conqueror, de spontaneo et uiuido motu, de actu, de uita, de inmortalitate, denique conqueror, quod aliquam rem ista omnia sine dei bonitate habere posse miserrimus credidi, quod quanta essent, neglegenter adtendi: hoc mihi gemendum ac deflendum puto. uoluerem mecum haec, loquerer mecum, deferrem ad illos; quae uis esset intellegendi, quam nihil esset in homine. quod huic excellentiae possemus conferre, proponerem. ubi mihi hoc homines, si modo essent homines, concessissent, quaererem, utrum his oculis uidere id est intellegere; ubi negauissent, colligerem primo longe esse sensui oculorum istorum intellegentiam mentis anteponendam; deinde subiungerem, id quod re meliore perciperemus, necessario melius iudicandum. quis hoc non daret? ergo pergerem quaerere animam illam, quam malam dicerent, oculisne sentiretur istis. an mente intellegeretur. mente faterentur. quibus omnibus inter nos conuenientibus atque firmatis. quid conficeretur ostenderem, animam illam scilicet. quam execrarentur. luce ista, quam uenerarentur, esse meliorem, quandoquidem illa intellectu mentis. haec sensu corporis innotescit. hic uero haererent fortasse ducemque rationem sequi recusarent: tanta est uis ueternosarum opinionum et diu defensae atque creditae falsitatis. sed ego instarem magis haerentibus. non aspere. non pueriliter, non peruicaciter; repeterem quae concessa sunt, et quam essent concedenda, monstrarem. hortarer ut in commune consulerent; uiderent certe. quid nobis negandum esset: utrum intellectum istis carneis luminibus praeferendum, an excellentius esse, quod animi excellentia quam quod debili sensu corporis cognoscitur, falsum putarent; an illas animas, quas alienigenas crederent. tantum intellegendo. id est ipsa animi excellentia sciri posse nollent fateri: an solem ac lunam non nisi istis oculis notos fieri uellent abnuere. quod si nihil horum nisi absurdissime atque inpudentissime negari posse animum aduerterent, suaderem non eos oportere dubitare istam lucem, quam colendam praedicarent, esse anima illa uiliorem, quam fugiendam monerent. ### English translation (Claude) But of the body I say nothing for the moment; of the soul I complain: of its spontaneous and living motion, of its activity, of its life, of its immortality. Finally, I complain that, most wretched as I was, I believed that anything could have all these things without the goodness of God, and that I paid careless attention to how great they are: this, I think, I must bewail and weep over. I should have turned these things over with myself, spoken with myself, and brought them before those men: I would have set forth what the power of understanding is, and how nothing in man can be compared with this excellence. When men had granted me this, if only they were men, I would have asked whether to see with these eyes is the same as to understand; when they had denied it, I would have concluded first that the understanding of the mind is to be placed far ahead of the sense of these eyes; then I would have added that what we perceive by the better faculty must necessarily be judged better. Who would not grant this? So I would have gone on to ask whether that soul which they call evil is perceived by these eyes or understood by the mind. They would admit, by the mind. When all these things had been agreed and established between us, I would have shown what follows: that that soul which they execrate is better than this light which they venerate, since the one is known by the understanding of the mind, the other by the sense of the body. Here, perhaps, they would have stuck and refused to follow reason as their guide, so great is the force of long-entrenched opinions and of a falsehood long defended and believed. But I would have pressed them the more as they stuck, not harshly, not childishly, not obstinately; I would have repeated what had been conceded, and shown how it had to be conceded. I would have urged them to take counsel in common, and to see clearly what we would have to deny: whether they thought it false that understanding is to be preferred to these fleshly lights, or that what is known by the excellence of the mind is more excellent than what is known by the weak sense of the body; or whether they would refuse to admit that those souls which they believed to be alien could be known only by understanding, that is, by the very excellence of the mind; or whether they would want to deny that the sun and moon become known only by these eyes. And if they noticed that none of these could be denied except most absurdly and shamelessly, I would have urged them that they ought not to doubt that this light, which they proclaimed should be worshiped, is lower than that soul which they warned should be shunned. ### Translation notes - The Manichaeans venerated the sun and moon as vessels of the divine light. ### Citation (SBL) Augustine, Duab. an. 3 (CSEL 25:53–55; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/augustine-duabus-animabus/1/#p-3). ## On Two Souls 4 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/augustine-duabus-animabus/1/#p-4 - Source: CSEL 25:55 - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27 Summary: Even a fly's soul surpasses the sun's light, because the life that moves it is intelligible, and intelligible things rank above all sensible ones. ### Latin text Atque hic si forte turbati a me quaererent, num etiam muscae animam huic luci praestare censerem, responderem: etiam. nec me terreret musca quod parua est, sed quod uiua firmaret. quaeritur enim, quid illa membra tam exigua uegetet, quid huc atque illuc pro naturali adpetitu tantillum corpusculum ducat, quid currentis pedes in numerum moueat, aut quid uolantis pennulas moderetur ac uibret. quod qualecumque est, bene considerantibus in tam paruo tam magnum eminet, ut cuiuis fulgori praestringenti oculos praeferatur. Certe quod nemo dubitat, quicquid id est, intellegibile est, quod omni sensibili et ob hoc huic etiam luci diuinis legibus antecellit. quid enim cogitatione percipimus, quaeso, si hoc non percipimus aliud esse mente intellegere, aliud sentire per corpus et prius illud ab hoc posteriore incomparabili sublimitate distare ideoque non posse intellegibilia sensibilibus non praeferri, cum ipse intellectus tantum sensibus praeferatur? ### English translation (Claude) And here, if perhaps they were disturbed and asked me whether I thought that even the soul of a fly surpasses this light, I would have answered: yes, even that. Nor would the fly frighten me because it is small; rather, because it is alive, it would confirm my case. For one asks what gives life to those tiny members, what leads that tiny little body here and there according to its natural appetite, what moves the feet of the running fly in rhythm, or what governs and makes vibrate the little wings of the flying one. Whatever it is, to those who consider well it stands out so greatly in so small a thing that it is to be preferred to any brightness that dazzles the eyes. Certainly, as no one doubts, whatever it is, it is intelligible, and by divine laws it surpasses everything sensible, and therefore also this light. For what, I ask, do we grasp by thought, if we do not grasp that to understand with the mind is one thing and to perceive through the body another, and that the former is separated from the latter by an incomparable elevation, and therefore that intelligible things cannot fail to be preferred to sensible things, since understanding itself is so far preferred to the senses? ### Citation (SBL) Augustine, Duab. an. 4 (CSEL 25:55; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/augustine-duabus-animabus/1/#p-4). ## On Two Souls 5 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/augustine-duabus-animabus/1/#p-5 - Source: CSEL 25:55–56 - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27 Summary: Things must be judged within their kinds: the sun's light is praiseworthy as sensible, yet even vicious souls, as intelligible, rank above it, and as souls they have God as creator. ### Latin text Hinc illud etiam fortasse cognoscerem, quod consequens esse manifestum est, cum iniustitia et intemperantia ceteraque animi uitia non sentiantur, sed intellegantur: quomodo fiat, ut etiam ista, quae detestamur et damnanda censemus, tamen quoniam intellegibilia sunt, anteire hanc lucem queant, cum in suo genere ista laudanda sit. suggeritur enim animo bene se deo subicienti primo non omne, quod laudamus. omni. quod uituperamus. esse anteponendum. neque enim quia laudo purgatissimum plumbum. ob hoc illud uituperando auro pluris aestimo. in suo enim genere quidque considerandum est. inprobo iurisconsultum multas leges ignorantem, sed eum tamen probatissimo sutori sic praefero, ut ne comparandum quidem putem. at istum laudo, quod suae artis peritissimus sit; illum autem. quod suam professionem minus inpleat, iure reprehendo. ex quo reperire deberem lucem istam, quod in genere proprio perfecta esset. iure laudari; tamen quia sensibilium rerum numero includitur, quod genus intellegibilium generi cedat necesse est, infra iniustas et intemperantes animas, quoniam sunt intellegibiles, esse deputandam, quamuis istas non iniuria damnatione dignissimas iudicemus. quaerimus namque in his quod concilietur deo, non quod isti fulgori praeferatur. quapropter quisquis hoc lumen ex deo esse contenderet, non repugnarem, sed magis animas dicerem, uitiosas etiam, non in quantum uitiosae. sed in quantum animae sunt, deum sibi esse creatorem fateri oportere. ### English translation (Claude) From this perhaps I might also have recognized what plainly follows: since injustice and intemperance and the other vices of the mind are not sensed but understood, how does it come about that even these, which we detest and judge worthy of condemnation, can nevertheless, because they are intelligible, rank above this light, although this light is praiseworthy in its own kind? For it is suggested to a mind that rightly submits itself to God, first, that not everything we praise is to be placed above everything we blame. For I do not, because I praise the purest lead, value it more than gold that I blame; each thing must be considered in its own kind. I disapprove of a lawyer who does not know many laws, and yet I so prefer him to a most approved shoemaker that I do not think him even comparable. Yet I praise the shoemaker because he is very skilled in his craft, and I rightly blame the lawyer because he fulfills his profession less well. From this I should have found that this light, because it is perfect in its own kind, is rightly praised; yet because it is included among sensible things, a kind that must yield to the kind of intelligible things, it is to be ranked below unjust and intemperate souls, since they are intelligible, although we judge them, not without reason, most worthy of condemnation. For in them we are looking for what may be reconciled to God, not what may be preferred to that brightness. Therefore, if anyone maintained that this light is from God, I would not oppose him; but I would say rather that souls, even vicious ones, not insofar as they are vicious but insofar as they are souls, must confess God as their creator. ### Citation (SBL) Augustine, Duab. an. 5 (CSEL 25:55–56; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/augustine-duabus-animabus/1/#p-5). ## On Two Souls 6 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/augustine-duabus-animabus/1/#p-6 - Source: CSEL 25:56–59 - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27 Summary: Vices are not intelligible things but failings, as a waning of light is not itself seen; what remains in a vicious soul, its life, is intelligible and ranks above all sensible things. ### Latin text Hoc loco si quisquam illorum cautus et uigilans iam etiam studiosior quam pertinacior me admoneret non de uitiosis animis. sed de ipsis uitiis esse quaerendum — quae quoniam sensu corporis non cognoscerentur. et tamen cognoscerentur, non nisi intellegibilia posse accipi; quae si sensibilibus omnibus antecellunt, cur lucem deo auctori esse tribuendam inter nos conueniret, uitiorum uero auctorem deum nemo nisi sacrilegus diceret — responderem homini, si aut statim et repente. ut bonis dei cultoribus solet. diuinitus infulsisset huius solutio quaestionis, aut fuisset antea praeparata: quorum si neutrum meruissem atque potuissem, coepta differrem; quodque esset propositum, difficile esse ad dinoscendum atque arduum confiterer. recurrerem in me, prosternerer deo, alte ingemerem quaerens, ne me in medio spatio, quo certis rationibus promouissem, haerere pateretur; ne ancipiti quaestione cogerer aut intellegibilia sensibilibus submittere ac subdere. aut ipsum uitiorum dicere auctorem: cum esset utrumuis horum falsitatis