On the Catholic Way of Life and On the Manichaean Way of Life 1.12–1.22

“Nor,” he says, “will any other creature separate us.” O man of the deepest mysteries! He was not content to say “creature,” but said “any other creature,” reminding us that the very thing by which we love God and cleave to God, that is, the soul and mind, is itself a creature. The other creature, then, is the body; and if the mind is an intelligible thing, that is, one known only by understanding, the other creature is everything sensible, that is, everything that offers some knowledge of itself through the eyes, or ears, or smell, or taste, or touch; and this must be inferior to what is grasped by understanding alone. Since, then, God too can be known to worthy minds only through understanding, though he is more excellent than the very mind by which he is understood, being its creator and author, there was a danger that the human mind, because it is counted among invisible and intelligible things, might think itself to be of the same nature as he who created it, and so fall away through pride from him to whom it ought to be joined by love. For it becomes like God, as far as is granted it, when it submits itself to him to be enlightened and illumined by him. And if it draws nearest to him by this submission by which it becomes like him, it must become far from him by the presumption by which it wants to be more like him. It is this that refuses to obey the laws of God, when it desires to be its own master as God is. So the further it departs from God, not in place but in affection and desire for things lower than itself, the more it is filled with folly and misery. By love, then, it returns to God, a love by which it seeks not to set itself alongside him but to place itself beneath him. The more earnestly and zealously it does this, the happier and the more exalted it will be, and with him alone as master, most free. Therefore it must know that it is a creature. It must believe that its creator remains always, as he is, in the inviolable and unchangeable nature of truth and wisdom, and must confess that folly and falsehood can befall itself, if only because of the errors from which it longs to be freed. But again it must beware lest it be separated from the love of God himself, by which it is sanctified so as to remain most happy, by love of the other creature, that is, of this sensible world. No other creature, then, since we ourselves too are a creature, separates us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Let the same Paul tell us who this Christ Jesus our Lord is. “To those who are called,” he says, “we preach Christ, the Power of God and the Wisdom of God.” And does not Christ himself say, “I am the Truth”? If, then, we ask what it is to live well, that is, to strive toward happiness by living well, it will surely be to love Power, to love Wisdom, to love Truth, and to love them with all the heart, and with all the soul, and with all the mind: Power that is inviolable and unconquered, Wisdom that no folly replaces, Truth that knows no change and no being otherwise than as it always is. Through this the Father himself is seen; for it was said, “No one comes to the Father except through me.” To this we cleave by sanctification. For when we are sanctified we burn with a full and complete love, which alone makes us not turn away from God and be conformed to him rather than to this world: for, as the same Apostle says, “He predestined us to be conformed to the image of his Son.” Through love, then, we are conformed to God, and being conformed and shaped by him, and cut off from this world, we are not confused with the things that ought to be subject to us. And this is done by the Holy Spirit. For “hope,” he says, “does not put us to shame, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” But we could in no way be restored to wholeness by the Holy Spirit unless he himself remained always whole and unchangeable. This he certainly could not do unless he were of the nature and very substance of God, to whom alone belongs unchangeableness and, so to speak, unalterability always. For the creature, not I but the same Paul cries out, “was subjected to futility.” And what is subject to futility cannot separate us from futility and join us to truth. But the Holy Spirit does this for us: therefore he is not a creature. For everything that exists is either God or a creature.

We ought therefore to love God, a certain threefold unity, Father and Son and Holy Spirit, which I will call nothing other than Being itself. For he is truly and supremely God, “from whom are all things, through whom are all things, in whom are all things”: these are Paul's words. What does he add next? “To him be glory.” Most precisely put. For he does not say “to them”: for God is one. And what is “to him be glory,” but the best, highest, and most widespread renown to him? For the better and more widely he is made known, the more ardently he is loved and cherished. And when this happens, the human race advances with sure and steady step to the best and happiest life. I do not think that, when the question is about morals and life, we need inquire further what the highest good of a human being is, to which everything must be referred. For it has been made plain, both by reason as far as we were able, and by the divine authority which surpasses our reason, that it is nothing other than God himself. For what will be the best for a human being but that to cleave to which is happiest? And that is God alone, to whom we certainly cannot cleave except by love, affection, and charity.

