講道與書信 第 197 章

1. I thought I had sufficiently discharged the parts of my task when, in the preceding chapter, I summarily reviewed those things which seemed to pertain to the disputations of Manes with Archelaus. For it was not my purpose to weave apologetic theological dissertations, but to gather, as it were into a compendium, the history of the Manichaeans from certain and authentic monuments and authors; just as most excellent men have already composed the several histories of the Pelagians, Donatists, Arians, Eutychians, and of other heretics who strove to corrupt and overthrow the Catholic religion.

But since, in running through the work of Beausobre, I everywhere encountered such and so great falsehoods and calumnies, wrapped about with thick darkness, I resolved to bring some light to his trifling nonsense and sophisms, by which, as by the sun from the East, they might be dissolved and put to flight. Otherwise, if I had persisted merely in pointing out the bad faith of this heretical man, the learned of the present time—who love only to dwell upon the surface of things—might easily suppose that Beausobre's arguments were too great to be refuted by us, if we should touch upon them briefly, or dissemble them altogether. That we may make a beginning of this matter, it will be permitted first to pass over in silence some of the observations of this Batavian writer;

those, namely, by which he attempted to paint the bishop Archelaus as a man proudly glorying in his previously reported victory, who, in the presence of his humbled and vanquished enemy, wished again to present himself at the village of Diodoris, binding Diodorus (or Trypho) the presbyter to break off the contest begun, so that he himself might enter into a new struggle with Manes concerning matters of the faith. Yet I will not dissemble that he called the bishop's zeal in the cause of the Christian religion 'pride, swelling, and fury,' and that the manner of Manes's acting and his forms of speech very greatly displeased him.

That is, when the heretic besought Archelaus to grant him that he might carry to its conclusion the disputation begun with the presbyter, being on that account afraid to contend about the dogmas of religion with the bishop, who was superior to himself in authority and dignity. 'It was a grave absurdity' (he says) 'to put these words in the mouth of a heretical man.' Who not only had already long since publicly disputed with Archelaus over the new dogmas, but also, wickedly puffed up, dared to have himself called a disciple of Christ, an apostle of Jesus, and the Paraclete promised by the Son of God.

When Gottfried Arnold had learned of this most grave difficulty, persuading himself that the Acts of Archelaus were authentic, he thought that those obsequious words had been uttered by Manes slyly and ironically (as they say), so that, namely, he might guard against that confusion which he had first been compelled to suffer at Caschara, chiefly since he was led into the hope that he could more easily overcome the presbyter than the bishop. What absurdity, then, would follow from so natural an explanation, I plainly do not see, since the zeal of heretical men is chiefly employed in this: that they may be able to prevail by favor, authority, and reputation among the unlearned and ignorant common people. All which things Manes hoped to attain, if he could overcome the parish presbyter in disputations.

Would he not, in that disputation which he had instituted, if he had conquered his adversary, have drawn to his own opinion as many of the faithful as had come thither from Diodoris and the nearer places, unless they had been suddenly supported by divine aid and illumined by the light of truth? Let it not, therefore, seem absurd to Beausobre that Manes, to guard against a new peril of shame and ignominy—which he had foreknown for certain to be threatening him, from the previous experiment given at Caschara—should have declined to contend again with Archelaus concerning the dogmas of the faith.

For this is wont to be the prudent manner of acting among those who contend: that they who have once been overcome by their adversaries should by no means commit themselves again to a contest with the same men, now stronger in strength, knowledge, and fortune, and should rescue themselves from those struggles which they have known will be destructive to them. Since, therefore, Manes knew for certain that at Diodoris no better aids of knowledge were at hand for him, he was right to decline a new kind of contest with Archelaus, chiefly since he had found him to be exceedingly well versed in the sacred letters of both Testaments.

Far be it from us, therefore, to suspect that those Acts of Archelaus are spurious, on the ground that Manes, publicly overcome and vanquished in the contest, refused to renew another most grievous and most perilous struggle. 2. Nor can I likewise dissemble the grave censure with which the same Beausobre inveighs both against Archelaus and against the tradition of the Church and the doctrine of the ancient Fathers, when, this last disputation of Manes and Archelaus being called to examination, he brands the holy and wise bishop with the marks of many heresies—which, with too much zeal, he attempted, by rash and unjust presumption, to fish out from his sayings and opinions and to bring into the open.

Wherefore, lest we should seem to labor in vain, it was our resolve to blot out to the utmost of our power the brand of such infamy, and to vindicate the ecclesiastical tradition by refuting each thing which Beausobre wrongly objected. He, then, proposes chiefly three arguments of the Manichaean disputation, to which he has subjoined as many responses of Archelaus. The first pertains to the mystery of the incarnation, which Manes, wishing to overthrow, contended that Christ the Son of God was not a true man born of a woman, but appeared such only by divine dispensation, without having a real and substantial human nature joined to himself.

He therefore abused the words of the apostle Paul to the Philippians, in which it is affirmed that Christ was made in the likeness of men. But that he might add strength to his wicked dogma, he further appealed to the words of Luke, in which it is said that the Holy Spirit descended in bodily form like a dove upon Christ when He was baptized in the Jordan. As therefore (thus Manes reasoned according to Beausobre) the Holy Spirit was by no means united to a true and corporeal dove, but only bore the appearance of a dove and wished to have an apparent likeness; so the Son of God bore the figure of a man only in appearance, without having assumed a true and real human nature.

This crude first argument of Manes (says Beausobre) the bishop Archelaus refuted with most solid reasons, but at the same time he brought forth such propositions as bear no fewer marks of heresies. Of which matter he judged that the readers should be admonished, so that, namely (he says), from observations of this kind they might understand that faith is not to be regulated according to antiquity; nor to be subjected to the authority of tradition and of the Fathers of the first three centuries of the golden age—which they (understand: the un-Catholics) affirm to have been brought to destruction when Constantine the Great held the reins of empire. But it must be affirmed that the true faith ceased even sooner, if we suppose that the virtues of bishops were the character and privilege of that age.

Thus far Beausobre. But I ask him why, having left aside his accustomed and familiar trifles and fables, he grows so greatly angry that, making an attack upon the ancient Church, he wished to bark at and bite its most holy bishops after the manner of rabid dogs. He contends that tradition is not to be admitted, and that faith is not to be placed in the ancient Fathers of the Church.

