St. Augustine: The Writings Against the Manichaeans and Against the Donatists

AUGUSTINE: THE WRITINGS AGAINST THE MANICHAEANS AND AGAINST THE DONATISTS.

NICENE AND POST-NICENE CHURCH FATHERS: SERIES 1: VOLUME IV: ST. AUGUSTIN: THE WRITINGS AGAINST THE MANICHAEANS AND AGAINST THE DONATISTS.

A SELECT LIBRARY OF THE NICENE AND POST-NICENE FATHERS OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.

I. THE ANTI-MANICHAEAN WRITINGS

On The Morals Of The Catholic Church

On The Morals Of The Manichaeans

On Two Souls, Against The Manichaeans

Acts Or Disputation Against Fortunatus The Manichaean

Against The Epistle Of Manichaeus, Called Fundamental

Reply To Faustus The Manichaean

Concerning The Nature Of Good, Against The Manichaeans

II. THE ANTI-DONATIST WRITINGS

On Baptism, Against the Donatists

Answer To The Letters of Petilian, The Donatist

The Correction Of The Donatists

I. THE ANTI-MANICHAEAN WRITINGS

On The Morals Of The Catholic Church

Chapter 1 - How the Pretensions of the Manichaeans are to Be Refuted. Two Manichaean Falsehoods

Chapter 2 - He Begins with Arguments, in Compliance with the Mistaken Method of the Manichaeans

Chapter 3 - Happiness is in the Enjoyment of Man’s Chief Good. Two Conditions of the Chief Good: 1st, Nothing is Better Than It; 2d, It Cannot Be Lost Against the Will

Chapter 4 - Man—What?

Chapter 5 - Man’s Chief Good is Not the Chief Good of the Body Only, But the Chief Good of the Soul

Chapter 6 - Virtue Gives Perfection to the Soul; The Soul Obtains Virtue by Following God; Following God is the Happy Life

Chapter 7 - The Knowledge of God to Be Obtained from the Scripture. The Plan and Principal Mysteries of the Divine Scheme of Redemption

Chapter 8 - God is the Chief Good, Whom We are to Seek After with Supreme Affection

Chapter 9 - Harmony of the Old and New Testament on the Precepts of Charity

Chapter 10 - What the Church Teaches About God. The Two Gods of the Manichaeans

Chapter 11 - God is the One Object of Love; Therefore He is Man’s Chief Good. Nothing is Better Than God. God Cannot Be Lost Against Our Will

Chapter 12 - We are United to God by Love, in Subjection to Him

Chapter 13 - We are Joined Inseparably to God by Christ and His Spirit

Chapter 14 - We Cleave to the Trinity, Our Chief Good, by Love

Chapter 15 - The Christian Definition of the Four Virtues

Chapter 16 - Harmony of the Old and New Testaments

Chapter 17 - Appeal to the Manichaeans, Calling on Them to Repent

Chapter 18 - Only in the Catholic Church is Perfect Truth Established on the Harmony of Both Testaments

Chapter 19 - Description of the Duties of Temperance, According to the Sacred Scriptures

Chapter 20 - We are Required to Despise All Sensible Things, and to Love God Alone

Chapter 22 - Fortitude Comes from the Love of God

Chapter 23 - Scripture Precepts and Examples of Fortitude

Chapter 24 - Of Justice and Prudence

Chapter 25 - Four Moral Duties Regarding the Love of God, of Which Love the Reward is Eternal Life and the Knowledge of the Truth

Chapter 26 - Love of Ourselves and of Our Neighbor

Chapter 27 - On Doing Good to the Body of Our Neighbor

Chapter 28 - On Doing Good to the Soul of Our Neighbor. Two Parts of Discipline, Restraint and Instruction. Through Good Conduct We Arrive at the Knowledge of the Truth

Chapter 29 - Of the Authority of the Scriptures

Chapter 30 - The Church Apostrophised as Teacher of All Wisdom. Doctrine of the Catholic Church

Chapter 31 - The Life of the Anachoretes and Coenobites Set Against the Continence of the Manichaeans

Chapter 32 - Praise of the Clergy

Chapter 33 - Another Kind of Men Living Together in Cities. Fasts of Three Days

Chapter 34 - The Church is Not to Be Blamed for the Conduct of Bad Christians, Worshippers of Tombs and Pictures

