Sermons & Letters 197 part 3/3

therefore, setting aside the preceding narrative, he devised of his own accord another wholly dissimilar one, by writing that the people, moved by zeal for the Catholic religion, sought to overwhelm Mani with stones, whose fury the bishop checked and hindered, so that Mani, fleeing, might easily find protection for himself. Tillemont (adds Beausobre) persuaded himself that this brief narrative was foisted in by Epiphanius, since we do not find it in the Acts of Archelaus. But granting freely that the things which Epiphanius soon recounted without an author are true, it would still stand that the bishop of Cascharae wished the destruction of Mani, and yet could not be reproached concerning his death.

For although he had opposed himself to those attempting to stone this criminal man, he nevertheless applied his zeal, so that — the royal ministers of the Persians being admonished, who by public authority were everywhere seeking Mani, guilty of many crimes — they might more cautiously hold him once seized, that, brought before the king, he might undergo capital punishment. Thus far Beausobre in those words, equally biting and harassing the bishops Archelaus and Epiphanius. But all the things which he objected are not able to suppress the truth of the matter, if we more diligently seek out from the Acts of Archelaus the aim of the aforesaid narrative, nor will it be found by the following observations that those two Fathers contradict one another in describing the death of Mani.

And first, as regards Archelaus's manner of acting or discoursing, by which he laid open to the people of Diodoris not only the Manichaean errors concerning the faith, but also the graver crimes perpetrated by that iniquitous man, for which by the public authority of the king of the Persians he was sought unto death — in this I suppose nothing at all appears which would disgrace the episcopal character; nor shall we judge that Archelaus said these things with that zeal, unless led by a most weighty motive, which Beausobre would easily have grasped, had he been willing diligently to survey the Acts of Archelaus.

We therefore, who wished to be conversant longer in diligently perusing those same Acts and the disputation, have thoroughly understood that, this last encounter being concluded, the greatest tumult was excited among the people who had gathered there. For some, applauding Archelaus on his part, strove with shouts to celebrate his immense praises; but others on the opposing side, seething with wrath and hatred against Mani, were more probably moved by fury to kill him. And that a tumult was excited among the people, the text of the aforesaid Acts, which we ourselves append, clearly makes manifest.

Wherefore it appears most likely that, just as amid the shouts of the crowds the praises of the victorious Archelaus were sung together, so also with curses and reproaches both the heresy and infamy of Mani, and his sacrilegious doctrine, were abominated and torn to pieces. But if Beausobre should still wish to oppose me, I would ask what the name 'tumult' is meant to signify.

But if, according to Cicero, it imports nothing else than so great a disturbance that a greater fear arises from it, we now understand that, the reputation and repute of Mani being imperiled by the disputations that had been held, so that the crowds would not permit Archelaus to return to his own home, it is very probable that those same crowds wished with equal zeal to detain Mani, to bind him with chains, or to overwhelm him with stones, lest by fleeing he should escape the punishments due. Archelaus therefore had perhaps to restrain this tumult of the crowds with words and entreaties, lest against the rights of nations and ecclesiastical rights a savagery should arise from so great a disturbance. Had not Marcellus invited Mani, and indeed by a letter, that he should come to Cascharae?

Therefore the rights of nations had to be preserved, nor could it ever, without loss of pledged faith, be permitted to anyone that he should be harmed by hostile hands; especially since he was subject not to the Roman empire, but to the Persian. And so it could not fall into the mind of Archelaus that, with Marcellus present, he should excite the people to sedition and seek the death of the heretic. Wherefore the same holy bishop, even to preserve ecclesiastical mildness, urged the people not to depart from the place in which they had gathered, promising them that a little later he would make new words to them. But still the crowds were being gathered, and that neither the tumult nor the disturbance had been suppressed, these words make plain.

But afterward, when they had gathered, Archelaus urged them to acquiesce to him and to hear his word. If therefore the people were not tumultuously rising against Mani, if they were not seeking him unto death, why did Archelaus employ a new endeavor and persuasions that those who had gathered should acquiesce? Therefore, that Epiphanius might describe the series of deeds more clearly, he fabricated nothing of his own accord, but recounted those things which perhaps were once contained also in those same Acts, and now, through the unskillfulness of copyists or the bad faith of translators, have been omitted. And indeed that a lacuna crept into it, the preceding words denote, which we have already transcribed at the end.

For after these words, namely 'so that (the crowds indeed) strove with all zeal,' these other words are immediately subjoined, which yield no genuine sense: 'beyond to him they would not permit, etc.' — which lacuna Zacagni, noticing it in the manuscript codices, judged that at least the particle 'and' ought to be supplied, which perhaps still causes confusion and disturbance of the text, as anyone may easily judge from the context. But that nothing is there wanting, I shall not much resist granting freely. What then? Did Epiphanius fabricate of his own opinion that the people sought to overwhelm Mani with stones? Away with the fabrication!

