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Against the Epistle of Manichæus, Called Fundamental

St. Augustine of Hippo

1h 42m read
Post-Nicene

Contra Epistulam Manichaei quam vocant Fundamenti, a refutation of the foundational letter of Manichaean catechesis, attacking its dualistic cosmology and defending the one good Creator.

Table of Contents

1To Heal Heretics is Better Than to Destroy Them2Why the Manichæans Should Be More Gently Dealt with3Augustin Once a Manichæan4Proofs of the Catholic Faith5Against the Title of the Epistle of Manichæus6Why Manichæus Called Himself an Apostle of Christ7In What Sense the Followers of Manichæus Believe Him to Be the Holy Spirit8The Festival of the Birth-Day of Manichæus9When the Holy Spirit Was Sent10The Holy Spirit Twice Given11Manichæus Promises Truth, But Does Not Make Good His Word12The Wild Fancies of Manichæus. The Battle Before the Constitution of the World13Two Opposite Substances. The Kingdom of Light. Manichæus Teaches Uncertainties Instead of Certainties14Manichæus Promises the Knowledge of Undoubted Things, and Then Demands Faith in Doubtful Things15The Doctrine of Manichæus Not Only Uncertain, But False. His Absurd Fancy of a Land and Race of Darkness Bordering on the Holy Region and the Substance of God. The Error, First of All, of Giving to the Nature of God Limits and Borders, as If God Were a Material Substance, Having Extension in Space16The Soul, Though Mutable, Has No Material Form. It is All Present in Every Part of the Body17The Memory Contains the Ideas of Places of the Greatest Size18The Understanding Judges of the Truth of Things, and of Its Own Action19If the Mind Has No Material Extension, Much Less Has God20Refutation of the Absurd Idea of Two Territories21This Region of Light Must Be Material If It is Joined to the Region of Darkness. The Shape of the Region of Darkness Joined to the Region of Light22The Form of the Region of Light the Worse of the Two23The Anthropomorphites Not So Bad as the Manichæans24Of the Number of Natures in the Manichæan Fiction25Omnipotence Creates Good Things Differing in Degree. In Every Description Whatsoever of the Junction of the Two Regions There is Either Impropriety or Absurdity26The Manichæans are Reduced to the Choice of a Tortuous, or Curved, or Straight Line of Junction. The Third Kind of Line Would Give Symmetry and Beauty Suitable to Both Regions27The Beauty of the Straight Line Might Be Taken from the Region of Darkness Without Taking Anything from Its Substance. So Evil Neither Takes from Nor Adds to the Substance of the Soul. The Straightness of Its Side Would Be So Far a Good Bestowed on the Region of Darkness by God the Creator28Manichæus Places Five Natures in the Region of Darkness29The Refutation of This Absurdity30The Number of Good Things in Those Natures Which Manichæus Places in the Region of Darkness31The Same Subject Continued32Manichæus Got the Arrangement of His Fanciful Notions from Visible Objects33Every Nature, as Nature, is Good34Nature Cannot Be Without Some Good. The Manichæans Dwell Upon the Evils35Evil Alone is Corruption. Corruption is Not Nature, But Contrary to Nature. Corruption Implies Previous Good36The Source of Evil or of Corruption of Good37God Alone Perfectly Good38Nature Made by God; Corruption Comes from Nothing39In What Sense Evils are from God40Corruption Tends to Non-Existence41Corruption is by God’s Permission, and Comes from Us42Exhortation to the Chief Good43Conclusion