And if virtue leads us to the happy life, I would affirm that virtue is nothing at all but the highest love of God. For what is called the fourfold division of virtue is so called, as far as I understand, from different dispositions of this same love. So I would not hesitate to define those four virtues (would that their force were in all minds as their names are in all mouths!) as follows: temperance is love giving itself wholly to what is loved; fortitude is love readily bearing all things for the sake of what is loved; justice is love serving only what is loved, and therefore ruling rightly; prudence is love wisely choosing between what helps it and what hinders it. But this love, we have said, is not of just anything, but of God, that is, of the highest good, the highest wisdom, and the highest harmony. So we may also define them thus: temperance is love keeping itself whole and incorrupt for God; fortitude is love readily bearing all things for God's sake; justice is love serving God alone, and therefore ruling well all else that is subject to a human being; prudence is love discerning well what helps it toward God from what can hinder it.

What manner of life follows from each of these virtues I will explain in a few words, once I have first set beside the testimonies of the New Testament, which I have been using for some time, matching ones from the Old as well, as I promised. Is it only Paul who says that we must be joined to God so that there is nothing between to separate us? Does not the prophet too express this most aptly and briefly when he says, “But for me it is good to cleave to God”? Is not what is said there at great length about love contained here in the one word “cleave”? And again, does not his addition, “it is good,” look back to what is set down there, “For those who love God all things work together for good”? So in one short sentence and two words the prophet shows both the force and the fruit of love. And since it is said there that the Son of God is the Power and Wisdom of God, and power is understood to belong to action, wisdom to teaching (which is why both are marked in the Gospel when it says, “All things were made through him,” for this belongs to action and power, and then, as concerns teaching and the knowledge of the truth, “And the life,” it says, “was the light of men”), could anything agree more with these testimonies of the New Testament than what is said of wisdom in the Old: “She reaches mightily from end to end, and orders all things sweetly”? For “reaching mightily” signifies rather power, while “ordering sweetly” signifies, as it were, skill itself and reason. But if this seems obscure, see what follows: “And the Lord of all,” it says, “loved her: for she is the teacher of the knowledge of God, and the chooser of his works.” Here nothing seems to be said of action; for choosing works is not the same as working: so these words belong to teaching; work is owed to power, so that the statement we wish to prove may be complete. Read, then, what is joined next. “And if,” it says, “a possession desired in life is honorable, what is more honorable than wisdom, which works all things?” Could anything more splendid, or plainer, or indeed richer be brought forward? Hear another text, if you think this too little, which says the same: “For wisdom teaches sobriety,” it says, “and justice and power.” Sobriety seems to me to belong to the knowledge of the truth itself, that is, to teaching; justice and power to action and working. And with these two, that is, effectiveness in acting and sobriety in contemplating, which the Power of God and the Wisdom of God, that is, the Son of God, gives to those who love him, I do not know what can be compared, since the same prophet at once says how highly they are to be valued; for it is set down thus: “For wisdom teaches sobriety and justice and power, than which nothing in life is more useful for human beings.”

Someone may perhaps think these things were not said of the Son of God. What else, then, is shown by the words, “She glorifies her noble birth, having fellowship with God”? Does noble birth usually mean anything other than parents? And does not fellowship proclaim and assert equality with the Father himself? Then, since Paul says that the Son of God is the Wisdom of God, and the Lord himself says, “No one knows the Father except the only-begotten Son,” what could the prophet have said more fittingly than what is said: “And with you is Wisdom, who knows your works, who was present when you made the world, and knew what would be pleasing in your eyes”? And as for Christ's being the truth, which is shown also when he is called the brightness of the Father (for there is nothing around the sun but the very brightness it begets), what could agree with this statement more openly and clearly from the Old Testament than the words, “Your truth is round about you”? Finally, Wisdom itself says in the Gospel, “No one comes to the Father except through me”; the prophet says, “Who then knows your mind, unless you give wisdom?” and a little later, “And men learned what pleases you, and were healed through wisdom.” Paul says, “The love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us”; the prophet says, “For the Holy Spirit of discipline will flee deceit.” For where there is deceit there is no love. Paul says that we are “to be conformed to the image of the Son of God”; the prophet says, “The light of your countenance is sealed upon us, O Lord.” Paul shows that the Holy Spirit is God and therefore not a creature; the prophet says, “And you sent your Holy Spirit from the heights.” For God alone is the highest, than whom nothing is higher. Paul shows that this Trinity is one God when he says, “To him be glory”; it is said in the Old Testament, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one God.”

