Sermons & Letters 192 part 1/3

That I have hitherto accomplished nothing at all, or at least very little, in describing the affairs of the chief authors of the Manichaean sect, or in designating from the writings of St. Leo the Great the genuine time in which such a heresy became known to the world as deserving condemnation—so it seems to those who have either surveyed with their own eyes Beausobre's history of the Manichaeans, or have heard men worthy of credit discourse about it. In which work, since the author, as we have already said, not only endeavors to overthrow the tradition of the ancient Fathers of the Church, but even, charging most holy men either with error or with ignorance, tears them as with a rabid tooth, whenever in running through their writings he strikes upon something which seems to be repugnant to his party and to his uncatholic religion.

Of which kind indeed are those things which come to be read in the fourth, fifth, and sixth chapters of the earlier part of his History; or those which he took up in writing in the other part, when, bringing to examination the manner in which the divine Leo the Great acted against the Manichaeans, he assails it, and, as though with an envious and blind spite, flares up against him. 1. He treats therefore, in the said chapters of the first part, of those three chief authors of the Manichaean sect; and, proposing to himself to rely on the testimonies of the Greek and Latin Fathers, following holy Epiphanius, he first of all affirms together with us that Scythianus drew his origin from the race of the Saracens. Who afterwards, desiring to acquire for himself the institutions and sciences of the Greeks, wished to inhabit the borders of Palestine.

But at length, transferring himself to the India of the East, by the aid of ships he devoted himself to commerce; in which pursuit, ever enjoying prosperous fortune, he acquired for himself in a short time the greatest riches, the convenience of the seas, the fertility of the places, and the excellence of his own genius always and everywhere smiling upon him. These two things—namely abundance of riches and a most keen genius (says Beausobre)—together with a perfect and manifold knowledge of the sciences, namely of medicine, philosophy, mathematics, and astronomy, are rarely found in one single man. And he asserts that this man, on account of heresies invented or stirred up by him, made his name eternal. But what (the author adds) if Scythianus had merely fallen into heresy?

For then we should not need to hold him in hatred, but rather ought altogether to pity him, since heresy is to be attributed to a weakness of the mind, to wholly involuntary and distorted thoughts, by which a man's genius, drawing back from the fountain of truth, deceived, allows itself to be dragged into error. Wherefore Beausobre, wishing always to deal more gently with Scythianus, calls into doubt the other testimony of Epiphanius cited by us above, by which we saw that this man had applied his mind to the tricks and magical incantations of demons, in which the Egyptians were wont to be occupied. To this opinion Epiphanius alone gave credit (says he), a writer very credulous, and too violent in his assertions;

since on the other hand neither Archelaus, bishop of Caschar, nor Cyril of Jerusalem made any mention of this magical art and trickery of Scythianus. But how many and what sort of fabrications this Beausobrian manner of arguing carries before it, I think is hidden from none of the Catholics at all. For if heresy is in the first place to be attributed to depraved and wholly involuntary movements of the mind, and consists in these alone, why is it turned into a crime? Why is it established by common consent that obstinacy of the will involves the error of heresy, without which no one can be called a heretic?

Assuredly, if the mind involuntarily clung to errors repugnant to the dogmas of the faith, it would scarcely fall into crime, since no act at all has the character of a graver misdeed if it is not brought about voluntarily. Besides, to what can those things tend which he contends about the magical arts of Scythianus? Or does he think that the testimony of Epiphanius can be invalidated by the silence of those two Fathers? He trifles indeed. For Archelaus above all—to whom he appeals as older than Epiphanius—is, as it were, wholly taken up in narrating the affairs of Manes, and in execrating them, so that he scarcely had leisure to make more extended mention of the life and deeds of Scythianus.

Likewise the aim of Cyril of Jerusalem's discourse in that catechesis was not to describe all the deeds of those three authors of the Manichaean sect, but only to consider in passing how three most wicked men had heaped together all the worst things by forging one heresy stuffed with blasphemies and crimes. Therefore, speaking of Scythianus as though in haste, he briefly recalls his origin, his fatherland, the Aristotelian life which he imitated, the four books he composed, his death in Judaea, and at once passes on to Terebinthus, the heir of the gold, the books, and the heresy, about to describe that man's crimes.

But granting freely that an argument of this kind, drawn from the silence of Archelaus and Cyril, concluded something—would not the preceding Beausobrian manner of arguing at once totter and go to ruin? Where do those writers older than Epiphanius, namely Archelaus and Cyril, make mention of Scythianus's commerce, of his philosophy, of his study of mathematics, medicine, and astronomy? They in truth kept a deep silence about all these things; and therefore it would be permissible to infer that all these things flowed together for Beausobre himself, and that he used an excessive as well as violent exaggeration in composing his histories, never having before his eyes the truth which in countless places he asserts he alone has set before himself.

But what, finally, if Cyril had by no means kept such a deep silence in general about the magical art of Scythianus? For he attributes this—as drawn from Scythianus's books—to Terebinthus, that man's successor and heir, writing: When at last he was to be apprehended, he fled to a certain widow. Then, ascending to the roof, and summoning the aerial demons, whom the Manichaeans in their abominable rites are wont to invoke down to this very day, he was struck by divine [power] and, cast down from the house, was destroyed. Two things therefore Cyril there asserts: the one, that Terebinthus, by the aid of the magical art and of demons, was occupied with tricks, in which (according to Beausobre) the Egyptians and the peoples of the Indies had been accustomed to engage;

the other, that the Manichaeans are wont to invoke demons in their abominable rites. Let him therefore tell me, I pray, from what sources they drew this art and these rites, if they did not learn them from the books of Scythianus. Or did the men of this sect withdraw to the eastern region of the Indians in order to devote themselves to these nefarious pursuits? For nowhere do we read that Terebinthus visited the Indians—unless it be permitted to conjecture that he accompanied Scythianus when the latter took care to convey himself thither. And therefore let us affirm that it is more probable that both were imbued with the same disciplines; or that Terebinthus and the other Manichaeans, already (according to Cyril) cultivators of the magical arts, acquired this discipline by the reading of the books which Scythianus had written.

Wherefore, if it is permissible to reason thus without any scruple, the testimony of Epiphanius will stand more firmly, by which he affirmed that Scythianus had applied his effort to tricks and to the incantations of demons. 2. But come, let us dismiss these things, being about to point out another fabrication which Beausobre attempts to fasten upon the aforesaid Epiphanius, on occasion of the marital union entered into by Scythianus with a woman of the Upper Thebaid. For Archelaus relates that she was a captive, with whom Socrates concurred. And that Orientals do not shrink from captive wives, Beausobre himself, supported by the testimony of some, asserts.

But he seizes thence the occasion to turn his pen against Epiphanius, because [Epiphanius] wished to convert a beautiful and young captive into a ruined and infamous harlot; as though it ought to have shamed Scythianus, a man ruined in morals and religion, to take a prostitute [to wife]. But from what source he could draw an anecdote of this kind, very ignominious to the reputation of Scythianus, since Epiphanius passes it over in silence—Beausobre, since he was ignorant of it, flaring up against Epiphanius, does not fear to call him a slanderer. He therefore judges that [Epiphanius], carried away by nothing but a vehement zeal and violence of mind, described the deeds and morals of the heretics.

This manner, however, of thinking and writing, and one like it, which smacks of the fabrications of the Pyrrhonists, we shall easily overthrow, recalling to mind together with us the depraved morals of the Manichaeans. For no sect, even of the heathen, could be found more wicked in unchastities, no other school of men more depraved in the incestuous acts of unbridled lust, than the Manichaean. For, every shame and modesty of human nature being cast off, they reckoned it unlawful to restrain the carnal movements of concupiscence, and shrank from marriage, in order that they might guard against the procreation of children: but they perpetually made use of mutual and nefarious commixtures.

What modesty, then, what shame of public and private honesty, could there be in a man who taught his followers that marriages are to be execrated, and that they are permitted with all [women] to engage in acts of incestuous and most base lust? But that the Manichaeans were not only accused of these outrages, but had already many times been convicted by public and authentic monuments and testimonies, the Acts of the Roman Inquisition, drawn up in writing under Leo the Great, plainly reveal; or those [Acts] which were held in the Churches of Africa, about which we shall speak more opportunely in their place, the order of times being observed. But let us return to Beausobre. He therefore concedes that Scythianus's wife was a captive.

