And on this account not even those muddy waters could exist without that good, by which good it came about that some corporeal nature could exist. For as to what you say — that those evils cannot be taken away from such natures — the answer is that those goods too cannot be taken away from such natures. Why then, on account of the evils which you judge cannot be taken away, do you wish to call these things natural evils, but on account of the goods which you are convicted of not being able to take away, refuse to call them natural goods? It remains that you should ask — for this is wont to be the last word — whence come those evils which I too said displeased me. I shall answer, perhaps.
— if you first say whence come those goods which you too are compelled to praise, unless you wish to be of a most absurd heart. But why should I ask this, since we both confess that all goods whatsoever, of whatever number and greatness, are from the one God, who is supremely good? Resist, then, yourselves the Manichaean, who supposed so many and so great goods as we have recalled and justly praised — the peace and concord of parts in each single nature, the health and vigor of living creatures, and the rest which it now wearies me to repeat — to be in the fabricated land of darkness in such a way that he tried to alienate them from that God whom he confesses to be the author of all goods.
For he did not see those goods, while he attended to this alone — what displeased; just as if someone, terrified by the roar of a lion and beholding it dragging and rending apart the bodies of cattle or of men, whatever it had seized, should by a certain childish weakness of soul be struck with so great a fear that, beholding only the ferocity and savagery of the lion, and utterly neglecting and passing over its other qualities, he should cry out that the nature of that living creature is not merely an evil but a great evil — the more exaggeratedly, of course, the more timidly; whereas, if with its ferocity tamed he should see the lion led about gentle, especially if he had never before been terrified by that beast, then he would be at leisure, secure and unafraid, to consider and praise the beauty of the lion.
Of which I shall say nothing except what pertains most to the point: that it can happen that some nature gives offense on account of some quality and is born into total hatred, though it is manifest that the form of a true and living beast is far better, even when it terrifies in the woods, than that of an imitated and feigned one, when it is praised as painted on a wall. Let him, therefore, not deceive us by this error nor make us blind to considering the forms of natures, when he censures certain things in them in such a way as to compel us to be displeased in every part with that which he cannot censure in every part. And in this way, composing our mind to a fair judgment, let us now ask whence, together with those goods, come the evils which I too said I disapproved.
This we shall see more easily if we can gather everything under one name. For who would doubt that the whole of what is called evil is nothing else than corruption? Various evils can indeed be named by various names, but that which is the evil of all things in which any evil can be observed is corruption. But the corruption of a skilled soul is called unskillfulness; the corruption of a prudent one, imprudence; the corruption of a just one, injustice; the corruption of a brave one, cowardice; the corruption of a calm and tranquil one, desire or fear or sadness or vainglory; then in an animate body the corruption of health is pain and disease; the corruption of strength is weariness; the corruption of rest is toil;
then in the body itself alone, the corruption of beauty is ugliness; the corruption of straightness is crookedness; the corruption of order is perversity; the corruption of wholeness is a splitting or breaking or diminishing. It would be long and difficult to name individually all the corruptions both of these things which I have recalled and of countless others; since many that are spoken of in the body can also be spoken of in the soul, and they are innumerable, in which corruption holds its proper names. Nevertheless it is now easy to see that corruption harms nothing except in that it weakens the natural state, and therefore that it is not a nature, but against nature.
But if in things no evil is found except corruption, and corruption is not a nature, then assuredly no nature is evil. But if perhaps you are not able to understand this, attend to this: that everything which is corrupted is diminished by some good, because if it were not corrupted it would be incorrupt; but if indeed it could not be corrupted at all, it would be incorruptible. Now it is necessary that either incorruption or incorruptibility be a good, if corruption is an evil. But now no question is raised concerning the incorruptible nature; the discussion is about those things which can be corrupted, which, while they are not corrupted, can be called incorrupt, but cannot be called incorruptible.
