On the Morals of the Catholic Church.
Chapter 1.—How the Pretensions of the Manichæans are to Be Refuted. Two Manichæan Falsehoods.
Chapter 2.—He Begins with Arguments, in Compliance with the Mistaken Method of the Manichæans.
Chapter 5.—Man’s Chief Good is Not the Chief Good of the Body Only, But the Chief Good of the Soul.
Chapter 8.—God is the Chief Good, Whom We are to Seek After with Supreme Affection.
Chapter 10.—What the Church Teaches About God. The Two Gods of the Manichæans.
Chapter 12.—We are United to God by Love, in Subjection to Him.
Chapter 13.—We are Joined Inseparably to God by Christ and His Spirit.
Chapter 14.—We Cleave to the Trinity, Our Chief Good, by Love.
Chapter 15.—The Christian Definition of the Four Virtues.
Chapter 16.—Harmony of the Old and New Testaments.
Chapter 17.—Appeal to the Manichæans, Calling on Them to Repent.
Chapter 19.—Description of the Duties of Temperance, According to the Sacred Scriptures.
Chapter 20.—We are Required to Despise All Sensible Things, and to Love God Alone.
Chapter 21.—Popular Renown and Inquisitiveness are Condemned in the Sacred Scriptures.
Chapter 22.—Fortitude Comes from the Love of God.
Chapter 23.—Scripture Precepts and Examples of Fortitude.
Chapter 24.—Of Justice and Prudence.
Chapter 26.—Love of Ourselves and of Our Neighbor.
Chapter 27.—On Doing Good to the Body of Our Neighbor.
Chapter 29.—Of the Authority of the Scriptures.
Chapter 30.—The Church Apostrophised as Teacher of All Wisdom. Doctrine of the Catholic Church.
Chapter 31.—The Life of the Anachoretes and Cœnobites Set Against the Continence of the Manichæans.
Chapter 32.—Praise of the Clergy.
Chapter 33.—Another Kind of Men Living Together in Cities. Fasts of Three Days.
Chapter 35.—Marriage and Property Allowed to the Baptized by the Apostles.
Chapter 2.—He Begins with Arguments, in Compliance with the Mistaken Method of the Manichæans.
3. Where, then, shall I begin? With authority, or with reasoning? In the order of nature, when we learn anything, authority precedes reasoning. For a reason may seem weak, when, after it is given, it requires authority to confirm it. But 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 clearness and purity of reason, there is most wholesome provision for bringing the dazzled eye into the light of truth under the congenial shade of authority. But since we have to do with people who are perverse in all their thoughts and words and actions, and who insist on nothing more than on beginning with argument, I will, as a concession to them, take what I think a wrong method in discussion. For I like to imitate, as far as I can, the gentleness of my Lord Jesus Christ, who took on Himself the evil of death itself, wishing to free us from it.