so that, as Truth, He may be believed to have done all things truthfully and nothing falsely; because by His power and will the Word was made flesh, and was born and suffered and died and rose again under no necessity of His own, but by His will and power—of whom no part was ever plundered, no part is even now captive, not only of His divine nature, but not even of that mortal nature which He took on; nor will it ever be able to be captured, except by those who through faith have willed to be joined to Him with a pure heart. Not like the god of Manichaeus, who, pressed by the evil of necessity, today is here partly—which they cannot deny—wallowing in miseries and calamities. Understand well, if you can, even among men themselves, how great a difference there is between necessity and will.
If, for example, someone is, by the deserving of his own sin, cast into prison at the command of justice, and another, a holy man, be present, who enters that same prison for the sake of consoling or freeing the former—are both established in prison from one and the same cause? The one was sent in, the other entered; the one suffers punishment, the other performs an act of mercy; the one entered when he willed, and went out when he willed; the other cannot by any right be set free unless pardon intervenes. And this men are able to do, and they freely bestow the benefit, even when at times they desire nothing to be bestowed upon themselves. Consider, therefore, now, whether God can suffer any necessity,
since men are able to do good by will, hired by no reward, compelled by no necessity. Therefore God suffers no necessity, nor does He do by necessity the things He does, but by His supreme and ineffable will and power. And yet you, above all, according to your own error, ought not to have raised that objection in which you say: "What would the Jews have done to Christ, if He had not wished to suffer at their hands?"—since, according to the blasphemies of this same Manichaeus, Christ had no flesh, nor suffered anything at the hands of the Jews. For thus he says in the Letter of the Foundation: "The enemy, indeed, who hoped he had crucified this same Savior, the Father of the just, was himself crucified—at which time one thing was done and another shown."
"And so the prince of darkness was fastened to the cross, and he likewise wore a crown of thorns with his companions, and had a scarlet garment; he also drank vinegar and gall, which some have supposed the Lord drank. And all the things which He was here seen to undergo were inflicted upon the leaders of darkness, who were also wounded with nails and a lance." Why, then, do you raise the objection, saying: "What would the Jews have done to Christ, if He had not wished to suffer at their hands?"—when you hold such a view about His passion, namely, that it was not God Himself who suffered anything in His body, but you suppose that the prince of darkness suffered all those things? And how can you raise these objections against our faith? For we believe, as it is written in the Gospel, that Christ willed to suffer, and, when He willed, He suffered;
for it was not when the Jews willed it that they brought about that passion. They did indeed wish to seize Him and to kill Him, and according to their own will they had already accomplished the crime which they were attempting, and were already guilty of a most monstrous sin, because they willed it, even if they had done nothing; yet He who had the power to lay down His own life, when He willed, permitted them to act—He who was able to command legions of angels that the Jews should perish, or by a single word of His to destroy them all. The Lord Christ, therefore, suffered according to the man whom He took on; and no member of His mortal body, which He had taken on, is held today by the Jews, as we said above.
For your god, O Manichaeans, was pressed by threatening ruin and devastation; he did not advance to battle by free will, but was compelled by necessity; nor did he wish to bestow anything, but was trying to resist—he who, even in his own substance, not in an assumed mortal body, was devoured and mingled; who is held in part today, and in part will forever be held in the lump. And yet, who could bear such incredible blasphemies as these men do not hesitate to utter concerning the very passion of the Lord? All the apostles, all rational tongues cry out that the Lord Christ suffered; all sound faith confesses that Christ suffered for us; while Manichaeus asserts that all those demons endured all those sufferings. For he does not say that they suffered for this reason—
namely, because the Lord triumphed over them, and taught us through patience to triumph over them; but because they deny that the Lord Christ had mortal flesh. To whom we say: If He had no mortal flesh, what was it that the Jews held? What was it that hung on the cross? What was it that was fastened with nails to the wood? What is it that was struck with the lance, from which blood and water flowed? For if these things only seemed to happen and did not happen, they will be a phantasm—which it is wicked to believe. But if they truly happened—yet not in mortal flesh, but, as you say, in the very divine substance—then you say that the divine substance is mutable, and visible to fleshly eyes, and palpable to fleshly hands, and woundable by iron:
which again it is wicked to believe. And therefore, while Manichaeus is afraid to say that these things did not happen, and again is afraid to say that they happened in the divine substance, and is unwilling to confess—because he could not even understand—how the Son of God, through whom all things were made, took on a man with flesh without any change or defilement of His own divine substance: he was forced to say that it was not Christ, but the prince of darkness with his companions, who suffered all those things. Wretches! Do you not fear lest it be said to you in the judgment: "I set you free, on whose behalf I suffered; go, let that one set you free,
to whom you ascribe my sufferings." You say, with great error—yet you do say it—that Christ is born daily, suffers daily, dies daily. Perhaps among those who believe and who suffer tribulations and death for His name? "No," they say, "but in gourds and leeks and in purslane and other such things." Great absurdities, great blindness! Above, by the sufferings of demons; here, by the sufferings of vegetables, men are set free from sins! Likewise, when we say to them: "What would the race of darkness have done to God, if He had not wished to fight against it?" they say: "Nothing could be done to the incorruptible God. For if, for example, someone should wish to tear a solid glass sphere with his nails, the savagery of his nails would never do anything to it at all."