For that alone is properly called incorruptible which not only is not corrupted, but also can in no part be corrupted. Whatever things, then, are incorrupt and yet can be corrupted, when they have begun to be corrupted, are by that very fact diminished in the good by which they were incorrupt — and indeed in a great good, since corruption is a great evil; and as long as corruption can be increased in them, so long do they have the good by which they may be diminished. Wherefore those natures which he feigns to have been in the land of darkness either could be corrupted or could not. If they could not, they were incorruptible, than which good there is nothing higher. If they could, they were either being corrupted or were not being corrupted;
if they were not being corrupted, they were incorrupt — which we see cannot be said without great praise; but if they were being corrupted, they were being diminished in that so great good; if they were being diminished in some good, they had a good by which they might be diminished. But if they had a good, those natures were not the highest evil, and every fable of the Manichaean is false. But since we have inquired what evil is, and have recognized that this is not a nature but against nature, we must consequently inquire whence it comes; and had he done this, he would perhaps have slid less into the straits of so great an error. For over-hastily and preposterously he inquired whence it was, when he had not first inquired what it was;
and therefore nothing could occur to him as he inquired except empty phantasms, of which a mind much fed on carnal senses is with difficulty divested. Someone will therefore say, no longer desiring to contend but not to err: Whence comes this corruption, which we have found to be, as it were, the general evil of good but nevertheless corruptible things? He who inquires thus quickly finds, seeking the truth with great ardor and knocking with constant, pious perseverance. For through men some reminder can be given by the signs of words; but there is one true master who teaches — the incorruptible Truth itself, the only inward master:
who was also made outward, that he might recall us from outward things to inward ones, and, taking the form of a servant, that his sublimity might become known to those rising up, he deigned to appear lowly to those lying prostrate. In his name let us be suppliants, and imploring through him the mercy of the Father, let us inquire into these things. For, first, a very brief answer can be given to those who ask whence corruption is, when it is said: from this, that these natures, which can be corrupted, were not begotten of God, but made by him out of nothing; which, since the higher reasoning has shown them to be good, no one can rightly say 「God should not have made goods」; but if he shall say 「He should have made them supremely good,」 he must understand that the supreme good is he himself who made these goods.
What evil, you say, would come about if these things too were made supremely good? And yet, if any one of us were to ask — God the Father having been received and believed to be the supreme good — whether there were some other supreme good from whom it might piously seem to us that we exist, we could in no way rightly answer except: from God the Father, who is supremely good. That, therefore, which is of him, let us remember to have been born of him, not made by him out of nothing; and therefore to be supremely, that is incorruptibly, good; and we see that it is unjustly demanded that those things he made out of nothing should be as supremely good as he is supremely good whom he begot of himself: whom, unless he had begotten one, he would not have begotten that which he himself is, since he himself is one.
Wherefore for the only-begotten Son, through whom all goods were made by the Father out of nothing, brothers are unskillfully and impiously sought, except from that in which he deigned to appear in man. For on this account he is called in the Scriptures both only-begotten and firstborn: only-begotten of the Father, firstborn from the dead. And 「we beheld,」 it says, 「his glory, as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth」; and Paul says: 「that he himself might be the firstborn among many brethren.」 But if we should say 「Let those goods no longer exist which were made out of nothing, but let there be only the nature of God,」 we shall be begrudging so great goods, and it is an impious utterance to think it an injury not to be that which God is, and on that account to be unwilling that any good exist, because God is set above it.
I beseech you, bear it, O nature of the rational soul, that you are somewhat less than God is — and so much less that after him there is nothing better than you; bear it, I say, and grow gentle toward him, lest he yet drive you back into the lowest places, where through penal straits again and again the good that you are grows cheap to you. You are proud against God if you are indignant that he goes before you, and you think all too insolently of him if you do not ineffably rejoice that you are so great a good that he alone is more excellent. This being established and made firm, do not say: God ought to have made me the only nature; I would not that after me any good should be made. For that which is good after God did not, on that account, have to be the last of all.
