Sermons & Letters 199

1. The year of Manes's death we can scarcely determine, unless we rely on certain fixed conjectures. Of these, some pertain to that time in which the heretic himself wished to hold two conferences, first with bishop Archelaus, then with the presbyter Diodorus, in which he disputed concerning the principles and dogmas of his false sect; but others must be drawn from those things which we described in the second chapter of this work, in which, against Paschasius Quesnel, we treated the question of the time at which the Manichaean heresy became known to the world as one to be condemned—namely, when that most wicked man began to scatter his depraved dogmas throughout the globe.

For there, relying chiefly on the testimony of the great pontiff Leo, whereby he affirmed that Manes became known as one to be condemned at that time when Probus and Paulinus held the consulship, when now the eighth persecution was raging against the Christians, it was made sufficiently clear. And that these men held the consulship after the death of the emperor Aurelian, we proved—led by the weightiest considerations drawn from the tables, chronicles, and catalogues of both ancient and more recent writers—and we determined that it must be assigned to the year 277 of Christ, with those writers, namely, lending their support, whom we noted at the foot. But whether that year was indeed the year of Manes's death, the Acts of Archelaus nowhere intimate.

Rather, the writer of these Acts is charged by Beausobre as careless, because he seems to affirm that the whole Manichaean tragedy occurred under one and the same king of the Persians, whereas one ought to reckon this altogether impossible. The most illustrious Alexander Zacagni, however, who recalled this argument to examination neither cursorily nor drowsily, reasons otherwise. He therefore, first of all, relies on the testimony of St. Leo the Great praised above, proving that the Manichaean heresy became known to the world as one to be condemned when Probus and Paulinus held the consulship.

Wherefore (that same learned writer Zacagni subjoins) it must necessarily be said that Archelaus's disputation with Manes, through which the error of Manes became known to the whole world, took place between July and December of the year 277 of the Christian era. Hence he judged that those words of Archelaus ought to be kindly interpreted which occur to be read in chapter 27 of the disputation—when, namely, before the judges who were present at the disputation, wishing to press Manes hard, he urges upon him that he is not the Paraclete promised by Christ;

otherwise, contrary to his own divine promises made, confirmed by testament, passion, and death, he would long have left his apostles and disciples as orphans without ruler, leader, and master, if that Spirit of truth, who was to teach all things, had come after nearly three hundred years and had confirmed himself, as it were, to be the heir of the Church. It is therefore to be believed that Archelaus did not burst into these words in order to exaggerate the stupidity of Manes (as Zacagni will have it), but we judge that he spoke with propriety of words.

For although he set down the round number of three hundred years, nevertheless he used a certain qualification, employing and interposing the adverb 'nearly,' namely to intimate that the third century of the Church was then verging and running toward its close when the aforesaid disputation was being held. But Archelaus himself in this matter needed no interpreter or excuse. For in the progress of that argument, in order to press Manes more and more, he appeals to those signs by which it behooved the coming of the Holy Spirit to be made plain to the whole world; and although, whether through a copyist's lapse or a translator's drowsiness,

in dealing with this number of years he seems, as it were, to depart from an a priori mode of reckoning, namely when, taking up that promise of Christ the Lord, by which it was attested that not long afterward he would send the Paraclete who would wipe away the mourning and tears of the apostles and disciples—by which he is understood to have sent, after three hundred years and more, this one who bears witness to himself. But who does not see that either an error crept in, or that Archelaus followed another mode of reckoning? For he does not there make mention of the Christian era, but only of the years which had run from the reign of Tiberius Caesar to Probus himself, being led by this persuasion, that he might more and more press and reproach Manes from the promises of Christ the Lord.

For from the death of Tiberius up to the reign of Probus, only two hundred and forty-one years flowed by, as can clearly become known from the Petavian tables. Wherefore I can by no means persuade myself that Archelaus, carried away by the heat of the disputation, fell into so grave an error, especially since the affairs of the Roman empire could not lie hidden from him; because at that time the Romans already ruled over the regions of the East and of Mesopotamia, as is ascertained by all. But that Archelaus in that place discoursed not of the beginning of the Christian era to be reckoned from the Nativity of the Savior, but from his death—which occurred while Tiberius ruled over the Romans and Jews—the very aim of his procedure clearly makes manifest.

For what did he strive to prove throughout that whole praised chapter, but that Manes falsely assumed to himself the name of the Holy Spirit, and feigned that the virtue, power, and gifts of the Spirit sacrilegiously belonged to him? Wherefore, in order to accomplish this the more happily in his disputation, he appeals first to those certain promises of Christ the Lord, by which he had said in John that he would return most speedily to the Father, in order to prepare a place for his disciples, and would ask the Father to give another Paraclete who might remain in the Church forever. Which Paraclete he then calls the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him; but you shall know, because he shall abide with you, and shall be in you.

At length, to confirm the truth of what he had said still more, he subjoined: 'I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.' That Christ therefore made this promise to his apostles and disciples whom he was addressing can scarcely be called into doubt. Who indeed were also to receive that Spirit, not after many days, that they might be true and sincere witnesses in all the earth of his preaching, passion, death, and resurrection. But that Christ made such promises while Tiberius reigned, on the day before he suffered, and after the Passover had been celebrated with his disciples—when, the last testament of his will now completed, the Jews had by counsel decreed to inflict a horrible and bloody death upon him—who can be ignorant? 2.

