To Justin the Manichaean

I. To speak to one who has long since, through much reading and the unwearied vigils of unceasing labor, grasped what he ought to confess in the faith of the law, is the act of one who errs, Justinus, yet of one who loves. Hence I preferred to make plain how highly I esteem you, and I gladly accepted that I had labored in this matter with you, so that you might understand beforehand that you still have need to seek what Manichaeus, and as that Andreas sets forth in his Acts, and revealed in the Treasury. Being summoned by this, I inquire attentively whether you truly say these things or not: that things diverse and contrary come to us from one principle—having this to discuss as my purpose, I did not refuse to answer the same. But I wish, brother, if you will, that this labor be worth the effort. Read frequently the little book sent to you, and by turning over what is said, penetrate or search out its meaning in the secret of deeper inquiry.

For the inner sight surpasses words, and the hidden depth of even the immense itself both raises and blinds the suspicions of the mind, by which, when it is sought with piety and reverence, it is understood to delight rather than to terrify. For each man, destined to live, when the intention of a holy mind inquires that there is one principle, and this our flesh, which together with the hidden herbs and plants that you love, venerates one and the same author of itself and of the whole world, acting as is proper to it—I myself, marveling and standing astonished at your stubborn resolve, that you hate the flesh and venerate plants, do not yet know whether you confess these things to be from one or from different sources. For if you say from one, you see into what you fall; if from another, it is rash to praise the maker of another's things on account of those things, while one accuses and rebukes one's own maker on account of what is in oneself.

But lest by saying these things I rebuke rather than answer, if they move you, they will be said afterward: now receive what you have asked.

II. To think it valid and permissible for us to inquire into those things which are beyond us and the world, when we are almost unknown even to ourselves, is mad and insane; and it is a danger of true peril to be uncertain whence and how, or by whom you exist, when you dare not doubt that you exist and are held together with the flesh, and you see plainly that you live in the world and are freed by the aid of your Creator, when you are nonetheless obedient to him; and when you have confessed that there is one Savior, yet you fear to confess that you are made by one maker, dividing indeed one maker of the flesh and another creator of the soul. We say therefore, imagining these things, that both hold dominion over the world and each guards his own handiwork in man, each pressing equally lest what he has accomplished from his own realms should perish.

The glorious sun rejects this, and chaste virginity and the glorious choir of the stars, and the whole fabric of the entire world refutes and rejects it—that their origin comes to them from two different and two unbegotten sources. For the sense is violated by profane mists, if so great a splendor of immense brightness subsists in more ancient darkness and as a part thereof. For it follows that the sun is from those very things, if the whole world received its being from two principles. Plainly, because it is not ours to detain understanding in these matters and to remain in this wandering of sense, we flee and shudder to confess that he, over whom we ourselves are even victors, exists from himself.

Finally, I desire you to grasp what it means to say that the flesh exists apart from him from whom all things took their beginning, and that it dwells in the higher realms, where is that virginity spoken of, that glory, that proclaimed light—which, because it descended thence into Christ, cannot be thought not to be there. For it is from thence that Christ has flesh, since your reverence does not permit you to say it is from Mary. Shall we then say that what received God is from another? What was to be done by the one about to receive, if he who is the Creator did not fashion it? And if he fashioned it, is it not worthy to merit this?

III. Here, as I see, the inventor and creator is praised, if eternity deigned to dwell in it. But if that flesh which is in Christ is different, yet not more ancient, then God the maker is found to be posterior. If more ancient, why is it not itself in the world, and why is it in heaven, where there is no one of flesh? And if that which is in Christ is not itself in the world, whence does a creature come to be in alien realms and foreign shores? Or whence is it joined here to souls? Or why is it able so frequently to take souls captive for itself, that it appears almost more powerful in alien realms? And why does the author of the inner man labor to free this inner man from the flesh? Or why, from the place whence he was to be freed, did he permit him to be enclosed? Surely the whole of what the world is, is the kingdom of truth and light, and he who is its maker holds dominion.

If in this entire realm, which is his own, there is one thing belonging to another which is called flesh, and this alone has such power and strength that the soul, driven by it, is tossed about and, wavering, grows faint and weary—we may perceive how great in his own realms he who is the maker of the flesh can be. For if we take this realm, which is the whole world, to belong to him from whom we believe the flesh to be his minister, we shall say that the sun, and that choir, and the singular virgin, shone forth from the source of darkness. This indeed I gladly embrace, and with uplifted joy I rejoice to profess one Creator for all these things, and to venerate him whom it is right to hold as light and truth and the whole, known in the secret of pious inquiry as the cause of penetrating care.