inpietatisque plenissimum. nullo modo possem existimare. quod me sic adfectum ille desereret. admoneret ergo suis illis ineffabilibus modis, ut considerarem etiam atque etiam. utrum animi uitia. de quibus aestuarem, inter intellegibilia numeranda essent. quod ut reperirem propter inbecillitatem interioris oculi mei, quae mihi peccatis meis iure accidisset, aliquem mihi ad inuisibilia contuenda in ipsis uisibilibus machinarer gradum: quorum esset nobis nullo modo certior cognitio, sed consuetudo fidentior. itaque statim quaererem, quid ad sensum proprie pertineret oculorum. inuenirem colores, quorum principatum lux ista obtineret. haec enim sunt. quae nullus alius sensus adtingit: nam motus corporum et magnitudines et interualla et figuras. quamuis et oculis. non tamen proprie. sed tactu etiam posse sentiri. unde colligerem tanto ceteris corporeis et sensibilibus praestare lucem, quanto aliis sensibus aspectus esset inlustrior. eiecta igitur ex omnibus, quae corpore sentiuntur, ista luce. qua niterer et in qua gradum illum inquisitionis meae necessario conlocarem, pergerem adtendere, quid ageretur hoc modo. mecumque ista sermocinarer: si sol iste tanta claritate conspicuus et diei luce sufficiens usque ad lunae similitudinem in conspectu nostro paulatim deficeret, num aliud quicquam oculis sentiremus quam lucem utcumque fulgentem, lucem tamen quaerentes. quod fuerat, non uidendo et haurientes uidendo quod aderat? non ergo illum defectum uideremus, sed lucem. quae defectui remaneret. cum autem non uideremus, non sentiremus: quicquid enim sentimus aspectu. non potest non uideri. quare si defectus ille neque uisu neque alio sensu sentiretur, non posset inter sensibilia numerari. nihil enim sensibile est. quod sentiri non potest. referamus nunc considerationem ad uirtutem, cuius intellegibili luce splendere animum conuenientissime dicimus. porro ab hac luce uirtutis defectus quidam non perimens animam. sed obscurans uitium uocatur. potest igitur recte uitium quoque animi nequaquam inter intellegibilia numerari. ut lucis ille defectus recte de sensibilium numero eximitur: illud tamen quod remanet animae, id est hoc ipsum. quod uiuit atque anima est, tam est intellegibile quam sensibile illud, quod in hoc uisibili lumine post defectum quantumcumque fulgeret: et ideo animam in quantum anima esset et uitae participaret, sine qua nullo pacto esse anima potest. rectissime omnibus sensibilibus anteferri. quamobrem maximi erroris esse ullam animam dicere non esse ex deo. ex quo esse solem lunamque glorieris. ### English translation (Claude) At this point, if one of them, cautious and watchful and by now more eager for truth than for stubbornness, warned me that the question was not about vicious souls but about the vices themselves (which, since they are not known by bodily sense and yet are known, can only be taken as intelligible; and if they surpass all sensible things, why should we agree that light is to be attributed to God as its author, when no one but a sacrilegious person would call God the author of vices?), I would have answered the man if the solution of this question had either shone on me at once and suddenly from God, as usually happens to good worshipers of God, or had been prepared beforehand. If I had deserved and achieved neither, I would have postponed what I had begun and confessed that what was proposed was difficult and hard to discern. I would have run back into myself, prostrated myself before God, groaned deeply, asking that he not let me stick halfway along the course by which I had advanced by sure reasons, lest I be forced by a double-edged question either to subordinate and subject intelligible things to sensible ones or to call him the author of vices, since either of these is full of falsehood and impiety. In no way could I have thought that he would desert me in such a state. He would therefore have warned me, in those ineffable ways of his, to consider again and again whether the vices of the mind, about which I was troubled, were to be counted among intelligible things. And to find this out, because of the weakness of my inner eye, which had rightly befallen me through my sins, I would have contrived for myself some step, in the visible things themselves, toward beholding invisible things, visible things of which we have by no means a more certain knowledge, but a more confident familiarity. So I would at once have asked what properly belongs to the sense of the eyes. I would have found colors, among which this light holds first place. For these are what no other sense reaches; for the motions of bodies, their sizes, distances, and shapes, though they can be sensed by the eyes, are not properly theirs, but can also be sensed by touch. Hence I would have concluded that light surpasses other bodily and sensible things as much as sight is more illustrious than the other senses. So, having picked out from all things that are sensed by the body this light, on which I would rely and on which I would necessarily place that step of my inquiry, I would have gone on to observe what happens in this way, and would have talked it over with myself thus: If this sun, conspicuous with such brightness and sufficient for the light of day, gradually failed in our sight until it resembled the moon, would we perceive with our eyes anything other than light shining in some measure, looking for the light that had been by not seeing it, and taking in by seeing the light that was present? So we would not see that failing, but the light that remained to the failing. But what we did not see we would not sense; for whatever we sense by sight cannot fail to be seen. Therefore, if that failing were sensed neither by sight nor by any other sense, it could not be counted among sensible things; for nothing is sensible that cannot be sensed. Let us now turn our consideration to virtue, by whose intelligible light we most fittingly say the mind shines. Further, a certain failing from this light of virtue, which does not destroy the soul but darkens it, is called vice. So the vice of the mind too can rightly be counted in no way among intelligible things, just as that failing of light is rightly excluded from the number of sensible things. But what remains to the soul, that is, the very fact that it lives and is a soul, is as intelligible as that which, in this visible light, would be sensible, however much it still shone after the failing. And therefore the soul, insofar as it is a soul and participates in life, without which it can in no way be a soul, is most rightly placed ahead of all sensible things. Therefore it is a very great error to say that any soul is not from God, when you boast that the sun and moon are from him. ### Translation notes - The last sentence shifts to the second person (glorieris), addressing a Manichaean directly. ### Citation (SBL) Augustine, Duab. an. 6 (CSEL 25:56–59; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/augustine-duabus-animabus/1/#p-6). ## On Two Souls 7 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/augustine-duabus-animabus/1/#p-7 - Source: CSEL 25:59–60 - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27 Summary: Whatever words are used, intelligible substances rank above sensible ones, while failings as mere negations are equal in themselves; losing an intelligible good is worse because the good is greater. ### Latin text Quod si iam placeret omnia sensibilia nominare, non modo ea, quae sentiremus, sed etiam ea, quae non sentiendo, tamen per corpus iudicaremus, sicut per oculos tenebras et per aures silentium — et illas enim non uidendo et hoc non audiendo cognoscimus — rursusque intellegibilia, non ea tantum, quae inlustrata mente conspicimus, sicuti est ipsa sapientia, sed etiam illa, quae ipsius inlustrationis priuatione auersamur, ut est insipientia, quam tenebras animi congrue dixerimus: nullam de uerbo facerem controuersiam, sed totam quaestionem facili diuisione dissoluerem statimque adprobarem bene adtendentibus substantias intellegibiles sensibilibus substantiis diuina et incorrupta ueritatis lege praeponi, non earum substantiarum defectus, quamuis hos intellegibiles, illes sensibiles appellare uellemus. quapropter qui et haec lumina uisibilia et illas intellegibiles animas substantias esse faterentur, omni modo eos cogi sublimiores partes animis tribuere atque concedere, defectus uero utriusque generis non posse alteros alteris anteponi; priuant enim tantum et non esse indicant, quod usquequaque eandem uim habent, sicut ipsae negationes. nam cum dicimus: non est aurum, et: non est uirtus, quamuis inter aurum et uirtutes plurimum, nihil tamen inter negationes, quas eis adiunximus, distat. uerum enimuero peius est non esse uirtutem quam non esse aurum, nemo sanus hinc ambigit, quod non propter ipsas negationes, sed propter res, quibus adiunguntur, accidere quis non intellegat? auro enim uirtus quanto praestat, tanto est uirtute quam auro carere miserius. quamobrem cum res intellegibiles sensibilibus rebus antecellunt, defectum in intellegibilibus quam in sensibilibus merito aegrius toleramus, non eos defectus, sed ea, quae deficiunt, carius uel uilius aestimantes. ex quo iam illud adparet defectum uitae, quae intellegibilis est, multo miserabiliorem esse quam huius sensibilis lucis, quod scilicet multo est carior intellecta uita quam lux ista conspecta. ### English translation (Claude) But if one now chose to call sensible not only the things we sense but also those which, by not sensing them, we nevertheless judge through the body, as darkness through the eyes and silence through the ears (for we know the one by not seeing and the other by not hearing), and again to call intelligible not only the things we behold with an enlightened mind, such as wisdom itself, but also those which we turn away from through the privation of that enlightenment, such as folly, which we may fittingly call the darkness of the mind: I would make no dispute about the word, but would resolve the whole question by an easy division, and would at once prove to those who pay attention that, by the divine and incorrupt law of truth, intelligible substances are placed above sensible substances, not the failings of those substances, even if we chose to call the one intelligible and the other sensible. Therefore those who admitted that both these visible lights and those intelligible souls are substances would be compelled in every way to grant and concede the higher place to souls; but the failings of the two kinds cannot be placed one above the other, for they only deprive and indicate not-being, and so everywhere have the same force, just as negations themselves do. For when we say “it is not gold” and “it is not virtue,” although there is a very great difference between gold and the virtues, there is no difference between the negations we have attached to them. But that it is worse for virtue not to be than for gold not to be, no one of sound mind doubts; and who does not understand that this comes about not because of the negations themselves but because of the things to which they are attached? For the more virtue surpasses gold, the more wretched it is to lack virtue than to lack gold. Therefore, since intelligible things surpass sensible things, we rightly bear a failing in intelligible things with more distress than in sensible things, valuing not those failings, but the things that fail, as more precious or more worthless. From this it is already clear that the failing of life, which is intelligible, is much more lamentable than that of this sensible light, because understood life is much more precious than this seen light. ### Citation (SBL) Augustine, Duab. an. 7 (CSEL 25:59–60; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/augustine-duabus-animabus/1/#p-7). ## On Two Souls 8 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/augustine-duabus-animabus/1/#p-8 - Source: CSEL 25:60–61 - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27 Summary: If the Manichaeans grant that whatever shines is from God, they must grant that whatever lives is from God, for souls are souls by living, and life is never a cause of failing. ### Latin text Quae cum ita sint, audebitne quisquam, cum solem ac lunam et quicquid in sideribus, quicquid denique in hoc igni nostro atque terreno luce uisibili effulget, deo tribuat, animas quaslibet, quae profecto nisi uiuendo animae non sunt, cum tanto hoc lumen uita praecedat. ex deo esse nolle concedere? et cum ille uerum dicat. qui dicit: in quantum nitet. ex deo est, egone tandem. deus magne. mentiar, si dicam: in quantum uiuit. ex deo est? non usque adeo. quaeso, caecitas mentis subpliciaque augeantur animorum. ut haec homines non intellegant. sed quoquo modo illorum error