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| That there are not two Kingdoms.
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Chapter
XX.—That there are not two
Kingdoms.
That there are not two kingdoms2620
| 2620 Athan., Cont.
Gentes. | , one good and one bad, we shall see from
this. For good and evil are opposed to one another and mutually
destructive, and cannot exist in one another or with one another.
Each of them, therefore, in its own division will belong to the whole,
and first2621
| 2621 Athan., Cont.
omnes hæret. | they will be
circumscribed, not by the whole alone but also each of them by part of
the whole.
Next I ask2622
| 2622 Damasc., Dial.
Cont. Manich. | , who it
is that assigns2623
| 2623 Text, ἀποτεμνόμενος.
Variants, ἀποτεμόμενος
and ἀπονεμόμενος. | to each its
place. For they will not affirm that they have come to a friendly
agreement with, or been reconciled to, one another. For evil is
not evil when it is at peace with, and reconciled to, goodness, nor is
goodness good when it is on amicable terms with evil. But if He
Who has marked off to each of these its own sphere of action is
something different from them, He must the rather be God.
One of two things indeed is necessary, either that they
come in contact with and destroy one another, or that there exists some
intermediate place where neither goodness nor evil exists, separating
both from one another, like a partition. And so there will be no
longer two but three kingdoms.
Again, one of these alternatives is necessary, either
that they are at peace, which is quite incompatible with evil (for that
which is at peace is not evil), or they are at strife, which
is incompatible with goodness
(for that which is at strife is not perfectly good), or the evil is at
strife and the good does not retaliate, but is destroyed by the evil,
or they are ever in trouble and distress2624
| 2624 Text, κακοῦσθαι.
Variant, κακουχεῖσθαι. | , which is not a mark of goodness.
There is, therefore, but one kingdom, delivered from all
evil.
But if this is so, they say, whence comes
evil2625
| 2625 Basil, Hom.
Deum non esse caus. mal. | ? For it is quite impossible that
evil should originate from goodness. We answer then, that evil is
nothing else than absence of goodness and a lapsing2626
| 2626 Text, παραδρομή.
Variant, παρα.
ροπή, cf. infra. | from what is natural into what is
unnatural: for nothing evil is natural. For all things,
whatsoever God made, are very good2627
, so far
as they were made: if, therefore, they remain just as they were
created, they are very good, but when they voluntarily depart from what
is natural and turn to what is unnatural, they slip into
evil.
By nature, therefore, all things are servants of the
Creator and obey Him. Whenever, then, any of His creatures
voluntarily rebels and becomes disobedient to his Maker, he introduces
evil into himself. For evil is not any essence nor a property of
essence, but an accident, that is, a voluntary deviation from what is
natural into what is unnatural, which is sin.
Whence, then, comes sin2628
| 2628 Basil, Hom.
Deum non esse caus. mal. | ? It is an invention of the
free-will of the devil. Is the devil, then, evil? In so far
as he was brought into existence he is not evil but good. For he
was created by his Maker a bright and very brilliant angel, endowed
with free-will as being rational. But he voluntarily departed
from the virtue that is natural and came into the darkness of evil,
being far removed from God, Who alone is good and can give life and
light. For from Him every good thing derives its goodness, and so
far as it is separated from Him in will (for it is not in place), it
falls into evil.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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