Against the Manichees

Contents

Only the Greek is staged: books 1 and 2, the first chapters of book 3, and the continuing Greek of book 3 by Lagarde's page. Books 3 and 4 survive in full only in Syriac; that text is not on this site.

Reading pages: 1.1–1.18 · 1.19–1.34 · 1.35–2.14 · 2.15–2.26 · 2.27–2.44 · 2.45–2.62 · 2.63–74 · 75–84 · 85–95 · 96–103

1. 1.1Titus contrasts the church’s way of clearing God of blame for sin, by blaming ourselves, with Mani’s doctrine of an eternal evil principle opposed to God.
2. 1.2Mani’s second principle makes sin seem incurable, encouraging despair and robbing virtuous effort of true praise.
3. 1.3The Manichees call nearly all creation evil, including wild animals, which Titus promises to show are useful.
4. 1.4The Manichees infer a principle of evil from human sins and from parts of creation, and their ignorance of the visible world leads them into fictions about the invisible.
5. 1.5Titus sets out his plan: first refute the two principles, then defend creation, providence, and God’s goodness despite human wrongdoing.
6. 1.6Titus quotes Mani’s statement of the two opposed, unbegotten principles.
7. 1.7If the two principles are separate, God is bounded by evil, contrary to the common notion that God is everywhere and uncontained.
8. 1.8Separated principles need places, which either make them no longer unbegotten or add further unbegotten things.
9. 1.9A boundary between the two principles would be a third unbegotten thing and raises absurd questions of place and extent.
10. 1.10The comparison of the two realms to sun and shadow fails, because a shadow exists only where light is present.
11. 1.11Two co-eternal beings cannot both be principles, and since both are called living, unbegotten substance, they cannot be opposite in substance.
12. 1.12Since both principles have the same description, there can be no opposition or even difference between them.
13. 1.13Opposition belongs to qualities, not to substances, and God, who is simple, has no qualities; two unbegotten beings cannot be opposite.
14. 1.14If matter is opposite to God who is truth, it must be falsehood, yet the Manichees hold that it truly exists.
15. 1.15If evil is corruption, it cannot be an eternal, incorruptible substance.
16. 1.16Titus promises to show that the supposed disorder of the world is the highest order and that so-called evils are either deeds or not evil at all.
17. 1.17Titus summarizes Mani’s myth of matter’s assault on the light, the swallowed power, the making of the world, and the moon that carries souls back to the good.
18. 1.18Matter’s supposed disorder, growth and late uprising are incoherent whether matter is rational or irrational.
19. 1.19Mani says the offspring of matter devoured one another until they saw the light; Titus replies that evil destroying itself would be good order.
20. 1.20If the light stopped evil from destroying itself, the light preserved evil, which would itself be disorder.
21. 1.21Mani’s book says the powers of darkness desired the light; Titus argues that desire for the good is praiseworthy, so the myth contradicts itself.
22. 1.22The myth of the powers of darkness making war on a light they did not know, and the notion of a “land of the good” before creation, are self-contradictory.
23. 1.23If darkness saw the light, it must share a nature with it; sight implies likeness, so the opposition of the two principles collapses.
24. 1.24Matter’s seeing and loving the power of God would prove kinship with it, since sight implies likeness and desire for the good is a mark of goodness.
25. 1.25That matter saw, desired, swallowed and holds the divine power proves kinship, not opposition.
26. 1.26The power sent by God could not be swallowed and divided if incorporeal, and if bodily it would have been destroyed.
27. 1.27It is absurd that God would give part of his own substance to be captive and to share in sin for ages to protect a land.
28. 1.28Mani’s myth makes God weak and evil all-powerful, and implicates God in the sins of the captive power.
29. 1.29Human sins presuppose body and soul joined in a world, so by Mani’s own myth the mixture of good and evil produced evils that matter alone never had.
30. 1.30By his own myth the mixing taught matter to do visible evils, so the “incantation” awakened rather than lulled the beast.
