1. The highest good, than which there is none higher, is God; and for this reason he is an unchangeable good, and therefore truly eternal and truly immortal. All other good things are only from him but not of him. For what is of him is what he himself is; but the things made by him are not what he is. And so, if he alone is unchangeable, all the things he has made, because he made them out of nothing, are changeable. For he is so omnipotent that he can make good things even out of nothing, that is, out of what does not exist at all—both great and small, both heavenly and earthly, both spiritual and corporeal.

But because he is also just, he did not make the things he made out of nothing equal to what he begot of himself. Therefore, since all good things, whether great or small, through whatever grades of being, cannot exist except from God, and since every nature, insofar as it is a nature, is good, every nature can exist only from the highest and true God—for all good things, even those that are not the highest but are near to the highest good, and again all good things, even the lowest, which are far from the highest good, cannot exist except from the highest good itself. Therefore every spirit, even a changeable one, and every body is from God; and this is the whole of created nature. For every nature is either spirit or body. The unchangeable spirit is God. A changeable spirit is a created nature, but better than a body. A body, however, is not spirit, except that the wind, because it is invisible to us and yet its considerable force is felt, is in a certain other way called spirit.

2. But there are those who, since they cannot understand that every nature—that is, every spirit and every body—is naturally good, are disturbed by the wickedness of a spirit and the mortality of a body, and on this account try to introduce another nature, of a malicious spirit and a mortal body, which God did not make. For their sake we judge that what we are saying can be brought within their understanding. For they admit that nothing good can exist except from the highest and true God, which is both true and, if they are willing to attend to it, sufficient for their correction.

3. For we Catholic Christians worship God, from whom come all good things, whether great or small; from whom comes all measure, whether great or small; from whom comes all form, whether great or small; from whom comes all order, whether great or small. For the more things are measured, formed, and ordered, the more they are good; and the less they are measured, formed, and ordered, the less they are good. These three, then—measure, form, and order—not to mention the countless things that are shown to belong to these three—these three, then, measure, form, and order, are like general goods in the things made by God, whether in spirit or in body. And so God is above every measure of the creature, above every form, above every order. He is above, not by intervals of place, but by his ineffable and singular power, from which come all measure, all form, all order. Where these three are great, there are great goods; where they are small, there are small goods; where they are absent, there is no good. And again, where these three are great, there are great natures; where they are small, there are small natures; where they are absent, there is no nature. Therefore every nature is good.

4. Accordingly, when it is asked from where evil comes, we must first ask what evil is. It is nothing other than the corruption either of natural measure, or of form, or of order. A nature is called evil, then, when it has been corrupted, for an uncorrupted nature is certainly good. But even a corrupted nature, insofar as it is a nature, is good; insofar as it is corrupted, it is evil.

5. It can happen that a certain nature, which is more excellently ordered in its natural measure and form, may, even when corrupted, still be better than another that is uncorrupted but is ordered lower in a lesser measure and natural form. So, in human estimation, according to the quality that meets the eye, corrupted gold is certainly better than uncorrupted silver, and corrupted silver is better than uncorrupted lead. So too among the more powerful and spiritual natures, a rational spirit corrupted through an evil will is better than an irrational one that is uncorrupted. And any spirit whatever, even when corrupted, is better than any body whatever, even when uncorrupted. For a nature that, when present to a body, gives it life is better than the one to which life is given. However corrupted the created spirit of life may be, it can still give life to a body; and on this account, even when corrupted, it is better than the body, however uncorrupted.

6. But if corruption were to take away all measure, all form, and all order from corruptible things, no nature would remain. And on this account every nature that cannot be corrupted is the highest good, as God is. But every nature that can be corrupted is itself also some good; for corruption could not harm it except by taking away and diminishing what is good.

7. But to the most excellent creatures, that is, to rational spirits, God granted this: that if they are unwilling, they cannot be corrupted—that is, if they keep their obedience under the Lord their God and so cling to his incorruptible beauty; but if they have been unwilling to keep their obedience, then, since they are corrupted willingly in sins, let them be corrupted unwillingly in punishments. For God is such a good that it is well with no one who deserts him. And among the things made by God, rational nature is so great a good that there is no good by which it is made happy except God. Sinners, then, are set in order amid their torments. This ordering, because it does not befit their nature, is therefore a punishment; but because it befits their fault, it is therefore justice.

8. But the rest of the things that were made out of nothing, which are certainly lower than the rational spirit, can be neither happy nor wretched. Yet because they too are good according to their measure and form, and could not exist—however lesser and least their good may be—except from the highest good, God, they are so ordered that the weaker yield to the stronger, the feebler to the more forceful, and the less powerful to the more powerful, and thus earthly things accord with heavenly ones as things made subject to those that surpass them. Now from things passing away and succeeding one another there arises a certain temporal beauty of its own kind, so that not even the very things that die, or that cease to be what they were, deform or disturb the measure and form and order of the whole creation—just as a well-composed discourse is certainly beautiful, even though in it the syllables and all the sounds pass by as though being born and dying.

9. But what kind and how great a punishment is owed to each fault belongs to divine, not human, judgment. When it is remitted to those who have turned back, there is great goodness with God; and when the debt is paid, there is no injustice with God, because a nature is better ordered so that it justly grieves in punishment than so that it rejoices unpunished in sin. Yet such a nature, even thus retaining some measure and form and order, is still in whatever extremity some good. But if these are altogether taken away and utterly consumed, then there will be no good, because no nature will remain.

