Panarion (Against Heresies) 1 part 48/82

For everything coeval is also co-eternal, and that which is co-eternal and always existing is God — especially that which has not taken its beginning from some cause.

For nothing is eternal except God alone.

But you have set forth these first principles under different names, O you who are barbarous in mind and an enemy of human nature.

For the one you set forth as light, the other as darkness; and again the one as good, and the other as evil.

And you assert that these are, in every respect, utterly opposed, so that the one has no communion whatsoever with the other.

Do you not, then, separate these from one another?

For it is clear that they are opposites, as you have said.

—separated from one another, forsooth, out of an excess of mutual affection!

But if they exist apart from one another, then each of these is assuredly bounded.

And everything that is bounded is not perfect.

For it is defined precisely by being bounded.

Moreover, a boundary will also have to be sought to mark the crossing-point of the two, lest, touching each other at their extremities, both should join their own properties to one another through those extremities, so that the one communicates with the other and obliterates the boundary of their opposition.

And if you should posit something intervening between the two, that which intervenes will no longer be like either of them, yet it will not be other than both of them either.

For if, in one respect, that which intervenes should be made like one of the two aforesaid eternal principles, then by virtue of that likeness the intervening thing would no longer be alien to it, but would be joined to that to which it is likened; and through the part thus equalized there would be a conjunction, and it would no longer be bounded in the separation of the two natures from one another.

But if it is neither like either of the two, nor shares in part with either of them, then the eternal and ever-existing things are no longer two, but henceforth three; and the first principles are no longer two opposed to one another, but a third, different thing besides — opposed to both, unlike both, standing between the two as a separator, having no communion with either because of its strangeness, and receiving no likeness from either of them.

And so, in the end, these will no longer be two, but three.

And furthermore, still another will have to be sought — a fourth — who mediated and set in place this very boundary.

For the two could not have set up the boundary or the wall, unless there were another, a boundary-setter, who cast the dividing barrier between the two of them — one moreover skilled in knowledge, prudent in character, equitable, and more glorious, so as to be able to persuade both parties to a reconciliation of peace.

There will therefore be one who sets the boundary, and one dividing barrier, and two things that are bounded — and no longer only two principles, but even three and four.

And in this manner it is possible to turn one's thinking toward many principles, abandoning the things that exist and imagining things that do not exist.

Now in his inquiry this accursed man pretends not to attach evil to God — for indeed it would be absurd to ascribe evil to God —

for it is acknowledged, according to the character of the Church's teaching, that the Divine is altogether alien to, and unmixed with, evil.

For God made nothing evil, but all things very good, being good by nature, incomprehensible in essence, containing all things while himself being contained by none.

Therefore evil neither existed eternally, nor did evil come into being from God.

Since, then, evil neither exists eternally nor came into being from God, it remains to inquire in what manner that which does not exist eternally, but has had a beginning of its existing, and comes to an end and perishes and does not remain to the end — whence it received its beginning.

And when we inquire into this, we must first consider what sort of thing evil is, and in what it comes to be, and whether it is something circumscribed, or, so to speak, a body, or whether it has a hypostasis, or can even possess a root.

And when we examine these things within ourselves, evil will be found to have no hypostatic existence and to have no root at all, but exists only to the extent of the deeds it brings to completion through the practical activity of man.

For evil exists in our doing it, but does not exist when we do not do it — the mind discovering whatever it is that constitutes the working of wickedness, a thing not pleasing to God, and neither able to speak against God nor to fight against the Divine.

For everything that can be cut off and abolished by men is far more incapable of holding out against God.

At the same time, one must also think in this way concerning the devil: that he was not created evil by nature from his creation, but rather, after a time, devised for himself the doing of evil — though it was not unknown what sort of being he was going to become — but that he was created, along with all things, good, and, because of the abundance of God's justice, most usefully.

He grants a concession of free will to all, [namely] to make use of their own volition in whatever undertaking each should wish, so that he himself might be blameless for their evils, while there would be a distinction of those who make progress in virtue, and again the rewards of his own love for mankind and goodness would be brought in.

But this madman Mani, wishing to remove God from evil, has rather set up evil against him as an equal counterpart.

At the same time he is not ashamed to disparage all of creation, having traded on pretexts drawn from the failings that occur within us and woven them into the whole created order of equally-balanced opposites; and so he has become rather the champion and defender of the very evil which he claims to forbid, and instead of hatred toward it he embraces a certain friendship and fellowship with it, seeing that he gives it standing and proclaims it eternal, existing always together with God and never ceasing to be.