But even if they were to imagine the divine substance to be such that all the savagery of the race of darkness were to it as the nails of one tearing are to a glass sphere, then the god of Manichaeus would not today endure mourning over the cutting-off or loss of his part—a part which they say, when it has been in fruits or in herbs (that is, in a melon or a beet or such things), knows both its own beginning and its middle and its end; but when it has come into flesh, it loses all understanding. And for this reason a teacher has been sent to men, because the part of God in them has become foolish; and for this reason he was not sent to melons, because they have a wise soul! Who would believe these things, or that they could ever be said by men, or among men?
But nevertheless, how does the substance of your god suffer no evil, when it is both bound in fruits and blinded in flesh, or when, willing to return, it is cast down to the earth by the race of darkness? But if no evil befell or befalls it, then all the things are false which Manichaeus said in the Letter of the Foundation—which is the head of all his empty fables—or in the Treasury, which Treasury is of all foulnesses and blasphemies, or in all his other books, in which, with such great loquacity, he affirms nothing else than the misfortune of the substance of God, which he says is mingled with the princes of darkness, and the sadness in the divine powers on account of that great anxiety that it might be set free.
For in truth the substance of God neither could nor ever will be able to suffer any evil, nor does it have any enemy who might corrupt its unbegotten part; rather, it is men who are enemies of God, or rather of themselves, by not obeying the commandments of God and by corrupting themselves through their desires rather than corrupting God. But if you, O Manichaeans, were willing to consider the harmony of the two Testaments with a single eye, you would see it most easily. For you rage furiously against what is written: 'The Spirit of God was borne over the water,' and: 'God saw that it was good,' and: 'Adam, where art thou?' and: 'a jealous God,' and: 'a consuming fire,' and: 'my sword,' and other such things, without considering that, if anyone else were so blind as to wish to censure that saying of the Lord which is spoken in the Gospel:
'Thou shalt not swear by heaven, for it is the seat of God; nor by the earth, for it is the footstool of his feet,' and were to say what you are accustomed to say with marvellous madness, 'Where was God before heaven and earth existed?'; or what is written: 'And Jesus marvelled' — though no one is wont to marvel except at a thing that was unknown to him; whereas to see that it was good belongs not to one who is ignorant, but means that what he had made pleased him; or that which is written when the Lord says: 'Who touched me?' and concerning Lazarus: 'Where have you laid him?' and: 'I came not to send peace upon the earth, but a sword,' and: 'I came to send fire into the world,' and: 'I came that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind,' and: 'Sell your goods and buy for yourselves swords,' and the Apostle:
'I am jealous over you with the jealousy of God,' and: 'The wrath of God shall be revealed from heaven against all ungodliness,' and countless other things said or done by the Lord himself or by the Apostles, which men, not understanding, will be able most insanely to accuse. For the greedy or the dissolute too can take in another sense what the Lord says — that if anyone forsakes what he has, he may receive sevenfold or even a hundredfold in this age; or such a one might wish to leave a wife, a maidservant, or even harlots for the Lord's sake in the hope of that multiplication, rather than from love of righteousness. Those who understand badly can even shudder at what he says: 'Unless a man eat my flesh and drink my blood, he shall not have life in himself.' For as to what he says:
'Whoever says to his brother, Thou fool, shall be liable to the fire of Gehenna' — if foolish men say, 'Behold, for a reproach he threatens Gehenna! Yet you call him merciful and ready to forgive sins,' do they not fail to perceive where their own head is? And yet they fancy they are saying something. Or that he handed over so many souls to be slain by demons in the swine — though you say that the souls of swine are like those of men. Or that, finding no fruit on the tree because it was not the season, he made it wither by a word — a tree which you say possesses an understanding soul! Behold how great are the things that most wicked and blind men can say of the divine oracles, as you do concerning that.