And from this it especially appears how great a dignity he has bestowed on you: that God, who alone by nature has dominion over you, made other goods over which you too might have dominion. Nor should you wonder that these do not now in every way serve you and sometimes even torment you, because your Lord has greater power over those things that serve you than you yourself have — as over the servants of his servants. What wonder then, if to you when you sin — that is, when you do not obey your Lord — the things over which you had dominion have been made penal? For what is so just, and what more just, than God? For human nature merited this in Adam, of whom there is now no place to dispute;
but nevertheless the just Ruler is approved both by just rewards and by just punishments — by the blessedness of those who live rightly and the penalty of those who sin. Yet you have not been abandoned without mercy, you who by fixed measures of things and times are called to return. Thus by the right governance of the Most High Creator it has come even to earthly goods, which are corrupted and reformed, so that you might have consolations mingled with your punishment: that you might both praise God, delighted by the order of goods, and take refuge in him, exercised by the experiences of evils. So, insofar as earthly things serve you, they teach you that you are their mistress; but insofar as they are troublesome, they teach you to serve your Lord.
Wherefore, although corruption is an evil, and although it is not from the Creator of natures, but comes from this — that they were made out of nothing — yet it too, under him who rules and governs all that he has made, has been so ordered that it harms none but the lowest natures, for the punishment of the damned and the exercise and admonition of those returning, that they may cleave to the incorruptible God and remain incorrupt — which is our one good, as it is said through the prophet: 「But for me it is good to cleave to God.」 Nor should you say: God should not have made corruptible natures. For insofar as they are natures, God made them; but insofar as they are corruptible, God did not make them; for corruption is not from him who alone is incorruptible.
If you grasp these things, give thanks to God; if you do not grasp them, be still and do not rashly condemn what is not yet understood, and as a suppliant attend to him who is the light of the mind, that you may understand. For when it is said 「corruptible nature,」 not one but two names are spoken. Likewise when it is said 「God made it」 out of nothing, we hear not one but two names. Render therefore to these single things those single things, so that when you hear 「nature,」 it belongs to God, and when you hear 「corruptible,」 it belongs to nothing; yet in such a way that the corruptions themselves, though they are not of God's art, are nevertheless in his power to be disposed according to the order of things and the merits of souls. Therefore we rightly say that both reward and punishment are from him.
For he made corruption in such a way that he can deliver to corruption the one who has merited to be corrupted — that is, the one who has begun to corrupt himself by sinning — so that he who willingly committed a flattering corruption may unwillingly feel a tormenting one. For not only in the Old Testament is it written: 「I make good things and create evils,」 but more evidently in the New, where the Lord says: 「Fear not those who kill the body and after that have no more that they can do, but fear him who, when he has killed the body, has power to send the soul into hell.」 And that to voluntary corruption is added, by divine judgment, a penal corruption, the apostle Paul most manifestly attests, when he says: 「For the temple of God is holy, which you are;」
whoever corrupts the temple of God, him will God corrupt. And if this had been said in the Old Law, with what invectives these men would make their onslaught, accusing God as if a corrupter! Fearing which word, many Latin translators were unwilling to say 「will corrupt,」 but said 「God will destroy him,」 and, not deviating from the matter itself, they avoided the offense of the term. And yet these men would inveigh no less against a destroyer God, if they found this in the Old Law or the prophets. But they are convicted by the Greek copies, in which it is most plainly written: 「Whoever corrupts the temple of God, him will God corrupt.」 And if anyone should ask them how it is said, lest God be thought a corrupter, they at once explain that 「will corrupt」 is said for:
「will deliver to corruption,」 or in whatever other way they can. With which disposition, if they were toward the Old Law, they would both understand many wonderful things there, and would not tear apart with hatred what is not yet understood, but would defer to it with honor. But if anyone does not yet believe that corruption is from nothing, let him set before himself these two, 「to be」 and 「not to be,」 as it were from different sides, for the sake of understanding — that, since we walk slowly with the slow, we may then place something as it were in the middle, say the body of a living creature, and let him ask this with himself: while that body is being formed and born, while its form is increasing, is nourished, grows strong, is strengthened, is adorned, is made firm — insofar as it endures and insofar as it is made stable, toward which side does it tend, toward being or toward not-being?
