講道與書信 第 193 章

How Beausobre wished to trifle in describing the affairs and characters of Scythianus and Terebinthus, and how too boldly he plied his pen against the Fathers of both the Greek and the Latin Church, and by distorting even the sacred Scriptures to a depraved or violent interpretation, I think has been sufficiently explained in the preceding chapter. In which I had also formed the plan of relating those things which seem to pertain to the person, homeland, parents, doctrine, and errors of Manes.

But when I had learned that the substance of that chapter, on account of the various Beausobrian arguments, most of which scarcely, indeed not even scarcely, bore upon the author's design and the aim of writing the history, had grown to excess, and might at times have caused our readers difficulty in surveying these matters; therefore, lest this our present method of debating should breed confusion, I judged it more fitting and prudent to treat here separately of Manes alone.

In this plan indeed we were confirmed, since, in running through the two Beausobrian chapters, namely the sixth and the seventh, we met with such and so many things, which, if we wished to meet one by one, we should protract almost to infinity this our manner of writing and disputing. Wherefore, following the plan of our undertaking, we have proposed to ourselves to discuss and refute only those things which either overturn the tradition of the holy Fathers, or wound and overthrow the sacred rites and dogmas of the Catholic Church, to the great ruin of souls. Now therefore, about to begin our discourse first with that sixth chapter, to which Beausobre affixes the following title:

'An Examination of the History of Manes before his heresy,' in which he set forth the testimonies of Greeks and Latins alike, not in order to rely upon them, but, as he had already done in the preceding chapters concerning Scythianus and Terebinthus, to bite and harass the authors, and to contend that their testimonies must be refuted by his own inept commentaries. 1. Beginning now, therefore, to treat of the year of birth of Manes the Persian heretic and of his true name, he subscribes to that most learned man, our friend Simonius Assemanus (Vol. 1, p. 393), who, following the Chronicle of Edessa, has this in his Oriental Library: 'In the five hundred and fifty-first year Manes was born'; which year, according to the Greek era, corresponds to the two hundred and fortieth year of Christ.

The testimony indeed of this Chronicle of Edessa, Beausobre had long ago thought could be confirmed by another saying of Eutychius, in which it is read: that Manes appeared in the world under the reign of Gordian. Gordian, moreover (he says), was proclaimed emperor in the year of Christ 238, and remained in it up to the year 244. But the diligent writer, such as Beausobre boasts himself to be—the Gordians usurped power among themselves in Africa, while Maximinus was waging war with the Germans. These being afterward slain not long after, Balbinus and Pupienus together with Gordian the Younger both held the empire for one year. They were butchered by the soldiers in the year 238.

But in this year, Gordian the son or grandson of that Gordian slain in Africa obtained the reins of empire, and, having won several victories against the Persians, was by the order of Philip, in the sixth elapsed year, crushed. Subjecting the history of Eutychius of Alexandria, therefore, to a more diligent examination, Beausobre discovers that there no mention is made of the year of birth of Manes, but of his heresy already made public, on account of which he had been visited with punishment. On the occasion of this examination he thought it should be noted that Eutychius had fallen into a base anachronism, in that he wished to place the reign of Varanes I, king of the Persians and son of Hormisdas, in the third year of Gordian's rule, which narration presents an evident falsehood.

For Abulpharagius, the Syrian writer (he says), states that Varanes I began to reign when Probus was proclaimed emperor, namely in the year 276. But Beausobre ought to have observed that Abulpharagius was hallucinating, since, from the most accurate tables of chronicles, published by the illustrious Dionysius Petavius, Varanes I obtained the kingdom after the death of Hormisdas, namely in the year 273, and he who began to rule over the Persians when Probus was proclaimed emperor was called Varanes II, and occupied that kingdom from the year 273 to the year 293. Since these things, however, are very trivial, we consider it superfluous to dwell upon them. Yet it is worth noting that undoubted trust is not to be placed in the Syrian writers, to whom Beausobre always intends to appeal. 2.

