Sermons & Letters 194 part 1/2

Eusebius of Caesarea first described the manner in which Manes acted in publishing abroad the errors of his heresy, saying in a few words (bk. VII of the Ecclesiastical History, ch. 27): 'Puffed up in madness (he says), choosing twelve disciples after the likeness of Christ, he used to send them out to preach.' All the ancient writers agree with Eusebius, if we except one. The more recent writers also support him, among whom Beausobre, as we shall observe in its proper place. Wherefore I judge that Father Natalis Alexander—a most learned man, indeed, in other respects—is by no means to be heeded, who, discoursing on the number of the disciples of Manes, led by I know not what hallucination, from Augustine's opinion extends that number to twenty-two. Meanwhile (he writes, Ecclesiastical History, cent. 3, art.

9): 'Drawing many disciples into his error, he selected twenty-two heralds of his wicked dogmas and impious fables, among whom he wished three to be conspicuous above the rest: THOMAS, HERMAS, and ADDAS.' This man, I say, I judge is by no means to be heeded. For by what reasoning would Manes, in instituting his disciples, have striven to imitate Christ the Lord, if he had chosen others besides the twelve pseudo-apostles? It is moreover false that Father Natalis's opinion has Augustine as a supporter. For Augustine, marvelously agreeing with Eusebius, defined the number of Manes's disciples as merely twelve. Nay, the other ancient writers also followed this opinion, if we except only Epiphanius.

And indeed Augustine could not have written more clearly or more expressly to our purpose, writing thus (in the book On Heresies, ch. 46): 'Whence in his letters he calls himself an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the reason that Jesus Christ had promised that He would send him, and had sent the Holy Spirit in him. On account of which Manichaeus himself also had twelve disciples, after the likeness of the apostolic number—a number which the Manichaeans keep to this day.' Nor did Theodoret use other phrases, when discoursing on the fables of the heretics, since in these few words he described the choosing of disciples made by Manes and his imitation of that pseudo-Christ (bk. I of the Heretical Fables, ch. 16):

'This man, having designated twelve disciples after the Lord's example, set out for Mesopotamia.' What more? The constant tradition of the six following centuries has proved the truth of which we treat. For Photius designated in a few words the number of Manes's disciples and their mission, saying: 'From thence indeed he gathered together twelve disciples, whom he also sent out as heralds of his error.' Peter of Sicily also, who flourished a little afterward, excellently instructed in Manichaean matters and institutions, a man illustrious in learning and nobility, having discharged various embassies on behalf of the emperor Basil, and especially to the Armenians, consigned to writing a history concerning the rise, progress, and fall of the Manichaeans;

in which he not only enumerated the individual names of those twelve disciples, but expressed their deeds, offices, embassies, writings, interpretations, and commentaries in his brief Greco-Latin little work addressed to the archbishop of Bulgaria. This writer, therefore, has the following concerning the disciples of Manes: 'Now, the disciples of Manes the Antichrist were twelve.' Then, enumerating them, in the first place he subjoins him who succeeded Manes when Manes had been put to death by order of the king of the Persians, saying: 'Sisinnius, who succeeded Manes.' But another follows this man, whose name was Thomas, and who composed the Gospel of the Manichaeans, concerning which St. Cyril of Jerusalem, discoursing, warned Catholics not to read it, writing:

'Let no one read the Gospel according to Thomas. For he is not one of the twelve apostles, but one of the three disciples of Manes.' Which spurious work, indeed, it was forbidden to all Catholics to read or to keep in their possession, under the penalty of anathema by the sanctions of the Apostolic See, as we shall see in its proper place. To these two he added both Buddas and Hermas, Addas and Adimantus—the last of whom, as more iniquitous and audacious than all the rest, Manes had sent as his herald into diverse parts of the world, and had dispatched as it were a forerunner of his faith. Three others then—Hierax, namely, Heraclides, and Aphthonius—he had appointed as interpreters and expounders of his doctrine and preaching.