What more do you want? Why do you rage so ignorantly and impiously? Why do you pervert untaught souls by harmful persuasion? The God of both Testaments is one. For as these passages which we have set down from each agree with one another, so do the rest, if you are willing to consider them carefully and with fair judgment. But because many things are said in a humbler way, more suited to minds that creep on the ground, so that they may rise through human things to divine, and many things are said figuratively, so that the eager mind may be exercised more profitably by searching and rejoice more richly in finding, you abuse this wonderful arrangement of the Holy Spirit to deceive and ensnare your hearers. Why divine providence allows you to do this, and how very truly the Apostle said, “There must be many heresies, so that those who are approved may be made manifest among you,” would take long to discuss, and, I must tell you, it is not for you to understand these things. I know you well enough. You bring minds altogether gross, and sick from the poisonous diet of bodily images, to judge divine things, which are far higher than you think. So with you the way to proceed now is not that you should already understand them, which cannot be, but that you should someday desire to understand. For this is done by the simple and pure love of God, which is seen most of all in conduct, of which we have already said much: a love which, breathed in by the Holy Spirit, leads to the Son, that is, to the Wisdom of God, through whom the Father himself is known. For if wisdom and truth are not desired with all the strength of the mind, they cannot be found at all. But if they are sought as they deserve, they cannot withdraw and hide themselves from those who love them. Hence that saying which you too are accustomed to have on your lips: “Ask, and you will receive; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. Nothing is hidden that will not be revealed.” By love one asks, by love one seeks, by love one knocks, by love it is revealed, and by love, finally, one abides in what has been revealed. From this love of wisdom and diligence in seeking we are not deterred by the Old Testament, as you always most falsely say, but are most vehemently spurred on to them. So listen at last, and consider, I beg you, without obstinacy what is said by the prophet: “Wisdom is radiant,” he says, “and never fades, and is easily seen by those who love her, and is found by those who seek her: she goes before those who desire her, to show herself to them. Whoever keeps watch for her will not toil, for he will find her sitting at his doors. For to think of her is perfect understanding, and whoever keeps watch for her sake will soon be free from care: for she goes about seeking those worthy of her, and shows herself to them cheerfully in the ways, and meets them with all providence. For her truest beginning is the desire for discipline. The care of discipline, then, is love; and love is the keeping of her laws; and the keeping of the laws is the confirmation of incorruption; and incorruption makes one near to God. So the desire for wisdom leads to the kingdom.” Will you still bark against these things? Do they not, set down thus and not yet understood, show anyone that they contain something deep and ineffable? Oh, if only you could understand what has been said! At once you would throw away all the nonsense of your fables and the empty imaginings of bodies, and with great eagerness, sincere love, and firmest faith you would hide yourselves safe in the most holy bosom of the catholic Church.

