Sermons & Letters 206 part 3/3

If we rely upon the writings that are praised, we shall be brought into the peril of error, since it is not certainly known whether those volumes issued from the true workshop of Xenaias, or whether in composing them he followed the dictate of his own faith, or finally whether they were falsified by the zeal of others, in order to conceal or blot out that mark of Manichaeism which the ancient writers and the Fathers of the Seventh Synod had branded upon him. But I perceive that in composing all these things I have lingered longer than was fitting, chiefly because I can neither examine the documents written in the Syriac tongue, nor interpret them; which things ought surely to be necessary for any sound-minded man of those who desire to bring a matter of this kind to its conclusion. Wherefore:

Setting aside this manner of disputation, we submit only this one thing: that almost the whole East was polluted with the Manichaean taint by the zeal of the Emperor Anastasius and of the Acephali. And that this may be made more clearly known and better understood, we compose a final chapter concerning the history of the Manichaeans, since the remaining things we might say about this abominable heresy—afterwards propagated among the Armenians by the zeal of the Paulicians—have been sufficiently described by Peter of Sicily and by Photius.