But lest we should seem to act off-stage, let Beausobre tell, I pray, by what support the Catholic dogma concerning the incarnation—about which the present disputation of both Manes and Archelaus turned in the first place—would have been proved, if Archelaus, following even a private spirit and not the authority of the bishops his predecessors, had wished to interpret the testimonies of Paul and Luke just praised, which Manes wrested to perverse significations? If Archelaus, forsaking the doctrine and tradition of his predecessors, had wished to explain the aforesaid objected passages of the Scriptures; if moreover he had not attended to the highest consensus of the other Churches, he would then have augmented wicked novelties with new fabrications;

and both of them, discoursing about one and the same mystery, would from it have fallen into diverse and diverse heresies. But that Archelaus disputed and thought rightly, solidly, and wisely concerning the true flesh of Christ, His baptism, death, burial, and resurrection, the same Beausobre asserts. Therefore he did not indulge in new and strange doctrines, but pursued those which the sacred prelates of the Churches, his predecessors, had taught him. What, then, is tradition? What is that divine rule of the Church, from which the dogmas of the true faith are drawn? What is the consensus and doctrine of the holy Fathers? Nothing other than all that which Beausobre in the present carps at and condemns, and seeks to overthrow with fabulous inventions, so that he may indulge his own pursuits and party rather than the truth.

But Beausobre dares maliciously to contend that Archelaus clung to novelties while he defended those Catholic dogmas concerning the true flesh of Christ, His true passion and death. For the bishop (he himself says) affirmed that Jesus was truly affixed to the gibbet of the cross, and that, after He Himself rose from the dead, He was taken up into that place where Christ the Son of God reigns. He asserts, therefore, that Archelaus most excellently explained the Lord's descent to the lower regions, according to which manner of speaking, the 'place of hell' is the same as the sepulchre, from which Jesus, come to life again, ascended the heavens. He adds that such an interpretation is reasonable and just, but contends that it is accompanied by various and terrible heresies.

Nor for any other cause does he call the interpretation just praised reasonable and just, than because he judges that it favors Theodore Beza, Calvin, and himself, who deny that the soul of Christ descended to the lower regions. About which celebrated and well-worn question the Fathers of both Churches have everywhere spoken, chastising those who, following the Hebrew readings, judged that 'hell' was to be taken more strictly for 'sepulchre.' To prolong this disputation further at present we do not think fitting. Since learned and accurate men have already published various lucubrations, which show that those words of Theodore Beza, 'He descended into hell,' are by no means to be erased from the Symbol of the faith.

But even before these learned men had accomplished this, Leo the Great, in condemning the errors of the Manichaeans and the Priscillianists, defended from many passages of Scripture the Truth of which we are treating, and he was struck with wonder that Turibius, bishop of the Church of Astorga, had consulted the Apostolic See upon this article of the Christian religion: 'I marvel that the understanding of any Catholic should labor, as though it were uncertain whether, when Christ descended to hell, His flesh rested in the sepulchre; which, as it was truly both dead and buried, so too was truly raised again on the third day.' After this he appeals to seventy testimonies of the Scriptures, which we ourselves append in the notes, and immediately adds:

By these words it is certainly manifest that the flesh of the Lord both truly rested when buried and did not undergo corruption, because it rose again, being swiftly quickened by the return of the soul. Not to believe this is impious enough, and that it belongs to the doctrine of Manes and Priscillian is beyond doubt. These men, with sacrilegious understanding, feign to confess Christ in such a way that they take away the truth of His incarnation, of His death, and of His resurrection. 4. But Beausobre, adhering in this dogma of which we treat to Manes and Priscillian, we must needs pluck out whatever objections he has at last raised against the faith of Bishop Archelaus.

First, then, he casts suspicion of injured faith upon this, that Archelaus should call the divine nature of Jesus by the name of Christ—a term which can designate only a person who has attained something through grace, gifts, perfections, and dignity. Such a mode of speaking, he adds, was already familiar to the heretics. Yet Father Petau contends that it was in use among Catholics, among whom are numbered Justin Martyr, Dionysius of Alexandria, Novatian (or the author of the book On the Trinity), and Ambrose—all of whom, if we except Ambrose, are more and more held as suspect of the Arian dogma. On account of this form of speech he judged, as it were, that indulgence must be shown to Archelaus.

But because he drags and directs both the preceding and the following reasonings of his own discourse toward the dogma of the Nestorians—saying that Jesus after the resurrection was translated to that place in which Christ the Son of God reigns—for this reason he holds Archelaus inexcusable. For the praised words, he claims, plainly imply that Jesus and the Son of God are two separate persons, of whom the one ascends to the other, as the following words show even more clearly: 'For there is he who was born of Mary, the Son, who willed to endure this whole contest—Jesus. This is the Christ of God, who descended upon him who is of Mary.'

But in order to do violence to the preceding words and to increase and strengthen his own bad faith in writing, Beausobre reasons quite plainly thus: He indeed who descended upon Jesus at His baptism could by no means be the person of Jesus Himself. And because he who descended upon Jesus is Christ the Son of God, therefore Jesus could in no way have been the Son of God except after He descended upon Him—that is, after Jesus was endowed with baptism. And that these were the heresies of Cerinthus and Carpocrates, who from the very beginnings troubled the Church, he strives to prove from Dionysius Petavius, to whom he appeals.

Nay more, he asserts that the Ebionites, the Elcesaites, the Ophites (or Serpentines) preached not unlike things concerning Jesus; who, on the authority of Theodoret, rashly invented that Jesus was one person, but Christ, who descended upon him, another. And this first objection, which he raised against the faith of Archelaus, he closes with wicked insults. For as though bursting with insane fury, he both devoted the holy bishop to calumnies and curses, and, denying the fame of his sanctity, believed him—cut asunder and pierced through with the same censures and anathemas—to be banished outside the fellowship of Catholics, together with that unhappy crowd of heretics just praised, which indeed was proscribed by a holier judgment than that of the Church of Archelaus. 5.

