Against the Manichaeans

No opposition of contraries is an opposition in every respect, because contraries also have some things in common. For example, white, being contrary to black, has its contrariety only in its differences, while color and quality are common to both; and in none of such things is the contrariety between them prior, for everything comes after what is common, and in what is common there is no contrariety. For there must be a common color and quality in order that there may be white and black in this way; likewise virtue and vice come after quality and disposition. If, then, there are two ungenerated principles and these are contraries, either they hold their contrariety in every respect, or certain things are common to them. But nothing admits contrariety in every respect; therefore they too have things in common: being, being substances, and whatever else is found common to them. … and that the one is light and the other darkness. But their being substances is conceived before their being good and evil. Contrariety, then, is not in what is common, but in what is proper to each. They lay it down that the principles are ungenerated; but nothing is before the ungenerated. Yet something is before these, namely what I said belongs to them in common; therefore the principles are not ungenerated. For it is these contraries that are said to be ungenerated, while what belongs to them in common is before them. Therefore the principles are not ungenerated, for nothing is before the ungenerated.

… But since evil is evil ungeneratedly, and good is good ungeneratedly, the ungenerated will be found common to both: an ungenerated evil and an ungenerated good. For if good cannot be found without the ungenerated, and the ungenerated is common, then what follows of necessity from the ungenerated is also common; and this is the good. But if they should say that the ungenerated is not common to them, and that what belongs to the one does not belong to the other, then either the good or the evil will be ungenerated, not both good and evil. If, then, the good should be found ungenerated, the evil is generated. Besides, every evil is to be punished; nothing that is to be punished is incorruptible; therefore no evil is incorruptible, since what is corruptible does not exist incorruptibly. Nothing corruptible is ungenerated; but evil is corruptible; therefore evil is not ungenerated. Nothing is evil in its substance, because evil is a quality; no quality is a substance; therefore evil is not a substance. All contraries are destructive of one another; but ungenerated things are indestructible; therefore they are not contraries, for contraries are not indestructible. Nothing ungenerated is changeable; but the good, in their account, is changed when it is overpowered by the evil; therefore the good is not ungenerated. The ungenerated does not desire any destruction, nor is it destructive; but evil desires destruction; therefore evil is not ungenerated. The divine Scriptures say that not only evil men but the devil himself is handed over to punishment. Everything handed over to punishment is changeable; nothing changeable is ungenerated; therefore nothing evil is ungenerated. Things wholly contrary have nothing in common, so that of every necessity what belongs to the one does not belong to the other; but being ungenerated belongs to the good; therefore neither of these belongs to evil. Evil, then, is non-being. Everyone who desires something reasonably attains his desire, if he desires it reasonably. But God desires to destroy wickedness; therefore wickedness is among the things that perish. And being among the things that perish, it will be abolished; and if it is abolished, it is not ungenerated. If evil is ungenerated, being evil belongs to it by nature. But no one who acts according to nature sins. Therefore evil does not sin; and what does not sin is not blameworthy. But Satan is blameworthy; therefore he is not ungenerated.

For the divine Scripture says that people are sons and offspring of the deeds and pursuits that they practice. Those, at any rate, who are given to anger or have some other sin, so that for this reason they are subject to the wrath of punishment, it names "children of wrath", as Paul says: "And we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest." These can change, so as no longer to be children of wrath by nature. Paul, at any rate, says of himself and of those who have become holy as he has, "we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest" of men, who even now are still in sin; and the added "by nature" does not mean "according to nature" but "in truth". For he says, "We were by nature children of wrath", showing that those who sin are truly liable to wrath; and just as one becomes a child of wrath "by nature" by having wickedness with him, so by changing he becomes a child of truth and of virtue. Such things, at any rate, were said by the Savior about certain people: "Wisdom was justified by her children", calling the wise children of wisdom. For since those who are someone's children have their being from the one who bore them, and those who have a quality have their being such from the quality that has come to them, it is fitting that those who have a quality are named children and sons of that quality. For as such things were said by the Savior, "These are the wise, the children of wisdom", so he also called others sons of peace, saying to the disciples: "If you enter a city or a house, and a son of peace is there, your peace" (the peace given to the city or the house) "will rest upon" the son of peace who is in it.

