Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. IV:
Writings in Connection with the Manichæan Controversy.: Chapter 8

Chapter 8.—The Manichæans Inquire Whence is Evil and by This Question Think They Have Triumphed.  Let Them First Know, Which is Most Easy to Do, that Nothing Can Live Without God.  Consummate Evil Cannot Be Known Except by the Knowledge of Consummate Good, Which is God.

Here perchance some one may say:  Whence are sins themselves, and whence is evil in general?  If from man, whence is man? if from an angel, whence is the angel?  When it is said, however truly and rightly, that these are from God, it nevertheless seems to those unskillful and possessed of little power to look into recondite matters, that evils and sins are thereby connected, as by a sort of chain, to God.  By this question they think themselves triumphant, as if forsooth to ask were to know;—would it were so, for in that case no one would be more knowing than myself.  Yet very often in controversy the propounder of a great question, while impersonating the great teacher, is himself more ignorant in the matter concerning which he would frighten his opponent, than he whom he would frighten.

These therefore suppose that they are superior to the common run, because the former ask questions that the latter cannot answer.  If therefore when I most unfortunately was associated with them, not in the position in which I have now for some time been, they had raised these objections when I p. 101 had brought forward this argument, I should have said:  I ask that you meanwhile agree with me, which is most easy, that if nothing can shine without God, much less can anything live without God.  Let us not persist in such monstrous opinions as to maintain that any souls whatsoever have life apart from God.  For perchance it may so happen that with me you are ignorant as to this thing, namely whence is evil, let us then learn either simultaneously or in any order, I care not what.  For what if knowledge of the perfection of evil is impossible to man without knowledge of the perfection of good?  For we should not know darkness if we were always in darkness.  But the notion of light does not allow its opposite to be unknown.  But the highest good is that than which there is nothing higher.  But God is good and than Him nothing can be higher.  God therefore is the highest good.  Let us therefore together so recognize God, and thus what we seek too hastily will not be hidden from us.  Do you suppose then that the knowledge of God is a matter of small account or desert.  For what other reward is there for us than life eternal, which is to know God?  For God the Master says:  "But this is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only and true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." 207   For the soul, although it is immortal, yet because aversion from the knowledge of God is rightly called its death, when it is converted to God, the reward of eternal life to be attained is that knowledge; so that this is, as has been said, eternal life.  But no one can be converted to God, except he turn himself away from this world.  This for myself I feel to be arduous and exceedingly difficult, whether it is easy to you, God Himself would have seen.  I should have been inclined to think it easy to you, had I not been moved by the fact, that, since the world from which we are commanded to turn away is visible, and the apostle says:  "The things that are seen are temporal, but the things that are unseen are eternal," 208 you ascribe more importance to the judgment of these eyes than to that of the mind, asserting and believing as you do that there is no shining feather that does not shine from God; and that there are living souls that do not live from God.  These and like things I should either have said to them or considered with myself, for even then, supplicating God with all my bowels, so to speak, and examining as attentively as possible the Scriptures, I should perchance have been able either to say such things or to think them, so far as was necessary for my salvation.

Footnotes

John xvii. 3.

2 Cor. iv. 18.