of three tliousand at least for one father; for one may have even a much larger number than this. Thev listen with astonishing 6o [Chap. XXXIII.
eagerness in perfect silence, and give expression to the feelings of their minds as moved by the words of the preacher, in groans, or tears, or signs of joy without noise or shouting. Then there is refreshment for the body, as much as health and a sound condition of the body requires, every one checking unlawful appetite, so as not to go to excess even in the poor, inexpensive fare provided. So they not only abstain from flesh and wine, in order to gain the mastery over their passions, but also from those things which are only the more likely to whet the appetite of the palate and of the stomach, from what some call their greater cleanness, which often serves as a ridiculous and disgraceful excuse for an unseemly taste for exquisite viands, as distant from animal food. Whatever they possess in addition to what is required for their support (and much is obtained, owing to their industry and frugality), they distribute to the needy with greater care than they took in procuring it for themselves. For while they make no effort to obtain abundance, they make every effort to prevent their abundance remaining with them, — so much so, that they send shiploads to places inhabited by poor people. I need say no more on a matter known to all.'
68. Such, too, is the life of the women, who serve God assiduously and chastely, living apart and removed as far as propriety demands from the men, to whom they are united only in pious affection and in imitation of virtue. No young men are allowed access to them, nor even old men, however respectable and approved, except to the porch, in order to furnish necessary supplies. For the women occupy and maintain themselves by working in wool, and hand over the cloth to the brethren, from whom, in return, they get what they need for food. Such customs, such a life, such arrangements, such a system, I could not commend as it deserves, if I wished to commend it; besides, I am afraid that it would seem as if 1 thought it unlikely to gain acceptance from the mere description of it, if I considered myself obliged to add an ornamental eulogium to the simple narrative. Ye Manichasans, find fault here if you can. Do not bring into prominence our tares before men too blind to discriminate.
CHAP. 32. PRAISE OF THE CLERGY.
69. There is not, however, such narrowness in the moral excellence of the Catholic I [This picture of coenobitic life, even in its purest form, is doubtless idealized. It is certain that the monasteries very soon became hot-beds of vice, and the refuge of the scum of society. — A. H. N.]
Church as that I should limit my praise of it to the life of those here mentioned. For how many bishops have I known most excellent and holy men, how many presbyters, how many deacons, and ministers of all kinds of the divine sacraments, whose virtue seems to me more admirable and more worthy of commendation on account of the greater difficulty of preserving it amidst the manifold varieties of men, and in this life of turmoil! For they preside over men needing cure as much as over those already cured. The vices of the crowd must be borne with in order that they may be cured, and the plague must be endured before it is subdued. To keep here the best way of life and a mind calm and peaceful is very hard. Here, in a word, we are among people who are learning to live. There they live.
CHAP. 33. ANOTHER KIND OF MEN LIVING TO- GETHER IN CITIES. FASTS OF THREE DAYS.
70. Still I would not on this account cast a slight upon a praiseworthy class of Christians, — those, namely, who live together in cities, quite apart from common life. I saw at Milan a lodging-house of saints, in number not a. few, presided over by one presbyter, a man of great excellence and learning. At Rome I knew several places where there was in each one eminent for weight of character, and prudence, and divine knowledge, presiding over all the rest who lived with him, in Christian charity, and sanctity, and liberty. These, too, are not burdensome to any one; but, in the Eastern fashion, and on the authority of the Apostle Paul, they maintain themselves with their own hands. I was told that many practised fasts of quite amazing severity, not merely taking only one meal daily towards night, which is everywhere quite common, but very often continuing for three days or more in succession without food or drink. And this among not men only, but women, who also live together in great numbers as widows or virgins, gaining a livelihood by spinning and weaving, and presided over in each case by a woman of the greatest judgment and experience, skilled and accomplished not only in directing and forming moral conduct, but also in instructing the understanding. = 71. With all this, no one is pressed to endure hardships for which he is unfit; nothing is imposed on any one against his will; nor is he condemned by the rest because he con- 2 [Augustin ascribes a broadmindedness and charitableness tn the ascetics of his time which was doubtless quite subjective. The ascetics of that aire with whose history we are acquainted were nut of this type. Jerome is an exa.nple. — A. H. N.]