Again, the same Savior says: "The sons of this age are more prudent than the sons of light in their own generation", calling sons of light those who have been enlightened by the knowledge of the truth and by the works of virtue. To them also … "you are the light of the world"; but those who have loved the present life, and refer everything they do to it, he named sons of this age. But if he said that these are more prudent than the sons of light, he did not call them more prudent without qualification, but "in their own generation"; that is, in the affairs that belong to this age they are more prudent than the sons of light. "For they are wise to do evil, but how to do good they have not understood." And of Judas too it is written that he was a son of perdition. For the Lord said of him: "None of my disciples perished except the son of perdition." He called him a son of perdition because he had done the works of perdition. For it was not while he was one of the Twelve that he was evil, as if by nature; … he became such when he became the betrayer of the Son of God, his Teacher, having loved the silver of perdition. And that he was not evil by nature is shown by his hearing, together with all the disciples: "Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves." If he calls those who sin wolves, and those who practice virtue sheep, then, had Judas been evil by nature, he would not have been a sheep of Christ; for one who is evil by nature does not practice virtue; but by a turning of his own free will …

Just as, then, those who carry out pursuits and deeds, not only base ones but also good ones, are called their sons and children in the way described above, in which those who receive their being from qualities were said to be the offspring of the qualities, since they have that being from the quality; so it is fitting that someone is called "flesh of sin" and "body of sin", not without qualification, but because he serves sin. For the man who misuses his body and flesh for lust and other such activities makes his body a body of sin and his flesh flesh of sin; just as the good man, through self-control and the virtue that goes with it, sanctifies his own body and soul. The virgin, at any rate, becomes holy in body and in spirit, that is, in soul, as Paul writes when he says that the virgin must be undistracted by the affairs of this life, "that she may be holy in body and in spirit". But also in the Epistle to the Corinthians he writes: "Glorify God in your body." If God is glorified in the body, and God is not glorified in what is evil, the body is not evil by nature, even if the sinner makes it evil by using it sinfully. And shortly after he again addresses the same people: "Or do you not know that your bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? If anyone destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him; for the temple of God is holy, which you are."

But also in the letter to the Thessalonians the same apostle writes: "May the God of peace sanctify you wholly, and may your spirit and soul and body be kept whole and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." For how can anyone be sanctified wholly and keep his body whole, if the body, being evil, cannot by nature be sanctified? For if it is evil by nature, it cannot receive sanctification; but if it receives the good, clearly it is not evil by nature, since it can receive good. For what is evil by nature cannot receive good, just as what is good by nature cannot receive evil. In another letter the same apostle writes to certain people: "Let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God", showing by these words too that the flesh can by nature be cleansed of the defilements that attach to it from sin. And so can the spirit and the soul. If the flesh were evil in substance and the spirit good in substance, the spirit would not have had any defilement, nor would the flesh have been cleansed of defilement. But he commands that both be cleansed of defilement, and he states the manner of the cleansing: "perfecting", he says, "in the fear of God". And well is it said, "in the fear of God", showing that the obedience comes from themselves and not from necessity. If by perfecting holiness in the fear of God we cleanse our flesh and our spirit from defilement, it is clear that this happens when holiness comes to be in us. For just as the soul is cleansed of ignorance and of wrongdoing by the presence of knowledge and justice (for flight from vice brings about the entrance of virtue, its contrary), so by the presence of sanctification the flesh and the spirit are cleansed of defilement. By "spirit" in these words he means the soul, as in the Acts of the Apostles Stephen the apostle, being stoned and about to die, said in prayer: "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." For in these words he called nothing else his spirit than his soul. If, then, in many places the flesh and the spirit are said to be now of sin, now of sanctification, and to be able to glorify God, none of them is good or evil by nature; they are receptive of either by free choice, receiving in turn, according to the use made of them by the one who has them, now to be of sin, now of sanctification. And if, not knowing the passage from which they bring forward that the flesh is "of sin", they hold this view, we will set out the whole of it and make its meaning plain. It runs thus:

