Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume IV/Manichaean Controversy/Concerning the Nature of Good/Chapter 9

Chapter 9.—Punishment is Constituted for the Sinning Nature that It May Be Rightly Ordered.

What sort of punishment, and how great, is due to each fault, belongs to Divine judgment, not to human; which punishment assuredly when it is remitted in the case of the converted, there is great goodness on the part of God, and when it is deservedly inflicted, there is no injustice on the part of God; because nature is better ordered by justly smarting under punishment than by rejoicing with impunity in sin; which nature nevertheless, even thus having some measure, form, and order, in whatever extremity there is as yet some good, which things, if they were absolutely taken away, and utterly consumed, there will be accordingly no good, because no nature will remain.