In order, then, that they might be fulfilled, there could not have run by so great a span of time as is computed to have elapsed from the reign of Tiberius to the emperor Probus. For that two hundred and forty years were consumed between the two reigns we understand without any hesitation from the tables of the Roman consuls and emperors. And when Archelaus had taken notice of this very interval of time, he demonstrates that the Manichaean is to be cast out and driven off like a thief and a robber;

since he brought forward no signs or examples of the divine promises by which he might show himself to be the Paraclete who was prefigured by Jesus—in which matter, ignorant, he perhaps represents Jesus as a liar, who indeed had said that he would send the Paraclete not long afterward (he says), yet is found to have sent this one after three hundred years and more, as he himself bears witness. So great a deferral of time, therefore, would have rendered the divine pledges utterly void, as Archelaus asserts. And taking up the part of those whom Christ the Lord will come to judge on the last day of judgment, he brings them on, as if speaking upon the stage—all those, that is, who from the reign of Tiberius up to Probus departed from this light—and thus, addressing Manes, he reasons.

'What will those say to Jesus on the day of judgment who have already departed from life from that time until now? Will they not allege these things: Torment us not, if we did not do your works; for indeed, since you promised under Tiberius Caesar that you would send the Paraclete, who should convict us of sin and of righteousness, you sent him only at last under Probus; you left us orphans, though you yourself said, I will not leave you orphans, though you yourself said that you would soon go to send the Paraclete.' Who then will deny that the time of this disputation was determined by Archelaus?

For if he asserts that Probus then held the reins of empire, he has most evidently signified that the present conference with the Manichaean is to be assigned to the year 277 of Christ, if we lend credence to Petavius's computations; or to the year 282, if we rely on the testimony and reasonings of the most illustrious Pagi. 3. But now I very well understand that all the things which have hitherto been written by no means clear Archelaus of error and drowsiness, although he indicated clearly enough that his disputations with Manes took place when Probus already ruled over the Roman empire.

Furthermore, Probus reigned for six years, since he had received the scepter in the year 277 praised above, and had remained in it until the year 282; and to this latter year Pagi assigns the praised disputations and the death of the Manichaean, which Beausobre puts earlier, judging rather that it occurred in the first year of that reign. Which controversy it cannot now be part of the present leisure to settle. For the rest, we are persuaded that those words which we meet with in the Acts of Archelaus—namely, 'that he sent this one after three hundred years and more'—crept into that disputation of Archelaus through a translator's error or a copyist's negligence, since rather one ought to read: 'after two hundred years and more.'

For Tiberius departed this life in the year 37, and from his death to the reign of Probus, two hundred and thirty-nine years intervened. Nevertheless, we judge that we have disputed enough on this matter—especially since strength is added to this conjecture of ours by those other preceding words of Archelaus, in which he clearly indicated that not yet three whole hundred years had run by. And so either it would have to be said that Archelaus was not sufficiently consistent with himself in the same chapter of the disputation—which lacks probability—or the error of the anachronism must be laid to the charge of the translator or the copyists. But now it behooves us to take a step to other matters, that we may pursue the remaining things which we judge to pertain to the destruction of Manes. 4.

And first indeed the succession and catalogue of the kingdom of the Persians must be consulted, so that we may understand whether all those things which we have written above concerning the Manichaean tragedy took place under one and the same king—as Beausobre affirmed that Archelaus, or the author of the disputation which is circulated under the name of Archelaus, had indicated, condemning him as it were with a censorious pen for negligence.

As, therefore, regards the catalogues of the kings of the Persians of the middle age, it is certain that, the stock of the Parthian kings being extinct and their empire abolished in the year 226 of Christ, Artaxares—or, as Petavius notes, Artaxerxes—then began to rule over the Persians; and when he had held the reins of the kingdom for fifteen years, Sapor the first of that name succeeded him, who, enjoying a more lasting principate, afflicted even the Romans with enormous losses, as Agathias affirmed. With these statements Beausobre does not disagree, who, following the criticism of the illustrious Pagi, prolongs the reign of Sapor up to the year 271, or to the beginning of the following year 272.

But the praised Beausobre, having devised a new system concerning the Manichaean history, not only, adhering to the Edessene Chronicle, persuades himself that his birthday fell in the year 240; but from the silence of the Oriental writers he denies that Manes was bound to a servile condition, judging rather that he drew his origin from the stock of the Magi, and had as a father a man who was a Magus, who once attained an episcopate and was called Manes. In short, he invents by his writing that Manes, having consumed many periods of time, was the son of that man;

and that this Manes, versed in the reading of the Greeks, devoted his labor to mathematics and music, astronomy, geography, astrology, medicine, and painting, and excelled most of all in the art of painting, as also in the understanding or interpretation of the sacred Scriptures. He then asserts that Manes fell into heresy. Who therefore, cut off from the Church by excommunication, obtained the favor and benevolence of the praised Sapor, king of the Persians, and, dwelling among the courtiers, is bidden to accompany the king when he was arranging his battles against the Romans—in the persuasion that he could heal himself and his soldiers. 5. But in what year he was taken on by Sapor to exercise the most excellent office of physician, he did not relate.

But it can be conjectured from that time in which Sapor, leading the forces of his army, inflicted violence and slaughter upon the Romans. That this happened chiefly in the time of the emperor Valerian, the records of Roman affairs report. Valerian indeed, by the treachery of the general Macrianus, being about to pay atrocious penalties—with God as avenger—for the innocent blood of Christians that had been shed, was captured by Sapor, king of the Persians, and led into Persia; for a long time held as an object of mockery, at last by the king's command he was flayed, and paid the penalties of his crimes.

