Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume IV/Manichaean Controversy/Against the Epistle of Manichaeus/Chapter 35

Chapter 35.—Evil Alone is Corruption.&#160; Corruption is Not Nature, But Contrary to Nature.&#160; Corruption Implies Previous Good.

39.&#160; For who can doubt that the whole of that which is called evil is nothing else than corruption?&#160; Different evils may, indeed, be called by different names; but that which is the evil of all things in which any evil is perceptible is corruption.&#160; So the corruption of an educated mind is ignorance; the corruption of a prudent mind is imprudence; the corruption of a just mind, injustice; the corruption of a brave mind, cowardice; the corruption of a calm, peaceful mind, cupidity, fear, sorrow, pride.&#160; Again, in a living body, the corruption of health is pain and disease; the corruption of strength is exhaustion; the corruption of rest is toil.&#160; Again, in any corporeal thing, the corruption of beauty is ugliness; the corruption of straightness is crookedness; the corruption of order is confusion; the corruption of entireness is disseverance, or fracture, or diminution.&#160; It would be long and laborious to mention by name all the corruptions of the things here mentioned, and of countless other things; for in many cases the words may apply to the mind as well as to the body, and in innumerable cases the corruption has a distinct name of its own.&#160; But enough has been said to show that corruption does harm only as displacing the natural condition; and so, that corruption is not nature, but against nature.&#160; And if corruption is the only evil to be found anywhere, and if corruption is not nature, no nature is evil.

40.&#160; But if, perchance, you cannot follow this, consider again, that whatever is corrupted is deprived of some good:&#160; for if it were not corrupted, it would be incorrupt; or if it could not in any way be corrupted, it would be incorruptible.&#160; Now, if corruption is an evil, both incorruption and incorruptibility must be good things.&#160; We are not, however, speaking at present of incorruptible nature, but of things which admit of corruption, and which, while not corrupted, may be called incorrupt, but not incorruptible.&#160; That alone can be called incorruptible which not only is not corrupted, but also cannot in any part be corrupted.&#160; Whatever things, then, being incorrupt, but liable to corruption, begin to be corrupted, are deprived of the good which they had as incorrupt.&#160; Nor is this a slight good, for corruption is a great evil.&#160; And the continued increase of corruption implies the continued presence of good, of which they may be deprived.&#160; Accordingly, the natures supposed to exist in the region of darkness must have been either corruptible or incorruptible.&#160; If they were incorruptible, they were in possession of a good than which nothing is higher.&#160; If they were corruptible, they were either corrupted or not corrupted.&#160; If they were not corrupted, they were incorrupt, to say which of anything is to give it great praise.&#160; If they were corrupted, they were deprived of this great good of incorruption; but the deprivation implies the previous possession of the good they are deprived of; and if they possessed this good, they were not the perfection of evil, and consequently all the Manich&#230;an story is a falsehood.