aut pertinacia sese haberet, his ego fretus armatusque rationibus credo, cum ad eos rem ita consideratam perspectamque detulissem et cum his placide contulissem. uererer. ne mihi quisquam eorum alicuius momenti esse uideretur, si aut intellectum aut ea, quae intellectu, non per defectum perciperentur, sensui conaretur praeferre aut saltem conparare corporeo uel his rebus, quae ad eundem sensum cognoscendum similiter pertinerent. quo constituto quando ille mihi uel quisquam negare auderet animas, quantum uellet malas, tamen, quoniam animae essent, intellegibilium rerum numero contineri neque illas per defectum intellegi? siquidem animae non alio essent, nisi quo uiuerent licet enim per defectum intellegerentur uitiosae, quia uirtutis egestate uitiosae, non tamen per defectum animae, quia ui. uendo animae. nec fieri potest, ut uitae praesentia sit causa deficiendi, cum tanto quidque deficiat, quanto deseritur uita. ### English translation (Claude) Since this is so, will anyone dare, while attributing to God the sun and moon and whatever shines with visible light in the stars, and finally in this fire of ours on earth, to refuse to grant that any souls whatever are from God, souls which are certainly not souls except by living, since life so far surpasses this light? And when he speaks the truth who says, “Insofar as it shines, it is from God,” shall I, great God, be lying if I say, “Insofar as it lives, it is from God”? Let not, I beg, the blindness of the mind and the punishments of souls be increased so far that men do not understand these things. But however their error or stubbornness might stand, I believe that, relying on and armed with these reasons, when I had brought the matter so considered and examined before them and had calmly discussed it with them, I would have been afraid that any of them might seem to me of any weight if he tried to rank either the understanding or the things perceived by understanding (not through failing) below bodily sense, or even to compare them with it or with the things that likewise belong to that sense to be known. And when this was established, when would he or anyone dare to deny to me that souls, however evil he wished them to be, are nevertheless, because they are souls, contained among intelligible things, and are not understood through failing? For souls are souls by nothing other than that by which they live. For although they might be understood as vicious through failing, since they are vicious by lack of virtue, yet they are not souls through failing, since they are souls by living. Nor can it be that the presence of life is a cause of failing, since each thing fails as much as life deserts it. ### Translation notes - The printed text has praeferre (“to prefer”), which the argument seems to require in the opposite sense (to rank below); translated by sense, and uncertain. “I would have been afraid that any of them might seem to me of any weight” means that none of them could then have seemed a serious opponent. ### Citation (SBL) Augustine, Duab. an. 8 (CSEL 25:60–61; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/augustine-duabus-animabus/1/#p-8). ## On Two Souls 9 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/augustine-duabus-animabus/1/#p-9 - Source: CSEL 25:61–63 - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27 Summary: Scripture's “all things are from God” and “you are not from God” agree once one sees that a sinner is from God insofar as he lives and not from God insofar as he sins. ### Latin text Omni modo igitur cum pateret non posse ullas animas ab eo auctore separari, a quo lux ista non separaretur, iam quicquid adferrent, non acciperem admoneremque potius, ut eos mecum sequi mallent, qui omne, quicquid esset, quoniam esset, in quantumcumque esset, ex uno deo esse praedicarent. Recitarent aduersum me uoces illas euangelicas: uos propterea non auditis, quia non estis ex deo; uos ex patre diabolo estis. ego quoque contra recitarem: omnia per ipsum facta sunt et sine ipso factum est nihil, et illud apostoli: unus deus, ex quo omnia, et unus dominus Iesus Christus, per quem omnia, et iterum eiusdem apostoli: ex quo omnia, per quem omnia, in quo omnia, ipsi gloria, hortarerque homines — si tamen homines inuenirem —, nihil nos iam quasi conperisse praesumeremus, sed quaereremus potius magistros, qui sententiarum istarum, quae nobis inter se pugnare uiderentur, pacem concordiamque monstrarent. non in una atque eadem auctoritate scripturarum cum alibi sonaret: omnia ex deo, et alibi: uos non estis ex deo, quoniam libros temere condemnare nefas esset, quis non uideret peritum doctorem, cui quaestionis huius solutio nota esset, inueniendum fuisse? qui profecto si esset bonus intellector et. ut diuinitus dicitur, homo spiritalis. quoniam necessario faueret ueris rationibus, quas de intellegibili sensibilique natura, quantum potui, tractaui atque disserui. immo eas ipse multo melius et ad docendum aptius aperiret. nihil ab eo aliud de hac quaestione audiremus, nisi quemadmodum fieri posset, ut et nullum animarum genus non esset ex deo, et recte tamen peccatoribus et infidelibus diceretur: non estis ex deo. nam et nos fortasse inplorato in auxilium deo facile uidere possemus aliud esse uiuere, aliud peccare. et quamquam uita in peccatis in conparatione iustae uitae mors appellata sit. utrumque tamen in homine uno posse inueniri, ut simul sit uiuus atque peccator. sed quod uiuus, ex deo, quod peccator. non ex deo. in qua diuisione utimur ea parte de duabus, quae nostrae sententiae conpetit, ut, cum dei conditoris omnipotentiam insinuare uolumus, etiam peccatoribus dicamus. quod ex deo sint — dicimus enim his, qui aliqua specie continentur, dicimus animantibus, dicimus rationalibus, dicimus postremo, quod ad rem maxime adtingit, uiuentibus, quae omnia per se ipsa diuina sunt munera-, cum autem malos arguere propositum est. recte dicimus: non estis ex deo. dicimus enim se a ueritate auertentibus, infidelibus, facinorosis. flagitiosis, et quod nomine uno totum continet, peccatoribus: quae rursus omnia ex deo non esse quis dubitet? itaque Christus peccatoribus id ipsum, quod peccatores erant et sibi non credebant, coarguens, quid mirum si ait: non estis ex deo. ex alia parte illa salua manente sententia quod omnia per ipsum facta sunt, et: omnia ex deo. nam si Christo non credere, Christi aduentum repudiare. Christum non recipere certum indicium esset animarum, quae non sunt dei. et ideo dictum esset: uos propterea non auditis. quia non estis ex deo, quomodo uera esset uox illa apostoli in ipso euangelii memorabili principio, qua dictum est: in sua propria uenit et sui eum non receperunt? unde sui. si non receperunt? aut unde ideo non sui. quia non receperunt? nisi quia homines peccatores, eo quod sunt homines. ad deum. eo uero, quod peccatores, ad diabolum pertinent. hic ergo partem naturae tenuit qui ait: sui eum non receperunt. ille uoluntatis qui ait: non estis ex deo. euangelista enim dei opera commendabat. Christus hominum peccata cohercebat. ### English translation (Claude) In every way, then, since it was clear that no souls can be separated from that author from whom this light is not separated, I would no longer accept whatever they brought forward, but would rather urge them to choose to follow with me those who proclaim that everything that is, because it is, to whatever degree it is, is from the one God. They might recite against me those words of the Gospel: “You do not hear for this reason, because you are not from God; you are from your father the devil.” I in turn would recite: “All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made,” and the apostle's words: “One God, from whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things,” and again the same apostle's: “From whom are all things, through whom are all things, in whom are all things; to him be glory.” And I would urge the men, if only I found men, that we should no longer presume that we had found anything out, but should rather seek teachers who could show us the peace and harmony of these statements, which seemed to us to conflict with one another. Since, within one and the same authority of the Scriptures, it sounded in one place, “All things are from God,” and in another, “You are not from God,” and since it would be impious to condemn the books rashly, who would not see that a skilled teacher, to whom the solution of this question was known, had to be found? And if he were a good interpreter and, as Scripture says, a spiritual man, then, since he would necessarily favor the true reasons which I have treated and discussed, as far as I could, concerning intelligible and sensible nature, or rather would himself lay them open much better and more fitly for teaching, we would hear nothing else from him on this question than how it could be that no kind of souls is not from God, and yet it is rightly said to sinners and unbelievers, “You are not from God.” For we too, perhaps, having implored God's help, could easily see that to live is one thing and to sin another; and that although life in sins has been called death in comparison with a righteous life, yet both can be found in one man, so that he is at once alive and a sinner; but insofar as he is alive, he is from God; insofar as he is a sinner, he is not from God. In this division we use whichever of the two parts suits our purpose: when we want to make known the omnipotence of God the creator, we say even to sinners that they are from God; for we say it to those who are held together by some form, to animate beings, to rational beings, and finally, what touches the matter most, to living beings, all of which in themselves are divine gifts. But when our purpose is to rebuke the wicked, we rightly say, “You are not from God.” For we say it to those who turn away from the truth, to unbelievers, to criminals, to the shameful, and, in one word that contains the whole, to sinners; and who doubts that all these, again, are not from God? So when Christ rebuked sinners for the very fact that they were sinners and did not believe in him, what wonder if he said, “You are not from God,” while on the other side that statement remains intact, that “all things were made through him,” and “all things are from God”? For if not believing Christ, rejecting Christ's coming, not receiving Christ were a sure sign of souls that are not God's, and for that reason it had been said, “You do not hear for this reason, because you are not from God,” how would that saying of the apostle be true, at the memorable beginning of the Gospel itself, where it is said: “He came to his own, and his own did not receive him”? How were they his own, if they did not receive him? Or how were they for that reason not his own, because they did not receive him? Only because sinful men, insofar as they are men, belong to God, but insofar as they are sinners, to the devil. So he who said, “His own did not receive him,” kept to the part of nature; he who said, “You are not from God,” kept to the part of the will. For the evangelist was commending the works of God; Christ was restraining the sins of men. ### Scripture references - John 8:47: quotation, high confidence - John 8:44: quotation, high confidence - John 1:3: quotation, high confidence - 1 Cor 8:6: quotation, high confidence - Rom 11:36: quotation, high confidence - 1 Cor 2:15: allusion, medium confidence - John 1:11: quotation, high confidence ### Translation notes - John 8:47, 44; John 1:3; 1 Cor 8:6; Rom 11:36; 1 Cor 2:15 (“spiritual man”); John 1:11. Augustine calls John the Evangelist “the apostle”. ### Citation (SBL) Augustine, Duab. an. 9 (CSEL 25:61–63; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/augustine-duabus-animabus/1/#p-9). ## On Two Souls 10 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/augustine-duabus-animabus/1/#p-10 - Source: CSEL 25:63–65 - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27 Summary: To the question “where does evil come from?” Augustine would have answered that one must first know God, the highest good, and that the Manichaeans wrongly trust the eyes over the mind. ### Latin text Hic fortasse quis dicat: unde ipsa peccata et omnino unde malum? si ab homine, unde homo? si ab angelo. unde angelus? quos ex deo esse cum dicitur. quamuis recte uereque dicantur, uidentur tamen inperitis et minus ualentibus acriter res abditas intueri quasi per quandam catenam ad deum mala et peccata conecti. hac in quaestione illi regnare se putant, quasi uero interrogare sit scire. utinam id esset: nemo me scientior reperiretur. sed nescio quomodo saepe in altercando magnae quaestionis propositor personam magni doctoris ostentat plerumque ipse ipso. quem tenet, in eo, de quo terret, indoctior. itaque