When I was running over these and other like things, my spirit did not flare up against Beausobre. I noticed only his zeal, by which he attempts to turn upside down and corrupt the preceding testimonies and opinions, so as to overthrow root and branch the authority of the Acts, and utterly to cast down the piety of that most holy bishop. But I clearly understood that Beausobre always sought to spin tales out of his own opinion, to throw dust in men's eyes, and to sell trifles to the reader, by confusing those two descents of the Holy Spirit upon Jesus—of which the one, the sacred Scriptures most evidently attest, ought to be referred to His conception from the Virgin Mary and the hypostatic union of the Son of God with human nature, but the other to the baptism of the same Christ.

To Archelaus, therefore, disputing about the mystery of the incarnation, it could by no means have come into his mind that Jesus was made Christ the Son of God at that time when the Holy Spirit descended upon Him after His baptism. For he would have departed from the question proposed—namely, whether Christ the Son of God had joined to Himself a true human nature when He came forth from the virginal womb—which Manes denied, asserting that His humanity was merely phantasmal, while on the opposite side Archelaus wisely and in Catholic fashion contradicted him.

Since, therefore, the inquiry turned solely upon this—whether it was repugnant and unseemly for the Son of God truly to be born of a woman and to associate to Himself a true human nature in the womb—Archelaus could by no means confess that Jesus was begotten as one person and brought forth from the virginal womb, and that after His baptism, when the Holy Spirit descended upon Him, another person of Christ and of the Son of God had come. Otherwise the objections of Manes would have stood; and impiously would Archelaus have striven to subscribe, beside the question, to the Jews and to Photinus. Wherefore he would deservedly have been rebuked by Manes; because, namely, hard pressed by the force and weight of the arguments, he would have been compelled to profess that of Mary was begotten and born not God, but a man.

Who, then, could conclude or devise that Archelaus fell into so horrible a crime from those cited words which Beausobre objected? For Jesus is the name of a true and singular man, which the angel, announcing the mystery of the incarnation, had said by the Father's command and authority was to be imposed upon His Son and promulgated among men, as the Evangelists testify. But it can by no means be the name of Christ's person; rather it is the designation of power and of kingship:

—that these two names most strictly agree, without any distinction or difference of persons, to the one Son of God in the flesh born of the Virgin Mary. This Archelaus proved from the sacred writings and from the common consent of his forefathers, both there and in the letter which he had sent to the presbyter Diodorus, refuting the ravings of those heretics who invented that Jesus was another than Christ the Son of God. Falsely, therefore, does Beausobre reason, contending that the name Jesus of itself points to one person separate from Christ the Son of God. For even Lactantius, treating of these names against the Gentiles, writes thus:

'But although His name'—understand, of the Son of God—'which the supreme Father imposed upon Him from the beginning, none other knows save Himself, yet He has one designation among the angels and another among men. Jesus, indeed, He is named among men. But Christ is not a proper name, but the designation of power and of kingdom.' Too arrogantly, therefore, does Beausobre calumniate those words of Archelaus, when he notes that the holy bishop wrote: 'For there is he who was born of Mary, the Son, who willed to endure this whole contest—Jesus.' He alludes to that contest which Jesus underwent upon the cross, that He might reign; namely, when, sustaining true death and burial, He appeared on the third day risen again, about to return to the Father from whom He had descended.

'This Jesus,' Archelaus subjoins, 'is the Christ of God, who descended upon him who is of Mary.' No one, therefore, unless he wishes to interpret the spoken words malignantly and violently, will ever affirm that Archelaus, from that diversity of names, offices, and natures, wished also to indicate a distinction of persons. For the holy bishop is wholly occupied in this question—that Christ, that is, the Son of God, assumed a true human nature from Mary—reasoning thus against Manes: 'For if you confess Him to have been born of Mary, His passion must needs follow; and upon the passion, resurrection; and upon the resurrection, judgment; and so the precepts of Scripture will be preserved.'

Wherefore, as though wishing to press his adversary more forcibly, he proves by the following texts of the Scriptures that the same and only Son of God was brought forth into the light from Mary according to true humanity. Namely: 'But when it was the will of God, He sent His Son, made of a woman.' And again: 'Christ our Pasch is sacrificed.' And: 'Because God has raised up the Lord, and will also raise up us with Him by His power.' It was fitting, therefore, that Beausobre should compare the words objected to us with the rest of the context of the disputation, and with those things which he wrote to Diodorus, or Trypho, the presbyter.

For there, having set up a comparison between the Old Testament and the New, he proves by many examples brought forward that both are from God, on account of the supreme harmony of the prophecies. And speaking chiefly of Moses and of Jesus, he here expressly, without any veiling of words, calls Jesus the true Lord of Moses; he affirms that Jesus is the author of the Sabbath and the bestower of beatitude, who, by His own power leading the people out of the bonds and captivity of sins, delivered them over to eternal salvation. All these and other not unlike forms of speech, just as they plainly indicate that Jesus was the true Son of God, so they set forth and lay open the holy bishop's sound and Catholic faith concerning the mystery of the incarnation, without any mark of heresy.

And lest all these should seem our own fabrications, they are abundantly strengthened by the opinions written in the letter to the presbyter Diodorus (as we have said), which can easily be examined by the studious; wherefore we have judged it superfluous to transcribe and compare the same in this work. 6. But as for what Beausobre invents concerning that other descent of the Holy Spirit upon the baptized Jesus, now is the time that we dispose of it in a few words. From the preceding ill-digested reasonings, therefore, by which he feigns things with the greatest loss to truth and to sanctity, affirming that the bishop disputed neither more holily nor more wisely about the mystery of the incarnation than Manes himself, he passes on to another argument, which the same Beausobre begins in these terms:

Archelaus asks his adversary Manes, and urges him to answer: the real and true birth of Christ the Lord from Mary being denied—so that the same Christ would seem to have only the appearance of a man, not the truth of a body and soul—upon whom did the Holy Spirit descend in the form of a dove? He likewise presses him to say who then was baptized by John. Then he subjoined: 'If He was perfect, if He was the Son, the Spirit could not enter in, just as neither can a kingdom enter within a kingdom.' Such testimonies being set down, Beausobre contends that this Latin rendering of the Greek and Arabic text smacks of barbarism;

and that the Greek word, rendered into Latin as 'kingdom,' rather signified 'throne,' 'domination,' 'power,' 'principate'—words which are more frequently used in the Scriptures to designate the heavenly intelligences. Wherefore our master of the ancient theologians animadverts against Archelaus and his words, subjoining the following false censure: that he put Christ for Jesus, and affirmed Him born of Mary, as though Jesus could not also be called Christ according to the flesh. But that charge which Beausobre objects ought rather to be turned against the Evangelists. For Matthew, speaking of the generation of the Son of God born in the flesh, employed both names, writing: 'The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David'; and again he adds:

