and denial of the true personality of God on the other.  But the effectiveness of this type of teaching against Manichæism is what chiefly interests us in this connection.  Readers of the following treatises will have no difficulty in seeing for themselves how confidently and with what telling effect Augustin employs this view of God against the crudities of Manichæism, which thought of God as mutable, as capable of being successfully assailed by evil, as rent asunder, as suffering miserable contamination and imprisonment by mixture with matter, as painfully struggling for freedom, as suffering with the suffering of plants and animals, as liberated by their decay and by the digestive operations of the faithful, etc., etc. Again, while still a Manichæan Augustin had thought and written much about beauty.  On this point also, the throwing off of Manichæism and the adoption of a Platonizing Christianity brought about a revolution in his conceptions.  The exactness with which he has followed Plotinus in his ideas of the beauty of God and of his creatures is remarkable.  29 This we could fully illustrate by the citation of parallel passages.  But we must content our selves with remarking that Augustin himself acknowledged his indebtedness, and that his idea of beauty was an important factor in his polemics against Manichæism.  According to Augustin (and Plotinus) God is the most beautiful and splendid of all beings.  He is the beauty of all beauties; all the beautiful things that are the objects of our vision and love He Himself made.  If these are beautiful what is He?  All beauty is from the highest beauty, which is God.  Augustin follows Plato and Plotinus even in neglecting the distinction between the good and the beautiful.  The idea of Divine beauty Augustin applies to Christ also.  He speaks of Him as beautiful God, beautiful Word with God, beautiful on earth, beautiful in the womb, beautiful in the hands of his parents, beautiful in miracles, beautiful in being scourged, beautiful when inciting to life, beautiful when not caring for death, beautiful when laying down his life, beautiful when taking it up again, beautiful in the sepulchre, beautiful in Heaven.  The beauty of the creation, which is simply a reflection of the beauty of God, is not even disturbed by evil or sin.  Beauty is with Augustin (and the Platonists) a compre- hensive term, and is almost equivalent to perfect harmony or symmetry of parts, perfect adaptation of beings to the ends for which they exist. It is patent that this view of the beauty of God and His creation is diametrically opposed to the crude conceptions of Mani, with reference to the disorder of the universe, a disorder not confined even to the Kingdom of Darkness, but invading the Realm of light itself.  So also Augustin’s Platonizing views of the creation must be taken into consideration in judging of his attitude towards Manichæism.  It goes without saying that from Augustin’s theological point of view, to account for creation is a matter of grave difficulty.  How can there be a re- lation between the infinite and the finite?  Any substantial connection is unthinkable.  The only thing left is a relation of causality.  The finite, according to Plotinus, is an accident, an image and shadow of God.  It is constituted, established, sustained, and nourished by the Divine potency, and is therefore absolutely dependent upon God.  The power that flows 41 Augustin and the Manichæans.