But since battles of this kind occurred after the year 254, and Valerian, worn out by his punishments, put off the man in the seventh year of his own reign, I do not see by what reason, by what knowledge of the sciences, by what skill, finally, of the medical art, Manes could then have been equipped—so that, on account of his cultivation of nearly all the sciences, he was very pleasing to Sapor's heart, and was even employed as a most excellent and most noble physician. But that this could have come to pass, no one—unless dull and leaden-witted—can persuade himself. For, on Beausobre's authority, the birth of Manes must be assigned to the year 241. But Sapor began to inflict disasters upon the Romans in the year 245, according to Baronius; the servitude and betrayal of Valerian occurred around the year 256; his death in the year 260.

When therefore Valerian paid the penalties of his wickednesses, Manes was scarcely reaching the nineteenth year of his age; and when Sapor was leading his forces and army against the Romans, he could still have been an infant and a tender child; since the aforesaid betrayal and servitude of Valerian must be referred to the fifteenth or sixteenth year of his age—which mode of reckoning proves very well that Manes could not then have practiced the art of a most excellent and most noble physician with Sapor. No less fabulous seem the things which the same Beausobre relates concerning the ordination or priesthood of Manes, concerning his understanding and interpretation of all the sacred Scriptures, on account of which, having fallen into heresy and been deprived of catholic communion, he could betake himself to the court of Sapor.

by procuring for himself those safeguards of benevolence which the same author has recounted above. Equally fabulous must be reckoned the things said concerning his ministries and parochial office, and concerning the disputations held on behalf of the catholic religion against the Jews and Magi and gentiles before he was cut off from the Church—which our critic there invents without any author worthy of belief. For what? When Sapor, the first king of the Persians of that name, closed his day, Manes was scarcely reaching the nineteenth or twentieth year of his age, as we have already seen. How then, against the rules of the sacred

canons, be thought to have been initiated into the priesthood, then, on account of heresy, deprived of communion and expelled from the Church, before Sapor should die—namely, at the time when that king, harsh in fortune and with a multitude of forces, was leading his armies to inflict disasters upon the Romans? No one of sound mind, who does not lend credence to dreams, will be able to persuade himself of this. Nay more, the same Beausobre supposes that several years ran by between Manes's fall into heresy and Sapor's death. For that very reason it behooved him to affirm that his ordination was still more premature.

But the diligent writer in the art of criticism, such as Beausobre boasts himself to be, by no means took notice of this incongruity of facts, being intent only on this pursuit: to weaken and cast down the testimonies of the ancient Greek and Latin Fathers. Therefore, indulging rather in novelties, he transferred many paradoxes and fables into his own work, praising the testimonies of Persian and Assyrian writers who flourished far from the age of Manes. 6. He then describes the characters and endowments of mind, the zeal, and the manner of acting of the Persian kings, in order to display a certain abundance of erudition. And using a certain digression, he commemorates the ancient religion of that people, and asserts that this, long obsolete, was made to flourish by the zeal of Sapor, king of the Persians.

Having, moreover, praised the prudence, fortitude, and justice of this king, he takes a step toward explaining the etymology of that word 'Magi.' By which appellation the presbyters and philosophers of Persia were accustomed to call themselves. He also adds many things concerning the philosophy, studies, theology, religion, and worship of Zoroaster. And at last he wove in so many trifles, inept and jocular interpretations, which to relate we judge would exceedingly ill befit a sensible and religious man treating of Christian matters, and therefore we have deemed it necessary to pass over these and other things of this kind in silence. 7. And so it will rather remain for us to inquire under which king of the Persians Manes was compelled to pay the due penalties of his wickednesses.

In which leisure we should not have to expend much labor, if we did not likewise have as our adversary Beausobre, who is but little consistent with himself in his statements. We therefore first call to mind those things which a little before we described concerning the year of the death of king Sapor. Whom, when his son Hormisdas had succeeded—as the Persian annals prove, and as Beausobre too freely concedes—it is ascertained that he spent only two years in the empire. But this man had as his successor Varanes the first of that name, who, the third year of his rule scarcely completed, departed from this light, leaving Varanes II, the successor and heir of that king. But from what year of Christ the beginning of the reign of Varanes II is to be reckoned, Petavius, Pagi, and others do not agree among themselves with Beausobre.

But those men contend that it must be taken from the year 276. On the contrary, Beausobre, relying on various conjectures, fancifully maintains that it is to be assigned to the following year 277. Therefore he flatters himself that the punishment of Manes occurred not under Varanes II, but under his predecessor Varanes I. But we must attend to the aim of his writing and reasoning. As certain, therefore, he first supposes, with Pagi, that Sapor took up the reins of the Persian kingdom from the year two hundred and forty-one, and held the same up to the year two hundred and seventy-two. But to Hormisdas, this son and successor of his in the kingdom, he adjudged not two whole years, but one year and ten days, or ten months, of empire.

And he believed that under this king Manes, first compelled to go into exile from Persia by Sapor, betook himself again into Persia, and exhibited to the new king a certain book of Revelations, adorned with various and most perfect pictures. And that this book was not different from the Gospel of the Manichaean, in which the false history of Jesus Christ was contained, Beausobre persuades himself from a certain testimony of Photius. Who, moreover, confesses that it is to be lamented that the copies of this work, through the envy of the times and the hatred of men, have utterly perished, since they contained within themselves the offspring of a wiser man, who in that age expended his labor on the philosophical studies of the Orientals.

Finally, he calls that religious economy of prelates and secular princes an intolerable abuse, by which such pernicious books—fit and ordained to deprave the faith, piety, and morals of the peoples—were ordered to be destroyed and burned in the flames; and he confessed that he did not know whether any relics at least or fragments of this work survive among the ancient Oriental, Arab, and Persian writers. But that Beausobre here and in many other places wished to attack and calumniate the ancient practice of the Church, preserved even to this day, who does not see? We reserve to ourselves the refuting of such gibes and false calumnies when we shall come to treat of the decrees of the great Leo and of the other Fathers published against the Manichaean books.

