Sermons & Letters 201

1. After that savage death of Manes, so many and so virulent seeds of his wickedness were by no means extinguished and abolished; but, being scattered here and there, within a short space of time, through the zeal of other impious men, they drove deep roots into the minds of many, and extended their bounds to the hatred of the Christian religion. And first indeed, if we give full credit to Archelaus, and to Turbo, and to Ephraem the deacon of Edessa, the Manichaean dogmas were announced to Egypt. Namely, when Manes, still surviving, set his chief false apostles over those places and provinces. He (Manes, namely) commanded his disciples to set out into the three regions of the world; of whom Addas obtained as his lot the part of the East.

But Thomas took upon himself the lands of the Syrians. And Hermas set out to Egypt … for the sake of preaching this dogma. Concerning this order and division of provinces, however, William Cave alone noted a little differently from him. For in Cyril and Epiphanius, Thomas occupies the first place, and Epiphanius affirms that he went into Judea, though Dionysius Petavius disagrees in his annotations, who thinks that for 'Judea' one should read 'India.' And indeed Theodoret so holds, that Thomas was sent to the Indians. With Theodoret likewise agrees Nicephorus, book 6, chapter 32. And if this be so, the impostor wished to imitate Christ even in this respect, when he destined the apostle Thomas to preach his gospel in India.

But now, leaving that Thomas, our discourse turns to Addas, the teacher of Turbo, another chief false apostle of the same impostor Manes. This one, then, the same Archelaus affirms was sent to deceive the Syrians; but Peter of Sicily calls him Budda, Cyril Biddas, Theodoret Aldas; while Epiphanius and Nicephorus—the Acts of the disputation of Archelaus being otherwise—called him Addas. But however that may be, it is certain that the man of whom we treat not only trod in the footsteps of his teacher but, by many other new things devised, rendered the Manichaean dogmas more abundant by his own exertion.

For this reason indeed he composed a certain book, which he called the Modion, of which Tollinus the author makes mention; against which volume—Photius being the authority in his Bibliotheca—after a series of some years, Titus, bishop of Bostra in Arabia, and Diodorus, the prelate of Tarsus in Cilicia, drew their pens; which are an argument that already, when the fourth century of the Church was turning, those provinces were polluted by a corruption of this kind. Otherwise, however—and indeed with little consistency—Beausobre reasons, who, speaking of Titus bishop of Bostra, affirms to us that he refuted not the Modion of Addas, but the book On the Mysteries, which was circulated under the name of Manes. He asserts that bishop Titus followed a different method from Epiphanius in refuting this book;

saying that it was divided into 22 chapters according to the alphabet of the Syrians, and that afterward the errors were solidly refuted by this learned and prudent bishop, without any invectives against his adversary, without calling the author a magician and an invoker of demons, occupied with abominable mysteries. He adds that Manes, the author of this book, was a philosopher, who had persuaded himself that this world by no means corresponds to the idea which we have of the divine perfections, and therefore had reasoned within himself that there existed some other principle besides God himself. He affirms that Beausobre employed the aid of the works of Titus of Bostra, because he wrote with more exactness and moderation, beyond all comparison, than Epiphanius himself. But what of it?

With such an apparatus of great matters set aside and neglected, Beausobre fell into such drowsiness that the things just said soon slipped from his mind. For, having forgotten that he had written that Manes was not accused by Titus of Bostra of magic, the invocation of demons, and abominable mysteries, he afterward adds that this bishop took it grievously to report and to bring to examination the things which had been mystically devised by the Manichaean—'but passing over in silence those things which were invented more mystically by the Manichaean, which are very many.' Titus of Bostra therefore shrank from weighing the things more mystically invented by the Manichaean. Nor ought he to have passed them over for any other reason than lest, namely, he should offend the mind of the readers; just as concerning these abominable mysteries St.

Leo the Great refused to discourse. But still a difficulty remains, whether Titus of Bostra in his work attacks the volume of the mysteries of Manes, or rather another, namely the Modion, composed by Addas. Led by the sole authority of Beausobre, I for my part shall not decide. For those will judge with me that the testimony of Photius ought to prevail, who very well know the zeal he applied in adorning his Bibliotheca. But concerning the book of Addas we shall speak below. 1. Concerning this Addas indeed, and his work, William Cave sincerely confessed that he had once erred more gravely; when, namely, he supposed him to be none other than Adimantus, of whom mention so often occurs in Augustine, and whom the holy bishop refuted in a special work.

But this false opinion the same Cave, following long ago the history of Peter of Sicily and the author of the Cotelerian and Tollian formulas, retracted; but, in order at the same time to excuse himself, he wrongly ascribes the cause of his former lapse to Augustine alone, whose following words he recites: 'For that other work which had begun to be written in the same codex is the work of Adimantus, that disciple of the Manichaean, who by his own name was called Addas.' But indeed, what more drowsy or more unjust than such an excuse? For he did not report the genuine words of Augustine, but falsified ones. For, having withdrawn from that testimony the word 'son' (filius), he introduced this other, namely the pronoun 'of that one' (illius), which St.

drags the Doctor's meaning into an entirely different signification than Cave judged expedient for himself. Did this indicate that he wished to rise from his previous lapse and repair his error, when he charged the holy Doctor with a fault, and unjustly plucks at and attacks him? Trifles indeed. For Augustine's words are these: 'For that other work which had begun to be written in the same codex is the work of Adimantus, the son of the disciple of the Manichaean, who by his own name, or forename (as the Maurist Fathers read), was called Addas.' Nor does Cave's hallucination, drowsiness, or bad faith consist in the word 'forename' (praenomen)—which the Fathers of the Congregation of St. Maur, following the authority of the manuscript codices, introduced in the most recent edition in place of those two words 'by his own name' (proprio nomine);

but in the word 'son' (filius), which he wrongly changed into that pronoun 'of that one' (illius). For among no editors, nor manuscript copies, do we come upon this word 'of that one'; but they most constantly exhibit the word 'son.' To us, therefore, from the same Augustine it becomes clearer than light that Addas was one person, and Adimantus another, although both were most impious assertors and champions of the Manichaean dogma. Wherefore, since Augustine refers the name 'Addas' not to the son but to the disciple of the Manichaean, that follows which will seem especially to pertain to Cave and to our subject: namely, that Adimantus either drew the origin of his nature from Addas as his father, or at least is called his son on account of the wicked instructions drawn and drunk in from him;

for which reasons the surname 'Addas' too could have suited him, namely to indicate Adimantus's kinship, or that school from which he had come forth. Finally, what is against it that Adimantus should first have been called Addas by his own name—as this word 'forename' is apt to signify—and afterward have changed it into another, following the example of Cubricus, his standard-bearer? Not thence, however, ought this Addas to be said to be the same as another chief false apostle of Manes, who obtained by lot the parts of the East to be traversed, his master yet surviving. 4. But besides Thomas, Addas, and Hermas, the chief followers of Manes, the rest also of that number of twelve disciples strenuously applied themselves to propagating that nefarious heresy.

