Section CLXVI

But I do not know whether Titus, bishop of Bostra in Arabia, does not inculcate these very things and others similar to them much more forcefully—he whom Sozomen¹ proclaims ἐπισημότατον, most celebrated, and whom Jerome² numbers among those Fathers “who so fill their books with the doctrines and judgments of the philosophers that you would not know what you ought first to admire in them, secular erudition or knowledge of the Scriptures.”

For at the outset he establishes³: “That it is pious indeed—”

“—among men to confess with all one’s powers that God is not the author of injuries and evil deeds, πρῶτος πρεσβεύειν ἐσπούδακε τῆς καθολικῆς ἐκκλησίας ὁ λόγος, the first doctrine of the Catholic Church was zealous to profess.”

That not even Manichaeus himself was alien to this profession he then openly declares when he writes concerning him⁴:

Κακίας ἀναίτιον ἀποδεῖξαι τὸν Θεὸν βουληθείς, κακίαν πραΐων ἀντέστησεν αὐτῷ· ἀγέννητον, ὥς φησιν, ἀγεννήτῳ, ζῶσαν ζῶντι, ἀεὶ μὲν ἐπανισταμένην καὶ μαχομένην, καὶ οὔποτε μὴ, οὐχὶ πράγματα παρέχουσαν αὐτῷ· ἀναιρεθῆναι δὲ πρὸς αὐτοῦ παντελῶς μὴ δυναμένην, ὡς ἀΐδιόν τε καὶ συμπεπληρωμένην τὴν οὐσίαν καὶ ἀγέννητον· καὶ καπνόν, ὥς φασι, φεύγων, ἐμπέπτωκεν εἰς τὸ πῦρ. Since it was settled for him to demonstrate that God was not the author of evil, he opposed evil to him: unbegotten to the unbegotten, living to the living, always resisting and fighting and never not causing him trouble and difficulties; and incapable of being wholly extinguished and destroyed by him, as being an eternal, complete, and unbegotten substance. Thus, fleeing smoke, as the proverb has it, he fell into the fire.

Having established this axiom and vindicated the goodness of God, he adds concerning the benefits conferred upon the human race⁵:

Τὸν ἄνθρωπον τετίμηκεν ὁ Θεός, κατ’ εἰκόνα ἑαυτοῦ δημιουργήσας αὐτόν· ἵν’ ὥσπερ αὐτὸς ἐλευθερότητι φύσεως ζηλωτὴς ὑπάρχῃ Θεοῦ, οὐκ ἀδυναμίᾳ φύσεως τοῦ ἁμαρτάνειν ἀπεχόμενος, ἐλευθερότητι δὲ τὴν ἀρετὴν τιμῶν. God honored man, creating him according to his own image, so that, just as he himself is good by liberty of nature⁶, so man might be an imitator of God by liberty of purpose, abstaining from sin not because the power is lacking to nature itself, but honoring virtue by liberty of purpose.

And a little below⁷: Ὅτι μὲν οὖν ἀναγκαίως τὸ ἐξεῖναι ἁμαρ—

—τάνειν εἴληφεν ἄνθρωπος, οὕτω γενόμενος, ὡς οὐκ ἂν ἑτέρως τὸ κατορθοῦν δύνασθαι κτησάμενος· ὅπερ Θεὸς ἀγαθός τε καὶ ἄφθονος ὑπάρχων ἐντέθεικε τῇ φύσει· καὶ ὅτι τέως διά γε τὰ παρὰ ἀνθρώποις ἀδικήματα· οὐδεμία ἀνάγκη ὕλην ἄναρχον καὶ κακίαν δοκεῖν ἀντιπαρατάττειν Θεῷ … διὰ τῶν προειρημένων ἀποδέδεικται. “Therefore, that man necessarily received the ability to sin, having been so made that he could not otherwise acquire the power to live virtuously—a thing which God, since he is good and not envious, willed to be implanted in nature—and that on account of those things which are unjustly done among men there is in no way any necessity of supposing matter without a beginning and wickedness to resist God … has been demonstrated and concluded above.”

From these things he concludes⁸:

Ῥητέον⁹ τοίνυν, ὅτι¹⁰ παρῆκται πρὸς τοῦ δημιουργήσαντος ἄνθρωπος εἰς τὸν βίον, ἐμπορευόμενος ἕτερον οὐδέν, ἢ μόνην εὐσέβειάν τε καὶ ἀρετήν· ταῦτα γὰρ κτησάμενος μὲν, καλῶς ἂν¹¹ διανήξηται τόνδε τὸν βίον· ἀμελήσας δὲ τούτων, χαλεπῶς ἂν διαβαπτισθείη πλανώμενος. It must therefore be said that man was produced by his author into this life in order to carry on no other business than to acquire piety and virtue alone. For if he had acquired these things, he would rightly swim across this life; but, neglecting them, he would be dangerously submerged while wandering.

For¹² “he alone to whom there accrues a firm felicity of soul according to virtue, whether he is rich or poor, possesses that for the sake of which man was made by God: ὡς δέον παρὰ μὲν Θεοῦ τὸ εἶναι λαβεῖν, παρ’ ἑαυτοῦ δὲ τὸ ἀγαθὸν προσγενέσθαι λαβεῖν, συνεργοῦντος Θεοῦ· βούλεται γὰρ Θεὸς καὶ παρ’ αὐτοῦ τὸν ἄνθρωπον ἔχειν ἄν, τὸ λογικὸν ὄντα, πρὸς ἔνδοξον παῤῥησίαν, so that now it is necessary to receive from God that he may exist, but from himself to receive that he may be good, with God cooperating. For God wills that man, since he is a participant in reason, should have something from himself unto glorious confidence.”