Nor need we linger over what he adds in the same place, when he speaks of the Persian rites and ceremonies pertaining to a certain use of the girdle. He asserts, on the authority of Hyde, that this is reckoned among the moral precepts of Zoroaster. Whence he concludes that the Persians attribute to the girdle the very same power which Roman Catholics imagine to reside in the sign of the cross and in holy water — namely, for driving out demons and freeing men from their violence. He therefore concludes that both those rites — that of the Persians, and those of the Mohammedans and of the Christians — reek entirely of superstition.

He then observes how at length Hormisdas, king of the Persians, graciously received the vaunted Gospel of Manes, and made himself a Manichaean. Since many soon followed the example of this king, Manes easily won for himself both name and authority among the Persians. But, he adds, the king's protection could not much avail Manes to live more safely and securely. For the Christians and the Magi, perceiving that he opposed their religions, at once became hostile to him; and that he might escape their fury, King Hormisdas furnished him with both refuge and defense in a certain impregnable fortress, so that there, namely, he might guard against that violent death which, beyond all doubt, the rage and onset of so many and so great enemies would have brought upon him.

Hormisdas at length closed his final day, having scarcely spent two years in his reign, as the common opinion of writers holds, which even Beausobre has not dared to gainsay. Those who assign his death to the year 273 or 274 affirm that he had as his successor Varanes I, his son. He, following his father's example, in the beginnings of his reign extended defense and protection to Manes. But afterwards, when the persecution of the pagan Magi and of the Jews against him grew fierce again, and he was overcome by them in a certain public disputation, he was at last put to death as an author of heresies. But what kind of punishment he underwent by the king's decree, Beausobre does not there determine with certainty.

He asserts merely that, as though a Sadducee, Manes was slain by capital punishment, citing the opinions of various authorities — namely of Hyde, who affirms that he was nailed to a cross at the city gate; or of Abbé Renaudot, who asserts that his skin was flayed from him while alive and, stuffed with hay, was hung up to strike terror into others. To this testimony he subjoins the book of a certain uncertain author who describes the history of the Persians, or that of Abulpharagius, who says that the skin of Manes was flayed off after his death. This he indicated as more probable, led by the example of Valerian, who died a natural death, from whom Sapor ordered the skin to be flayed, that he might expose it to the Romans to curb the arrogance of that proud nation.

To these opinions he added a third, by which it was asserted that Manes was slain by hanging and divided into two parts, one part being fixed to one gate of the city and the other part to the other. Whence it came about that those places were called the Upper Manes and the Lower Manes. But that all these things could have happened under Varanes I — who will be persuaded of this? For it is established, upon consideration of the testimonies of the most careful writers, that he had already ceased to live in the year 276. Therefore, in the consulship of Aurelius Probus Augustus and Aruntius Paulinus,

the condemnation of that heresy could not have become known through him, nor could he have disputed with Archelaus the bishop and Diorides the presbyter — or, as Beausobre prefers, with the Magi, the pagans, and the Jews — since he was no longer among the living, on account of the death which in the preceding year he had had to undergo by the king's decree. We therefore, to guard against such ambiguities and pitfalls, and relying on the testimonies of the Greek and Latin Fathers, defer the death of Manes himself to the year 277, at which time Varanes II ruled over the Persians. We judge that Beausobre's assertions are scarcely, indeed hardly at all, to be subscribed to — he who set before himself no other aim than to heap together a vain and useless apparatus of doubtful, jesting, and undigested erudition;

that is, in order to deceive incautious readers by his allurements, by leading the sincere and constant tradition of the Catholic Church to its ruin through certain fabulous traditions derived from unknown and impure sources — as we undertake to prove more expressly in the following chapter. 1. I should seem to myself to be most gravely wanting if, having explained with a fuller pen all those things which pertain to the origin, heresy, errors, crimes, and punishment of Manes, I did not more seriously turn my mind to that disputation and to the Acts which are circulated under the name of Archelaus, bishop of Caschara.

For this work was whole and perfect when it was entrusted to the public presses at Rome of the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith in the year of Christ 1698; and the most illustrious and eminent man Lorenzo Alessandro Zaccagni, prefect of the Vatican Library, adorned it learnedly with the greatest zeal and labor in his collection of the ancient monuments of the Greek and Latin Church. That this work was received with the approval of all the learned, until Beausobre's History of the Manichaeans came to light, no one is ignorant. But since in the year 1734 the same Beausobre committed his work to the presses at Amsterdam, even then the truth of the History of Archelaus and the authenticity of the aforesaid Acts began to be doubted, even by learned Catholics;

for such men, on the one hand pondering with themselves the traditions of the ancients, and on the other weighing the arguments by which Beausobre strives to diminish and overthrow the credit and authority of these, could already easily be brought to this persuasion: either that such a History is altogether fabulous, or that it at least contains many things which are repugnant to the truth of facts and to the character of those times, to the governance of civil affairs, and to the affairs of the Church.

When indeed I had resolved to remove, or at least to reconcile, all these things, there first met me the silence of Eusebius of Caesarea and of other writers of that age — upon which above all Beausobre relies — from which negative argument he contends that the Acts of Archelaus, and the two disputations appended to them, contain fiction and fables. But I judge that this silence of Eusebius and of other writers of that age can and ought to move the mind of no learned man. For what of it? The affair of the Manichaeans, the disputation, and the exile occurred in the waning of the third century of the Church; the Acts of Archelaus and the two appended disputations were written in the Persian and Syriac tongue.