That Manes was of Persian origin, all the ancient writers, on the authority of Assemanus, have said. But whether he had his birth in the province of the Babylonians or of the Chaldeans, does not appear equally certain. Saint Ephrem made him a Babylonian; and Archelaus, bishop in Mesopotamia, in the disputation held with him, not obscurely signified that he was by descent a Chaldean. But Beausobre noted that Suidas and Cedrenus contradicted these writers. They, not standing by the common persuasion, wished to attribute to him another origin, namely that of the Brachmans; which name that region, which extends toward the Ocean, obtained from a certain king so called;

and which men most given to the pursuits of religion and philosophy inhabited, as Cellarius made mention in his Commentaries on Ptolemy—that the Brachmans, finally, are derived from Abraham, certain more recent men, cultivators of novelties and led by a lust of reasoning, have tried to persuade with fabulous inventions. These men moreover, in explaining the etymology of that name, wished to interpret the word Brachma as a man exceedingly versed in the knowledge of all things. That these kinds of argumentation are therefore trifling, those already fully know who, relying only on more solid reasons, are accustomed to dispute about the truth of things. But who thinks this ill suits a man having a wit ever ready for invention?

Chiefly since Beausobre himself is engaged in that pursuit and industry, of appealing to authors ever at variance among themselves, so that little by little he may arrive at the goal he has set before himself; namely, whereby he strives with all zeal to persuade that no trust at all is to be placed in the historical matters handed down and recorded by the ancients. But since these things may be known to all, let us proceed to our undertaking. Namely, to those things which he seems to fable, when Beausobre proposes to himself to discourse on the heretic's paternal and native name. 'The Latin writers (he says) called him Corbicius, the Greeks Cubricus, but Augustine, departing from both, in his book On Heresies, whether through his own carelessness or that of his copyist, named him Urbicus.'

But that these three names, as if corrupted from the word Carcubius—perhaps the homeland of Manes, situated in the region of the Babylonians or Chaldeans—are derived, Beausobre reasons without any author. He especially contends that this can be persuaded because we understand that those former words, Corbicus and Cubricus, have by no means the ending or sound of Oriental words. He subjoins various conjectures in favor of this opinion. One of these he thinks is furnished to him from the city Carcoub, or Carcub, of which Assemanus makes mention in writing of Oriental affairs; from which native place, he persuades himself, those words Corbicius and Cubricus took their origin, since all the radical elements are asserted to be in them.

Another conjecture he seeks from the fabulous rank of presbyterate, with which he believes Manes was distinguished among the Christians. Since he was discharging this office (he says) in Ahvaz, or Ehvaz, the chief place of a certain small province, over which the Chaldeans anciently held dominion, and since presbyters and bishops were then not taken except from the cities or at least territories in which they were to perform the sacred ministries appointed, so that the practices and morals of those over whom they were to preside might be known, he therefore concludes that Manes had his birth in the aforesaid province. From which conjecture he infers the following consequence.

Since therefore that province of Ahvaz has within its district a certain city situated or built there, called Carcoub or Carcub, it can thence be concluded that the heretic was called Carcubius from his native name. 3. These things, which pertain to overturning the ancient tradition and to introducing some new form of ecclesiastical discipline, and which Beausobre has fabricated, not only totter but utterly collapse, if we attend to his manner of reasoning. In the first place, therefore, the name Carcubius, which was unknown to the ancients, since it is derived from the place or city in which Manes had his birthday, can now be common to all the inhabitants of that place and city. Why therefore could it be proper to Manes?

Why could the ancients use it to designate this singular heretical man? Perhaps this could have come about because the grandfathers or great-great-grandfathers of Manes built that city Carcubius; or because they attained such and so great fame to the honor of their homeland on account of more distinguished deeds, that they obtained a surname from their native soil; just as we understand was done in the case of Antenor, of Romulus, of Constantine, of Hadrian Aelius, of Antinous, and other men? But to reason thus is forbidden by that zeal employed by the heretic, whereby, when the widow who had adopted him as son and heir had died, he took care to reject his native name, having assumed for himself another more honorable one.

And indeed that the name Cubricus signifies something shameful, or carried the implication of a servile condition, all the writers agree, in whose favor stand Christophorus Wolfius, Gatakerus, Menagius, and the rest of the more recent men. They say that, lest he should brand himself with a mark of reproach from his domestic fortune, he changed it into Manes. If therefore the name Cubricus of his homeland had not been one of servitude, he would never have changed it, as Wolfius seems to reason in his notes on the History of Photius written against the Manichaeans. 'I pass over (he says) that a servile name can indeed procure disgrace for a free man, but not servitude. Meanwhile you may wonder (he adds) that a man exchanged a servile name for another no less such.'