Being ignorant of the things that were mystically done or said in the ancient books, you rush headlong to accuse rashly what you do not understand; yet when these same things are urged against you out of the New Testament, you say that they signify divine and spiritual realities. But you deny that the holy writings of the Old Testament can be taken figuratively — although the Lord himself said certain things from it figuratively, and the Apostle Paul wrote that all those things happened to that people 'as a figure.' For he himself, showing the rule, expounded many things from it. But perhaps, speaking with your accustomed vanity and dull heart against the authority of the Lord or the Apostle, you say that the sayings of the Old Testament cannot be expounded at all, but that only the New can be so expounded.
And you do not consider that you would have nothing to say if it were said to you by other impious men that, on the contrary, the Old can be expounded but not the New. But a sound mind, considering both Testaments, will without doubt make clear in the one whatever interpretation it has found admissible in the other. Your inexperience, or rather your malice, shows itself greatly. Mark, in the Acts of Leucius, which he writes under the name of the apostles, what manner of things they are that you accept concerning Maximilla the wife of Egetes. When she would not render her husband his due — although the Apostle has said:
'Let the husband render to the wife her due, and likewise the wife to the husband' — she put in her own maidservant in her place to her husband, a girl named Euclia, adorning her, as it is written there, with hostile allurements and cosmetics, and substituting her by night as her surrogate, so that he, not knowing it, might lie with her as with his wife. There it is also written that, when this same Maximilla and Iphidamia had gone together to hear the apostle Andrew, a certain beautiful boy — whom Leucius wishes to be understood as God or at least an angel — commended them to the apostle Andrew and went off to the praetorium of Egetes, and entering their bedchamber feigned a woman's voice, as of Maximilla murmuring about the pains of the female sex, with Iphidamia replying.
When Egetes had heard these conversations, believing them to be there, he departed. What do you say to this, I ask you? Why was Maximilla not afraid to bind souls in the flesh through the most disgraceful pandering of her maidservant? And since you believe that little boy lied so basely, who would believe you when you speak — when, if you lie, you claim that you are imitating the Lord? But you, full of rashness, still rush in upon the ancient books, so that you labour rather to accuse than to learn what you do not know. Consider what miracles are there, if you are delighted by the miracles of the New Testament. There the dead were first raised, there lepers were first cleansed, and many other things which become known, to the building up of faith, to those who seek carefully and devoutly.
But if you are delighted by good precepts, those two precepts which the Lord sublimely praises — concerning the love of God and of one's neighbour — were first written there. There is the leaving of house, parents, and children, and the rest for the Lord's sake; there is the not rendering evil for evil; there is the praying for enemies; there is the forgiving of an enemy; there is the offering of the cheek to receive a blow — and whatever precepts are in the New Testament were not only commanded there, but even fulfilled with all vigilance by holy men. Will your malice be able to say even this, that whatever good and magnificent things are written there are false and interpolated, but that those things alone, which you think evil because you do not understand them, are true?
For you ought to consider that other impious men could do the same thing with the New Testament: that whatever things are there which they have, not understanding them, thought evil, these they would censure and say that these alone there are true; but all those things which are there openly magnified they would say are false and inserted by lovers of the Lord, lest everything should seem to be shunned — so that both you and they, struck with such blindness, already judged and condemned, would be shunned. At last be vigilant, and cease from blasphemies, and receive the authority of all the holy canonical Scriptures, if you mean to be Christians, and do not wish to accuse what you do not understand; but rather desire the understanding of them.
For what kind of thing is even this, that you deny the resurrection of the flesh? Paul the Apostle cries out: 'It is sown in corruption, it rises in incorruption; it is sown in dishonour, it rises in glory; it is sown in weakness, it rises in power; it is sown a natural body, it rises a spiritual body.' And you cry out against this, that the flesh of man cannot rise again, and that it has the prince of darkness as its author — although the Apostle says that this same flesh is the members of Christ and the temple of the Holy Spirit. 'Do you not know,' he says, 'that your bodies are the members of Christ?'