Thus the remembrance of the exulting soul lifts up the senses, and the better origin consoles all the cares of the wavering spirit with the festive causes of reason. Whatever ages are spoken of, or realms are numbered, or worlds are held to exist, whatever precedes all that is most ancient—this is one, exists as singular, and is held to be immense by this, that it is the whole, yet is called one.

IV. In one way, Justinus, is what he himself is; in another way are the things that are from him. What he himself is, is one, and whatever he himself is, is the whole: but what is from him is innumerable. And these are the things by which all that is enclosed and encompassed by the one whole is filled. But because the things that are from him are various, it is fitting that he who is from himself and is one should hold dominion over various things. And that he appears omnipotent, he himself had to be found as the origin even of contraries. And this plainly already belongs to that forest which has distinguished every tree by the matter of its species, differing and unlike in the kind of its trees: and yet the whole forest and the confusion that is distinct within it, in the matter of innumerable millions upon millions, is seen and appears to be wood, yet is not thereby denoted as one nature.

These things—that they are likenesses of what has been decreed, and that it befell them to come into being from another—you too, reflecting with me, recall. But that immense reality, that which is from itself, is without likeness, bereft of comparison, lacking example—no one will doubt: by which our understanding is compelled to confess, and the entry of our intention is pressed and constrained to penetrate to those lofty hidden things moving in unceasing bounds, to the more secret of secrets, to approach, touch, or attempt the venerable reality of things—by nature alone, yet as much as nature avails, as much as speech suffices to utter. And therefore I now inquire what will be like the immense.

V. Tell me, if you can, you who, bestowing faith upon your companions, believe you have attained truth through the shadows of images. But as I see, it is not you, Justinus, who fail in regard to things, but things that fail in regard to you. And if, as you are accustomed to say and now say, there is another realm—is this other realm, whatever it may be, also immense? But I do not see how it can be called immense, if it is not denied to another as well: for where it begins to belong to another, there the boundary of the other ends, and neither is infinite. But if it is such that it is finite, I reject or misuse whatever comes from either of them. Yet because we are from another, and the world is not from itself, and however great it may be, it is nonetheless finite—if not to others, at least to its maker—it is therefore most sacred to confess its maker to be infinite.

Therefore all things that are in the world, each of which is what the world itself is, I perceive and know to be from that principle which is one and alone from itself, in itself, for itself, and which is immense and whole, stretching forth infinitely, and proceeds in such a way that there is no place where it is not and fails, where another might be or exist: or there cannot be held to be another being that is nonetheless external or divided, and becomes a rival or stands as an enemy, which, placed and dwelling in its own realm, might receive defeat and afterward be taken captive, and being drawn within the realms of the victor, might cease to be there once translated, ceasing to be where it had been before the war. Surely if it is still in that place, it has not yet been overcome: and if it is, perhaps it may recover. How many times will this happen? Through how many ages will this war last? When will it cease?

If it has been extinguished or already conquered, it is not in its own realm: and is it anywhere? Nay rather, let it now cease to be and stop. Thus also all things that were its own have perished together with their source and have been taken away. If they have perished, they were never anything of its own: and the flesh that exists is not its own, but rather belongs to the one who conquered.

VI. You perhaps prefer that this victor carried off as a trophy to his own realms some of those things which the vanquished had possessed. Let it be granted that these things exist; yet they are not hostile, those spoils which the victor carried away. But you still today confess the flesh to be hostile to God. O the sloth of the triumphant! O the idleness of the one who has been beaten! O the torpor of the one who has been harmed! O the sluggish strength of the one who has been provoked! O the authority of the lord lying at rest! You are wearied by your captives in your own realm; and you who were able to conquer by fighting, grow accustomed to being overcome by sparing. Let what is primary be held in such an order, and let this suspicion gather its errors far back, long before the world exists.

Surely you say that each of the two, whom you recount as having come together in war, is from itself: equal in virtue are those for whom origin and a single eternity are found to be from themselves. Shall I dare here to say that one is better, and to suspect that there is something greater in the other—do I not fall or run into guilt, and am I not held liable and condemned before the eternal one itself, which is always one? Shall I not fear to profess that what is eternal is overcome, and that what is one from itself is not one: and shall I not assert that what we confess to be omnipotent has at some time been subject to another? A blind matter and more obscure than all darkness is the sacrilegious error laid open. It is madness to say in speech that what is from itself has been conquered, so that fear also torments the victor who is from himself on account of the captive—that what is unbegotten should be subject.