'Jesus, who is called Christ.' Since indeed we meet with testimonies of this kind—along with almost innumerable others—most frequently in the Scriptures, which express the Son of God born of Mary by a double name, indicating no distinction of persons whatsoever between Jesus and Christ, I do not see why—by what religious scruple and by what effort our censor could have supposed that with those two words coupled together Archelaus was constructing, or at least meant to hint at, [a distinction of persons]. (Cf. Tertullian, On the Prescriptions, ch. 47; Origen, Book VI Against Celsus: the same men venerated the serpent by which Eve was deceived, and pointed him out as Christ.) But that Beausobre feigned this out of zeal for detraction and reviling, another calumny, which he immediately subjoins, most evidently demonstrates.

For attending to the remaining words of the praised opinion, he violently wrests them into a contrary sense; and, feigning to himself that he is addressing only dull and leaden men who have never touched theological studies nor surveyed the holy Fathers and the Scriptures, he again inveighs against the holy bishop, and makes him the author of that heresy by which it was impiously affirmed that Jesus Christ was made the Son of God only after receiving baptism from John. Otherwise, he says, one would have to say that one divine power entered, and that the same Spirit was another that entered. For this reason it was necessary that Jesus Christ should have a true human nature, so that the Holy Spirit might descend upon Him.

Yet how alien from such a way of thinking was the pious and Catholic mind of Archelaus, the things already said in the preceding paragraphs plainly lay open. For once it be granted that Manes and Archelaus agreed in this—namely, that at the beginnings of the appearing of Jesus Christ He was truly God and the Son of God, and that the controversy proceeded solely about His true birth from Mary, about the true human nature assumed in the Mother's womb and joined to the divine Word—then it could no longer be permitted to Archelaus to go outside these established limits of the disputation, nor to wander off, nor to deny true divinity to Christ; but it behooved him to affirm and only to prove that that descent of the Holy Spirit upon the baptized Jesus took place for the sake of human nature.

That is, so that to the world, to the angels, and to men it might surely become known that He is the mediating helper of the human race, and the true propitiator predestined from eternity, and in time sent from the seat of the Father to men, that He might preach to the captives remission, to the blind sight, that He might set at liberty the bruised in remission, and preach the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of retribution. By that descent, therefore, was made manifest that abundance and fullness of grace which we all received from God through the Mediator, the High Priest anointed by God. This ministry, then, and the power and authority thereafter to be exercised—for which He was called the Anointed—the Holy Spirit wished to signify, just as long before Isaiah had prophesied.

Wherefore, although the Fathers, in a Catholic sense, have explained that descent of the Holy Spirit upon the baptized Jesus in one way and another, yet all agree in this—that it took place that men might be taught that the first-fruits of human nature had been restored, when the true man, capable of sanctification, willed to appear, as Cyril says; and at the same time that it might become known that at that time His anointing had been fulfilled, because He took up all the ministries, functions, and exercises prophesied by Isaiah himself and pertaining to the priesthood. 7. From all which it follows that with the greatest injustice Archelaus was brought under suspicion of heresy, because he attributed both names, of Jesus and of Christ, to the one Son of Mary.

For this economy of speech had to be preserved, so as to indicate the conjunction of the two natures, as Theodoret notes. Nay more, on the authority of Augustine, if anyone had not known Jesus Christ to be more than man, he would certainly not have known Jesus Christ. For if He is only man and nothing more, He is not Jesus Christ Himself. But to pluck out utterly every crafty and deceitful interpretation made upon the words of Archelaus, what need can we have of the manner of speaking and the opinions of the other Catholic Fathers?

That Archelaus explained himself quite fully, most evidently betray both the arguments of the aforesaid disputation, the very series and signification of the words, and the blasphemies and objections of Manes, which the holy bishop strove to reject and overturn by the testimonies of the Scriptures. With this argument, therefore, Archelaus assailed Manes: 'For if, according to what you say, He was not born, without doubt neither did He suffer; for it is impossible that He who was not born should suffer. But if He did not suffer, the name of the cross is taken away.' And, with certain other things of this kind interposed, pressing the same Manes hard, he subjoins: 'But you connect all these things, denying that He was born of Mary;'

'for if you confess Him to have been born of Mary, the passion must needs follow, and upon the passion resurrection, and upon the resurrection judgment, and the precepts of Scripture will be preserved for us.' And after a few words, he thus accosts him: 'Therefore answer me to each of the things I shall ask: how shall we cast away such and so great utterances of the Apostle, which say: But when it was the will of God in us, He sent His Son, made of a woman. And again: Christ our Pasch is sacrificed. And: Because God has raised up the Lord, and will also raise us up by His power.' With these, then, and other testimonies drawn from the Apostle, Archelaus firmly insisted, that he might defend the sole true birth of Jesus Christ from the Virgin Mary.

After this, Archelaus proceeded to that descent of the Holy Spirit upon the baptized Jesus, which Beausobre contends reeks of the marks of heresy; and again he assails Manes with these words: 'Tell me this too, O Manichaeus. If you say that Christ was not born of Mary, but only appeared as a man when He was not a man, this being brought about and effected by the power which is in Him: tell me, upon whom did the Holy Spirit descend like a dove? Who is it, moreover, who is baptized by John? If He was perfect, if He was power, the Spirit could not enter in, just as neither can a kingdom enter within a kingdom. And to whom did the voice sent forth from heaven bear witness, saying: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased?'