Chap. XXXIV.] OF THE MORALS OF THP: CATHOLIC CHURCH.
6l fesses himself too feeble to imitate them: for they bear in mind how strongly Scripture enjoins charity on all; they bear in mind, " To the pure all things are pure," ' and " Not that which entereth into your mouth defileth you, but that which cometh out of it." ^ Accordingly, all their endeavors are concerned not about the rejection of kinds of food as polluted, but about the subjugation of inordinate desire and the maintenance of brotherly love. They remember, " Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats; but God shall destroy both it and them;"^ and again, " Neither if we eat shall we abound, nor if we refrain from eating shall we be in want; " * and, above all, this: "It is good, my brethren, not to eat flesh, nor drink wine, nor anything whereby thy brother is offended;" for this passage shows that love is the end to be aimed at in all these things. " For one man," he says, " believes that he can eat all things: another, who is weak, eateth herbs. He that eateth, let him not despise him that eateth not; and let not him that eateth not judge him that eateth: for God hath approved him. Who art thou that thou shouldest judge another man's servant? To his own master he stands or falls; but he shall stand: for God is able to make him to stand." And a little after: " He that eateth, to the Lord he eateth, and giveth God thanks; and he that eateth not, to the Lord he eateth not, and giveth God thanks." And also in what follows: "So every one of us shall give account of himself to God. Let us not, then, any more judge one another: but judge this rather, that ye place no stumbling-block, or cause of offence, in the way of a brother. I know, and am confident in the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing common in itself: but to him that thinketh anything to be common, to him it is common." Could he have shown better that it is not in the things we eat, but in the mind, that there is a power able to pollute it, and therefore that even those who are fit to think lightly of these things, and know perfectly that they are not polluted if they take any food in mental superiority, without being gluttons, should still have regard to charity? See what he adds: " For if thy brother be grieved with thy meat, now walkest thou not charitably." 5 72. Read the rest: it is too long to quote all. You will find that those able to think lightly of such things,- — that is, those of greater strength and stability,— are told that they must nevertheless abstain, lest those should be offended who from their weakness 3 I Cor. VI. 13.
are still in need of such abstinence. Tiie people I was describing know and observe these things; for they are Christians, not heretics. They understand Scripture according to the apostolic teaching, not according to the presumptuous and fictitious name of apostle/ Him that eats not no one despises; him that eats no one judges; he who is weak eats herbs. Many who are strong, however, do this for the sake of the weak; with many the reason for so doing is not this, but that they may have a cheaper diet, and may lead a life of the greatest tranquillity, with the least expensive provision for the support of the body. "For all things are lawful forme," he says; " but I will not be brought under the power of any." 7 Thus many do not eat flesh, and yet do not superstitiously regard it as unclean. And so the same people who abstain when in health take it when unwell without any fear, if it is required as a cure. Many drink no wine; but they do not think that wine defiles them; for they cause it to be given with the greatest propriety and moderation to people of languid temperament, and, in short, to all who cannot have bodily health without it. When some foolishly refuse it, they counsel them as brothers not to let a silly superstition make them weaker instead of making them holier. They read to them the apostle's precept to his disciple to '' take a little wine for his many infirmities." * Then they diligently exercise piety; bodily exercise, they know, profiteth for a short time, as the same apostle says.^ 73. Those, then who are able, and they are without number, abstain both from flesh and from wine for two reasons: either for the iv'eakness of their brethren, or for their own liberty. Charity is principally attended to. There is charity in their choice of diet, charity in their speech, charity in their dress, charity in their looks. Charity is the point where they meet, and the plan by which they act. To transgress against charity is thought criminal, like transgressing against God. Whatever opposes this is attacked and expelled; whatever injures it is not allowed to continue for a single day. They know that it has been so enjoined l)y Christ and the apostles; that without it all things are empty, with it all are fulfilled.
