Sermons & Letters 201 part 1/4

1. After that savage death of Manes, so many and so virulent seeds of his wickedness were by no means extinguished and abolished; but, being scattered here and there, within a short space of time, through the zeal of other impious men, they drove deep roots into the minds of many, and extended their bounds to the hatred of the Christian religion. And first indeed, if we give full credit to Archelaus, and to Turbo, and to Ephraem the deacon of Edessa, the Manichaean dogmas were announced to Egypt. Namely, when Manes, still surviving, set his chief false apostles over those places and provinces. He (Manes, namely) commanded his disciples to set out into the three regions of the world; of whom Addas obtained as his lot the part of the East.

But Thomas took upon himself the lands of the Syrians. And Hermas set out to Egypt … for the sake of preaching this dogma. Concerning this order and division of provinces, however, William Cave alone noted a little differently from him. For in Cyril and Epiphanius, Thomas occupies the first place, and Epiphanius affirms that he went into Judea, though Dionysius Petavius disagrees in his annotations, who thinks that for 'Judea' one should read 'India.' And indeed Theodoret so holds, that Thomas was sent to the Indians. With Theodoret likewise agrees Nicephorus, book 6, chapter 32. And if this be so, the impostor wished to imitate Christ even in this respect, when he destined the apostle Thomas to preach his gospel in India.

But now, leaving that Thomas, our discourse turns to Addas, the teacher of Turbo, another chief false apostle of the same impostor Manes. This one, then, the same Archelaus affirms was sent to deceive the Syrians; but Peter of Sicily calls him Budda, Cyril Biddas, Theodoret Aldas; while Epiphanius and Nicephorus—the Acts of the disputation of Archelaus being otherwise—called him Addas. But however that may be, it is certain that the man of whom we treat not only trod in the footsteps of his teacher but, by many other new things devised, rendered the Manichaean dogmas more abundant by his own exertion.

For this reason indeed he composed a certain book, which he called the Modion, of which Tollinus the author makes mention; against which volume—Photius being the authority in his Bibliotheca—after a series of some years, Titus, bishop of Bostra in Arabia, and Diodorus, the prelate of Tarsus in Cilicia, drew their pens; which are an argument that already, when the fourth century of the Church was turning, those provinces were polluted by a corruption of this kind. Otherwise, however—and indeed with little consistency—Beausobre reasons, who, speaking of Titus bishop of Bostra, affirms to us that he refuted not the Modion of Addas, but the book On the Mysteries, which was circulated under the name of Manes. He asserts that bishop Titus followed a different method from Epiphanius in refuting this book;

saying that it was divided into 22 chapters according to the alphabet of the Syrians, and that afterward the errors were solidly refuted by this learned and prudent bishop, without any invectives against his adversary, without calling the author a magician and an invoker of demons, occupied with abominable mysteries. He adds that Manes, the author of this book, was a philosopher, who had persuaded himself that this world by no means corresponds to the idea which we have of the divine perfections, and therefore had reasoned within himself that there existed some other principle besides God himself. He affirms that Beausobre employed the aid of the works of Titus of Bostra, because he wrote with more exactness and moderation, beyond all comparison, than Epiphanius himself. But what of it?

With such an apparatus of great matters set aside and neglected, Beausobre fell into such drowsiness that the things just said soon slipped from his mind. For, having forgotten that he had written that Manes was not accused by Titus of Bostra of magic, the invocation of demons, and abominable mysteries, he afterward adds that this bishop took it grievously to report and to bring to examination the things which had been mystically devised by the Manichaean—'but passing over in silence those things which were invented more mystically by the Manichaean, which are very many.' Titus of Bostra therefore shrank from weighing the things more mystically invented by the Manichaean. Nor ought he to have passed them over for any other reason than lest, namely, he should offend the mind of the readers; just as concerning these abominable mysteries St.

Leo the Great refused to discourse. But still a difficulty remains, whether Titus of Bostra in his work attacks the volume of the mysteries of Manes, or rather another, namely the Modion, composed by Addas. Led by the sole authority of Beausobre, I for my part shall not decide. For those will judge with me that the testimony of Photius ought to prevail, who very well know the zeal he applied in adorning his Bibliotheca. But concerning the book of Addas we shall speak below. 1. Concerning this Addas indeed, and his work, William Cave sincerely confessed that he had once erred more gravely; when, namely, he supposed him to be none other than Adimantus, of whom mention so often occurs in Augustine, and whom the holy bishop refuted in a special work.