'Come, tell me, delay not: who is He that relates all these things, who works all things?' 8. To Archelaus thus questioning, Manes dared, more audaciously, to answer that it seemed pious to him to say that the Son of God did nothing in that His coming which was procured to the earth; nor had He need of a dove, nor of baptism, nor of a mother, nor of brothers, perhaps nor of a father—who, according to you (namely, Archelaus), was Joseph for Him—but this whole descending One, [emptied] Himself, in whom Paul says that He was found in fashion as a man. 'Show, then, of what thing He stood in need who transformed Himself into all things?' Afterward, seeking to close the debate, he subjoins this other argument, by which [he thought] the holy

bishop, thinking as it were to strike at his throat, he said: 'For if you say that He is only a man from Mary, and that He received the Spirit at His baptism, then He will be seen to be Son by progress, and not by nature.' Finally, instituting a comparison between the Holy Spirit and Christ Himself the Son of God, he thus goes on to reason: 'If, however, I grant you to say that He is Son by progress, as one made man—you being of the opinion that He is truly man, that is, one who is flesh and blood—it is necessary, then, that the Spirit also, who appeared like a dove, be nothing other than a natural dove: for it was said LIKE A MAN, and LIKE A DOVE;'

'and whatever can be supposed concerning that saying which was spoken, LIKE A MAN, conceive also by this same supposition concerning that which was said, LIKE A DOVE; it is necessary to receive these things equally, for so are they found in the Scriptures which are written concerning Him.' 9. Meanwhile, however, Archelaus was revolving many things in his mind, taking in so many and so great blasphemies uttered from the mouth of Manes; but chiefly he feared lest, disputing altogether circumspectly, this disputation should bring more of peril than of profit to the ignorant and unwise who were present. For since he knew for certain that the understanding of the Scriptures is not given to all, he could not carefully manifest and resolve the question fitted [to the matter], except for the sake of those who stand by and hear us.

Nevertheless, by the throng of the people, as though led by necessity, passing over some of the things which Manes had objected, he strove by the following reasoning to pluck out and overthrow only those which the other had publicly proclaimed, wrapped in palpable and gross errors. Wherefore, about to pursue his engagement again, he immediately reasons thus 'to the man,' as the schools say: 'Tell me, then: if we understand Jesus to have been made a man naturally from Mary, having flesh and blood—if we understand it so—is it necessary that the Holy Spirit also be a true dove, and not the Spirit?' That he may refute this false consequence, he forthwith shows that a true dove cannot enter a true man and remain in him;

just as flesh cannot naturally enter flesh. On the contrary, we faithfully understand the mode and reason of the Scriptures' speech if we profess Jesus Christ to be a true man, born of Mary with true flesh and blood, and the Holy Spirit only to have borne the figure of a dove. For the Spirit, according to a certain reason, dwells in man, descends, and remains, and this has fittingly both been done and is done always. That the true properties of a man ought to be affirmed of Christ Jesus naturally, Archelaus there proves. But that, on the other hand, it is unlawful to affirm of the Holy Spirit the true properties of a dove—and that this is forbidden—he most evidently proved from the operation, perfections, attributes, and manner of acting of the Holy Spirit.

Having brought forward this so disparate a reasoning into the midst—against which neither Manes nor any other assertor of impieties could gainsay—he thus accosts his adversary, at the same time pressing him hard and mocking him with jesting words. Since indeed Manes professed himself the Paraclete of God, he had said that the Spirit had come upon him, whom Jesus had promised He would send; and whence (says Archelaus), unless it descend from heaven? That heaven, therefore, the Holy Spirit inhabits, and descends from heaven upon man, and abides in him, he confirms with the words that have been praised; that thence he may gather that it cannot descend save upon a man worthy of it—that is, one full of grace and virtue.

But that true doves descended upon Manes himself, not upon Christ, ought rather to be thought: 'That we may take you,' he says, 'to be rather a thief of doves, contriving snares and nets for them; for you are worthy to be mocked with ridiculous words.' But returning at once to the disputation from which he had a little digressed—namely, to that transformation by which Manes feigned that God had transformed Himself into a man, or into the sun—in order to show that our Jesus was made a man only in fashion and appearance (from which, as a thing heretically said, every one of the faithful ought to shrink), he appeals to all the promises and figures expressed in the Scriptures concerning His nativity; nay more, even to the very name of the 'advent':

which would necessarily be erased, since, being placed in the heavens, He could do whatever He willed, if we affirm that He was only a Spirit and not a man. But that it is not so, he proves from the words of the Apostle to the Philippians. Namely: 'He emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant.' Wherefore he immediately subjoins: 'But I speak of Him who was made man from Mary.' Which manner of speaking plainly lays open the nature and person of the divine Word before His nativity from the Virgin. Just as, in the world after His baptism, the Father's voice wished to announce, discoursing of Him who was the Son born of Mary: 'This is the Christ of God, who descended upon him who is of Mary.' 10. It does not escape me that this latter phrase of the discourse is not sufficiently approved by Beausobre:

nay, it is accused as though it were the very fountain of the Nestorian heresy. But far be it that even in the very heat of the disputation Archelaus should there have distinguished two persons in Christ—namely, of man and of God. Since he himself discoursed only of two natures mutually coupled, which the one Son of God, truly born of Mary, held conjoined in Himself, as throughout the whole disputation he professed in Catholic fashion. And indeed that those words of Archelaus, which Beausobre strove to interpret malignantly, sound nothing else, those very words most clearly lay open: 'This is the Christ of God,' that is, the Son, 'who descended upon him who is of Mary.' And a little after, he asserts in unambiguous terms that this Son of God was begotten of Mary.

For, speaking of the baptized Jesus, who had already ascended from the waters of the Jordan, he says: 'For immediately Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert, to be tempted by the devil; whom, since the devil did not know Him, he kept saying to Him: If therefore you are the Son of God—'. But he did not know, on account of that which had begotten the Son of God, who was preaching the kingdom of the heavens. That the Son of God, therefore, had been begotten of Mary in a true humanity, Archelaus professed. He also received the Holy Spirit at His baptism, through whom the paternal voice testifies, saying: 'This is my beloved Son'; whom no other prevailed to bear, save He who was born of Mary, Jesus above all the saints. 11.