CHAP. 34. — THE CHURCH IS NOT TO RK BLAMED FOR THE CONDUCT OF BAD CHRISTIANS, WORSHIPPERS OF TOMBS AND PICTURES.
74. Make objections against these, ye 6 See title of the Epistle of Manichxus, Centra Faust, xiii. 4.
[CiiAP. XXXV.
]\Ianichieans, if you can. Look at these people, and speak of them reproachfully, if you dare, without falsehood. Compare their fasts with your fasts, their chastity with yours; compare them to yourselves in dress, food, self-restraint, and, lastly, in charity. Compare, which is most to the point, their precepts with yours. Then you will see the difference between show and sincerity, between the right way and the wrong, between faith and imposture, between strength and inflatedness, between happiness and wretchedness, between unity and disunion; in short, between the sirens of superstition and the harbor of religion.
75. Do not summon against me professors of the Christian name, who neither know nor give evidence of the power of their profession/ Do not hunt up the numbers of ignorant people, who even in the true religion are superstitious, or are so given up to evil passions as to forget what they have promised to God. I know that there are many worshippers of tombs and pictures. I know that there are many who drink to great excess over the dead, and who, in the feasts which they make for corpses, bury themselves over the buried, and give to their gluttony and drunkenness the name of religion. I know that there are many who in words have renounced this world, and }^et desire to be burdened with all the weight of worldly things, and rejoice in such burdens. Nor is it surprising that among so many multitudes you should find some by condemning whose life you may deceive the unwary and seduce them from Catholic safety; for in your small numbers you are at a loss when called on to show even one out of those whom you call thai elect who keeps the precepts, which in your indefensible superstition you profess. How silly those are, how impious, how mischievous, and to what extent they are neglected by most, nearly all of you, I have shown in another volume.
76. My advice to you now is this: that you should at least desist from slandering the Catholic Church, by declaiming against the conduct of men whom the Church herself condemns, seeking daily to correct them as wicked children. Then, if any of them by good will and by the help of God are corrected, they regain by repentance what they had lost by sin. Those, again, who with wicked will persist in their old vices, or even I [Augustin says nothing of the encouragement given to such pagan practices by men regarded in that age as possessed of almost superhuman sanctity, such as Sulpicius Severus, PauUnus of Nola, etc. He speaks of corruptions as if they were exceptional, whereas thev seem to have been the rule. Yet there is force in his contention that Christianity be judged bv its best products rather than by the worst elements associated with it.— A. H. N.]
add to them others still worse, are indeed allowed to remain in the field of the Lord, and to grow along with the good seed; but the time for separating the tares will come.= Or if, from their having at least the Christian name, they are to be placed among the chaff rather than among thistles, there will also come One to purge the floor and to separate the chaff from the wheat, and to assign to each part (according to its desert) the due re ward. 3 CHAP. 35. MARRIAGE AND PROPERTY ALLOWED TO THE BAPTIZED BY THE APOSTLES.
77. Meanwhile, why do you rage? why does party spirit blind your eyes? Why do you entangle yourselves in a long defence of such great error? Seek for fruit in the field, seek for wheat in the floor: they will be found easily, and will present themselves to the inquirer. Why do you look so exclusively at the dross? Why do you use the roughness of the hedge to scare away the inexperienced from the fatness of the garden? There is a proper entrance, though known to but a few; and by it men come in, though you disbelieve it, or do not wish to find it. In the Catholic Church there are believers without number who do not use the world, and there are those who "use it," in the words of the apostle, " as not using it," •* as was proved in those times when Christians were forced to worship idols. For then, how many wealthy men, how many peasant householders, how many merchants, how many military men, how many leading men in their own cities, and how many senators, people of both sexes, giving up all these empty and transitory things, though while they used them they were not bound down by them, endured death for the salutary faith and religion, and proved to unbelievers that instead of being possessed by all these things they really possessed them?