For Manes, among the Greeks at least, was a name of servitude, which Gatakerus, book I, and Menagius, on Diogenes Laertius, p. 215, made so manifest from the passages of the ancients that it is impious to doubt it. To the Greeks, therefore, the name of Manes intimated reproach and servitude equally as did that of Cubricus. Although Manes, in the Persian tongue, signified a man eloquent and vigorous in disputation, as the ancient writers have handed down. But on the contrary the Greeks assumed that name only for intimating a raging man, as Cyril of Jerusalem, Epiphanius, Titus of Bostra, and others teach, who discoursed under that name. But Beausobre carps at and bites these men, as authors of inept and trifling observations;

and then he inveighs especially against Epiphanius, because he wrote that it had been arranged by divine Providence that the heretic should assume for himself the name of madness, so that the Greeks, namely, who shrank from that name, might preserve themselves immune from those errors which Manes had taught. But (he subjoins) a Manichaean could reply that Epiphanius thought or reasoned ill concerning the dispositions of Providence. Since that counsel and those dispositions which Epiphanius himself boasts of were already made void by that multitude of Greeks who was held fast by the enticements of this heresy. But who, without grave commotion of his mind, will be able to attend to this depraved and impious Beausobrian censure?

Do the counsel and dispositions of divine Providence impose necessity upon human minds, so that their malice does not attempt to withdraw itself from them, and, as very often as possible, is able to frustrate them? For to the first parents the forbidden tree was given as a bulwark of original innocence and a preservative against death, so that the parents themselves ought to have shuddered at death, as at the most terrible of all things. But what happened? Deceived by the allurements of gluttony and the suggestions of the serpent, with the horror of death shaken off, they seized the forbidden fruit with rash daring, and thereupon ate of it.

Moreover, to pass over other examples taken from the divine writings, was it not arranged by divine Providence that prisons, chains, crosses, torturers—names and properties full of horror—should be obtained, for preserving the rights of justice, and for the safeguard and the tranquillity of the commonwealth? Namely, that men, seized by the fear of penalties, might guard against crimes, lest they should be compelled to undergo those evils? If therefore no one (unless a sacrilegious person) could reply that God had, with a providence less wise, arranged that death, which their nature most greatly abhorred, should be threatened to the first parents, in order, namely, to turn them away from the eating and desire of the forbidden food;

if only the unwise would affirm that so many and so great kinds of penalties had been devised in vain for the punishment of the guilty, and established by most holy laws, then I do not see with what face Beausobre could have taxed and mocked Epiphanius, because he wrote that it had been arranged by divine Providence that Manes should assume for himself a name full of horror, so that his heresy, namely, might be abhorred by the Greeks. That name could indeed have excited a certain horror in the minds of the Greeks, just as death, prisons, chains, scourges, crosses, slaughters, and torturers do.

But the Greeks themselves, who from elsewhere had been steeped in the depraved principles of Manichaean philosophy, and delighted most greatly in sensual enticements and lewdnesses, easily shaking off all horror, which could have preserved them from defilements of this sort, chose to profess the institutions of that abominable sect. To relate meanwhile the remaining etymologies of this name described there by Beausobre we consider superfluous; yet let the reader consult section 5 of this chapter. 4. But as regards the priesthood of Manes, we do not go so far as to deny that it is affirmed by Gregory Abulpharagius, without any author.

But I do not see how much trust we can place in him, especially since he there first describes Manes almost as though one of the Doctors of the Catholic Church, who both taught the sacred books of the Scriptures and interpreted them; and who, being accustomed to dispute with Jews and heathens, at length falling away from the faith, named himself the Messiah. Furthermore, if we attend to this testimony of Abulpharagius, reducing it to the rules of true criticism, various things occur which seem to bear the marks of falsehood.

I pass over, in the first place, that none of the Fathers and writers of the third and fourth centuries made mention of such Manichaean deeds and of his priesthood—lest it be turned into a charge against me that I have employed negative arguments to weaken the positive assertion of the Syrian writer; although Beausobre, by reasoning from similar indications, uses them almost always. But I cannot conceal in silence the manner of proceeding especially of Cyril of Jerusalem; who, in his catechesis, describing the graver deeds of Manes, did not even lightly indicate this; which he would not have failed to do, if the heretic, first enrolled in the clerical militia and priesthood, had fallen into that horrendous and monstrous sacrilege.

