Chapter II.—The Disputation of
Nebridius Against the Manichæans, on the Question “Whether God
Be Corruptible or Incorruptible.”
3. It was sufficient for me, O Lord, to oppose
to those deceived deceivers and dumb praters (dumb, since Thy word
sounded not forth from them) that which a long while ago, while we
were at Carthage, Nebridius used to propound, at which all we who
heard it were disturbed: “What could that reputed nation of
darkness, which the Manichæans are in the habit of setting up as a
mass opposed to Thee, have done unto Thee hadst Thou objected to
fight with it? For had it been answered, ‘It would have done Thee
some injury,’ then shouldest Thou be subject to violence and
corruption; but if the reply were: ‘It could do Thee no
injury,’ then was no cause assigned for Thy fighting with it; and
so fighting as that a certain portion and member of Thee, or
offspring of Thy very substance, should be blended with adverse
powers and natures not of Thy creation, and be by them corrupted
and deteriorated to such an extent as to be turned from happiness
into misery, and need help whereby it might be delivered and
purged; and that this offspring of Thy substance was the soul, to
which, being enslaved, contaminated, and corrupted, Thy word, free, pure, and entire, might bring succour; but yet also the word itself being corruptible, because it was from one and the same substance. So that should they affirm Thee, whatsoever Thou art, that is, Thy substance whereby Thou art, to be incorruptible, then were all these assertions false and execrable; but if corruptible, then that were false, and at the first utterance to be abhorred.” This argument, then, was enough against those who wholly merited to be vomited forth from the surfeited stomach, since they had no means of escape without horrible sacrilege, both of heart and tongue, thinking and speaking such things of Thee.
Footnotes