isti multitudini se praeferendos arbitrantur, quia priores interrogant. quod cum multitudine ignorant. sed si eo tempore, quo cum eis me, non sicut iam diu ago, egisse nunc paenitet, mihi has rationes depromenti hoc obiecissent, dicerem: quaeso. interim mecum cognoscite, quod facillimum est, si nihil potest fulgere sine deo, multo minus posse aliquid uiuere sine deo, ne in tantis monstris opinionum remaneamus, ut nescio quas animas uitam non ex deo habere praedicemus. sic enim fortasse continget, ut id quod mecum ignoratis, id est unde sit malum, uel simul uel quolibet ordine aliquando discamus. quid? si enim cognitio summi mali sine summi boni cognitione contingere homini non potest? non enim nossemus tenebras, si in tenebris semper essemus; sed lucis notitia contrarium suum non siuit incognitum. summum autem bonum id est, quo superius esse nihil potest; deus autem bonum et deo superius nihil est: deus igitur summum bonum. cognoscamus ergo deum atque ita nos illud, quod praepropere quaerimus, non latebit. mediocrisne tandem negotii uel meriti cognitionem dei esse arbitramini? quod enim nobis aliud praemium quam uita aeterna promittitur, quae dei cognitio est? ait enim magister deus: haec est autem uita aeterna, ut cognoscant te solum et uerum deum et quem misisti Iesum Christum. etenim anima quamuis sit inmortalis, tamen quia mors eius rite dicitur a dei cognitione auersio, cum se conuertit ad deum. meritum est aeternae uitae consequendae, ut sit aeterna uita, sicut dictum est, ipsa cognitio. conuerti autem ad deum nemo, nisi ab hoc mundo se auerterit, potest. hoc ego mihi arduum et difficillimum sentio; uobis si facile est, ille ipse deus uiderit. ego uellem credere, nisi me moueret, quod cum iste mundus, a quo nos auertere iubemur, uisibilis sit dixeritque apostolus: ea quae uidentur, temporalia sunt; quae autem non uidentur, aeterna sunt, uos plus istorum oculorum quam mentis iudicio tribuitis, apud quos nullam esse fulgentem pennam, quae non ex deo fulgeat, et esse uiuentem animam, quae non ex deo uiuat, praedicatur et creditur. haec et similia uel illis etiam dicerem uel mecum ipse reputarem. possem namque deum omnibus, ut dicitur, uisceribus deprecans et scripturis, quantum licebat, intentus etiam tunc fortasse talia uel dicere uel, quod saluti sat erat, cogitare. ### English translation (Claude) Here perhaps someone may say: “Where do sins themselves come from, and where does evil come from at all? If from man, where does man come from? If from an angel, where does the angel come from?” When these are said to be from God, although this is said rightly and truly, it still seems to the unskilled and to those less able to look keenly into hidden things that evils and sins are linked to God as though by a kind of chain. In this question these people think they reign, as though to ask were to know. Would that it were! No one would be found more knowing than I. But somehow, in disputing, the one who puts a great question often displays the role of a great teacher, while he himself is usually more ignorant than the one he has cornered, on the very matter with which he intimidates him. So these people think they should be preferred to the multitude because they ask first what they, with the multitude, do not know. But if, at the time when I dealt with them (as I now regret having done, not as I have long been doing), they had put this objection to me when I brought out these reasons, I would have said: “Please, meanwhile, recognize with me what is very easy: if nothing can shine without God, much less can anything live without God; so that we may not remain in such monstrous opinions as to proclaim that certain souls have life not from God. For so perhaps it will come about that what you do not know along with me, that is, where evil comes from, we may learn some day, either together or in whatever order. For what if the knowledge of the highest evil cannot come to a man without knowledge of the highest good? For we would not know darkness if we were always in darkness; but the knowledge of light did not leave its contrary unknown. Now the highest good is that than which nothing can be higher; but God is good, and nothing is higher than God: God, therefore, is the highest good. Let us know God, then, and so what we are seeking too hastily will not be hidden from us. Or do you think the knowledge of God is a matter of little importance or merit? For what other reward is promised us than eternal life, which is the knowledge of God? For God our teacher says: ‘And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only and true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.’ For although the soul is immortal, yet because its death is rightly called turning away from the knowledge of God, when it turns to God, that is the merit of attaining eternal life, so that eternal life is, as has been said, knowledge itself. But no one can turn to God unless he turns away from this world. This I feel to be hard and very difficult for me; if it is easy for you, God himself will see. I would like to believe it, if I were not troubled by this: that, although this world, from which we are commanded to turn away, is visible, and the apostle has said, ‘The things that are seen are temporal, but the things that are not seen are eternal,’ you give more weight to the judgment of these eyes than to that of the mind, you among whom it is proclaimed and believed that no feather shines that does not shine from God, and yet that there is a living soul that does not live from God.” These and similar things I would either have said to them as well or thought over with myself. For I could, praying to God with all my heart, as they say, and intent on the Scriptures as far as was permitted, perhaps even then have said such things, or, what was enough for salvation, have thought them. ### Scripture references - John 17:3: quotation, high confidence - 2 Cor 4:18: quotation, high confidence ### Translation notes - John 17:3; 2 Cor 4:18. “No feather shines that does not shine from God”: the Manichaeans held that the light in bright things is a portion of the divine substance. ### Citation (SBL) Augustine, Duab. an. 10 (CSEL 25:63–65; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/augustine-duabus-animabus/1/#p-10). ## On Two Souls 11 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/augustine-duabus-animabus/1/#p-11 - Source: CSEL 25:65–66 - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27 Summary: Augustine explains that friendship with the Manichaeans and easy victories in debates with untrained Christians kept him long among men who preferred a shining straw to a living soul. ### Latin text Sed me duo quaedam maxime, quae incautam illam aetatem facile capiunt, per admirabiles adtriuere circuitus: quorum est unum familiaritas nescio quomodo repens quadam imagine bonitatis tamquam sinuosum aliquod uinculum multipliciter collo inuolutum, alterum, quod quaedam noxia uictoria paene mihi semper in disputationibus proueniebat disserenti cum inperitis, sed tamen fidem suam certatim, ut quisque posset, defendere molientibus christianis. quo successu creberrimo gliscebat adulescentis animositas et inpetus suos in peruicaciae magnum malum inprudenter urgebat. quod altercandi genus quia post eorum auditionem adgressus eram, quicquid in eo uel qualicumque ingenio uel aliis lectionibus poteram, solis illis libentissime tribuebam. ita ex illorum sermonibus ardor in certamina, ex certaminum prouentu amor in illos cotidie nouabatur. ex quo accidebat, ut quicquid dicerent, miris quibusdam modis, non quia sciebam, sed quia optabam uerum esse, pro uero adprobarem. ita factum est, ut quamuis pedetemtim atque caute, tamen diu sequerer homines nitidam stipulam uiuenti animae praeferentes. ### English translation (Claude) But two things above all, which easily capture that incautious age, wore me down by wonderful roundabout ways. One of them was a familiarity, somehow creeping on with a certain image of goodness, like a winding cord wrapped many times around the neck; the other, that a kind of harmful victory almost always came to me in disputes, when I argued with unskilled Christians who nevertheless strove eagerly, each as best he could, to defend their faith. By this very frequent success the young man's hot temper grew, and imprudently drove its impulses toward the great evil of obstinacy. And because I had taken up this kind of disputing after I began to hear them, whatever I could do in it, either by whatever ability I had or from other reading, I most gladly credited to them alone. So from their talks came ardor for contests, and from the success of the contests love for them was renewed daily. Hence it happened that whatever they said I approved as true, in some strange ways, not because I knew it but because I wished it to be true. So it came about that, although step by step and cautiously, I followed for a long time men who preferred a shining straw to a living soul. ### Translation notes - “A shining straw”: the Manichaeans held that the light in bright physical things was part of the divine substance. “Hear them” (eorum auditionem) may also allude to Augustine’s rank among the Manichaeans as a “hearer” (auditor), below the elect. ### Citation (SBL) Augustine, Duab. an. 11 (CSEL 25:65–66; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/augustine-duabus-animabus/1/#p-11). ## On Two Souls 12 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/augustine-duabus-animabus/1/#p-12 - Source: CSEL 25:66–68 - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27 Summary: By common human judgment no one sins through an act done without knowledge or power to resist, unless he willed it beforehand; so sin lies nowhere but in the will. ### Latin text Uerum esto: non poteram illo tempore sensibilia haec ab intellegibilibus, carnalia scilicet ab spiritalibus diiudicare atque discernere. non erat aetatis. non disciplinae, non cuiusdam etiam consuetudinis. non ullorum denique meritorum non enim parui gaudii felicitatisque res est —: itane tandem ne illud quidem arripere poteram, quod in omnium hominum iudicio summi dei legibus natura ipsa constituit? Quiuis enim homines, quos modo a communi sensu generis humani nulla disrupisset amentia, quae uellent ad iudicandum studia detulissent, quamlibet inperitiam, quantamcumque etiam tarditatem, uelim experiri, quid mihi responderent roganti, utrum eis peccasse uideretur, de cuius dormientis manu scripsisset alius aliquid flagitiosum. omnes quis dubitet ita fuisse negaturos illud esse peccatum, ita reclamaturos, ut etiam succenserent fortasse, quod tali eos rogatione dignos putarim? a quibus ego, quoque modo poteram. reconciliatis et in consilium restitutis peterem, ut me aliud tam manifestum, tam in omnium cognitione positum interrogantem non moleste ferrent. tunc quaererem: si non dormientis, sed scientis manu, qui membris tamen ceteris uinctus atque constrictus esset, quisquam ualentior aliquid similiter fecisset mali, utrum quia id nosset. quamuis omnino noluisset, ullo peccati nomine teneretur. et hic mihi omnes mirantes, quod talia sciscitarer, sine cunctatione responderent nihil etiam istum omnino peccasse. quid ita? quia de quo nesciente uel resistere non ualente quisquam quippiam mali fecerit, iuste damnari nullo modo potest. atque id ipsum cur ita esset, si in illis hominibus naturam ipsam percontarer humanam, facile peruenirem ad id, quod cuperem, isto modo quaerens: quid? si dormiens ille iam sciret, quid alius de manu eius facturus esset, et de industria se plus potus etiam, ne expergisceretur, somno dederet, ut aliquem iurando falleret, num ei quicquam somnus ad innocentiam suffragaretur? quid aliud illi quam nocentem hominem pronuntiarent? quid? si et ille uolens uinctus est, ut aliquem similiter praetenta defensione deciperet, quid ei tandem, ut peccato careat. illa uincula profuerunt? quamquam his obstrictus reuera resistere non ualeret, sicut ille dormiens, quid tunc fieret. omnino nesciret. numquidnam igitur dubitandum est, quin peccasse ambo iudicarentur? quibus concessis colligerem nusquam scilicet nisi in uoluntate esse peccatum, cum mihi auxiliaretur etiam illud, quod iustitia peccantes tenet sola mala uoluntate. quamuis quod uoluerint inplere nequiuerint. ### English translation (Claude) But suppose it so: at that time I could not judge between and distinguish these sensible things from intelligible ones, that is, carnal from spiritual. It was not a matter of my age, nor of my training, nor even of a certain habit, nor finally of any merits (for it is a thing of no small joy and happiness). But could I not at least lay hold of what nature itself has established in the judgment of all men by the laws of the highest