講道與書信 第 192 章 第 2/3 段

The reason indeed adduced by him from Bochart utterly collapses, since that author, in his Sacred Geography, does not affirm that those two words Terebinthus and Butam, or Budam, cohere in signification among the Assyrians and Greeks; but that they denote and correspond to the word of the Persians, Buddas, and are used for Terebinthus, the impious teacher of Manes, according to Bochart. 6. Yet even though Bochart should favour Beausobre's conjectures, it would by no means make trouble for us, so as to make us reject the opinions of the more ancient Fathers into a corner as false. For when Cyril openly wrote:

«Lest he should be recognized by his own name in Persia, he called himself Buddas»—he declared the deceitful and fraudulent design of Terebinthus, by which he sought to conceal his own crimes and those of his master. This very thing Photius confirmed from the sayings both of Cyril and of Epiphanius, saying that Terebinthus set out for Persia, having taken on the name of Buddas. For his fame, already spread abroad, had procured hatred for the impious man before he came into anyone's company. What more? Peter of Sicily, who diligently learned the deeds of the Manichaeans both from the writings of others and from the constant fame and tradition of others, has hitherto supported what has been said.

Yet it seems strange to us that Beausobre, in unrolling the writings of the ancients, did not find even one who affirmed that the word Terebinthus was taken from the Greeks to signify a tree, and then interpreted by the Assyrians for Buddas, or Butha. What cause would there be, as he himself says, why the Persians should impose this latter name upon Terebinthus; as though those devoted to study should rather call this man by the vernacular idiom than by the Greek. Strange, I say, that not even one has testified to this. Wherefore those three examples boldly taken from the sacred letters make nothing at all for the present question—those in which, to designate one and the same person, those two words (in view of the diversity of idioms) had necessarily to be doubled.

For the sacred writers themselves indicated the cause of the doubling: namely, to guard against any equivocation whatsoever. And lest anyone should think that we wish for the present to depart from the examples adduced, we appeal to those Scriptures of the New Testament in which mention is made of Christ and Messiah, of Peter and Cephas, of Tabitha and Dorcas. For in all these the sacred writers, and their interpreters, used formulas of explanation to indicate the diversity of idioms and interpretations; lest anyone, led into error, should suppose that the persons too were doubled. Of Christ indeed and Messiah John spoke, writing: I know that the Messiah cometh, who is called Christ; and more clearly in another text, the same John.

reporting the words of Andrew, brother of Simon Peter, he writes: We have found the Messiah, which is, being interpreted, Christ. Again the same John, about to speak of Peter and Cephas, has: Thou art Simon Bar-Jona, thou shalt be called Cephas, which is interpreted Peter. And at last Saint Luke, in the Acts of the Apostles, to remove any ambiguity of speech whatsoever, discoursing of Tabitha, has these words: Now in Joppa there was a certain disciple named Tabitha, which by interpretation is called Dorcas. Innumerable indeed other examples of that kind in the Scriptures and among the holy Fathers.

we have come upon, upon which we deem it superfluous to dwell for the present, lest in rejecting those things which Beausobre is wont to adduce for the sake of throwing dust in our eyes, we proceed too prolixly. Therefore, about to make an end to this argument, we thus close our discourse: Since, then, among so many and so various ancient writers, not even one has said that Terebinthus, a Greek word, is interpreted in Syriac as Buddas, we are plainly ignorant by what license Beausobre wished to appeal to the preceding examples borrowed from the Scriptures, in order to bring the ancient holy Fathers and writers who discourse on Manichaean matters into bad faith, and to attack them as though they were guilty of impostures and lies;

yet those things which Beausobre has hitherto written in this chapter concerning Terebinthus could be judged tolerable, if he had not afterwards opened for himself a still broader way to overthrow other matters of greater moment which the more ancient writers handed down concerning the Manichaeans; or if he did not strive with all the zeal of his mind to abolish those dogmas of the Christian religion of which open mention is made in the sacred letters. 197. Of the former kind are those things which he there wrote concerning the disputations of Buddas, or Terebinthus, held at Babylon with the priests of the Sun, of which Cyril, Epiphanius, Photius, and the rest made mention.

namely, when the most wicked man, desiring to acquire at once fame and honour, most shamelessly boasted that he had been born of a virgin woman, as is also gathered from the Acts of Archelaus. But of the other kind are those things which he writes when treating of the tricks and demoniac art of Terebinthus, in which we have already understood from the testimonies of the ancients that this sacrilegious man was thoroughly instructed. For Beausobre contends that by no reasoning can one be brought to believe that the evil angels, or demons, can exercise any force and power over the elements, over men, and over the other created things:

and thus, insisting upon his own side, he condemns as ridiculous that rite of the Roman Church by which, the divine help being implored, it applies and pronounces exorcisms and exsufflations over the bodies of animate beings, over the elements, and over other things devoid of sense, in order to expel demons. As therefore concerns the former kind of matters, the aforesaid critic obstinately denies that Terebinthus, or Buddas the Manichaean, could feign and preach that he was begotten and born from the womb, or from the side, of a virgin.

