On Genesis against the Manichaeans 2.26–2.29

But these men are also displeased with their own bodies, not because of the penal mortality which we deserved by sinning, but in such a way that they deny that God is the maker of bodies—as if, their carnal eyes opened, that nakedness displeased them. But nothing marks and brands them more forcefully than what the serpent says: “You shall not die the death; for God knew that on the day you eat, your eyes will be opened.” For these men believe that that serpent was Christ, and they invent the story that some god or other of the race of darkness, as they assert, gave that commandment, as though he begrudged men the knowledge of good and evil. From this opinion too, I think, certain Serpentines were born, who are said to worship the serpent in place of Christ, and do not heed the Apostle who says: “I fear lest, as the serpent seduced Eve by his cunning, so your minds too may be corrupted.” I think, then, that these men were prefigured by this prophecy. Our carnal desire is seduced by the words of this serpent, and through it Adam is deceived—not Christ, but the Christian; who, if he were willing to keep God's commandment and live perseveringly by faith until he became fit for the understanding of the truth, that is, if he worked in paradise and guarded what he received, would not come into that ugliness in which, displeased with his flesh as if with his nakedness, he gathers instead carnal coverings of lies, like fig leaves, to make himself an apron. For this is what these men do when they lie about Christ and preach that he himself lied; and they hide, as it were, from the face of God, turned from his truth to their own lies, as the Apostle says: “And they will turn their hearing away from the truth, and be turned to fables.” And that serpent, that is, that error of the heretics which tempts the Church, against which the Apostle sings his charm when he says, “I fear lest, as the serpent seduced Eve by his cunning, so your minds may be corrupted”—that error, then, crawls on breast and belly, and eats earth. For it deceives none but the proud, who, claiming for themselves what they are not, quickly believe that the supreme God and the human soul are of one and the same nature; or those entangled in carnal desires, who gladly hear that whatever they do lustfully they do not do themselves, but the race of darkness does; or the curious, who savor earthly things and search into spiritual things with an earthly eye. But there will be enmity between him and the woman, and between his seed and the seed of the woman, if she bears children, though with pains, and turns to her husband, so that he rules over her. For then it can be known that it is not the case that one part in us belongs to God as its author and another to the race of darkness, as these men say; but rather that both what has the power of ruling in man and that lower part which is to be ruled are from God, as the Apostle says: “A man ought not to veil his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of the man. For man is not from woman, but woman from man; for man was not created for the woman, but woman for the man; therefore the woman ought to have a veil on her head, because of the angels. Nevertheless, neither is woman without man nor man without woman in the Lord; for as woman is from man, so also man is through woman; but all things are from God.”

Let Adam now labor in his field, and understand that the thorns and thistles which the earth brings forth for him are not of nature but of punishment; and let him attribute this not to some race of darkness or other but to divine judgment, because the rule of justice is to give each his own. Let him give the woman the heavenly food which he received from his head, who is Christ; let him not receive from her the forbidden food, that is, the deceit of the heretics, with its great promise of knowledge and the uncovering, as it were, of secrets, by which the error itself is made more savory for deceiving. For the proud and curious desire of the heretics cries out in the book of Proverbs under the image of a woman, and says, “Whoever is foolish, let him turn aside to me”; and she exhorts those lacking sense, saying, “Eat hidden bread gladly, and drink sweet stolen water.” And yet, when anyone has believed those things—the lust of lying going before, by which he believes that Christ lied—he must also receive a garment of skin by divine judgment. By this name in the prophecy there seems to me to be signified not the mortality of the body, which is signified in the history and has already been discussed, but the phantasms drawn from the carnal senses, which by divine law follow and cover one who lies in a carnal way; and so he is sent out of paradise, that is, out of the catholic faith and truth, to dwell over against paradise, that is, to speak against that same faith. If he ever turns to God through the flaming sword, that is, through temporal tribulations, recognizing and lamenting his sins and accusing not some foreign nature, which does not exist, but himself, so that he may deserve pardon; and through the fullness of knowledge, which is love, loving God, who is unchangeable above all things, and loving him with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his mind, and loving his neighbor as himself, he will reach the tree of life and live forever.

What, then, do these men have to find fault with in these writings of the Old Testament? Let them question in their usual way, and let us answer as the Lord deigns to grant. “Why,” they say, “did God make man, whom he knew would sin?” Because even from a sinner he could make many good things, ordering him according to the rule of his justice; and because his sin did God no harm. Had he not sinned, there would be no death; and because he sinned, other mortals are corrected by his sin. For nothing so calls men back from sin as the thought of impending death. “He should have made him,” they say, “such that he would not sin.” Rather, man himself should have brought this about; for he was so made that, if he had been unwilling, he would not sin. “The devil should not have been admitted to his woman,” they say. Rather, she herself should not have admitted the devil to herself; for she was so made that, if she had been unwilling, she would not admit him. “The woman should not have been made,” they say. That is to say, a good thing should not have been made; for she too is certainly some good, and so great a good that the Apostle says she is the glory of the man; and all things are from God. Again they say: “Who made the devil?” He made himself; for he was made a devil not by nature but by sinning. “Then God should not have made him,” they say, “if he knew that he would sin.” On the contrary, why should he not have made him, since by his justice and providence he corrects many through the devil's malice? Or have you perhaps not heard the apostle Paul saying, “whom I have handed over to Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme”? And of himself he says, “And lest I be exalted by the greatness of the revelations, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, an angel of Satan to buffet me.” “Then,” they say, “the devil is good, because he is useful?” On the contrary, he is evil insofar as he is the devil; but God is good and almighty, who even from his malice works many just and good things. For nothing is imputed to the devil except his own will, by which he tries to do evil, not the providence of God, which makes good use of him.

Finally, since our dispute with the Manichees is about religion, and the question of religion is what may piously be thought about God: since they cannot deny that the human race is in the misery of sins, they say that the nature of God is in misery; we deny it, and say that the nature which God made from nothing is in misery, and that it came to this not by compulsion but by the will to sin. They say that the nature of God is compelled by God himself to repent of sins; we deny it, and say that the nature which God made from nothing is compelled, after it has sinned, to repent of its sins. They say that the nature of God receives pardon from God himself; we deny it, and say that the nature which God made from nothing, if it turns from its sins to its God, receives pardon for its sins. They say that the nature of God is changeable by necessity; we deny it, and say that the nature which God made from nothing has been changed by will. They say that the sins of others harm the nature of God; we deny it, and say that no nature is harmed by any sins except its own; and we say that God is of such goodness, such justice, such incorruption, that he neither sins, nor himself harms anyone who refuses to sin, nor is harmed by anyone who wills to sin. They say that there is a nature of evil, to which God was forced to give a part of his own nature to be tormented; we say that no evil is natural, but that all natures are good, and that God himself is the supreme nature, and the other natures are from him; and all are good insofar as they exist, since God made all things very good, but ordered by degrees of distinction, so that one is better than another; and so this universe is filled with every kind of good, and, with some things perfect and others imperfect, it is perfect as a whole; and God, its maker and founder, does not cease to govern it with just control—he who makes all good things by will and suffers nothing evil by necessity. For he whose will surpasses all things feels nothing against his will in any part. Since, then, they say those things and we say these, let each choose what to follow. For I—let me say it in good faith before God—have set out what seemed right to me, without any zeal for contention, without any doubt about the truth, and without prejudging a more careful treatment.