The Essential Augustine
FAIFH AND REASON 27
Authority is, indeed, partly divine and partly human, 27. but the true, solid and sovereign authority is that which is called divine. In this matter there is to be feared the wonderful deception of invisible beings that, by certain divinations and numerous powers of things pertaining to the senses, are accustomed to deceive with the utmost ease those souls that are engrossed with perishable possessions, or eagerly desirous of transitory power, or overawed by meaningless prodigies.
We must, therefore, accept as divine that Authority which not only exceeds human power in its outward manifestations, but also, in the very act of leading a man onward, shows him to what extent It has debased Itself for his sake, and bids him not to be confined to the senses, to which indeed those things seem wondrous, but to soar upward to the intellect. At the same time It shows him what great things It is able to do, and why It does them, and how little importance It attaches to them. For, it is fitting that by deeds It show Its power; by humility, Its clemency; by commandment, Its nature. And all this is being delivered to us so distinctly and steadily by the sacred rites into which we are now being initiated: therein the life of good men is most easily purified,. not indeed by the circumlocution of disputation, but by the authority of the mysteries.
But human authority is very often deceiving. Yet it rightly seems to show itself at its best in those men who propose various proofs for their teachings, insofar as the mind of the unlearned can grasp them, and who do not live otherwise than how they prescribe that one ought to live. If certain goods of fortune accrue to these men, they reveal themselves great men in the use of those things, but still greater in their contempt of them; and then it is most difficult to lay blame on anyone who puts trust in those men when they enunciate principles of right living.
REASON AND AUTHORITY IN MANICHEISM*
If, Honoratus, a heretic, and a man trusting heretics 1. | seemed to me one and the same, I should judge it my duty to remain silent both in tongue and pen in this matter. But now, whereas there is a very great difference
* The Value of Believing, 1-4; trans. Dods.
between these two: forasmuch as he, in my opinion, is a heretic, who, for the sake of some temporal advantage, and chiefly for the sake of his own glory and preeminence, either gives birth to, or follows, false and new opinions, but he who trusts men of this kind is a man deceived by a certain imagination of truth and piety. This being the case, I have not thought it my duty to be silent towards you, as to my opinions on the finding and retaining of truth: with great love of which, as you know, we have burned from our very earliest youth: but it is a thing far removed from the minds of vain men, 'who, having too far advanced and fallen into these corporeal things, think that there is nothing else than what they pere ceive by those five well-known reporters of the body; and what impressions and images they have received from these, they carry over with.themselves, even when they essay to withdraw from the senses; and by the deadly and most deceitful rule of these think that they measure most rightly the unspeakable recesses of truth. Nothing is more easy, my dearest friend, than for one not only to say, but also to think, that he hag found out the truth; but how difficult it is ig reality, you will perceive, I trust, from this letter of mine. And that this may profit you, or at any rate may in no way harm you, and also all into whose hands it shall chance to come, I have both prayed, and do pray, unto God; and I hope that it will be so, forasmuch as I am fully conscious that I have undertaken to write it, in a pious and friendly spirit. not as aiming at vain reputation, or trifling display.
It is then my purpose to prove to you, if I can, that 2 the Manichees profanely and rashly inveigh against those who following the authority of the Catholic Faith, before they are able to gaze upon that Truth, which the pure mind beholds, are by believing forearmed, and pre= pared -for God Who is about to give them light. For you know, Honoratus, that for no other reason we fell in with such men, than because they used to say that, apart from all terror of authority, by pure and simple reason, they would lead within to God, and set free from all error those who were willing to be in their hearers. For what else constrained me, during nearly nine years, spurning the religion which had been set in me from a child by my parents, to be a follower and diligent hearer of those men, save that they Said that we are alarmed by superstition, and are commanded to have faith before reason, but that they urge no