Moreover, one could say this to them: if the visible things are works of the evil one, what is the work of the good one? For nothing is visible except the Creator’s creation. What evidence is there even that the good one exists, if there are no works of his through which he could be known? For the creator is known from his works.
And how could two opposed beings exist at all? What separates them so that they exist apart from one another? They cannot exist together, because they are destructive of one another. Nor could one exist within the other, because their natures are unmixed and unlike. Therefore what separates them will appear to be a third thing, itself a god. But what kind of nature would this third thing have—the nature of the good or of the evil? It would be impossible to tell, because it cannot have the nature of both.
Since this conception of theirs is shown to be unsound, the truth of the Church’s knowledge must shine out: evil did not come from God, is not in God, did not exist from the beginning, and has no essence of its own. Rather, when human beings lost the vision of the good, they began to conceive and fashion for themselves things that have no being, whatever they wished.
It is as though someone, while the sun is shining and the whole earth is illuminated by its light, closes his eyes and imagines darkness for himself even though no darkness exists. Then he wanders about as though in darkness, often falling and going down cliffs, supposing that there is no light but only darkness. Thinking that he sees, he does not see at all. In the same way, the human soul closes the eye through which it can see God and conceives evils for itself. Moving among them, it does not know that although it thinks it is doing something, it is doing nothing, for it is fashioning things that have no being. It did not remain as it was made; instead, it appears in the confused condition into which it has brought itself. It was made to see God and to be enlightened by Him, but instead of God it sought corruptible things and darkness, as the Spirit says somewhere in Scripture: “God made the human being upright, but they sought out many reasonings.”
This, then, is how the discovery and conception of evil arose among human beings from the beginning. We must now explain how they descended into the madness of idols, so that you may know that the invention of idols arose not from good but from evil. And whatever has an evil beginning could never be judged good in any respect, since it is wholly evil.
Moreover, one could say this to them: if the visible things are works of the evil one, what is the work of the good one? For nothing is visible except the Creator’s creation. What evidence is there even that the good one exists, if there are no works of his through which he could be known? For the creator is known from his works.
And how could two opposed beings exist at all? What separates them so that they exist apart from one another? They cannot exist together, because they are destructive of one another. Nor could one exist within the other, because their natures are unmixed and unlike. Therefore what separates them will appear to be a third thing, itself a god. But what kind of nature would this third thing have—the nature of the good or of the evil? It would be impossible to tell, because it cannot have the nature of both.
Since this conception of theirs is shown to be unsound, the truth of the Church’s knowledge must shine out: evil did not come from God, is not in God, did not exist from the beginning, and has no essence of its own. Rather, when human beings lost the vision of the good, they began to conceive and fashion for themselves things that have no being, whatever they wished.
It is as though someone, while the sun is shining and the whole earth is illuminated by its light, closes his eyes and imagines darkness for himself even though no darkness exists. Then he wanders about as though in darkness, often falling and going down cliffs, supposing that there is no light but only darkness. Thinking that he sees, he does not see at all. In the same way, the human soul closes the eye through which it can see God and conceives evils for itself. Moving among them, it does not know that although it thinks it is doing something, it is doing nothing, for it is fashioning things that have no being. It did not remain as it was made; instead, it appears in the confused condition into which it has brought itself.
It was made to see God and to be enlightened by Him, but instead of God it sought corruptible things and darkness, as the Spirit says somewhere in Scripture: “God made the human being upright, but they sought out many reasonings.”
This, then, is how the discovery and conception of evil arose among human beings from the beginning. We must now explain how they descended into the madness of idols, so that you may know that the invention of idols arose not from good but from evil. And whatever has an evil beginning could never be judged good in any respect, since it is wholly evil.