Against the Manichees 96–103

fifty.’” And since they place such reasons and such rebukes in the rank of wickedness and evil, what will they say about Paul? He, when he saw the man called Bar-Jesus, the magician, in the presence of Sergius Paulus the proconsul, turning the mind of those being taught by evil arts of speech, did not bear it, rebuked him, brought about the loss of his eyes, and cried, “You full of all deceit and all villainy, son of the devil, will you not stop making crooked the straight ways of the Lord? And behold, the hand of the Lord is upon you, and you will be blind, not seeing the sun for a time.” And what will they say about Peter? When Ananias and Sapphira sold a little property and kept back part, and brought part, he judged and convicted them, showed Ananias dead, and gave Sapphira over to the same tomb. They lay dead, destroyed by a word. There the fire brought down consumed those who came; here a word went forth and before the eyes of the disciples showed dead those who had peddled the faith. There Elisha gave the bodies of the infants to beasts; here Paul took away the sight of the eyes and made the seeing man blind. And doing such things they administered rebukes. If, then, rebuke is applied for improper things, Peter and Paul are improper; but if they are good because they are apostles, and good because they rebuked, why do you slander rebukes, when the apostles too used rebukes? If we accept the apostles but blame the rebukes, it is not by persons that the laws judge matters or give sentence; they do not quibble over persons, but go along with the likeness of deeds. “But,” he says, “the Son is merciful, merciful is the one who wrote the Gospels, and the merciful one is offspring of the merciful. But the Law is harsh, not pardoning sinners, while the Gospel has compassion, restraining offences and proclaiming repentance. For see,” they will say, “the Saviour spared Peter when he denied, restores one who committed so great a sin, and showed simple love for mankind, leaving the man as an example to all life, so as to present him as an image of his own love for mankind.” What then of the Law? Is it at a loss for imitation, without a corresponding image? Was Peter, earnest yet fallen, honoured with forgiveness and pardon, while no one in the Law who sinned, and sinned greatly, won forgiveness by repentance? If they do not know, we shall say what is written: “Have mercy

on me, O God, according to your great mercy, and according to the multitude of your compassions blot out my lawlessness. Wash me thoroughly from my lawlessness, and cleanse me from my sin. Against you alone have I sinned and done what is evil before you.” If they know it, they keep silent in their evil talk. The matters, then, are akin, and the images alike: here Peter, there the sacred psalmist, so that the falls of great men are healed by great pardons too, and for those who have done great wrongs the mercy shown is great as well. If, then, they admire the Gospels because Peter received mercy, let them admire that David too received mercy; and if they find fault that David was forgiven after such things, then on their account Peter will not escape the charge either. The charge will seem to be against David alone, but in effect Peter too will be accused with the same accusation. And if they say that pardon is good, but the pardon of the old Law reached only one, while here there is a multitude of pardon and a sea of forgiveness and a voice that has cried, “Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,” let them read the old Scriptures and take wonder at what is written. And if through lack of study they do not endure to meet the writings, let them be freed from this charge here too. The Saviour says, “Come, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,” passing over no one, leaving no one out, embracing all. And the sacred psalmist says, “All nations, clap your hands”; and again, “Give ear, all who inhabit the world, both earth-born and sons of men, rich and poor together.” All are moved by the Gospel, all by the Law. The Gospel has left out no one; the Law has let go no one. The Gospel cried, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” He addressed this word to all; he spoke with those who stumble, conversed with those who have fallen, spoke to those already owing death, and through the proclamation betrothed them beforehand to freedom. Jonah too came to Nineveh, a city not small, a populous nation. He showed the threat, did not keep silent about the rebuke, cried out with a striking word, saw the men, brought them to change, made them free of sin; the rebuke announced beforehand departed, mercy took its place, what was sought came about. For what was sought was not the destruction of men, but the change of their ways. And since what was sought came about and the