31. 1.31Whether God wished the world or was compelled, Mani’s account makes God the cause of the evils that came with the world.
32. 1.32Sin lies in reason’s choice, not in desire or body; on Mani’s scheme reason belongs to the good, so sin would come from the good.
33. 1.33Self-control consists in reason checking desire, so reason is responsible for both virtue and vice.
34. 1.34The moral quality of deeds lies in purpose: the same outward act can be just or unjust, and good deeds done for show are blameworthy.
35. 1.35Since the ruling part of the mind decides the moral quality of acts, Mani’s scheme would make the good the source of sin.
36. 1.36If the captive power is God’s own nature held for ages in matter, the myth makes God the sufferer and matter the victor.
37. 1.37On the Manichaean view salvation is God recovering his own, which makes God dependent on hope and punished by delay.
38. 1.38If the powers of matter made the flesh to hold souls, the end of the world would depend on them, not on the good.
39. 1.39Mani contradicts himself by making matter share in creation and by saying both that the captive power restrains matter and that its removal will ruin it.
40. 1.40The doctrine that the light is slowly being freed and matter will finally be burned into a clod is incoherent and contradicted by the unchanged order of the world.
41. 1.41The Manichaean teaching that sinful souls are fixed in the final clod makes God punish his own nature, and the picture of God filling the abyss with earth is absurd.
42. 2.1Book 2 begins: Titus turns from refuting Mani’s myth to showing that there is one principle and that nothing is evil in substance.
43. 2.2Titus states his thesis: all things are very good and each has its purpose in the whole; only human injustice is truly evil.
44. 2.3God gave man knowledge of good and evil and power over virtue and vice, so sin is acting against reason, which must be exercised like the body.
45. 2.4Virtue requires the real possibility of vice: self-control and justice mean refraining from what one could do, so God rightly made us able to sin.
46. 2.5Man is made good only through self-control and justice, which require the presence of their opposites.
47. 2.6Self-control given by nature would not be self-control, since it consists in resisting pleasures.
48. 2.7Man is by nature fair but neither good nor evil; God gave him both freedom and moral knowledge, like a skilled charioteer.
49. 2.8Freedom to sin is a benefit, because virtue among men consists chiefly in refusing evil that one could do; God alone is good by pure beneficence.
50. 2.9Evil exists only as human deeds; God refrains from evil not through ignorance or inability but by perfect power of not willing it.
51. 2.10God’s inability to do wrong is the perfection of his will, not weakness; in men evil exists only when done.
52. 2.11Made in God’s image, man is free; the changes of men toward virtue and vice show that sin is chosen, not natural.
53. 2.12Bad habits are hard but not impossible to break; fear and law restrain sin, showing that sins come from passions and choice, not nature.
54. 2.13Thinking of both good and evil shows natural moral knowledge, not two natures; action is decided by choice, and upbringing matters greatly.
55. 2.14Titus sums up: freedom to sin is necessary for virtue, and evil exists only in action, not as a principle.
56. 2.15Wealth and poverty are unequal only outwardly; the necessities of life are common to all, and virtue is equally possible and equally demanding for rich and poor.
57. 2.16Rich and poor test and train each other; true blessedness is virtue, and in health and pleasure the poor man often has more than the rich.
58. 2.17Sickness and health both serve virtue, and the escape of some criminals from punishment makes virtue a matter of hating evil rather than fearing penalties.
59. 2.18Both the punishment and the escape of evildoers serve providence, and all apparent opposites in life work together to keep the mind alert for virtue.
60. 2.19The unjust suffering of the righteous, even to death, does not harm them, since they look to greater goods after this life.
61. 2.20God permits wicked rulers as a just punishment of sinful peoples, as Scripture declares.
62. 2.21God’s providence gives all people the same access to virtue, birth, necessities and death; the world shows variety, not inequality.
63. 2.22Wars arise from greed and are permitted by God; death itself is no evil but a natural transition that ends sin for the wicked and begins crowns for the righteous.