10. All corruptible natures, therefore, would not be natures at all unless they were from God, nor would they be corruptible if they were of him, because they would be what he himself is. For this reason, in whatever measure, whatever form, whatever order they exist, it is because God is the one by whom they were made; but they are not unchangeable because there is nothing out of which they were made. For it is with sacrilegious boldness that nothing and God are made equal, if we wished what was made by him out of nothing to be such as that which was born of God.

11. Therefore the nature of God can in no way be harmed, nor can any nature under God be harmed unjustly; for even when some do harm unjustly by sinning, it is the unjust will that is imputed to them. But the power by which they are permitted to do harm is only from God, who knows—even when they do not know it—what those whom he permits them to harm ought to suffer.

12. If those who introduce another nature, which God did not make, were willing to attend to all these things—so plain, so certain—they would not be filled with such great blasphemies as to place such great goods in the highest evil and such great evils in God.

For it is enough, as I said above, for their correction, if they are willing to attend, that the truth compels them, even against their will, to confess that absolutely all good things are only from God. Great goods, then, are not from one source and small goods from another; rather, both great and small goods are only from the highest good, which is God.

13. Let us, then, recall as many goods as we can which it is fitting to attribute to God as their author, and, with these taken away, let us see whether any nature will remain. All life, great and small; all power, great and small; all soundness, great and small; all memory, great and small; all virtue, great and small; all understanding, great and small; all tranquility, great and small; all abundance, great and small; all sense, great and small; all light, great and small; all sweetness, great and small; all measure, great and small; all beauty, great and small; all peace, great and small; and whatever similar things may come to mind, and especially those that are found throughout all things, whether spiritual or corporeal—all measure, all form, all order, great and small—are from the Lord God. Whoever wishes to make evil use of all these goods will pay the penalty by divine judgment; but where none of these is present at all, no nature will remain.

14. But among all these, whatever is small is, in comparison with the greater, called by a contrary name—just as, because in the human form there is greater beauty, in comparison with it the beauty of an ape is called ugliness. And this deceives the imprudent, as though the one were good and the other evil; nor do they attend to the proper measure in the body of the ape, the equality of its limbs on either side, the harmony of its parts, the safeguarding of its wholeness, and the rest, which it would take long to recount.

15. But so that what we are saying may be understood, and so that satisfaction may be given even to the very slow, or so that even those who are stubborn and who resist the most evident truth may be compelled to confess what is true, let them be asked whether corruption can harm the body of an ape. If it can, so as to make it more hideous, what does it diminish but the good of beauty? Hence something will remain as long as the nature of the body subsists. Accordingly, if, when the good is consumed, the nature is consumed, then the nature is good.

So too we call the slow the contrary of the swift; but one who does not move at all cannot even be called slow. So too we call a low voice the contrary of a high one, or a harsh voice the contrary of a tuneful one; but if you take away every form of voice altogether, there is silence where there is no voice—and yet that silence, by the very fact that there is no voice, is usually set against voice as its contrary. So too the bright and the dark are called two contraries; yet even dark things have something of light, and if they lacked it utterly, then there would be darkness, the absence of light, just as silence is the absence of voice.

16. Yet these privations of things too are so ordered in the totality of nature that, to those who consider wisely, they fittingly have their own turns. For God, by not illuminating certain places and times, made darkness as fittingly as the day. For if we, by holding back the voice, fittingly insert silence into our speaking, how much more does he, as the perfect craftsman of all things, fittingly make the privations of certain things? Hence even in the hymn of the three young men, light and darkness too praise God (See Dan 3:51, 72); that is, they bring forth his praise in the hearts of those who consider rightly.

17. No nature, then, insofar as it is a nature, is evil; but for any nature there is no evil except the diminishing of its good. And if by diminishing it were consumed, then, just as there would be no good, so no nature would be left—not only such a nature as the Manichees introduce, in which so many goods are found that their excessive blindness is astonishing, but any nature that anyone might introduce.

18. For not even that matter which the ancients called hyle is to be called evil. I do not mean what Mani, in his most senseless folly, not knowing what he says, calls hyle—the shaper of bodies; for which it was rightly said to him that he introduces another god, since no one can form and create bodies except God. For they are not created except when measure and form and order subsist in them, which are good and cannot exist except from God, as I think even they themselves now confess.

Rather, by hyle I mean a certain matter wholly formless and without quality, out of which are formed the qualities that we perceive, as the ancients said. For it is from this that it is also called silva in Greek, because it is suited to those who work, not so that it may make anything itself, but so that something may be made out of it. Therefore this hyle is not to be called evil either—matter that can scarcely be conceived, not through any form by which it might be perceived, but through the complete privation of form.

For it too has the capacity for forms; for if it could not receive the form imposed on it by the craftsman, it certainly would not be called matter. Moreover, if form is some good—whence those who excel in it are called comely (formosi), just as the well-formed (speciosi) are so called from form (species)—then without doubt the capacity for form is also some good. Just as, because wisdom is a good, no one doubts that to be capable of wisdom is a good. And because every good is from God, no one ought to doubt that this matter too, if it exists at all, is only from God.