It is therefore no wonder if such monuments did not reach the hands of Eusebius, who wrote his Ecclesiastical History after the first celebrated Council of Nicaea, and to whom only the Manichaean heresy became known, which in his Chronicle he described under the year 277. If this silence of the writers of that age could serve Beausobre's aim, he ought to have brought forward into the midst Syrian and Persian writers who, in describing the state of the Church of that nation and the affairs of the Manichaeans, denied this History and the disputations of Archelaus, or concealed them altogether by their silence. But where are they? Few writers flourished in that age who could have accomplished this.

For if we consult the Greeks, from whom the affairs of the Syrians and Persians were hidden, there occur only Anatolius of Laodicea, who flourished under Probus; or Pierius, presbyter of Alexandria, under Carus and Diocletian; or Methodius, who under the same Diocletian was slain in martyrdom — inasmuch as he wrote against Porphyry and Origen — Arnobius the rhetorician, and his disciple Lactantius. But who does not understand that all these, on account of the great distance of places and the absence of any commerce between them and the Persians and Syrians, must have been ignorant of Manichaean affairs? It ought therefore to be no wonder if we miss writers of that age who might have recounted the Acts and disputations of Archelaus.

But that not long after the first Council of Nicaea the affairs of the Manichaeans came to the knowledge of the Greeks is most thoroughly established. For in the course of the fourth century — that is, in the year 348 — Cyril, bishop of Jerusalem, in his sixth catechesis, seized the occasion not only of attacking the heresy of Scythianus, Terebinthus, and Manes, their errors being laid bare, but also made mention of Archelaus, bishop of Mesopotamia, who met Manes as he was fleeing from prison, and, constituting an audience of Greeks, refuted him even before pagan judges, lest, if Christians were the judges, they should seem to have judged anything out of partiality. Now who will deny that by these words the disputations and Acts of Archelaus with Manes are indicated?

But let Beausobre tell us, I pray, from what sources Cyril could have drawn these things, unless from the sufficiently widespread tradition perhaps of Macarius and Maximus, bishops of that Church, a tradition which had already obtained credit and authority; or from some Persian or Syriac writing which he had at hand. But that Cyril dreamed, or wished purposely to invent, in the instruction of those who were to be enlightened by the sacred laver, is by no means to be supposed. Otherwise all the other Fathers who flourished in his age and after him would have noted him for error and assailed him in their writings, writing that the disputation of Archelaus with Manes was altogether fictitious.

Meanwhile one thing must not be passed over, which can have very great force in refuting other and further arguments of Beausobre. Cyril, namely, called Archelaus bishop of Mesopotamia. But nowhere did he indicate of what city he was bishop. This economy or caution, however, Epiphanius by no means followed, who in heresy 66 called Archelaus bishop of Caschara, and in the rest subscribed to Cyril himself, though weaving together a fuller account of these Manichaean matters. Beausobre then contends that the autograph of this work was never composed in the Syriac tongue, and that it first came to light through the fraud of the Greeks. Therefore he gathers that it reeks of nothing else than pure fiction.

He likewise carps at Lorenzo Zaccagni for having written that Epiphanius consulted Greek copies. But he indeed wrongs that distinguished man. For Zaccagni proves this not only by the testimony of Jerome, but also brings forward the weightiest conjectures — among them namely this, that Archelaus, treating of the extent of the sun's course, says in chapter 32 that it is called a 'sphere' by the Greeks. And so that autograph could not first have come forth in the Greek language, but through some translator who elaborated a version of those Acts from the Syriac into Greek speech, that, transferred into a better-known tongue, all the faithful throughout the world might have the fullest knowledge of them.

But it is established that this very Greek version, of which we treat, is older than Epiphanius, who reports remarkable excerpts of it in Greek in his treatise on the heresy of the Manichaeans. Nor can it be said (the same Lorenzo Alessandro Zaccagni subjoins) that Epiphanius himself made these things into Greek from a Syriac copy, since all the things which are brought forward by him from the Acts of the disputation of Archelaus with Manes are found word for word in the Latin version which we edit. Nor does it prove anything that among the Latin writers the first who recounted such Acts was St. Jerome, who flourished about the year of Christ 392.

For rather Philaster, bishop of Brescia, ought to have made mention of these Acts — he who long before, namely in the year 370, as Beausobre notes (but more accurately Cave, in the year 380), composed a catalogue of heresies. But what judgment the learned have formed concerning Philaster's diligence and writings, one may gather from Beausobre himself and from William Cave. For that nearly all the monuments of the Greek writers escaped Philaster, the work compiled by him manifestly betrays a judgment less than accurate. 2. Beausobre himself more than once charges Philaster with ignorance and negligence, as those know full well who have surveyed his History of the Manichaeans.

If therefore he himself judged that no credit was to be given to Philaster, and for this cause assails him, why then does he suppose that this man's silence can favor his own case? Away with such a vain conjecture and reasoning! Concerning the translator, next, both Beausobre and Zaccagni discourse, but they by no means accommodate their minds to the same opinion. For Zaccagni, in order to reconcile the testimonies of St. Jerome, Epiphanius, and Heraclianus of Chalcedon, appeals to the authority of Photius, who, in codex 87 reporting certain excerpts of the same Heraclianus, subjoins these words which we read in chapter 39 of these Acts, and which seem to confirm that the same Acts were written and set down by Hegemonius.

