¹⁶ The Manichaeans assumed the role of rationalists, and scorned the credulity of ordinary believers. Yet they required in their followers an amount of credulity which only persons of a peculiar turn of mind could furnish. The same thing applies to modern rationalistic anti-Christian systems. The fact is, that it requires infinitely less credulity to believe in historical Christianity than to disbelieve in it.-A. H. N.]

¹⁷ [Compare the fuller account from the Fihrist in the Introduction.-A. H. N.]

¹⁸ [This exalted view of God Augustine held in common with theNeo-Platonists.-A. H. N.]

¹⁹ [Modern mental physiologists differ among themselves as regards the presence of the mind throughout the entire nervous system; some maintaining the view here presented, and others making the brain to be the seat of sensation, and the nerves telegraphic lines, so to speak, for the communication of impressions from the various parts of the body to the brain. Compare Carpenter: Mental Physiology, and Calderwood: Mind and Brain.-A. H. N.]

²⁰ [There is sufficient reason to think that Mani identified God with the kingdom and the region of light. See Introduction.-A. H. N.]

²¹ [This discussion of the lines bounding the Kingdom of Light and the Kingdom of Darkness seems very much like trifling, but Augustine's aim was to bring the Manichaean representations into ridicule.-A. H. N.]

²² [This portion of the argument is conducted with great adroitness. Augustine takes the inhabitants of the region of darkness, as Mani describes them, and proves that they possess so much of good that they can have no other author than God.-A. H. N.]