a pig has a soul of light, because it eats vegetables, and drinks water; and that the eagle, be- cause it eats only flesh, has a soul of darkness, though it is so fond of the sun?180 51.  What a confusion of ideas!  What amazing fatuity!  All this you would have escaped, if you had rejected idle fictions, and had followed what truth sanctions in abstinence from food, which would have taught you that sumptuous eating is to be avoided, not to escape pollution, as there is nothing of the kind, but to subdue the sensual appetite.  For should any one, from inattention to the nature of things, and the properties of the soul and body, allow that the soul is polluted by animal food, you will admit that it is much much more defiled by sensuality.  Is it reasonable, then, or rather, is it not most unreasonable, to expel from the number of the elect a man who, perhaps for his health’s sake, takes some animal food without sensual appetite; while, if a man eagerly devours peppered truffles, you can only reprove him for excess, but cannot condemn him as abusing your symbol?  So one who has been induced, not by sensuality, but for health, to eat part of a fowl, cannot remain among your elect; though one may remain who has yielded voluntarily to an excessive ap- petite for comfits and cakes without animal matter.  You retain the man plunged in the de- filements of sensuality, and dismiss the man polluted, as you think, by the mere food; though you allow that the defilement of sensuality is far greater than that of meat.  You keep hold of one who gloats with delight over highly-seasoned vegetables, unable to keep possession of himself; while you shut out one who, to satisfy hunger, takes whatever comes, if suitable for nourishment, ready either to use the food, or to let it go.  Admirable customs!  Excellent morals!  Notable temperance! 52.  Again, the notion that it is unlawful for any one but the elect to touch as food what is brought to your meals for what you call purification, leads to shameful and sometimes to criminal practices.  For sometimes so much is brought that it cannot easily be eaten up by a few; and as it is considered sacrilege to give what is left to others, or, at least, to throw it away, you are obliged to eat to excess, from the desire to purify, as you call it, all that is given.  Then, when you are full almost to bursting, you cruelly use force in making the boys of your sect eat the rest.  So it was charged against some one at Rome that he killed some poor children, by compelling them to eat for this superstitious reason.  This I should not believe, did I not know how sinful you consider it to give this food to those who are not elect, or, at any rate, to throw it away.  So the only way is to eat it; and this leads every day to gluttony, and may sometimes lead to murder. 53.  For the same reason you forbid giving bread to beggars.  By way of showing com- passion, or rather of avoiding reproach, you advise to give money.  The cruelty of this is 180 [Much of the foregoing, as well as of what follows, seems to the modern reader like mere trifling, but Augustin’s aim was by introducing many familiar illustrations to show the utter absurdity of the Manichæan distinctions between clean and unclean.  It must be confessed that he does this very effectively.—A.H.N.] 143 Disclosure of the Monstrous Tenets of the Manichæans.