But since Manes had objected various things to Archelaus, which did not yet seem plucked out and overthrown, he is thus wisely compelled to press his adversary more forcibly, never departing from the limits of the disputation proposed. Wherefore, about to prove that Jesus the Son of Mary was not a man in fashion only and apparent appearance, the bishop thus speaks out: 'If you say Him to be a man in fashion and appearance, how could He be held by the Pharisees, who were born of man and woman, and dragged to judgment, since a spiritual body cannot be grasped by grosser bodies?' And rebuking and harassing the same Manes, who had said that the Son of God at His pleasure transformed Himself into every form and appearance, just as also into the sun, he thus subjoins:

'Go on, I beseech you, and bring me a fistful of the sun, or a peck-measure full!' The sun itself, indeed, inasmuch as it is of a subtler body, can cover and surround you, but you, even if you should trample it, harm it in nothing. On the contrary, he concludes: 'But my Lord Jesus, if He was held, was held as a man by men. If He is not a man, neither was He held. If He was not held, neither did He suffer, nor was He baptized. If He was not baptized, neither was any one of us baptized. But if baptism is not, neither will there be remission of sins, but each one will die in his sins.' 12.

From which sayings of Archelaus, Manes, foreseeing that the greatest disadvantage was being brought upon himself, passes over this whole discourse, and insisting only upon those last words, brought forward into the midst those two consequences. First he retorts: 'Therefore baptism is given for the remission of sins?' And when Archelaus had granted this, answering 'Amen,' he straightway subjoined that other blasphemy: 'Therefore Christ sinned, because He was baptized?' At which last thing, shuddering with horror, Archelaus at once withstood him, answering 'God forbid'; and, employing the words of the Apostle Paul, he closed the discourse with these words: 'Nay rather, He was made sin for us, taking upon Himself our sins.'

For this reason He was born of a woman, and for this reason He came to Baptism, that He might receive the sanctification of this part; that He might be able to bear in the body which He had assumed the Spirit who had descended in the form of a dove. That Archelaus departed from the principles of Catholic truth in the last part of this reply, Beausobre does not fear to contend. For although he had known and proclaimed the supreme innocence of Jesus Christ, by saying that He did not receive baptism in order that He might be cleansed from His own sins — which nonetheless he did affirm impiously —

when he had then added that Jesus was baptized in order that, according to that part by which He had been born of a woman, He might receive sanctification and be made fit to sustain the Spirit who had descended upon Him, for that reason he departed infinitely from the principles of the Catholic faith. But who does not see that these things contain calumny and fabrication? That the soul of Christ, through the hypostatic union with the divine Word, was most fully sanctified, Archelaus, throughout that whole disputation, both implicitly and explicitly confessed: for there was no sin present in His soul that could be blotted out by baptism.

But since He was to undergo the hard contest of the cross, of passion and of death — for the sake of which the Holy Spirit had descended upon Him in that visible form — therefore the weak and fleshly body which He had assumed from the Virgin needed also to be strengthened outwardly, that it might be able to bear all the torments of so bloody a contest. Whence then does Beausobre gather that by that saying Archelaus departed from the Catholic faith? For that body and soul, which in the very instant of its conception was united to the Person of the Word and substantially sanctified, did not need a new purification through baptism in order to be made a dwelling-place of the Holy Spirit.

Or did not Archelaus confess this very thing, when he denied that Christ had any sin of His own, but rather that He was made sin for us, taking upon Himself our sins? Therefore, while He took up our sins to be expiated, He needed also to be purified outwardly by visible signs, that He might be able to affix our sins to the cross and blot them out by His death and passion. Finally Archelaus meant to hint that, in that sense, He needed a certain outward purification, in that He appeared as a sinner in the world for us, when He truly bore our infirmities and carried our sorrows. Did He not, in the garden before He ascended the cross, experiencing the disturbances of His soul, receive strength from an angel?

Did He not, upon the cross, yielding up His soul and experiencing mortal pains, pray to God the Father, saying: My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me? That He in no way needed such support, on account of the hypostatic union with the divine Word, the Catholics affirm with unanimous consent. But that these things were necessary to declare the true nature of man, who ever could deny except Beausobre alone? 12. Finally Beausobre, that he might the more zealously indulge the party of his own non-Catholic sect, appeals to Saint Methodius, a contemporary of Archelaus, whom he assails as a patron of the Arian and Nestorian dogma;

being led by this reasoning, that he might show that the Catholic bishops and martyrs, who flourished already in the third century of the Church, were not sincere guardians of the evangelical and Catholic faith, but had weakened and corrupted it with depraved opinions. But since the present pursuit of our leisure by no means permits us to linger longer in refuting these and other like matters, therefore our discourse will subject to examination other things which pertain to the history of Mani, namely his death; more happily attaining that truth which Beausobre attested he had merely in his wishes by counterfeit words alone, and this in order that he might more and more deceive his followers, and beguile incautious and half-learned readers.

In overthrowing the Beausobrian calumnies against the faith and religion of Bishop Archelaus — wickedly and with utmost injustice heaped up and fabricated — we have expended much labor in the preceding chapters, led namely by this reasoning: that we might diligently recall to examination the things which on the one side were impiously championed by the Manichaean in his disputation against Catholic truth, and then those things which on the opposing side Bishop Archelaus himself declared, in order to beat back and utterly reject the heretical dogmas objected against him.

Whether therefore Archelaus in refuting the Manichaean and in defending Catholic truths was more successful than that champion of novelties, Beausobre, judged — when he arraigned that most holy bishop, who is worthy of praise, as a man of injured faith and an asserter of many heresies — the things soon to be declared by us will make plain. Chiefly since at present we intend to appeal to the judgment of those readers who are accustomed to be conversant in perusing the writings of the holy Fathers and of the ancient theologians;

and who, holding a perfect and well-ordered memory of the Christian matter, are by no means wont to refresh their mind with novelties, nor are they led by anxious zeal for acquiring varied and outlandish erudition to give themselves the more greedily to the reading of non-Catholic books, by which the mind is gradually and rashly imbued with false and prejudiced opinions, and the piety of the Christian name is weakened and corrupted.

But if I were to appeal to the judgment of those who, moved by love of novelties, are accustomed only to display, amid the throng of peoples and in the gatherings of the half-learned, wares borrowed from the books of heretics — peddling them with words and fabulous sayings — in order to claim for themselves the reputation of the learned, then I should understand that both my cause and that of Archelaus could fall, although it rests solely upon Catholic truth drawn from the Scriptures and tradition. 1. Not therefore departing in the least from our aim in writing, and lest our manner of discoursing become too prolix, we affirm that Mani, most disgracefully confounded, was compelled to depart secretly from the parish or village of Diodoris.

