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Contra Faustum Manichaeum libri triginta tres

15.

Illud etiam quis non videat, quod aut praescientia ibi non erat – ubi vestrum est iam cogitare, utrum nullum vitium dei sit carere praescientia et quid immineat omnino nescire – aut, si erat ibi praescientia, securitas ibi esse non poterat, sed aeternus timor; et hoc quantum malum sit, certe agnoscitis. p. 587,12 An non timebat, ne iam iamque adveniret tempus, quo membra eius ita vastarentur et inquinarentur in illo proelio, ut vix cum tanto labore, nec tamen tota liberarentur atque mundarentur? Sed si ad ipsum hoc non pertinebat, quod quidem cernitis quam dure dicatur, certe ipsa membra eius, quae hic tanta mala passura erant, nempe metuebant. An hoc futurum ipsa nesciebant? Ergo qualicumque parti substantiae dei vestri defuit utique praescientia. Numerate mala in summo vestro bono! An ideo non timebant, quia suam consecuturam liberationem ac triumphum pariter preaevidebant? Certe vel pro sociis timebant, quos aeternis in illo globo vinculis a suo regno noverant alienandos.

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Reply to Faustus the Manichaean

15.

It is plain, moreover, that either he must have been destitute of prescience,--a great defect, surely, in the Deity, not to know what is coming; or if he had prescience, he can never have felt secure, but must have been in constant terror, which you must allow to be a serious evil. There must have been the fear at every moment, that the time might be come for that conflict in which his members suffered such loss and contamination, that to liberate and purify them costs infinite labor, and, after all, can be done only partially. If it is going too far to attribute this state of alarm to the Deity himself, his members at least must have dreaded the prospect of suffering all these evils. Then, again, if they were ignorant of what was to happen, the substance of your god must have been so far wanting in prescience. How many evils do you reckon in your chief good? Perhaps you will say that they had no fear, because they foresaw, along with the suffering, their liberation and triumph. But still they must have feared for their companions, if they knew that they were to be cut off from their kingdom, and bound for ever in the mass of darkness.