For Peter of Sicily narrates that, when Manes was slain, some of his followers penetrated into Armenia at Samosata, where, having sown the seed of impiety, they enticed many of the Armenians into deceit. Which seed, growing greatly, that most wicked root sprouting up and advancing as far as Phanaroea, brought deadly fruits to many. But by whose exertions especially that nefarious heresy nearly ruined Armenia and Phanaroea itself, the same Peter of Sicily—who long afterward discharged an embassy to the Armenians on behalf of the emperor Basil—explained in few words, when he said that Callinice, a woman, had twin children, of whom one was called Paul, the other John.

These two serpents, then, the viper mother nourished, and, having taught them the nefarious sect, sent them forth from Samosata as heralds of error; who, having entered the dominion of Phanaroea and come to a certain village, and finding there rude inhabitants little settled in the faith, scattered the poison of impiety and the dire tare of the demon-enemy. That this woman Callinice was impure and lost, Dionysius Petavius asserts. Who likewise teaches from the same Peter of Sicily that she sent her abominable offspring into diverse places of Armenia to propagate the dogmas of the Manichaean. Meanwhile, however, a grave controversy can arise, as to when such a mission occurred; or at what time especially by these two brothers that heresy borrowed a new name.

Which question, since it is wrapped in much darkness, cannot easily be settled. For it is very probable that Peter of Sicily meant to indicate two things there. One, namely, that when Manes had been slain, some of that number of twelve disciples immediately penetrated the province of Armenia, and, being received there, poured out the whole venom of the depraved dogma, which, as it grew greater day by day, undermined that whole region and corrupted it with depraved dogmas. But the other is: that only after various centuries had elapsed from the death of Manes, that woman Callinice of Samosata sent her twin sons to Phanaroea, as new standard-bearers and heralds of this abominable sect;

so that, namely, they might vomit forth the most wicked instructions which they had already imbibed, to the ruin of the rude peoples. Which indeed could have been the reason that, various centuries having elapsed, the then-old name of the heresy was changed into another, that of the Paulicians. 5. But that I may not seem in these matters either to divine, or be forced to break the thread of the whole history which we are writing, I will bring forward those points on which our preceding conjectures rest. Among which that ought to be reckoned the chief, which Augustine supplies in his book On Heresies.

He, then, being excellently instructed concerning the mysteries and profane rites of the Manichaeans, not only describes how, when Manes was slain, one of the elect, as the prince of all and head of the whole sect, presided over twelve other elect, whom they called masters; but he also narrates how greatly that assembly grew and enlarged itself. For, on his authority, as though to the form and likeness of the Christian Catholic hierarchy, those twelve false apostles, with their wicked and diabolical head, began to ordain seventy-two bishops: the bishops then would ordain presbyters and choose deacons for themselves. 'For from their elect they have twelve, whom they call masters, and a thirteenth as their prince:'

'but seventy-two bishops, who are ordained by the masters, and presbyters who are ordained by the bishops. The bishops also have deacons.' But besides those whom they ordained by profane and sacrilegious rites, and who were taken up to compose the nobler part of that diabolical hierarchy, they also sent others out of the same class of the elect here and there to deceive rude and simpler men, so that more readily and more easily they might either confirm their own dogmas or propagate them. Wherefore the same Augustine immediately subjoins thus: 'And now the rest are called only elect: but even these are sent who seem fit for this error, either where it is to be sustained and increased, or where it is not yet, to be sown.'

That these things were accustomed to be done by the Manichaeans in Augustine's time, the same holy Doctor testified in these words, writing: 'Which number the Manichaeans keep even to this day.' Since, therefore, Augustine, who knew excellently all the dogmas, mysteries, philosophy, grades, ordinations, hierarchy, and increases of the Manichaean sect, nowhere makes mention of these twin brothers, it can rightly be conjectured that in the year 428, in which he wrote that book On Heresies, that offspring had not yet come forth into the world from the infernal prisons, and that the Manichaeans had not yet then borrowed a new name from the Paulicians.

Nor let it be permitted to suspect that this could have escaped Augustine's notice, because the regions of the Armenians and of Asia in which (on the authority of Peter of Sicily) these things had happened were most remote from Hippo, the city of Africa, from which Augustine had written that work. Let no one, I say, suspect this. For the holy Doctor, who from boyhood had fallen into the errors of the Manichaeans, and had been most addicted to the studies of their philosophy, also knew excellently and described the names by which that sect was called, and confessed without any ambiguity whatsoever that it raged in Paphlagonia, a part of Armenia, in Gaul, in Africa, and in other regions. And indeed, in the praised book On Heresies, he asserts that the Catharists are called Manichaeans, as it were 'purifiers.'

From which name he seizes the occasion to lash and pursue them more severely, because with horrid foulness they defiled human food. And again, in the book On the Nature of the Good, he stirs up certain of their foulnesses, by which they wrongly contended—both as toward the divine author of things, contumeliously—that part of God was bound through the coitus of males and females, which they professed to loose and purify by eating; he appeals to certain public confessions of the same crimes, by which they testified that they did this in a public trial, not only in Paphlagonia, but also in Gaul, 'as I heard from a certain Catholic Christian at Rome.'