For one, he himself says, of the chief dogmas of the Manichaeans was this: to deny the mystery of the Incarnation of the divine Word, and the union of the two natures in one person, being led by this reasoning, namely, that a virgin woman can never, without carnal intercourse and the seed of a man, conceive a son who is man, and bring him forth into the light. Such a fiction (he subjoins) is to be attributed to another man of this name, who was the author of the sect of the Gymnosophists, as the ancient writers have affirmed. Some of whom even ascribed it to Simon Magus. Saint

Jerome at last, in his book against Jovinian, expressly makes the author of this imposture the Indian, as though through the hands of this man the authority of this opinion is handed down, that a virgin generated from her side Buddas, the chief of them. I confess indeed that these things concerning Buddas the Manichaean are not affirmed by Cyril, Epiphanius, Photius, and the others who consigned the deeds of the Manichaeans to writing; yet that fabulous generation from a virginal womb is recounted in the Acts of Archelaus. But what of it? Was such a narrative contained in the autograph Acts and in the older copies of that disputation held? Did anyone anywhere among the nations affirm it?

For those Acts, even by the support of most learned men, were several times more gravely interpolated and wounded, now by the zeal of the interpreters, now by the drowsiness and negligence of the copyists; so that at present we can scarcely, and not even scarcely, judge concerning their integrity. Wherefore I easily persuade myself that if, besides Buddas the Manichaean, we must admit another Indian, the author of the sect of the Gymnosophists, then at some time unskilled copyists, deceived by the similarity of the name, inserted that fabulous generation into the Acts of Archelaus, as though it were preached by Buddas the Manichaean. Our conjecture indeed is favoured by the silence of other writers, and by the testimony of Beausobre himself.

For he contends in almost innumerable passages that Cyril, Epiphanius, Photius, Peter of Sicily, and the other writers, in narrating Manichaean matters, relied upon the Acts of Archelaus (which he calls apocryphal), and transferred each particular contained in them, either summarily or more at length, into their own writings. Since therefore, on the same Beausobre's authority, no writer later than Archelaus has made any word at all concerning this fabulous generation, as though preached by Buddas the Manichaean, it will be necessary to judge that it was neither contained in the autograph writings of Archelaus, nor in the older copies of these; or that, if it was contained, they rejected it as a spurious addition.

Although, however, that Buddas of whom we speak perhaps did not fabricate that tale about his own generation and scatter it among the common people, nevertheless he could not, without a mark of audacity, deny that he wished to hold disputations with the priests of the Sun and the learned men of the Persians. For Cyril, after he had described this man's flight from the borders of Palestine, the change of his name, and his crossing over into Persia, immediately subjoined: But there he had as adversaries the priests of the Sun, and, many discourses and contentions being stirred up, he was refuted. At last, when he was about to be arrested, he fled to a certain widow.

Photius too said that this cunning fellow reaped no fruit from the change of his name, and that when, from his works and his doctrine, he had become known to those who previously did not know him, he was refuted and expelled by learned men among the Persians who, though they did not indeed hold pious views, nevertheless maintained a better opinion than he concerning all things. 8. But concerning what matters Buddas held questions and disputations with the priests of the Persians, I judge that it is not for me to decide, lest I be branded with the mark of rashness.

Yet Beausobre strove to investigate the matter more diligently, and finding some discrepancy between Archelaus's manner of writing and Epiphanius's way of speaking, though he could easily have reconciled their testimonies without any mark of contradiction, he neglected to do so; and following the aforesaid method of his criticism, he contended that the aforesaid Fathers by no means understood the systems of Zoroaster and of the Persians concerning two principles, or one only, and the transmigration of souls from bodies into bodies—as he himself affirms he has reserved for himself to prove in the other part of the History.