God? For I would like to test what any men would answer me, provided no madness had cut them off from the common sense of the human race, whatever pursuits they brought to judging, whatever inexperience, however great their slowness, if I asked them whether a man seemed to them to have sinned from whose hand, while he slept, someone else had written something shameful. Who would doubt that all would deny that this was a sin, and protest so loudly that they might even be angry that I thought them deserving of such a question? Having reconciled them as best I could and brought them back to the discussion, I would ask them not to take it ill if I asked them something else as plain and as clear to everyone's knowledge. Then I would ask: if someone stronger had done some similar evil not with the hand of a sleeping man but with that of a man who knew it, but who was bound and tied in his other limbs, would he, because he knew of it, although he was wholly unwilling, be held guilty under any name of sin? And here all, wondering that I asked such things, would answer without hesitation that he too had not sinned at all. Why so? Because a man through whom, when he is unaware or unable to resist, someone else has done some evil, can in no way be justly condemned. And if I inquired of human nature itself in those men why this is so, I would easily reach what I wanted, asking in this way: What if that sleeper already knew what the other would do with his hand, and on purpose, having even drunk more so as not to wake, gave himself to sleep, in order to deceive someone by an oath: would sleep contribute anything to his innocence? What would they declare him but a guilty man? What if the other too was bound willingly, so as likewise to deceive someone by the pretext of that defense: of what use, then, were those bonds to him in keeping him free of sin? Although, tied by them, he really could not resist, just as that sleeper could not at all know what was being done then. Is there any doubt, then, that both would be judged to have sinned? When these points were conceded, I would conclude that sin is nowhere but in the will, since I would also be helped by the fact that justice holds sinners guilty by the evil will alone, even if they could not carry out what they willed. ### Translation notes - The parenthesis “for it is a thing of no small joy and happiness” refers to the ability to distinguish intelligible from sensible things. ### Citation (SBL) Augustine, Duab. an. 12 (CSEL 25:66–68; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/augustine-duabus-animabus/1/#p-12). ## On Two Souls 13 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/augustine-duabus-animabus/1/#p-13 - Source: CSEL 25:68 - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27 Summary: Augustine turns to what everyone knows without subtle argument: that he lives and that he wills, knowledge in which no one can be deceived. ### Latin text Quisquamne me ista tractantem possit dicere in rebus obscuris abditisque uersari. ubi propter intellegentium paucitatem uel fraudis uel ostentationis suspicio nasci solet? secedat paulisper illa intellegibilium sensibiliumque distinctio, nulla mihi fiat inuidia, quod tardas animas subtilium disputationum stimulis persequor. liceat mihi me scire uiuere, liceat mihi scire me uelle uiuere: in quae si consentit genus humanum, tam nobis cognita est uoluntas nostra quam uita. neque cum istam scientiam profitemur, metuendum est, ne nos quisquam falli posse conuincat: hoc ipsum enim falli nemo potest, si aut non uiuat aut nihil uelit. non me arbitror quicquam obscurum adtulisse et uereor, ne cuiquam magis, quod haec nimium manifesta sint, uidear esse culpandus; sed quorsum tendant, consideremus. ### English translation (Claude) Could anyone say that in treating these things I am dealing with obscure and hidden matters, where, because few understand, suspicion of fraud or of display usually arises? Let that distinction of intelligible and sensible things step aside for a little; let no one resent me for pursuing slow souls with the goads of subtle arguments. Let me be allowed to know that I live; let me be allowed to know that I will to live. If the human race agrees on these things, our will is as known to us as our life. Nor, when we profess this knowledge, need we fear that anyone may convict us of being able to be deceived; for no one can be deceived in this very matter unless he either does not live or wills nothing. I do not think I have brought forward anything obscure, and I fear rather that I may seem blameworthy to someone because these things are too obvious; but let us consider where they lead. ### Citation (SBL) Augustine, Duab. an. 13 (CSEL 25:68; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/augustine-duabus-animabus/1/#p-13). ## On Two Souls 14 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/augustine-duabus-animabus/14/#p-14 - Source: CSEL 25:68–70 - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27 Summary: Augustine defines will as a movement of the mind, uncompelled, toward keeping or gaining something, a definition that nature makes plain to everyone. ### Latin text Non igitur nisi uoluntate peccatur. nobis autem uoluntas nostra notissima est: neque enim scirem me uelle, si quid sit uoluntas ipsa nescirem. definitur itaque isto modo: uoluntas est animi motus cogente nullo ad aliquid uel non amittendum uel adipiscendum. cur ergo ita tunc definire non possem? an erat difficile uidere inuitum uolenti esse contrarium, ita ut contrarium sinistrum dextro esse dicimus, non ut nigrum albo? nam eadem res simul et nigra et alba esse non potest; duorum autem in medio quisque positus ad alterum sinister est, ad alterum dexter; simul quidem utrumque unus homo. sed simul utrumque ad unum hominem nullo modo. ita inuitus et uolens simul esse quidem unus animus potest, sed unum atque idem nolle simul et uelle non potest. cum enim quisque inuitus aliquid facit — si enim roges, utrum id facere uelit. nolle se dicit: item si roges. utrum id uelit non facere, uelle respondet —: ita inuitum ad faciendum, ad non faciendum autem uolentem reperies; id est enim unum animum uno tempore habentem utrumque. sed ad aliud atque aliud singulare referentem. cur haec dico? quia si rursum quaeramus, quam ob causam id inuitus faciat, cogi se dicat. nam et omnis inuitus faciens cogitur et omnis qui cogitur, si facit, nonnisi inuitus facit. restat. ut uolens a cogente sit liber, etiamsi se quisquam cogi putet. et hoc enim modo omnis. qui uolens facit. non cogitur. et omnis, qui non cogitur, aut uolens facit aut non facit. haec cum in omnibus hominibus, quos interrogare non absurde possumus, a puero usque ad senem, a ludo litterario usque ad solium sapientis natura ipsa proclamet. cur ego tunc non uiderem in definitione uoluntatis ponendum esse cogente nullo, quod nunc quasi experientia maiore cautissimus posui? at si hoc ubique manifestum est et non doctrina, sed natura omnibus promptum, quid restat quod uideatur obscurum, nisi forte ullum lateat. aliquid nos uelle cum uolumus, et ad hoc moueri animum nostrum idque aut habere nos aut non habere. et, si haberemus, retinere uelle, si non haberemus, adquirere? quare aut non amittere, aut adipisci aliquid uult omnis, qui uult. quamobrem si omnia ista luce clariora sunt, sicuti sunt. neque meae tantum, sed notitiae generis humani ueritatis ipsius liberalitate donata, cur illo etiam tempore dicere non possem: uoluntas est motus animi cogente nullo ad aliquid uel non amittendum uel adipiscendum? ### English translation (Claude) One sins, then, only by will. But our will is most known to us; for I would not know that I will if I did not know what will itself is. It is therefore defined in this way: will is a movement of the mind, with nothing compelling it, toward either not losing or obtaining something. Why, then, could I not define it so at that time? Was it difficult to see that the unwilling is contrary to the willing, in the way that we say left is contrary to right, not as black is to white? For the same thing cannot be both black and white at once; but anyone placed between two people is on the left of one and on the right of the other; one man is indeed both at once, but he is by no means both at once in relation to one man. So one mind can indeed be both unwilling and willing at once, but it cannot at once not will and will one and the same thing. For when someone does something unwillingly (for if you ask him whether he wants to do it, he says he does not; likewise if you ask him whether he wants not to do it, he answers that he does), you will find him unwilling to do it but willing not to do it; that is, you will find one mind at one time having both, but referring each to a different thing. Why do I say this? Because if we ask again why he does it unwillingly, he will say he is compelled. For everyone who acts unwillingly is compelled, and everyone who is compelled, if he acts, acts only unwillingly. It remains that the willing person is free from compulsion, even if someone thinks he is compelled. For in this way everyone who acts willingly is not compelled, and everyone who is not compelled either acts willingly or does not act. Since nature itself proclaims these things in all people whom we can sensibly question, from the boy to the old man, from the elementary school to the throne of the wise, why could I not see at that time that in the definition of will one must put “with nothing compelling,” which I have now put with great caution, as though from greater experience? But if this is everywhere evident, and is available to all not by instruction but by nature, what remains that seems obscure? Unless perhaps it escapes anyone that when we will, we will something, and that our mind is moved toward this, and that we either have it or do not have it, and that if we have it we will to keep it, and if we do not have it, to acquire it. Therefore everyone who wills wills either not to lose something or to obtain it. Therefore, if all these things are clearer than light, as they are, and are given by the generosity of truth itself not only to my knowledge but to the knowledge of the human race, why could I not say even at that time: will is a movement of the mind, with nothing compelling it, toward either not losing or obtaining something? ### Citation (SBL) Augustine, Duab. an. 14 (CSEL 25:68–70; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/augustine-duabus-animabus/14/#p-14). ## On Two Souls 15 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/augustine-duabus-animabus/14/#p-15 - Source: CSEL 25:70–71 - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27 Summary: Augustine defines sin as the will to keep or gain what justice forbids and from which one is free to abstain, a truth known to everyone from shepherds to bishops. ### Latin text Dicet aliquis: et hoc te aduersum Manichaeos quid adiuuaret? expecta; sine prius etiam peccatum definiamus. quod sine uoluntate esse non posse omnis mens apud se diuinitus conscriptum legit. ergo peccatum est uoluntas retinendi uel consequendi quod iustitia uetat et unde liberum est abstinere. quamquam si liberum non sit. non est uoluntas. sed malui grossius quam scrupulosius definire. etiamne hic libri obscuri mihi scrutandi erant, unde discerem neminem uituperatione subplicioue dignum, qui aut id uelit, quod iustitia uelle non prohibet, aut id non faciat. quod facere non potest? nonne ista cantant et pastores in montibus et in theatris poetae et indocti in circulis et docti in bibliothecis et magistri in scholis et antistites in sacratis locis et in orbe terrarum genus humanum? quod si nemo uituperatione uel damnatione dignus est aut non contra uetitum iustitiae faciens aut quod non potest non faciens, omne autem peccatum uel uituperandum est uel damnandum, quis dubitet tunc esse peccatum. cum et uelle iniustum est et liberum nolle? et ideo definitionem illam et ueram et ad intellegendum esse facillimam et non modo nunc, sed tunc quoque a me potuisse dici: peccatum est uoluntas retinendi uel consequendi. quod iustitia uetat et unde liberum est abstinere? ### English translation (Claude) Someone will say: “And how would this have helped you against the Manichaeans?” Wait; let us first also define sin, which every mind reads written within itself by God cannot exist without will. Sin, then, is the will to keep or to obtain what justice forbids and from which one is free to abstain. Although, if one is not free, it is not will; but I preferred to define it broadly rather than scrupulously. Did I have to search obscure books here too, to learn that no one is worthy of blame or punishment who either wills what justice does not forbid him to will, or does not do what