The omnipotent victor therefore increased himself from the conquered realms, and what you inquire to be unbegotten, you bring forward as being abolished or taken away. Nay, and he who is from himself will cease to be in the future, since, succumbing to the power of the victor, he will either perish or be led away.

VII. Next, whom shall we say was not content with his own, so that the war which you recount might arise? The light or the darkness? If the light, it had need of the darkness and was delighted by what is foul. Where is what is held to be omnipotent, what is understood to be the whole, if there was in it something that was outside it, and was held in other realms, and was truth for the one who indeed existed—something which the dominion of the omnipotent did not yet possess? But now let us suppose that the darkness stirred up war, and let us establish that the shadow, arising from the unbegotten brightness, conspired with its own solid masses. If that light is fire, the darkness would have come together for a conflagration, so that their solid mass, which was their own, coming to the conflict from outside, might be burned. But if they are empty, and therefore have no use, where, I ask, is there any meeting of solid things with emptiness?

To think these things, and to have come by a wandering sense to such inner matters, is plainly bold and mad. To imagine a conflict of empty with solid, of deep with high, of finite with infinite, of darkness with light, of false with true, and of the smallest with the whole? I do not permit, brother, these discordant things to be said to have arisen in equal fashion, and to be spoken of with that eternity and so placed that being belongs to both of them: but I attribute being to that one alone who is from himself, and I would wish to assert that it does not belong to the other. For if you reject these things, teach what the substance of emptiness is, what is exterior to the infinite, what is more ancient than the eternal, what is equal to the whole: so that I may grasp that it exists and is held in reality, and I will not deny that there are two origins of things.

If some Indian utters these things, or some Persian recounts them, let him prescribe to his own people, let him grow old in his own clime. For it is otherwise there to think divine things, for those for whom it is otherwise to use the law. Although they are men by nature, yet as they are separated by language, let them also be distinct by reason, nor let it be otherwise held concerning those whose body is also nourished otherwise, whose dress is otherwise fitted, whose appearance is otherwise refined by the custom of wearing it, otherwise retained, whose form also many are born with differently, and—to say what I mean—let the nations be counted among the unnumbered. Have you now seen, therefore, how many a Manes, a Zorades, or a Buddas have deceived by teaching these things? Let us be called back to inquiry.

VIII. What we are, Justinus, we are from him who is omnipotent, and who is seen to have been established as existing from himself; for whom, in that he should not be, there is no being. So much so that there does not even befall him a being who might stir up strife. But the fact that two kinds are held to exist, and these contrary or diverse—of good and evil, of solid and void, of high and deep, of true and false, of light and darkness, of eternal and temporal, of life and death, and all contraries—the order of things does not teach and reveal that these come from two principles. For if to behold two eternal things, and to perceive them as hostile, is to hold this opinion, then to have maintained this is to have placed it under the power of chance.

To have set up those very principles, and to have delivered them over to the anxious dread of trembling fear, while grim care vexed the kingdoms that were to fight—this may perhaps have been permitted to the Parthians, who have told fables about the outcomes of those at war. What conditions and agreements were reached, what end compressed the war, what lord a more fortunate chance established from the two. But because whichever of the two is treated, peril, as I see, befalls the unbegotten and the victor: therefore what is from itself is overcome as a brother, and what is without beginning will be ended and will not be, or has already been ended.

I have escaped, I breathe again: there is no other who may be called my maker, or if he is still perishing and remains, he dwells in his own kingdoms, and he himself will not be my maker in this world: and he is my founder who is also the craftsman of the world—by whom chaste virginity, the glorious choir of the stars, the radiant sun in the sky were established, or, as you are wont to say, placed in the ships above. And so let us exult with rejoicing; now, flesh not yet to perish, give thanks. For you are saved by your Christ the Saviour, whether when you are in Adam and Mary, or when in the higher vessels you merited to be taken up and to have eternal being. No longer desolate with the hope of a promise, thrust down to the depths, do you flow away growing old: now restored by the price of the cross, you shall be clothed with the glory of immortality.

