Latin original · 30 verses · some words can be tapped for a gloss · long chapter, split into parts; this part covers 203:78–203:107 (107 verses in all)
...Augustine of having changed or corrupted the Manichaean system in order to gain the victory, for that would be to call him guilty of wounded faith; but it is certain that he used certain sophisms and often expressed their religion badly.' These, I say, and other reproaches of this kind he wrote against Augustine, which it shames us to relate one by one. Wherefore, that he may be able to win credit for what he has said among his readers, he appends various examples and proofs. The first of these is taken from these words of Augustine: 'For the enemy, who hoped that he had crucified the same Savior, the father of the righteous, was himself crucified; at which time one thing was done and another was shown.'
He asserts that Augustine said these things according to the opinion of the Manichaeans, and cites both the Epistle of the Foundation and the book On Faith, chapter 28. To which words he added others also: 'The Manichaean was forced to say that it was not Christ, but the prince of darkness with his allies, who suffered all those things.' And finally, speaking of the souls of vegetables, which the Manichaeans believed to contain within themselves a part of the divinity — whose prerogatives, they said, are still preserved in plants and fruits, and perish and are annihilated only when the fruits and vegetables are taken for food;
...which, when they have come to the flesh of the one eating, lose all intelligence, and therefore the Teacher was sent to men, because in them the part of God has been made foolish, and therefore he was not sent to melons, because they have a wise soul. These three examples, I say, as though spoken by Augustine according to the opinion of the Manichaeans, Beausobre first objected, contending that such offenses had been falsely imputed to the Manichaeans by the orthodox themselves, as though they were the doctrines of that sect. 11. I shall not deny that I encountered these three in the book On Faith against the Manichaeans, which was wrongly once attributed to Augustine. But they are plainly wanting in the other book which Augustine certainly wrote against the Epistle of the Foundation.
Not cursorily indeed, but carefully did I survey this work; nor did I find a word that smacked of such things. But who can be ignorant that the book On Faith is not Augustine's offspring? For Bellarmine, Wadding, and others, noticing that it is not reckoned among his Works, nor in the Retractations, nor in the index of Possidius; observing also that its style is different from Augustine's and weaker in the manner of disputation, but that its author had merely striven to imitate Augustine — not only by expressing his meaning and sometimes borrowing his very words, especially from that book which was written On the Nature of the Good against the Manichaeans — for that reason the most recent editors of St.
...the most recent editors of Augustine's Works adjudged that work to Evodius, and relegated it to the appendix of the eighth volume. I cannot therefore sufficiently wonder at Beausobre's negligence, not to say fraud, who strove to sell uncertain things for certain and false things for true. 12. But let us freely grant that Augustine wrote these things according to the opinion of the Manichaeans, because perhaps he expressed things not unlike them in the book On the Nature of the Good. What then? Did Augustine devise and fabricate similar ravings in order to stir up horror against the Manichaeans, as [Beausobre] a little later added: 'In other examples he calumniates them.' For Augustine, in the passages praised by Beausobre, neither rests upon false principles nor deduces false conclusions from the true principles of the Manichaeans.
For in those passages Augustine treats of the foul things devised and imagined by the Manichaeans against God, which, since it is too grievous to recount them here, I pass over, lest I seem to make trouble for the reader; and I also deem it superfluous, since anyone can have recourse to the reading of Augustine's own text. Yet I cannot dissemble the Beausobrian license, by which he indeed contends that these things are falsely deduced from Manichaean principles. For, he says, 'those wretches read the aforesaid foul things, they say this, they hear this, they believe this; this in the seventh book of their Thesaurus (for so the Manichaeans call a certain writing of theirs, where these blasphemies are recorded) is thus set down: Then that blessed Father,' etc.
Augustine therefore added nothing of his own invention, who appeals to the very words of the Manichaeans, copies them out, and transferred them into his own work, as may be seen in that whole chapter praised by Beausobre. Moreover, if Augustine had done this with evil malice, does Beausobre believe that Faustus, Felix, Fortunatus, Adimantus, Secundinus, and all whom he assailed in his writings from the Manichaean brood, would have been silent, and not accused him as a liar and impostor? But that Secundinus was not silent, his words a little earlier cited prove, by which he harasses the holy bishop for not having understood the Manichaean mysteries, and for persecuting under the name of a Manichaean Hannibal and Mithridates. I confess indeed that Secundinus burst into these words.