For the series of the Acts narrates how to that parish a multitude of men had gathered from that whole province, and other men from the neighboring places were present, and, silence being made, Archelaus in this manner began to speak concerning Mani. Then, having uttered a few words, subjoining these others, he entreats the people that, all disturbance being cast aside and every uproar removed, they should not decline to hear the things which he had learned about Mani and which he had determined to indicate: 'but now (says he) I entreat you, who wish to say very few things, that you hear with silence, that you may recognize who he is, and whence, and of what sort is this one who has come, etc.';

once therefore, a second time, and at length a third time, Archelaus had to enjoin silence to check the disturbance and tumult of the crowds. Nor for any other cause, except that that people was already striving to inveigh against Mani; for these last words, which we have transcribed, most evidently make plain that the minds of the same people had been stirred against the heretic. When therefore Archelaus, employing sound counsel, promised to make words to the same people concerning this heretic's person, condition, native land, character, and crimes, he judged that by his narrative he could win for himself the attention of the hearers who had gathered, and meanwhile open a broad way for the fleeing Mani, that he might prepare for himself the safeguards of his life and safety.

And at length it so came about that he, retracing the ways by which he had come, having crossed the river, arrived at the fortress of Arabio. 5. But let us suppose still further that the people of Diodoris had not been already excited by movements of wrath and hatred against Mani — what then? Did Archelaus, in disclosing the life and crimes of Mani, wish to move the people, so that, the heretic being seized, he might be led like a victim afterward to be slaughtered by the Persians and slain in sacrifice? For who could judge this without the mark of rashness?

Since rather it is permissible to judge that Archelaus wished to discourse about the origin, birth, condition, lies, and Manichaean crimes of Mani, and also about the capital sentence passed against this worthless fellow by the Persians, who were everywhere seeking him out by public power, lest the simpler and those less expert in matters of faith should be seduced by the persuasion of that false doctrine. Did not the Arians, Nestorians, Eutychians, and in the latest centuries the Calvinists, Lutherans, and Socinians, propagate the figments of their heresies by preachings and disputations?

Which indeed could happen to them more successfully when, relying on the clash of arms and on power, or when made more celebrated by the authority of dignities or the learning of the sciences, or finally when, having obtained some protection of the princes of this age, and every rein of modesty and fear being spurned, it was most free for them, by the depravity of their opinions, to corrupt and pervert the minds, morals, and faith of others. Archelaus therefore, with the peoples applauding him, had to make manifest not only that the adversary of his Catholic law was strong with no true and genuine knowledge and understanding of the sacred Scriptures, but that he overthrew the chief mysteries of our faith and abolished them with his fables:

and moreover that he had been despoiled of all the goods and aids both of nature and of fortune; so that his name, his evil morals and crimes, already then ascertained by many nations, were utterly abominated everywhere. What crime therefore could be detected in such a narrative and manner of acting, I simply do not see. Therefore, granting freely that the people who had gathered at Diodoris to hear the disputation had not been at all stirred against Mani, was it not fitting for the holy bishop to admonish that people concerning all those things which he had clearly learned from the mouth of Turbo and of the other disciple?

Was it not fitting for the bishop, with all those precautions and means which he judged more efficacious and stronger, to preserve and defend the tranquillity of his diocese, the salvation of his sheep, and the purity of Christian doctrine? Plainly Beausobre invents, in his attempt to turn such a manner of acting into a crime. Especially since Archelaus did not falsely accuse Mani, nor did he grow hot against him for an irrational cause by fabricating falsehoods; but he narrated only those things which (as we have said) he had learned from the mouth of two of Mani's disciples. 6. But now that the holy Fathers and writers described the death of Mani with the utmost agreement, the preceding testimonies adduced at the outset of this chapter can most fully make plain.

Beausobre nevertheless, his invectives against the bishops Archelaus and Epiphanius being completed, still striving to seek a knot in a bulrush, noticing the somewhat differing modes of speaking and phrases of the aforesaid writers, with a soft arm and censorious pen plucks at them, in order to show that they are discordant, and this for the reason that he contends to lower the credit of the Acts of Archelaus. First he says that Epiphanius, in describing the death of Mani, adorned it with new circumstances, when he affirmed that Mani had been flayed with the point of a thorn, and his skin filled with straw — to whom Abulpharagius, a Syrian writer, seems to lend support.

But (says he) it is probable enough that this man learned and copied it out from the reading of Epiphanius, since he was very much versed in the Greek language. He adds that Photius, who surveyed the Greek relation drawn from the Acts of Archelaus, gave testimony that the skin of Mani was filled with air or wind, like a bellows. This last he judges more probable. For the skins of criminals and malefactors, who were flayed by the Persians, were filled with air and not with straw, which thus filled they strove to preserve, just as it is read concerning the emperor Valerian, flayed by the command of Sapor after his death. Whose preserved skin the Persians then affected to show to the envoys of the Roman emperors, as a monument of their glorious victory.

For the rest, if credence is to be given to the readings and little tales of the Greeks, we shall judge that St. Bartholomew and the monk Studdas underwent a fate like that of Manes. Epiphanius wrongly adds, moreover, that the Manichaeans were accustomed to sleep and lie stretched out upon straw or thorns, keeping the memory of their arch-patriarch, who had been flayed by the sharpness of thorns, and whose skin had been stuffed with straw or chaff. But that Epiphanius invented this, the same Beausobre, guided by the testimony of Augustine, affirms. He relates that a schism arose among the Manichaeans at Rome, when Constantius was a citizen of Rome.