IX. And this is worthy of her who, entering in, has taken hold of all that eternity is and its immensity. For here it now delights me to note the Babylonian magi and the Ctesiphontic chanters of their secrets by means of their mysteries: whose power it is by incantation now to raise up spirits, now to summon them. But it is better, and plainly divine, that our Saviour raised up flesh buried in tombs. For no one doubts that what could be buried was dead: and if death clung to the flesh that came from above when it was wounded, in Christ our flesh rose again. Yet what reason was there to take on flesh, if that very flesh was not to be raised? But if that flesh is other, then certainly that which receives death is mortal. This is immense and inestimable—that he dwelt in the members of a man. Unless he were from eternity, he would not be omnipotent: in this same eternity recognize that what are called contraries exist.

To the same one it was possible to die, in whom an unbegotten father and age and eternity are found: and that he may be truly known as omnipotent, it is not denied that he was born of a virgin. What now that which is omnipotent is—eternal, infinite, and whole; what that which is immense and more exalted than every summit and height, from whom all that exists in things remains and comes—I perceive, admonished by the saying of the Saviour of all, who, teaching that he is the Son, deigned to indicate that the Father is his own? He who, revealing God, even in wonder that Jesus is all things, revealed him as much as the measure of the world deserved. On account of which, God is one and the sole principle, and God alone is truth: and that very truth is light, and light always eternal: and everything that is true is solid, and always is, and remains clear and abiding.

But what is true of itself is never overcome; what is solid has nothing void; what is light admits no darkness, and knows it not, and if it does admit it and they come into it, they cease to be for themselves. And indeed they are not for others even more, those things which have ceased to be for themselves. But if they are still in their own state, they are outside this world, and conflict is still waged with them, and it is uncertain whether they will be overcome, or whether they will truly perish at some time. But if this is still in doubt, then also the world, or the flesh, did not receive its being in it as from another: but it came to it from him from whom also the radiant sun was established as minister to the world.

For if you imagine that darkness is what is called evil, you will grasp and understand: not indeed accepting that being is given to darkness in the way that being is held to belong to light and to brightness; but in the way that it is brought about or appears from the action of another, who truly is. For there is in things both in the highest realms and in the air, and from these very things of ours, that which has found its being from the action of another: as, from the ray of the sun, heat; from the breath of the wind, cold, which binds rivers, which splits the earth with heat. The earth therefore is opened by the heat of the sun, and all flowing waters are bound by frost.

X. These things indeed are to be observed in this way—that one thing is brought about by the action of another—so that in those things which exist one may see that what is not present in them by quality is found to arise from the action of another. But it is otherwise with what comes to pass from the thing of the eternal, which is, which is the whole, as something of another giving itself to occur. For darkness is not subsisting, not solid, not penetrating: but a kind of void which perishes by light, and has no being for itself when that light shines. For it befalls them not to be by the action of light, because they themselves are not substances; they receive perishing by the substance of light. If therefore it belongs to darkness to perish by light, it also comes to them from the same source to appear, in the way that depth comes from height, and nothing from the whole.

For although the whole is eternal, yet there is also nothing, which is that no substance exists anywhere. For there is height, but depth is its own: for if there were no height, depth could not appear. If you did not know the solid, the void would not be discerned. There are therefore things which have substance, and there are also things which exist using not their own substance: because those things which have substance exist, from these it comes to those which have no substance to appear from them, as hoarfrost, as ice: which appear, but because they do not use their own substance, being comes to them from the action of cold; they melt and dissolve and perish. And yet ice is from water, but is congealed by the cold of the air. I therefore see two things belonging to water: liquid and ice. Therefore what it is by substance is liquid: but what comes to it by action becomes in that very thing ice when it freezes.

But because ice itself has no substance, it perishes and is taken away, and yet the liquid of water, remaining, persists as substance.

XI. And these indeed are worldly things: which are either from the creator or from nature. But those higher things, last and first without beginning, which lack likeness, which fall short of comparison, which are not formed by the example of images, to which nothing is equal, nothing prior—beyond which nothing can be estimated—which are comprehended by this alone, that they are known as incomprehensible: these do not have action by that cause or form, nor do those things which have been spoken of, which this composed world possesses.

But as it is their power to prevail—those things which are unmade, which are unbegotten, which are infinite, which are the whole—so perceive or attend to the being of these: that there is one and only one which is omnipotent, which is held to possess the whole of all things, which is seen to be infinite; this is and subsists, and standing forth in its own invisible solidity it rules and reigns, and using the wondrous substance of its own reason in that divine act of its own, by which it is either moved or unmoved. Yet that very thing which indeed is falsely provides origin as though it were the whole: for to nothing, since the omnipotent is the whole, it comes through him that nothing also appears. For the omnipotent will not be such as to be the whole, if besides himself there shall be any other thing as nothing. Therefore what is called nothing exists, but has no substance: and what is called the whole also exists, and has substance.

