OF THE MORALS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.¹

IT IS LAID DOWN AT THE OUTSET THAT THE CUSTOMS OF THE HOLY LIFE OF THE CHURCH SHOULD BE REFERRED TO THE CHIEF GOOD OF MAN, THAT IS, GOD. WE MUST SEEK AFTER GOD WITH SUPREME AFFECTION; AND THIS DOCTRINE IS SUPPORTED IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH BY THE AUTHORITY OF BOTH TESTAMENTS. THE FOUR VIRTUES GET THEIR NAMES FROM DIFFERENT FORMS OF THIS LOVE. THEN FOLLOW THE DUTIES OF LOVE TO OUR NEIGHBOUR. IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH WE FIND EXAMPLES OF CONTINENCE AND OF TRUE CHRISTIAN CONDUCT.

I.—How the pretensions of the Manichaeans are to be refuted. Two Manichaean falsehoods.

1. Enough, probably, has been done in our other books to answer the ignorant and profane attacks that the Manichaeans make on the law—which is called the Old Testament—in a spirit of vainglorious boasting and with the approval of the uninstructed. Here, too, I may touch upon the subject briefly. For anyone with average intelligence can easily see that the explanation of the Scriptures should be sought from those who are the professed teachers of the Scriptures. It can happen—and indeed it always happens—that many things seem absurd to the ignorant which, when explained by the learned, appear all the more excellent and are received with greater pleasure precisely because of the initial difficulties that made reaching the meaning challenging. This commonly happens...

¹ Written in the year 388. In his Retractations (i. 7) Augustine says: "When I was at Rome after my baptism, and could not bear in silence the vaunting of the Manichaeans about their pretended and misleading continence or abstinence, in which, to deceive the inexperienced, they claim superiority over true Christians, to whom they are not to be compared, I wrote two books, one on the morals of the Catholic Church, the other on the morals of the Manichaeans."