And while he calls it by certain names, he will be caught, through all his hypotheses, to have fallen away from the truth — that all creation was well created by God — even from the very testimonies which he himself adduces.

And first, he has called this 'matter,' yet according to the same reasoning he reckons this to be 'corruption.'

If it is corruption, then whose corruption would it be? And if it is the corruption of other things, while it itself abides continuously, then it has from of old been corrupting the things that exist, and it alone has persisted, working the activity of its own power for so great a span of time, and not being cut off.

But if it is the corruption of itself, corrupting and subduing and consuming and destroying itself, then it is being destroyed and will not stand, being a thing that consumes and corrupts itself.

How then, according to this charlatan's account, has it stood existing for so long a time, while at the same time it will not share in life at all, nor will it ever be found to partake of life or of goodness? But since goodness also is present in each of the creatures disparaged by him, his whole argument about evil has collapsed from every side, because the one of the things he speaks of communicates with the other — as, for instance, in the case of serpents and the other venomous creeping things.

For as many things as have been made for usefulness, yet are disparaged by him merely in name, in them the opposite of evil is also found — as, for instance, in the case of serpents and the other venomous creeping things.

For from the very things whence comes venom unto death, in them also is found an antidote for the removal of death and harm — the very things that are disparaged.

And day is for work for mankind, as also for being illuminated and for seeing;

but night too, though disparaged by him merely in name, is found to be a kind of rest, having been made by God for mankind;

and thus each single thing is found to be good, and cannot take its name from the sins that occur within us, or bear the same designation as an equal to evil.

For all things are good and pleasant, and nothing is to be rejected, according to him who says, 'And behold,' he says, 'all things were very good.'

and nowhere is there a root of evil.

For it is for this reason that God, too, from the beginning, in creating the whole world by his goodness, pronounced 'good' upon each of the creatures, saying, 'And God saw that it was good,' so that he might bear witness to what is good, and might do away with the cunning of those who plot against human nature — those who through wicked myths have devised to make truth vanish from among men.

For he made heaven and earth and light and the things upon the earth on the first day, and he saw — 'and behold, it was good,' says Scripture.

For was it, then, that he did not know he was about to bring about something good, that after it came to be he says, 'behold, it was good'? And so it continues, in order, concerning the waters, concerning the sea, concerning the plants, concerning the trees, concerning the luminaries in heaven, concerning the cattle, concerning the birds and creeping things and fish.

All things being good and being attested as good according to the truest testimony of what is good, he — who is the very privation of all evil and of every wickedness — kept saying 'behold, it is good,' so that, from the fact that all things are good, the argument devised by men concerning evil might be entirely refuted, and that he might utterly do away with every supposition of those who insinuate their wicked teaching.

Then, when he comes to man, he did not say 'good' — not because man is evil, but because man is the most excellent of all things created upon the earth, created by God for ruling by ineffable wisdom, to whom God was about to hand over dominion over all the things created by him, as he says: 'Let us make man according to our image and likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of heaven and the creeping things of the earth and the cattle and the wild beasts and all things existing upon the earth.'

But since he was created according to the image of God, the divine Scripture was content with so great a dignity, judging that it had no further need of an addition.

For if he already possessed the very image of Goodness itself — I mean of the Lord God, the Maker and Good One of all creation, from whom is every fountain of goodness, from whom the good exists in all things — how could he still have need of a testimony to hear 'behold, it was good,' seeing that he already possessed the image of the Good itself? But afterward, at the end of the whole work, after making the entire creation, the divine Word, setting a seal upon all things, put forth the same testimony for all, saying, 'And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good' — adding the word 'very' — this being the sixth day, and the seventh the day of rest — so that, having removed the root of the opinion concerning evil, no one might any longer find a pretext to dare this, to imagine evil to be eternal.

For that very argument concerning it has been abolished.

For evil existed nowhere, all things being very good and having come into being from the good God and having been so attested.

For the term, as I said, according to the mind of this accursed man, is a name for a certain activity and a consuming corruption.

But we are accustomed to call 'matter' that which serves for the fashioning of each thing among craftsmen who practice their arts — as, for instance, wood-material, clay-material, gold-material, silver-material.

'Matter' is also said of the working that occurs in bodies — that which is gathered from corruptions... of harm.

Let, then, this newly-arrived diviner speak, who professes to know the things before the ages — for such a man dared even to call himself the Comforting Spirit —

and at other times, as I said, he styles himself an apostle of Jesus Christ — though he never put on the form of a dove, nor received the Comforting Spirit sent from heaven upon the apostles as a garment of the power of incorruption, which the Only-Begotten promised to send, appointing it not after many days, but immediately upon his own ascension, just as he said, 'If I go away, that one will come.'