Finally he concludes, from the testimony of Archelaus, that this man did not say that the disputation between Buddas and the priests, or wise men, of the Persians pertained to the existence of two principles, but rather regarded the war made by adverse powers against God. But if we carefully weigh these things, shall we not be compelled to affirm that Beausobre delights merely in trifles? For if the disputation held, on Archelaus's authority, was about the war which adverse princes, or powers, made against God before the outward development of things, then Buddas was already more boldly defending two eternal principles at odds with one another, as Epiphanius affirmed.

For this reason, what difference shall we say lies in the manner of speaking of each author, when both accounts reach exactly the same conclusion, with only this difference of wording admitted, that Archelaus set out the disputation more at length, whereas Epiphanius set it out more concisely or more tightly? Photius, finally, asserts that only Buddas and the priests of the Sun disputed, and that these argued more correctly than that Manichaean thought. And indeed that by his disputations he gained for himself no disciple at all — if we except that widow, his friend, deceived by tricks and evil arts, at whose house he was received as a guest — is already made known from the narrative of Archelaus. Who then added:

Early in the morning he climbed up onto a certain lofty terrace, where he began to invoke certain names, which, as Turbo told us, only the seven elect had learned. But what Buddas did after his ascent onto the terrace, and what befell him when God took vengeance, Archelaus at once related. When therefore (he says) he had ascended — for the sake of some rite or artifice I know not what, and he ascended alone, lest he might there be refuted by anyone... While he was contriving these things, the most just God commanded him to be thrust down beneath the earth by a spirit. Beausobre affirms that a narrative of this kind totters for many reasons.

For where Archelaus said that Buddas invoked certain names, Cyril, departing from him, substituted aerial demons — namely those whom the Manichaeans are wont to invoke in their sacrifices or assemblies, as Christophorus Wolfius interprets it. After this Beausobre observes that the Greek writers do not agree in recounting the rites employed by Buddas, since Archelaus said only that he ascended the terrace to invoke certain names, whereas Epiphanius contends that those rites were magical, so that he might accomplish some preternatural sign to stop the mouths of his adversaries. Archelaus concludes, finally, that a spirit was commanded by God to thrust Buddas down from the terrace to the earth — which spirit Epiphanius called an angel;

and Cedrenus, as though he had presided over this tragic scene, describes an angel assailing the impious Terebinthus, so as suddenly to cast him down headlong. Beausobre therefore persuades himself for certain that all these things totter, since they could have become known to no one without revelation. Furthermore, to remove these ancient prejudiced opinions against the heretics, Beausobre turns his zeal, and as it were flatters himself that he can employ wiser observations for ascertaining the truth of the matter, by resting only upon the narrative of Archelaus, which he calls simple, natural, and innocent. Of which sort the first observation is this:

Namely, that Buddas first prayed, and indeed ascended alone (he says) in order to obey the divine commands, by which it is said that when praying we should flee from the eyes and the crowd of men. The second observation regards the Manichaean rite of praying, derived from the institutions of Zoroaster, by which his followers are bidden to pray with their faces turned toward the East, imagining to themselves that the fire beheld in the sun signifies both the throne and the divine presence. Thirdly he observes that the peoples of the East were accustomed to climb onto the roofs of their houses for the sake of prayer, as is gathered concerning Peter praying at Joppa, and concerning Esther going up to the upper part of the house when she was pondering to do something in secret. Witty indeed is Beausobre!

But I by no means understand by what reason or license he strives to proclaim those three things as conformed to the sayings of the Scriptures, and as consonant with those rites which the ancient Catholics and holy men employed in their prayers. Indeed one ought to pray in secret, so as to guard against vainglory, and to procure for oneself that attention of mind which is most necessary in order that the movements and thoughts of the heart may be restrained, lest they wander outside of God. But who will judge that Buddas then set the aim of prayer before himself? Or that in that purpose he wished to obey the divine commands — who will ever pretend it?

Now the priests of the Sun were present, whom, as being his adversaries (inasmuch as he had been overcome by their disputations), he had summoned into the assembly, so that they might be present as witnesses of his sleights-of-hand. There is added, moreover, that it was the chief dogma of the Manichaeans to regard the light, and the sun itself, not as the seat and throne of the Most High God, but to adore it as the true God — as, among the other holy Fathers, the Supreme Pontiff Leo the First testified in various places, discoursing expressly about the Manichaeans caught at Rome adoring the rising sun, who turned themselves about and, with bent necks, bowed down in honor of the shining orb. That this happened partly through the fault of ignorance, partly through the spirit of paganism, the holy Father, grieving, judged, adding:

