CATHAR LITERATURE 757
then, that god himself and his will are one and the same. The good god can-
not lie or commit every kind of evil, if he wants to, because this true god can-
not do what he does not want to, we repeat, since he himself and his will are
one and the same.
THAT GOD CANNOT CREATE ANOTHER GOD
I can say again, very reasonably and without fear of deceiving myself, that the
true god, with all his power, cannot, nor ever could, nor ever will, neither will-
fully or involuntarily, nor by any other means, create another god, lord, and
creator resembling and equal to himself in any way. I prove that it is impossi-
ble for the good god to be able to make another god like himself with regard
to every quality: the eternal and sempiternal, the creator and author of all his
goodness, without beginning or end, the one who was never made or created
or engendered. But in the holy scriptures it does not say that the true god is a
weak god. One must believe with assurance that the good god is not endowed
with omnipotence because he would then be able to or might commit all the
evils that have been, that are, and that will be, but because he is truly all pow-
erful concerning the good that has been, that is, and that will be. Moreover, he
is the absolute and principle cause of all the good, and he is never, in any way,
by himself and essentially, the cause of evil. It follows that the true god is called
all powerful by the sages, in everything he does, has done, or will do in the fu-
ture, but that those who think accurately cannot call him all powerful with re-
gard to his supposed power that he might have to exert and that he has never
exerted, that he never will exert, with regard to creating a god of evil. As for the
argument that says that if he does not do it, it is because he does not want to,
we have already shown that such a track is meaningless, since he, himself, and
his will are only one.
THAT GOD DOES NOT HAVE THE POWER
TO BE EVIL AND THAT THERE EXISTS A
FORCE THAT IS EVIL
Since god is not powerful in evil, nor has the power to appear to be evil, we
must believe firmly that there is another principle, which is he who is power-
ful in evil. From him come all evils that have been, that are, and that will be.
About him David surely wanted to speak when he said, "Why do you glorify
yourself in your malice, you who are powerful only for committing an iniq-
uity? Your language has contemplated injustice. You have sharpened your