Acts of the Disputation with the Heresiarch Manes

²⁰ On hearing these argumentations, the multitudes who were present were exceedingly delighted; so much so, indeed, that they were almost laying hands on Manes; and it was with difficulty that Archelaus restrained them, and kept them back, and made them quiet again. The judges said: Archelaus has given us proof sufficient of the fact that the body and soul of man are the works of one hand; because an object cannot subsist in any proper consonance and unison as the work of one hand, if there is any want of harmony in the design and plan.

But if it is alleged that one could not possibly have sufficed to develop both these objects, namely, body and soul, this is simply to exhibit the incapacity of the artificer. For thus, even though one should grant that the soul is the creation of a good deity, it will be found to be but an idle work so far as the man is concerned, unless it also takes to itself the body. And if, again, the body is held to be the formation of an evil deity, the work will also none the less be idle unless it receives the soul; and, in truth, unless the soul be in unison with the body by commixture and due introduction, so that the two are in mutual connections, the man will not exist, neither can we speak of him.

Hence we are of opinion that Archelaus has proved by a variety of illustrations that there is but one and the same maker for the whole man. Archelaus said: I doubt not, Manes, that you understand this, namely, that one who is born and created is called the son of him who begets or creates. But if the wicked one made man, then he ought to be his father, according to nature. And to whom, then, did the Lord Jesus address Himself, when in these terms He taught men to pray: “When you pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven;” and again, “Pray to your Father which is in secret?” But it was of Satan that He spoke when He said, that He “beheld him as lightning fall from heaven;” so that no one dare say that He taught us to pray to him.

And surely Jesus did not come down from heaven with the purpose of bringing men together, and reconciling them to Satan; but, on the contrary, He gave him over to be bruised beneath the feet of His faithful ones. However, for my part, I would say that those Gentiles are the more blessed who do indeed bring in a multitude of deities, but at least hold them all to be of one mind, and in amity with each other; whereas this man, though he brings in but two gods, does not blush to posit enmities and discordant sentiments between them.

And, in truth, if these Gentiles were to bring in their counterfeit deities under conditions of that kind, we would verily have it in our power to witness something like a gladiatorial contest proceeding between them, with their innumerable natures and diverse sentiments.