19. Magnificently and divinely, then, our God said to his servant: I am who I am; and you shall say to the sons of Israel: He who is has sent me to you (Exod 3:14). For he himself truly is, because he is unchangeable. For every change makes what was not to be. Truly, then, is he who is unchangeable. The other things that were made by him have received their being from him according to their own measure.

To him, then, who supremely is, nothing can be contrary except what is not. And on this account, just as from him is everything that is good, so from him is everything that naturally is, since everything that naturally is, is good. And so every nature is good, and every good is from God; therefore every nature is from God.

20. But pain, which some judge to be especially an evil—whether it be in the mind or in the body—cannot itself exist except in good natures. For the very fact that something resists so as to feel pain in some way refuses not to be what it was, because it was some good. But when it is forced toward something better, the pain is useful; when toward something worse, useless. In the mind, then, pain is caused by the will resisting a greater power; in the body, pain is caused by the sense resisting a more powerful body. But evils without pain are worse. For it is worse to rejoice in iniquity than to grieve over corruption; yet even such joy cannot exist except from the attainment of lower goods, while iniquity is the desertion of better ones. Likewise in the body a wound with pain is better than putrefaction without pain, which is specifically called corruption; this the dead flesh of the Lord did not see—that is, did not suffer—as was foretold in the prophecy: Nor will you let your holy one see corruption (Ps 16:10 (15:10); see Acts 2:31).

For who denies that he was wounded by the piercing of the nails and struck by the lance? (See John 19:34; 20:25) But even that which is properly called by men the corruption of the body—that is, putrefaction itself—if it still has something to consume more deeply, grows as corruption by diminishing the good. But if it has consumed it utterly, then, just as there will be no good, so no nature will remain, because now there will be nothing for corruption to corrupt. And therefore not even the putrefaction itself will exist, because there will be nowhere for it to be at all.

21. Indeed, things small and slight are now in common usage called "modest" (modica), precisely because some measure (modus) remains in them, without which they are no longer slight but altogether nothing. But those things that, because of excessive extent, are called immoderate are blamed for that very excess. Yet they too, under God, who arranged all things in measure and number and weight (Wis 11:20 (11:21)), must necessarily be held in check in some measure.

22. But God must not be said to have measure, lest he be thought to have a limit. Yet he is not for that reason without measure, he by whom measure is granted to all things so that they can exist in some measure. Nor again should God be called measured, as though he had received measure from someone. But if we should call him the highest measure, perhaps we say something—provided that in saying "the highest measure" we understand the highest good. For all measure, insofar as it is measure, is good. Hence all things measured, modest, and moderated cannot be spoken of without praise; although under another understanding we use "measure" for "limit," and we speak of no measure where there is no limit. This is sometimes said with praise, as it was said: And of his kingdom there will be no end (Luke 1:33). For it could also be said: there will be no measure, so that "measure" would be understood as said for "limit." For one who reigns in no measure certainly does not reign.

23. An evil measure, then, or an evil form, or an evil order are so called either because they are less than they ought to have been, or because they are not fitted to the things to which they ought to be fitted; so that they are called evil because they are alien and incongruous—as if someone were said to have acted in no good measure because he did less than he ought, or because he acted in a way he ought not to have acted in such a matter, or more than was fitting, or unsuitably—so that this very thing that is blamed, that it was done in an evil measure, is justly blamed for no other reason than that measure was not preserved in it. Likewise a form is called evil either in comparison with one more shapely and more beautiful, because this one is a lesser form and that one greater—not in bulk but in comeliness—or because it does not suit the thing to which it has been applied, so that it seems alien and unsuitable, as if a naked man were to walk about in the marketplace, which gives no offense if he is seen in the bath. Similarly, order too is then called evil when order itself is less preserved; hence it is not order that is evil there but rather disorder, when something is either ordered less than it ought, or not as it ought. Yet where there is some measure, some form, some order, there is some good and some nature. But where there is no measure, no form, no order, there is no good, no nature.

24. These things, which our faith holds and which reason has in some measure tracked out, must be fortified by the testimonies of the divine Scriptures, so that those who cannot grasp them by lesser understanding may believe the divine authority and on that account may deserve to understand.

But let those who understand, yet are less instructed in the ecclesiastical writings, not suppose that we are bringing these things forth from our own understanding rather than that they are in those books. And so, that God is unchangeable is written thus in the Psalms: You will change them and they will be changed; but you are the same (Ps 102:26-27 (101:27-28)). And in the Book of Wisdom, concerning Wisdom herself: Remaining in herself, she makes all things new (Wis 7:27). Hence the apostle Paul also says: To the invisible, incorruptible, only God (1 Tim 1:17). And the apostle James: Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no change nor shadow of alteration (Jas 1:17).

Likewise, that what he begot of himself is what he himself is, is briefly stated by the Son himself thus: I and the Father are one (John 10:30). And that the Son was not made, since through him all things were made, is written thus: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God; this was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was made nothing (John 1:1-3); that is, nothing was made without him.

25. For we must not listen to the ravings of men who suppose that "nothing" in this passage is to be understood as something, and who suppose that someone can be forced into this kind of folly because "nothing" is placed at the end of the sentence. Therefore, they say, it was made; and therefore, because it was made, "nothing" itself is something. For they have lost their sense in their eagerness to contradict, and do not understand that it makes no difference whether one says: without him was made nothing, or: without him nothing was made; because even if it were said in that order, without him nothing was made, they could nonetheless say that "nothing" itself is something, because it was made.