Chapter 35 - Marriage and Property Allowed to the Baptized by the Apostles

On The Morals Of The Manichaeans

On the Morals of the Manichaeans

Chapter 1 - The Supreme Good is that Which is Possessed of Supreme Existence

Chapter 2 - What Evil is. That Evil is that Which is Against Nature. In Allowing This, the Manichaeans Refute Themselves

Chapter 3 - If Evil is Defined as that Which is Hurtful, This Implies Another Refutation of the Manichaeans

Chapter 4 - The Difference Between What is Good in Itself and What is Good by Participation

Chapter 5 - If Evil is Defined to Be Corruption, This Completely Refutes the Manichaean Heresy

Chapter 6 - What Corruption Affects and What It is

Chapter 7 - The Goodness of God Prevents Corruption from Bringing Anything to Non-Existence. The Difference Between Creating and Forming

Chapter 8 - Evil is Not a Substance, But a Disagreement Hostile to Substance

Chapter 9 - The Manichaean Fictions About Things Good and Evil are Not Consistent with Themselves

Chapter 10 - Three Moral Symbols Devised by the Manichaeans for No Good

Chapter 11 - The Value of the Symbol of the Mouth Among the Manichaeans, Who are Found Guilty of Blaspheming God

Chapter 12 - Manichaean Subterfuge

Chapter 13 - Actions to Be Judged of from Their Motive, Not from Externals. Manichaean Abstinence to Be Tried by This Principle

Chapter 14 - Three Good Reasons for Abstaining from Certain Kinds of Food

Chapter 15 - Why the Manichaeans Prohibit the Use of Flesh

Chapter 16 - Disclosure of the Monstrous Tenets of the Manichaeans

Chapter 17 - Description of the Symbol of the Hands Among the Manichaeans

Chapter 18 - Of the Symbol of the Breast, and of the Shameful Mysteries of the Manichaeans

Chapter 19 - Crimes of the Manichaeans

Chapter 20 - Disgraceful Conduct Discovered at Rome

On Two Souls, Against The Manichaeans

Concerning Two Souls, Against the Manichaeans

Chapter 1 - By What Course of Reasoning the Error of the Manichaeans Concerning Two Souls, One of Which is Not from God, is Refuted. Every Soul, Inasmuch as It is a Certain Life, Can Have Its Existence Only from God the Source of Life

Chapter 2 - If the Light that is Perceived by Sense Has God for Its Author, as the Manichaeans Acknowledge, Much More The Soul Which is Perceived by Intellect Alone

Chapter 3 - How It is Proved that Every Body Also is from God. That the Soul Which is Called Evil by the Manichaeans is Better Than Light

Chapter 4 - Even the Soul of a Fly is More Excellent Than the Light

Chapter 5 - How Vicious Souls, However Worthy of Condemnation They May Be, Excel the Light Which is Praiseworthy in Its Kind

Chapter 6 - Whether Even Vices Themselves as Objects of Intellectual Apprehension are to Be Preferred to Light as an Object of Sense Perception, and are to Be Attributed to God as Their Author. Vice of the Mind and Certain Defects are Not Rightly to Be Counted Among Intelligible Things. Defects Themselves Even If They Should Be Counted Among Intelligible Things Should Never Be Put Before Sensible Things. If Light is Visible by God, Much More is the Soul, Even If Vicious, Which in So Far as It Lives is an Intelligible Thing. Passages of Scripture are Adduced by the Manichaeans to the Contrary

Chapter 7 - How Evil Men are of God, and Not of God

Chapter 8 - The Manichaeans 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

Chapter 9 - Augustin Deceived by Familiarity with the Manichaeans, and by the Succession of Victories Over Ignorant Christians Reported by Them. The Manichaeans are Likewise Easily Refuted from the Knowledge of Sin and the Will

Chapter 10 - Sin is Only from the Will. His Own Life and Will Best Known to Each Individual. What Will is

Chapter 11 - What Sin is

Chapter 12 - From the Definitions Given of Sin and Will, He Overthrows the Entire Heresy of the Manichaeans. Likewise from the Just Condemnation of Evil Souls It Follows that They are Evil Not by Nature But by Will. That Souls are Good By Nature, to Which the Pardon of Sins is Granted