64. 2.23Death, appointed for all, is good, ending the toil of the righteous and the sins of the wicked; the blame for war lies with human purpose, not with God.
65. 2.24Natural disasters are God’s admonitions, like a father’s discipline or a physician’s surgery, rousing people whom prosperity makes forgetful of God.
66. 2.25Calamities turn people to prayer and piety, so they serve souls and are not evils.
67. 2.26By Mani’s own logic calamities that check bodily excess would be good, since they diminish matter; both prosperity and adversity come from the good God.
68. 2.27God sometimes withholds his common gifts so that people will ask and give thanks, recognizing him as the giver.
69. 2.28When cities are destroyed in impious times, as recently under the emperor who revived idolatry, death in numbers is still natural and serves to correct the living.
70. 2.29That many remain sinful does not show calamities are useless, any more than fish in the sea show fishing is idle; fear converts some and restrains others.
71. 2.30Titus turns to creation, beginning with darkness and night, which Mani takes as evidence of his realm of darkness.
72. 2.31Darkness is not a substance but the absence of light, like a shadow; the sun exists at night, but darkness does not exist by day.
73. 2.32Night gives rest equally to all, showing the Creator’s even-handedness.
74. 2.33Night measures time and makes light perceptible and enjoyable by contrast.
75. 2.34God made darkness not a substance but something that comes and goes, so that night is useful and blameless.
76. 2.35Crimes done at night are the fault of the criminal’s purpose, not of night, which invites only sleep.
77. 2.36Falsehood, like darkness, has no substance; the possibility of lying exists so that truth may be freely chosen.
78. 2.37God, who is light and truth itself, freely and unchangeably never wills to lie; falsehood is a human invention, while darkness is a useful work of the Creator.
79. 2.38Wild animals, like a master’s whip, are a necessary reminder that rouses forgetful people to fear God.
80. 2.39Wild animals and Mani’s irrational evil alike cannot be evil, since evil requires knowledge, as the pardon given to the delirious shows.
81. 2.40Moral blame requires reason and knowledge, so animals are not evil and infants are neither good nor evil.
82. 2.41Venomous creatures supply medicines and, like a whip in a house, keep people watchful; they are useful, not evil.
83. 2.42God’s care uses fears, sickness, loss and even the deaths of children to turn people from sin, governing all by foreknowledge.
84. 2.43God shows some reasons for what he permits but hides most, so that people may trust him as friends trust one another, rather than demand proofs.
85. 2.44Wild animals add fear and variety to creation; every creature is equipped to survive, and no plant is deadly by nature, since animals discern what suits them.
86. 2.45Iron and fire are gifts of the Creator, found by human reason; their misuse is the fault of the user, and death itself, which they may cause, is not evil.
87. 2.46Human sins cannot change the natural order fixed by God; they only convict the doer, so blame belongs to the user, not the instrument.
88. 2.47Murder brings about only the death appointed for all; God permits it for various reasons, and death itself is not evil.
89. 2.48God’s wisdom is not fully accessible to men, who should trust it as they trust a skilled craftsman or a king’s hidden counsels.
90. 2.49Not understanding God’s governance, Mani invented a second principle and ascribed most of God’s works to evil.
91. 2.50The four elements are each simple and dangerous when unmixed, so they cannot be divided between good and evil principles.
92. 2.51Simple elements like fire cannot be split into good and evil parts; on Mani’s logic all would belong to evil, which ruins his own hypothesis.
93. 2.52Fire’s healing and burning are not two natures but one burning power, helpful or harmful according to use.
94. 2.53Assigning all four elements to evil would either make bodies incoherent or credit evil with the Creator’s wisdom.
95. 2.54The sun is a kind of fire, beneficial at a distance and harmful near; being visible and bodily, it cannot be of God’s substance as Mani claims.
96. 2.55Mani contradicts himself by honouring the sun while condemning the fruits of the earth that the sun nourishes.
