Against the Epistle of Manichæus, Called Fundamental 29
29 The Refutation of This Absurdity PL 42, 193
32. Whose arrangement, then, is this? Who made the distinctions and the classification? Who gave the number, the qualities, the forms, the life? For all these things are in themselves good, nor could each of the natures have them except from the bestowal of God, the author of all good things. For this is not like the descriptions or suppositions of poets about an imaginary chaos, as being a shapeless mass, without form, without quality, without measurement, without weight and number, without order and variety; a confused something, absolutely destitute of qualities, so that some Greek writers call it ἄποιον. So far from being like this is the Manichæan 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. 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. To recount such good things as these, and to speak of them as having no connection with God, the author of all good things, is to lose sight of the excellence of the order in the things, and of the great evil of the error which leads to such a conclusion.
Pulchritudo recti lateris posset terrae tenebrarum detrahi sine ulla detractione substantiae. Sic malum animae accidit nulla addita detractave substantia. Latus terrae tenebrarum in quantum rectum esset, boni aliquid haberet a Deo conditore. Quid faciam cum errore perversis et consuetudine implicatis miserrimis animis? Non enim sciunt isti homines quid loquantur, cum haec loquuntur: non enim attendunt. Rogo, nemo vos urget, nemo in certamen premit, nemo praeteritis insultat erroribus, nisi qui divinam misericordiam expertus non est, ut careret erroribus: tantum id agamus, ut aliquando finiantur. Intuemini paululum sine animositate et amaritudine. Omnes homines sumus; non nos, sed errores et falsitates oderimus. Quaeso, intuemini paululum. Deus misericordiarum, adjuva intuentes, et verum quaerentibus interius lumen accende. Quid enim intelligimus, si non intelligimus rectum melius esse quam pravum? Quaero ergo a vobis, si placide modesteque accipitis, rectum latus terrae tenebrarum, quod recto lateri terrae lucis adjungitur, si quispiam depravaret, nullamne illi pulchritudinem adimeret? Necesse est fateamini si latrare nolitis, non solum ei, si depravetur, pulchritudinem auferri, sed eam etiam pulchritudinem quam cum recto latere terrae luminis potuit habere communem. Hanc ergo auferens, et de recto pravum faciens, ut discordaret quod concordabat, et abhorreret quod congruebat, numquid aliquam inde auferret substantiam? Sic ergo discite, non substantiam malum esse, sed sicut in corpore commutatione formae in deterius, amitti speciem, vel potius minui, et foedum dici quod pulchrum antea dicebatur, et displicere corpus quod antea placuerat: sic in animo rectae voluntatis decus, quo pie justeque vivitur, commutata in deterius voluntate depravari; quo peccato effici animam miseram, quae honestate rectae voluntatis beatitatem obtinebat, nulla addita detractave substantia.