Indeed he would have set this before those to be enlightened, as a thing to be utterly execrated. Unless we should wish to suspect that the man's priesthood was hidden from Cyril, or at least that he wished to conceal it, lest he should bring the other sacred presbyters and their order into odium and contempt among certain gentiles and Jews then dwelling at Jerusalem. But let us pretend that Cyril wished to use this economy, in order to consult the priestly honor. Shall the same then be affirmed of the other writers who described the Manichaean affairs? Away with the fiction!

For indeed all those who wrote about Xenaias, Severus of Sozopolis, Peter of Apamea, Zoara, and Isaac the Persian by no means passed over in silence their priesthood and clerical rank, judging that no harm nor stain of infamy could come upon the Priesthood of Christ if they affirmed that those men were to be held in utmost hatred who, defiled by graver crimes and by the taint of heresy, most shamefully withdrawing both from the holiness of the priesthood and from the institutions of the sacred ministries, brought ruin upon both themselves and the divine mysteries by their wicked crimes.

Furthermore, who does not know that the sect of the Manichaeans, lurking under the name of the Acephali in the sixth century of the Church, strove to procure for itself the protection of the Caesars and the emperors of the East, so that all the more easily, of course, and by degrees these ecclesiastical men might turn women away from wedlock and marriage, and corrupt and defile them with abominable and sacrilegious wantonness? Moreover, the Acts of the synod of Constantinople under Agapetus, bishop of Rome,

and Menas, patriarch of Constantinople, the letters of Pope Hormisdas, and very many other documents which are there to be read, plainly reveal that under the name of the Acephali, in the course of the sixth century of the Church, the Manichaeans obtained the foremost sees of the East, and spread the perverse dogmas and institutions of this sect hither and thither, as we ourselves shall more opportunely demonstrate when the occasion of the times is preserved. If therefore the Fathers of the councils and the ancient writers neither strove to conceal, nor dissembled, the priesthood or the other clerical orders with which certain men of the Manichaean sect had been distinguished;

if next also those who convened at the Council of Gangra by no means passed over in silence the priestly order and monastic profession of Eustathius, bishop of Sebaste in Armenia, who in the fourth century of the Church, a little before the Council of Nicaea was assembled, applied all his zeal to propagating the Manichaean sect and its institutions; then plainly I do not see why, among so many and so great writers who have discoursed about Manes, Gregory Abulpharagius alone should assert that he had been initiated into the priesthood. Therefore we rather deem it probable that Manes feigned himself to be a presbyter, and did not shrink, with sacrilegious and rash audacity, from mimingly exercising the offices of presbyters.

We deem it right to reason thus, led by this conjecture: that he did not shrink, without the necessary mission of the Spirit of the Lord, from fashioning himself into an apostle of Jesus Christ and a Paraclete. Namely, that by those false titles and offices he might gain for himself authority among simpler men and women, whereby, being the more easily deceived, they might render him all faith and obedience. This, moreover, they would by no means have given him, had they not recognized him to be discharging the offices and ministries of religion. Finally, how weak and false is that conjecture on which Beausobre insists, so as to urge the native land and presbyterate of Manes, no one fails to see.

Nay rather, it will be a matter of certain persuasion to those, well-versed in the reading of sacred ecclesiastical history, that he was selling words and fabrications—those, I say, who know full well that in the first centuries of the Church, when the Catholic religion had to be propagated, presbyters and bishops were scarcely taken from those places or regions in which they had their birthday; but rather that by the apostles and their successors they had been distinguished there with holy orders, and had been sent to foreign nations—men whose morals and the institutions of an approved discipline had become abundantly and more than sufficiently known, as we ourselves, together with Eusebius of Caesarea, have amply demonstrated in almost innumerable places in another work prepared by us. 5.

And so that we may come to the other significations which Beausobre contends suit the name of Manes—having regard to the idiom of the Persians and Syrians, and to the varied manner of the Fathers' speaking—we shall try to dispatch in a few words whatever he has reported from the opinions of others. For he asserts, on the authority of Epiphanius, Archelaus, and Ephraem the Syrian, that it signifies a vessel, an instrument, and a garment. But who does not understand that the aforesaid Fathers wished rather to allude to the properties of Manichaean morals than to the genuine signification of that word? More reasonably indeed does Archelaus call him a vessel of wickedness and an instrument of Antichrist, following the phrases of the Scriptures and the manner of speaking especially of St.