To Augustine, therefore, who was writing these things in the year 404, it had been very well persuaded that in Paphlagonia, a region of Armenia, this heresy raged more widely, and this he recounted both from the public acts of the trials and from the report of others. Augustine therefore would not have omitted to report and reject those things which were afterward devised by the Paulicians for the confirmation, increase, and strength of this sect: which both those good-for-nothing brothers acquired with great zeal, in order the more foully to undermine the Catholic religion, and to assail and pierce with curses the Catholic ministers of the cross, and the mysteries of the Eucharist, and the perpetual virginity of the Mother of God, and other things of this kind.

Since, therefore, in so many and various books and works written by Augustine against the Manichaeans and other heretics, nowhere does the name of the Paulician brothers occur, and since moreover nowhere is there recounted by him those additions to the heresy which have been indicated to us by Peter of Sicily, by no reasoning can I be led to think that already, when the death of Manes had followed, those twin brothers were the champions and authors of this heresy;

therefore I now judge it superfluous to discourse more clearly concerning them, of whom we shall need to speak afterward, when, preserving as far as we can the order and reasoning of times, we shall tell of the offspring of this heresy in the seventh century of the Church raging still more widely, to the contempt of the Catholic religion, in the regions of Syria and Asia. 6. But meanwhile we judge that it must by no means be passed over that already before Augustine's age, and at the beginning of the fourth century of the Church, Armenia and especially Paphlagonia were undermined by such errors of Manes.

This is proved not only by the preachings of Manes's false apostles held there, or those deadly and venomous writings which Thomas, Agapius, and the rest had disseminated everywhere while Constantius Chlorus reigned; but moreover the most certain testimonies of the Acts of the Council of Gangra, which still survive, supply proof of this matter. To that synod, then, only fifteen bishops, together with the great Hosius of Cordova, came together in the time of St. Sylvester the Pope, a little before the first general Council of Nicaea was convened.

Moreover, Gangra is a city of Paphlagonia, situated in the part of Asia Minor, into which city the aforesaid fifteen bishops with the great Hosius came together, on the occasion of the Eustathian heresy, which drew its origin from various Manichaean sources, and raged in various regions of Armenia with the greatest detriment to the Catholic religion. This can be understood not obscurely, both from the Synodical letter of the same Fathers of Gangra, and from the twenty-one canons published there. For they inscribed the Synodical letter: 'To the honorable lords, our fellow-priests established in Armenia.' And most of the canons published in that synod directly rebuke, assail, and strike with anathema various errors of the Manichaean sect;

as long ago Severinus Binius rightly and learnedly noted in his collection of the Councils. Of this kind certainly are those canons, either in which there is discourse concerning the lawful eating of meats, or in which the ecclesiastical rule of fasts is confirmed—canons whereby those are driven far away from the assembly of Catholics who despised the Lord's Day and the day of the Resurrection, spending it in mourning, grief, and fasting.

For these and similar things were decreed for the condemnation of Eustathius, the monk of Armenia, who had impiously drawn his errors from no other sources than those of the Manichaeans, and who on the same principle strove to overthrow and utterly abolish marriage, the begetting of children, the cultivation of virginity, the sacred assemblies established by the Church, the practice of fasting, the eating of meats and of animals, the possession of riches, the solemnities of feast-days and above all of the Lord's Day, and the other sacred rites approved by the Church. Without doubt, therefore, in the year 324 the Manichaean errors had so increased in Paphlagonia and in the region of Armenia, through the zeal of this same monk Eustathius, that in order to restrain them and to purge that plague the Fathers of Gangra had to assemble.

That the Acts of this synod were at length, for the hatred and destruction of the Manichaeans themselves, approved both by the first general Council of Nicaea with the assent of the Apostolic See — this is made plain not only by the legation of Ossius of Cordova on behalf of St. Sylvester the pope, but by the decrees of Symmachus and of Leo the Great, Roman pontiffs. Nor am I unaware that this legation of Ossius of Cordova on behalf of the Apostolic See at the Council of Gangra has been called into doubt not only by Peter de Marca and by Pagi, but has been absolutely and altogether denied. And chiefly for this reason, that his name occurs in the Acts which survive to be read not in the first, but in the fourteenth place among the names of the other bishops.

But in settling questions of this kind it is not always helpful to derive the prerogatives of bishops from the order in which their names are recorded in the codices — as we ourselves shall show, against Tillemont and others, concerning Britto, bishop of Trier, in the history of the Priscillianists. For sometimes through the error of copyists the codices too have been corrupted, or at least the genuine order of those same bishops could have been disturbed. Yet for a twofold reason I judge that this contention must now be avoided. The first is drawn from our own aim in composing this history. For we are not among those who, clinging to doubtful and very obscure matters, seek to assert and vindicate the rights of the Apostolic See.

For it would be exceedingly unbecoming and base, in a matter so certain and so weighty as that concerning the judicial power and rights of the Apostolic See — which shine forth clearer than light through all the ages of the Church — to indulge one's own fancies, to rest merely upon conjectures, to wander off the stage, and to bring into question those matters which plainly do not sufficiently pertain to the cause at hand. Since, therefore, that synod was merely provincial, and its canons obtained force and approval only from the assent of the Apostolic See — as the very collectors of the councils also admit — what will it matter to us whether Ossius of Cordova there performed a legation on behalf of the Apostolic See? 7.

The other reason is drawn from our own fairness toward a most illustrious and most learned man. For when here at Rome, a few years ago, in the solemn Pontifical Academy of the Councils, in the presence of our most holy lord Pope Benedict XIV, with the great applause of the whole literary assembly, he set forth and elucidated with the highest erudition each of the obscure and difficult questions which have long since been raised — and can hereafter be raised by students of criticism — concerning the date, the canons, the authority, and the confirmation of the Council of Gangra, the Most Reverend Father...

...namely Antoninus Bremond, a distinguished member of the Dominican family and a notable theologian in the Casanatense Library, and now Master General of the whole Order of Preachers — who out of the singular kindness of his heart embraces us with the greatest love — treated and illustrated these things; so that at present it is by no means permitted to enter upon discourse concerning the same matters. For in this lucubration of his, as in others, he has won for himself the assent of all the learned; and such indeed that we may promise to ourselves, by the common wishes of all, that a work of this kind will one day be made public. But since we too, in the same year, on the ninth day before the Kalends...

