Acts of the Disputation with the Heresiarch Manes

⁶ On reading this epistle, Marcellus, with the kindest consideration, attended hospitably to the needs of the bearer of the letter. Archelaus, on the other hand, did not receive very pleasantly the matters which were read, but “gnashed with his teeth like a chained lion,” impatient to have the author of the epistle given over to him. Marcellus, however, counselled him to be at peace; promising that he would himself take care to secure the man's presence: And accordingly Marcellus resolved to send an answer to what had been written to him, and indited an epistle containing the following statements:—

Marcellus, a man of distinction, to Manichaeus, who has made himself known to me by his epistle, greeting.

An epistle written by you has come to my hand, and I have received Turbo with my wonted kindness; but the meaning of your letter I have by no means apprehended, and may not do so unless you give us your presence, and explain its contents in detail in the way of conversation, as you have offered to do in the epistle itself. Farewell.

This letter he sealed and handed to Turbo, with instructions to deliver it to the person from whom he had already conveyed a similar document. The messenger, however, was extremely reluctant to return to his master, being mindful of what he had to endure on the journey, and begged that another person should be dispatched in his stead, refusing to go back to Manes, or to have any intercourse whatever with him again. But Marcellus summoned one of his young men, Callistus by name, and directed him to proceed to the place. Without any loss of time this young man set out promptly on his journey there; and after the lapse of three days he came to Manes, whom he found in a certain fort, that of Arabion to wit. and to whom he presented the epistle. On perusing it, he was glad to see that he had been invited by Marcellus; and without delay he undertook the journey; yet he had a presentiment that Turbo's failure to return boded no good, and proceeded on his way to Marcellus, not, as it were, without serious reflections. Turbo, for his part, was not at all thinking of leaving the house of Marcellus; neither did he omit any opportunity of conversing with Archelaus the bishop. For both these parties were very diligently engaged in investigating the practices of Manichaeus, being desirous of knowing who he was and whence he came, and what was his manner of discourse. And he, Turbo, accordingly gave a lucid account of the whole position, narrating and expounding the terms of his faith in the following manner: —

If you are desirous of being instructed in the faith of Manes by me, attend to me for a short space. That man worships two deities, unoriginated, self-existent, eternal, opposed the one to the other. Of these he represents the one as good, and the other as evil, and assigns the name of Light to the former, and that of Darkness to the latter. He alleges also that the soul in men is a portion of the light, but that the body and the formation of matter are parts of the darkness. He maintains, further, that a certain commingling or blending has been effected between the two in the manner about to be stated, the following analogy being used as an illustration of the same; to wit, that their relations may be likened to those of two kings in conflict with each other, who are antagonists from the beginning, and have their own positions, each in his due order. And so he holds that the darkness passed without its own boundaries, and engaged in a similar contention with the light; but that the good Father then, perceiving that the darkness had come to sojourn on His earth, put forth from Himself a power which is called the Mother of Life; and that this power thereupon put forth from itself the first man, and the five elements. And these five elements are wind, light, water, fire, and matter. Now this primitive man, being endued with these, and thereby equipped, as it were, for war, descended to these lower parts, and made war against the darkness. But the princes of the darkness, waging war in turn against him, consumed that portion of his panoply which is the soul. Then was that first man grievously injured there underneath by the darkness; and had it not been that the Father heard his prayers, and sent a second power, which was also put forth from Himself and was called the living Spirit, and came down and gave him the right hand, and brought him up again out of the grasp of the darkness, that first man would, in those ancient times, have been in peril of absolute overthrow. From that time, consequently, he left the soul beneath. And for this reason the Manichaeans, if they meet each other, give the right hand, in token of their having been saved from darkness; for he holds that the heresies have their seat all in the darkness. Then the living Spirit created the world; and bearing in himself three other powers, he came down and brought off the princes, and settled them in the firmament, which is their body, (though it is called) the sphere. Then, again, the living Spirit created the luminaries, which are fragments of the soul, and he made them thus to move round and round the firmament; and again he created the earth in its eight species. And the Omophorus sustains the burden thereof beneath; and when he is wearied with bearing it he trembles, and in that manner becomes the cause of a quaking of the earth in contravention of its determinate times. On account of this the good Father sent His Son forth from His own bosom into the heart of the earth, and into these lowest parts of it, in order to secure for him the correction befitting him. And whenever an earthquake occurs, he is either trembling under his weariness, or is shifting his burden from one shoulder to the other. Thereafter, again, the matter also of itself produced growths; and when these were carried off as spoil on the part of some of the princes, he summoned together all the foremost of the princes, and took from all of them individually power after power, and made up the man who is after the image of that first man, and united the soul (with these powers) in him. This is the account of the manner in which his constitution was planned.