st augustine manichaeism

Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, in Armenia, and in Cappadocia, in Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the regions of Africa about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews, natives, Cretes, and Arabians, they heard them speak in their own tongues the wonderful works of God. Let us, then, not seek in this beauty for what has not been given to it (and from not having what we seek for, this is the lowest form of beauty); and in that which has been given to it, let us praise God, because He has bestowed this great good of visible form even on the lowest degree of beauty. Do not, I beg of you, be enraged and begin to curse. The region, you reply, of darkness. 13. The nature of the soul, on the other hand, though we leave out of account its power of perceiving truth, and consider only its inferior power of giving unity to the body, and of sensation in the body, does not appear to have any material extension in space. He lost sight of those good things, while taking notice only of what was disagreeable; as if one, frightened by a lion's roaring, and seeing him dragging away and tearing the bodies of cattle or human beings which he had seized, should from childish pusillanimity be so overpowered with fear as to see nothing but the cruelty and ferocity of the lion; and overlooking or disregarding all the other qualities, should exclaim against the nature of this animal as not only evil, but a great evil, his fear adding to his vehemence. My reason also for thus discussing the natures enumerated by Manichus is that the things named are things familiar to us in this world. Then conceive the black square infinite downwards and backwards, but with infinite emptiness above it: this is their region of darkness. Prove this person to be the Holy Spirit, and I will believe what he says to be true, even without understanding it; or prove that what he says is true, and I will believe him to be the Holy Spirit, even without evidence. The knowledge is his to whom these things are fully made known as proved; but in the case of those who only hear his account of these things, there is no knowledge imparted, but only a believing acquiescence required. At the time when I was a student of your doctrines, to my frequent inquiries why it was that the Paschal feast of the Lord was celebrated generally with no interest, though sometimes there were a few languid worshippers, but no watchings, no prescription of any unusual fast, in a word, no special ceremony while great honor is paid to your Bema, that is, the day on which Manichus was killed, when you have a platform with fine steps, covered with precious cloth, placed conspicuously so as to face the votaries the reply was, that the day to observe was the day of the passion of him who really suffered, and that Christ, who was not born, but appeared to human eyes in an unreal semblance of flesh, only feigned suffering, without really bearing it. Let those rage against you who know not with what labor the truth is to be found and with what difficulty error is to be avoided. Now you are at a loss what to say or do; for you promised to give knowledge of the truth, and here you are forcing me to believe what I have no knowledge of. If he replies that they were revealed to him by the Holy Spirit, and that his mind was divinely enlightened that he might know them to be certain and evident, he himself points to the distinction between knowing and believing. What harm, you ask, would follow if those things too were perfectly good? For though you find fault with the waters as turbid and muddy, still, in allowing them the quality of producing and maintaining their living inhabitants, you imply that there was some kind of bodily form, and similarity of parts, giving unity and congruity of character; otherwise there could be no body at all: and, as a rational being, you must see that all these things are to be praised. Augustine committed a lot of sin, so this belief was ideal for him at the time. It is hence, because these natures that are capable of corruption were not begotten by God, but made by Him out of nothing; and as we already proved that those natures are good, no one can say with propriety that they were not good as made by God. To see this good let us purify our heart by faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, who says, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." As the man Jesus Christ was not sent by the Son of God, that is, the power and wisdom of God by which all things were made, but, according to the Catholic faith, was taken into such a relation as to be Himself the Son of God that is, that in Himself the wisdom of God was displayed in the healing of sinners, so Manichus wished it to be thought that he was so taken up by the Holy Spirit, whom Christ promised, that we are henceforth to understand that the names Manichus and Holy Spirit alike signify the apostle of Jesus Christ that is, one sent by Jesus Christ, who promised to send him. We must not then be misled into this error by Manichus, or be hindered from observing the forms of the natures, by his finding fault with some things in them in such a way as to make us disapprove of them entirely, when it is impossible to show that they deserve entire disapproval. For what is generated by God must be what God is, as the Catholic Church believes of the only begotten Son. Who made the distinctions and the classification? At least he must acknowledge that he has made these natures better in the race of darkness than they are here, though he wishes us to think everything to be worse. He asked: Where then is evil? Wherefore, as, whether your Manichus professes to be sent by or to be united with the Paraclete, neither statement can hold good, I am on my guard, and refuse to believe either in his mission or in his susception. 