he cannot do? Do not shepherds sing these things on the mountains, and poets in the theaters, and the unlearned in their circles, and the learned in libraries, and teachers in schools, and bishops in holy places, and the human race throughout the world? But if no one is worthy of blame or condemnation who either does not act against the prohibition of justice or does not do what he cannot do, while every sin is to be either blamed or condemned, who doubts that there is sin when it is both unjust to will and free not to will? And therefore that definition is both true and very easy to understand, and could have been stated by me not only now but then as well: sin is the will to keep or to obtain what justice forbids and from which one is free to abstain. ### Citation (SBL) Augustine, Duab. an. 15 (CSEL 25:70–71; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/augustine-duabus-animabus/14/#p-15). ## On Two Souls 16 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/augustine-duabus-animabus/14/#p-16 - Source: CSEL 25:71–73 - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27 Summary: Applying the definitions: if the Manichaean evil souls had no will they were innocent, and if they willed and sought the good they already had knowledge of good, even the sight of God, so their “highest evil” is full of goods. ### Latin text Age nunc. uideamus quid nos haec adiuuarent. primum omnium. ut nihil amplius desiderarem: totam causam quippe finirent. nam quisquis secreta conscientiae suae legesque diuinas penitus naturae inditas apud animum intus, ubi expressiores certioresque sunt, consulens has duas definitiones uoluntatis atque peccati ueras esse concedit, totam Manichaeorum haeresim paucissimis et breuissimis, sed plane inuictissimis ratiunculis sine ulla cunctatione condemnat. quod sic considerari potest. duo animarum genera esse dicunt: unum bonum, quod ita ex deo sit. ut non ex aliqua materia uel ex nihilo ab eo factum. sed de ipsa eius omnino substantia pars quaedam processisse dicatur: alterum autem malum, quod nulla prorsus ex parte ad deum pertinere credunt credendumque commendant. et ideo illud summum bonum, hoc uero summum malum esse praedicant atque ista duo genera fuisse aliquando discreta, nunc esse commixta. genus quidem commixtionis huius et causam nondum audieram; sed tamen iam quaerere poteram, utrum illud malum genus animarum, antequam bono misceretur, habuisset aliquam uoluntatem. si enim non habebat, sine peccato atque innocens erat et ideo nullo modo malum. si autem ideo malum, quia licet esset sine uoluntate. tamquam ignis, tamen si bonum adtigisset. uiolaret atque corrumperet: quantum est nefas et naturam mali tantum ualere ad commutandam ullam dei partem et summum illud bonum corruptibile et uiolabile credere? quod si uoluntas inerat, profecto inerat cogente nullo motus animi ad aliquid uel non amittendum uel adipiscendum. hoc autem aliquid aut bonum erat aut bonum putabatur: non enim aliter adpeti posset. sed in summo malo ante commixtionem, quam praedicant, nullum umquam bonum fuit. unde igitur ibi uel scientia uel opinio boni esse potuit? an nihil uolebant, quod apud se esset, atque illud bonum uerum, quod extra erat, adpetebant? ista uero praeclara et magna laude praedicanda uoluntas est, qua summum adpetitur et uerum bonum. unde igitur in summo malo motus animi tanta laude dignissimus? an studio nocendi adpetebant? primo eodem reuoluitur ratio. qui enim nocere uult. bono aliquo uult priuare alium propter aliquod bonum suum. erat igitur in eis uel scientia boni uel opinio, quae summo malo nullo modo esse debebat. deinde bonum illud extra se positum, cui nocere studebant. utrum omnino esset, unde cognouerant? si intellexerant. quid tali mente praeclarius? an quicquam est aliud. quo magnis laboribus omnis bonorum porrigatur intentio. nisi ut summum illud et sincerum bonum intellegatur? quod ergo nunc uix paucis bonis iustisque conceditur. id tunc illud merum malum nullo bono adiuuante iam poterat? si autem illae animae corpora gerebant et id oculis uiderant, quot linguae, quot pectora, quae ingenia laudandis istis oculis praedicandisque sufficiunt, quibus uix possunt mentes iustorum adaequari? quanta bona inuenimus in summo malo? si enim uidere deum malum est, non est bonum deus; bonum est autem deus: bonum est igitur deum uidere et nescio quid huic bono conparari queat. porro quod uidere bonum est. unde fieri potest. ut posse uidere sit malum? quapropter quisquis uel in illis oculis uel in illis mentibus fecit. ut ab his posset uideri diuina substantia. magnum et ineffabili laude dignissimum bonum fecit. si autem non factum, sed ipsum per se tale ac sempiternum erat difficile hoc malo quicquam melius inuenitur. ### English translation (Claude) Come now, let us see how these things would have helped us. First of all, so that I would have desired nothing more: for they would have settled the whole case. For whoever, consulting the secrets of his conscience and the divine laws deeply implanted in nature, within the mind, where they are more clearly expressed and more certain, grants that these two definitions of will and of sin are true, condemns without any hesitation the whole heresy of the Manichaeans by a very few and very short, but plainly quite invincible, little arguments. This can be considered as follows. They say there are two kinds of souls: one good, which is from God in such a way that it is said not to have been made by him from some matter or from nothing, but to have proceeded as a certain part from his very substance; the other evil, which they believe, and commend to be believed, belongs in no way whatever to God. And therefore they proclaim that the one is the highest good and the other the highest evil, and that these two kinds were once separate and are now mixed. The manner and cause of this mixture I had not yet heard; but I could already ask whether that evil kind of souls, before it was mixed with the good, had any will. For if it had none, it was without sin and innocent, and therefore in no way evil. But if it was evil because, although without will, like fire, it would still violate and corrupt the good if it touched it, how impious it is to believe both that the nature of evil has such power to change any part of God and that that highest good is corruptible and violable! But if will was in it, then certainly there was in it a movement of the mind, with nothing compelling it, toward not losing or obtaining something. But this something was either good or thought to be good; for otherwise it could not be sought. But in the highest evil, before the mixture they proclaim, there was never any good. Where, then, could either knowledge or opinion of good be there? Or did they will nothing that was among themselves, and seek that true good which was outside? That, surely, is a noble will, to be proclaimed with great praise, by which the highest and true good is sought. Where, then, in the highest evil did a movement of the mind so very worthy of praise come from? Or did they seek it out of eagerness to harm? First, the argument comes round to the same point. For whoever wills to harm wills to deprive another of some good for the sake of some good of his own. So there was in them either knowledge or opinion of good, which ought in no way to be in the highest evil. Next, how had they come to know that that good placed outside them, which they were eager to harm, existed at all? If they had understood it, what is more splendid than such a mind? Or is there anything else toward which the whole effort of the good strains with great labors, except that that highest and pure good may be understood? What, then, is now granted with difficulty to a few good and just people, could that pure evil already do then, with no good helping it? But if those souls had bodies and had seen it with their eyes, how many tongues, how many hearts, what talents suffice to praise and proclaim those eyes, to which the minds of the just can scarcely be equaled? How many goods we find in the highest evil! For if to see God is evil, God is not good; but God is good; therefore to see God is good, and I do not know what could be compared with this good. Further, how can it be that the ability to see is evil when seeing is good? Therefore whoever made it so, in those eyes or in those minds, that the divine substance could be seen by them, made a great good, most worthy of ineffable praise. But if it was not made, but was such in itself and everlasting, it is hard to find anything better than this evil. ### Translation notes - Augustine summarizes the Manichaean doctrine of two kinds of souls and of the mixture of light and darkness; translated as written. ### Citation (SBL) Augustine, Duab. an. 16 (CSEL 25:71–73; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/augustine-duabus-animabus/14/#p-16). ## On Two Souls 17 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/augustine-duabus-animabus/14/#p-17 - Source: CSEL 25:73–74 - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27 Summary: Since God justly condemns only souls that sin, and sin requires will, souls evil by nature cannot sin and so cannot exist; the Manichaeans' evil kind of souls is nothing. ### Latin text Postremo ut nihil horum laudandorum habeant illae animae. quae illorum rationibus habere coguntur, quaererem, utrum aliquas an nullas animas deus damnet: si nullas, nullum meritorum iudicium est. nulla prouidentia, et casu potius quam ratione mundus administratur uel potius non administratur; non enim administratio casibus danda est. hoc autem si omnibus qualibet religione deuinctis credere nefas est. restat. ut aut sit aliquarum animarum damnatio aut nulla peccata sint. sed si nulla peccata sunt, etiam nullum malum: quod isti si dixerint. haeresim suam uno ictu interficient. conuenit igitur mihi cum eis aliquas animas diuina lege iudicioque damnari. at hae si bonae sunt, quae illa iustitia est? si malae. natura, an uoluntate? sed natura esse malae animae nullo modo queunt. unde hoc docemus? de superioribus definitionibus uoluntatis atque peccati. quia dicere animas et malas esse et nihil peccare plenum est dementiae, dicere autem peccare sine uoluntate. magnum deliramentum est. et peccati reum tenere quemquam, quia non fecit, quod facere non potuit, summae iniquitatis est et insaniae. quamobrem illae animae quicquid faciunt. si natura, non uoluntate faciunt, id est si libero et ad faciendum et ad non faciendum motu animi carent, si denique his abstinendi ab opere suo potestas nulla conceditur, peccatum earum tenere non possumus. at omnes fatentur et malas animas iuste et eas, quae non peccauerunt, iniuste damnari: fatentur igitur eas malas esse, quae peccant. illae autem, sicut ratio docuit, non peccant; animarum ergo malarum genus nescio quod extraneum, quod a Manichaeis inducitur. nullum est. ### English translation (Claude) Finally, granting that those souls have none of these praiseworthy things which by the Manichaeans' own reasoning they are forced to have, I would ask whether God condemns some souls or none. If none, there is no judgment of merits, no providence, and the world is governed by chance rather than by reason, or rather is not governed at all; for governing is not to be credited to chance. But if it is impious for all who are bound by any religion to believe this, it remains that either some souls are condemned or there are no sins. But if there are no sins, there is also no evil; and if they said this, they would kill their heresy with one blow. It is agreed, then, between them and me that some souls are condemned by divine law and judgment. But if these are good, what justice is that? If evil, is it by nature or by will? But souls can in no way be evil by nature. How do we show this? From the definitions of will and of sin given above. For to say that souls are both evil and do not sin is full of madness; and to say that they sin without will is great raving; and to hold anyone guilty of sin because he did not do what he could not do is the height of injustice and insanity. Therefore, whatever those souls do, if they do it by nature and not by will, that is, if they lack a free movement of the mind both for doing and for not doing, if, finally, no power is granted them of abstaining from their action, we cannot hold them guilty of sin. But all admit that evil souls are condemned justly, and those that have not sinned unjustly; they admit, then, that those souls are evil which sin. But those souls, as reason has shown, do not sin; therefore the alien kind of evil souls, whatever it is, which the Manichaeans bring in, does not exist. ### Citation (SBL) Augustine, Duab. an. 17 (CSEL 25:73–74; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/augustine-duabus-animabus/14/#p-17). ## On