To whom at last he joined three more: Agapius, who devised the Heptalogue, Zarvas, and Gabriabus. These things, then, concerning the wicked as well as superstitious first Hierarchy of the Manichaeans, Peter of Sicily recounted. Who, although he flourished long after the times of Manes, nevertheless elaborated that work both from the ancient and constant tradition of the Greeks and Armenians, and from most certain documents, as we shall see in its proper place. Since therefore a matter of this kind is corroborated by so many and so great testimonies, I do not think that Epiphanius was so gravely deluded, though I know not on what foundation or testimony he relied when he expressly affirmed concerning the Manichaean (Heresy 66, no. 3):

'For now he had gathered his band, so to speak, about him, whom he named disciples, twenty-two.' But I judge that the fault is rather to be cast upon the copyists, or upon the translators, than upon Epiphanius himself. Or that he wished to allude, not to the first hierarchy of the Manichaean sect, and its form and number, but to the later one, which came into being augmented, and of which Augustine spoke elsewhere. But the more shameful delusion is to be reckoned that of Father Natalis Alexander;

He, treating of the errors of the Manichaeans, when he had surveyed the works of Augustine, by no means noticed that that opinion concerning the more than twenty-two disciples of Manes wavers greatly and is altogether precarious; or at least, in order to clear himself of this reproach, it would have been his task to bring forward into the open the weight of both opinions, so that from these the reader might choose the firmer and more probable one. But perhaps the learned man, distracted by the abundance of matters and questions, devoted himself to that opinion which had first presented itself to him, in the persuasion that Epiphanius, the most copious writer on the Manichaean sect, was led by no error. These things it behooved us to note, that we might guard against the mark of carelessness.

Meanwhile it is most delightful to marvel that Beausobre, ever accustomed to seek a knot in a bulrush, so as studiously to overthrow the tradition of the ancient Fathers by always noting their apparent contradictions and magnifying them, has by no means observed either that Epiphanius differs from the other writers in a matter of such moment, or that Father Natalis Alexander, in assigning the eighteen disciples of Manes, wrongly appealed to the testimony of Augustine. He therefore, subscribing to the more common persuasion, supposes and affirms that this heretic had twelve disciples. Among these, three as the more renowned heralds, who first discharged the Manichaean embassy and were more wicked than the rest, chapter 7 of the earlier book has not obscurely related.

For there, undertaking to describe the affairs of Manichaeus which befell him after the widow's death, whose inheritance he had obtained, he thinks that Manes deserted the city of Seleucia, or Ctesiphon, which the Arabs call Modain, or, as Assemanus is the author, the city of Citez, in which he had first been reared and instructed in the studies of various sciences; and that at length he withdrew into Huzilis, which is one of the provinces of the Babylonian Iraq. He proves this conjecture by relying on the Acts of Archelaus, in which he says the heretic was educated in the royal city of the Persians, in which a school of the sciences and of magic flourished most greatly. The Greeks (he adds) said almost no word about the life of Manes from the twelfth year of his age to the sixtieth.

Indeed he observes that this last note is variously reported in the copies of that disputation held with Archelaus, on which matter he reserves to himself to set forth a discussion, being about to speak of the time at which the holy bishop had his conference at Caschara. Therefore, lest we should seem to wander beyond the bounds of our proposed undertaking, out of that twelvefold number of disciples, as we were saying, he makes mention of three more excellent than the rest: namely Thomas, Addas, and Hermas; and he notes that Cyril of Jerusalem, in place of Addas, set down Budda, as may also be seen among those authors who described the names of the individual twelve of those disciples, who in the second place set down not Addas but Budda. Yet I shall linger longer over these matters, lest it be reckoned a fault.

And although a most accurate writer might subjoin sundry other things which pertain to the mission of these three disciples, nevertheless, lest we seem to go beyond the laws set before us, we shall undertake elsewhere a discussion of their missions and offices; being now about to speak of the killing of the son of the king of the Persians, perpetrated by Manes. After the choosing of the twelve disciples and their mission into the various provinces of the East to propagate this foolish and sacrilegious sect, Manes himself, desirous of procuring for himself greater fame, and of displaying a certain singular and divine power above other men, revolved in his mind to accomplish something beyond nature.

Moreover he judged that the matter would turn out prosperously and happily for him, when he heard from a spreading rumor that the son of the king of the Persians had been seized by a grave illness, and that he lay sick in the royal city (from which Manes was then absent). Now that the kings of the Persians were wont to dwell either at Seleucia or Ctesiphon we have already seen in the preceding chapter; and that both cities are situated near the river Tigris, Tillemont notes (Vol. IV on the Manichaean heresy, art. 7).

Manes therefore, according to Epiphanius, although far from the royal court, did not delay to hasten to it; and, relying on the aid of the books which Terebinthus had received from Scythianus, and he himself from the widow, the heir of Terebinthus, or Budda, he trusted that he could obtain some remedy by which he might at once meet the illness of the royal boy, to the admiration and applause of the whole Persian kingdom. But when he had arrived there (says Epiphanius), disclosing his intention, he promised sure help to the king's son. But his hope deceived him for the future. For when he had applied certain medicines to the sick lad, he was so frustrated in his expectation that at last the youth died between his very hands, whereby his vain and lying promises were confuted. Thus far Epiphanius.