...of May, in the same Pontifical Academy delivered a theological dissertation concerning these same canons of Gangra, we shall append it to the reader as an appendix to the Manichaean history, in the last chapter of this book. 1. In what manner, after Manes had been put to death, his disciples and followers propagated this heresy hither and thither through the various provinces of both the East and the West, I judge to have been sufficiently and more than sufficiently made clear in our preceding chapter. Yet because the champions of this wicked religion did not rest upon words and preaching alone, so as to draw and lead the minds of untaught and unlettered men to the perversity of their dogmas...

...but also made use of the aid of many harmful books, in the reading of which, if incautious men expended their effort, being ensnared as though by some enticement, they bound their souls fast to those same errors — we have therefore resolved for the present to indicate these books in few words. Nor indeed do we think that discourse is to be entered upon only concerning the works of Scythianus, which he dying left to Terebinthus, and which Manes himself recooked and interpolated; since we have already, in the earlier chapters of the preceding book of this History, spoken of those same four volumes of Scythianus, heaped together out of the fables of the pagan philosophers and out of the filthiest tatters of the ancient heresiarchs. 2.

Lest, therefore, we seem to wish to do over again what has been done, our discourse turns itself to the remaining writers of this sect and to describing their works; among whose number we judge that that Thomas above all must be reckoned, to whom all the ancients attributed a certain apocryphal and spurious Gospel. Yet only a few things concerning this work present themselves to be said, if we peruse all the more ancient writers. Of it indeed they made mention as of a work composed by the Manichaeans and stuffed with their fables. But no one, so far as I have seen, has anywhere indicated more clearly and expressly the blasphemies contained therein. In this matter this above all would have to be investigated: whether that Thomas composed this monster of impiety entirely on his own...

...or rather whether, having first obtained for himself the Gospel of Scythianus, he inscribed his own name upon it, and then augmented and exaggerated the things contained in it. But who would dare to determine a question of this kind, although the latter seems more probable? Since the ancients testified that the Manichaeans had not two, but only one Gospel, and that they wrongly attempted to circulate it under the name of Thomas the apostle — although Cave, led by I know not what reasoning, has affirmed that the Gospel of Scythianus was one and that of Thomas another. It will nevertheless be less difficult to conjecture with what tatters and blasphemies that Gospel was stuffed.

For since it dealt chiefly with the Nativity, deeds, preaching, passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ the Lord — which are the dogmas and mysteries of the Catholic faith, and which they so boldly assailed — it will be quite likely that every death-bearing venom was scattered there which would subvert and abolish the chief foundations of our religion. They denied, as we have seen, on the authority of Augustine, that Christ was born of the Virgin, and, not confessing that His flesh was true but feigned, contended thereby that His passion was false and that there was no resurrection.

That impious things also concerning the mission and coming of the Holy Spirit were contained in that Gospel, to corroborate another chief error of Manes, Cyril of Jerusalem indicated not obscurely, discoursing of this in his book, and warning Catholics to guard themselves against reading it. And this book of diabolical impiety we understand to have been rejected among the apocryphal scriptures not only by the decrees of the Roman pontiffs — namely of Siricius, Innocent, and Pope Gelasius — but St. Pope Leo the Great decreed that it should be utterly removed and burned in the fire.

For concerning these and similar writings of the Manichaeans and Priscillianists the holy pontiff Leo spoke thus, admonishing Catholics indeed in weighty speech, lest by a certain feigned appearance of piety, which writings of this kind seemed to display, they should allow themselves to be led to the reading of them. For although (he says) there are in them certain things which seem to have an appearance of piety, they are nevertheless never empty of poisons, and through the enticements of fables they work this latently: that, having seduced men by the narration of marvels, they may entangle them in the snares of every error. To which decrees of the Apostolic See at length, when the Fathers of the Council of Nicaea gave heed, they said, chiefly concerning this Gospel of Thomas:

To these things (for they are speaking of the adulterine writings which were once circulated under the name of Paul) the Manichaeans have foisted in a Gospel according to Thomas, which the Catholic Church deservedly abhors as impious. To all which we at last subjoin this one thing: namely, that the Gospel of Thomas differs greatly from that book which was entitled The Revelation of the Apostle Thomas. For in the same Gelasian decree there is mention of both as of two distinct books, although nowhere is it indicated that the latter book, namely The Revelation of the Apostle Thomas, came forth from the Manichaean workshop. That Turibius, bishop of Astorga, was of this opinion, however, his letter to St. Leo the Great makes plain not obscurely. For in chapter...

...5, discoursing of the apocryphal books either composed or infected by that chief prince Manes and his disciples, he specially enumerated the Acts of St. Thomas, and things like these, from which (he says) the Manichaeans and Priscillianists, or whatever sect is akin to them, strive to confirm their whole heresy. 3. Besides one, or two, volumes of Gospels — impiously written as it were after the model and imitation of the Catholics — the Manichaeans had another book, namely of Epistles. And it was the belief of the ancients that this too came forth chiefly from the workshop of Manes. Of this volume, or medley of Epistles, mention occurs both in Goar and Peter of Sicily, and in the author of the Coteler and Toll formula.

From this body of Epistles without doubt (according to William Cave) was that famous epistle which the Manichaeans called the Foundation, which Augustine so often cites in his work On the Nature of the Good, and in the Acts against Felix. He also wrote an entire book against an epistle of this kind, in which, having rejected the earlier parts of that epistle of Manes, he showed that Manes had set before his insane followers, in place of the manifest knowledge which he promised and the certain knowledge, nothing but uncertain and absurd ravings. But on the contrary the Manichaean sect venerated this epistle as the very storehouse of their whole faith;

so that, on the authority of the same Augustine, as often as it was read before the hearers, with head bowed they were wont to say Amen, as though by the reading of this illumination they rendered thanks to its most wicked author. Now the opening of this epistle was this: Manichaeus, apostle of Jesus Christ by the providence of God the Father. These are the wholesome words from the perennial and living fountain. A similar opening we have already met in the epistle to Marcellus, as the Latin fragments of Archelaus recounted above have it, and Epiphanius, in heresy 66. But that all his epistles gathered in that codex had the same opening, Augustine alone among the rest testified, in book XIII, chapter 4, against Faustus, addressing them thus:

For your Manichaeus was not a prophet of the Christ who was to come, since he calls himself His apostle — with the deceit indeed of a most shameless man. And a little further down he adds: Yet all his epistles begin thus: Manichaeus, apostle of Jesus Christ. But of yet other epistles of Manes William Cave makes mention on page 92. In the third place, then, we judge that the Book of Mysteries must be reviewed, which the Manichaeans themselves had carefully composed to overthrow the Law and to blot out all the prophecies of the ancient prophets. For from Goar, William Cave recites a certain fragment in which an Anathema was pronounced upon a book of this kind.