But this false opinion the same Cave, following long ago the history of Peter of Sicily and the author of the Cotelerian and Tollian formulas, retracted; but, in order at the same time to excuse himself, he wrongly ascribes the cause of his former lapse to Augustine alone, whose following words he recites: 'For that other work which had begun to be written in the same codex is the work of Adimantus, that disciple of the Manichaean, who by his own name was called Addas.' But indeed, what more drowsy or more unjust than such an excuse? For he did not report the genuine words of Augustine, but falsified ones. For, having withdrawn from that testimony the word 'son' (filius), he introduced this other, namely the pronoun 'of that one' (illius), which St.

drags the Doctor's meaning into an entirely different signification than Cave judged expedient for himself. Did this indicate that he wished to rise from his previous lapse and repair his error, when he charged the holy Doctor with a fault, and unjustly plucks at and attacks him? Trifles indeed. For Augustine's words are these: 'For that other work which had begun to be written in the same codex is the work of Adimantus, the son of the disciple of the Manichaean, who by his own name, or forename (as the Maurist Fathers read), was called Addas.' Nor does Cave's hallucination, drowsiness, or bad faith consist in the word 'forename' (praenomen)—which the Fathers of the Congregation of St. Maur, following the authority of the manuscript codices, introduced in the most recent edition in place of those two words 'by his own name' (proprio nomine);

but in the word 'son' (filius), which he wrongly changed into that pronoun 'of that one' (illius). For among no editors, nor manuscript copies, do we come upon this word 'of that one'; but they most constantly exhibit the word 'son.' To us, therefore, from the same Augustine it becomes clearer than light that Addas was one person, and Adimantus another, although both were most impious assertors and champions of the Manichaean dogma. Wherefore, since Augustine refers the name 'Addas' not to the son but to the disciple of the Manichaean, that follows which will seem especially to pertain to Cave and to our subject: namely, that Adimantus either drew the origin of his nature from Addas as his father, or at least is called his son on account of the wicked instructions drawn and drunk in from him;

for which reasons the surname 'Addas' too could have suited him, namely to indicate Adimantus's kinship, or that school from which he had come forth. Finally, what is against it that Adimantus should first have been called Addas by his own name—as this word 'forename' is apt to signify—and afterward have changed it into another, following the example of Cubricus, his standard-bearer? Not thence, however, ought this Addas to be said to be the same as another chief false apostle of Manes, who obtained by lot the parts of the East to be traversed, his master yet surviving. 4. But besides Thomas, Addas, and Hermas, the chief followers of Manes, the rest also of that number of twelve disciples strenuously applied themselves to propagating that nefarious heresy.

For Peter of Sicily narrates that, when Manes was slain, some of his followers penetrated into Armenia at Samosata, where, having sown the seed of impiety, they enticed many of the Armenians into deceit. Which seed, growing greatly, that most wicked root sprouting up and advancing as far as Phanaroea, brought deadly fruits to many. But by whose exertions especially that nefarious heresy nearly ruined Armenia and Phanaroea itself, the same Peter of Sicily—who long afterward discharged an embassy to the Armenians on behalf of the emperor Basil—explained in few words, when he said that Callinice, a woman, had twin children, of whom one was called Paul, the other John.

These two serpents, then, the viper mother nourished, and, having taught them the nefarious sect, sent them forth from Samosata as heralds of error; who, having entered the dominion of Phanaroea and come to a certain village, and finding there rude inhabitants little settled in the faith, scattered the poison of impiety and the dire tare of the demon-enemy. That this woman Callinice was impure and lost, Dionysius Petavius asserts. Who likewise teaches from the same Peter of Sicily that she sent her abominable offspring into diverse places of Armenia to propagate the dogmas of the Manichaean. Meanwhile, however, a grave controversy can arise, as to when such a mission occurred; or at what time especially by these two brothers that heresy borrowed a new name.

Which question, since it is wrapped in much darkness, cannot easily be settled. For it is very probable that Peter of Sicily meant to indicate two things there. One, namely, that when Manes had been slain, some of that number of twelve disciples immediately penetrated the province of Armenia, and, being received there, poured out the whole venom of the depraved dogma, which, as it grew greater day by day, undermined that whole region and corrupted it with depraved dogmas. But the other is: that only after various centuries had elapsed from the death of Manes, that woman Callinice of Samosata sent her twin sons to Phanaroea, as new standard-bearers and heralds of this abominable sect;

so that, namely, they might vomit forth the most wicked instructions which they had already imbibed, to the ruin of the rude peoples. Which indeed could have been the reason that, various centuries having elapsed, the then-old name of the heresy was changed into another, that of the Paulicians. 5. But that I may not seem in these matters either to divine, or be forced to break the thread of the whole history which we are writing, I will bring forward those points on which our preceding conjectures rest. Among which that ought to be reckoned the chief, which Augustine supplies in his book On Heresies.