I could, according to my modest ability, discuss each point, and draw out and show what I have received, things whose excellence and depth words for the most part fail to reach; but as long as you bark, it must not be done. For it was not said in vain, “Do not give what is holy to dogs.” Do not be angry. I too barked and was a dog, when I was rightly dealt with not with the food of teaching but with the cudgels of refutation. But if there were in you the love that we are now discussing, or even if it is there someday, as much as the greatness of knowing the truth requires, God will be present to show you that the Christian faith, which leads to the highest summit of wisdom and truth, to enjoy which is nothing else than to live happily, is neither among the Manichaeans nor anywhere except in the catholic teaching. For what else does the apostle Paul seem to wish, when he says: “For this reason I bend my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom every fatherhood in heaven and on earth is named, that he may grant you according to the riches of his glory strength, to be strengthened through the Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell through faith in your hearts; that, being rooted and grounded in love, you may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the height and length and breadth and depth, to know also the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God”? Can anything be said more plainly? I beg you, wake up a little, see the harmony of both Testaments, which shows and teaches clearly enough what the manner of life in conduct is, and to what all things are to be referred. The Gospels stir up the love of God when it is said, “Ask, seek, knock”; Paul stirs it up by saying, “That, being rooted and grounded in love, you may be able to comprehend”; the prophet stirs it up too when he says that wisdom can easily be known by those who love her, seek her, desire her, keep watch for her, think of her, care for her. The health of the soul and the way of happiness are shown by the concord of both Scriptures; and you prefer to bark against these things rather than to obey them. I will say briefly what I think: listen to the learned men of the catholic Church with as much peace of mind and with the same wish with which I listened to you; there will be no need of the nine years in which you made a fool of me. In far, far shorter time you will see the difference between truth and emptiness.

But it is time to return to those four virtues, and to draw out and derive from each of them the manner of living. So let us first look at temperance, which promises us a certain wholeness and incorruption of that love by which we are bound to God. Its office is to restrain and calm the desires by which we gape after the things that turn us away from the laws of God and from the fruit of his goodness, which is, to put it briefly, the happy life. For there is the seat of truth; enjoying the contemplation of it and cleaving to it closely, we are beyond doubt happy; but those who fall away from it are entangled in great errors and sorrows. For, as the Apostle says, “the root of all evils is greed, which some have followed and made shipwreck of the faith, and have pierced themselves with many sorrows.” And this sin of the soul is quite plainly signified in the Old Testament, for those who understand rightly, by the transgression of the very man who was in paradise. “For in Adam we all die,” as the same Apostle says, “and in Christ we shall all rise again.” O deep mysteries! But I will restrain myself: for I have undertaken not to teach you what is right now, but to unteach you what is wrong, if I can, that is, if God favors my purpose toward you. Paul, then, says that the root of all evils is greed, through which the old Law also shows that the first man fell. Paul exhorts us to strip off the old man and put on the new. By the old man he wants us to understand Adam who sinned; by the new, the one whom the Son of God took on in the mystery for our deliverance. For he says in another place, “The first man was from the earth, earthly; the second man from heaven, heavenly. As was the earthly, so are those who are earthly; and as is the heavenly, so are those who are heavenly. As we have borne the image of the earthly, let us also bear the image of the heavenly”; that is, strip off the old and put on the new. The whole office of temperance, then, is to strip off the old man and be renewed in God; that is, to despise all bodily allurements and popular praise, and to turn all our love to invisible and divine things. Hence follows that wonderful saying, “Though our outer man is wasting away, yet the inner is being renewed day by day.” Hear also the prophet singing, “Create a clean heart in me, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” What can be said against this agreement except by blind barkers?

The allurements of the body lie in all those things that the bodily sense touches, which some also call sensible things; among them this common light is most prominent, because among our senses, too, which the soul uses through the body, nothing is to be preferred to the eyes; and therefore in the holy Scriptures all sensible things are signified by the name of visible things. So in the New Testament we are forbidden to love them in this way: “Not looking,” he says, “at the things that are seen, but at those that are not seen. For the things that are seen are temporal, but those that are not seen are eternal.” From this it can be understood how far from Christian are those who think that the sun and moon are not only to be loved but even worshiped. For what do we see, if we do not see the sun and moon? But we are forbidden to turn to the things that are seen. So these too must not be loved by one who intends to offer that incorrupt love to God. But I will have another place to inquire into these things more carefully. For I have set out to speak now not of faith but of life, through which we deserve to know what we believe. God alone, then, is to be loved; and this whole world, that is, all sensible things, is to be despised, though they are to be used for the needs of this life.