1. This matter Socrates described somewhat otherwise (History, book 1, chapter 22), relating that the Manichaean did not of his own accord and boldly hasten to the court to heal the sick one, but that the king of the Persians himself, who was moving every stone for the safety of his son, moved by the fame of the Manichaean and reckoning the man's prodigies to be true, summoned him as an apostle, hoping of course that his son would be healed by his work. Whether therefore, before such a peril, Manes had attempted to contrive by the aid of tricks something exceeding human powers, so that the fame of his virtue reached the king himself, we plainly do not know. It is likewise uncertain whether that most wicked juggler truly applied some medicine to the sick boy or feigned to apply it;

or rather whether he used the aid of the magic art alone. This latter we judge more probable, relying on the testimony of Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, who wrote (Catechesis 6): Manes, to vaunt the power of his integrity and virtue, promised through prayer, as a pious man, that he would cure him. Nor did Photius relate this matter otherwise. Indeed, following the writings of the ancients, which he himself had collected and had set before his own eyes, he not only agrees with Epiphanius, Socrates, and Cyril of Jerusalem; but, having briefly explained the mission of those twelve disciples, whom he had taken to himself as heralds of his impious doctrine and associates in all crimes, he immediately subjoins:

But that raging Manes, when he had become notorious by his crime, the report as a messenger reached even to the ears of the king of the Persians. He, since he had a son laboring under disease, and heard that Manes had promised that he would snatch his son from the disease by prayers, applied the arrogant man to the cure of his son, and cast out the physicians then present, although they promised that the cure of the illness would be easy. He had scarcely completed his prayer, and snatched away the life of him who perhaps would not have suffered this had he not promised him soundness.

Beausobre therefore alone, following certain insipid and fictitious rules of his own criticism, harasses Archelaus, Cyril, and Epiphanius, both because they did not fear to relate falsehoods, and because Cyril himself in his Commentaries wishes to attribute to this heretic the appearance of a slanderer or of madness; and also because Photius described a deed of this kind adorned with too much exaggeration. Of this last he especially complains, that he had said: But that raging Manes, when he had become notorious by his crime; by which words and the rest, when he understood himself to be censured, he burst forth into these words: When, pray, do princes flatter themselves (he says) that they will obtain miracles of healing by the assistance of criminals? At length the more recent writers (he subjoins, and P.

He intends especially to sting Natalis Alexander), that they wrongly suppose the heretic to have trusted in magic arts and tricks, and therefore to have undertaken the cure of the king's son. But that these have fallen into a base contradiction he pretends, being led by this persuasion, that since they rely on the Acts of Archelaus, who, about to prove that the heretic of whom we treat was by no means the Paraclete promised in the Scriptures, said: This man showing not even any sign or prodigy. Wherefore the holy bishop, greatly pressing Manes upon this article, reasons thus:

The Paraclete promised by Christ Jesus ought to have glorified the Lord with an infinite multitude of miracles, and yet the Manichaean, in the whole course of his life and appearance, produced not even the least portent. But who does not see that Beausobre wished as it were to play upon the stage, and to weave rather a fable than a critical history? Concerning this matter, since it does not behoove me at present to hold a long disputation, I would tear away these fictitious fallacies by that great distinction which has been assigned, which the greatest men have taught to intervene between tricks and miracles, and which natural reason itself ought to persuade. Archelaus indeed denies, and rightly, that Manes performed any of those signs which derive from divine power and might alone.

But he does not deny that the man was accustomed to devote his effort to sorceries and tricks, in which the arts of the magicians are engaged. Especially since, according to the same Beausobre, he had first been educated in the schools of magic at Seleucia or Ctesiphon. Archelaus therefore denied that Manes could work true miracles, because God was not with him. Those miracles, namely, which are proper to the Paraclete or the Holy Spirit, from which we understand all those to be very far removed who are wont to practice the tricks of poisonings. Whence therefore could Beausobre infer that Natalis, Tillemont, and the more recent writers had departed from the testimony of Archelaus, to which they ought to have given credence?