78. Why do you reproach us by saying that men renewed in baptism ought no longer to beget children, or to possess fields, and houses, and money? Paul allows it. For, as cannot be denied, he wrote to believers, after recounting many kinds of evil-doers who shall not possess the kingdom of God: " And such were you," he says: " but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in 2 [Augustin's ideal representation of Christianity and his identification of the organized Catholic Church with Christianity is quite inconsistent with the practice of the Church which he here seeks to justify. No duty is more distinctly enjoined upon believers in the New Testament than separation from unbelievers and evil doers. But such separation is impracticable in an established Church such as that to which Augustin rejoiced to belong. — A. H. N.]
Chap. XXXV.] OF THE MORALS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.
the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God." By the washed and sanctified, no one, assuredly, will venture to think any are meant but believers, and those who have renounced this world. But, after showing to whom he writes, let us see whether he allows these things to them. He goes on: "All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful lor me, but I will not be brought under the power of any. INIeat for the belly, and the belly for meats: but God will destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. But God raised up the Lord, and will raise us up also by His own power. Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid. Know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is made one body? for the twain, saith He, shall be one llesh. But he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit. Flee fornication. Whatever sin a man doeth is without the body: but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his o.vn body. Know ye not tha); your members are the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a great price: glorify God, and carry Him in your i)ody." ' " But of the things concerning which ye wrote to me: it is good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband. Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband. The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife. Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may have leisure for prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency. But I speak this by permission, and not of commandment. For I would that all men were even as I myself: but every man hath his proper gift of God, one after this manner, and another after that." = 79. Has the apostle, think you, both shown sufficiently to the strong what is highest, and permitted to the weaker what is next best?
' I Cor. vi. II-20.
= I Cor. vii. 1-7.
Not to touch a woman he shows is highest when he says, " I would that all men were even as I myself." But next to this highest is conjugal chastity, that man may not be the prey of fornication. Did he say that these people were not yet believers because they were married? Indeed, by this conjugal chastity he says that those who are united are sanctified by one another, if one of them is an unbeliever, and that their children also are sanctified. " The unbelieving husband,'' he says, " is sanctified by the believing wife, and the unbelieving woman by the believing husband: otherwise your children would be unclean; but now are they holy."^ Why do you persist in opposition to such plain truth? Why do you try to darken the light of Scripture by vain shadows?
80. Do not say that catechumens are allowed to have wives, but not believers; that catechumens may have money, but not believers. For there are many who use as not using. And in that sacred washing the renewal of the new man is begun so as gradually to reach perfection, in some more quickly, in others more slowly. The progress, however, to a new life is made in the case of many, if we view the matter without hostility, but attentively. As the apostle says of himself, "Though the outward man perish, the inward man is renewed day by day."'' The apostle says that the inward man is renewed day by day that it may reach perfection; and you wish it to begin with perfection! And it were well if you did wish it. In reality, you aim not at raising the weak, but at misleading the unwary. You ought not to have spoken so arrogantly, even if it were known that you are perfect in your childish precepts. But when your conscience knows that those whom you bring into your sect, when they come to a more intimate acquaintance with you, will find many things in you which nobody hearing you accuse others would suspect, is it not great impertinence to demand perfection in the weaker Catholics, to turn away the inexperienced from the Catholic Church, while you show nothing of the kind in yourself to those thus turned away? But not to seem to inveigh against you without reason, I will now close this volume, and will proceed at last to set forth the precepts of your life and your notable customs.
3 I Cor. vii. 14.
4 2 Cor. iv. 16.
^ ON THE MORALS OF THE MANICH.EANS.
[DE MORIBUS MANICH.*:ORUM].
A.D. 388.
BOMBAY.
COXTENTS OF THE MORALS OF THE MANICH.EANS.