When many men of this sect had been gathered together in order to observe the Manichaean precepts to the letter, that assembly and congregation was very quickly divided into two factions. For some deserted this manner of living because of its excessive rigor, while others remained in the rigor and observance of the commandments they praised. Concerning this schism, here described by Beausobre, we shall speak more opportunely, especially when our manner of writing turns to the various grades of the Manichaeans. 7. Meanwhile, however, I would wish the reader to observe that all these things which we have just now set down from Beausobre — namely concerning the diverse modes and phrases of speech of the preceding writers and Fathers —

in no way weaken or overturn the truth of the matter and the history of the Manichaean's death. For the aim of the writers we praise was by no means to describe the minute and most slender circumstances of this death. For some more fully, others more briefly, asserted that Manes was flayed alive by the Persians, so that he might plainly pay the penalties of his own wickednesses. And if any one of them thought fit to add something which had been passed over by the preceding writers, that could perhaps have happened either from a common and perhaps certain tradition received from the Persians, or because they strove to accommodate their writings more and more to the usage, rites, and institutions of the Persians.

For the rest, that one thing was, with the highest consensus, approved by all and handed down in writing: namely, that Manes, by royal sentence pronounced against him, was stripped of his skin. But whether he was flayed while still alive, or whether the tearing off of that skin was done by the points of thorns or by an iron stylus, does not pertain to the truth of history. Since circumstances of this kind are of little or no moment, and not so necessary that we should accuse the writers who added or omitted them of falsehood or fabulous narratives. We ought to affirm exactly the same concerning his corpse, in no way handed over to burial, which rather was left to these vicissitudes and to become the food and nourishment of beasts and birds.

That this manner of proceeding among the Persians and other nations by no means smacked of infamy and reproach, Beausobre asserts, being led by the weightiest testimonies. But the foundation from which the author himself contends he draws this conjecture not only totters as weak, but altogether falls. Namely, that the Persians shrank in horror from digging the earth and making pits in it to bury the corpses of the dead. And that they were not accustomed to do this out of the greatest veneration which they paid to the elements. But who does not know that the Persians had hollows, crypts, and caverns?

If, therefore, it was a matter of religion to them not to dig pits in the earth, because they showed a certain worship and veneration to the elements, I do not see why they could not have buried the bodies of the dead in other places, where the earth preserves its natural hollows, pits, and caverns. Wherefore we judge as ill-adduced all those monuments which he collected from Porphyry, Assemanus, and Hyde, and appended at the end, since they contribute nothing at all to our aim: namely, that the flesh of the dead Manes was handed over and left to be devoured by beasts and birds. 8. Yet it does not escape me that so infamous and savage a death, which had to be a matter of dread and terror to any men whatsoever, moved the minds of the disciples of Manes not lightly.

On the contrary, then grown bolder, they began with the greatest signs of joy and with tokens of superstitious religion to venerate that day every single year; and for this cause, the solemn Passover of our Lord Jesus Christ being abolished, or at least kept by few with a most lukewarm celebration, they honored with great honors merely the day on which the Manichaean had been slain. The cause of this profane and sacrilegious rite Augustine once exaggerated, and as if rapt into amazement — namely when he heard the masters of the Manichaean sect — he inquired of them what the reason was that they observed the Lord's Passover with no vigils, no more prolonged fast enjoined upon the hearers, and finally no more festive apparatus, whereas they honored their Bema — that is, the day on which the Manichaean was killed — with a tribunal set up with five steps and adorned with precious linens, placed in readiness and set before the worshippers, with a most festive solemnity and the greatest devotion of soul.

When Augustine, I say, inquired about this, it was answered that the day of the passion of him who had truly suffered ought to be celebrated; but that Christ, who had not been born, and who had shown to human eyes not a true but a feigned flesh, had not endured but had feigned a passion. To this monstrous falsehood, then, the holy

Doctor, after his conversion, taking note, groaned and cried out against those very men, who, though they wished to be called Christians and denied that Christ was born of a woman and had a human body, would not celebrate his passion — which is now the most festive season of the whole world — but had substituted another sacrilegious solemnity of the paschal Bema, which, as though most pleasing and sweet and worthy of the highest honor, they desired to worship more vehemently. But whether the more recent Manichaeans are still accustomed to keep these solemn rites, wholly escapes me. If only I could ask Beausobre and Bayle, who with every effort contended on behalf of the Manichaean religion, whether the things we have recounted from Augustine still remain in use?

For their answers could adorn these present lucubrations of ours more and more. These, at length, are the things which, from the writings of the ancients, come to be said concerning the life, morals, deeds, and death of Manes. But now, for a fuller knowledge of things, we must return to Archelaus, who, at the persuasion of Marcellus, committed to writing the confession of Turbo and the disputations he had held with Manes.