27. On the other hand, all must allow that you owe it to me, in return, to lay aside all arrogance on your part too, that so you may be the more disposed to gentleness, and may not oppose me in a hostile spirit, to your own hurt. As if, to give the simplest illustration, a piece of bread were made into four squares, three white and one black; then suppose the three white pieces joined as one, and conceive them as infinite upwards and downwards, and backwards in all directions: this represents the Manichan region of light. Nor do they leave the natures barren or waste, but people them with their proper inhabitants; and to these, again, they give suitable forms, and adapted to their place of habitation, besides giving the chief of all endowments, life. And however great you make the ferocity of these inhabitants, and their massacrings and devastations in their assaults, you still leave them the regular limits of form, by which the members of each body are made to agree together, and their beneficial adaptations, and the regulating power of the living principle binding together the parts of the body in a friendly and harmonious union. With the addition of the junction, both regions become perfectly regular and harmonious; for nothing can be devised more beautiful in description or in conception than this junction of two straight lines. While Augustine remained a Manichee for nine years, ultimately his keen analytical mind began to question the coherence of Manichaeisms dualism. The Manichees1 followed the teaching of Mani (AD 216277), a Persian religious leader who was crucified for claiming to be the Paraclete and restorer of the true teaching of Christ. I shall perhaps tell you, if you first tell me whence are those good things which you too are obliged to commend, if you would not be altogether unreasonable. Well, then, if this is so, the region of darkness is clearly touched on two sides by the region of light. In this article the author confines himself to some main lines and argues that the subject is of central importance in the history of . 20. And why do you inquire for a nature contrary to God, since, if you confess that He is the supreme existence, it follows that non-existence is contrary to Him? So we see that it is unreasonable to require that things made out of nothing should be as perfectly good as He who was begotten of God Himself, and who is one as God is one, otherwise God would have begotten something unlike Himself. The epistle begins thus: "Manichus, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the providence of God the Father. For truth can be sought with zeal and unanimity if by no rash presumption it is believed to have been already found and ascertained. But if you say that Manichus was united to the Spirit, not in the womb or before conception, but after his birth, still you must admit that he had a fleshly nature derived from man and woman. Take from the winds their terribleness and excessive force, with which you find fault, you can conceive of winds as gentle and mild; take from them the similarity of their parts which gives them continuity of substance, and the unity essential to material existence, and no nature remains to be conceived of. Still, should any one, who admits and believes the perfect goodness of God the Father, inquire what source we should reverently assign to any other perfectly good thing, supposing it to exist, our only correct reply would be, that it is of God the Father, who is perfectly good. So when those on whose authority I have consented to believe in the gospel tell me not to believe in Manichus, how can I but consent? Take your choice. And to be worse implies that there is some good, the want of which makes the thing worse. I will state briefly the reason of this conjecture. We are not, however, speaking at present of incorruptible nature, but of things which admit of corruption, and which, while not corrupted, may be called incorrupt, but not incorruptible. From fear of having this said to him, Manichus bewilders the inexperienced by first promising the knowledge of certain truths, and then demanding faith in doubtful things. Let those rage against you who know not the difficulty of curing the eye of the inner man that he may gaze upon his Sun not that sun which you worship, and which shines with the brilliance of a heavenly body in the eyes of carnal men and of beasts but that of which it is written through the prophet, "The Sun of righteousness has arisen upon me;" Malachi4:2 and of which it is said in the gospel, "That was the true Light, which lights every man that comes into the world." My good friends, let us open our eyes for once, and see, now that we are told of it, what is most obvious, that two regions cannot be joined at their sides unless both are material. Why, then, should you call these things natural evils, on account of the evil things which you suppose cannot be taken away, and yet refuse to call them natural good things, on account of the good things which, as has been proved, cannot be taken away? Perhaps you will say to me, When, then, did the Paraclete promised by the Lord come? We have now heard what is on the border. Now, if corruption is an evil, both incorruption and incorruptibility must be good things. Let us then pass on to what follows; nor let us be deceived by words which may be used alike by good and bad, by learned and unlearned. Manichaeisms hold on Augustine finally broke when he met with the highly