For although some perchance worship the Creator of the beautiful light rather than the light itself, which is a creature, he demonstrates in few words that the rite differs in nothing from the superstitious cult of the Gentiles, adding: Let therefore this damnable perversity be cast out from the practice of the faithful, and let not the honor due to the one God be mingled with the rites of those who are in bondage to creatures. That Leo said and wrote these things in order to draw certain Christians of the Roman Church, deceived by the depraved practices of the Manichaeans, away from such a rite of praying, the whole text of that sermon now makes clear. But that the Manichaeans, like the pagans — though led by a different principle — paid worship to the sun and the stars, will be established by innumerable arguments. We read next that Saint

Peter at Joppa about the sixth hour, not at sunrise, went up into the upper parts. But it is nowhere established that he ascended the roof of the house. And the Scripture, in speaking of the prayer of Queen Esther, testifies only that she stood in ashes and dung, humbled her body with fasts, filled with the tearing of her hair all the places in which she formerly rejoiced, and, always turned toward the Lord, said: Help me, solitary as I am, and having no other helper besides you. Where then did Pricaeus, praised by Beausobre, find that Queen Esther was accustomed to withdraw onto the flat top of her palace, perhaps to perform in secret the exercise of the Jewish religion? That indeed we gather, as it were obscurely, from the history of Daniel;

which Beausobre perhaps dissembled, lest he press the knife to his own throat. But concerning the prophet of the Lord the sacred text relates how, at three appointed hours of the day, having entered his house, and with the windows open in his upper chamber facing Jerusalem, he bent his knees and adored. And this manner of acting signifies that Daniel wished, in praying, to look toward the temple built at Jerusalem rather than toward the East. Beausobre therefore will by no reasoning be able to prevent us from judging that Saint Peter at Joppa, lodging with Simon, at the sixth hour of the day went up to the upper parts of the house, so that, with his face turned toward the Jerusalem temple, he might pray to God. 9. Yet let us pass these things by.

Which, although they carry with them a certain poison, by which the heretics gradually strive to corrupt the piety of Catholics, and to make trouble for us in those matters which pertain to the most holy rites and ceremonies of Christ — which the heterodox themselves either strive to subvert, or at least pretend that they are not derived from the institutions of the apostles and from the divine commands given from time to time, but rather depend upon the will and choice of men, and upon the usage of foreign regions and the custom of peoples;

nevertheless they are not of such moment as either to overthrow the dogmas of the true religion, or to bring them into open contempt — especially if they do not offend against the authority of the sacred pastors in prescribing ecclesiastical rites and ceremonies. It was therefore all the more grievous for us to grieve that the manifold and tortuous ingenuity of Beausobre should stir itself even in those things which are expressly handed down in the sacred writings, and that he should seek to insinuate into the minds of others his open infidelity, hedged about with many calumnies, having first set out the accustomed apparatus of vain and deceitful erudition; so that he might soothe the unwary reader (who delights in novelties rather than in piety), and bind him fast, ensnared by allurements and snares.

Of which sort indeed ought all the rest to be reckoned which he adds at the end of that chapter, as he is about to bring to its conclusion the history of the Manichaean Terebinthus, or Buddas, out of the Greek and Latin Fathers. Therefore, inquiring more subtly into the deeds of this heretic, he supposes it as probable, and sells the idea, that he was imbued with the superstitions of the Magi for this reason, because he was derived from the nation of the Babylonians, whose philosophers were accustomed to venerate the angels not as gods, but as ministers of the Divinity — being led, namely, by this persuasion, that among themselves, with a certain order preserved, they presided over the days and months of the year, just as also over the elements and over all the things which are wont to befall men in this life.

And as though the Catholic Church could have drawn from this superstition of the Babylonians and Persians the sacred rite and order both of the festal days and of the divine offices, he affirms rather boldly that those nations were accustomed to appeal to their angels as intermediaries and mediators, just as more recent Catholics, on each day of the year, make mention of some saint in their daily offices and liturgies. And he asserts that prayers of this kind are called sorceries and magic chants by the Mohammedans.

