1 1. See R. J. O'Connell, St. Augustine's Early Theory ofMan, A.D. 386-391 (Cambridge, Mass.,
Introduction 27 ganda was circulating in the Christian communities ofThagaste and ofMadaura, which was the intellectual center of the region. Augustine collected his answers later on in A Miscellany ofEighty Questions.10 Some of the problems dealt with in this work correspond exactly to the expositions in his work On Genesis: A Refutation of the Manichees: "ls God the originator of human misdeeds?" (Quest. 3); "Why are human beings evil?" (Quest. 4); "Evil" (Quest. 6); "Why did God will to create the world?" (Quest. 18).
Augustine thus recognized the serious danger with which the Manichean attack on the Old Testament account of creation threatened not a few Christians because of their lack of education. 1 1 For this reason he felt obliged, even while a layman and before having any ecclesiastical office, to defend the biblical book of Genesis, which was seriously challenged by the Manichean doctrine of the two eternal principles, Light and Darkness, as well as by the myth of a cosmic struggle between two kingdoms, in the course of which the world and humanity came into existence. ln his Revisions Augustine wrote: "These two books . . . were published expressly against them [the Manichees] in defense of the old law, which they attack with all the zeal and fanaticism of their crazy delusion."12 He realized that he must provide his fellow Christians, both lay and clerical, with arguments that could put a stop to the Manichees' destructive criticism of the Bible.
This goal was not to be reached solely through attacks on the Manichees.13 The refutation of Manichean teaching on the origin of the world,14 which claimed to be completely rational and internally consistent, had to be supple mented by a positive exposition of the Catholic views being attacked by the Manichees. Augustine described his purpose in this way: "What we have under taken to do is to defend the things they find fault with in the Old Testament, insofar as the Lord is good enough to grant us the power to do so, and to demon strate in those places that the blindness ofhuman beings is no match at all for the truth of God."15 At the same time, he had to show that the Church's teaching offered a plausible answer to the problems raised by the Manichean sect. Finally, since that group cleverly used some biblical passages to undermine the credi
10. Revisions 1, 26, 1 (CCL 57, 74).
1 1. See R. J. O'Connell, St. Augustine's Early Theory of Man, A.D. 386-391 (Cambridge, Mass., 1968) 232-235. 12. Revisions 1, 10, 1 (CCL 57, 30).
1 3. Later on (3%), in his Answer to the Letter ofMani Known as "The Foundation. " Augustine refuted a Manichean "teaching manual" that had been circulated in North Africa. 14. 1n his Answer to Felix, a Manichean 1 , 9 (CSEL 25/2, 811) Augustine says explicitly that the Manichees claimed to possess a teaching on this subject which Mani himselfhad received from the Holy Spirit. J. P. Maher, "Saint Augustine and Manichean Cosmogony," Augustinian Studies 10 (1979) 91-104, makes the point that Augustine had a reliable knowledge of this teaching. 15. On Genesis: A Refutation of the Manichees 1. 4, 7.