But to the one, being belongs; to the other, non-being belongs. God therefore is truth, who is the whole, and subsists as infinite. Because nothing can exist outside the whole, rightly that, Justinus, which is understood as without place, is held to be outside limits, and is called false: if indeed any reasoning can admit that you understand a limit anywhere for him whom you perceive and seek to be the whole. For if the whole is occupied by the eternal, nothing has no place to be: and if the omnipotent is all things, nothing will be understood to exist only in this way—that what is outside the whole is not held to be anything. Finally, if you measure the omnipotent in such a way that there is also for you another who is not omnipotent, a greater place will be said to belong to God, and one vaster than both: if the diverse principles, unbegotten, use their own separate kingdoms and stand as rivals.

XII. To understand or maintain that something is greater than the eternal omnipotent is a barbarous sense of reckless confusion: and to believe that what wages war is co-eternal, and to suppose that one of the eternal things is overcome, belongs to one who would say that the very light itself will not exist in any age to come; yet if you hear this very thing, you will already understand that the sun will not exist. And since it belongs to it to have begun to be, if even for that which exists from itself there is peril of perishing, then the unbegotten wages war, and what is overcome by the unbegotten is itself unbegotten. Do you dare to estimate which of the unbegotten things began first? And perhaps you dissemble concerning order alone, and fable that they began together equally? Can you judge greater and lesser among eternal unbegotten things? If you place darkness first, you will give all principle to them, and it will belong to them to be the greater.

If you confess light to be more ancient, you confess all things to be from it. If you perceive both as equally co-eternal, either neither will be overcome, or there will remain for one what the other has received. And where in this will the omnipotent or the eternal be? Will he not be the victor in one of them, and in equal existence will a dissimilar cause arise, and will chance govern or receive the outcome of the war of the unbegotten? Let the sense of the soul shrink from perceiving this error, and let human hope cast away the confession of so senseless an understanding. One unbegotten stands forth; from one Lord all things have come. But the fact that diverse things are found to be the cause of the same omnipotent is discovered by all creatures, both before beginnings and ends.

XIII. Thus, therefore, from the true which exists there proceeds also a false being, just as shadows from solid things. For if there be no solid thing, neither shall there be a shadow. And this is the true mystery of the true. For from those things which are true, those things also which are not appear, so that it may be of itself from itself, and may pour forth from itself for others that they may be—not by its own works, not by labor, not by matter, not by nature, nor by substance. For if to the omnipotent being is everything, that which is outside is his. But if anything comes about without him, he is not omnipotent, and by chance of act the principles grow by accessions—diminished, surely, when additions have made them so. What matter, finally, what nature has a shadow, which does not appear without another, nor is held in darkness?

But because this is not its own substance, nor is it from itself, it vanishes and perishes; and yet the solid thing, from which the shadow sometimes comes, persists, standing firm in its own strength. Marvel, O Babylon of Mani, at these mysteries, and at these riches of the omnipotent: confess that nothing exists which does not belong to him whom you venerate as eternal, whom you acknowledge as Lord, before whom nothing is prior. And how is it fitting that anything should not be his or from him, before whom you intend nothing else to exist? But because you are troubled, anxious and distressed with the care of wandering error—nay, confused by the toil of vain study, deceived by dull sense—you have wounded with the madness of a greater inquiry the first beginnings of a soul that was making its start. Call back your untamed cares to their first footsteps, and cease to believe that one eternity has assumed two kingdoms, and that they, as you say, are themselves in conflict with each other. XIV.

Concerning two eternals: if it shall be possible for one to be conquered, eternity will remain diminished. Therefore light and darkness have equal powers, yet diverse—nay, contrary—among themselves: one power is shared, but in the other it will at some point cease. It is no longer the same, if it is hoped for anywhere; if one of them shall fail first, it will be, Justin, that you confess there is one principle, if one is victor out of two. Certainly what I understand in the higher realms above, and at the uttermost extreme of all height, is that nothing dwells there which is called evil—which the trembling veneration of human devotion surmises to lie beyond Angels and Archangels. It is sacrilege to say that evil dwells in such places; or if it has its seat there, then it too is received as creator, and the devil has dominion over every creature and over that very sun.