He, then, being excellently instructed concerning the mysteries and profane rites of the Manichaeans, not only describes how, when Manes was slain, one of the elect, as the prince of all and head of the whole sect, presided over twelve other elect, whom they called masters; but he also narrates how greatly that assembly grew and enlarged itself. For, on his authority, as though to the form and likeness of the Christian Catholic hierarchy, those twelve false apostles, with their wicked and diabolical head, began to ordain seventy-two bishops: the bishops then would ordain presbyters and choose deacons for themselves. 'For from their elect they have twelve, whom they call masters, and a thirteenth as their prince:'

'but seventy-two bishops, who are ordained by the masters, and presbyters who are ordained by the bishops. The bishops also have deacons.' But besides those whom they ordained by profane and sacrilegious rites, and who were taken up to compose the nobler part of that diabolical hierarchy, they also sent others out of the same class of the elect here and there to deceive rude and simpler men, so that more readily and more easily they might either confirm their own dogmas or propagate them. Wherefore the same Augustine immediately subjoins thus: 'And now the rest are called only elect: but even these are sent who seem fit for this error, either where it is to be sustained and increased, or where it is not yet, to be sown.'

That these things were accustomed to be done by the Manichaeans in Augustine's time, the same holy Doctor testified in these words, writing: 'Which number the Manichaeans keep even to this day.' Since, therefore, Augustine, who knew excellently all the dogmas, mysteries, philosophy, grades, ordinations, hierarchy, and increases of the Manichaean sect, nowhere makes mention of these twin brothers, it can rightly be conjectured that in the year 428, in which he wrote that book On Heresies, that offspring had not yet come forth into the world from the infernal prisons, and that the Manichaeans had not yet then borrowed a new name from the Paulicians.

Nor let it be permitted to suspect that this could have escaped Augustine's notice, because the regions of the Armenians and of Asia in which (on the authority of Peter of Sicily) these things had happened were most remote from Hippo, the city of Africa, from which Augustine had written that work. Let no one, I say, suspect this. For the holy Doctor, who from boyhood had fallen into the errors of the Manichaeans, and had been most addicted to the studies of their philosophy, also knew excellently and described the names by which that sect was called, and confessed without any ambiguity whatsoever that it raged in Paphlagonia, a part of Armenia, in Gaul, in Africa, and in other regions. And indeed, in the praised book On Heresies, he asserts that the Catharists are called Manichaeans, as it were 'purifiers.'

From which name he seizes the occasion to lash and pursue them more severely, because with horrid foulness they defiled human food. And again, in the book On the Nature of the Good, he stirs up certain of their foulnesses, by which they wrongly contended—both as toward the divine author of things, contumeliously—that part of God was bound through the coitus of males and females, which they professed to loose and purify by eating; he appeals to certain public confessions of the same crimes, by which they testified that they did this in a public trial, not only in Paphlagonia, but also in Gaul, 'as I heard from a certain Catholic Christian at Rome.'

To Augustine, therefore, who was writing these things in the year 404, it had been very well persuaded that in Paphlagonia, a region of Armenia, this heresy raged more widely, and this he recounted both from the public acts of the trials and from the report of others. Augustine therefore would not have omitted to report and reject those things which were afterward devised by the Paulicians for the confirmation, increase, and strength of this sect: which both those good-for-nothing brothers acquired with great zeal, in order the more foully to undermine the Catholic religion, and to assail and pierce with curses the Catholic ministers of the cross, and the mysteries of the Eucharist, and the perpetual virginity of the Mother of God, and other things of this kind.

Since, therefore, in so many and various books and works written by Augustine against the Manichaeans and other heretics, nowhere does the name of the Paulician brothers occur, and since moreover nowhere is there recounted by him those additions to the heresy which have been indicated to us by Peter of Sicily, by no reasoning can I be led to think that already, when the death of Manes had followed, those twin brothers were the champions and authors of this heresy;

therefore I now judge it superfluous to discourse more clearly concerning them, of whom we shall need to speak afterward, when, preserving as far as we can the order and reasoning of times, we shall tell of the offspring of this heresy in the seventh century of the Church raging still more widely, to the contempt of the Catholic religion, in the regions of Syria and Asia. 6. But meanwhile we judge that it must by no means be passed over that already before Augustine's age, and at the beginning of the fourth century of the Church, Armenia and especially Paphlagonia were undermined by such errors of Manes.