But from what source does he gather that, just as [Scythianus] did not blush to take a captive [to wife], he had a scruple about taking her as a wife from a harlot's trade? That she was beautiful and young, Beausobre affirms without any authority; and he thinks this can be proved by the fact that Scythianus loved her more than the rest. Therefore, on account of this so great love, could he have had her as a partner in wedlock, even though she had already long since presented herself as common to all at Thebais? Nor does it help [his case] that those sources or older writers, from whom this fact was drawn, are passed over in silence by Epiphanius, since none of the ancients called it into doubt, or handed down the contrary;

since perhaps all who surveyed Epiphanius's writings were led by this persuasion, that the holy bishop had committed to writing the deeds done by Scythianus and this man's morals, relying on the traditions of his elders. Against whose sayings, indeed, men either contemporary with him, or at least of the following ages, stained with the Manichaean taint, would have set themselves, and would have branded him with the mark of falsehood, in order to vindicate their chief author from this infamy, had they known the matter to be otherwise. Therefore the silence of these men, joined to the firm assertions of Epiphanius, more fully reveals how greatly it behooves one to value the ill-digested criticism of Beausobre.

especially since, without the aid of any new documents, after so many centuries, one man alone, Beausobre, far removed from the ages of Scythianus and Epiphanius (for it was in the course of the present century, namely in the year one thousand seven hundred and thirty-nine, that he ended his enjoyment of the light of this life), strove to overthrow and abolish the tradition of the ancient Fathers of the Church by mere fabricated tales. 3. Our critic, however, seemed to deal more gently with Saint Cyril, bishop of Jerusalem, whom he asserts not to have fallen into error, but to have wished to employ excessive exaggeration.

For this reason he claims that in describing the deeds of Scythianus, Cyril played the part of the declaimers, who are more eager to magnify the arguments set before them by rhetorical amplifications and exaggerations than to lay open their truth. And indeed Cyril, when about to speak of the religion of Scythianus, said that this man had nothing in common either with Judaism or with Christianity. Beausobre contends that he so read it in the Greek text of Cyril, although the ancient Cologne version expunges those first words, «with Judaism.» But even granting freely that the Greek codices contain both readings, just as we read in Photius, what does Cyril ever say that is repugnant to truth, and that, even if it be no open error, at least displays excessive exaggeration and hyperbole?

Christophorus Wolfius indeed, in editing the works of Photius, which he had newly printed at Hamburg, wrote concerning Scythianus: This man was the first among Christians to be the author of the foolish opinion about two principles. But that this opinion is a foolish one—one among so many and so great blasphemies which the Manichaeans devised concerning the nativity, death, and resurrection of Christ in the flesh, and which utterly overthrows the more fundamental and solid principles of the Christian faith—is now sufficiently proven to all, and we ourselves shall explain it in what follows. What then could that religion have in common with the faith of Christians, which attacks and abolishes the fundamental mysteries?

Surely, if Beausobre's conjectures held good, then even a pagan who denies the existence of one God and the distinction of three persons, who bestows divine honours upon created and sensible things—namely upon the sun, upon light, and upon the stars—and who blasphemes the Mother of God and denies that the divine Word of the Father was made man, and who professes countless other errors of that kind, could have something in common with us, for this sole reason: that he would dare wrongly to claim for himself the name of Christ. But who would ever affirm this with truth? For the pagan of whom we speak, apart from the Christian name which he would sacrilegiously usurp for himself, would have absolutely nothing of the faith, morals, rites, and institutions of Christians.

Nay rather, he would strive either to corrupt or to abolish all these things. Such indeed I judge Cyril to have reasoned within himself, when he wrote that Scythianus had absolutely nothing in common with Christianity. But if then Beausobre should pretend that he contradicts Cyril, being led by the testimony of Archelaus, who called Scythianus a heretic and an apostate, one who, driven by a vehement ambition of obtaining the episcopate, defected—just as has been ascertained concerning other authors of heresies—our explanation would by no means totter. For what prevents these things from being able to be true of a pagan man who feigns the Christian faith?

Especially since, even on Beausobre's own authority, Scythianus was never willing to have a fixed dwelling anywhere, but running hither and thither he inhabited now the regions of the Saracens, now the districts of Palestine, of the Thebaid, of Judea, of the Egyptians, and of the Indians. It could therefore have happened that, dwelling at some time among Christians and using the greatest dissimulation, he outwardly affected the Christian religion, meaning to deceive the peoples by such deceit; namely that he might hope the honour and dignity of the episcopate could be conferred upon him—by which, without doubt, he might have set forth the depraved dogmas that he had imbibed and revolved in his mind, to be more easily believed and professed by others.