He ought rather to have inferred that he himself either was altogether ignorant of the rules of dialectic, or had wished to abuse them, in order to deceive incautious readers, who, in surveying his trifling arguments, without considering with themselves that the suppositions of the matter are varied, would not shudder to confound the true miracles of divine omnipotence with the demonic incantations and tricks of the magicians. From which our reader gathers that the more recent Catholic writers have by no means opposed the sayings of the ancients, but have wished to adhere to them more solidly. For Manes truly could work no miracle; although he strove by deceits to delude the minds, eyes, and opinions of others, among whom he had already become notorious.

In which sense, unless one is out of his mind, one ought to understand the testimony of Photius, by which he affirmed: Manes, when he had become notorious by his crime, etc. Notorious indeed in crime and in wickedness he must be called, who, to overthrow the truth of the Catholic religion, feigns that an apostolate was given to him by Jesus Christ; who names himself the Paraclete; who had already sent false heralds hither and thither into various parts of the world to disseminate a false religion; whose fame more than sufficiently must have been divulged not only among rude and plebeian men, but also among magistrates, nobles, and princes.

Who therefore could persuade himself that his name, and his misdeeds and the authority and power which he had falsely claimed for himself, lay hidden from the king of the Persians? who then, allured by these specious offerings and reckoning, in hope of soundness to be restored to his son, either wished for this cause to summon Manes into the royal court, or Manes himself resolved to betake himself thither, hoping by the aid and protection of the demon to apply a remedy to the royal boy lying sick in his little bed. Wherefore that exclamation of Beausobre is by no means to be heeded, namely: When, pray, have princes hoped that criminals could aid them?

For, although this be true, when most wicked men, using no covering of piety and religion, lay open their wicked life to all, or when these things become known from most certain signs; nevertheless, if their depraved morals still lie hidden and are studiously concealed under the false cloak of religion and piety, they themselves too can easily be deceived, and are very often deceived. Wherefore those words of Photius are not to be so violently distorted, as to make us think that Manes was notorious in crime among the king and his court;

but before God and the Church, which was being overturned by the blasphemies and errors of his heresies, since he had especially already scattered his depraved dogmas among the common people, and had taken care to scatter them more and more from day to day, in order to enlarge for himself the number of hearers and elect. 2. Having thus therefore first harassed the most ancient Fathers of the Greek and Latin Church and the more recent writers, Beausobre says that it wearies him to have found Gregory Abulpharagius, the Syrian patriarch and Eastern writer, inclined to the opinion of the foregoing, which he reported as though borrowed from the judgment and rumor of others; namely when, using a certain formula of economy of writing, he said:

It is reported that Sapor, king of the Persians, having stripped off the skin of the slain Manes, stuffed it with straw, and fixed it aloft upon the walls of the city on a gibbet, because, while he was proclaiming great things about himself, he was unable to heal from disease his son, which befell him. Beausobre therefore contends that this Gregory clung as though in suspense in giving credence to the preceding narration; and that this is indicated by that word 'it is reported,' which occurs to be read first in that passage.

Moreover he says that he is struck with astonishment that the cause of such a peril, so public and memorable, was as it were less advisedly recounted by only one of the Orientals, since Bar-Hebraeus alone, that is Abulpharagius, made mention of it—who nevertheless, since he had spoken of it as of an uncertain matter, would perhaps have been altogether ignorant of it, had he not learned it from the Greek writers. But he affirms that he is willing of his own accord to grant the truth of this fact. Yet in his supposition, having applied all the sinews of his zeal, he observes that the matter must be set forth in various different ways.

Namely that Manes resolved to see to the health of that prince for no other cause than that he was overcome by royal entreaties, with whom the fame of this man greatly prevailed, both on account of his learning in the sciences and on account of the excellence of his virtue. Such an exposition he says he draws from the testimony of Socrates, which we noted for him above. Adding moreover the suffrage of all the Orientals, who asserted that Manes had as it were suddenly gained for himself the confidence of Sapor, whereby he judged that he would be of benefit to himself and to the sick son, on account of his learning. And indeed he undertakes to demonstrate by many conjectures that the heretical man had in himself all the things by which he might gain for himself royal esteem.

First indeed because the more common opinion of men reported that Manes was endowed with singular and great sanctity. For continence, abstinence, and fasts, the outward devotion of the body, or piety, which present the appearance of a man supremely spiritual, by which hypocrites are wont to claim for themselves the veneration of peoples, were especially discerned in him; to say nothing afterward of the austerity, sadness, and pallor with which, according to Ephraem, the devil had tinged Manes, that he might deceive the incautious. And indeed if we consider his poverty, it is sufficiently established that the Manichaean pursued it, since he wished his elect subject to that law, that they should possess absolutely nothing.