This is proved not only by the preachings of Manes's false apostles held there, or those deadly and venomous writings which Thomas, Agapius, and the rest had disseminated everywhere while Constantius Chlorus reigned; but moreover the most certain testimonies of the Acts of the Council of Gangra, which still survive, supply proof of this matter. To that synod, then, only fifteen bishops, together with the great Hosius of Cordova, came together in the time of St. Sylvester the Pope, a little before the first general Council of Nicaea was convened.

Moreover, Gangra is a city of Paphlagonia, situated in the part of Asia Minor, into which city the aforesaid fifteen bishops with the great Hosius came together, on the occasion of the Eustathian heresy, which drew its origin from various Manichaean sources, and raged in various regions of Armenia with the greatest detriment to the Catholic religion. This can be understood not obscurely, both from the Synodical letter of the same Fathers of Gangra, and from the twenty-one canons published there. For they inscribed the Synodical letter: 'To the honorable lords, our fellow-priests established in Armenia.' And most of the canons published in that synod directly rebuke, assail, and strike with anathema various errors of the Manichaean sect;

as long ago Severinus Binius rightly and learnedly noted in his collection of the Councils. Of this kind certainly are those canons, either in which there is discourse concerning the lawful eating of meats, or in which the ecclesiastical rule of fasts is confirmed—canons whereby those are driven far away from the assembly of Catholics who despised the Lord's Day and the day of the Resurrection, spending it in mourning, grief, and fasting.

For these and similar things were decreed for the condemnation of Eustathius, the monk of Armenia, who had impiously drawn his errors from no other sources than those of the Manichaeans, and who on the same principle strove to overthrow and utterly abolish marriage, the begetting of children, the cultivation of virginity, the sacred assemblies established by the Church, the practice of fasting, the eating of meats and of animals, the possession of riches, the solemnities of feast-days and above all of the Lord's Day, and the other sacred rites approved by the Church. Without doubt, therefore, in the year 324 the Manichaean errors had so increased in Paphlagonia and in the region of Armenia, through the zeal of this same monk Eustathius, that in order to restrain them and to purge that plague the Fathers of Gangra had to assemble.

That the Acts of this synod were at length, for the hatred and destruction of the Manichaeans themselves, approved both by the first general Council of Nicaea with the assent of the Apostolic See — this is made plain not only by the legation of Ossius of Cordova on behalf of St. Sylvester the pope, but by the decrees of Symmachus and of Leo the Great, Roman pontiffs. Nor am I unaware that this legation of Ossius of Cordova on behalf of the Apostolic See at the Council of Gangra has been called into doubt not only by Peter de Marca and by Pagi, but has been absolutely and altogether denied. And chiefly for this reason, that his name occurs in the Acts which survive to be read not in the first, but in the fourteenth place among the names of the other bishops.

But in settling questions of this kind it is not always helpful to derive the prerogatives of bishops from the order in which their names are recorded in the codices — as we ourselves shall show, against Tillemont and others, concerning Britto, bishop of Trier, in the history of the Priscillianists. For sometimes through the error of copyists the codices too have been corrupted, or at least the genuine order of those same bishops could have been disturbed. Yet for a twofold reason I judge that this contention must now be avoided. The first is drawn from our own aim in composing this history. For we are not among those who, clinging to doubtful and very obscure matters, seek to assert and vindicate the rights of the Apostolic See.

For it would be exceedingly unbecoming and base, in a matter so certain and so weighty as that concerning the judicial power and rights of the Apostolic See — which shine forth clearer than light through all the ages of the Church — to indulge one's own fancies, to rest merely upon conjectures, to wander off the stage, and to bring into question those matters which plainly do not sufficiently pertain to the cause at hand. Since, therefore, that synod was merely provincial, and its canons obtained force and approval only from the assent of the Apostolic See — as the very collectors of the councils also admit — what will it matter to us whether Ossius of Cordova there performed a legation on behalf of the Apostolic See? 7.

The other reason is drawn from our own fairness toward a most illustrious and most learned man. For when here at Rome, a few years ago, in the solemn Pontifical Academy of the Councils, in the presence of our most holy lord Pope Benedict XIV, with the great applause of the whole literary assembly, he set forth and elucidated with the highest erudition each of the obscure and difficult questions which have long since been raised — and can hereafter be raised by students of criticism — concerning the date, the canons, the authority, and the confirmation of the Council of Gangra, the Most Reverend Father...

