Concerning the Nature of Good, Against the Manichæans 47
47 He Compels to the Perpetration of Horrible Turpitudes PL 42, 570
O abominable monster! O execrable perdition and ruin of deluded souls! I am not speaking of the blasphemy of saying these things about the nature of God which is thus fettered. Let the wretches deluded and hunted by deadly error give heed to this at least, that if a part of their God is fettered by the copulation of males and females which they profess to loose and purge by eating it, the necessity of this unspeakable error compels them not only to loose and purge the part of God from bread and vegetables and fruits, which alone they are seen publicly to partake of, but also from that which might be fettered through copulation, if conception should take place. That they do this some are said to have confessed before a public tribunal, not only in Paphlagonia, but also in Gaul, as I heard in Rome from a certain Catholic Christian; and when they were asked by the authority of what writing they did these things, they betrayed this fact concerning the Thesaurus that I have just mentioned. But when this is cast in their teeth, they are in the habit of replying, that some enemy or other has withdrawn from their number, that is from the number of their Elect, and has made a schism, and has founded a most foul heresy of this kind. Whence it is manifest that even if they do not themselves practise this thing, some who do practise it do it on the basis of their books. Therefore let them reject the books, if they abhor the crime, which they are compelled to commit, if they hold to the books; or if they do not commit them, they endeavor in opposition to the books to live more purely. But what do they do when it is said to them, either purge the light from whatever seeds you can, so that you cannot refuse to do that which you assert that you do not do; or else anathematize Manichæus, when he says that a part of God is in all seeds, and that it is fettered by copulation, but that whatever of light, that is, of the aforesaid part of God, should become the food of the Elect, is purged by being eaten. Do you see what he compels you to believe, and do you still hesitate to anathematize him? What do they do, I say, when this is said to them? To what subterfuges do they betake themselves, when either so nefarious a doctrine is to be anathematized, or so nefarious a turpitude committed, in comparison with which all those intolerable evils to which I have already called attention, seem tolerable, namely, that they say of the nature of God that it was pressed by necessity to wage war, that it was either secure by everlasting ignorance, or was disturbed by everlasting grief and fear, when the corruption of commingling and the chain of everlasting damnation should come upon it, that finally as a result of the conflict it should be taken captive, oppressed, polluted, that after a false victory it should be fettered forever in a horrible sphere and separated from its original blessedness, while if considered in themselves they cannot be endured?
Turpitudines horribiles cogit perpetrare. O monstrum scelestum! o exsecranda perditio et labes deceptarum animarum! Omitto quid sit, de natura Dei quod sic ligetur, haec dicere. Hoc saltem attendant miseri decepti et errore mortifero venenati, quia si per coitum masculorum et feminarum ligatur pars Dei, quam se manducando solvere et purgare profitentur, cogit eos hujus tam nefandi erroris necessitas, ut non solum de pane et oleribus et pomis, quae sola videntur in manifesto accipere, sed inde etiam solvant et purgent partem Dei, unde per concubitum potest, si feminae utero concepta fuerit, colligari. Hoc se facere quidam confessi esse in publico judicio perhibentur, non tantum in Paphlagonia, sed etiam in Gallia, sicut a quodam Romae christiano catholico audivi: et cum interrogarentur, cujus auctoritate scripturae ista facerent, hoc de Thesauro suo prodidisse, quod paulo ante commemoravi. Isti autem cum hoc eis objicitur, solent respondere, nescio quem inimicum suum de numero suo, hoc est, Electorum suorum descivisse, et schisma fecisse, atque hujusmodi spurcissimam haeresim condidisse. Unde manifestum est, quia hoc etiam si isti non faciunt, de ipsorum libris hoc faciunt quicumque faciunt. Abjiciant ergo libros, si crimen exhorrent, quod committere coguntur, si libros tenent; aut si non committunt, mundius vivere contra suos libros conantur. Sed quid agunt, cum eis dicitur, Aut purgate lumen, de quibus potueritis seminibus, ut nec illud recusetis, quod vos non facere asseritis; aut Manichaeum anathemate, qui cum dicit in omnibus seminibus esse partem Dei, et concumbendo ligari; quidquid autem luminis, hoc est, ejusdem partis Dei ad escas Electorum pervenerit, manducando purgari: quid vobis suadeat videtis, et eum adhuc anathemare dubitatis? Quid agunt, inquam, cum hoc eis dicitur? Ad quas tergiversationes se convertunt, cum aut tam nefaria doctrina sit anathemanda, aut tam nefaria turpitudo facienda, in cujus comparatione jam illa omnia mala quae intolerabilia paulo ante commemorabam, eos de natura Dei dicere, quod necessitate oppressa sit ut bellum gereret, quod aut sempiterna ignorantia secura erat, aut sempiterno dolore et timore sollicita, quando sibi veniret corruptio commixtionis et vinculum aeternae damnationis, quod denique gesto bello sic fuerit captivata, oppressa, polluta, quod post falsam victoriam sic futura sit in horribili globo in aeternum confixa et ab originis suae felicitate separata, tolerabilia videantur, cum per se ipsa, si considerentur, sustineri non possint?