Paul's manner of speaking, who declares the subverters of the Gospel and of the Catholic law to be both vessels and instruments of wickedness, and Antichrists—names which, when the property of morals is considered, it is clear apply to them alone. By like reasoning that same St. Ephraem, cited by Assemani, explains that Manes was clothed in the form and garment of the devil, writing: 'The devil clothed Manes as it were with his own garment, that he might misuse him as his instrument, and utter his oracles through him.' Since therefore properties of this kind suit all heretics who subvert the Gospel of Christ, I plainly know not why they should contend that these are derived from the name of Manes alone;

otherwise one would have to call the authors of every false sect 'Maneses,' since they too are vessels and instruments of the devil, and the devil clothes them with his own garment that he may utter his oracles through them. After this he carps at Cyril of Jerusalem, who judged that this word 'Manes' was employed by the Persians to signify speech; the eloquence of which speech, indeed, Manes himself in his letter to Marcellus affirms does not suit him. Then he rejects, as inept and jocular, the observation of Pearson, who, following the interpretation of the rabbis, opines that 'Manes' is derived from 'min,' which serves to indicate a heretical man.

But who can invent for himself a name to which a mark of infamy and disgrace was attached, and which was common to all the authors of false sects—especially since we find that this name was imposed upon him by no other than himself? It is therefore not likely that he deliberately abandoned the word 'Curbicius,' signifying servitude, in order to adopt another which bore, if not a greater, at least an equal baseness and infamy, such as, by Pearson's opinion, that of 'Manes' would be; although he contends that 'Manes' was at first a title rather than any name, from the Hebrew 'min,' which signifies a heretic. But Thomas Hyde is authority for the fact that the Persians interpret that name 'mani' otherwise, proving that by it a painter is denoted.

Beausobre says that Wolf followed the same opinion, writing that from the Persian language itself he draws the etymology of Thomas Hyde, which he adduces in chapter 21, page 280, of his work On the Religion of the Ancient Persians. For he, having rejected the etymology of Epiphanius, attests that Manes was properly called 'MANI,' because among the Persians it has the meaning of 'painter.' 6. Yet whatever we have hitherto hastily noted concerning the etymologies and significations of that name, someone might reckon that we bring disgrace and ignominy upon this man, if we do not straightway compare it with the rest which he adds concerning this word 'Manes.'

He therefore brings forward the opinion of Ussher of Armagh, who, relying on a certain testimony of Severus Sulpicius, affirms that a certain king of the Israelites was called 'Manes'—who nevertheless is read in the Book of Kings as 'Manahem,' and by the Seventy translators is called 'Manaem'—which words, together with those two others of 'Paraclete' and 'comforter,' he persuades himself to be the simple and natural origin of that word 'Manes.' Beausobre asserts this; and since he believed it more honorable than the rest, he judged that it ought not only to be preferred to all the others, but moreover he presents himself as ready to solve all the knots and difficulties which he meets in it, so that he may fully persuade his readers of it as well.

Undertaking therefore to solve and remove the aforesaid knots and difficulties, he first thinks it more probable that from 'Manaem' the form 'Manes' can be fashioned, having regard especially to the Orientals' manner and usage of speaking. And since it is customary for the final letter 'm' of these words to be omitted by the Greeks, they therefore turned them into 'Manes,' just as it is established that they made 'Buddha' into 'Buddas.' He pretends that Augustine supports this former conjecture, since in his book On Heresies he calls the heretic of whom we treat 'Manin,' not 'Manem,' as the Latins prefer. He proves Augustine's example by that of Adimantus. For he judged that it should be written not 'Adamantum' but, in Latin, 'Adimantum'—just as Theodoret chose to write 'Manens,' and not 'Manes.'

To which Suidas indeed seemed to lend support, saying that in the genitive case it is 'Manentis'—which ought to be an argument that in the nominative it should be read 'Manens.' Now indeed Beausobre seems to flatter and congratulate himself that he has discovered the genuine origin of that word 'Manes' and has explained it. Therefore he hastens to advance a step to that other word 'Manichaeus,' by which not only did his disciples customarily call the parent of their heresy, but also an almost innumerable multitude of writers employed that same word. He affirms that this last word too is to be assigned the same derivation of origin, from the Chaldaic word 'Manahem.'

