Against the Epistle of Manichæus, Called Fundamental 21
21 This Region of Light Must Be Material If It is Joined to the Region of Darkness. The Shape of the Region of Darkness Joined to the Region of Light PL 42, 186
What, then, bordered on the side of the region which you call shining and sacred? The region, you reply, of darkness. Do you then allow this latter region to have been material? Of course you must, since you assert that all bodies derive their origin from it. How then is it that, dull and carnal as you are, you do not see that unless both regions were material, they could not have their sides joined to one another? How could you ever be so blinded in mind as to say that only the region of darkness was material, and that the so-called region of light was immaterial and spiritual? 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.
23. 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. They do not hold this from fear of making it seem equal to God. Accordingly they make it boundless in depth and in length; but upwards, above it, they maintain that there is an infinity of empty space. And lest this region should appear to be a fraction equal in amount to half of that representing the region of light, they narrow it also on two sides. 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 Manichæan region of light. Then conceive the black square infinite downwards and backwards, but with infinite emptiness above it: this is their region of darkness. But these are secrets which they disclose to very eager and anxious inquirers.
Si anima per locos non extenditur, multo minus Deus. Quare, si animam toties mutabilem, sive variarum voluntatum turba, sive affectibus pro rerum copia vel inopia sese flectentibus, sive ipsis innumerabilibus ludis phantasmatum, sive oblivione et memoria, sive doctrina et imperitia; si ergo animam, ut dixi, his atque hujusmodi motionibus toties mutabilem, sentis non diffundi extendique per locos, sed omnia talia spatia potentiae vivacitate superare: quid de ipso Deo cogitandum aut existimandum est, qui supra omnes rationales mentes inconcussus atque incommutabilis manens, tribuit quod cuique tribuendum est? Quem facilius eloqui audet anima, quam videre: et quem tanto minus eloquitur, quanto sincerius videre potuerit. Qui tamen si, ut Manichaeorum phantasmata perstrepunt, locorum ex una parte determinato, ex aliis immenso spatio tenderetur: quantaelibet in eo particulae, et innumerabilia frusta alia majora, alia minora pro cogitantis arbitrio metirentur; ut bipedalis in eo, verbi gratia, pars octo partibus minor esset quam decempedalis. Id enim necesse est contingat omnibus naturis, quae per talia spatia diffusae ubique totae esse non possunt: quod in ipsa anima non invenitur, et ab eis qui considerare haec non valent, deformiter de illa et turpiter creditur.