Popular glory is thus rejected and despised in the New Testament: “If I wished to please men,” he says, “I would not be a servant of Christ.” There is also something else which the soul conceives about bodies through certain images, and calls the knowledge of things. Hence we are rightly forbidden also to be curious, and that is a great office of temperance. Hence the saying: “Beware lest anyone lead you astray through philosophy.” And because the very name of philosophy, if one considers it, signifies a great thing and one to be sought with the whole mind, since philosophy is the love and pursuit of wisdom, the Apostle very carefully, so as not to seem to deter us from the love of wisdom, added, “and the elements of this world.” For there are some who, abandoning the virtues, and not knowing what God is, and how great is the majesty of the nature that remains always the same, think they are doing something great if they investigate with the greatest curiosity and intensity this whole bodily mass which we call the world. From this, too, such pride is born that they seem to themselves to dwell in the very heaven about which they often dispute. Let the soul, then, restrain itself from the desire for this kind of empty knowledge, if it has resolved to keep itself chaste for God. For by such a love it is generally deceived, so that it either thinks nothing exists but body, or, even if moved by authority it admits that something incorporeal exists, it still cannot think of it except through bodily images, and believes it to be such as the deceptive sense of the body imposes. To this also applies the command to beware of idols.

To this authority of the New Testament, then, by which we are commanded to love nothing of this world, especially in the statement where it is said, “Do not be conformed to this world” (for at the same time it is to be shown that each person is conformed to the thing he loves), to this authority, then, if I ask what I may compare from the Old Testament, I find many things indeed; but one book of Solomon, called Ecclesiastes, brings all these things into utter contempt at very great length. For it begins thus: “Vanity of the vain, said the Preacher, vanity of the vain, and all is vanity. What gain has a man in all his labor which he labors under the sun?” If all these words are attended to, weighed, and examined, many things are found very necessary for those who desire to flee this world and take refuge in God; but it is a long task, and my discourse hastens elsewhere. Yet with this beginning laid down, he goes through everything to show that those who are deceived by such things are the vain, calling the very thing by which they are deceived vanity; not that God did not create these things, but because by their sins human beings choose to subject themselves to things which by the divine law are subject to them when they act rightly. For what else is it to be mocked and deceived by false goods than to think things inferior to yourself worth admiring and desiring? The temperate man, then, has in such mortal and fleeting things a rule of life confirmed by both Testaments: to love none of them, to think none of them desirable for its own sake, but to take of them as much as suffices for the needs of this life and its duties, with the moderation of one who uses, not the affection of one who loves. Let this be said of temperance, briefly for the greatness of the subject, but perhaps at more length than was fitting for the work undertaken.

Not much needs to be said about fortitude. For that love of which we speak, which must be set on fire toward God with all holiness, is called temperance in not desiring these things, fortitude in losing them. But among all the things possessed in this life, the body is the heaviest bond for a human being, by the most just laws of God, on account of the ancient sin, than which nothing is better known for preaching and nothing more hidden for understanding. This bond, lest it be shaken and harassed, disturbs the soul with the fear of toil and pain; lest it be taken away and destroyed, with the fear of death. For the soul loves it by force of habit, not understanding that, if it uses it well and wisely, its resurrection and renewal will, by divine power and law, be subject to its rule without any trouble. But when the soul turns wholly to God with this love, knowing these things, it will not only despise death but even desire it. Yet a great struggle with pain remains. But nothing is so hard and iron that it is not conquered by the fire of love. When the soul is carried away by it to God, it will fly free above every torture, on wondrous wings, most beautiful and unimpaired, on which chaste love rises to the embrace of God. Unless indeed God will allow lovers of gold, lovers of praise, lovers of women, to be braver than those who love him, though that is not love but would more fittingly be called desire or lust. Yet in it one sees how great is the drive of the mind, pressing with untiring course through every enormity toward the things it loves; and it is a proof to us how much must be borne so as not to desert God, if such men bear so much to desert him.