Manicheans,!° who are in error not because they are mistaken
BOOK EIGHT 5D faith and yet to prefer to remain in his original position, insisting that it can be taken only in the figurative sense.?
CHAPTER 2
In my book on Genesis against the Manicheans I frequently explained the text in the figurative meaning. I now believe that the literal meaning must be sought.
5. Shortly after my conversion I wrote two books against the Manicheans,!° who are in error not because they are mistaken in their interpretation of the Old Testament but because they completely reject it with impious scorn. I wanted without delay either to refute their aberrations or to direct them to seek in the books which they hated the faith taught by Christ and the Gospels. At that time I did not see how all of Genesis could be taken in the proper sense, and it seemed to me more and more impossible, or at least scarcely possible or very difficult, for all of it to be so understood.
But not willing to be deterred from my purpose, whenever I was unable to discover the literal meaning of a passage, I explained its figurative meaning as briefly and as clearly as I was able, so that the Manichees might not be discouraged by the length of the work or the obscurity of its contents and thus put the book aside. I was mindful, however, of the purpose which I had set before me and which I was unable to achieve, that is, to show how everything in Genesis is to be understood first of all not in the figurative but in the proper sense; and since I did not completely despair of the possibility of understanding it all in this sense, I made the following statement in the first part of Book Two: If anyone wishes to interpret in a literal sense everything written in this book, that is, to understand it only according to the letter of the text, and if in doing this he avoids blasphemy and explains everything in agreement with the Catholic faith, not only is he not to be discouraged, but he