For without doubt he would have undergone a violent death by the wrath and tumult of the people, had not Marcellinus — the prudent administrator of civil affairs in that province on behalf of the Roman empire — and Archelaus himself, led by mildness, restrained the fury of the crowd. Supported therefore by the aid of flight, he sought refuge across the river Stranga, and again withdrew into the fortress of Arabio, from which he had long before departed before he set out for Mesopotamia; flattering himself perhaps that the sentence of death passed against him by the king of the Persians had either been entirely abolished or altered, on account of the change of civil affairs which had perhaps happened in that interval of time during which he had withdrawn from the court.

Archelaus described the matter in nearly these words in his disputation, adding: But he, retracing the ways by which he had come, having crossed the river, returned to the fortress of Arabio. Where, afterward being seized, he was brought before the king, who, stirred by very great indignation against him, and desiring to avenge two deaths upon him — one that of his son, the other that of the jailer — ordered him to be flayed and hung before the gate of the city; and commanded his skin, treated with medicaments, to be inflated, and his flesh to be given to the birds. Nor did Cyril, bishop of Jerusalem, describe the death of Mani otherwise in his instructions for the catechumens.

He only explained other circumstances, namely that Mani, having been brought to the king of the Persians and compelled to present himself before him, was assailed with many reproaches on account of his lies and his flight. Which king moreover mocked his servile condition, accused him of the slaying of his son, and of the guards who had been condemned on his account to death. And so (concludes the same Cyril, supporting the words of Archelaus) he commanded Mani to be flayed by the Persian law, and delivered his remaining body to be devoured by beasts. But the skin, in which so great a wickedness of his was contained, he caused to be hung before the gates like a wine-skin. In a not dissimilar manner Socrates described the death of Mani.

Indeed, wishing to relate the records of ecclesiastical affairs, holding in his hands the disputation of Archelaus with Mani already consigned to writing, and having surveyed with his own eyes the very things which we have hitherto said, he set them forth in a faithful narrative with the order of events preserved. But lest the things which he there relates should at some time be brought under suspicion of falsity, in order to render the reader's mind free of prejudices, after he had written: 'But the king of the Persians, having learned that the Manichaean was tarrying in those parts, ordered him snatched thence and his skin to be stripped off, and, filled with straw, hung it before the gates of the city' — at once, to vindicate all credit for this matter, he added: 'And these things we have by no means invented;'

but we have excerpted them from a certain disputation of Archelaus, bishop of the city of the Cascharenes in Mesopotamia, which we have read. 2. Consigned therefore to writing, and rendered into the Greek tongue, this disputation of Archelaus was then in circulation. Nor did anyone from that time up to the year one thousand seven hundred and forty dare to judge it as false and supposititious. No one, I say, affirmed it to contain invented trifles and little fables. Shall we then reckon that this was reserved solely for the judgment of Beausobre, and of a few others who endeavor to flatter the aforesaid writer? But we shall now speak more clearly concerning this kind of vindication in what follows.

But at length, about to pursue the discourse concerning the death of Mani, besides the authority of Epiphanius, who supports the preceding writers, the testimony of Photius is also ready at hand — who, although as a man of injured faith on account of the schism introduced into the Catholic Church he ought deservedly to be so called, nevertheless that he applied much diligence in scrutinizing the writings of the ancients, and was endowed with much erudition, no one has yet dared to deny. He therefore, although in recounting the death of Mani and the deeds of Archelaus he does not follow the ordinary method of the preceding writers, it is nonetheless ascertained that he scarcely departed from their statements.

For in chapter 13 he narrates how, to escape the wrath and vengeance of the king of the Persians, Mani was compelled to wander hither and thither; he describes the guards everywhere seeking him out, in order to bring him to the king, and he asserts that, once brought, he was at length harassed with the gravest reproaches, and underwent a death not unworthy of his horrible impieties. Hence therefore he closes the aforesaid chapter with these words, which we judge to have been borrowed from Socrates and Archelaus: For while that unhappy man was still among the living, stripping the skin from his body, they thus draw him from life and as it were cut him asunder, and the remaining body they cast as prey to the wild beasts, and the skin itself, filled with wind like a wine-skin, they hung before the doors.

Such an end of life did that apostate and most wicked man attain. But again the aforesaid Photius, in chapter 15, commemorates this same bitter death, having however first prefaced that celebrated disputation which Archelaus held against him. And he calls this divine and holy man bishop of the Cascharenes in Mesopotamia. He then adds that Mani, overcome by unexpected shame in the public encounter, fled as a fugitive to Diodoris. And again he was driven to flight by the same Archelaus disputing a second time, and Mani appeared a most worthless man, to be derided and detested in all his dogmas; then at length he was captured by the royal ministers seeking and searching him out, and underwent those bitter punishments. 3.

This truth, confirmed by so many and so great proofs, although Beausobre did not dare to deny, yet with much zeal applied he endeavors gradually to weaken. For in chapter 11 of the first book, about to describe the death of Mani, he asserts that Bishop Archelaus was the author and as it were the agent of it; and for this reason, having brought forward in French those words into which the bishop had burst after the disputation, namely: 'When I had learned these things, I judged it necessary to indicate to you also that he is sought by the king of the Persians up to this present day.' Indeed I think it hidden from no one that the words cited refer to the crimes perpetrated by Mani among the Persians.

These things Archelaus was as it were compelled to blurt out, namely when, the last encounter with the Manichaean being concluded, before the wondering peoples and crowds — who from the places of that province had gathered there to hear those two men disputing about religion — he enjoined silence, and laid open the whole series of the deeds and the crimes perpetrated by Mani. Beausobre therefore strove maliciously to charge this manner of Archelaus's acting as a crime, contending that the bishop ought not to have made known to the people those crimes of Mani, for which he was sought unto death by the royal ministers of the Persians — namely that he had killed the king's son.

