Chapter 11.—The Value of the Symbol of the Mouth Among the Manichæans, Who are Found Guilty of Blaspheming God. 20.  Classify as you please, omit what you please, we must discuss the doctrines you insist upon most.  You say that the symbol of the mouth implies refraining from all blasphemy.  But blasphemy is speaking evil of good things.  So usually the word blasphemy is applied only to speaking evil of God; for as regards man there is uncertainty, but God is without controversy good.  If, then, you are proved guilty of saying worse things of God than any one else says, what becomes of your famous symbol of the mouth?  The evidence is not ob- scure, but clear and obvious to every understanding, and irresistible, the more so that no one can remain in ignorance of it, that God is incorruptible, immutable, liable to no injury, to no want, to no weakness, to no misery.  All this the common sense of rational beings perceives, and even you assent when you hear it. 21.  But when you begin to relate your fables, that God is corruptible, and mutable, and subject to injury, and exposed to want and weakness, and not secure from misery, this is what you are blind enough to teach, and what some are blind enough to believe.  And this is not all; for, according to you, God is not only corruptible, but corrupted; not only changeable, but changed; not only subject to injury, but injured; not only liable to want, but in want; not only possibly, but actually weak; not only exposed to misery, but miserable.  You say that the soul is God, or a part of God.  I do not see how it can be part of God without being God.  A part of gold is gold; of silver silver; of stone stone; and, to come to greater things, part of earth is earth, part of water is water, and of air air; and if you take part from fire, you will not deny it to be fire; and part of light can be nothing but light.  Why then should part of God not be God?  Has God a jointed body, like man and the lower animals?  For part of man is not man. 22.  I will deal with each of these opinions separately.  If you view God as resembling light, you must admit that part of God is God.  Hence, when you make the soul part of God, though you allow it to be corrupted as being foolish, and changed as having once been wise, and in want as needing health, and feeble as needing medicine, and miserable as desiring happiness, all these things you profanely attribute to God.  Or if you deny these things of the mind, it follows that the Spirit is not required to lead the soul into truth, since it is not in folly; nor is the soul renewed by true religion, since it does not need renewal; nor is it perfected by your symbols, since it is already perfect; nor does God give it assistance, since it does not need it; nor is Christ its physician, since it is in health; nor does it require the promise of happiness in another life.  Why then is Jesus called the deliverer, according to His own words in the Gospel, "If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed?"169  And the Apostle Paul says, "Ye have been called to liberty."170  The soul, then, which has 169 John viii. 36. 170 Gal. v. 13. The Value of the Symbol of the Mouth Among the Manichæans, Who are Found Guilty of Blaspheming God. 128 The Value of the Symbol of the Mouth Among the Manichæans, Who are Found…