That this too was one of the books of Scythianus, but enormously augmented by Manes and interpolated in countless places, so that he might indulge his own fancies, the same author asserts. Wherefore that it was divided into twenty-two parts in alphabetical order, written in the Syriac and Palmyrene tongue, Tollius declared. These books were then followed by a fourth, which some — from certain corrupt Greek manuscript copies — have quite wrongly testified ought to be entitled The Traffic of All Things. But that it had another title, William Cave alone among the rest noted in his Literary History, both from the writings of Timothy of Constantinople and from other more notable ancient copies.

Wherefore, relying on various conjectures, he showed from the arguments which it contained that this little book had rather received its own denomination, and that it was called: On the difference of those who come to the pure faith. And that the Manichaeans were wont falsely to boast of the purity of their own faith has already been proved a little before, from Augustine, in the preceding pages, since indeed they called themselves Catharists, that is, purifiers. 4.

Now that we may come to those things which, after the formula of Goar, Cotelerius and Tollius published, there presents itself to us another book called Apocryphal, in which (as Cave says) it is probable that the more hidden rites of the Manichaeans, their conjuring tricks, and the execrable mysteries of their religion were contained — the doctrine of which rites was handed down only to the initiates and to those steeped in their unspeakable orgies. This conjecture of Cave we by no means disapprove. For indeed the school of the Manichaeans, besides those common dogmas which it published abroad among its hearers, also taught and maintained other things, hidden and more secret, which became known only to the chiefs of this sect and to its principal masters.

That Turbo indeed testified this not obscurely in his abjuration of the heresy, we ourselves have already noted in the preceding book, chapter 14. And it is probable that in that book were described all the profane rites, sacrilegious ceremonies, fasts, and prayers which the Manichaean worshippers of the Bema used when celebrating their sacred and festal solemnities. Therefore in the Coteler formula the books of such rites and conjuring tricks are indicated in these words: That all things which are done and celebrated by them in their sacred rites, and which are contained in the Manichaean or conjuring books, are to be condemned. But to all these they added certain interpretations, called the Commentaries of the sayings and memorable deeds of Manes.

Among the Manichaean writers too a not inconsiderable place was held by that Addas, of whom we have also spoken above. He therefore composed a single book called Modius, which was stuffed with many axioms and philosophical principles, which were recognized even at first glance as utterly foreign and at war with the common notions implanted in nature. Of which sort surely were those by which they affirmed that men are necessarily led to sin by a certain evil author, existing without beginning and contrary to God. Or those others which they pronounced to the utmost insult of divine Providence, impiously contending, namely, that this visible world is by no means subject to divine rule and governance.

But the author of this book had also striven to make plain that the two Testaments, the Old, namely, and the New, are at war with each other, on the basis of certain apparent contradictions, or rather allegories and mysteries. And again, discoursing anew of the New Testament, he tried especially to show that the errors of the Manichaean sect had derived from it all their force, strength, and foundations. That these things, I say, were contained in that wicked and diabolical book, the volumes composed by Titus of Bostra clearly show. For that most holy bishop of Arabia — on the authority of Heracleon, bishop of Chalcedon, as reported in Photius — bent all the sinews of his effort to reject and overthrow the blasphemies and errors of that book. 5.

Curious, however, are the things which William Cave has recounted concerning Aristocritus, a not least disciple and writer of Manes. Who, although he did not fear to traduce his own teacher as an evil man, nevertheless, clinging to his dogmas, published a work in which he tried to show that the doctrine of the Jews, the Gentiles, the Christians, and the Manichaeans was one and the same. That this kind of argument Addas too had indicated in his book, is clear from what has been said before. Moreover, that the earlier chiefs, masters, elect, and hearers of the Manichaean sect made use not of these books alone, we understand from various monuments of the ancients.

For Timothy, presbyter of Constantinople, makes mention of a Book of Prayers, in which were contained the formulas of prayers and of conjurings. Wherefore the penitent Manichaeans, in abjuring their errors, were also bidden to anathematize the Book of Prayers. Of which kind too are all the other apocryphal writings described in the Gelasian decree, which the ancient writers were persuaded had come forth either from Manes or from his disciples, as may be seen in Cave, in the Novatian century, page 92. He likewise reviewed two other writers of this unspeakable sect, of uncertain date, whom he asserts to have been among the more celebrated.

The first of these is Agapius, a writer (he says) sufficiently obscure, since — apart from Photius — no one (so far as I know) of the ancients makes mention of him. Tillemont sided with Cave, who, likewise clinging to the testimony of Photius, makes Agapius contemporary with Eunomius, and affirms that he assailed and censured him in his writings, although he had basely defected to the party of the Manichaeans. Hence, however, there is some disagreement between the two. For Cave, tracing the matter further back and giving heed to what Peter of Sicily had written concerning Agapius, contends that the testimony of Photius can be explained otherwise. That Agapius was indeed one of the twelve disciples of Manes, who composed a book called the Heptalogue, we have already noted from the same Peter of Sicily.

How, then, could it come about that he, still surviving in the age of Eunomius, sharpened his pen against him and his errors? For from the year in which the heresy of Manes became known as to be condemned, to the fall of Eunomius the notary of Aetius, eighty and more years flowed by. Which interval of time surely can by no means cohere with these two things: namely, that one and the same Agapius should have been among the twelve chief disciples of Manes, and should have lived so long as to be able to assail Eunomius with his writings. This grave rock, which William Cave foresaw, he strove with much diligence to guard against.