Nor does he allow any other distinction to be admitted between the two names, except that which is wont to arise from diverse modes of pronunciation and from the flexibility and movements of human speech, as he contends can be proven from Pagninus, Junius, and Tremellius. For they, using diverse elements of letters, write and pronounce 'Menachem' and 'Manachem' differently in different ways, since the Greeks themselves, wishing to add new letters to the aforesaid words, fashioned 'Manichaeus.' 7. But whether these things have been rightly or wrongly conjectured, those skilled in the Greek and Oriental languages will be able to judge more diligently. We, meanwhile, can by no means subscribe to Beausobre's manner of fabling.

For since names are certain marks of all things, expressing their origin and properties, these are now utterly effaced, or at least altered, by the addition of letters and by the subtraction of these according to the will of individual men. Wherefore it seems to me that Cicero wished to snatch away or at least to censure such an abuse arising from men's excessive and vehement lust for philosophizing, when he wrote: 'Since you think Neptune to be named from swimming (nando), there will be no name which you cannot, by changing a single letter, explain whence it is said.'

What then must we for the present judge concerning so many and so great changes and additions of letters, which we detect in those names that Beausobre has heaped together, in order to designate the origin and properties of the word 'Manes'? But even granting freely that his manner of discoursing ought to be called neither trifling nor fabulous, what follows from it? Will 'Manes' now be a name of honor, because in the Scriptures of the Old Testament a certain king of the Israelites was called by that word? Was not the name of Judah in that same Testament honorable and most worthy of praise? Yet if we consult the New Testament, we shall find that there was one man, who had been a disciple of Christ and was called Judas, who was wicked, a traitor, sacrilegious, and the source of many evils.

Did he then also obtain a royal origin, and was the scepter of the Israelites owed to him? Away with such a figment! But since it might be counted a fault to linger too long over these matters, we pass over almost innumerable examples which would more forcefully constrain Beausobre and overthrow his inept conjectures. But what is to be said concerning the name 'Paraclete,' which Manes had rashly assumed to himself, we shall now explain from Leo the Great and others, so as more abundantly to refute the rest of Beausobre's false conjectures. 8. Beginning now to treat of the dogmas of Manes, we ought above all to report that one which furnishes the foundations for all the rest, upon which that whole engine of sacrileges and fables had been constructed by that most impious architect.

And first there is set before us that portent of blasphemy into which Manes burst forth, as soon as he began to scatter his wicked heresy among the common people. With sacrilegious boasting, therefore, he gloried in a divine power given to himself; and, in order to display the might and authority of a supernal Deity, and to win for himself the people's faith and veneration, at one moment he strove to show forth the form of Christ's own nature, at another he proclaimed himself to be the very Paraclete. This last point Beausobre calls into doubt;

and, convinced by the testimony of others—although he does not dare to deny that Manes was called Paraclete and comforter—he nevertheless contends that he obtained that appellation rather from that widow who had adopted Manes as her son and heir, and who, having first granted him his liberty, wished to have him as the comforter of her widowhood and old age. For he affirms that he cannot believe the world and mankind to have been so stupid as to give credence to this crude artifice and to have been willing to be deceived by it.

Therefore it seems more agreeable to reason, he says, that—his condition of servitude having been changed by his benefactress—he wished to add some syllable to her name, so that, become as it were a new man, on account of which he tries to prove, by the testimony of Dom Assemani (who writes that the name 'Maanus' was familiar both to Syrian and to Arab kings), that the name was very honorable. But that Eusebius of Caesarea opposes these fabulous conjectures, Beausobre (vol. I, bk. I, ch. 6) either wholly dissembled, or was unwilling to notice.

For he—who could borrow the deeds done by Manes neither from Cyril of Jerusalem nor from Epiphanius, being as he was more ancient than those writers, but rather from more venerable documents preserved in the archives of the Churches, as he attests in his preface—describing the history of ecclesiastical affairs, says, in the time of Pope Felix: 'A certain Manes, raving in accordance with his own name, and driven by the instigation of a demon, teaches a heresy hateful and execrable to all.' Behold, then, how Eusebius sets forth the genuine name of the heretic, explains its etymology and signification, and at the same time indicates those demonic aids which he used to disseminate his errors hither and thither.