At last, since in surveying the affairs and doctrines of the Manichaeans I had thus far not found even one of the articles of the Christian faith—those which they call fundamental—which they preserved whole and in its purity, I can scarcely be persuaded that their chief author could have had, in his teachings, anything in common with Christianity. Therefore, about to pass on to other matters, I close the present engagement, reasoning thus: that just as the malice of this most wicked man could be restrained by no law from attempting to weaken or overthrow all the dogmas of the Christian faith, so too he flattered himself with a vehement passion that by evil arts he would attain the honour of the episcopate;

which two things show that the sayings of Cyril and of Archelaus can be reconciled without any forced interpretation. 4. Now indeed, if we were to pursue Beausobre's manner of writing step by step, as we have determined, it would be necessary to discuss the four books of Scythianus. But since we intend to speak of these writings elsewhere, in that part of this history, we for the present pass over holding this engagement, meaning rather to return again in our discourse to Epiphanius. Him, therefore, again torn to pieces with curses and insults, Beausobre brought upon the stage, on the occasion of the evil death which Scythianus underwent. He therefore compares the testimony of Epiphanius concerning the killing of Scythianus with the sayings of other ancient writers;

and understanding that they do not entirely correspond to him in the same words, he lapsed into this persuasion, that the heretical man of whom we speak, seized by a natural disease, ended his days. Archelaus (he himself says) wrote nothing about the death of Scythianus from which one might argue that he perished beyond the order of nature. Cyril of Jerusalem (he adds), who flourished before Epiphanius and was thoroughly conversant with matters that had already long ago occurred in that city, describes in very concise language the heretic's coming into Judea, that he might infect that region as with a pestilential contagion; and immediately, with no word interposed by which disputations with the doctors of the Mosaic law might be indicated, he subjoins: When that man had been destroyed by disease, the Lord stilled the pestilence.

Photius at last, using briefer language, wrote that Scythianus perished by a bitter death. Furthermore, from this variety of what the writers say, Beausobre congratulates himself, and, as though seeking a knot in a bulrush, he rendered the Greek text of Epiphanius into French, interpolated with many notes and animadversions, contending that the narrative of this man collapses utterly, since no other favours him;

nay, that the histories of the Jews openly contradict him—histories which lay bare both the destruction of the Jewish people and the overthrow of the Temple of Jerusalem, accomplished by the arms and soldiers of Titus and Vespasian—on account of which it would have been utterly impossible for Scythianus to engage in disputations with the Jewish priests, and then by tricks and magical incantations to ascend the temple of that city. And so, the city being already devastated and the temple razed to the ground, Scythianus did not come to perform all those deeds which Epiphanius relates—as we ourselves, already in the first chapter of this work, freely granted against the credit of Epiphanius, explaining that his words are to be taken in a looser sense.

Who that has not surveyed the histories of the Jewish people after the reign of Titus would think that all these things bear the appearance of truth? Yet those skilled in Jewish affairs will judge otherwise, they who know that Jerusalem, not yet fully destroyed by Titus and Vespasian—with various buildings and towers surviving—was again built up by Hadrian, an emperor of that name, and was inhabited not only by foreigners, but by many thousands of the Jews. Then, namely, when the ancient name having been changed to that of Aelia, Rufus, the governor of Judea, with an armed band suppressed the sedition that had been stirred up against him, putting to death many thousands of men, women, and children.

This second destruction of the Jewish nation under the Roman emperors we ourselves have noted at the History. Beausobre praised it for the sake of confirming his own conjectures. Which city, then, if afterwards it was granted to be inhabited by foreign nations coming from various regions of the earth—because, having been converted into the jurisdiction of the Romans, it changed its rite and its name;

nevertheless the Jews surviving in that city did not change their legal ceremonies, but, the succession of priests and Levites and other ministers being preserved, just as in the captivities of the Assyrians and Babylonians, they inculcated that the Mosaic law was to be observed more rigidly in the synagogues, the places of prayer, and the other assemblies—the Pharisees, the doctors of the laws, and the chiefs of the tribes applying every effort lest the crowds either give their name to Christ, or, after the example of the Romans, serve idols. How then could it not have come to pass that, in the second century, Scythianus, coming to Jerusalem or Aelia.

attacked the priests of the Jewish people, meaning to prove by his disputations that the Old Testament and the Mosaic law took their origin from an evil author-god; but when he had been overcome by his adversaries, in order to wipe out the mark of disgrace, he too, using the arts of tricksters, did not attempt—with the aid of demons—to ascend the roof of some house built near the ruins of the temple, or to draw water from the ancient towers which had survived the destruction wrought by Titus and Vespasian? Now these things I do not understand to conflict with one another.

Especially since I know that all men are aware that that third book which Scythianus had written, and which he called On the Mysteries, contains refutations of the Law and the Prophets, and abounds in calumnies against the sacred writers of the Old Testament. Therefore, in order that he might persuade the people that the Mosaic law had been handed down by an evil spirit, by fabricating it, he needed first to set out for Judea, that he might infect that region with a pestilential contagion. For he could not have poured forth the venom of his wickedness unless he had held gatherings, assemblies, and disputations in their very presence.