Therefore Zaccagni judges it probable that Archelaus himself afterward added some things to his earlier disputation, and he willingly comes into this opinion, that he believed Epiphanius and Jerome could be reconciled with Heraclianus, if we should say that Archelaus first divulged in the Syriac tongue all that he had brought forward against Manes before the chosen judges; but that Hegemonius arranged in a better order the things which had already been published by Archelaus, and moreover enriched them with a preface, an epilogue, and certain other passages, so that the Acts of this most celebrated disputation, complete in all its parts, might be transmitted to posterity. 3.

These reasons and conjectures of Zaccagni Beausobre will judge to be plausible enough, yet he contends they cannot be proved, since the formulas employed by Archelaus for explaining the person of Christ and the mystery of the Incarnation suggest that they had their origin from a man who flourished and wrote after the Council of Nicaea — namely about the year 330. But it is already established that Beausobre is inconsistent with himself in the composition of his work, as is clear from those things which he objected against Archelaus above in chapter 9. For there he contended that the disputation of which we treat was utterly crammed with phrases of speech which most openly favor the heresies of the Arians, Nestorians, and Eutychians. Whence, lest he should make trouble for us, in chapter

9 of this work we endeavored to clear Archelaus himself of such malicious marks. At length this unskilled critic wrongly concludes that, since no one of the ancient Syrian authors has come his way who made mention either of Archelaus or of his disputation, he was compelled to profess and to conclude either that such a History was supposititious, or that it was contrived by the same Hegemonius, or that he received it from some man sprung from Mesopotamia — and perhaps from Turbo, who had seen the Manichaean and had given in his name to that sect — and which he then rendered adorned with very many other circumstances devised by himself.

He concludes that he drew this judgment from a certain more recent learned man, who believed that the aforesaid work was by no means to be adjudged to Archelaus, but that Hegemonius added or took away those things which he judged more opportune. From which opinion he professes that he cannot depart, until clearer arguments have been exhibited or furnished to him. But whether Beausobre has truly failed the more common persuasion — when, besides the testimonies of the aforesaid writers, others of the succeeding centuries are added; when Photius, Peter of Sicily, and the rest of the men of more refined criticism approved the aforesaid Acts and disputations of Archelaus — there will be no need to set forth in many words;

since we have discoursed enough concerning such negative arguments in the preceding pages, and since Beausobre himself, merely inventing according to his own fancy, proposes and resolves questions. Of which kind indeed is that other question he raises, whether the disputation of Caschara truly existed, or is to be called fictitious. He confesses that he has called it the disputation of Caschara, though he can neither affirm with certainty nor deny that Manes at some time disputed with some orthodox bishop concerning his errors, or held encounters.

There remain to the readers, in this matter, various examples of writers — namely of those who devised certain supposititious disputations, not only between heretics and orthodox bishops, but even feigned that they were held between apostles and heretics. He brings forward the example of the books of the Recognitions, which are circulated under the name of Clement, in which he says the history of St. Peter disputing against Simon Magus is rashly set down. William Cave, he says, believes this fabulous narration to have been brought from Syria or Mesopotamia by Bardesanes, most skilled in Greek eloquence. But who among the learned has not surveyed with his own eyes the Literary History of William Cave?

He assuredly did not affirm that such a history contained a fabulous narration. He sincerely confessed the work to be most ancient and praised even by Origen. He did not adjudge it to Clement: he reckoned it among his supposititious Works; but not in this sense, that the things contained in them reeked of fables, but because what was perhaps to be adjudged to other authors bore beforehand the name of Clement. Wrongly, therefore, did Beausobre appeal to such examples and to the testimonies of Cave, in order to show that the Acts and disputations of Archelaus were utterly fabricated.

Nor did Beausobre think it better gradually to undermine the credit of these Acts by such trifles. But he intended that he could borrow for himself weightier and more evident arguments of falsity from the very place in which the disputation is described as having been held. First, it is said that in one city of Mesopotamia there was publicly disputing by Manes and Archelaus. Secondly, that that city had been reduced into the power of the Romans. Thirdly, that that city was called Caschara or Carchara. Therefore the aforesaid Acts betray that these three characteristics fit the comedy of the disputation of Archelaus.

If therefore we find no city to which such things apply, it must necessarily be confessed that the disputation is utterly fabulous, since the author feigned the scene to have been held in a place which is nowhere to be found. He notes that Zaccagni inquired more diligently after this city of Mesopotamia. Who at length persuaded himself that the aforesaid three notes or characteristics could fit the most celebrated city of Carrhae, which afterward became more famous on account of the defeat of Crassus, as Ammianus Marcellinus noted. That this city was a Roman colony, various coins make plain, as may be seen in Spanheim, Cellarius, and others. But to Zaccagni, reasoning thus, the Latin version of certain writers, which has the name Charra, furnished the foundations.

Next, in the histories of the ancients he found no city of Mesopotamia subject to the Romans called Caschara or Carcar. But that similar names were rather attributed to a city situated in Arabia Felix, as may be seen in the Anonymous of Ravenna, the geographical writer, or in Ammianus Marcellinus, who mentions another Carcha. But, Zaccagni subjoins, Archelaus was bishop of neither of these cities. For his disputation with Manes was held in a city of Mesopotamia, placed under the dominion of the Romans, whose bishopric Archelaus held, as is expressly stated in Epiphanius and in the Acts of the disputation. But the Charcha mentioned by Marcellinus was situated outside Mesopotamia, across the Tigris, in the dominion of the Persians.