regarded Manichee bishop, Faustus. I refer not to other treatises where a more particular description is given for perhaps, because they are in the hands of only a few, there might not be so much difficulty with them but to this Fundamental Epistle which we are now considering, with which all of you who are called enlightened are usually quite familiar. Nor can you say that it was generated by God, without being reduced to the same enormity, from the necessity of concluding that as begotten of God, it must be what God is. Faustus of Mileve. For you know how bitterly you taunt those who believe without consideration. But the consideration we wish most to urge is the truth of the Catholic doctrine, if they can understand it, that God is the author of all natures. And yet even the corruptions, though they have not their origin from God, are to be overruled by Him in accordance with the order of inanimate things and the deserts of His intelligent creatures. For the sides are where it is bounded. If then, after the evil is removed, the nature remains in a purer state, and does not remain at all when the good is taken away, it must be the good which makes the nature of the thing in which it is, while the evil is not nature, but contrary to nature. But if you read thence some passage clearly in favor of Manichus, I will believe neither them nor you: not them, for they lied to me about you; nor you, for you quote to me that Scripture which I had believed on the authority of those liars. Thou exaltest yourself against God, if you are indignant at His preceding you; and you are very contumacious in your thoughts of Him, if you do not rejoice unspeakably in the possession of this good, that He alone is above you. He was from Milevis, Numidia (modern Algeria). On these things there is much pious and sober discourse among spiritual men. RT @SSSS_Dynazion: It is quite striking how similar Manichaean beliefs in the time of Saint Augustine were to our modern day science-worship. For to answer in a word the question, Whence is corruption? In this single prince are you not induced to express approval of the orderly peace or the peaceful order? And they were all amazed, and were in doubt on account of what had happened, saying, What means this? Now, therefore, I have a document to believe in the subject of the Holy Spirit's advent; and if you bid me not to believe this document, as your usual advice is not to believe ignorantly, without consideration, much less will I believe your documents. Geese, too, are as voracious as any animal; and though he might place them in fire as bipeds, or in the water because they love to swim, or in the winds because they have wings and sometimes fly, they certainly have nothing to do with fire in this classification. What is its origin? 25. 35. For this befell human nature in Adam, of whom this is not the place to speak. He will see without difficulty, that even in the rudimentary form there is an existence, and that the more the body is established and built up in form, and figure and strength, the more does it come to exist, and to tend to the side of existence. They do not see, what is plain to the dullest understanding, that in that case there could be no sides? Hence it shows ignorance and impiety to seek for brethren for this only-begotten Son through whom all good things were made by the Father out of nothing, except in this, that He condescended to appear as man. And if it is touched on two sides, it must touch on two. From a poor, pagan background, he had become a highly reputed teacher, preacher and debater. But you cannot prove either one or other of these propositions. Like the Gnostics, the Manichees believed that Christ was solely spiritual, had no material body, and did not actually die on the cross. But these are secrets which they disclose to very eager and anxious inquirers. Confessions (Latin: Confessiones) is an autobiographical work by Saint Augustine, consisting of 13 books written in Latin between AD 397 and 400. In fact, I have no fault to find with the beginning of this epistle, till we come to the main subject of it. Augustine could see Manichaeism as a kind of intellectual and enlightened "true Christianity," in contrast to the Catholics that they accused of being half-Christian and half-Jewish because they did not reject Judaism. What is to be done with unhappy minds, perverse in error, and held fast by custom? 32. Acts1:1-8 Behold you have here the Lord reminding His disciples of the promise of the Father, which they had heard from His mouth, of the coming of the Holy Spirit. Do not frighten me with the name of the Paraclete. Does it not savor of trickery of some kind or other? In an ignorant and greedy notion of giving more honor to a number of pans than to a single one, so that the region of light should have six, three upwards and three downwards, they have made this region be split up, instead of sundering the other. Abstract. Think of this, I beseech you: as you are men, think of it, and flee from it; and if by tearing open your breasts you can cast out by the roots such profane fancies from your faith, I pray you to do it. What do we suppose to be the reason of this, but that pride, the mother of all heretics, impelled the man to desire to seem to have been sent by the Paraclete, but to have been taken into so close a relation as to get the name of Paraclete himself? Then, again, let the body begin to be corrupted; let its whole condition be enfeebled, let its vigor languish, its strength decay, its beauty be defaced, its framework be sundered, the consistency of its parts give way and go to pieces; and let him ask now where the body is tending in this