An Exposition of the Orthodox Faith 93

1 BOOK IV — CHAPTER 20: That there are not two Kingdoms.

2 That there are not two kingdoms, one good and one bad, we shall see from this. For good and evil are opposed to one another and mutually destructive, and cannot exist in one another or with one another. There is, therefore, but one kingdom, delivered from all evil.

3 Evil is nothing else than absence of goodness and a lapsing from what is natural into what is unnatural: for nothing evil is natural. For all things, whatsoever God made, are very good, so far as they were made: if, therefore, they remain just as they were created, they are very good, but when they voluntarily depart from what is natural and turn to what is unnatural, they slip into evil. For evil is not any essence nor a property of essence, but an accident, that is, a voluntary deviation from what is natural into what is unnatural, which is sin.