...namely Antoninus Bremond, a distinguished member of the Dominican family and a notable theologian in the Casanatense Library, and now Master General of the whole Order of Preachers — who out of the singular kindness of his heart embraces us with the greatest love — treated and illustrated these things; so that at present it is by no means permitted to enter upon discourse concerning the same matters. For in this lucubration of his, as in others, he has won for himself the assent of all the learned; and such indeed that we may promise to ourselves, by the common wishes of all, that a work of this kind will one day be made public. But since we too, in the same year, on the ninth day before the Kalends...

...of May, in the same Pontifical Academy delivered a theological dissertation concerning these same canons of Gangra, we shall append it to the reader as an appendix to the Manichaean history, in the last chapter of this book. 1. In what manner, after Manes had been put to death, his disciples and followers propagated this heresy hither and thither through the various provinces of both the East and the West, I judge to have been sufficiently and more than sufficiently made clear in our preceding chapter. Yet because the champions of this wicked religion did not rest upon words and preaching alone, so as to draw and lead the minds of untaught and unlettered men to the perversity of their dogmas...

...but also made use of the aid of many harmful books, in the reading of which, if incautious men expended their effort, being ensnared as though by some enticement, they bound their souls fast to those same errors — we have therefore resolved for the present to indicate these books in few words. Nor indeed do we think that discourse is to be entered upon only concerning the works of Scythianus, which he dying left to Terebinthus, and which Manes himself recooked and interpolated; since we have already, in the earlier chapters of the preceding book of this History, spoken of those same four volumes of Scythianus, heaped together out of the fables of the pagan philosophers and out of the filthiest tatters of the ancient heresiarchs. 2.

Lest, therefore, we seem to wish to do over again what has been done, our discourse turns itself to the remaining writers of this sect and to describing their works; among whose number we judge that that Thomas above all must be reckoned, to whom all the ancients attributed a certain apocryphal and spurious Gospel. Yet only a few things concerning this work present themselves to be said, if we peruse all the more ancient writers. Of it indeed they made mention as of a work composed by the Manichaeans and stuffed with their fables. But no one, so far as I have seen, has anywhere indicated more clearly and expressly the blasphemies contained therein. In this matter this above all would have to be investigated: whether that Thomas composed this monster of impiety entirely on his own...

...or rather whether, having first obtained for himself the Gospel of Scythianus, he inscribed his own name upon it, and then augmented and exaggerated the things contained in it. But who would dare to determine a question of this kind, although the latter seems more probable? Since the ancients testified that the Manichaeans had not two, but only one Gospel, and that they wrongly attempted to circulate it under the name of Thomas the apostle — although Cave, led by I know not what reasoning, has affirmed that the Gospel of Scythianus was one and that of Thomas another. It will nevertheless be less difficult to conjecture with what tatters and blasphemies that Gospel was stuffed.

For since it dealt chiefly with the Nativity, deeds, preaching, passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ the Lord — which are the dogmas and mysteries of the Catholic faith, and which they so boldly assailed — it will be quite likely that every death-bearing venom was scattered there which would subvert and abolish the chief foundations of our religion. They denied, as we have seen, on the authority of Augustine, that Christ was born of the Virgin, and, not confessing that His flesh was true but feigned, contended thereby that His passion was false and that there was no resurrection.

That impious things also concerning the mission and coming of the Holy Spirit were contained in that Gospel, to corroborate another chief error of Manes, Cyril of Jerusalem indicated not obscurely, discoursing of this in his book, and warning Catholics to guard themselves against reading it. And this book of diabolical impiety we understand to have been rejected among the apocryphal scriptures not only by the decrees of the Roman pontiffs — namely of Siricius, Innocent, and Pope Gelasius — but St. Pope Leo the Great decreed that it should be utterly removed and burned in the fire.

For concerning these and similar writings of the Manichaeans and Priscillianists the holy pontiff Leo spoke thus, admonishing Catholics indeed in weighty speech, lest by a certain feigned appearance of piety, which writings of this kind seemed to display, they should allow themselves to be led to the reading of them. For although (he says) there are in them certain things which seem to have an appearance of piety, they are nevertheless never empty of poisons, and through the enticements of fables they work this latently: that, having seduced men by the narration of marvels, they may entangle them in the snares of every error. To which decrees of the Apostolic See at length, when the Fathers of the Council of Nicaea gave heed, they said, chiefly concerning this Gospel of Thomas: