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Reply to Faustus the Manichaean

13.

Nor would the beings in this race of darkness have sought for food if it had not been sweet and pleasant, so that they would have died from want. For we find that all bodies have their peculiar wants, according to which food is either agreeable or offensive. If it is agreeable, it is said to be sweet or pleasant; if it is offensive, it is said to be bitter or sour, or in some way disagreeable. In human beings we find that one desires food which another dislikes, from a difference in constitution or habit or state of health. Still more, animals of quite different make can find pleasure in food which is disagreeable to us. Why else should the goats feed so eagerly on the wild olives? This food is sweet to them, as in some sicknesses honey tastes bitter to us. To a thoughtful inquirer these things suggest the beauty of the arrangement in which each finds what suits it, and the greatness of the good which extends from the lowest to the highest, and from the material to the spiritual. As for the race of darkness, if an animal sprung from any element fed on what was produced by that element, doubtless the food must have been sweet from its appropriateness. Again, if this animal had found food of another element, the want of appropriateness would have appeared in its offensiveness to the taste. Such offensiveness is called sourness, or bitterness, or disagreeableness, or something of the kind; or if its adverse nature is such as to destroy the harmony of the bodily constitution, and so take away life or reduce the strength, it is called poison, simply on account of this want of appropriateness, while it may nourish the kind of life to which it is appropriate. So, if a hawk eat the bread which is our daily food, it dies; and we die if we eat hellebore, which cattle often feed on, and which may itself in a certain form be used as a medicine. If Faustus had known or thought of this, he would not have given poison and antidote as an example of the two natures of good and evil, as if God were the antidote and Hyle the poison. For the same thing, of one and the same nature, kills or cures, as it is used appropriately or inappropriately. In the Manichaean legends, their god might be said to have been poison to the race of darkness; for he so injured their bodies, that from being strong, they became utterly feeble. But then again, as the light was itself taken, and subjected to loss and injury, it may be said to have been poison to itself.

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Contra Faustum Manichaeum libri triginta tres

13.

Dulces autem ac suaves si non haberent cibos suos, numquam eos appeterent, numquam eis corpora vegetarent. Ita enim se res habet, ut pro cuiusque corporis congruentia vel delectet esca vel offendat. Si delectat, dulcis aut suavis dicitur, si autem offendit, amara sive aspera sive aliqua insuavitate respuenda. p. 584,8 Nonne ipsi nos homines ita sumus, ut plerumque alter appetat alimentum, quod alter exhorreat, sive pro temperatione naturae sive pro usu consuetudinis sive pro affectione valetudinis? Quanto magis longe diversi generis corpora bestiarum possunt illud habere iucundum, quod nobis amarum est! An aliter caprae ad rodendum suspenderentur oleastrum? Nam sicut nonnulli morbo hominum mel amarum est, ita illi naturae pecoris suavis oleaster. Sic insinuatur prudentibus rerum examinatoribus ordo quid valeat, cum scilicet sua cuique adhibentur atque redduntur, quantumque hoc bonum sit ab imis usque ad summa, a corporalibus usque ad spiritalia. Itaque in gente tenebrarum cum animal alicuius elementi eo vescebatur cibo, qui nascebatur in eius elemento, procul dubio suavitatem ipsa congruentia faciebat; si autem incidisset in alterius elementi cibum, ipsa incongruentia faceret offensionem sensui gustantis. p. 584,23 Quae offensio vel amaritudo vel asperitas vel insuavitas vel quodlibet aliud, aut si ita nimium est, ut aliena vi compagem corporis concordiamque dirumpat ac sic interimat aut vires auferat, etiam venenum vocatur, nonnisi per incongruentiam, quod alteri generi per congruentiam cibus est. Sicut panem, qui cottidiana esca nostra est, si accipiter sumat, exstinguitur, et nos, si helleborum, quo pecora pleraque vescuntur; cuius tamen herbae adhibendae quidam modus etiam medicamentum est. Quod si sciret aut consideraret Faustus, non utique venenum et antidotum pro exemplo duarum naturarum mali et boni poneret, tamquam deus sit antidotum et hyle venenum, cum eadem res eademque natura nunc congruenter, nunc incongruenter sumpta sive adhibita vel prosit vel noceat. p. 585,9 Itaque secundum eorum fabulam potest dici deus eorum fuisse venenum genti tenebrarum, cuius corpora tam firma ita corrupit, ut infirmissima redderet; sed quia et lux ipsa capta, oppressa, corrupta est, invicem sibi venenum fuerunt.