|
3. It was sufficient for me, O Lord, to oppose to those deceived
deceivers and dumb praters (dumb, since Thy word sounded not forth
from them) that which a long while ago, while we were at Carthage,
Nebridius used to propound, at which all we who heard it were
disturbed: "What could that reputed nation of darkness, which the
Manichaeans are in the habit of setting up as a mass opposed to Thee,
have done unto Thee hadst Thou objected to fight with it? For had it
been answered, 'It would have done Thee some injury,' then
shouldest Thou be subject to violence and corruption; but if the reply
were: 'It could do Thee no injury,' then was no cause assigned for
Thy fighting with it; and so fighting as that a certain portion and
member of Thee, or offspring of Thy very substance, should be
blended with adverse powers and natures not of Thy creation, and be by
them corrupted and deteriorated to such an extent as to be turned from
happiness into misery, and need help whereby it might be delivered and
purged; and that this offspring of Thy substance was the soul, to
which, being enslaved, contaminated, and corrupted, Thy word,
free, pure, and entire, might bring succour; but yet also the word
itself being corruptible, because it was from one and the same
substance. So that should they affirm Thee, whatsoever Thou art,
that is, Thy substance whereby Thou art, to be incorruptible, then
were all these assertions false and execrable; but if corruptible,
then that were false, and at the first utterance to be abhorred."
This argument, then, was enough against those who wholly merited to
be vomited forth from the surfeited stomach, since they had no means of
escape without horrible sacrilege, both of heart and tongue, thinking
and speaking such things of Thee.
|
|