"God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh." What he says is this. … apart from the first-formed man and the body that the Savior assumed. For otherwise a human body could not come into being without the male being joined to the female. Since, then, the Savior took a body from the Virgin alone, one that did not have its beginning from intercourse, he called the Lord's flesh a likeness of the flesh that comes from intercourse. For he did not say simply that he had the likeness of flesh, but the likeness of sinful flesh. And the likeness of sinful flesh is flesh, differing from all other flesh in this alone, that it came into existence without a man. For he who came for the salvation of men had to take a body that was not from the union of a couple; nor again from outside the succession of human beings, as the first man … body. For if he too had been formed from the earth, as the founder of the human race, those who bring in the doctrine of mere appearance, through phantasm, would have had grounds for suspecting that he did not truly bear a human body. Again, if he had assumed a body from the union of a couple, having nothing distinctive, he would have been thought to be himself liable to that sin to which all who came from Adam by succession were liable. But if they should say, "If the flesh born from the intercourse of man and woman is sinful flesh, marriage is evil", let them hear that before the coming of the Savior, who took away the sin of the world, all men, just as they did everything else with wickedness, so also had marriage in a sinful way. That is how the bodies born from marriage are to be understood. And so, since the union of Adam and Eve took place after the sin, for this reason it is called sinful flesh. For the one who before the transgression would have been incorruptible became corruptible by transgressing, and so the succession has corruptibility. The Savior, then, had the likeness of this flesh, even though his flesh did not see corruption. But when the Savior came, just as the removal of sin took place from all other things, so it did also from marriage. Now there is honorable marriage and an undefiled bed, as Paul writes to the faithful: "Marriage is honorable, and the bed undefiled; but God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterers." For in distinguishing honorable marriage, and those who use it, from the sexually immoral and adulterers, he means that it is neither sexual immorality nor adultery; hence marriage is not a sin either.

And it may be put in another, more natural way. Virginity is something divine and is, as it were, among the virtues. If, then, someone comparing marriage with it should say that marriage is sin, it is not sin absolutely. For evil is not evil by comparison with good; it is such in itself. If, then, something is ever called evil in relation to a good, it would itself be good, though lower than the good preferred to it. Those, then, who come to the Gospel come to it first of all in order to worship God and to become wise according to God. It follows that they are attacked by some; for they must take up Christianity firmly. And firmness comes from training in temptations. Hence they must endure contests. And just as those who preside over the games, if they care for what is reasonable, do not match one athlete with another at random, but with great exactness, looking to the proportion of each one's strength, so our president of the games, Christ, does not yoke all to the same opponents, but gives each an adversary according to his maturity and strength. To the Corinthians, at any rate, who were still infants and held by the passions of the flesh, Paul writes: "No temptation has seized you except what is human." For their temptations and contests have to do with human affairs. But writing about himself and those like him, of equal weight and equal strength, he says: "Our wrestling is not against blood and flesh, but against the principalities and the authorities and the world-rulers of the darkness of this age", all but saying this: for us who have risen higher, the wrestling is no longer against blood and flesh, that is, against human things, but against the higher ranks of adversaries; and these are kinds of rational beings who have become evil …

Let no one suppose that, because we have spoken of kinds of evil rational beings, we are speaking of an evil substance. For there are also kinds and genera of things that exist by choice. We say, at any rate, that the kinds of the good man are the just, the temperate, the prudent. For since virtue is a genus divided into species, into justice, temperance and the rest, the one who shares in the genus, being good, must be, as it were, the genus of those who share in the virtues by species. Likewise, since knowledge is the genus of grammar, music and the rest, we say that the one named knowledgeable from the genus is the genus of those named from the species of knowledge. So even if we speak of kinds of evil rational beings, we say that all who fall under these kinds are such by choice. Certainly the evil names mentioned above are indicative not of substances but of choices …

For the name "devil" indicates not a substance but a choice. At once, at any rate, he named Judas, a man, by his choice, saying to all the disciples together and counting Judas among them: "Did I not choose you, the Twelve, and one of you is a devil?" To which the evangelist adds: "He said this about Judas, who was going to betray him." For if he was called a devil because of the betrayal to come, he was not a devil when he was chosen together with all the rest. For he was chosen together with all because of the virtue he had at that time; but he was styled a devil when he did the deeds of betrayal. If, then, in the case of Judas the name "devil" indicates a chosen action, so too, if the word is said of anyone else, it signifies something chosen. Ordinary usage, too, knows the use of this name: we call "slanderers" those who accuse these people to those, and those to these. Since, then, the devil slanders God to men, and men to God, and men themselves to one another, he received this name. And if the name "Satan" too is predicated of the devil himself, let them know that this too indicates something chosen. For the word, being Hebrew, signifies in the Greek tongue nothing other than "the adversary"; and "adversary", taken of a man, is the same as "enemy", "one who does harm". As, then, the enemy is such by choice, so also is the adversary; as also with their contraries, for "friend", "well-disposed", "of one mind" and "like-minded" are names that indicate choices. … devil, and Satan, and the evil one. So in the Gospel the Savior, among other things, teaches the disciples to say this too in the prayer: "And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one." For the name "evil one" too indicates a choice.

