Writings in Connection with the Manichaean Heresy

II.—He begins with arguments, in compliance with the mistaken method of the Manichaeans.

3. Where, then, shall I begin? With authority, or with reasoning? In the natural order, when we learn anything, authority precedes reasoning. A reason may seem weak if it requires authority to confirm it after it has been given. However, because the minds of men are obscured by familiarity with darkness—which covers them in the night of sins and evil habits—and cannot perceive in a way suitable to the clarity and purity of reason, there is a most wholesome provision for bringing the dazzled eye into the light of truth under the congenial shade of authority. But since we are dealing with people who are perverse in all their thoughts, words, and actions, and who insist on nothing more than beginning with argument, I will, as a concession to them, take what I consider a wrong method in discussion. I like to imitate, as far as I can, the gentleness of my Lord Jesus Christ, who took upon Himself the evil of death itself, wishing to free us from it.

III.—Happiness is in the enjoyment of man's chief good. Two conditions of the chief good: 1st, Nothing is better than it; 2d, It cannot be lost against the will.

4. How then, according to reason, ought man to live? We all certainly desire to live happily, and there is no human being who would not assent to this statement almost before it is made. But the title "happy" cannot, in my opinion, belong to him who does not have what he loves, whatever it may be, or to him who has what he loves if it is hurtful, or to him who does not love what he has, even if it is good in perfection. For one who seeks what he cannot obtain suffers, one who has obtained what is not desirable is cheated, and one who does not seek what is worth seeking is diseased. In all these cases, the mind cannot but be unhappy, and happiness and unhappiness cannot reside at the same time in one person. I find, then, a fourth case, where the happy life exists: when that which is man's chief good is both loved and possessed. For what do we call enjoyment but having at hand the object of love? No one can be happy who does not enjoy...