But asserting that both could have happened, he brings forward various conjectures — now from Epiphanius, now from Cyril of Jerusalem — which he judges to make for his purpose, and admonishes the reader to weigh them, and at last has determined to lay down nothing for certain in this part. Of which matter indeed, to inquire more diligently into the state, or the reasoning, we now have no leisure at all, since those more ancient monuments which would settle a question of this kind have plainly perished, or at least lie utterly hidden. 6. Of the remaining works of Agapius, then, only a few things will remain to be said, to whom the praised Photius attributed two other works. Of these, one is divided into twenty-two little books;

the other comprised a hundred and two chapters, and both the author himself dedicated to a certain Urania, a little woman of his sect and a partner in his pursuit. If, moreover, we inquire more curiously from Photius what kind of arguments Agapius unfolded in these books, this will most evidently appear: that only wicked and fabulous fabrications were contained in those works — the very things which, from the confession of Turbo and the testimonies of Augustine, we have above more clearly explained; in weighing which we now judge it superfluous to linger again.

But into this same order of writers of uncertain date William Cave judged that a certain Alexander must be reckoned, whom the ancients called the Lycopolitan, from Lycus, one of the cities of the Egyptian Thebaid. He was indeed at first a Gentile in worship. But then, when the Manichaeans had betaken themselves into those regions of Egypt, he went over to their camp. At last, however, having abjured this wicked heresy, he professed the Catholic religion. Now before he purged himself of the stain of this heresy, he composed a book On the Tenets of the Manichaeans, which he knew excellently well and intimately; in which, on the same authority of Cave, he accurately expounds their inner meaning, and solidly refutes the unsound dogmas of this sect by reasonings drawn from the secret places of philosophy.

The same Cave censures his style of writing as somewhat harsh and rather difficult; nor did he dare to determine his date for certain, although he suspects that he was not far removed from the times of Manes, since the same Alexander affirms that he received those dogmas from those who had conversed familiarly with the man. Which words we judge must be referred to Papus and Thomas, disciples of Manes, since he makes mention of these two only. Finally, various things gathered here and there concerning the works and date of this Alexander, William Cave has reported — things indeed little consistent with one another, which are passed over by us, lest we dwell upon uncertain and doubtful matters. 7.

Now our present undertaking demands that we speak of Adimantus, a celebrated disciple indeed of the Manichaean sect (whom Cave, as we have seen, once confused with Addas). Concerning his writings and deeds Augustine has more than once discoursed in his works; but he engages with him in such a way as to describe the man as having departed from this light, and only assails and strives to overthrow his writings. This indeed becomes known from the first book of the Retractations, chapter 13, in which — reviewing the works composed by himself, while he still discharged the order of the presbyterate — he says:

At the same time there came into my hands certain disputations of Adimantus, who had been a disciple of Manes, which he wrote against the Law and the Prophets, as though he tried to demonstrate that the evangelical and apostolic writings were contrary to them. The holy doctor therefore indicates to us the title and aim of this Adamantic book of his; but since he there calls the writer a disciple of Manes, and speaks of him as of a man long since departed from life, we can scarcely doubt both that he heard Manes, and that, through the action of his sponsor, namely Addas, he obtained at least a place among the disciples of the second rank. But of the works of Adimantus the same Augustine also makes mention in his book against Faustus.

First indeed, putting words under that man's name, he as it were compels this Faustus to come upon the stage, boasting as it were of his own, of Manes', and of Adimantus' doctrine — who, elated with madness, more boldly affirmed: Now that errors have been sufficiently and more than sufficiently brought to light, and the fallacy both of Jewish superstition and of the half-Christians abundantly uncovered — by the most beloved, namely, and the only one zealous for us after our blessed Father Manichaeus, Adimantus — it has not seemed amiss. From which words of Faustus surely it was made plain not only that the Manichaeans were wont to arraign the worshippers of the Catholic religion as deceived by fallacies and depraved dogmas;

but also that they wished to cling to the writings of Adimantus, whom they venerated as, after Manes, the second standard-bearer of that profane sect. Again too the same Augustine assails Faustus, because from a certain feigned conflict of the Scriptures, adduced by Adimantus, he had erred more basely, either concerning the substance of men, of brutes, and of vegetables — whose life Adimantus, after Manes, fabled to be of the same nature;

or when he reasoned about the passage of souls and their migration into new bodies, or finally when, from the Scriptures of the New and Old Testament, he reasoned about the vain and superstitious choosing of foods. For that Faustus imbibed these errors chiefly from the volumes of Adimantus, and from them championed horrendous blasphemies, the same Augustine demonstrated more clearly in his sixth book. At last the holy doctor inveighs more harshly against Adimantus himself, refuting that error by which he taught that even rational beings, that is the souls of men, could be thrust into the bodies of beasts. What then will he (Adimantus, namely) do about so great a crime, if ever he has wearied a slow beast of burden with blows or urged it on with the bridle, in which perchance the soul of his father may have been?

Not to mention that he could even have killed his own parents among the lice and fleas, from the slaying of which those men do not refrain. Augustine had moreover learned that some Manichaeans, hard pressed by these and similar reasonings, were wont to deny that human souls could be revolved down to those tiniest of living things. Which evasion the holy doctor readily conceding, took from it an occasion to press Adimantus and the other Manichaeans more and more. Wherefore, progressing from the smaller to the somewhat larger, he mocked them quite wittily, and reasoned thus learnedly. For what does it profit them that they sometimes deny, etc.?

For they deny this lest they be held guilty of so many slayings, or be compelled to spare lice, fleas, and bedbugs, and to endure such great annoyances from them without any license to kill them. But that they may be still more vehemently pressed, Augustine therefore adds: Why can a human soul be revolved into a little fox, and cannot be revolved into a weasel, since the cub of a little fox is perhaps even smaller than a large weasel? Then, that he may mock their sayings still more fully, he closes the argument with these words: Then if it can into a weasel, why can it not into a mouse? And if it can into that, why can it not into a gecko? And if it can into that, why can it not into a locust? Or into a bee, or a flea, or come to anything much tinier?