But let Beausobre say whether faith ought to be placed in him — if we place faith in Secundinus, who carps at Augustine because his writings shine with too much eloquence: 'This eloquence,' he adds, 'if you had been willing to bring it into agreement with the truth, would surely have been a great ornament to us. Do not, I beg, come against your own nature; do not be the lance of error, by which the side of the Savior is pierced.' What then does Secundinus here pluck at and despise, if not the supreme eloquence of the holy Father — which, if he had been willing to bring into agreement with Manichaean principles (which the heretic contended were holy and true), while he babbled that the doctrines of our faith were subject to falsehood, it would have been a great ornament to them.
But let us grant that Secundinus said Augustine was ignorant of the Manichaean mysteries. Yet I ask: 150. To whom is faith to be given? To a heretical man who, since he had a bad cause, seeks supports on every side in order at least to defend it in appearance; and lest he fall, boldly resorts to lies, to exaggerations, to deceits, tearing apart the reputation and the name of the holy bishop even with reproaches? Or to Augustine himself, who, having scarcely received the letter of this heretic, seized his pen, and refuted all the objections put forward by his adversary? If he had been ignorant of the Manichaean mysteries, he would have dissembled the accusation. But he did not dissemble it; rather, he rejected the sect and dogmas of Manes more abundantly from the very arguments put forth by Secundinus himself;
so that the heretical man, gravely and shamefully confounded, fell silent, and as long as he lived never dared to assail St. Augustine with reproaches or to calumniate him. The whole Beausobrian artifice therefore collapses, and Augustine understood the Manichaean system most excellently; nor did he change or corrupt it in the least matter. 12. But now Beausobre, taking a step to other things, inveighs stupidly, as it were, against Augustine, raising this question: namely, why did the holy doctor, for the space of nine years, give his name to the Manichaean sect, which taught such great abominations? Why did he himself boldly champion these very things against the Catholics? 'Let him not answer, I pray' (he says), 'that he existed in the order of the Hearers, and by no means of the Elect, and therefore was ignorant of such blasphemies.'
For he himself asserts that these are contained in the seventh book of the Thesaurus of the Manichaeans, which book all the followers thumb through with their hands. And he appeals to those words taken from the book On the Nature of the Good, which we cited a little earlier. Augustine therefore was ignorant of these blasphemies when he was a Manichaean. Or, if he was not ignorant of them, it comes to mind to wonder that he remained so long in that sect. These and other similar things Beausobre heaps up, to show that the Manichaean system and dogmas had been horribly changed and corrupted by depraved interpretations. And to persuade this the more, he appeals to those two disputations which Augustine held with the presbyters Felix and Fortunatus. He says that Felix was a wholly ignorant man.
But Fortunatus, more learned than Felix, exhibits some light for understanding the doctrine of that sect. Nevertheless, it is not our business to treat of these two disputations at present, since we have already said enough about them, in recounting all of Augustine's writings, encounters, and deeds against the Manichaeans. Therefore, removing the pen from the present tableau, we have resolved to inquire more diligently when the Manichaeans came to Rome. 1. Returning, then, to where our discourse digressed, in the first place one can scarcely doubt that St. Leo, already in the third year of his pontificate then beginning, exercised the highest offices of the apostolate against the Manichaeans, when he publicly took measures against them.
Quesnel by no means denies this, who nevertheless, according to his own bent, describes Leo's manner of acting, being little or not at all concerned about those things which had already long been done at Rome by his predecessors against these same Manichaeans. He says, then, that the Manichaeans came to Rome when affairs in Africa had been ruined and the province devastated by the Vandal. Now that disaster inflicted upon Africa by the Vandals, if we give faith to Prosper, Victor, and Procopius, occurred in the year of the Lord 427, when Genseric with eighty thousand of the Vandals and Alans crossed the seas and gradually subjected it to himself. From which circumstance of affairs the arrival of these men in the City ought to be traced back only to the times of Celestine or Xystus, the Roman pontiffs.
And therefore he would conclude this further conjecture of Quesnel's: 'This filth of heretics long lay hidden under the mask of pious men, who dissembled their impiety with a severer countenance and life.' But Quesnel is compelled to yield in a badly undertaken cause, if he observes that the Manichaeans had already long before been found in the City, and had been visited with exile both by the decrees of the supreme pontiffs and of the emperors. For concerning Siricius, who was raised to the pontificate in the year 384, it is read: 'He found Manichaeans, whom he deported into exile, and established this: that they should not partake of communion with the faithful, because it was not lawful for a polluted mouth to profane the holy Body of the Lord.'