Two Souls 18 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/augustine-duabus-animabus/14/#p-18 - Source: CSEL 25:74–75 - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27 Summary: Since the Manichaeans admit that sins exist and are forgiven, and their evil souls cannot sin, they must ascribe sin to the souls they call God's substance, which refutes their claim. ### Latin text Nunc bonum illud genus uideamus, quod rursus ita laudant, ut ipsam dei substantiam dicant esse. quanto autem melius est, ut suum quisque ordinem meritumque cognoscat nec ita sacrilega superbia uentiletur, ut cum se totiens commutari sentiat, summi illius boni, quod incommutabile pia ratio profitetur et docet. credat esse substantiam? ecce enim cum manifestum sit non peccare animas in eo, quod non sunt tales, quales esse non possunt — unde iam constat nescio quas illas inducticias nullo modo peccare et propterea illas non esse omnino —: relinquitur, ut quoniam concedunt esse peccata, non inueniant, quibus ea tribuant, nisi bono generi animarum et substantiae dei. maxime autem urgentur auctoritate christiana; numquam enim negauerunt dari ueniam peccatorum, cum fuerit ad deum quisque conuersus: numquam dixerunt — ut alia multa —, quod scripturis diuinis hoc quispiam corruptor inseruerit. quibus ergo peccata donantur? si alienigenis illis malis, possunt et bonae fieri, possunt dei regnum possidere cum Christo. quod isti quia negant nec habent alterum genus nisi earum, quas de substantia dei esse perhibent, restat, ut non solum etiam ipsas, sed ipsas solas peccare fateantur. ego autem nihil pugno: non solae peccent. peccant tamen. at enim mali commixtione coguntur. si ita coguntur. ut resistendi potestas nulla sit. non peccant: si est in potestate resistere sua et propria uoluntate consentiunt, cur tanta bona in summo malo, cur hoc malum in summo bono per doctrinam illorum cogimur inuenire, nisi quia neque illud malum est quod suspicione inducunt neque hoc summum bonum quod superstitione peruertunt? ### English translation (Claude) Now let us look at that good kind, which in turn they praise so highly that they say it is the very substance of God. But how much better it is that each should know his own rank and merit, and not be so puffed up with sacrilegious pride that, although he feels himself changed so often, he should believe himself to be the substance of that highest good which devout reason professes and teaches is unchangeable. For see: since it is evident that souls do not sin in not being such as they cannot be (from which it is already established that those imported souls, whatever they are, in no way sin, and therefore do not exist at all), it remains that, since they grant that there are sins, they find none to attribute them to except the good kind of souls and the substance of God. And they are pressed most of all by Christian authority; for they have never denied that pardon of sins is given when anyone has turned to God; they have never said, as they do of many other things, that some corrupter inserted this into the divine Scriptures. To whom, then, are sins forgiven? If to those alien evil souls, then they can also become good, they can possess the kingdom of God with Christ. Since they deny this, and have no other kind than those they declare to be of the substance of God, it remains that they must admit that these souls too sin, and indeed these alone. But I do not fight over it: let them not sin alone; still they sin. “But,” they say, “they are compelled by the mixture of evil.” If they are compelled in such a way that there is no power of resisting, they do not sin; if it is in their power to resist and they consent by their own proper will, why are we forced by their teaching to find such goods in the highest evil and such evil in the highest good, unless it is because neither is that an evil which they bring in by suspicion, nor is this the highest good which they pervert by superstition? ### Translation notes - The Manichaeans held that the New Testament had been interpolated by “corrupters”; Augustine notes that they did not make this claim about the forgiveness of sins. ### Citation (SBL) Augustine, Duab. an. 18 (CSEL 25:74–75; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/augustine-duabus-animabus/14/#p-18). ## On Two Souls 19 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/augustine-duabus-animabus/14/#p-19 - Source: CSEL 25:75–76 - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27 Summary: Wavering in deliberation shows not two souls but one soul drawn by carnal and spiritual goods, both from God; the struggle comes from habit and the penalty of sin. ### Latin text At si de duobus istis generibus animarum delirare illos et errare docuissem aut certe ipse didicissem, quid remanere poterat, cur mihi iam de ulla re audiendi uel consulendi uiderentur? an ut discerem hinc ostendi animarum duo esse genera, quod in deliberando nunc in malam partem, nunc in bonam nutat adsensio? cur non magis hoc signum est unius animae, quae libera illa uoluntate huc et huc ferri, hinc atque hinc referri potest? nam mihi cum accidit. unum me sentio utrumque considerantem alterutrum eligentem; sed plerumque illud libet, hoc decet, quorum nos in medio positi fluctuamus. nec mirum: ita enim nunc constituti sumus, ut et per carnem uoluptate adfici et per spiritum honestate possimus. quare non duas animas hinc fateri cogor? possumus enim melius et multo expeditius intellegere duo genera rerum bonarum, quorum tamen neutrum ab auctore deo sit alienum, animam unam ex diuersis adficere partibus, inferiore ac superiore. uel quod recte ita dici potest, exteriore atque interiore. ista sunt duo genera, quae sensibilium et intellegibilium nomine paulo ante tractauimus, quae carnalia et spiritalia libentius et familiarius nos uocamus. sed factum est nobis difficile a carnalibus abstinere, cum panis uerissimus noster spiritalis sit. cum labore namque nunc comedimus panem. neque enim nullo in subplicio sumus peccato transgressionis mortales ex inmortalibus facti. eo contingit, ut cum ad meliora conantibus nobis consuetudo facta cum carne et peccata nostra quodam modo militare contra nos et difficultatem nobis facere coeperint. nonnulli stulti aliud genus animarum. quod non sit ex deo. superstitione obtunsissima suspicentur. ### English translation (Claude) But if I had shown that they rave and err about these two kinds of souls, or at least had learned it myself, what could remain for which they should still seem to me worth hearing or consulting on any matter? Was it so that I might learn that the existence of two kinds of souls is shown by this, that in deliberating our assent sways now to the evil side, now to the good? Why is this not rather a sign of one soul, which by that free will can be carried this way and that, and brought back from this side and from that? For when this happens to me, I feel that I am one, considering both and choosing one or the other; but often the one pleases, the other is fitting, and we waver placed between them. No wonder: for we are now so constituted that we can be affected by pleasure through the flesh and by what is honorable through the spirit. Why, then, am I forced by this to admit two souls? For we can understand better and much more readily that two kinds of good things, neither of which is foreign to God as author, affect one soul from different sides, a lower and a higher, or, as may rightly be said, an outer and an inner. These are the two kinds we treated a little before under the names of sensible and intelligible, which we more gladly and familiarly call carnal and spiritual. But it has become difficult for us to abstain from carnal things, although our truest bread is spiritual. For now we eat bread with toil; for we are not free of punishment, having been made mortal instead of immortal by the sin of transgression. Hence it happens that, when we strive toward better things, the habit formed with the flesh and our sins begin in a certain way to fight against us and make difficulty for us, so that some foolish people, in most dull-witted superstition, suspect another kind of souls which is not from God. ### Scripture references - Gen 3:19: allusion, high confidence - John 6:32: echo, medium confidence ### Translation notes - Gen 3:19 (“with toil you eat bread”); cf. John 6:32 (“true bread”). ### Citation (SBL) Augustine, Duab. an. 19 (CSEL 25:75–76; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/augustine-duabus-animabus/14/#p-19). ## On Two Souls 20 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/augustine-duabus-animabus/14/#p-20 - Source: CSEL 25:76–77 - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27 Summary: Even if lower souls drew us to bodily things, they would not be evil by nature; we sin by imitating what is beneath us when we are made and commanded to love spiritual things. ### Latin text Quamquam etiam si eis concedatur inferiore alio genere animarum nos inlici ad turpia. non inde conficiunt aut illas natura malas esse aut istas summum bonum. fieri enim potest. ut propria illae uoluntate adpetendo, quod non licebat, hoc est peccando, ex bonis factae sint malae rursusque fieri bonae possint. sed ut fit quamdiu manent in peccato, ad sese alias occulta quadam suasione traducant; deinde, ut omnino malae non sint. sed in suo genere quamuis inferiore opus proprium sine ullo peccato exerceant; istae autem superiores, quibus actionem longe praestantiorem rerum moderatrix iustitia summa tribuerit. si illas inferiores. sequi et imitari uoluerint peccando fiunt malae, non quia malas, sed quia male imitantur. ab illis enim agitur proprium, ab istis adpetitur alienum: unde illae in suo gradu manent, istae ad inferiora merguntur. uelut cum homines ferina sectantur. pulchre namque incedit quadrupedans equus; at si hoc homo pedibus manibusque meditetur, quis eum uel palearum cibo dignum putet? recte igitur plerumque inprobamus imitantem, cum eum, quem imitatur, probemus. inprobamus autem non quia non sit adsecutus, sed quia omnino adsequi uoluit. in equo enim probamus illud, cui quantum praeponimus hominem, tantum offendimur, quod inferiora sectatur. quid? inter ipsos homines in inmittenda uoce nonne quod praeco bene facit, etiamsi clarius ac melius id faciat praetor, insanus est? caelestia suspice: lucens luna laudatur suoque laudatur cursu atque uicibus bene considerantibus satis placet; tamen si eam sol uelit imitari — fingamus enim eos posse habere huiusmodi uoluntates —, cui non summe ac iure displiceat? ex quibus illud est. quod intellegi uolo. etiam si sunt animae — quod interim incertum est — corporeis officiis non peccato, sed natura deditae nosque, quamquam sint inferiores, aliqua tamen interiore uicinitate contingunt, non illas ideo malas haberi oportere, quia nos, cum eas sequimur et corporea diligimus, mali sumus. propterea enim corporea diligendo peccamus, quia spiritalia diligere et iustitia iubemur et natura possumus et tunc in nostro genere optimi et beatissimi sumus. ### English translation (Claude) Yet even if it were granted them that we are enticed to shameful things by another, lower kind of souls, they do not conclude from this either that those souls are evil by nature or that these are the highest good. For it may be that those souls, by their own will, in seeking what was not allowed, that is, by sinning, became evil from good, and can become good again; but that, as happens, as long as they remain in sin, they draw others to themselves by some hidden persuasion. Or again, that they are not evil at all, but in their own kind, though a lower one, carry out their proper work without any sin; while these higher souls, to which justice, the supreme governor of things, has given a far more excellent activity, become evil by sinning if they choose to follow and imitate those lower ones, not because they imitate evil souls, but because they imitate badly. For the lower souls do what is proper to them; the higher seek what is foreign to them; hence the lower remain in their rank, while the higher sink to lower things. It is as when men pursue the ways of beasts. A four-footed horse moves beautifully; but if a man practiced this with his feet and hands, who would think him worthy even of a diet of chaff? So we often rightly disapprove of the imitator while we approve the one he imitates. And we disapprove not because he has not succeeded, but because he wanted to succeed at all. For in the horse we approve that very thing which offends us in the man, who pursues lower things, to the degree that we rank man above the horse. Again, among men themselves, in raising the voice, is not a praetor insane if he does what a herald does well, even if