This he says not indeed according to the weakness of the present corruption, which descends from the penalty of original sin, but according to the adoption of the future resurrection, as he also says elsewhere: 'And we ourselves groan within ourselves, awaiting the adoption, the redemption of our body.' Elsewhere too he compared this same flesh to the Church, when he was speaking of marriage, saying: 'For no man ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, even as Christ does the Church.' As for what he says in another place: 'The flesh',
'lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh' — he does not condemn the flesh, that we should regard it as an enemy, but rather admonishes us to subjugate it to ourselves, so that, like a spouse, it may serve the spirit for the conceiving and bringing forth of good works — which he says cannot come to pass except by the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. For it is not the nature of the flesh, but its penalty, that struggles against us, because by sin we have deserved to be mortal. For again he says: 'Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in us.' And yet, although the flesh itself is called 'hay' on account of its present weakness, you believe that John made honey out of hay, and you do not believe that almighty God can make a spiritual body out of a natural body.
For on account of that very transformation of the flesh which is to come — since God is going to make a heavenly body out of this flesh, when we shall be equal to the angels of God — for this reason the same Apostle says most truly: 'Flesh and blood shall not possess the kingdom of God.' But it is no wonder that you are so blind as to think these things cannot be done by almighty God, since you even say that God could not have made the world, or all the things that were made, in any other way except by great and pitiable necessity, and unless there were a matter that helped him toward the working of the world, so that from it he might free his own part. Choose therefore now what you wish to follow:
a God less powerful and weak, who, by the necessity of his own part placed in misery, was helped by a matter which he himself had not made, in order to make the world; or an almighty God, who, by no necessity, but by his own will and supreme power, spoke, and they were made; commanded, and they were created — who calls those things that are not as though they were. Flee therefore, you men who have been deceived by this impiety of Manichaeus; hasten, while it is permitted, lest you deserve eternal damnation from that just Judge. Let us repent of your sins, if you desire to be set free, and do not listen to the Manichaeans who say: 'We do not sin' — that is, the souls of light — 'but the race of darkness sins.' For if it is so, why do they terrify us, that we should believe them?
For they cannot say that unbelief is not a sin, since it is written: 'He that believes not is already judged.' If, therefore, unbelief is a sin, and none sins except the race of darkness, it remains that the part of light should be found immune from all sin. All, then, return to the kingdom, since they themselves do not sin, and nothing is to be feared by any soul, since none sins; and the things which Manichaeus says are false — namely, that the cut-off part of light, that is, the sinful souls, are condemned to the guarding of the globe, so that at length some security may be procured for the divine realms set in peril. It is necessary, therefore, that either the part of light should sin, or the part of darkness. But if the part of light sins, God sins — which it is wicked to say.
But if the part of darkness sins, that very part is called to the kingdom by him who said: 'I came not to call the righteous, but sinners,' for the healthy have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. But that divinity sprung from divinity, that light from light, degenerating into the race of darkness, is joined to it forever. O the detestable error of mind of those who believe such things! Yet I would wish that you would attend and be willing to see that he whom you say to be by nature the supreme evil cannot possibly become evil — since, if whatever he does, he does in such a way that he cannot depart from his own nature and act otherwise, he sins absolutely nothing; but if he sins nothing, he does no evil; and therefore, if he did no evil, he is assuredly not evil.