corruption, whether to existence or non-existence: he will not surely be so blind or stupid as to doubt how to answer himself, or as not to see that, in proportion as anything is corrupted, in that proportion it approaches decease. Beyond this were muddy turbid waters, with their inhabitants; and inside of them winds terrible and violent, with their prince and their progenitors. We find here five natures mentioned as part of one nature, which he calls the pestiferous region. And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven. Let me, then, no longer stop at the threshold: let us see the contents. Once more, why, in the case of the waters and the winds, does he suit the inhabitants to the character of the place, as we see swimming things in water, and flying things in the wind; whereas, in the face of fire and smoke, this bold liar is not ashamed to assign to these places the most unlikely inhabitants? We must confine ourselves to some main lines, we may discuss only some details, and we will wind up by drawing the most eye-catching conclusions. And unutterable sacrilege! It remains, therefore that you must confess that God made the region of light out of nothing: and you are unwilling to believe this; because if God could make out of nothing some great good which yet was inferior to Himself, He could also, since He is good, and grudges no good, make another good inferior to the former, and again a third inferior to the second, and so on, in order down to the lowest good of created natures, so that the whole aggregate, instead of extending indefinitely without number or measure should have a fixed and definite consistency. First of all, he makes darkness productive, which is impossible. The smoke, too, provided room for the offspring of its own benign bosom, and cherished them up to the rank of prince. These things are thought to be blameworthy by the uninstructed when they compare them with higher things; and in view of their want of some good, the good they have gets the name of evil, because it is defective. And He said to them, No one can know the time which the Father has put in His own power. Confessions by Saint Augustine of Hippo. If you take away his ferocity, see how many excellent things will remain; his material frame, the symmetry of the members on one side with those on the other, the unity of his form, the settled continuity of his parts, the orderly adjustment of the mind as ruling and animating, and the body as subject and animated. No part of the mind is unconscious of the touch, which proves the presence of the whole. "There dwelt," he says, "in that region fiery bodies, destructive races." Or if the region of darkness had a curved line, and the region of light a straight one, they cannot have touched at all points. Therefore even these muddy waters could not exist without the good which was the condition of their material existence. But in every one that I know of, he writes, of Christ; and not once, of the Paraclete. If anything is plain, is not this, that right is better than wrong? My email address is feedback732 at newadvent.org. Summary. The Manichans, on the other hand, when they abandon their material fancies, cease to be Manichans. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co.. Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. (To help fight spam, this address might change occasionally.) If they were incorruptible, they were in possession of a good than which nothing is higher. In fact Manichism has frequently been represented as Zoroastrian dualism, slightly modified by contact with Christianity and other systems. Finding the truth was, after all, Augustines main objective. Or if we are too dull and stupid to see this, let us hear whether the region of darkness too has one side, and is boundless in the other directions, like the region of light. But with you, where there is none of these things to attract or keep me, the promise of truth is the only thing that comes into play. Accordingly, the natures supposed to exist in the region of darkness must have been either corruptible or incorruptible. Augustine encountered Manichaean teaching soon after the impact of the Hortensius, and remained an adherent for nine years. And from fear of the word, many Latin translators make it, "him shall God destroy," instead of corrupt, avoiding the offensive word without any change of meaning. But, not to appear to cavil at a word, let us see how he divides into five classes all these inhabitants of this region. If the line of junction is tortuous the side of the region of light must also be tortuous; otherwise its straight side joined to a tortuous one would leave gaps of infinite depth, instead of having vacuity only above the land of darkness, as we were told before. But whatever tends to decease tends to non-existence. 5. To speak of God as an aerial or even as an ethereal body is absurd in the view of all who, with a clear mind, possessing some measure of discernment, can perceive the nature of wisdom and truth as not extended or scattered in space, but as great, and imparting greatness without material size, nor confined more or less in any direction, but throughout co-extensive with the Father of all, nor having one thing here and another there, but everywhere perfect, everywhere present. Now, if you please, patiently give heed to my inquiry. So far from being like this is the Manichan description of the region of darkness, as they call it, that, in a directly contrary style, they add side to side, and join border to border; they number five natures; they separate, arrange, and assign to each its own qualities.
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