Chapter 13 - From Deliberation on the Evil and on the Good Part It Results that Two Classes of Souls are Not to Be Held to. A Class of Souls Enticing to Shameful Deeds Having Been Conceded, It Does Not Follow that These are Evil by Nature, that the Others are Supreme Good

Chapter 14 - Again It is Shown from the Utility of Repenting that Souls are Not by Nature Evil. So Sure a Demonstration is Not Contradicted Except from the Habit of Erring

Chapter 15 - He Prays for His Friends Whom He Has Had as Associates in Error

Acts Or Disputation Against Fortunatus The Manichaean

Disputation of the First Day

Disputation of the Second Day

Against The Epistle Of Manichaeus, Called Fundamental

Chapter 1 - To Heal Heretics is Better Than to Destroy Them

Chapter 2 - Why the Manichaeans Should Be More Gently Dealt with

Chapter 3 - Augustin Once a Manichaean

Chapter 4 - Proofs of the Catholic Faith

Chapter 5 - Against the Title of the Epistle of Manichaeus

Chapter 6 - Why Manichaeus Called Himself an Apostle of Christ

Chapter 7 - In What Sense the Followers of Manichaeus Believe Him to Be the Holy Spirit

Chapter 8 - The Festival of the Birth-Day of Manichaeus

Chapter 9 - When the Holy Spirit Was Sent

Chapter 10 - The Holy Spirit Twice Given

Chapter 11 - Manichaeus Promises Truth, But Does Not Make Good His Word

Chapter 12 - The Wild Fancies of Manichaeus. The Battle Before the Constitution of the World

Chapter 13 - Two Opposite Substances. The Kingdom of Light. Manichaeus Teaches Uncertainties Instead of Certainties

Chapter 14 - Manichaeus Promises the Knowledge of Undoubted Things, and Then Demands Faith in Doubtful Things

Chapter 15 - The Doctrine of Manichaeus 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 Space

Chapter 16 - The Soul, Though Mutable, Has No Material Form. It is All Present in Every Part of the Body

Chapter 17 - The Memory Contains the Ideas of Places of the Greatest Size

Chapter 18 - The Understanding Judges of the Truth of Things, and of Its Own Action

Chapter 19 - If the Mind Has No Material Extension, Much Less Has God

Chapter 20 - Refutation of the Absurd Idea of Two Territories

Chapter 21 - This 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 Light

Chapter 22 - The Form of the Region of Light the Worse of the Two

Chapter 23 - The Anthropomorphites Not So Bad as the Manichaeans

Chapter 24 - Of the Number of Natures in the Manichaean Fiction

Chapter 25 - Omnipotence Creates Good Things Differing in Degree. In Every Description Whatsoever of the Junction of the Two Regions There is Either Impropriety or Absurdity

Chapter 26 - The Manichaeans 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 Regions

Chapter 27 - The 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 Creator

Chapter 28 - Manichaeus Places Five Natures in the Region of Darkness

Chapter 29 - The Refutation of This Absurdity

Chapter 30 - The Number of Good Things in Those Natures Which Manichaeus Places in the Region of Darkness

Chapter 31 - The Same Subject Continued

Chapter 32 - Manichaeus Got the Arrangement of His Fanciful Notions from Visible Objects

Chapter 33 - Every Nature, as Nature, is Good

Chapter 34 - Nature Cannot Be Without Some Good. The Manichaeans Dwell Upon the Evils

Chapter 35 - Evil Alone is Corruption. Corruption is Not Nature, But Contrary to Nature. Corruption Implies Previous Good

Chapter 36 - The Source of Evil or of Corruption of Good

Chapter 37 - God Alone Perfectly Good

Chapter 38 - Nature Made by God; Corruption Comes from Nothing

Chapter 39 - In What Sense Evils are from God

Chapter 40 - Corruption Tends to Non-Existence

Chapter 41 - Corruption is by God’s Permission, and Comes from Us

Chapter 42 - Exhortation to the Chief Good

Chapter 43 - Conclusion

Reply To Faustus The Manichaean

Concerning The Nature Of Good, Against The Manichaeans

Chapter 1 - God the Highest and Unchangeable Good, from Whom are All Other Good Things, Spiritual and Corporeal

Chapter 2 - How This May Suffice for Correcting the Manichaeans

Chapter 3 - Measure, Form, and Order, Generic Goods in Things Made by God

Chapter 4 - Evil is Corruption of Measure, Form, or Order

Chapter 5 - The Corrupted Nature of a More Excellent Order Sometimes Better Than an Inferior Nature Even Uncorrupted

