1012 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590.
The other controversial works are directed against the pan ticular heresies of Manichseism, Donatism, Arianism, Pelagian isra, and Senii-Pelagianisni. Augustine, with all the firnmesi of his convictions, was free from personal antipathy, and used the pen of controversy in the genuine Christian s,])iv'it, fori iter in re, sua/viter in modo. He understood Paul's aXipievuv h ayd-rrr), and forms in this respect a pleasing contrast to Jerome, wlio prohahlj had by nature no more fiery temperament than he, but was less able to control it. " Let those," he very beautifully says to the Manichaeans, " burn with hatred against you, who do not know how much pains it costs to find the truth, how liaru it is to guard against error; — but I, who after BO great and long wavering came to know the trutli, must bear myself towards you with the same patience which my fellowbelievers showed towards me while I was wandering in blind madness in your opinions." '
1. The anti-Manich^an works date mostly from his earlier life, and in time and matter follow immediately upon his philosophical writings.'' In them he afterwards found most to retract, because he advocated the freedom of the will against the ManichseaTi fatalism. Tlie most important are: De moribus ecclesiae catliolicie, et de moribus Manichseorum, two books (written during his second residence in Home, 388); De vera religione (390); Unde malum, et de libero arbitrio, usually simply De libero arbitrio, in three books, against the Manichfean doctrine of evil as a substance, and as having its seat in matter instead of free will (begun in 388, finished in 395) ; De Genesi contra Manichseos, a defence of the biblical doctrine of creation (389); De duabus aniinabus, against the psychological dualism of the Manicha^ans (392) ; Disputatio contra Fortunatum (a triumphant refutation of this Manichnsan priest in Hippo in August, 392) ; Contra Epistolam Manicha^i quam vo(-ant lundamcnti (397) ; Contra Fanstum Manichaium, io thirty-three books (400-40-i) ; De iiatura boni (404), &c.
These works treat of the origin of evil ; of free will ; of the
' Comp. Contra Epist. Manicliaei quam vocant fundamcnti, 1. i. 2. ^ The earliest anti-Manicbajan writings (De libero arbitrio ; De moribua eccl. catb et de moribus Manich ) are in torn. i. eiJ. Bened. ; the latter in torn. viiL
§ 179. THE WOKKS OF AUOUSTINE. 1013
harmony of the Old and New Testaments, and cf revelatiois and nature ; of creation out of notliing, in oppceition to dual ism and hylozoisrn ; of the supremacy of faith over knowledge ; of the authority of the Scriptures and the church ; of the true and the false asceticism, and other disputed points ; and thej are the chief source of oitr knowledge of the Manichaean Gnosticism and of the arguments against it. Having himself belonged for nine years to this sect, Augustine was the better fitted for the task of refuting it, as Paul was peculiarly prepared for the confutation of the Pharisaic Judaism. His doctrine of the nature of evil is particularly valuable. He has triumphantly demonstrated for all time, that evil is not a corporeal thing, nor in any way substantial, but a product of the free will of the creature, a perversion of substance in itself good, a corruption of the nature created by God.
2. Against the Pkiscillianists, a sect in Spain built on JVIanichi^ean principles, are directed the book Ad Paulum Oro- Bium contra Priscillianistas et Origenistas (411) ; ' the book Contra mendacium, addressed to Consentius (420) ; and in part the 190th Epistle (alias Ep. 157), to the bishop Optatus, on the origin of the soul (418), and two other letters, in which he refutes erroneous views on the nature of the soul, the limitation of future punishments, and the lawfulness of fraud for supposed good purposes.
3. The anti-Don ATI STIC works, composed between the years 393 and 420, argue against separatism, and contain Augustine's doctrine of the church and church-discipline, and of the sacraments. To these belong: Psalmus contra partem Donati (a. d. 393), a polemic popular song without regular metre, intended to offset the songs of the Donatists ; Contra epistolam Parmeniani, written in 400 against the Carthaginian bishop of the Donatists, the successor of Donatus ; De baptismo contra Donatistas, in favor of the validity of heretical baptism (400); Contra literas Petiliani (about 400), against the view of Cjprian and the Donatists, that the efficacy of the sacra^ tnents depends on the personal worthiness and the ecclesiastical
■ Tom. viii. p. 611 sqq.