men had changed, the gift of the lover of mankind appeared; the judge cried out in their defence and said to his servant, “If you spared the gourd, for which you did not labour, which came in a night and perished in a night, shall I not spare Nineveh, the great city, in which more than twelve myriads of men live, and many cattle?” And God was of sparing, and the speaker was plain: the one who said this now, and who cried in another prophet, “I do not desire the death of the sinner so much as that he turn and live”; the one glorified by those who know how to sing hymns: “Compassionate and merciful is the Lord, long-suffering and abounding in mercy.” For so great a sea of compassions is with God that he does not leave unhonoured even the least and shortest inclination to repentance, even of the very worst. For when Ahab had driven almost to the limit of evil and was somehow a little pricked to the heart, God honoured it, showed the matter to his servant, and drew back the threat, leaving a time before the rebuke. “Have you seen,” he says, “how Ahab was pricked to the heart? I will not bring the evils in his days, but in other days”: so that God might honour with fitting honour even the least drop of repentance. Having said this much, we have stopped here, so that the discourse about the Law too may not be left wholly unexercised, adding only this: that “the law is a shadow of the good things to come.” For a tutor works with the child in youth until the teacher, taking over his state, hands him on to the greater lessons. Another could more opportunely, making this his own subject, establish how “the law came through Moses, but grace and truth came from the Lord.” But let us take up the other attempts of the abortion, setting out his other absurd opinion about the oracles and laying it bare by examination, so that (if it is possible) we may remove from the minds they have captured that irrational opinion. For he stretched himself even to creation, and wants this visible work to be the work of the deceiver, and man to be a fashioning of the wicked one, the soul being from God but fitted by the wicked one; and that man came to be, receiving the substance of the body from the substance of the wicked one, while the substance of the soul was taken from God as spoil or booty, plundered by the wicked one. So from the plundered

substance and the substance of the wicked one man came to be, of soul and body; and the wicked one is not the cause of the soul, nor did he make the substance of the soul, but is active only in its insertion into the body. For having plundered it, they say, he inserted it into the flesh; and the flesh itself, its fashioning, its stamp, this particular form and its whole substance, are the work and fashioning of the deceiver. Confessing, then, that man came to be from opposites, they know neither the account of opposites nor that there are some opposites which are unmixed in themselves, unable to receive any mixture and communion with each other, but by supposed communion are causes of each other’s destruction, unable to be together, one being destroyed by the other’s mastery. For see, in one bedroom day and night could not be found, since light alone, once found, removes the darkness beforehand. See, in one soul self-control and sexual immorality could not appear, since self-control alone, once it appears, puts sexual immorality out of the way. See, piety and impiety could not arise in one man; for where piety appears, not a drop of impiety can appear. And the apostle decides and seals what has been said: “What communion has light with darkness? What portion has Christ with Belial?” For things opposite to each other could not become friends to each other, and things standing apart from each other would not make one harmony. For one harmony does not come from rhythm and lack of rhythm, nor one composition from silence and speech; for only one must exist, the other not enduring to subsist. But if the body was the wicked one’s and the soul God’s, how has it been rendered into the one harmony of man? How into one disposition and friendship? For see, he has been fitted together and has become one man, and is one by harmony. See, the soul is the body’s and loves and cherishes it: “For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it.” And if one cares for the other, and the soul thinks the body’s pain its own pain and is not separated from its sufferings, but makes the wounds its own, makes the sufferings its own, and when it suffers pain is grieved because of the wounds, unable to be without pain, and when it enjoys pleasure is stirred by the pleasure, the soul shares in the motions and joins in the stirrings, and ceases alike and increases likewise; and when the soul ceases from the motions of the passions,

the body too ceases with it and becomes quiet; but when desire is worked up in the soul and the stirrings are worked up, the body too takes pleasure and becomes inflamed; and the stirrings come about equally, and equally the layings aside and failings of the stirrings. But if man were from opposites, and the body the wicked one’s and the soul God’s, first, there would have been no meeting, nor would this long mixture have been accomplished; second, the one would not have accepted the things of the other, but each would have reckoned its own things its own and the other’s things foreign, and neither would the pleasure of bodies have become the pleasure of the soul nor the wounds of bodies the pains of the soul, but each would have taken its share of pleasure and wounds for itself. And how could the devil take from there what was not his own? And how is the soul, not being his but another’s, having no intercourse with this region, but being of another substance and wholly estranged from the substance of the wicked one, among foreign and strange things, bearing the mixture of the body as a bond of the wicked one, bound in what is not its own, and yet making the flesh its own, making it holy, and preparing it for virtue, so that it is made like the better as far as possible? For when the flesh is pure, unsoiled and spotless, when it is holy and dignified, when it has holy speech, right looks, divine movements, what else is this but being made like the better? It is likened to the good and bears the stamp of the better. Let this be said thus; and let us set out a few of the oracles too, so that the setting out of the oracles may bring shame to them and exactness of faith to us. For the Saviour in the Gospel, remembering the fashioning of man and woman and referring the fashioning to his own Father and Maker of all, said: “Having created from the beginning, he made them male and female, and said, For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” And confessing the cause of the definition of body and soul, he knows and confesses the Father, and checks human notions, wishing what has been made to be inseparable and not allowing what has been well fitted together to be separated by human judgement. And in the Gospel, to those who in appearance keep the same care but have neglected the hidden things and the inner