And immediately, in the upper room, they were filled with the Holy Spirit, when they had returned from the Mount of Olives, according to what is written: and there appeared to them tongues of fire being distributed, and the house was filled as if with a violent wind, and the Spirit sat upon each one of them, and they spoke in tongues the wonderful works of God, and each one heard in his own language.

And they were from every nation under heaven, and each one was comforted through the Spirit — both the apostles through the gift, and all the nations through the resounding of God's wonderful teaching.

For if this charlatan — truly a madman, and fitly named by his own appellation — were the Comforting Spirit which the Lord promised to his disciples, then the apostles would have passed away deprived of the promise, they who heard from the Lord who cannot lie: 'You shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit,' not many days after these things.

And this deceiver will be found to be lying against Christ, as though he had not fulfilled the things spoken by him.

For the generation of the apostles has passed away — I mean from Peter to Paul and to John, who also lived on in the world until the times of Trajan — and James has passed away, the first who exercised the episcopate in Jerusalem, who was called the brother of the Lord, being a son of Joseph, born of Joseph's own wife along with his remaining brothers, with whom the Lord Jesus Christ — who was born according to the flesh from Mary the Ever-Virgin — was brought up together, and so was reckoned in the rank of brothers, to be called their brother; and also his fellow-throned companions, all the saints, and with them Symeon, the son of his paternal uncle, the son of Clopas, the brother of Joseph.

The times of these bishops, one after another and in sequence from James the bishop — I mean the bishops in succession at Jerusalem, and those who occurred under each emperor — I have set out below, up to the aforementioned time of Aurelian and Probus, in which this Mani, a certain Persian man, became known, having engendered in human life this bizarre teaching.

James, who, having been struck with a club, was martyred in Jerusalem — until Nero.

Symeon was crucified under Trajan.

John, until the nineteenth year of Trajan.

Judas, until the eleventh year of Antoninus.

These held the episcopate of Jerusalem from among the circumcision.

All these continued until the tenth year of Antoninus Pius.

Gaius, until the days of Verus, his eighth year.

Narcissus, the same, until Alexander the son of Mamaea — not the Macedonian, but another.

Alexander, until the same Alexander.

Mazabanes, until Gallus and Volusianus.

In all, from the ascension of Christ until the time of Mani and the emperors Aurelian and Probus, there are, according to some chronographers, two hundred and seventy years, but according to others, two hundred and forty;

and from that time until now, there have been eight other bishops:

Bazas, Hermon, Macarius, Maximus, Cyril, Herennius, Cyril again, Hilarion — who now holds the church, having also been accused of communion with the Arians.

The emperors in succession, together with their respective periods, are as follows:

Of Aurelian, the remaining portion: one year;

Tacitus, six months; Probus, six years; Carus and Carinus and Numerian, two years.

His trickery, then, has been exposed from every side, so that the mind of the prudent, knowing all things accurately, will condemn his falsified contrivance.

But all his other so-called sophistries are full of nonsense, crooked and unstable, laughed to scorn by all sensible people;

If I wished to analyze these word by word and to write out the refutations against all of them, I would drive the refutation of this treatise against him into a vast bulk.

...by the bishop, as has already been said; and by Origen, as I have heard; and by Eusebius of Caesarea and Eusebius of Emesa, by Serapion of Thmuis, by Athanasius of Alexandria, by George of Laodicea, by Apollinarius of Laodicea, by Titus, and by many others who have spoken against him.

It will do no harm if, out of our own poverty of learning, we too say a few things to the shame of this pitiable man, for the overthrow of his mind, which has been led astray in every way — as indeed we have already said before.

I would have wished to make my refutation against him not with harsh words, but as gently as possible — were it not that he is not ashamed to blaspheme with unbridled tongue the Master of all things, straightway denying him as the very Maker, who fashioned this whole vault of heaven and earth and all things in them, and all things in the world — imagining instead some other god, one that does not exist, while forsaking the one who does exist.

For he fell away from the truth, and there befell him the effect of the ridiculous proverb: like the crow which, having food in its mouth and seeing the food's shadow in the water, wishing to obtain the other food, lost the food it had and did not gain the food that did not exist.

Who could bear the blasphemer? For if we have fathers according to the flesh and cannot endure to hear them reviled by anyone, how much more, when we hear the Lord God of all blasphemed by the most wicked Mani? For when, in God's mercy, rains are sent according to His goodness, this man, blaspheming, is not ashamed to declare that the rains are not from God, but from an effluence of the archons.