Wherefore we are taught by experience that nothing avails more to conciliate to oneself the goodwill and esteem of men than the contempt and renunciation of temporal things themselves, which indeed still preserve their force especially among the Orientals. For from the Treasury of the Persian tongue we know that the gentiles of the Indians glory greatly in an apparent sanctity, if they strive to have voluntary poverty joined to it. He draws another conjecture from this, that Manes, according to Archelaus, could be called the chief of all the wise men of his age, especially in those matters which pertain to the sciences of the Persians, among which medicine especially was held in esteem, since they reckon that nothing pertains more to the necessity of life, as Xenophon noted.

Wherefore that medicine was the other part of the magi's philosophy these two verses indicate: 'He among the Persians is a magus, who knows the stars, who knows the powers of herbs and the worship of the gods.' Thus indulging in his own studies and party, Beausobre reasons, who has also more confidently heaped up many other things fully repugnant to the tradition of the Fathers, in order to reduce the uncertain testimony of Gregory Abulpharagius, metropolitan of the Monophysites, to a certain fabulous system, which would utterly abolish the truth of this history. 3.

The things therefore which he there subjoined are ordered to this end, that he may persuade the reader that Manes was thoroughly versed in the disciplines of medicine, and he is led especially by those examples which can be drawn either from Zoroaster the Persian prophet, who in the city of Divavar ordered a certain sick man to be healed by the aid of a fluid pressed from a certain plant, or from Alexander of Lycopolis, who accompanied Sapor the Persian himself, waging wars, in the camp. From which he conjectures that this man was present to the king as a physician. Hence that physicians are held in the greatest honor among the Persians he asserts is confirmed by Saint Ephraem, who, before he departed from the use of the present light, wishing to give a blessing to a certain Simeon, spoke thus:

'Like a physician in the camp, so may your name pervade the whole world.' Which manner of speaking Beausobre flatters himself has come among the Orientals into a proverb, or common adage, since the faculty of medicine, according to Strabo, is ordered to the preservation of man. To all these he affirms that he can add Scythianus, whom fame reports to have been the master of Manes, to have devoted himself to medical instructions, and Hierax, one of the twelve Manichaean disciples, to have applied his study to this discipline.

And finally, as if wishing to close the preceding narration, he subjoins that many men from the assemblies of monks, others from the profession of hermits, others finally from the episcopal order, were so zealously pursued by the Orientals, that we may easily understand them to have come into the patronage and familiarity of the Persian kings, just as the Miscellaneous History, book 15, reports concerning a certain Boazanes, whom Cavades, king of the Persians, greatly loved as an excellent physician. Of which matter the most learned Assemanus supplies us various examples in his Oriental Library.

With these therefore and other similar foundations laid, Beausobre infers this consequence, which could suit any other Persian man whatsoever, or one dwelling at the court of the Persian kings: namely that Manes was summoned into the court by Sapor as an excellent and most noble physician, as though because in the opinion of men his greatest experience in healing sicknesses had been established. But where do we read, or what writer ever asserted, that Manes claimed this esteem for himself? We have only this ill-fated experiment of his upon the royal boy, Abulpharagius also being the author, on whom Beausobre relies: and therefore there long since could have been no cause for him to be proclaimed as a most wise physician.

What therefore follows from that consequence, except this alternative, that the court of the Persian kings was so fortified with a cohort of physicians, just as troops of soldiers and fleets are wont to fortify camps? But what is more improbable? That Sapor indeed had among his domestics and familiars several men skilled in the art of physicians, reason itself persuades—whom, as we have seen, he caused to depart, banished from the royal palace, when it was reported to him that the impostor Manes prevailed as it were by divine power in healing diseases: not because he was endowed with such knowledge and versed in the art of physicians;

but because he hoped to aid the sick son, on account of that remarkable sanctity of life which he studied to feign, both by reason of the apostolate of Jesus Christ, which he pretended had been given to him, and by reason of the other signs of the highest piety and religion, which he affected with all diligence. This latter it is more reasonable to affirm, especially with all the Greek and Latin writers agreeing, who, although they differ somewhat in words, nevertheless in the narration of the matter correspond wholly with one another. Moreover Beausobre asserted that Manes was a cultivator of the highest and most extreme poverty, by which he claimed for himself the opinion of singular sanctity. But what proof of this poverty could he bring forward? Truly none is at hand.