Yet after so great a store of trifles and falsehoods, the same Beausobre says that he remains held in suspense as to how the names of the angels, or the intelligences of the heavens, on account of a certain discipline of the secret, were revealed only to the elect of the Manichaeans (who far exceeded the number seven), as Turbo, presenting himself before Archelaus, the bishop of Caschara, confessed. For Augustine, who was once merely a hearer of this sect, mentions a certain amatory song, in which the Aeons are found inscribed. Wherefore it seems to me that Beausobre is not consistent with himself, who now, despising, or not noticing, those things which concerning the superstitious institutions of Terebinthus, of Buddas — that is, of the Babylonians and Persians —

which he had shortly before written, contends that the Manichaeans did not invoke the angels, although they paid honor and praise to them; and he censures Cyril for having confounded angels with demons, by demanding of the Manichaeans that they invoked the aerial demons shut up in the space between the earth and the moon. But he affirms that these are not invoked but utterly abominated, being led by the confession of Turbo, who said that Manes had commanded his followers that, having taken food, they should anoint their heads with exorcised oil, having invoked, or uttered, certain names signifying the mysteries of that false religion; the knowledge of which names he had reserved to the seven alone — that is, to the seventy elect.

This exorcised oil, then, in accordance with the Greek and Latin version, Tillemont chose to call 'bewitched.' Wherefore Beausobre, insisting upon these two words, adds: If 'exorcised' ought to be taken for 'bewitched,' what will have to be said of so many and so great rites and ceremonies of the Roman Church? And so he concludes: If therefore the Manichaeans pronounced exorcisms over the oil before they used it, it is now made known that the Manichaeans were prepossessed by the ridiculous opinion that demons can vex the elements and bodies — which opinion, since it has greatly prevailed in the Church, she uses supplications and exorcisms to expel them. 10.

Upon all these things at last we ought diligently to insist, in order to snatch away the fallacies, the false accusations, and the mockeries by which the sycophant Beausobre has dared to assail even the Catholic Church. He, then, first of all confounds the Aeons of the heretics with angels and demons — of which Aeons the architects were Simon Magus, the prince of heretics, Montanus, the Menandrians, the Saturnilians, the Cerinthians, the Carpocratians, the Valentinians, and others, derived from Mark the Egyptian; who, furnished with the sport of the ancient poets and the heathen, fabulously invented the existence and army of the Aeons, whom they then endowed at their pleasure with various names, on account of the diverse offices which in their dreaming they pretended them to discharge.

But the doctrine of the ancient heathen was far otherwise. For although they lacked the illumination of the faith, nevertheless Hesiod, first of all, recognized that between God, holding the supreme place, and men, placed in the lowest, there existed certain intervening immortal spirits, endowed with a certain reason and intelligence, whom he called demons or genii; and these we name angels. Plato, moreover, made most lucid mention of demons, and especially in the Timaeus, whom he judges to be bound to the orbs — nay rather, that the orbs themselves and the stars are, as it were, inferior gods; and after these demons he describes others propagated by generation and lowest of all.

Who, although by their nature they are dissoluble and mortal, nevertheless by the supreme will of God, which is stronger than nature, will be immortal and eternal. And he asserts that by these were animals procreated — nay, even the bodies themselves into which he himself infused human souls. Plato's interpreter Alcinous supports him, as do Ostanes the Magus, Orpheus, Thales, Pythagoras, and others, who indeed affirmed without any doubt at all that demons, or angels, exist — although concerning their nature and properties they reasoned in one way and another. As for the other system concerning the existence of the Aeons, it has hitherto appeared to all writers as a fabulous, inextricable invention.

And that these Aeons, even in the view of their very architects, have anything in common with those substances which we call angels or demons, has hitherto by no certain reasoning been ascertained. Not therefore, when Augustine made mention of that amatory song of the Manichaeans, in which the Aeons were found described, did he believe that angels or demons were indicated; but he knew perfectly well the frauds of these heretics, who feigned those false intelligences to be fixed in the stars and orbs. Who, since they were led by a superstitious persuasion that the whole life of man depends upon the affections of the stars, the elements, or the Aeons, lied that the influences of these could be rendered propitious to themselves, or at least be changed from time to time, if supplication were made to them;

namely, when, from their erratic motion or their stable permanence, they might do harm by certain malignant aspects. Our Leo the Great, in various places, harasses both the Manichaeans and the Priscillianists, the defenders of these lies, thus rebuking them: But what is the sun, or what is the moon, but visible creatures, and elements of corporeal light? Of which the one is of greater brightness, and the other of lesser light. Then, distinguishing the times of day from those of night, he persuades that diverse qualities, not grades of life, are in them, since before the luminaries and stars were made, three days without the course of the sun, and nights without the ministry of the moon and the stars, had gone before.

Why, then, on the fourth day the Creator of all things established these, he indicates by the following words. Namely, that they might be for the utility of men: that the rational animal might be deceived neither in the distinction of months, nor in the return of years, nor in the numbering of times; since, through the unequal delays of unequal hours and the manifest signs of dissimilar risings, the sun would conclude the years and the moon renew the months. 11.