As for the rest, who would not burst out laughing to relate it?

so that the works of Philistion would seem, perhaps, more sober than this man's farce-mongering? For, fabricating myths, he teaches that there is an 'Atlas' who carries the whole earth, and says that every thirty years, when his shoulder grows weary, he shifts it to the other shoulder, and thus earthquakes occur.

But if this were so, the matter would be according to nature, and no longer something marvelous.

The words of the Savior refute the charlatan, who said, 'Be good, as your heavenly Father is,' for 'He makes his sun rise on the just and the unjust, and sends his rain on the evil and the good' -- and also the saying, 'there will be earthquakes in various places, and famines and pestilences.'

But if earthquakes occurred by nature or by regular custom -- yet often, at times, earthquakes occur only in one region --

It also happened that for a whole year, the earth shook repeatedly every single night -- was it, then, that the shoulders of the 'Shoulder-bearer' had been wounded, and so he was carried along unable to endure the strain,

making the tremor continuous? And who could endure such foolish talk? What other implausible thing did he not dare to say? For this man declares that souls which have come to knowledge of his error are taken up into the moon, since the soul is of a luminous substance.

Therefore, he says, the moon waxes and wanes, being filled by the souls of those who die in the knowledge of his unbelief.

Then he says that they are unloaded from the moon -- the smaller vessel, as he calls it -- onto the sun, and that the sun receives them and deposits them into the Aeon of the Blessed, as he says.

But evil, being ever blind, is ignorant of its own shame, even as it is refuted by its own words, being unable to bring its lies to full completion.

For first, it is that one man, Adam, was fashioned, from whom sons and daughters were born;

and at the beginning of the world's creation, about the hundredth year of Adam, more or less, Abel was killed, being about thirty years old, more or less.

After this first man to be killed, Adam the first-formed died upon the earth after 930 years -- the sun, the moon, and the stars having been fixed and created in the sky from the fourth day.

Whose souls, then, dying, filled and replenished the moon? Tell me.

But Mani did not know that there are intelligent people, who are persuaded not by false words but by the truest demonstrations.

But even if we grant that it is so -- which it is not --

would the moon, then, be filled and replenished only by the souls of the Manichaeans? How could such a hypothesis still hold together? For if no Manichaean ever died after the fifteenth day of the lunar month, but rather there was a fixed deadline for Manichaeans to die up until the moon's fifteenth day, and none died after the fifteenth day until the moon's cargo was unloaded, so that it might again begin to be loaded from the new moon -- then their falsehood might have seemed plausible. But as it is, it is utterly implausible.

For people die every day, and the fixed elements, appointed by God, know their own course.

And again, the 'cargo' of souls said to be in the moon cannot stand as a coherent theory.

And again, some of them, he says, wish, by a device of cunning, to claim that the Mother of All permitted her own power to come down from heaven in order to steal from the archons and strip from them the power which they had taken from above.

For he means to say that the principalities and powers, having warred against the living God, seized from him a great and incomprehensible power, which he also calls 'soul.'

O, what great absurdity is this!

For everyone who is plundered and carried off forcibly has thereby shown himself inferior.

If, then, the principalities, having overpowered the good God, tore away power from him along with his full armor, they will be stronger than he is;

and he, having yielded to them at first, cannot subsequently take back from them the power -- or rather, the armor -- that was seized from him, since from the beginning he was unable to withstand his enemies.

But even if at some point he should prevail again in victory and, growing strong, take back from his adversaries the power that had been seized from him, since the root and unoriginate origin of evil still remains and can in no way be destroyed, it will again grow strong, mustering against him a greater power still, and, having gained the mastery by some domination, will again take away the power that had once more been recovered from the good God.

And thus, according to him, evil will always stand in opposition and never come to a final resolution, forever plundering and being plundered in turn.

But if those whose minds have been damaged and who have been deceived in every way should say that, if the good God should at the appointed time free the portion of the armor that was seized from him, He will then destroy and utterly annihilate the principalities and powers of the opposing force -- then, whether this will yet come to pass, or whether the good God will destroy and utterly annihilate them at all, the argument of the impostor falls apart, the argument claiming that the Good One is not just, and does not condemn the sinner in judgment, nor hand anyone over to torments, nor put anyone to death.

For if He indeed attempts to destroy and utterly annihilate the devil, or rather the opposing power, then, according to their own account, He will no longer be 'good' as their doctrine describes Him; or, if being good He does consume the evil, then this One who made heaven and earth will be Lord, as indeed He is in truth, and just.