Chapter 6 - Nature Which Cannot Be Corrupted is the Highest Good; That Which Can, is Some Good

Chapter 7 - The Corruption of Rational Spirits is on the One Hand Voluntary, on the Other Penal

Chapter 8 - From the Corruption and Destruction of Inferior Things is the Beauty of the Universe

Chapter 9 - Punishment is Constituted for the Sinning Nature that It May Be Rightly Ordered

Chapter 10 - Natures Corruptible, Because Made of Nothing

Chapter 11 - God Cannot Suffer Harm, Nor Can Any Other Nature Except by His Permission

Chapter 12 - All Good Things are from God Alone

Chapter 13 - Individual Good Things, Whether Small or Great, are from God

Chapter 14 - Small Good Things in Comparison with Greater are Called by Contrary Names

Chapter 15 - In the Body of the Ape the Good of Beauty is Present, Though in a Less Degree

Chapter 16 - Privations in Things are Fittingly Ordered by God

Chapter 17 - Nature, in as Far as It is Nature, No Evil

Chapter 18 - Hyle, Which Was Called by the Ancients the Formless Material of Things, is Not an Evil

Chapter 19 - To Have True Existence is an Exclusive Prerogative of God

Chapter 20 - Pain Only in Good Natures

Chapter 21 - From Measure Things are Said to Be Moderate-Sized

Chapter 22 - Measure in Some Sense is Suitable to God Himself

Chapter 23 - Whence a Bad Measure, a Bad Form, a Bad Order May Sometimes Be Spoken of

Chapter 24 - It is Proved by the Testimonies of Scripture that God is Unchangeable. The Son of God Begotten, Not Made

Chapter 25 - This Last Expression Misunderstood by Some

Chapter 26 - That Creatures are Made of Nothing

Chapter 27 - ”From Him” And “Of Him” Do Not Mean The Same Thing

Chapter 28 - Sin Not From God, But From The Will of Those Sinning

Chapter 29 - That God is Not Defiled by Our Sins

Chapter 30 - That Good Things, Even the Least, and Those that are Earthly, are by God

Chapter 31 - To Punish and to Forgive Sins Belong Equally to God

Chapter 32 - From God Also is the Very Power to Be Hurtful

Chapter 33 - That Evil Angels Have Been Made Evil, Not by God, But by Sinning

Chapter 34 - That Sin is Not the Striving for an Evil Nature, But the Desertion of a Better

Chapter 35 - The Tree Was Forbidden to Adam Not Because It Was Evil, But Because It Was Good for Man to Be Subject to God

Chapter 36 - No Creature of God is Evil, But to Abuse a Creature of God is Evil

Chapter 37 - God Makes Good Use of the Evil Deeds of Sinners

Chapter 38 - Eternal Fire Torturing the Wicked, Not Evil

Chapter 39 - Fire is Called Eternal, Not as God Is, But Because Without End

Chapter 40 - Neither Can God Suffer Hurt, Nor Any Other, Save by the Just Ordination of God

Chapter 41 - How Great Good Things the Manichaeans Put in the Nature of Evil, and How Great Evil Things in the Nature of Good

Chapter 42 - Manichaean Blasphemies Concerning the Nature of God

Chapter 43 - Many Evils Before His Commingling with Evil are Attributed to the Nature of God by the Manichaeans

Chapter 44 - Incredible Turpitudes in God Imagined by Manichaeus

Chapter 45 - Certain Unspeakable Turpitudes Believed, Not Without Reason, Concerning the Manichaeans Themselves

Chapter 46 - The Unspeakable Doctrine of the Fundamental Epistle

Chapter 47 - He Compels to the Perpetration of Horrible Turpitudes

Chapter 48 - Augustin Prays that the Manichaeans May Be Restored to Their Senses

II. THE ANTI-DONATIST WRITINGS

Writings In Connection With The Donatist Controversy

On Baptism, Against the Donatists

Answer To The Letters of Petilian, The Donatist

The Correction Of The Donatists

A Treatise Concerning The Correction Of The Donatists. Or Epistle CLXXXV

Fathers Of The Church, Catholic Edition

St. Augustine: The Writings Against the Manichaeans and Against the Donatists