97. 2.56Titus defends rain and the fruits of the earth against Manichaean slander and accuses the Manichees of cursing their bread, rejecting childbearing, and using means to prevent or end pregnancy.
98. 2.57Sexual desire exists so that self-control, virginity and celibacy may be real victories of reason and holiness.
99. 2.58Natural appetites are good in measured, lawful use; sin lies in excess, and fasting is a voluntary training, not a rejection of nature.
100. 2.59Desire is not evil: its lawful use is blameless and voluntary abstinence is a great virtue, possible only because the opposite is possible.
101. 2.60Mani’s claim that stones and wood have souls, because they make sounds, is absurd, since sound comes from bodies striking air, not from souls.
102. 2.61Animals were given to humans for food and use by their Creator; Manichaean objections to slaughtering them insult the good they claim to honour.
103. 2.62Animals serve humans by the Creator’s design; even the strongest or smallest may harm humans only when God permits, for his purposes.
104. 2.63The harmony of heaven and earth, sun and seasons, day and night, sea and land shows one law and one Creator, not two warring principles.
105. 2.64No star wars against another and no kind of animal destroys another; predation keeps numbers in check by the Creator’s design.
106. 2.65The four opposed elements are blended into harmony in every body and came into being together, proclaiming the wisdom of the one unbegotten Creator.
107. 2.66Book 2 concludes: creation’s harmony leaves no room for a second principle, and God’s mixture of kindness and severity trains people toward virtue.
108. 3.1Book 3 begins: Titus turns to refuting Mani from Scripture, since Mani misleads Christians by using the name of Christ and calling himself the Paraclete and an apostle of Jesus Christ.
109. 3.2Mani rejects the Old Testament as from evil and keeps only parts of the New Testament, cutting out what does not suit him.
110. 3.3Unlike pagans who deny the biblical histories, Mani accepts them but ascribes God’s great works to evil; Titus will show that this is irrational.
111. 3.4Titus introduces a verbatim quotation from a Manichaean chapter on the creation of the first man.
112. 3.5Titus quotes a Manichaean text: the rulers of matter made human bodies, beginning with Adam, to trap the souls of light.
113. 3.6Mani’s myth credits ignorant matter with clever plans that defeat the good.
114. 3.7By saying matter made Adam, Mani ascribes to evil the making of man, the noblest creature in the world.
115. 3.8Titus reports Manichaean objections to Genesis: the commandment to Adam, the serpent as an angel of the good, God’s words in Gen 3:22, Abel’s murder and the flood.
116. 69Titus argues that the demons are not evil by nature but became evil by choice.
117. 70The demons know Christ and beg not to be sent into the abyss, which shows they are rational, not blind by nature, and not akin to the place of punishment.
118. 71The abyss was made later as a corrective punishment; since the demons can suffer and fear, they cannot be unbegotten.
119. 72Degrees of wickedness among demons show choice, not nature; Titus begins to restate the Manichaean myth of the two separated realms in order to refute it.
120. 73Against the Manichaean doctrine of two roots bearing good and evil fruit, Titus points to the apostles, who changed from bad to good, as proof that rational creatures act by choice.
121. 74Pharaoh’s requests for prayer and Nebuchadnezzar’s recognition of God show that even the worst men had some good, which refutes the idea of evil natures sprung from an evil root.
122. 75Nebuchadnezzar’s confession of God after the furnace shows that even the wicked can know the good; evil is not a substance but a sickness, and Satan is fallen, as Isaiah and Christ testify.
123. 76Scripture speaks of Satan as fallen from a former height, so he was not evil by nature; and the Manichaean myth of light snatched by darkness makes God passible and Satan impassible.
124. 77If the light could be changed and made forgetful of itself, it was not unbegotten; and if change is possible, God should have changed evil to good rather than allow the good to be captured.
125. 78Titus turns to the Manichaean treatment of the Law and the Gospels, which they cut and supplement; then, after a break in the text, he argues that no middle wall or void could separate the two principles.