He renders to each according to his works -- He who, through the abundance of His goodness, grants what is good to the good person who has labored in goodness, and who allots what is just to the one who has done wicked things.

And thus his doctrine has been refuted from every side, corrupting the hearts of men toward the opposite of the truth.

Next, I shall set down, word for word and in proper order, his own opinion, drawn from the record of Archelaus's dealings with him in the debate held against him, as it was disclosed by Turbo himself, one of his disciples, whom I mentioned above.

When Archelaus the bishop and Marcellus and their company questioned Turbo concerning the teaching of Mani, Turbo answered, saying the things I have set down from the book.

The Beginning of the Impious Doctrines of Mani

If you wish to learn the faith of Mani, hear it briefly from me.

He worships two gods, unbegotten, self-existent, eternal, one set in opposition to the other;

and he introduces the one as good, the other as evil, naming the one 'Light' and the other 'Darkness';

and that the soul in human beings is a part of the light, but the body and the fabric of matter belong to the darkness.

He says that the mixture, or rather the commingling, of these came about in the following manner, comparing the two gods with this illustration:

just as two kings warring against one another, being enemies from the beginning, each possessing his own portion of territory -- then, by a certain occasion, Darkness, advancing from within its own borders, made war upon the Light.

And the Good Father, perceiving that the Darkness had invaded his land, put forth from himself a power called the Mother of Life; and she in turn put forth the First Man, together with the five elements:

these being wind, light, water, fire, and matter.

And having put these on as armor for the waging of war, he descended below and did battle with the Darkness.

But the archons of the Darkness, warring against him, devoured a part of his armor, that is, the soul.

Then the First Man was terribly afflicted down there by the Darkness.

And had not the Father heard him when he prayed, and sent forth another power put forth by himself, called the Living Spirit, and had this Spirit not descended and given him his right hand and brought him up out of the Darkness, the First Man, being held fast, would long ago have perished.

From that time, therefore, he left the soul behind below.

And for this reason, whenever Manichaeans meet one another, they give each other their right hands as a sign, as those who have been saved from the Darkness.

For he says that all the heresies exist within the Darkness.

Then the Living Spirit created the world; and having put on three other powers, he descended, brought up the archons, and crucified them in the firmament -- that is, in the sphere, which is their body.

Then again the Living Spirit created the luminaries, which are the remnants of the soul, and made them circle the firmament.

And again he created the earth into eight forms.

The 'Shoulder-bearer' carries the earth below; and whenever he grows weary of bearing it, he trembles and becomes the cause of an earthquake outside the appointed time.

For this reason the Good Father sent his Son from his own bosom into the heart of the earth and into its lowest parts, that he might administer to him the fitting correction.

For as often as an earthquake occurs, either he trembles from weariness, or he shifts the earth onto the other shoulder.

Then, moreover, Matter of itself created the plants; and when these had been despoiled by certain of the archons, she summoned all the chief archons and took from each of them a single power, and fashioned this man after the likeness of that First Man, and bound the soul within him.

This is the theory of the commingling.

And when the living Father saw the soul being afflicted in the body, being compassionate and merciful, he sent his beloved Son for the salvation of the soul;

for it was on this pretext, and also on account of the 'Shoulder-bearer,' that he sent him.

And when the Son came, he transformed himself into the form of a man, and appeared to men as a man, though he was not a man, and men supposed that he had been born.

Coming, then, he undertakes a work of construction for the salvation of souls, and he built a machine having twelve buckets, which, being turned by the sphere, draws up the souls of those who die.

And the great luminary, taking these up by its rays, purifies them and passes them on to the moon, and thus the disk of the moon, as we call it, becomes full; for he says that the two luminaries are 'ships,' or rather 'ferry-boats.'

Then, once the moon is filled, it ferries its cargo across to the East, and thus, being lightened, it unloads its cargo --

of the buckets full of souls -- until it has saved its own portion of the soul.

For he says that every soul, and every living creature that moves, partakes of the substance of the Good Father.

So then, when the moon passes on its cargo of souls to the Aeons of the Father, they remain in the Pillar of Glory, which is called 'the Perfect Air.'

And this Air is a pillar of light, since it is full of souls being purified.

This is the reason through which souls are saved.

Now this, again, is the account of the dying of men:

A certain virgin, beautiful and adorned, very persuasive, undertakes to despoil the archons who were carried up into the firmament by the Living Spirit and crucified there, appearing to the males as a shapely female, and to the females as a comely and desirable youth.