For with regard to something that really is something, what difference does it make whether one says, "without him a house was made," or, "without him was made a house"—provided that it is understood that something was made without him, which something is a house? So because it was said, without him was made nothing, since "nothing" is certainly not something when it is spoken truly and properly, whether one says without him was made nothing, or without him nothing was made, or nothing was made, it makes no difference. But who would wish to speak with men who, with regard to this very thing I have said, "it makes no difference," can say, "Therefore something makes a difference," because "nothing" itself is something?

But those who have a sound brain see the most evident point: that the same thing is understood when I have said, "it makes no difference" (nihil interest), as would be understood if I were to say, "it differs in nothing" (interest nihil). But these men, if someone says to them, "What have you done?" and he answers that he has done nothing, will, as a consequence, slander him, saying: "Therefore you have done something, because you did nothing"; for "nothing" itself, they say, is something. They have, however, the Lord himself placing this word at the end of a sentence, where he says: And in secret I have spoken nothing (John 18:20). Let them therefore read, and be silent.

26. Therefore, because God made all the things that he did not beget of himself, but made through his Word—not out of things that already existed but out of things that did not exist at all, that is, out of nothing—the Apostle says thus: Who calls the things that are not as though they were (Rom 4:17). But it is written more plainly in the Book of Maccabees: I beseech you, my son, look upon heaven and earth and all that is in them. Consider and know that the Lord God made us out of things that did not exist (2 Macc 7:28).

And that which is written in the Psalm: He himself spoke, and they were made (Ps 148:5). It is manifest that he did not beget these things of himself but made them by his word and command. And what is not of himself is certainly out of nothing. For there was nothing else out of which he might make it, as the Apostle says most plainly: For from him and through him and in him are all things (Rom 11:36).

27. But "from him" (ex ipso) does not signify the same as "of him" (de ipso). For what is of him can be said to be from him. But not everything that is from him is rightly said to be of him. For heaven and earth are from him, because he made them, but not of him, because not of his substance. Just as if some man begets a son and makes a house: the son is from him, the house is from him; but the son is of him, the house is of earth and wood. But this is because he is a man, who cannot make anything out of nothing. But God, from whom are all things, through whom are all things, in whom are all things, had no need to be aided in his omnipotence by any matter that he himself had not made.

28. But when we hear: All things are from him and through him and in him (Rom 11:36), we must certainly understand all the natures that naturally exist. For sins, which do not preserve nature but corrupt it, are not from him. And that these sins are from the will of those who sin, holy Scripture testifies in many ways, especially in that passage where the Apostle says: But do you suppose, O man, you who judge those who do such things and do them yourself, that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you despise the riches of his kindness and patience and forbearance, not knowing that the patience of God leads you to repentance? But according to your hardness of heart and your impenitent heart, you store up for yourself wrath on the day of wrath and of the revelation of the just judgment of God, who will render to each according to his works (Rom 2:3-6).

29. And yet, although all the things he has founded are in God (See Col 1:16; Rom 11:36), those who sin do not defile him, of whose wisdom it is said: She reaches through all things by reason of her purity, and nothing defiled enters into her (Wis 7:24-25). For just as we must believe God to be incorruptible and unchangeable, so, consequently, we must believe him to be incapable of being defiled.

30. But that he himself made even the least goods—that is, the earthly and mortal ones—is understood without doubt from that passage of the Apostle where, speaking of the members of our flesh, he says: For if one member is glorified, all the members rejoice together; and if one member suffers, all the members suffer together (1 Cor 12:26). He also says there: God placed the members, each one of them in the body, as he willed (1 Cor 12:18). And: God so tempered the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, so that there might be no divisions in the body, but that the members might be equally solicitous for one another (1 Cor 12:24-25). But this which the Apostle praises in the measure and form and order of the members of the flesh you find in the flesh of all animals, both the greatest and the least; since all flesh is reckoned among earthly goods and on this account among the least.

31. Likewise, that what kind and how great a punishment is owed to each fault belongs to divine, not human, judgment is written thus: O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! (Rom 11:33) Likewise, that by the goodness of God sins are forgiven to those who turn back, the very fact that Christ was sent (See John 20:21) sufficiently shows. He died for us, not in his own nature, by which he is God, but in ours, which he took from a woman; and the Apostle proclaims this goodness and love of God toward us thus: God, he says, commends his love toward us, in that, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more, now justified by his blood, shall we be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, shall we be saved by his life (Rom 5:8-10).

But that there is no injustice with God even when the due punishment is rendered to sinners, he says thus: What shall we say? Is God unjust who inflicts wrath? (Rom 3:5) And in one place he briefly noted that both goodness and severity are from him, saying: See then the goodness and the severity of God: toward those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you remain in goodness (Rom 11:22).

32. Likewise, that even the power of those who do harm is only from God, it is written thus, where Wisdom speaks: Through me kings reign, and tyrants through me hold the earth (Prov 8:15-16). The Apostle also says: For there is no power except from God (Rom 13:1). And that this is rightly done, it is written in the book of Job: Who makes a hypocrite to reign, he says, because of the perversity of the people (Job 34:30). And concerning the people of Israel God says: I gave them a king in my wrath. That the evil angels were made evil not by God but by sinning.