From which manner of arguing he demonstrates that Adimantus and the other Manichaeans are made guilty of innumerable homicides, inasmuch as, since they clung to this superstitious and trifling credulity or dictate, their conscience, hindered by these greatest errors, labored the more grievously. 8. Now in this book against Adimantus, Augustine is wholly occupied in reconciling with one another the sentences of the Scriptures which the same Adimantus — contending that both Testaments could not be from one and the same author — had scraped together concerning the Old and New Testament as though mutually contrary. But the same Augustine makes mention of another book published by himself against the same man; in which, the words of Adimantus having first been set down, the holy Father had rendered his own response to them.

This work, he says, I gathered into a single volume, and in it I replied to certain questions not once but a second time, because what I had answered first had been lost and was found again only after I had already answered a second time. Some indeed of these same questions I resolved in popular ecclesiastical sermons, while to certain others I have not yet replied.

But if anyone, desiring to be more fully instructed in these matters, should inquire of us to which ecclesiastical and popular sermons Augustine wished here chiefly to appeal, to such a questioner we shall at once reply that it is above all in the twelfth sermon that he refutes the slanderous charges of Adimantus. In that sermon, still wishing to treat of the frauds and deceits of the Manichaeans, he inveighs against Adimantus, who, having zealously corrupted and distorted the testimony of the Apostle Paul, strove to argue that neither the princes, nor the powers, nor the virtues had known God. In order therefore to overturn a calumny of this kind, he says: But first I would like to ask these men where Adimantus read this in the Apostle — for this writer is the author of such calumnies.

I would wish, then, that he should say where he read the Apostle testifying and confirming, as he claims, that neither the princes, nor the powers, nor the virtues knew God — whereas the Lord says of the very angels of the men who believe in Him that they daily behold the face of the Father. These things, therefore, and others of the same kind, Augustine brings forward, evidently to reconcile that famous testimony of Job, which we read in chapter 1, with those other words of Matthew, chapter 5, verse 8, upon which Adimantus insisted, in order to introduce and press a contradiction between the two Testaments.

But since concerning this Adimantus nothing else worthy of note occurs either in the works of Augustine or in the writings of others, we must now, passing him by, at length necessarily turn our discourse to Fortunatus the presbyter, likewise a follower of the Manichaeans and a defender of their doctrine. He, then, according to Possidius, being stained with a defilement of this kind, when this infamous and wicked heresy was spreading more widely through the regions of Africa, so that it corrupted and undermined almost the whole city and province of Hippo, labored all too zealously. And so, while he lived and dwelt in that same place, the poison of this heresy grew up so quickly in a short time that very many of the citizens and foreigners of that city were tainted by this pestilential contagion.

Meanwhile (says the same Possidius) the citizens of Hippo and the Christian foreigners, both Catholics and also Donatists, approach Augustine the presbyter and demand that he meet with that man — namely Fortunatus, the presbyter of the Manichaeans, whom they believed to be learned — and dispute with him concerning the Law. And when these things were being transacted among the Africans, chiefly in the famous city of Hippo, Arcadius Augustus and Rufinus, most distinguished men, were holding their second consulship, and it fell in the year of Christ 382. Wherefore the holy presbyter Augustine, that he might indulge the wishes of his soul, by no means refused to undertake the task offered to him; nay rather, he showed himself wholly prepared to render an account to those demanding it concerning matters of faith.

When therefore matters were thus arranged, the Manichaeans begged Fortunatus to undergo the encounter with Augustine, lest the cause of their common sect should be endangered. But Fortunatus himself, who once at Carthage had known Augustine laboring under the same Manichaean disease, feared to engage with him. Yet at length, compelled and shamed chiefly by the insistence of his own party, he promised that he would come at close quarters and would undertake the contest of disputation. So on the fifth day before the Kalends of the seventh month, at Hippo, in the baths of Sossius, the disputation between Augustine and Fortunatus was begun. To hear it a great multitude of people had assembled, with learned and inquisitive men standing by above all, who, as usually happens, favored the two parties.

Then indeed, when the notaries' tablets had been opened, Augustine began the disputation; and the question turned chiefly upon whence evil comes. On this point, when he, the champion of Catholic doctrine, was explaining that the evil of man had arisen from the free choice of the will, while the other — namely Fortunatus — was striving to persuade that the nature of evil was coeternal with God, but in the disputation of the final day was little consistent with himself, he confessed that he found nothing to say against us.

But, failing in his reply, he declared at last that he would confer with his elders about those things which he could not refute, and, if perchance they should not sufficiently satisfy him concerning these matters, he promised that he would take counsel for his own soul. This Possidius narrates in the passage cited; yet of this matter we are made more certain by the very words of that same presbyter Fortunatus, pronounced before all in the disputation of the second day, which words, being taken down by the notaries, were moreover faithfully recorded in writing in the ecclesiastical tablets, as may be seen also at the close of the disputation of the second day, which stands together with the former in volume eight of the works of St. Augustine.

In the meantime, let no one suppose that Fortunatus the Manichaean, overwhelmed with so great shame, modesty, and disgrace, thought of coming to his senses from his errors, or wished thereafter to give his name to the Catholics. Into such a resolve surely any man of sound mind would at once have fallen, who understood the affairs of his own faith to be tottering and led to ruin. But that Fortunatus, affected by so great confusion, having set out from the city of Hippo, returned to it no more, nor yet did he become a Catholic. Of this Fortunatus, the Manichaean presbyter, Augustine, so far as I know, makes mention nowhere. There exists only a certain letter of his written to another Manichaean presbyter, whom the Maurist Fathers in the latest edition of Augustine surmised to have been Felix of the congregation.

This Fortunatus, therefore, Augustine — now raised to the bishopric of Hippo — addressed in these words: And so I charge you in the name of Christ, that if you are ready, resolve the question in which your predecessor Fortunatus failed; and he departed hence in such wise that he did not return, unless, after conferring in disputation with his own, he should find what he might reply in answer, disputing with the brethren. From these things, therefore, it is clear that this Manichaean presbyter, who had succeeded Fortunatus, was roused and challenged by Augustine to resolve that same question, in which his predecessor had failed all too shamefully.