It behooved him only, as a good shepherd, to speak concerning the Manichaean errors regarding the faith, that the people might guard against them. Wherefore he flatters himself that he can easily follow out and interpret the mind, will, and manner of acting of the holy bishop; judging, namely, that Archelaus wished by his words to excite the people to fury and sedition, so that, Mani being seized, he might be delivered into the hands of the Persians. For the Persians dwelt on the borders of Mesopotamia, nor were they separated from the dominion and garrisons of the Romans except by the river Stranga. Beausobre therefore contends that this intention of the bishop was depraved and, as they say, irregular. Which the people had then very well understood;

even before the bishop made an end of his speech, rising up against Mani, they strove to seize him, that he might be brought in chains to the barbarous villages, but he carefully fled to the fortress of Arabio. But what wonder is there? That Epiphanius wished to support this malicious interpretation, Beausobre likewise contrives out of his own opinion. For he pretends that this holy bishop understood such a zeal of Archelaus's acting to disgrace the episcopal character exceedingly;

therefore, setting aside the preceding narrative, he devised of his own accord another wholly dissimilar one, by writing that the people, moved by zeal for the Catholic religion, sought to overwhelm Mani with stones, whose fury the bishop checked and hindered, so that Mani, fleeing, might easily find protection for himself. Tillemont (adds Beausobre) persuaded himself that this brief narrative was foisted in by Epiphanius, since we do not find it in the Acts of Archelaus. But granting freely that the things which Epiphanius soon recounted without an author are true, it would still stand that the bishop of Cascharae wished the destruction of Mani, and yet could not be reproached concerning his death.

For although he had opposed himself to those attempting to stone this criminal man, he nevertheless applied his zeal, so that — the royal ministers of the Persians being admonished, who by public authority were everywhere seeking Mani, guilty of many crimes — they might more cautiously hold him once seized, that, brought before the king, he might undergo capital punishment. Thus far Beausobre in those words, equally biting and harassing the bishops Archelaus and Epiphanius. But all the things which he objected are not able to suppress the truth of the matter, if we more diligently seek out from the Acts of Archelaus the aim of the aforesaid narrative, nor will it be found by the following observations that those two Fathers contradict one another in describing the death of Mani.

And first, as regards Archelaus's manner of acting or discoursing, by which he laid open to the people of Diodoris not only the Manichaean errors concerning the faith, but also the graver crimes perpetrated by that iniquitous man, for which by the public authority of the king of the Persians he was sought unto death — in this I suppose nothing at all appears which would disgrace the episcopal character; nor shall we judge that Archelaus said these things with that zeal, unless led by a most weighty motive, which Beausobre would easily have grasped, had he been willing diligently to survey the Acts of Archelaus.

We therefore, who wished to be conversant longer in diligently perusing those same Acts and the disputation, have thoroughly understood that, this last encounter being concluded, the greatest tumult was excited among the people who had gathered there. For some, applauding Archelaus on his part, strove with shouts to celebrate his immense praises; but others on the opposing side, seething with wrath and hatred against Mani, were more probably moved by fury to kill him. And that a tumult was excited among the people, the text of the aforesaid Acts, which we ourselves append, clearly makes manifest.

Wherefore it appears most likely that, just as amid the shouts of the crowds the praises of the victorious Archelaus were sung together, so also with curses and reproaches both the heresy and infamy of Mani, and his sacrilegious doctrine, were abominated and torn to pieces. But if Beausobre should still wish to oppose me, I would ask what the name 'tumult' is meant to signify.

But if, according to Cicero, it imports nothing else than so great a disturbance that a greater fear arises from it, we now understand that, the reputation and repute of Mani being imperiled by the disputations that had been held, so that the crowds would not permit Archelaus to return to his own home, it is very probable that those same crowds wished with equal zeal to detain Mani, to bind him with chains, or to overwhelm him with stones, lest by fleeing he should escape the punishments due. Archelaus therefore had perhaps to restrain this tumult of the crowds with words and entreaties, lest against the rights of nations and ecclesiastical rights a savagery should arise from so great a disturbance. Had not Marcellus invited Mani, and indeed by a letter, that he should come to Cascharae?

Therefore the rights of nations had to be preserved, nor could it ever, without loss of pledged faith, be permitted to anyone that he should be harmed by hostile hands; especially since he was subject not to the Roman empire, but to the Persian. And so it could not fall into the mind of Archelaus that, with Marcellus present, he should excite the people to sedition and seek the death of the heretic. Wherefore the same holy bishop, even to preserve ecclesiastical mildness, urged the people not to depart from the place in which they had gathered, promising them that a little later he would make new words to them. But still the crowds were being gathered, and that neither the tumult nor the disturbance had been suppressed, these words make plain.

But afterward, when they had gathered, Archelaus urged them to acquiesce to him and to hear his word. If therefore the people were not tumultuously rising against Mani, if they were not seeking him unto death, why did Archelaus employ a new endeavor and persuasions that those who had gathered should acquiesce? Therefore, that Epiphanius might describe the series of deeds more clearly, he fabricated nothing of his own accord, but recounted those things which perhaps were once contained also in those same Acts, and now, through the unskillfulness of copyists or the bad faith of translators, have been omitted. And indeed that a lacuna crept into it, the preceding words denote, which we have already transcribed at the end.

For after these words, namely 'so that (the crowds indeed) strove with all zeal,' these other words are immediately subjoined, which yield no genuine sense: 'beyond to him they would not permit, etc.' — which lacuna Zacagni, noticing it in the manuscript codices, judged that at least the particle 'and' ought to be supplied, which perhaps still causes confusion and disturbance of the text, as anyone may easily judge from the context. But that nothing is there wanting, I shall not much resist granting freely. What then? Did Epiphanius fabricate of his own opinion that the people sought to overwhelm Mani with stones? Away with the fabrication!

For the series of the Acts narrates how to that parish a multitude of men had gathered from that whole province, and other men from the neighboring places were present, and, silence being made, Archelaus in this manner began to speak concerning Mani. Then, having uttered a few words, subjoining these others, he entreats the people that, all disturbance being cast aside and every uproar removed, they should not decline to hear the things which he had learned about Mani and which he had determined to indicate: 'but now (says he) I entreat you, who wish to say very few things, that you hear with silence, that you may recognize who he is, and whence, and of what sort is this one who has come, etc.';