(Hos 13:11) For it is not unjust that, when the wicked receive the power to do harm, both the patience of the good should be tested and the iniquity of the evil should be punished. For through the power given to the devil, Job was tested so that he might appear just (See Job 1:12; 2:6), and Peter was tempted lest he presume upon himself (See Matt 26:31-35, 69-75), and Paul was buffeted lest he exalt himself (See 2 Cor 12:7), and Judas was condemned so that he hanged himself (See Matt 27:5; Acts 1:16-20).

Since, then, through the power he gave to the devil, God himself did all things justly (See Wis 12:15), yet not for these just deeds, but for the unjust will to do harm, which was the devil's own, punishment will be rendered to him in the end, when it will be said to the impious who have persevered in consenting to his wickedness: Go into the eternal fire, which my Father has prepared for the devil and his angels (Matt 25:41).

33. But that the evil angels themselves were not created evil by God, but became evil by sinning, Peter says thus in his epistle: For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but, thrusting them down into the prisons of the gloom of hell, handed them over to be kept for punishment in the judgment (2 Pet 2:4).

Here Peter shows that the punishment of the last judgment is still owed to them, of which the Lord says: Go into the eternal fire, which has been prepared for the devil and his angels (Matt 25:41)—although they have already, by way of punishment, received this hell, that is, this lower gloomy air as a kind of prison. Yet because this too is called heaven—not that heaven in which the stars are, but this lower one, in whose gloom the clouds are massed together and where the birds fly;

for the cloudy sky too is called heaven, and birds are called the birds of heaven (See Gen 2:20; Matt 6:26)—according to this the apostle Paul calls these same wicked angels (See Wis 2:24), against whom, as they envy us, we fight by living devoutly, the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavens (Eph 6:12). And lest this be understood of those higher heavens, he plainly says elsewhere: According to the prince of the power of this air, who now works in the sons of unbelief (Eph 2:2).

34. Likewise, that sin or iniquity is not the desire of evil natures but the desertion of better ones, it is found written thus in the Scriptures: Every creature of God is good (1 Tim 4:4). And on this account every tree that God planted in paradise is certainly good (See Gen 2:8-9). Therefore man did not desire an evil nature when he touched the forbidden tree; rather, by deserting what was better, he himself committed the deed that was made evil. For the Creator is certainly better than any creature he founded; and his command was not to be deserted so as to touch what was forbidden, although good; for, the better being deserted, the good of the creature was desired, which was touched against the command of the Creator. So God had not planted an evil tree in paradise, but he himself, who forbade it to be touched, was better.

35. For he had forbidden it precisely in order to show that the nature of the rational soul ought to be not in its own power but subject to God, and that it preserves the order of its salvation through obedience and corrupts it through disobedience. Hence he also called the tree that he forbade to be touched the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen 2:9); because when he had touched it against the prohibition, he would experience the punishment of sin and in that way would come to know the difference between the good of obedience and the evil of disobedience.

36. For who would be so foolish as to think that a creature of God, especially one planted in paradise, should be reproached? Since indeed not even thorns and thistles themselves (See Gen 3:17-19), which the earth brought forth for the sinner to wear himself out in labor, according to God's judicial will, are rightly reproached. For such plants too have their own measure and form and order, which whoever considers soberly will find worthy of praise. But these things are evil for that nature which, by the desert of sin, had to be thus restrained.

Therefore, as I said, sin is not the desire of an evil nature but the desertion of a better one. And so the deed itself is evil, not the nature that the sinner makes evil use of. For it is evil to make evil use of a good.

Hence the Apostle reproaches certain men condemned by divine judgment, who worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator (Rom 1:25). For he does not reproach the creature—whoever does so does injury to the Creator—but those who made evil use of a good, the better being deserted.

37. Accordingly, if all natures preserved their proper measure and form and order, there would be no evil. But if anyone wishes to make evil use of these goods, not even so does he overcome the will of God, who knows how to order even the unjust justly; so that if they, through the iniquity of their own will, make evil use of his goods, he, through the justice of his power, makes good use of their evils, rightly ordering in punishments those who have ordered themselves perversely in sins.

38. For not even the eternal fire itself, which is to torment the impious, is an evil nature, having its own measure and form and order, depraved by no iniquity. But the torment of it is evil for the damned, to whose sins it is due. For neither is this light an evil nature because it torments bleary eyes.

39. But the eternal fire is not eternal as God is, since, even though it is without end, it is nevertheless not without beginning. God, however, is even without beginning. Next, although it is applied perpetually to the punishments of sinners, it is nevertheless a changeable nature. But that is true eternity which is true immortality, that is, that highest unchangeableness which God alone has, who can in no way be changed. For it is one thing not to be changed when one could be changed, and another to be altogether unable to be changed. So a man is called good, yet not as God is, of whom it was said: No one is good but God alone (Mark 10:18). And the soul is called immortal, yet not as God is, of whom it was said: Who alone has immortality (1 Tim 6:16). And a man is called wise, yet not as God is, of whom it was said: To God alone wise (Rom 16:27). So the fire is called eternal, yet not as God is, whose immortality alone is true eternity.

40. Since these things are so according to the Catholic faith and sound doctrine, and are plain to those who understand the truth, no one can harm the nature of God, nor can the nature of God harm anyone unjustly, nor does it allow anyone to do harm with impunity. For he who does harm, says the Apostle, will receive back what he did in harm, and there is no respect of persons with God (Col 3:25).