Yet he did not utterly forbid them the reconciliation of salutary penance, provided that, sincerely returning to the bosom of the Church, they should spend the remaining days of their life confined in monasteries, devoting themselves to fastings, prayers, and other afflictions of the body, so that, proved under every examination up to the last day of their passing, and on account of humanity, the Church might bestow upon them the viaticum. 2. Beyond all hazard of doubt, therefore, we judge it to be established that St. Siricius took measures against the pestiferous sect of these men in the fourth or fifth year of his pontificate.
This is indeed understood not obscurely, both from the novella of Theodosius the Elder issued in the year 388, and from the rescript of Ambrose, bishop of Milan, of Sabinus, Bassianus, and the other bishops of that province, given to the same pontiff in the year 390, after they had met in the case of Jovinian. Now these, among other things, assert: 'A Manichaean is he who denies the truth, who denies the flesh of Christ; and therefore there is no remission of sins, but the impiety of the Manichaeans, which the most clement emperor execrated, and all who saw them fled from them as from certain contagions.' That the Manichaeans were also driven out from Milan in the time of Siricius, with the help too of the law passed by the emperor Theodosius the Elder, they at once add:
'As our brothers and fellow-presbyters Crescens, Leopardus, and Alexander are witnesses, fervent in the Holy Spirit, who drove them, condemned by the execration of all, from the City as though fugitives.' Now these three presbyters, whom the Milanese Fathers call witnesses, Siricius had sent to Milan with his own letters, where, performing the legation of the Apostolic See, they drove the Manichaeans out of that city, as we understand also from this pontiff's letter to the Church of Milan. Finally, the praised Fathers of the Church of Milan, when they close the same rescript, declare that they had followed the judgment of the Roman pontiff to the letter, so much so that they by no means dared either to add anything to it or to detract from it.
Which surely proves that by the authority of the Roman pontiffs and by a certain irreformable judgment all heresies had been condemned, as we ourselves demonstrated in the preceding chapters. And so, they say, 'Jovinian, Auxentius, Germinator, Felix, Plotinus, Genialis, Martinianus, Januarius, and Ingeniosus, whom Your Holiness condemned, know to have been condemned among us also, according to your judgment.' Hence, therefore, it manifestly appears that the Manichaeans had already sought hiding-places for themselves at Rome and in other cities of Italy, at least forty years before the devastation inflicted upon Africa by the Vandals.
For already on every side that pestiferous brood was being punished with imperial and priestly penalty in the year 390, when, namely, the Milanese Fathers gave such a rescript. Gothofredus entirely supports us in his annotation on the Theodosian Code, who from the praised words gathers that Pope Siricius was, beyond doubt, the instigator of the Theodosian law against the Manichaeans. 3. Nor, however, do we deny that this filth of heretics, having set out from Africa or other overseas parts, inhabited the City and other cities of Italy. This can easily be gathered from the Life of Pope Anastasius I, who, upon the death of Siricius, being raised to the pontificate, issued decrees:
'that on no account should an overseas man be received into the honor of the clergy, unless he should designate the signatures of five bishops, because at that same time Manichaeans were found in the city of Rome.' But Anastasius ascended the throne of Peter in the year of Christ 398, that is, 29 years before the Vandal crossed the seas with his forces. Therefore the migration of the Manichaeans to the City is by no means to be traced from the ruin of African affairs by the Vandals. Although in very fact we do not deny that, after the devastation of Africa, the Manichaeans became more numerous in the City, in which the men of this wicked sect had already long before prepared hiding-places among their lurking-holes. This is the sense of those words of Leo, in Sermon 15, chapter 5:
'These men, therefore, in every way execrable and pestiferous, whom the disturbance of other regions has brought to us in greater numbers, utterly banish from your friendship.' Since Quesnel neglected to attend to this passage, he lapsed shamefully. But let us pass over Quesnel's lapse, lest we seem to wish to inveigh too much against those who — both while Quesnel was formerly living, and now that he is dead — have so subscribed to his sayings and opinions that they have believed him, if not in dogmatic matters, at least in historical ones and in matters of ancient discipline, not to have been so much deceived, and to be esteemed more highly.