For if he is co-eternal, he is there; or if he is not there, he is in his own kingdom, wherever that may be. I believe the other has no sun, no heaven, no world, no light, no truth. And if his kingdom is elsewhere, nothing of his is common to us; or if he is in this world, he is already conquered, he is already under the sun, he already has no power. But if you confess this, you yourself understand that what I see to be captive under a ruling power cannot be called a principle. Is it fitting that things should have two summits, two depths, two infinities? Two infinities cannot be spoken of, because where one begins, there is the end of the other; and a summit is such only if nothing is beyond it, and likewise a depth, if nothing is within it—and the whole is then possessed when nothing else is possessed.

If this one and only God is the highest, infinite, and the whole, and omnipotent, and holding all things, he alone and solely is the principle. XV. Be not troubled, be not anxious, struck with terror and blinded by admiration of so venerable a truth, on the ground that evil cannot arise from a good author. I rightly inquire into these things among created things, so that things which have been created do not emit from themselves something other than what they themselves are—as bitter from sweet, water from fire, the offspring of the underworld from shadow, a man from wood, flesh from what is not flesh, and all the other things which the whole world enumerates. But these things cannot be ascribed to the omnipotent. There is a rule, as though it were a law for him, as to what can be from him and what cannot, what from him directly and what through him. You rightly gather and bind these things together, if you by no means confess him to be omnipotent.

But if his power and eternity are spread through the whole, and it did not come about for him to exist from another, then surely all things either come about or are created either from him, or out of him, or through him. Therefore evil also received from him that it should exist. Yet this evil which is called a demon—for the other things, if there are any which you call evil, have no substance or nature. But a demon, now good, now evil, subsists as an angelic creature, just as the expression of Attic speech declares, saying: ΑΓΑΘΟΣ ΔΑΙΜΩΝ, and ΚΑΚΟΣ ΔΑΙΜΩΝ. And that he himself who is called κακός is good, we shall say later. But all the other things which you call evil, if the faults of errors should cease, will have no origin of coming into being. XVI. Do not indeed wear yourself down with the impulse of evil being something that hurls one headlong into vices, as though it were some existing, or arisen, or made substance.

It is the soul, which, subsisting in freedom, has violated by the license of free will the dominion granted to it. It is deceived by desire and concupiscence through curiosity rather than through pride. Then, that we have as our lord a lord of two substances, or that human kingdoms of a twofold or rather multiform nature hold dominion over innumerable peoples. For you so delight in examples that you love to discern eternal and perpetual things through mortal and transient ones. You deny flesh in Christ, and you confess a man; you do not wish him to have been born, and you do not deny that he lived; you cry out that he was slain by the Jews, and you judge that what was wounded did not exist. Thus you assert that the limbs of the condemned, tortured on right and left, were dead, so that in Christ himself his death was complete; and yet you do not wish a true man to have flesh, where you find a true burial.

Behold, Justin, what truly exists you strive to assert did not exist, and what neither is nor was, you persist in striving to prove endures. But admonished by your own teacher, I speak steadfastly: it was possible for the eternal one to die; was it not possible for him to have flesh? It was possible for him to establish what did not exist; was it not possible for him to grant two natures to the world, of light and of darkness? Would he not be the Lord, the origin of contraries by power, who is of himself that he should exist? Cease, Justin, cease to pursue with diligent care the barbarism of this vanity, and strive, as a Roman man, to be removed from the Persian or Armenian sacrilege. For it is by no means fitting that Mani, with darkness or the devil as his authors, should dwell in the kingdoms of true light in the glory of eternal life.

And up to now you have thinned the members of the flesh—the enemy, as you say—with continual fasting, judging that the juices of a nourished body harm the merits and nature of the soul, tending toward the excesses of swollen fatness and being weighed down by the very mass of the belly itself—if after this labor of fastings you are to return to your creator, whom you call either the devil or the outer darkness. I judge it better, and plainly declare, that you confess God omnipotent to be your maker, so that you may truly be a temple of God, as the Apostle Paul declares, saying: You are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if you are deprived of this honor, so that you are neither a temple of God nor does his Spirit dwell in you, then Christ came not as the Savior of man but as a despoiler—which indeed divine right forbids to say, and the eternity of his majesty does not admit.

For if we are not his temple, nor is his Spirit in us, what has he to do with us? For if we are his, we are his in both respects, both in soul and in body, and that saying is true and catholic, brought forth from a holy mouth: God all in all: who alone and solely is the principle, omnipotent without beginning, and the whole of the universe, infinite through all things. To whom be honor and glory.