41. If the Manichees were willing to consider these things without a pernicious zeal for defending their error, and with the fear of God, they would not blaspheme so wickedly by introducing two natures, one good, which they call God, the other evil, which God did not make—so erring, so raving, indeed so insane that they do not see that in what they call the nature of the highest evil they place such great goods, where they place life, power, soundness, memory, understanding, temperateness, virtue, abundance, sense, light, sweetness, measures, numbers, peace, measure, form, order; while in what they call the highest good they place such great evils—death, sickness, forgetfulness, foolishness, disturbance, powerlessness, neediness, stupidity, blindness, pain, iniquity, disgrace, war, immoderation, deformity, perversity.

For they say that the princes of darkness both lived in their nature, and were safe in their kingdom, and remembered, and understood. For they say that the prince of darkness so harangued that neither could he himself say such things, nor could he be heard by those to whom he spoke, without memory and understanding; and that he had a temperateness suited to his mind and body, and reigned by the virtue of power, and had abundances and fruitfulnesses of his elements, and that they perceived one another and the light near them, and had eyes with which they beheld it from afar—eyes which certainly could not see light without some light, whence they are rightly even called lights; and that they enjoyed the sweetness of their pleasure, and were bounded by measured limbs and dwellings.

But unless some kind of beauty too had been there, they would neither love their spouses, nor would their bodies consist of the congruence of parts; and where this is not present, those things cannot come about which these men rave were done there. And unless there were some peace there, they would not obey their prince. Unless there were measure there, they would do nothing else than eat, or drink, or rage, or do whatever else without any satiety—although not even those who did this would be bounded by their own shapes unless measure were there; but now they say they did such things that they cannot deny they had measures suited to themselves in all their actions.

But if form had not been there, no natural quality would have subsisted there. If no order had been there, some would not have ruled and others been subject, they would not have lived congruously in their elements, and finally they would not have had their limbs arranged in their proper places, so as to be able to do all those things that these men idly fable.

But as for the nature of God: if they do not say it was dead, what does Christ, according to their vanity, raise up? If they do not say it was sick, what does he heal? If they do not say it forgot, what does he recall to it? If they do not say it was foolish, what does he teach? If they do not say it was disturbed, what does he restore? If it was not conquered and captured, what does he set free? If it is not in need, whom does he help? If it did not lose its sense, what does he quicken? If it was not blinded, what does he illuminate?

If it is not in pain, what does he refresh? If it is not iniquitous, what does he correct by precepts? If it is not disgraced, what does he cleanse? If it is not at war, to whom does he promise peace? If it is not immoderate, on whom does he impose the measure of the law? If it is not deformed, what does he re-form? If it is not perverse, what does he amend?

For they say that all these things are bestowed by Christ, not on that thing which was made by God and depraved by sin through its own choice, but on the very nature, the very substance of God, which is what God is.

42. What can be compared to these blasphemies? Nothing at all—but only if the errors of other perverse sects are considered. But if this error is compared with itself, on the other side, of which we have not yet spoken, it is convicted of blaspheming against the nature of God still much more grievously and detestably.

For they say that certain souls also, which they hold to be of the substance of God and of altogether the same nature, who did not sin of their own accord but were overcome and oppressed by the race of darkness—which they call the nature of evil, and against which, to wage war, they descended not voluntarily but by the command of the Father—are fixed forever to a horrible globe of darkness.

Thus, according to their sacrilegious idle talk, God freed himself in a certain part from a great evil, and again condemned himself in a certain part, which he could not free from the enemy, and, moreover, triumphed over the very enemy as if conquered.

O wicked and incredible boldness, of believing such things about God, of speaking such things, of preaching such things! When they try to defend this, so as to rush, with closed eyes, into worse things, they say that the commingling of the evil nature brings these things about, so that the good nature of God suffers such great evils; for in itself, by itself, it could suffer or could suffer none of these things. As though the incorruptible nature were to be praised because it does itself no harm, and not because nothing can be harmed in it by anyone.

Next, if the nature of darkness harmed the nature of God, and the nature of God harmed the nature of darkness, then there are two evils that harmed each other; and the race of darkness was of better disposition, because even if it did harm, it did harm unwillingly: for it did not wish to do harm, but to enjoy the good of God. But God wished to extinguish it, as Mani most plainly raves in the Letter of his ruinous Foundation. For he forgot what he had said a little before: And so the most splendid realms of the same were founded upon a shining and blessed land, such that they could never be moved or shaken by anyone;

afterward he said: But the Father of the most blessed light, knowing the great calamity and devastation that would rise up from the darkness against his holy ages unless he set against it some excellent and illustrious deity, powerful in virtue, by which he might overcome and at the same time destroy the stock of darkness, so that, when it was extinguished, perpetual rest might be prepared for the inhabitants of light.

Behold, he feared the calamity and devastation hanging over his ages. Were they certainly so founded upon a shining and blessed land that they could never be moved or shaken by anyone? Behold, out of fear he wished to harm the neighboring race, which he tried to destroy and extinguish, so that perpetual rest might be prepared for the inhabitants of light. Why did he not add, "and a perpetual chain"? Or were those souls which he fixes forever to the globe of darkness not inhabitants of light, of whom he plainly says that he allowed them to stray from their former luminous nature?

where, even against his will, he was compelled to say that they sinned by free will—he who does not wish to place sin except in the necessity of a contrary nature: everywhere not knowing what he says, and as though he himself were now shut up in the globe of darkness that he invented, seeking a way out and not finding it.