We, meanwhile, treading upon his footsteps — lest we should hold unknown things for known, and uncertain things for certain — wish this one thing to be persuaded to all: that the arrival of the Manichaean brood in the City took place at least forty years before Africa was occupied by the forces of the Vandals. 4. Such most solid foundations, therefore, having been laid, we judge that, down to the pontificate of Leo, the Manichaeans lurked in the regions of Italy. Nor on that account had the city of Rome been utterly purged of this stain, although by civil and ecclesiastical law it had already before been provided that such men should be sent away, by the penalty of exile, beyond the shores of Italy, and that the penitent should be shut up in monasteries.
But those cunning men, after these laws against them, by no means dared openly to profess the sacrilegious errors of their superstition; but they used such great dissimulation in all things that, in order the more to conceal their infidelity, they did not cease to take part with the Catholics in the divine mysteries, lest their superstition and condemned religion should be rendered suspect to the ministers either of the world or of the Church. Moreover, this is to be added: that they were accustomed to frequent only hidden and more secret places, especially when they celebrated their sacrilegious assemblies. The entrances and approaches to these lay open only to those who, first instructed in obscene and wicked rites and enticed by carnal allurements, professed under oath to defend the nefarious heresy.
What wonder, then, that, using such zeal and applying such great diligence, they could long lie hidden? For this is the custom of wicked men who, in order that they may be able by a more cunning method to perpetrate the gravest crimes, dreading the power of the judges, flatter themselves — raised only then upon vain hope — that they can escape public penalties, when they take to themselves hiding-places as accomplices of their crimes. Nor, finally, when that Manichaean brood inhabited the City, was the Roman people utterly purged and free of all superstition.
For there were still surviving many remnants of the pagans and the Jews, since indeed they gave their attention to public spectacles — namely the Lupercalia, the circus games, the Bacchanalia, the Augustalia, and the Saturnalia — as both the letters of Pope Hormisdas and the sermons of our Leo most brilliantly testify. Wherefore, since the Manichaean heresy professed many errors akin to the fictions, rites, and indecencies of the pagans and the Jews, as we have already seen, it could easily lie hidden for a long time even within the enclosures of that city, since not in all the citizens was piety, faith, and religion equal. And since Leo had ascertained this, publicly addressing the people, he did not dissemble these things.
'But since (the devil) holds a manifold principality in all perversities, he nevertheless built himself a citadel in the madness of the Manichaeans, and found in them a most spacious hall, in which he might vaunt himself more exultingly; where he might generally possess not the appearance of one depravity, but a mixture of all errors and impieties at once.' Then, more to our purpose, he adds these things: 'For whatever is profane among the pagans, whatever is blind among the carnal Jews, whatever is illicit in the secrets of the magic art, whatever finally is sacrilegious and blasphemous in all heresies, has flowed together into these men as into a kind of bilge with a concretion of all filth.' 4. Lest, therefore, the holy pontiff should suffer himself to be deceived by a feigned image of virtue and a deceptive shadow of piety;
lest the canons of his predecessors, the Roman pontiffs, and the mild [laws] of the emperors should be frustrated; and lest, finally, anything of the holy flock committed to him should perish — he omitted nothing that might uncover the institutions of these heretics, their corrupt life, and the hidden places inhabited by them. Wherefore, in order both to apply a remedy to this gravest evil — like a cancer secretly creeping and undermining many — and to prepare its destruction, he first began publicly to declaim against that sect of the devil in the temples, when the people were more numerous, showing that it would be most shameful that the sons, whose forefathers learned the Gospel of the cross of Christ from the very mouth of the most blessed apostles Peter and Paul, should suffer themselves to be corrupted by such nefarious errors.
He achieved both marvelously. For, since he continually declaimed amid the sacred rites against this stain, having instituted a general inquisition against these same heretics, others — who, seduced by weakness or ignorance, had lapsed into such superstitious crimes — desiring to remedy their own faults, with the greatest grief of soul and wailing of heart, sincerely execrated the crimes they had committed.
But others, who with obstinate will, indulging the allurements of the flesh and other superstitions, defended the heresy, being punished with corporal and spiritual penalties, were not only compelled — as vagabonds and fugitives, wandering, deprived of all right and honor — to depart hither and thither, but, moreover, being proscribed by the Church, and, when they had been abominated and driven out both by all the governors and magistrates of the commonwealth, at last sought a refuge for themselves beyond the shores of Italy. And so, the Catholic cities of Italy being thus purged, we ought to congratulate Siricius and Leo.
Observe especially that in this manner of acting of the holy pontiffs we may detect the form of the ecclesiastical inquisition against the depravity of heretics to have been constituted and confirmed, as will soon appear from what follows.