It remains, therefore, that the part of God, which is understood to be God, which you call the soul, alone is guilty of all sins, and that all those things which you most insanely think ought to be accused, you pour back upon your God. But what does truth cry out? That the body, when it is lifeless, cannot sin, but that through it sin can be committed; that the irrational soul indeed cannot sin, because it can neither receive the precepts of reason nor attain to blessedness, but in its own degree preserves the order of nature which it has received; but that the rational soul, because it can perceive the rational precepts of right deeds and by right deeds attain to eternal blessedness, if by sinning it has refused this,
is justly condemned to lower things, because nothing separates between it and God except a depraved will. Read, O Manichaeans, and with all vigilance examine these things, and more and more read and examine, but with an even mind, not with a hostile mind. Read it, attending to this: that in the future judgment this writing will be a witness to you, if, recognising that the things which have been said are true, you do not hasten with all speed to the bosom of the mother, the Catholic Church, which alone teaches the truth. Judge at last, then, and choose, O Manichaeans, whom you wish to follow: the unbegotten Father, the only-begotten Son, the Holy Spirit common in the unity of the Father and the Son — one God almighty, incorruptible, unapproachable, unchangeable, eternal, good, holy,
merciful, just; who has no parts, because he is one; nor can any particle of him be separated from him, because he is inseparable; nor can anything of him be changed, because he is wholly unchangeable; nor can even the slightest portion of his substance be corrupted, because he is wholly incorruptible; who willed, and all things were made — whatsoever things are, whatsoever things live, whatsoever things understand — for he himself is the supreme substance, the supreme life, the supreme truth; who commanded, and all things were ordered, good, in their own places and times; who has deigned to set the rational creature over every other creature;
who deigned mercifully to speak to that rational creature when, through pride, it had fallen by its own will from his laws and was pursuing visible things — speaking through his ministers and through himself, by certain signs visibly shown, and by examples and precepts, by which it might have power to rise again and be recalled to eternal life: this is the God whom the Catholic faith proclaims. Or [will you follow] that god who is falsely called incorruptible, since afterwards he is found oppressed by the necessity of evil; timid, because, when ruin and devastation threatened, he was compelled to war; full of ignorance, since he could not foresee what might befall his own part; cruel, if he foresaw the coming misery of his part and yet, though he could have rested secure with it, nevertheless sent it forth to a pitiable battle;
evil, if, though nothing could be done to him by the nature of evil, he nevertheless himself attempted to destroy it; rash, who dared to engage in combat with that by which his own part would both be held captive and forever defiled; changeable, because he has already in part been changed; corruptible, because he has already in part been corrupted; in part playing the harlot, in part lying, in part blaspheming, in part committing all crimes, because he has in part been mingled with all these; mourning, covered with a veil of grief; subject to demons as clay to the potter, and driven by necessity even to a shameful guise, so that, transfigured into boys and virgins, he might inflame the lust of demons — this is the god whom Manichaeus proclaims.
Or certainly, if your conscience can, with the true eternal God as your witness, who is about to judge all, deny one of these things to your own selves. But if the things we say are true, then at last look back, at last see in what death you are established. Be humble, if you desire to be set free, and do not say, proudly and impiously, that we ourselves are the almighty God — for this you do say, when you assert that your souls are parts of him; for God is not greater in one part and lesser in another. But rather say to yourselves: God is unchangeable, we are changeable; God is incorruptible, we are corrupted by our own desires; God is undefilable, we are defiled by our own sins;
God is wisdom itself, we are foolish and strive to attain to wisdom; God is eternal and blessed life itself, we, by our sins, are wretched and long to become blessed. We are not, therefore, a part of his substance. For if you are his parts and yet suffer all these great things, it remains that he himself too already in part suffers all these things, and could suffer still more of what has befallen his part, unless he provided for himself through your misery. See, then, what you are. If you are parts of him, you are God; if you are begotten of him, likewise you are God: why are you disfigured by such great corruption of sins? But if you were made by him, confess this, and you will no longer be Manichaeans.
For Manichaeus says there are two natures, one good and the other evil: the good, which made the world; the evil, out of which the world was made. But if God made us, Manichaeus does not find out from what God made us. For if he made you out of himself, you are what he himself is; you ought not, therefore, to be disfigured by such great corruption of sins, as has already been said. But if he made you out of another's substance, you do not belong to him, because he made you just as he made the world. But if he made you neither out of himself nor out of another's substance, but only willed it by his omnipotence, and you were made — say this to Manichaeus and renounce his error. For thus it befits the Almighty to make whatever he willed, as the Catholic Church says: 'He himself spoke, and they were made; he himself commanded, and they were created.'
Say to yourselves: we are not parts of him, but we are his works. Say to yourselves: if God suffered by necessity and could not escape otherwise except by suffering the loss of his own part, who could ever be set free from such necessities? Or who will there be to protect a God who is not able to protect himself? Or when will he be able to free me from this necessity of captivity, who could not keep me safe in the intact realms? For he did not send me away from there as one sinning, but sent me into sins themselves. Or when will he be able to profit me, miserably set among alien things, who, that he might profit himself, gave me up to so great a ruin, that it might not fight?