But let him say what he will to the seduced and wretched, by whom he is honored much more than Christ, so that at this price he may sell them such long and such sacrilegious fables. Let him say what he will, let him shut up the race of darkness in a globe as in a prison, and fix on the outside the nature of light, to which he promised perpetual rest from the enemy once extinguished: behold, the punishment of the light is worse than that of the darkness; the punishment of the divine nature is worse than that of the hostile race.

For that race, even if it is within the darkness, it belongs to its nature to dwell in darkness; but the souls which are what God is will not be able to be received, as he says, into those peaceful realms, and will be estranged from the life and freedom of the holy light, and will be fixed to the aforesaid horrible globe; whence those same souls, he says, will also cling to the things they loved, left in the same globe of darkness, acquiring this for themselves by their own deserts. Surely there is no free choice of the will? See how, in his madness, he does not know what he says, and, by speaking things contrary to himself, wages a worse war against himself than against the god of the race of darkness itself.

Next, if the souls of light are condemned because they loved the darkness, then the race of darkness is condemned unjustly, since it loved the light. And the race of darkness loved the light from the beginning, which it wished to possess, even if violently, not to extinguish; but the nature of light, in the war, wished to extinguish the darkness; therefore, being conquered, it loved it.

Choose what you will: whether it was compelled by necessity to love the darkness, or seduced by will. If by necessity, why is it condemned? If by will, why is the nature of God caught in such great iniquity? If by necessity the nature of God was forced to love the darkness, then it was conquered, it did not conquer; if by will, why do the wretches now hesitate to attribute the will to sin to a nature that God made out of nothing, lest they attribute it to the light that he begot?

43. What if we also show that, before the commingling of evil—which they most senselessly believed, fabulously invented—there were great evils in the very nature of light, as they say? What will seem possible to be added to these blasphemies? For there was there, before the fighting, a hard and inevitable necessity of fighting: behold, already a great evil before evil was mingled with the good. Let them say whence this came, when as yet no commingling had been made. But if there was no necessity, then there was will; whence also this so great an evil, that God himself wished to harm his own nature, which could not be harmed by the enemy, by sending it to be cruelly mingled, basely purified, unjustly condemned?

Behold how great an evil of a pernicious and harmful and most monstrous will, before any evil from the contrary race was mingled. Or did he perhaps not know that this would befall his members—that they would love the darkness and become enemies of the holy light, as he himself says, that is, not only of their God, but also of the Father of whom they were? Whence, then, this so great evil of ignorance in God, before any evil from the contrary race was mingled? But if he knew this would happen, then either there was an everlasting cruelty in him, if he grieved nothing over the future contamination and condemnation of his nature, or an everlasting wretchedness, if he grieved: whence also this so great evil of your highest good before any commingling of your highest evil?

That very portion of his nature which is fixed in the eternal chain of that globe—if it did not know that this hung over it, then even thus there was in the nature of God everlasting ignorance; but if it knew, then everlasting wretchedness: whence this so great evil, before any evil from the contrary race was mingled? Or did he perhaps rejoice with great love, because through its punishment perpetual rest was prepared for the rest of the inhabitants of light?

Let whoever sees how impious it is to say this anathematize it. But if at least he did this in such a way that it did not itself become an enemy of the light, perhaps he could be praised—not as the nature of God, but as some man who, for the sake of his country, was willing to suffer some evil, an evil that could indeed be temporary, not eternal. But as it is, they say that fixing in the globe of darkness is eternal, and not of any chance thing, but of the nature of God; and it was certainly a most iniquitous and detestable and unspeakably sacrilegious joy, if the nature of God rejoiced that it would love the darkness and become an enemy of the holy light.

Whence this so monstrous and wicked evil, before any evil from the contrary race was mingled? Who could endure such perverse and impious madness, to attribute such great goods to the highest evil, and to the highest good, which is God, such great evils?

44. But now, as to their saying that that very part of the nature of God is everywhere intermingled—in the heavens, on the earth, beneath the earth, in all bodies dry and moist, in all flesh, in all the seeds of trees, plants, men, and animals—not present by the power of divinity, without any bond, undefilably, inviolably, incorruptibly to administer and govern all things, which is what we say of God, but bound, oppressed, polluted, which they say is loosed, freed, and purified, not only through the course of the sun and moon and the powers of light, but also through their Elect: how this kind of most abominable error persuades them to sacrilegious and incredible obscenities, even if it does not persuade them, is horrible to tell. For they say that the powers of light are transformed into beautiful males and set against the females of the race of darkness; and that the same powers of light are again transformed into beautiful females and set against the males of the race of darkness; so that by their beauty they may inflame the foulest lust of the princes of darkness, and in that way the vital substance—that is, the nature of God, which they say is held bound in their bodies—loosed from their members through that very concupiscence relaxed, may flee away, and, received or purified, may be set free. This the wretches read, this they say, this they hear, this they believe, this in the seventh book of their Treasure (for so they call a certain writing of Mani, where these blasphemies are written down) is set down thus:

Who could endure this? Who could believe this—I do not say that it is so, but even that it could have been said? Behold those who fear to anathematize Mani as he teaches, and do not fear to believe that God does these things and suffers these things!

