ABSTRACT

Dualism Near the beginning of the dialogue De Libero Arbitrio Augustine makes Evodius ask, ‘How does it come to be that people misbehave?’ (‘Unde male faciamus?’ Lib. Arb. 1.2.4). Augustine replies: ‘You raise a question which exercised me a great deal when I was still quite young; worry about it made me take up with heretics and brought me into a wretched state’ (ibid.). These heretics were the Manichees, who had been active in Africa since the beginning of the fourth century.