He will not doubt that there is indeed something present even in the first rudiments of a thing, but that the more it is established and made firm by form, appearance, and vigour, the more it comes to be, so that it exists and tends toward that side on which being is placed. Now, then, let it begin to be corrupted; let all that stable condition be weakened, let its powers grow faint, let its strength wither, let its form be marred, let the framework of its members fall apart, let the concord of its parts waste away and dissolve. Let it seek even now, through this corruption, whither it tends, whether toward being or toward not being; and I do not think a man is so blind and dull as to doubt what he himself should answer, or not to perceive that the more each thing is corrupted, the more it tends toward destruction; and everything that tends toward destruction tends toward not being.
Since, therefore, God is to be believed to exist unchangeably and incorruptibly, while that which is called nothing is manifestly not to be at all; and since you have set before yourself these two, being and not-being, and have come to know that the more a thing's appearance is increased, the more it tends to be, and the more its corruption is increased, the more it tends not to be: why do you hesitate to say, in each corruptible nature, what in it is from God and what is from nothing, seeing that its appearance is according to nature, but its corruption is against nature? For since increased appearance compels it to be, we confess that God supremely is; but since increased corruption compels it not to be, and it is agreed that what is not is nothing:
Why, I say, do you hesitate to say, in the corruptible nature which you call both a nature and corruptible, what is from God and what is from nothing? And why do you seek a nature contrary to God, whom, if you confess to be supremely, you see that nothing is contrary to Him? Why then, you say, does corruption take away what God gave to a nature? It does not take it away except where God permits; and He permits it there where He judges it most ordered and most just, according to the grades of things and the merits of souls. For even the appearance of an uttered sound passes away and is destroyed in silence; and yet our speech is carried on both by the departure and succession of passing words, and is fittingly and pleasantly distinguished by measured intervals of silence.
So too is the lowest beauty of temporal natures, which is accomplished by the passing of things and is distinguished by the death of things that are being born. If our sense and memory could grasp the order and measures of this beauty, it would so please us that we would not dare to call corruptions even those defects by which it is distinguished; but as for the fact that we labour under a portion of that beauty, while the temporal things which we love, flowing away, forsake us, we are paying the penalties of our sins and are admonished to love things eternal. Let us not, therefore, seek in this beauty what it has not received; it is lowest precisely because it has not received what we seek; and in that which it has received, let us praise God, because He has given so great a good of appearance even to this lowest thing.
Yet let us not cleave to it as lovers of it, but pass beyond it as praisers of God, so that, set above it, we may judge concerning it, and not, bound within it, be judged in it. And let us hasten toward that Good which neither ranges through places nor is rolled along by time, and from which all local and temporal natures receive their appearance and form. To see it, let us cleanse our heart through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, who said: Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. For those eyes are not to be prepared for beholding that Good by which this light diffused through places is beheld — light that is not everywhere whole, but has one part here and another elsewhere.
Rather, let us purge that gaze and keen vision by which is discerned, as far as is permitted in this life, what is just, what is pious, what is the beauty of wisdom: which whoever discerns, prefers it far above the fullness of all local spaces, and perceives that, in order to discern these things, the gaze of his mind is not diffused through spaces of places, but is made steadfast by an incorporeal power.
And since phantasms are very hostile to this gaze — phantasms which our imaginative thought, drawn from carnal sense, turns over and holds fast — let us detest that heresy which, following the belief in its own phantasms, has scattered and diffused the divine substance through spaces of places, however infinite, as though it were a formless mass, and has cut it off on one side so as to find a place for evil; for it could not see that evil is not a nature but is against nature, and it adorned evil itself with so much appearance and forms and peace of parts, thriving in each several nature, that — since without these goods it could conceive of no nature — those evils which it there censures are buried under the abundance of innumerable goods. But let this be the end of this volume;