5 I turn now to you, you deluded and deluding congregation of Manichæus,— wedded to so many elements, or rather prostituted to so many devils, and impregnated with blasphemous falsehoods,— do you dare to slander as unchaste the marriage of the Catholic Church with your Lord? Behold your lovers, one balancing creation, and the other bearing it up like Atlas. For one, by your account, holds the sources of the elements, and hangs the world in space; while the other keeps him up by kneeling down and carrying the weight on his shoulders.
Where are those beings? And if they are so occupied, how can they come to visit you, to spend an idle hour in getting their shoulders or their fingers relieved by your soft, soothing touch? But you are deceived by evil spirits which commit adultery with you, that you may conceive falsehoods and bring forth vanities. Well may you reject the message of the true God, as opposed to your parchments, where in the vain imaginations of a wanton mind you have gone after so many false gods.
The fictions of the poets are more respectable than yours, in this at least, that they deceive no one; while the fables in your books, by assuming an appearance of truth, mislead the childish, both young and old, and pervert their minds. As the apostle says, they have itching ears, and turn away from hearing the truth to listen to fables. How should you bear the sound doctrine of these tables, where the first commandment is, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one Lord," when your corrupt affections find shameful delight in so many false deities?
Do you not remember your love-song, where you describe the chief ruler in perennial majesty, crowned with flowers, and of fiery countenance? To have even one such lover is shameful; for a chaste wife seeks not a husband crowned with flowers. And you can not say that this description or representation has a typical meaning, for you are wont to praise Manichæus for nothing more than for speaking to you the simple naked truth without the disguise of figures. So the God of your song is a real king, bearing a sceptre and crowned with flowers.
When he wears a crown of flowers, he ought to put aside his sceptre; for effeminacy and majesty are incongruous. And then he is not your only lover; for the song goes on to tell of twelve seasons clothed in flowers, and filled with song, throwing their flowers at their father's face. These are twelve great gods of yours, three in each of the four regions surrounding the first deity. How this deity can be infinite, when he is thus circumscribed, no one can say. Besides, there are countless principalities, and hosts of gods, and troops of angels, which you say were not created by God, but produced from His substance.
Source: Reply to Faustus the Manichaean (New Advent)