Chap. I. — The supreme good is that which is possessed of supreme existence 69 Chai'. II. — What evil is. That evil is that which is against nature. In allowing this, the Manichreans refute themselves 69 CTiAP. in. — If evil is defined as that which is hurtful, this implies another refutation of the Manichaeans. 70 Ch.\I'. IV. — The difference between what is good in itself and what is good by participation 70 Chap. V. — If evil is defined to be corruption, this completely refutes the Manichnean heresy 71 Cn.\P. VI. — What corruption affects, and what it is 71 Chap. VII. — The goodness of God prevents corruption from bringing anvthing to non-existence. The ^ difference between creating and forming 71 < HAP. VIII. — Evil is not a substance, but a disagreement hostile to substance 72 Chap. IX. — The Manichaean fictions about things good and evil are not consistent with themselves...73 Chap. X. — Three moral symbols devised by the Manichseans for no good 74 Chap. XI. — The value of the symbol of the mouth among the Manichxans, who are found guilty of blaspheming God 75 Chap. XII. — Manichoean subterfuge 76 Chap. XIII. — -Actions to be judged of from their motive, not from externals, Manichzean abstinence to be tried by this principle 76 Chap. XIV. — Three good reasons for abstaining from certain kinds of food 77 Chap. XV. — Why the Manichseans prohibit the use of flesh 79 Chap. X\T. — Disclosure of the monstrous tenets of the Manichreans 79 Chap..WII. — Description of the symbol of the hands among the Manichteans S3 Chap. XVIII. — Of the symbol of the breast, and of the shameful mysteries of the Manichx'ans...S6 Chap. XIX. — Crimes of the Manichseans S7 Chap. XX. — Disgraceful conduct discovered at Rome 89 i ON THE MORALS OF THE MANICH^ANS.
[DE MORIBUS MANICHyEORUM.] A. D. 388.
CONTAINING A PARTICULAR REFUTATION OF THE DOCTRINE OF THESE HERETICS REGARDING THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF EVIL; AN EXPOSURE OF THEIR PRETENDED SYMBOLICAL CUSTOMS OF THE MOUTH, OF THE HANDS, AND OF THE BREAST; AND A CONDEMNATION OF THEIR SUPERSTITIOUS ABSTINENCE AND UNHOLY MYSTERIES. LASTLY, SOME CRIMES BROUGHT TO LIGHT AMONG THE MANICH^ANS ARE MENTIONED.
CHAP. I. THE SUPREME GOOD IS THAT WHICH IS POSSESSED OF SUPREME EXISTENCE.
I. Every one, I suppose, will allow that the question of things good and evil belongs to moral science, in which such terms are in common use. It is therefore to be wished that men would bring to these inquiries such a clear intellectual perfection as might enable them to see the chief good, than which nothj ing is better or higher, next in order to which comes a rational soul in a state of purity and perfection.' If this were clearly understood, it would also become evident that the chief good is that which is properly described as having supreme and original existence. For that exists in the highest sense of the word which continues always the same, which is throughout like itself, which cannot in any jxirt be corrupted or changed, which is not riubject to time, which admits of no variation in its present as compared with its former condition. This is existence in its true sense. For in this signification of the word existence there is implied a nature which is selfcontained, and which continues immutably. Such things can be said only of God, to whom there is nothing contrary in the strict sense of the word. For the contrary of existence is non-existence. There is therefore no nature contrary to God. But since the minds with which we approach the study of these snb- ' [This statement has a complete parallel in Clement of Alexandria, and along with what follows, is Neo-Platonic. — A. H. N.J jects have their vision damaged and dulled by silly notions, and by perversity of will, let us try as we can to gain some little knowledge of this great matter by degrees and with caution, making our inquiries not like men able to see, but like men groping the dark.
CHAP. 2. WHAT EVIL IS. THAT EVIL IS THAT WHICH IS AGAINST NATURE. IN ALLOWING THIS, THE MANICHiEANS REFUTE THEMSELVES.