he does it more loudly and better? Look up at the heavens: the shining moon is praised, and praised for its course and phases, and it pleases well those who consider it rightly; yet if the sun wanted to imitate it (for let us imagine they could have wills of this kind), who would not be greatly and rightly displeased? From these examples comes what I wish to be understood: even if there are souls (which is uncertain for now) devoted to bodily functions not by sin but by nature, and which, though lower, touch us by some inner nearness, they are not therefore to be considered evil because we, when we follow them and love bodily things, are evil. For we sin by loving bodily things precisely because we are commanded by justice, and are able by nature, to love spiritual things, and then we are best and most blessed in our own kind. ### Citation (SBL) Augustine, Duab. an. 20 (CSEL 25:76–77; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/augustine-duabus-animabus/14/#p-20). ## On Two Souls 21 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/augustine-duabus-animabus/14/#p-21 - Source: CSEL 25:77–78 - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27 Summary: Wavering thoughts can have many causes and prove nothing about two souls; the plain truths about will and sin suffice to show the Manichaean heresy false. ### Latin text Quamobrem quid habet argumenti aestuans in utramque partem deliberatio modo in peccatum prona, modo in recte factum subuecta, ut duo animarum genera, quorum alterius natura ex deo sit, alterius non sit, cogamur accipere, cum alias tot causas alternantis cogitationis conicere liceat? sed haec obscura esse et incassum ab animis lippientibus quaeri quisquis bonus rerum existimator est, uidet. quare illa potius, quae de uoluntate atque peccato dicta sunt, illa, inquam, quae summa iustitia neminem ratione utentem ignorare permittit, illa quae si auferuntur nobis, nihil est, unde disciplina uirtutis inchoetur, nihil, unde a uitiorum morte surgatur, etiam atque etiam considerata satis clare ac dilucide Manichaeorum haeresim falsam esse conuincunt. ### English translation (Claude) What argument, then, does deliberation have, tossed to either side, now inclined toward sin, now lifted up toward right action, to force us to accept two kinds of souls, the nature of one from God and of the other not, when we may conjecture so many other causes for alternating thoughts? But anyone who is a good judge of things sees that these matters are obscure and are sought in vain by bleary-eyed minds. Therefore rather those things that have been said about will and sin, those, I say, which the highest justice does not permit anyone who uses reason to be ignorant of, those which, if they are taken from us, leave nothing from which the discipline of virtue may begin, nothing by which we may rise from the death of vices: these, considered again and again, prove clearly and distinctly enough that the heresy of the Manichaeans is false. ### Citation (SBL) Augustine, Duab. an. 21 (CSEL 25:77–78; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/augustine-duabus-animabus/14/#p-21). ## On Two Souls 22 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/augustine-duabus-animabus/14/#p-22 - Source: CSEL 25:78–79 - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27 Summary: The Manichaeans admit that repentance is useful, but neither a soul incapable of evil nor one incapable of good can repent, so their two kinds of souls are refuted. ### Latin text Horum simile est, quod de paenitendo nunc dicam. nam ut inter omnes sanos constat et quod ipsi Manichaei non solum fatentur. sed et praecipiunt, utile est paenitere peccati. quid ego nunc in hanc rem diuinarum scripturarum testimonia, quae usquequaque diffusa sunt, colligam? uox est etiam ista naturae: neminem stultum rei huius notitia deseruit; hoc nobis nisi esset penitus insitum, periremus. potest aliquis dicere non se peccare: non sibi esse autem, si peccauerit, paenitendum, nulla barbaries dicere audebit. quae cum ita sint, quaero ex duobus illis generibus animarum, cuius sit paenitere peccati? scio quidem neque illius esse posse, qui male facere, neque illius, qui bene facere non potest. quare ut eorum uerbis loquar, si animam tenebrarum peccati peccati, non est de substantia summi mali; si animam lucis, non est de substantia summi boni. paenitendi enim adfectio illa, quae prodest, et male fecisse paenitentem et bene facere potuisse testatur. quomodo igitur nihil ex me mali, si ego perperam feci? aut quomodo me recte paenitet, si ego non feci? audi partem alteram: quomodo ex me nihil boni est, cui bona uoluntas inest? aut quomodo me recte paenitet, si non inest? quamobrem aut negent isti esse paenitendi magnam utilitatem, ut non solum a christiano nomine, sed ab omni etiam uel imaginaria ratione pellantur, aut animarum duo illa genera, unum ex quo nihil mali, alterum ex quo nihil boni sit, discere atque docere iam desinant: quod si faciant, Manichaei esse utique desinent; nam tota illa secta ista bicipiti uel potius praecipiti animarum uarietate fulcitur. ### English translation (Claude) Similar to these is what I will now say about repentance. For as is agreed among all sane people, and as the Manichaeans themselves not only admit but also teach, it is useful to repent of sin. Why should I now gather testimonies of the divine Scriptures on this matter, which are spread everywhere? This too is a voice of nature; knowledge of this has deserted no fool; if it were not deeply implanted in us, we would perish. Someone may say that he does not sin; but that, if he has sinned, he need not repent, no barbarism will dare to say. Since this is so, I ask: of those two kinds of souls, to which does it belong to repent of sin? I know that it cannot belong either to the one that cannot do evil or to the one that cannot do good. So, to speak in their words, if the soul of darkness repents of sin, it is not of the substance of the highest evil; if the soul of light, it is not of the substance of the highest good. For that disposition of repentance which is profitable testifies both that the penitent has done evil and that he could have done good. How, then, is there no evil from me, if I have acted wrongly? Or how do I rightly repent, if I did not act? Hear the other side: how is there no good from me, in whom there is a good will? Or how do I rightly repent, if there is none? Therefore let them either deny the great usefulness of repentance, so that they are driven out not only from the Christian name but from every even imaginary reason, or let them now stop learning and teaching those two kinds of souls, one from which no evil comes, the other from which no good comes. If they do this, they will certainly stop being Manichaeans; for that whole sect is propped up by this two-headed, or rather headlong, diversity of souls. ### Translation notes - “If the soul of darkness repents of sin”: the digital text reads peccati peccati (the word repeated), apparently for paenitet peccati; translated by that sense. The closing wordplay is bicipiti … praecipiti (“two-headed … headlong”). ### Citation (SBL) Augustine, Duab. an. 22 (CSEL 25:78–79; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/augustine-duabus-animabus/14/#p-22). ## On Two Souls 23 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/augustine-duabus-animabus/14/#p-23 - Source: CSEL 25:79 - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27 Summary: Augustine fears that a friend still attached to the Manichaeans would rather deny the known usefulness of repentance than accept the conclusion, and laments the power of the habit of sin. ### Latin text Ac mihi quidem satis est sic scire, quod Manichaei errent, ut scio paenitendum esse peccati. et tamen si nunc amicorum meorum aliquem, qui usque adhuc illos audiendos putat. conpellam iure amicitiae et ei dicam: scisne utile esse, cum quisque peccauerit, paenitere? sine dubitatione se scire iurabit. si ergo te fecero ita scire falsam esse Manichaeorum haeresim, desiderabisne amplius? quid amplius se posse in hac re desiderare respondeat. bene quidem huc usque. sed cum ostendere coepero certas necessariasque rationes, quae illam propositionem adamantinis, ut dicitur, catenis nexae consequuntur. remque totam ad conclusionem, qua illa euertitur secta, perduxero: negabit se forsitan scire utilitatem illam paenitendi, quam nemo doctus, nemo indoctus ignorat, et potius se scire contendet, cum dubitamus et deliberamus duas in nobis animas patrocinia propria singulis quaestionis partibus adhibere. o consuetudo peccati! o comes poena peccati! uos me tunc a rerum tam manifestarum consideratione auertistis, sed non sentienti nocebatis; nunc uero in familiarissimis meis similiter non sentientibus me iam uulneratis torquetisque sentientem. ### English translation (Claude) For my part, it is enough for me to know that the Manichaeans are in error in the same way as I know that one must repent of sin. And yet, if I now appeal by the right of friendship to one of my friends who still thinks they should be listened to, and say to him: “Do you know that it is useful, when anyone has sinned, to repent?”, he will swear without hesitation that he knows it. “If, then, I make you know in this way that the heresy of the Manichaeans is false, will you want anything more?” What more could he answer that he could want in this matter? So far, so good. But when I begin to show the sure and necessary reasons which follow from that proposition, linked, as they say, by adamantine chains, and have brought the whole matter to the conclusion by which that sect is overthrown, perhaps he will deny that he knows that usefulness of repentance which no learned man and no unlearned man is ignorant of, and will rather contend that he knows that, when we doubt and deliberate, two souls in us each lend their own support to the two sides of the question. O habit of sin! O punishment, companion of sin! You turned me away then from considering things so plain, but you harmed me without my feeling it; now, in my closest friends who likewise do not feel it, you wound and torment me, who feel it. ### Citation (SBL) Augustine, Duab. an. 23 (CSEL 25:79; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/augustine-duabus-animabus/14/#p-23). ## On Two Souls 24 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/augustine-duabus-animabus/14/#p-24 - Source: CSEL 25:79–81 - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27 Summary: Augustine appeals to his friends still among the Manichaeans, prays to the triune God for them, and defers the defense of Scripture against Manichaean charges to other books. ### Latin text Adtendite ista, quaeso, carissimi; uestra ingenia bene noui. si mihi nunc uos qualiscumque hominis mentem rationemque conceditis, multo certiora sunt quam quae ibi uel uidebamur discere uel magis credere cogebamur. deus magne, deus omnipotens, deus summae bonitatis, quem inuiolabilem atque incommutabilem credi atque intellegi fas est, trina unitas. quam catholica ecclesia colit, subplex oro expertus in me misericordiam tuam, ne homines, cum quibus mihi a pueritia in omni conuictu fuit summa consensio, in tuo cultu a me dissentire permittas. uideo maxime expectari hoc loco. quomodo etiam catholicas scripturas a Manichaeis accusatas uel tunc defenderem, si, ut dico, cautus essem, uel nunc defendi posse demonstrem. sed in aliis uoluminibus deus adiuuabit propositum meum; nam huius iam, quantum arbitror, moderata parci sibi postulat longitudo. ### English translation (Claude) Pay attention to these things, I beg you, dearest friends; I know your minds well. If you now grant me the mind and reason of any man at all, these things are much more certain than what we there either seemed to learn or rather were forced to believe. Great God, almighty God, God of the highest goodness, whom it is right to believe and understand as inviolable and unchangeable, threefold unity whom the catholic Church worships, I humbly pray, having experienced your mercy in myself, that you not allow the men with whom I have had the closest agreement in all our life together from boyhood to disagree with me in your worship. I see that at this point it is especially expected how I would then have defended, if, as I say, I had been cautious, or how I now show that one can defend, the catholic Scriptures accused by the Manichaeans. But in other volumes God will help my purpose; for the length of this one, as far as I judge, now asks in moderation to be spared. ### Translation notes - “Threefold unity” renders trina unitas. ### Citation (SBL) Augustine, Duab. an. 24 (CSEL 25:79–81; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/augustine-duabus-animabus/14/#p-24).