The Dialogue between Secundinus the Manichean and Aurelius Augustine in the Context of Early Christian Ethics: An Anatomy of Evil

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to analyze two Late Antique texts that have received insufficient attention, at least in Russian historiography: the letter of Secundinus to Augustine, and Augustine’s Book Against Secundinus the Manichean written in response. These works contain a number of noteworthy details from the perspectives of ethics, politics, and even law. The analysis of the sources reveals differences in how Secundinus and Augustine understood the nature of evil: for the Manichean, it appears as a static, independently existing substance; for the Church Father, by contrast, evil is an act of the soul’s deviation from a certain norm of virtue – a movement from what is more significant to what is less significant, occurring, for example, under the influence of malicious counsel or coercion. Secundinus the Manichean and Augustine demonstrate divergent views on the paths people follow in life. Both are committed to the idea of the salvific “narrow path”. However, Secundinus, in the spirit of intellectual elitism, believes that following the “narrow path” means joining the few and opposing the majority. Augustine decisively rejects such an approach. For him, the “narrow path” resides not in form, but in essence; it is followed, in the bishop of Hippo’s view, only by saints and the righteous. In The Book Against Secundinus, Augustine presents a rather severe view of social organization, in which, from a moral standpoint, the worse governs the better. While acknowledging and even justifying this injustice, the Church Father nevertheless contrasts it with an ethical hierarchy in which the righteous are always given priority over the sinner.