2. You Manichaeans often, if not in every case, ask those whom you try to bring over to your heresy. Whence is evil? Suppose I had now met you for the first time, I would ask you, if you please, to follow my example in putting aside for a little the explanation you suppose yourselves to have got of these subjects, and to commence this great inquiry with me as if for the first time. You ask me, Whence is evil? I ask you in return, Wliat is evil? Which is the more reasonable question? Are those right who ask whence a thing is, when they do not know what it is; or he who thinks it necessary to inquire first what it is, in order to avoid the gross absurdity of searching for the origin of a thing unknown? Your answer is quite correct, when you say that evil is that which is contrary to nature; for no one is so mentally blind as not to see that, in every kind, evil is that which is contrary to the nature of the kind. But the establishment of this doctrine is the overthrow of your heresy. For evil is no nature, I [Chap. IV.
I [Chap. IV.
if it is contrary to nature. Now, according to you, evil is a certain nature and substance. Moreover, whatever is contrary to nature must oppose nature and seek its destruction. For nature means nothing else than that which anything is conceived of as being in its own kind. Hence is the new word which we now use derived from the word for being, — essence namely, or, as we usually say, substance, — while before these words were in use, the word nature was used instead. Here, then, if you will consider the matter without stubbornness, we see that evil is that which falls away from essence and tends to non-existence.
3. Accordingly, when the Catholic Church declares that God is the author of all natures and substances, those who understand this understand at the same time that God is not the author of evil. For how can He who is the cause of the being of all things be at the same time the cause of their not being, — that is, of their falling off from essence and tending to non-existence? For this is what reason plainly declares to be the definition of evil. Now, how can that race of evil of yours, which you make the supreme evil, be against nature, that is, against substance, when it, according to you, is itself a nature and substance? For if it acts against itself, it destroys its own existence; and when that is completely done, it will come at last to be the supreme evil. But this cannot be done, because you will have it not only to be, but to be everlasting. That cannot then be the chief evil which is spoken of as a substance. ^ 4. But what am I to do? I know that many of you can understand nothing of all this. ^ know, too, that there are some who have a good understanding and can see these things, and yet are so stubborn in their choice of evil, — a choice that will ruin their understanding as well, — that they try rather to find what reply they can make in order to impose upon inactive and feeble minds, instead of giving their assent to the truth. Still I shall not regret having written either what one of you may come some day to consider impartially, and be led to abandon your error, or what men of understanding and in allegiance to God, and who are still untainted with your errors, may read and so be kept from being led astray by your addresses.
CHAP. 3. — IF EVIL IS DEFINED AS THAT WHICH IS HURTFUL, THIS IMPLIES ANOTHER REFUTA- TION OF THE MANICH.EANS.
5. Let US then inquire more carefully, and.
I [On Augustin's view of negativity of evil and on the relation of this view to Neo-Platonism, see Introduction, chapter IX. Auif possible, more plainly. I ask you again, What is evil? If you say it is that which is hurtful, here, too, you will not answer amiss. But consider, I pray you; be on your guard, I beg of you; be so good as to lay aside party spirit, and make the inquiry for the sake of finding the truth, not of getting the better of it. Whatever is hurtful takes away some good from that to which it is hurtful; for without the loss of good there can be no hurt. What, I appeal to you, can be plainer than this? what more intelligible? What else is required for complete demonstration to one of average understanding, if he is not perverse? But, if this is granted, the consequence seems plain. In that race which you take for the chief evil, nothing can be liable to be hurt, since there is no good in it. But if, as you assert, there are two natures,— the kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness; since you make the kingdom of light to be God, attributing to it an uncompounded nature,^ so that it has no part inferior to another, you must grant, however decidedly in opposition to yourselves, you must grant, nevertheless, that this nature, which you not only do not deny to be the chief good, but spend all your strength in trying to show that it is so, is immutable, incorruptible, impenetrable, inviolable, for otherwise it would not be the chief good; for the chief good is that than which there is nothing better, and for such a nature to be hurt is impossible. Again, if, as has been shown, to hurt is to deprive of good, there can be no hurt to the kingdom of darkness, for there is no good in it. And as the kingdom of light cannot be hurt, as it is inviolable, what can the evil you speak of be hurtful to?