126. 79The myth that wickedness destroyed itself and then swallowed the light contradicts its supposed unbegotten nature; after a break, Titus returns to the Manichaean rewriting of the Gospel.
127. 80The Manichees corrupt the Gospels worse than unbelievers who reject them; Christ cannot be known without the Law and the Prophets, as the parable of Lazarus and the Transfiguration show.
128. 81Christ came to fulfil the Law and cleansed his Father’s house; the Gospels begin from the Law and the Prophets, so the Manichees who reject the Law also reject the Gospel’s witness.
129. 82John, Luke and Paul all link the Gospel to the Law and the Prophets: Christ is David’s heir, and the God who spoke in the prophets is the Father of the Son.
130. 83Titus contrasts the Valentinian, Marcionite and Manichaean rejections of the Law and argues that the just and the good are one, since the Son who judges justly is the image of the Father.
131. 84Christ calls the Father righteous; Valentinus, Marcion and Mani attack the Law in three ways, but a Law that foretold Christ must come from one who knew God’s counsel.
132. 85If evil knew God’s plans to write the Law, God would be mocked; in fact the Law and Prophets foretold Christ’s birth, life, death, descent, resurrection and ascension.
133. 86The Law foretold Christ’s enthronement, sonship and prophetic office; its commandments against immorality, idolatry and covetousness cannot come from an evil principle.
134. 87By rejecting the Law, which opposes evil and idolatry, the Manichees side with evil and fall into worse polytheism than the pagans; Titus sets out a test of the Law in three steps.
135. 88Paul calls the Law holy and spiritual; it opposes every one of the four kinds of vice, and where it is obeyed evil loses its power.
136. 89The Law and the Prophets remove every vice, folly, cowardice, licentiousness and injustice, and guard eyes, tongue and body against pleasure.
137. 90The Law guards against idolatry, the gravest injustice, which robs God of his honour, and against love of money, the root of injustice to others.
138. 91The Law checks love of glory as well as love of money and honours the upright; heretics hate it because it opposes their passions. Titus begins to show that it also teaches every virtue.
139. 92The Law teaches all four virtues: prudence from God, self-control in Joseph’s refusal of Potiphar’s wife, and courage in Judith’s venture.
140. 93Judith’s prudent courage and Abraham’s refusal of reward illustrate virtue in the Law; the Law, the Gospel and Paul agree on one God and on the Son begotten from the Father.
141. 94The Father’s voice at Christ’s baptism echoes Ps 2:7, and Paul everywhere interprets the Old Testament; the apostles join Law and Gospel, while the heretics, false apostles, try to divide them.
142. 95Law and Gospel agree on Father, Son and Holy Spirit; the Manichees call the Old Testament harsh, citing Elisha’s bears and Elijah’s fire.
143. 96Paul’s blinding of Bar-Jesus and Peter’s judgement on Ananias and Sapphira show that the apostles too used severe rebukes; and the Law, like the Gospel, has examples of forgiveness after repentance.
144. 97David’s pardon after repentance matches Peter’s, and the Law and Prophets call all people to repentance as the Gospel does, as Nineveh shows.
145. 98God spared Nineveh and even Ahab at the slightest repentance; the Law is a shadow and tutor leading to Christ. Titus turns to the Manichaean claim that the human body was made by the evil one.
146. 99True opposites cannot coexist, yet soul and body form one harmonious person who loves and feels with the body, so they cannot come from opposite principles.
147. 100Soul and body share pleasure and pain and the soul sanctifies the flesh; Christ’s words on the creation of male and female and on what God has joined show the one Creator of body and soul.
148. 101Christ’s teaching that the maker of the outside made the inside, and his care for bodily purity, show that the body is God’s work; his own real body, crucified and buried, refutes the Manichees.
149. 102Christ’s baptism, hunger, weariness, crucifixion and burial prove his real body; he came in a body to free our bodies, which God made.
150. 103Titus concludes by urging the faithful to guard their ears against false teachers who claim to be Christ, for there is one Christ, the liberator who drives out sins.