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In Scripture they are called God's enemies who oppose His rule,
not by nature, but by vice; having no power to hurt Him, but only
themselves. For they are His enemies, not through their power to
hurt, but by their will to oppose Him. For God is unchangeable,
and wholly proof against injury.
Therefore the vice which makes those who are called His enemies resist
Him, is an evil not to God, but to themselves. And to them it is
an evil, solely because it corrupts the good of their nature. It is
not nature, therefore, but vice, which is contrary to God. For
that which is evil is contrary to the good. And who will deny that
God is the supreme good? Vice, therefore, is contrary to God, as
evil to good. Further, the nature it vitiates is a good, and
therefore to this good also it is contrary. But while it is contrary
to God only as evil to good, it is contrary to the nature it
vitiates, both as evil and as hurtful. For to God no evils are
hurtful; but only to natures mutable and corruptible, though, by the
testimony of the vices themselves, originally good. For were they not
good, vices could not hurt them. For how do they hurt them but by
depriving them of integrity, beauty, welfare, virtue, and, in
short, whatever natural good vice is wont to diminish or destroy? But
if there be no good to take away, then no injury can be done, and
conse quently there can be no vice. For it is impossible that there
should be a harmless vice. Whence we gather, that though vice cannot
injure the unchangeable good, it can injure nothing but good; because
it does not exist where it does not injure. This, then, may be thus
formulated: Vice cannot be in the highest good, and cannot be but in
some good. Things solely good, therefore, can in some circumstances
exist; things solely evil, never; for even those natures which are
vitiated by an evil will, so far indeed as they are vitiated, are
evil, but in so far as they are natures they are good. And when a
vitiated nature is punished, besides the good it has in being a
nature, it has this also, that it is not unpunished. For this is
just, and certainly everything just is a good. For no one is punished
for natural, but for voluntary vices. For even the vice which by the
force of habit and long continuance has become a second nature, had its
origin in the will. For at present we are speaking of the vices of the
nature, which has a mental capacity for that enlightenment which
discriminates between what is just and what is unjust.
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