But that this man of so great blasphemies and sacrileges was struck down by God, and taken from the living by a sudden death, Cyril's manner of speaking betrays not only by these words—when that man had been destroyed by disease, the Lord stilled the pestilence—but also by the words following, in which he relates that Terebinthus, the disciple of Scythianus's wickedness, was made the heir both of the gold and of the heresies of his master; who indeed, having become known in Judea and Palestine, was expelled from those borders, and was thereby forced to cross over into Persia. So great a hatred, therefore, and horror of the people had the disciple stirred up against himself on account of his master's death and crimes, that he was no longer permitted to dwell there. And that the death of Scythianus was indeed bitter, Photius too affirms.

For that death is not usually called bitter which is caused by a natural sickness of the body, and which, on account of the dissolution of the members, separates the soul from the corruptible flesh. But we are wont to call such a death that which those guilty of crimes undergo violently, with God as avenger; or that which judges and executioners inflict, or command to be inflicted, upon evildoers who have been drained by the gravity of their punishments. And that God was the author of Scythianus's death, Cyril's manner of speaking hints; that it was afterwards cruel and violent is signified by Photius in those words, «by a bitter death,» as is likely. Finally, that the hatred of the Jews against Terebinthus compelled him as an exile to depart from the borders of Palestine and Judea, by the tumult and wrath of the peoples, becomes plainly known from his flight into Persia.

For this reason it is to be believed that the disciple was eager at least to hide and blot out the mark of ignominy and disgrace, both by seizing upon flight and by taking on the condition of a slave, and by casting aside his own ancient name. 5. But by no reasoning can Beausobre be brought to concede this last assertion—namely, that Terebinthus, to wipe out the mark of disgrace, changed his ancient name, taking on the other name of Buddas. But in order that he might more easily draw his readers into his own opinion, he built up a rich store of studied erudition and a magnificent apparatus of words, that he might gradually bring the ancient Fathers of the Church into bad faith, and cause those who are not ashamed to read through his work written in French to depart from the path of truth.

In the fifth chapter, therefore, of the aforesaid book, having first brought forward into the midst various etymologies and explanations of the name Terebinthus, he judged that that reading could commend itself to him from among his readings which would either wholly dissolve the frauds and deceits of the crafty man, or at least in great part diminish them. He then praises the Acts of Archelaus, bishop of Caschara; from which he contends that the name Buddas was by no means assumed by Terebinthus to avoid the hatred and vengeance of the peoples, but that it is derived from the Chaldean idiom, and signifies among the Persians the same thing that the word Terebinthus does among the Greeks. He adds that those two names correspond aptly to one another, just as these others found in the sacred letters: namely, Christ and Messiah;

Peter and Cephas, Dorcas and Tabitha. This, as though a mystery unravelled by himself, Beausobre would have sold to his readers. But when he ran through the work of Fabricius, he learned that he had long since been anticipated in the understanding of so profound and hidden a matter. Wherefore, having dwelt rather long upon these observations, he affirmed without hesitation of mind that Terebinthus and Buddas display exactly the same signification. Of which matter, finally, he calls as most abundant witnesses both the most illustrious man Simonius Assemanus, most skilled in the Oriental languages and prefect of the Vatican Library, and Bochart, a writer devoted to Sacred Geography, who explain these Syriac words, namely Bethma, Boutema, and Butema;

which, although they have some diversity of letters, nevertheless they believed to have been used by the ancients for one and the same Terebinthus, or Buddas. Whether these things which Beausobre in the aforesaid chapter has exaggerated be true, or rather fabulous, those devoted to the study of Oriental languages and vocabularies will judge. We, however, do not for the present dare to place full faith in all these things: but our mind, lest it pass judgment on unknown matters, remaining in suspense, weighs that the preceding heap of matters from Beausobre is not free from contradiction. For if we believe this servant of Scythianus, or disciple, the second master of the Manichaean school, that Terebinthus was his native name, then he ought to have retained it among all nations, and even among the Chaldeans;

although among the peoples of this nation, on account of the diversity of idioms and the use of letters, it would be pronounced with another sound and a flexibility of the voice. Or else it must be said that, induced by a grave cause, it was necessary to change that Terebinthus. If Beausobre will grant the first—as he ought to grant—why then, the Chaldean ending of the word not being preserved, namely in a or in m, does he write Budda? For who does not see that these have no affinity with the birth-name of this heretic, and moreover do not preserve the radical elements of the letters? Therefore I am not easily moved to assent to Beausobre's sayings, by which he strives to persuade us that the Assyrians could, and were accustomed, to change even the proper birth-names of men.