Of the Charcha of Arabia too, an Arabian city of which there is mention in the Anonymous of Ravenna, Archelaus could in no way have been bishop, since all the ancient writers hand down that he was bishop not of Arabia but of Mesopotamia. 4. This opinion of Zaccagni, Beausobre says, was long ago rejected and refuted by Assemani, a most learned man, chief prefect of the Vatican Library — subjoining these words of Assemani: 'It must rather be said that by an error of the copyists, in that single passage of the Acts, Carrha was written, than Cashar or Carrar at the beginning of the Acts and in the most distinguished writers Epiphanius, Socrates, and Photius, who certainly would never have called Carrhae, or Haran, the most celebrated city of Mesopotamia, Carcara or Cascara.'

This opinion of Assemani, however — otherwise a most weighty man — we find disapproved by the most learned Le Quien in his work entitled Oriens Christianus. For he, in the second volume, treating of the Churches of the Chaldaeans, describes Caschara as a city situated on the confines of Mesopotamia, very different from another which had been built near Cosdresna. The former city, he says, previously occupied by the worship of idols, gave its name to Christ by the preaching of St.

the preaching of St. Thaddaeus gave its name to Christ, and that bishop Archelaus presided over it under Probus — the same author who was in no way willing to swerve from Epiphanius, nor from Jerome, nor from Photius, the whole company of the ancient writers thereafter supporting him. If therefore Zaccagni's conjecture, which Beausobre intends to attack, should still totter and fall by reason of the copyists' fault, it would not thence follow that the History of which we treat is fabulous, and reeks of fiction, or that the names of Archelaus or of the bishopric, of which mention is there made, are fabrications.

Yet other conjectures which Beausobre himself subjoins do totter and utterly fall — he contending that this bishop wished to weigh the cause of the Catholic faith even before pagan judges, in the presence, namely, of a populace which wanted to overwhelm the blaspheming Manes with stones, if only Archelaus had assented. But it is a futile conjecture. Beausobre ought in the first place to have attended to the words of Cyril of Jerusalem: namely, that even some pagan judges were summoned, lest, if Christians were the judges, they should seem to have judged anything out of partiality. Those philosophers therefore, who had been summoned as advocates, lacked power and authority, chiefly because they were then subject to the Roman empire.

That pagan philosophers were admitted at the Council of Nicaea to listen and even to dispute, no one has hitherto denied. Whence then is it any wonder if bishop Archelaus, about to hold an encounter with a heretical man who clung to the false principles of the philosophy of Zoroaster and of the Magi, admitted also pagan philosophers, whom he persuaded himself would recoil from the fabulous and sophistical arguments of Manes? Beausobre then adds that in those Acts one reads that Archelaus, moved with indignation against Manes, objected to him that he was none other than a priest of Mithras — namely of the Sun — and had been accustomed to render worship to false gods. This reproach, he subjoins, the pagan populace and the city filled with idols could not approve.

But it would indeed have won applause from a Christian people, over whom a Christian emperor ruled. If it had so happened, the whole city, moved with indignation against the bishop, would have afflicted him even with injuries and with danger to his life. To show at length that all these things lack probability, he appeals to the deed or example of Julian the Apostate, who, in his fatal expedition against the Persians, refused to set out for the city of Edessa, because a very great number of Christians was found there, and turned his journey to Carrhae, that he might immolate a sacrifice to the gods. Wherefore, since the populace of this city was most greatly given to the worship of false gods, they overwhelmed with stones that unhappy man who had announced to them that Julian was already dead. 5.

This Beausobrian manner of arguing, and its artifice, could easily persuade those unlearned in ecclesiastical history. And they will not give credit to it who have learned from Eusebius of Caesarea and other sincere writers that the Christian affairs of the Churches of Mesopotamia, of the Persians, of Egypt, of Phoenicia, of Phrygia, from the year 277 to the year 293, were greatly changed — so that those which were at first most flourishing were reduced to utter ruin when the persecution of Diocletian raged. But who is ignorant that, before so dire and grievous a persecution was stirred up against the Christians, our people were already held in the highest honor among the pagan princes — so that the office of governing the provinces was entrusted even to them?

The right of pronouncing judgment too was afforded to our people; and the pagan princes permitted them, together with their wives, their servants, and their whole household, not only to believe in our Lord Jesus Christ, but even to act in the faith with all confidence and liberty — so that they held those to be faithful and familiar to themselves of whom they were certain that for the faith of Christ they harbored nothing perfidious. That Christians were endowed with such and so great happy tranquillity and with offices under Marcus Aurelius Probus — raised to the empire by military consent in the year of Christ 276 or 277 — Petavius too relates, from Vopiscus, Victor, Eutropius, Idatius in his Fasti, and Zosimus.

It is no wonder therefore if the things which Archelaus set forth in the aforesaid Acts could be verified, especially because, as we have already seen, Marcellus — or Marcellinus — who by imperial authority presided over the affairs of the province of Mesopotamia, being a Catholic, was in his desire for the truth of the faith and its propagation, and who could have afflicted with punishments and losses, by a military force, the seditious rising up against bishop Archelaus. But that Christians were then taken up by the emperors as administrators of provinces, accountants, chamberlains, and to discharge other offices of honor and authority, is also gathered from the decree of Diocletian in the year

303, promulgated at Nicomedia, by which it was provided that henceforth Christians should be deprived of all honor and dignity. Which surely would have been absurd, unless Christians had previously been accustomed to enjoy honors and dignities. Beausobre ought therefore not, in order to try to cast a false coloring over a truth clearer than light, by turning the reckonings of the times upside down, to persuade himself that his readers could be deluded into giving credence to his sayings. It is therefore fabulous that the Churches of the East were always harassed under the pagan emperors, and that the Christians endured under Marcus Aurelius Probus the same condition which they afterward underwent under Diocletian, under Sapor, under Julian the Apostate.