If, then, in everything these names signify, the author of evil and first deserter from virtue is such by choice, he cannot be evil in his substance. And if they should say that he happened to be evil in his substance and also in the chosen acts for which he is so named, let them know that no one says that a thing is an animal or a stone by choice, for these are matters of substance. Hence nothing of that sort is chosen either; for chosen things are in those in whom there is also choice … But perhaps they will say: Why did the good God bring into being one who was going to be so harmful, a destroyer? Let those who say this know that they are attacking not us only but all who hold that there is providence. For many others who hold that there is providence say that all rational living beings, in whom wickedness also springs up, are from God. If, then, they say this about the devil, they are forced to say it about all rational beings as well. Yet we, not imitating those people, say: He who made what can come into wickedness by its own inclination is not the cause of wickedness. For he made a rational living being which he wished to be good by its own choice, having free will to incline either way. For he wished it to be good by choosing the good willingly. For no created being can be good against its will; all who are good are such willingly. The one, then, who was to be good by his own choice had to have the same power, together with the fitness, for taking up the good. And it followed that what can receive good can also receive evil. The rational being, so made as to have power toward virtue and toward vice, was given a commandment, so that it should have virtue in act, and vice only as a capacity. For the law of the one who made it urges it on, trains it, and works with it toward virtue, turning it away from the nature of wickedness. So even if there is a power for wickedness in the rational being, it is not base because of that power. For the powers of both, I mean of virtue and of vice, are matters of choice. For we choose to have the power for virtue, so that we may also take it up in act; we choose to have the power for vice too, for we have it as a mere power when we have virtue in act. And this view is not ours alone, but that of all who have reasoned rightly about rational living beings. So even if God made the substance called the devil, he did not create it a devil, but able to receive virtue, so that it might have it, and able to receive vice, so that it might keep away from it. For since virtue cannot be taken together with vice, and virtue is dear to God, he placed the powers of both in the rational being for this reason: that we might bring the one into act, and keep away from the end of the other power, which is its act. So every rational being came into existence to be good, and not base. If, then, any of the rational beings has run the contrary course to the one who made it and provides for it, the cause is not the maker and lawgiver, but those who have set themselves against the laws given and against the laws of providence. We see these things always happening among ourselves too: we educate our children, wishing to bring them up in knowledge so that they may practice it; but they do not always practice it as they were taught; sometimes, on the contrary, many sons brought up as physicians by their fathers do not use medicine properly, administering to the sick what causes disease instead of what restores health; and surely the fault is not medicine's, nor the teacher's, but the one who acts so; for he does not act as he learned to act. Again, we teach some people the laws, that they may stand with justice and refuse injustice. But some of them, approaching the laws with malice, do the opposite. And we blame neither the law nor the lawgiver. For if they were the causes of injustice, they would not punish the unjust. For this too is part of their will, that the unjust man is to be punished; and God punishes Satan and those who transgress the laws laid down by God. For he says to certain base people: "Depart into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels."

Let those, then, who speak against these things know that what they say contradicts itself. For if the devil were evil in his substance and alien to the good God, able to be his equal in strength, God would not have prepared punishment for him, nor been able to cast him into punishment; yet it says that fire has been prepared for the devil. And this too must be said: if the good God is unchangeable, as indeed he is, and always has the same power, so that he is not stronger at one time and weaker at another, and if after much harm and destruction he was going to hand Satan over to eternal fire, why did he not do this from the beginning, when Satan rose against him and took a part of him? For it would have been more just to appoint punishment for him then, as for a greater offense. For now he harms men; but then, according to them, he harmed God himself … just indignation is directed rather against those who dare to act against the king than against any of his subjects. For if these things are to be thought so, they will charge God at that time either with ignorance of how to punish and to check the evil, or with weakness. But neither of these belongs to the good God. Therefore the enemy of God did not rise against him as an ungenerated being; but having come into existence in order to be good, he left the power for virtue unfulfilled and brought his fitness for vice into act; for which reason he is to be punished, and fittingly, after much …