That Manes obtained this madness, or frenzy, by demonic art, he again recalls in that place, and appeals to the outcome of the deeds done by him, in order to persuade his readers of it. Whence, after this, about to prove what he had said, he immediately subjoins that which we adduced a little before, namely: 'At one moment he strove to bear the form of Christ; at another he proclaimed himself to be the very Paraclete.' Eusebius therefore wished to persuade three things: first, that the heretic was called by the Persians 'Manes,' not 'Manahem'; second, that the frenzy, audacity, and madness had been fulfilled in him by the power of a demon;

third, that, by lyingly imitating the form and likeness of Christ the Lord, he feigned this, and proclaimed himself to have been sent as the Paraclete for the solace and instruction of the world and the Church. Who does not understand that these three things plainly overthrow the conjectures of Beausobre's fables, if now, being about to persuade his disciples of all his sacrilegious inventions, he first devised this: that he should feign himself, as it were, an apostle from Christ and a comforter of men, and pretend himself to have been sent? And lest I should seem to censure and reproach Beausobre unjustly as a fabler, let me be permitted to appeal to Leo the Great, pontiff of the Roman

Church, who, in the general inquisition held at Rome against the Manichaeans there lurking, anxiously wished to search out what they believed and what the disciples of Manes dared to teach. And indeed that the Manichaean disciples had believed, or at least had preached, this blasphemy, he explained not obscurely in the following words:

'His disciples, that they might seem to follow some great and sublime author, believed that in their master Manes the Holy Spirit had appeared, and that the Paraclete promised by the Lord had not come before this deceiver of the wretched arose, in whom the Spirit of God so remained that Manes himself was none other than the Spirit, who through the ministry of a bodily voice and tongue would lead his disciples into all truth.'

The truth of the facts, therefore, ought to conquer and snatch away every contrary conjecture of Beausobre. Nay, without any hesitation of mind it ought to persuade us that Manes opened for himself a way—by that most palpable and blasphemous falsehood especially—to so many and so great sacrilegious dogmas, which either corrupt or utterly overthrow the more sacred mysteries of the Catholic faith. But let us return to the order of the history. 9. For this cause, therefore, the heretic strove to procure for himself the books of sacred Scripture with money, so that he might by these enticements draw Christian men to himself, mixing certain truths with lies and fables. By which art, namely, while he was striving to render his sect more plausible, he gradually instilled his errors into the minds of others.

Moreover, by magical arts and by illusions he corroborated all these things, which he certainly used for deceiving men; while he did not shrink from sometimes attempting arduous tasks utterly impossible to human and diabolical powers. As when he attempted, by a fruitless effort, to cure the son of the king of the Persians, who was destitute of the aid of physicians and laboring under a grievous disease.

Having laid these sacrilegious and superstitious foundations, therefore, disseminating other dogmas (says Eusebius), foolish and impious, borrowed from various heretics who had already before been extinguished, he undermined the Catholic religion with Persian poisons, and utterly corrupted it. Among his other fabrications, borrowed from Marcion, Valentinus, Carpocrates, and other authors of the Gnostic sect, the following are wont to be numbered: namely, that there are two principles of all things, God, that is, and the devil; from the former he taught that all good things, from the latter all evil things, are produced; that the former is the fount of all virtue and perfection, from whom he derived the New Testament, but that the latter is the author of sin and of the Old Testament;

that the substance of men had been produced by both Gods, yet in such a manner that that good God created only the souls, but that material bodies, being as it were imperfect and forever subject to corruptions and vicissitudes, drew their origin from no other than the evil God. He wholly took away free will from men, introducing fate and necessity into our human affairs. Moreover, he denied the true incarnation of Christ, and contended that He had assumed only a phantom body:

and he taught the peoples other things of this kind which, as we have said, had been drawn partly from the most foul cesspools of the ancient heresiarchs, partly from the absurd dogmas of the gentile philosophers, partly from the institutions of the Christian religion itself perversely or wrongly explained—all which insipid fables and feigned dreams were more brilliantly described by St. Epiphanius.

By these, therefore, and by other sacrilegious dogmas, Manes strove to make himself great and illustrious above the other authors of heresies. Meanwhile, that most detestable impostor, in order to display great authority over men and to draw especially the common folk—who attend to nothing but the outer husks of things—into his opinions, feigned to imitate Christ the Lord, the Savior of the human race, both in those things which pertain to the choosing of disciples, and in others which pertain to the apostolic mission. Which will appear more fully in the following chapter, when we shall undertake to treat of the number of these disciples.