He slipped away from the city of Hippo in such wise that he studiously feigned that he wished to confer with the other chiefs of the Manichaeans about the things that had been objected to him. This presbyter Fortunatus was succeeded by Faustus, an African by nation, a citizen of Milevis, a bishop of the Manichaean sect, who flourished in the four-hundredth year. His talent, studies, gifts of mind, and writings, among others, William Cave alone described, saying: He was a man sweet in speech, crafty in wit, talkative rather than eloquent, a smatterer rather than solidly learned. And again a little below he adds: He composed a volume against the right Christian faith and the Catholic truth.

Nevertheless, the aforesaid writer did not accurately enough describe the argument of this book. For Augustine, who diligently examined the work of Faustus the Manichaean, in Book Two of the Retractations, chapter seven, explained in these words what that book contained in itself, saying: Against Faustus the Manichaean, who blasphemed the Law and the Prophets and their God and the incarnation of Christ, and who said that the Scriptures of the New Testament, by which he is convicted, had been falsified, I wrote a great work, setting forth his words and rendering my replies. This man indeed Augustine had known, who, in the sincere sacrifice of his Confessions, about to relate how he had fallen into the sect of the Manichaeans, says:

There had already come to Carthage a certain bishop of the Manichaeans, Faustus by name, a great snare of the devil, and many were entangled in it through the enticements of his smooth speech… for report had spoken of him to me beforehand, that he was most skilled in all honorable branches of learning and exceedingly well versed in the liberal disciplines. Now the fame of this Faustus the Manichaean, widely spread among his own adherents, had long since aroused in Augustine a desire to hear him teaching and disputing. For if at any time, in the space of nine years during which, as with a wandering mind, the holy…

the Father seemed to cling to this sect, being reduced merely into the class of hearers, not of the elect, he ran up against difficult knots; and if there were questions which the other men of that profane religion knew not how to resolve, they awaited, with all too outstretched longing, the coming of that Faustus, by whose arrival (he himself says) and shared conversation these matters, and any perhaps greater ones I might seek, would most readily and most clearly be unraveled for me. This indeed the other Manichaeans, when they engaged with Augustine on matters of faith, kept promising — as though the mysteries of that abominable sect had been revealed to Faustus the bishop alone. In the end, the fame of the Manichaean people of this kind deceived Augustine.

Indeed, when he came, I found (he says) a man agreeable and pleasant in words, prattling far more sweetly the very things which they are wont to say. But what did the most graceful cupbearer of more precious cups avail against my thirst? Augustine's ears had already been sated with such things, nor for that reason did they seem better to him because they were better spoken, nor true because eloquently expressed, nor the soul wise because the countenance was becoming and the discourse comely.

But descending to the particular deeds of that same Faustus, to his capacity for knowledge, to his understanding of divine and human things — how great and in what measure that man, so highly esteemed by his own, might prevail in these matters — when Augustine himself had tested this in various familiar encounters, he pronounced this final judgment concerning him. For when he had withdrawn from the opinion of those to whom he seemed prudent and wise, because he delighted them by his speaking, he writes:

After various familiar trials, therefore, I found the man devoid of the liberal disciplines, except grammar, and that too in the ordinary manner; and because he had read some orations of Tully and very few books of Seneca and certain works of the poets, and such volumes of his own sect as were written in Latin and in orderly fashion; and because there was a daily exercise of conversation, thence he was supplied with an eloquence which became more acceptable and more seductive by the governance of his wit and by a certain natural charm. Such gifts, then, of mind and body, which the other Manichaeans admired in Faustus the bishop, could not even gently soothe or seduce the genius of Augustine.

For after he had appeared sufficiently unskilled in those arts in which he was reputed and vaunted by fame to excel — and which Augustine himself had supposed — Augustine at once began to despair that Faustus could open and unravel those questions in which, considering the fabulous first principles of the Manichaeans, his mind was tossed about all too greatly. He confesses that this happened to him especially when, turning his eyes upon their books stuffed with trifles, he desired to know and understand perfectly all the things which they affirmed concerning the motions and qualities of the heavens, the stars, the sun, and the moon. All these things Faustus, nowhere instructed in the mathematical disciplines, since he could by no means explain — as he did not scruple to confess —

straightway all Augustine's effort, by which he had resolved to make progress in that sect, once that man was known, utterly collapsed — not so that he might separate himself entirely from them, but as one finding nothing better than that into which he had somehow already plunged. When therefore this perverse desire of Augustine for learning all the Manichaean dogmas and mysteries had cooled, his mind, as though suddenly, began to waver. And although he did not at once acquiesce in or obey the movements of divine grace, nevertheless the hands of the Lord, in the hidden depth of His providence, did not forsake his soul; and, out of the blood of his mother's heart, through her tears offering sacrifice for her son by day and by night, they wrought upon him in wondrous ways.

These things, then, concerning the deeds of Faustus, his manner of study, his capacity in the sciences, his knowledge of divine and human things, and his writings, Augustine handed down; in weighing which we cannot linger any longer, lest we seem to wish to display the deeds of Augustine rather than those of this Manichaean bishop. This one thing at last we think must be added: namely, that Augustine, now loosed from the snares of the Manichaeans and raised to the order of the episcopate, drew his pen against this Faustus and harassed him in thirty-three books. This work he arranged so ingeniously that first, under the name of that Faustus, he set down the words, subjoining to each chapter just as many Catholic replies composed by himself.

What end Faustus himself truly met, Augustine narrates in Book Five, chapter eight, where the holy Father is wholly engaged in reproaching the audacity of the Manichaeans, by which they rashly and sacrilegiously contended that they endured persecutions and the hatreds of men for the sake of justice — when, namely, the proconsuls of Africa, taking action with the rigor of punishments against this wicked sect, and Faustus himself having been convicted, or having confessed, that he was a Manichaean, was banished to an island together with certain others brought with him to the proconsular tribunal. But of this kind of judgment we shall treat more fully and more conveniently in the following chapter.

It remains now that we should speak of a certain Secundinus, another defender and writer of the Manichaean sect, whom William Cave quite wrongly judged to have been an African by nation. He added moreover that this man had lived after Augustine's return to the Church and after the completion of the three books on Free Will; and that it seemed to him that Secundinus's letter to Augustine, and Augustine's replies to Secundinus, ought to be referred to the year of Christ 390. These two things surely could be affirmed only by a man too boldly divining, and reasoning falsely and from mere caprice about the writers of the Church.