… who came to the baptism, which runs thus: "Serpents, offspring of vipers, who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Bear, then, fruit worthy of repentance, and do not presume to say among yourselves, We have Abraham as our father. For God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Already the axe is laid at the root of the trees. Every tree, then, that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire." Let them hear that they cannot bring forward texts from writings they do not accept. For they do not accept John the Baptist, since he belongs to the Old Scripture. Nevertheless, even so this must be said to them: through the whole passage he does away with being good by nature and evil by nature. For he says to them: "Bear, then, fruit worthy of repentance." But repentance and its fruit do not apply either to one who is evil in his substance or to one who is good by nature. For how does one who is always good need repentance? Or how could one evil by nature make use of the good of repentance? For one who is evil in his substance cannot be turned away from sin; nor does repentance take place for the benefit of the good. Further, he says that children will be raised up to Abraham from the stones he points to, calling "stones" the dull-witted and those men who still remain in wickedness. … will be children of Abraham, who was styled a man of God for this reason, that he believed in God himself, so that his faith was reckoned to him as righteousness …

Since we have also heard it said by them that the words "Serpents, offspring of vipers", spoken to those born of Abraham and of the other holy men, show that those around Abraham are vipers, let them know that what they say conflicts with the sequence of the passage. For he rebukes them as not being of Abraham but offspring of vipers, who pretend and vainly boast that they are of Abraham. For in another passage the Savior says to them: "This Abraham did not do" (Abraham, whom you falsely say is your father). "For if you were children of Abraham, you would do the works of Abraham. But you are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has not stood in the truth." And well is it said, "has not stood", showing that he formerly stood in the truth. He calls the devil their father because of the likeness of their turning and their quality. So he did not call Abraham and the holy men with him vipers. For they came to be sons of vipers by change, because they used evil teachers, as has been said, by their own choice. John, then, says to them: Since by a change away from virtue you chose to become serpents (for they were not such in substance), stop being offspring of vipers, whose quality you chose to have. For you made it your aim to be evil sons of evil men and unjust sons of the unjust. But since by coming to baptism you claim to bear a sign of repentance, but do this in pretense, I say to you: "Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?" For the one who repents repents for this reason, that by sinning no more he may flee the coming wrath … the words "Who warned you?", meaning: the one who genuinely warns men to withdraw from wickedness does not have it done in pretense. But you do this with hypocrisy when you come to be baptized. You will not, then, be cleansed. For the one who truly wishes to be cleansed departs from sins and bears the fruit of such repentance, doing the works of the habit contrary to sin. But this you have not done, and you have condemned yourselves by saying that you have Abraham as father. But what will profit you is not thinking that you are children of Abraham, but being his children, both by faith and by fleeing from idols. So even if you once were children of Abraham, this will not save you. For also those who are not now … he is saved who is a child of Abraham by virtue, not one who became his child according to the flesh only; and even if he becomes one, let him not be proud, for such a thing can be lost. And certainly those who do not have it will be able to acquire it. For Paul too says to those whom he did not beget in the flesh: "For in Christ through the gospel I begot you."

But when you hear these things, do not despise them, as though the wrath against sinners were slow. For already, through his very sinning, the base man has punishment present with him, since he is liable to punishment. Therefore know the … he means not perceptible trees but men made such by wickedness. The root of these trees is the worst habit, from which comes fruit that is not edible but poisonous. That, then, he called fruit that is not good. So even if the axe signifies punishment, and the bad tree the man who sins, these are not conflicting natures; for punishment is threatened so that the trees may change. For the one who threatens sinners wishes by the threat itself to transform them. If, then, by the threat of the axe that is going to cut down the rotten trees he persuades them to stop bearing bad fruit and to bear good fruit, the tree is not evil by nature, nor is punishment evil by nature …

But perhaps they will say: If punishment transforms the base, it is good; and if punishment is good, and the promise is its contrary, and contraries cannot both be good at the same time, then the promise is evil. But since the promise is not evil but good, punishment is evil. And if punishment is evil, it is not God but Satan who brings it. But Satan does not bring punishment on his own, for they are evil like him, and he too would of necessity fall under punishment; so he would bring it on the good. But this is impossible; therefore it is not the evil one who brings it, but God. And everything that God brings, usefully …