care, he says, “Fools, did not he who made the outside make the inside too?” And if the inside is the soul and the outside the body, and he who made the inside made the soul and he who made the outside made the body, then the maker of the soul would be the maker of the body too; and it is God who makes both, fits and joins them, who has fitted together this most sacred harmony. And the Saviour himself, in his discourses, what care he takes of the body, when he says, “There are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven; let him who can receive it receive it”! For giving the body this care, preparing it holy, free of passion and of pleasure, cutting back every desire and making it subject to reason, he shows his care for the body and signifies his concern for the flesh. And caring and taking thought, he proclaims by his concern that it is his own, reaching even to the glance, so that the glance, moving at random, may not be filled with filth and stain, but, having a well-ordered movement, may continue fitly. For he says in the Gospel, “Everyone who looks at a woman to desire her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” And he measures the passion in the body together with the heart, and taking care of the glance he makes care of the heart common with it, introducing the passion of the glance as the passion of the heart and setting care of the eyes as care of the mind. For the eye will do harm in no other way than as the mind does harm. For it is not possible for the eye to be perverted while the soul is not perverted; for when the soul sees decently and simply, the eyes will see fittingly. Here, then, passing over improper looking, he brings in holy looking, so that the eyes may look straight and the eyelids nod just things. For he lifts up the eyes, not allowing them to be bent down, but raising and rousing them and preparing them uplifted. That is why, taking great care of bodies, he both wore a body and came into a body. If, then, he did not come in a body, what will they say about the cross, the print of the nails, the print of the spear, the tomb and the burial? And if, refuted by these, they confess that the Saviour took a body, what will they say? Unless they will say that he too was fashioned by the wicked one, and that no longer only the human body is the wicked one’s, but the body of the benefactor too? For they will not refrain from reaching even this notion

and stretching out their tongue against the Saviour. For whoever practises arguing against what belongs to him will sharpen his tongue and argue against him. And the Saviour was washed by baptism in the Jordan, sprinkled with waters: being who? If he did not bear a body or have a body, what have spirits in common with rivers? Which of the angels, what power, what dominion, what principality, what authority went down into a washing and had experience of waters? And if no power or authority or throne went down into waters, the matter needs no inquiry and is clear, and what is sought has become plain. But he came up from the waters, was tempted by the devil, was hungry, was thirsty, sailed, slept, travelled, grew weary, walked, came hungry to the fig tree, and finally was judged and crucified. Who cried these things? Who bore witness to them? Let tongues be silent, let deeds speak. The facts have a mouth; let us no longer send out sound by striking the air. The writings have a mouth: even if we are silent, the facts are not silent; even if we do not speak, the writings do not endure not speaking. Since, then, these things are so, and the deeds are trustworthy, and the accounts of the deeds true, and the powers of the deeds cry out that the Saviour had a body, a mortal body, and wore a body for our sake, it remains to seek the like: he came for us, the maker of that body and the maker of ours. For if it were different, he would not have taken thought for others than that; but if it was made by God, and made for us, he made it for his own. For in order to save his own, he made that body, working by its making the freedom of all his own. Thanks, then, to the one who made our bodies, who took thought for them even when they had grown careless, and sent his own Son in a body, and gave a pledge to our bodies, so that we may no longer bend and look to the ground, but be uplifted by the communion of bodies. Let us, then, cheapen those deceivers in this too, because they have marched against bodies, gone against the Fashioner, stretched out their tongue against God’s economy and not refused to speak against our freedom, being some vagrants and market-loungers who have gathered a heap of words of wickedness. For one may blame one thing that is joined to another, but not, going through all things in order, think all useless and outlandish. That is why we too, into everything …

… going down to their account, let us not give great length to the discourse. Let us stop here, having pointed to the rest through these few things and established the refutation through what has been said. The earnest need care, so that, rising above every sorcery, they may keep their ears unseized by wickedness, so as to be keepers of the keys of their own ears, sometimes opening, when the true word knocks, and sometimes shutting, when the false and deceitful word, putting on the appearance of truth, is eager to burst into the storeroom of the mind. For many, counterfeit and putting on a show, knock at the ears (saying, “I am the Christ”), and will lead many astray. But there is one Christ alone, the liberator, the bearer of trophies, the benefactor, who knocks with goodwill, who betroths freedom by his entrance, who at the moment of entering drives out sins, who at his entrance gives friendship with the Father, who at once by his entrance trophies …