We would refute this fiction with many most weighty arguments, had it not been certainly known that even what he objected from Julian the Apostate accomplishes nothing — Julian, who, having abjured the Catholic faith, threw open the temples of the idols. But how could he have thrown them open, unless they had long since been closed for the propagation and safeguarding of the Catholic religion? 6. After these things Beausobre more diligently turns his pen to inquire whether Carchar, or Caschar, was a city situated in Mesopotamia, or in Assyria, or in Chaldaea, or within the borders of the Persians, placed not far from Seleucia; and whether it could have been subject to the empire of the Romans while Probus was reigning.

From here and there, out of one writer and another, he has, after his customary manner of arguing, gathered various conjectures and reasonings, appealing now to Assemani, now to geographers ancient and recent; and he brings forward so great a store of material that he seems to himself to have shown the whole stage of this dispute, and that it could have been neither Gascara nor Carchara, and that no city, fortress, or town of this name was ever reduced under the power of the Romans. Since, therefore, he appeals to the illustrious Assemani, it will not be out of place to set before him what that esteemed author has set down in his Oriental Library: 'Archelaus, in the year of Christ 277, restrained by a learned disputation the heresiarch Manes, who was breaking out from the borders of the Persians.'

If, then, according to the ancient records brought forward by Assemani, Manes, when he came to dispute with Archelaus, had broken out from the borders of the Persians, then the episcopal Church was not in Persia, but in another province far distant. Assemani adds: 'St. Jerome, in his Catalogue, chapter 72, calls him BISHOP OF MESOPOTAMIA; St. Epiphanius, heresy 66, indicates the place of the bishopric; likewise Socrates, book 1 of the Ecclesiastical History, chapter 22, and Photius in his book Against the Manichaeans, namely: Cascar, or Carchar, indeclinably, or in the plural or singular number Caschara and Carchara, a city situated on the borders of Mesopotamia. The older Syrians prefer Cascar; the more recent, Gargar, or Cascar, or Carcha.'

I cannot, however, conceal that this most learned man discussed this city elsewhere, and, having drawn up a catalogue of the bishops of that city after our Mar Archelaus, he affirmed that the city was built within the borders of the Persians and belonged to the province of the Chaldeans.

Yet what if the same division of provinces was not always preserved by the ancient writers and geographers, on account of the vicissitudes of wars and the changes of the Roman Empire? For those of the Roman Empire who then held dominion over the affairs of Mesopotamia could indeed have handed over Carchara, or Cascara, to be governed by the prefect or proconsul of that province, and subjected it to his jurisdiction, so that writers afterward discussing it, attending more to the rights of the monarchy than to the situation of the places, asserted that it was situated within the borders of Mesopotamia.

For the history of Roman affairs itself supplies us with most weighty foundations for this matter, from which we gather that from the year 235 of Christ to 276 the Persians and other neighboring peoples were harassed by the gravest disasters of war. For of Gordian we read that in the fifth year of his reign he marched with great forces chiefly against the Persians, and recovered from them Carrhae, Nisibis, and other towns, and drove them back into their own region. Nor is it hidden that the successor of Gordian made peace with Sapor the First of that name, king of the Persians, and returned to Rome; but the same Persians, invading the frontiers of the East with arms, plundering Antioch, laid waste various regions of the Romans.

They laid waste the peoples subject to Roman dominion, whom at last Odenathus, the decurion of the Palmyrenes, to whom Zenobia had been married, forcibly crushed, and championed the Roman cause, when he assumed for himself the royal title. He therefore, having taken Nisibis and Carrhae, having vindicated Mesopotamia, the king of the Persians put to flight and very many slain, sent the captive satraps bound, and, as though he himself had conquered, did not blush to triumph. This victory Trebellius recorded, under the consuls Gallienus and Saturninus, which is the year of Christ 264. From this year, therefore, up to the reign of Marcus Aurelius Probus, which occurred, as we have seen, in the year 276, the writers do not record that the affairs of the East, of the Persians, and of Mesopotamia were changed.

Wherefore, since we can reasonably conclude that entirely the same principle and jurisdiction was preserved by the Romans, it is no wonder if Archelaus, the author of the disputation—as Assemani will have it—or Hegemonius, who wrote out that whole series of the Acts, keeping the order of events and of the empire, attributed that city to Mesopotamia and said it was situated within its borders, though later, in the subsequent divisions of provinces, it was assigned to Chaldea. That the ancients were accustomed to designate by the name 'province' those regions conquered and subdued in war outside Italy—some of them consular, to be governed by proconsuls, others praetorian, to be governed by praetors—is sufficiently established from the old writers.

When this was done, they were said to be reduced into the form of a province. Nor let it be objected to me that this would be true of Carrhae and Nisibis, because it is objected that an express reduction of those cities was made under the Roman Empire. For the writers also make mention of other towns subdued and conquered for the Roman Empire by the right of war from the defeats of the Persians, whose names were by no means recorded. It is therefore likely that under that general expression—'that Gordian recovered other towns as well from the Persians'—Cascara or Carchara too was included, which was nearer to the borders of the Persians. Yet I judge it superfluous to linger longer in weighing these matters, especially since the arguments which Beausobre adduces in the last place are wholly negative;

drawn, namely, from the silence of the Syrian writers, whose aim in writing was not to make mention of Archelaus and his disputation, which were most well known to all. For those things can be most abundantly refuted by the certain and positive testimonies of all the Greek Fathers of every age who flourished after Manes and Archelaus.