Concerning the Nature of Good, Against the Manichæans

Anti-Manichaean Writings · Saint Augustine of Hippo

1. Title Page.
2. Preface.
3. God the Highest and Unchangeable Good, from Whom are All Other Good Things, Spiritual and Corporeal.
4. How This May Suffice for Correcting the Manichæans.
5. Measure, Form, and Order, Generic Goods in Things Made by God.
6. Evil is Corruption of Measure, Form, or Order.
7. The Corrupted Nature of a More Excellent Order Sometimes Better Than an Inferior Nature Even Uncorrupted.
8. Nature Which Cannot Be Corrupted is the Highest Good; That Which Can, is Some Good.
9. The Corruption of Rational Spirits is on the One Hand Voluntary, on the Other Penal.
10. From the Corruption and Destruction of Inferior Things is the Beauty of the Universe.
11. Punishment is Constituted for the Sinning Nature that It May Be Rightly Ordered.
12. Natures Corruptible, Because Made of Nothing.
13. God Cannot Suffer Harm, Nor Can Any Other Nature Except by His Permission.
14. All Good Things are from God Alone.
15. Individual Good Things, Whether Small or Great, are from God.
16. Small Good Things in Comparison with Greater are Called by Contrary Names.
17. In the Body of the Ape the Good of Beauty is Present, Though in a Less Degree.
18. Privations in Things are Fittingly Ordered by God.
19. Nature, in as Far as It is Nature, No Evil.
20. Hyle, Which Was Called by the Ancients the Formless Material of Things, is Not an Evil.
21. To Have True Existence is an Exclusive Prerogative of God.
22. Pain Only in Good Natures.
23. From Measure Things are Said to Be Moderate-Sized.
24. Measure in Some Sense is Suitable to God Himself.
25. Whence a Bad Measure, a Bad Form, a Bad Order May Sometimes Be Spoken of.
26. It is Proved by the Testimonies of Scripture that God is Unchangeable.  The Son of God Begotten, Not Made.
27. This Last Expression Misunderstood by Some.
28. That Creatures are Made of Nothing.
29. ’From Him’ And ‘Of Him’ Do Not Mean The Same Thing.
30. Sin Not From God, But From The Will of Those Sinning.
31. That God is Not Defiled by Our Sins.
32. That Good Things, Even the Least, and Those that are Earthly, are by God.
33. To Punish and to Forgive Sins Belong Equally to God.
34. From God Also is the Very Power to Be Hurtful.
35. That Evil Angels Have Been Made Evil, Not by God, But by Sinning.
36. That Sin is Not the Striving for an Evil Nature, But the Desertion of a Better.
37. The Tree Was Forbidden to Adam Not Because It Was Evil, But Because It Was Good for Man to Be Subject to God.
38. No Creature of God is Evil, But to Abuse a Creature of God is Evil.
39. God Makes Good Use of the Evil Deeds of Sinners.
40. Eternal Fire Torturing the Wicked, Not Evil.
41. Fire is Called Eternal, Not as God Is, But Because Without End.
42. Neither Can God Suffer Hurt, Nor Any Other, Save by the Just Ordination of God.
43. How Great Good Things the Manichæans Put in the Nature of Evil, and How Great Evil Things in the Nature of Good.
44. Manichæan Blasphemies Concerning the Nature of God.
45. Many Evils Before His Commingling with Evil are Attributed to the Nature of God by the Manichæans.
46. Incredible Turpitudes in God Imagined by Manichæus.
47. Certain Unspeakable Turpitudes Believed, Not Without Reason, Concerning the Manichæans Themselves.
48. The Unspeakable Doctrine of the Fundamental Epistle.
49. He Compels to the Perpetration of Horrible Turpitudes.
50. Augustin Prays that the Manichæans May Be Restored to Their Senses.