45. But through their Elect they say that this same commingled part and nature of God is purified, namely by eating and drinking, because they say it is held bound in all food; and when these are taken by the Elect, as holy ones, by eating and drinking for the refreshment of the body, through their holiness it is loosed, marked, and freed. Nor do the wretches consider how not unfittingly that has been believed of them which they vainly deny, unless they anathematize those same books and cease to be Manichees. For if, as they say, in all seeds there is bound a part of God, and it is purified by the Elect's eating, who would not deservedly believe that they do what they read in their Treasure takes place between the powers of the heavens and the princes of darkness; since they say that their own flesh too is of the race of darkness, and do not hesitate to believe and affirm that that vital substance, the part of God, is held bound in it? And if it certainly must be loosed and purified by eating, as their deadly error compels them to confess, who does not see, who does not shudder, what great obscenity and how wicked a thing follows?

46. For they also say that Adam, the first man, was created by certain princes of the race of darkness, so that the light might be held by them and not flee away. For in the letter which they call the Foundation, Mani wrote thus, of how the prince of darkness, whom they bring in as the father of the first man, spoke and acted toward the rest of his fellow princes of darkness:

47. O wicked monstrosity! O execrable ruin and downfall of deceived souls! I pass over what it is to say these things of the nature of God, that it should be thus bound. Let the wretched, deceived and poisoned by a deadly error, at least attend to this: that if through the coupling of males and females a part of God is bound, which they profess to loose and purify by eating, the necessity of this so wicked error compels them to loose and purify the part of God not only from bread and vegetables and fruits, which alone they appear openly to receive, but also from that whence, through intercourse, it can—if conceived in a woman's womb—be bound together. That certain men have confessed to doing this in a public trial is reported, not only in Paphlagonia, but also in Gaul, as I heard from a certain Catholic Christian at Rome; and when they were asked by what authority of Scripture they did these things, they revealed that it was from their Treasure, which I recalled a little before. But when this is charged against them, they are accustomed to answer that some enemy of theirs—I know not who—from among their own number, that is, of their Elect, defected and made a schism, and founded a most filthy heresy of this kind. Hence it is manifest that, even if these men do not do this, whoever do it, do it out of their very books.

Let them, then, cast away the books, if they shudder at the crime which they are compelled to commit if they hold the books; or, if they do not commit it, let them try to live more purely against their own books. But what do they do when it is said to them: Either purify the light from whatever seeds you can, so as not to refuse even that which you assert you do not do; or anathematize Mani, who, when he says that in all seeds there is a part of God, and that it is bound by intercourse, but that whatever light, that is, that same part of God, comes to the food of the Elect, is purified by eating: you see what he urges upon you, and do you still hesitate to anathematize him? What do they do, I say, when this is said to them? To what evasions do they turn, when either so wicked a doctrine must be anathematized, or so wicked an obscenity committed

in comparison with which all those evils that I recalled a little before as intolerable—that they say of the nature of God that it was oppressed by necessity to wage war, that it was either secure in everlasting ignorance, or troubled with everlasting grief and fear over when the corruption of commingling and the chain of eternal condemnation would come upon it, that finally, the war once waged, it was thus made captive, oppressed, polluted, that after a false victory it is thus to be fixed forever in the horrible globe and separated from the happiness of its origin—those evils seem tolerable, though in themselves, if they are considered, they cannot be borne?

48. O great is your patience, O Lord, merciful and compassionate, long-suffering and very merciful, and true (See Ps 103:8 (102:8)); you who make your sun rise upon the good and the evil, and rain upon the just and the unjust (See Matt 5:45); you who do not will the death of the sinner, so much as that he turn back and live (See Ezek 33:11); you who, chastising in part, give place for repentance, so that, forsaking their wickedness, they may believe in you, O Lord (See Wis 12:2; Job 24:23); you who by your patience lead to repentance, although many, according to the hardness of their heart and their impenitent heart, store up for themselves wrath on the day of wrath and of the revelation of your just judgment, who render to each according to his works (See Rom 2:4-6); you who, on the day on which a man has turned from his wickedness to your mercy and truth (See Acts 3:26; Ezek 18:21-22), forget all his iniquities: grant us, give us, that through our ministry, by which you have willed this execrable and exceedingly horrible error to be refuted, just as many have already been freed, so others too may be freed, and—whether through the sacrament of your holy Baptism, or through the sacrifice of a troubled spirit and a contrite and humbled heart (See Ps 51:17 (50:19)), in the grief of repentance—may deserve to receive the forgiveness of their sins and of their blasphemies (See Matt 12:31), by which through ignorance they offended you. For so great is the power of your surpassing mercy and your truth and of the Baptism of your name, and of the keys of the kingdom of heaven in your holy Church (See Matt 16:19), that we must not despair even of those—so long as by your patience they live on this earth—who, even knowing how great an evil it is to think or say such things of you, are held in that malign profession for the sake of some habit or gain of temporal and earthly advantage, if, rebuked by your chastisements (See Ps 25:7 (24:7); 141:5 (140:5)), they flee at least to your ineffable goodness, and set the heavenly and eternal life before all the allurements of carnal life.