Skip to content

Introduction

Lecture VI (part 2 of 2)

Page 20 of 175

32. Let those children of sloth, the Manicheans, make answer; who without labouring themselves eat up the labourers' fruits: who welcome with smiling faces those who bring them their food, and return curses instead of blessings. For when a simple person brings them anything, "Stand outside a while," saith he, "and I will bless thee." Then having taken the bread into his hands (as those who have repented and left them have confessed), "I did not make thee," says the Manichee to the bread: and sends up curses against the Most High; and curses him that made it, and so eats what was made947 . If thou hatest the food, why didst thou look with smiling countenance on him that brought it to thee? If thou art thankful to the bringer, why dost thou utter thy blasphemy to God, who created and made it? So again he says, "I sowed thee not: may he be sown who sowed thee! I reaped thee not with a sickle: may he be reaped who reaped thee! I baked thee not with fire: may he be baked who baked thee!" A fine return for the kindness!

33. These are great faults, but still small in comparison with the rest. Their Baptism I dare not describe before men and women948 . I dare not say what they distribute to their wretched communicants949 ....Truly we pollute our mouth in speaking of these things. Are the heathen more detestable than these? Are the Samaritans more wretched? Are Jews more impious? Are fornicators more impure950 ? But the Manichee sets these offerings in the midst of the altar as he considers it951 . And dost thou, O man, receive instruction from such a mouth? On meeting this man dost thou greet him at all with a kiss? To say nothing of his other impiety, dost thou not flee from the defilement, and from men worse than profligates, more detestable than any prostitute?

34. Of these things the Church admonishes and teaches thee, and touches mire, that thou mayest not be bemired: she tells of the wounds, that thou mayest not be wounded. But for thee it is enough merely to know them: abstain from learning by experience. God thunders, and we all tremble; and they blaspheme. God lightens, and we all bow down to the earth; and they have their blasphemous sayings about the heavens952 . These things are written in the books of the Manichees. These things we ourselves have read, because we could not believe those who told of them: yes, for the sake of your salvation we have closely inquired into their perdition.

35. But may the Lord deliver us from such delusion: and may there be given to you a hatred against the serpent, that as they lie in wait for the heel, so you may trample on their head. Remember ye what I say. What agreement can there be between our state and theirs? What communion hath light with darkness953 ? What hath the majesty of the Church to do with the abomination of the Manichees? Here is order, here is discipline954 , here is majesty, here is purity: here even to look upon a woman to lust after her955 is condemnation. Here is marriage with sanctity956 , here steadfast continence, here virginity in honour like unto the Angels: here partaking of food with thanksgiving, here gratitude to the Creator of the world. Here the Father of Christ is worshipped: here are taught fear and trembling before Him who sends the rain: here we ascribe glory to Him who makes the thunder and the lightning.

36. Make thou thy fold with the sheep: flee from the wolves: depart not from the Church. Hate those also who have ever been suspected in such matters: and unless in time thou perceive their repentance, do not rashly trust thyself among them. The truth of the Unity of God has been delivered to thee: learn to distinguish the pastures of doctrine. Be an approved banker957 , holding fast that which is good, abstaining from every form of evil958 . Or if thou hast ever been such as they, recognise and hate thy delusion. For there is a way of salvation, if thou reject the vomit, if thou from thy heart detest it, if thou depart from them, not with thy lips only, but with thy soul also: if thou worship the Father of Christ, the God of the Law and the Prophets, if thou acknowledge the Good and the Just to be one and the same God.959 And may He preserve you all, guarding you from falling or stumbling, stablished in the Faith, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to Whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

Notes

  1. 947

    See Turbo's confession, Disput. § 9: "And when they are going to eat bread, they first pray, speaking thus to the bread: I neither reaped thee, nor ground thee, nor kneaded thee, nor cast thee into the oven: but another did these things and brought thee to me, and I am not to blame for eating thee.' And when he has said this to himself, he says to the Catechumen, I have prayed for thee,' and so he goes away."

  2. 948

    On the rites of Baptism and Eucharist employed by the Manichees, see Dict. Chr. Biogr., Manicheans.

  3. 949

    The original runs: Ou tolmo eipein, tini embaptontes ten ischada, didoasi tois athliois. dia sussemon de monon deloustho. andres gar ta en tois enupniasmois enthumeisthosin, kai gunaikes ta en aphedrois. Miainomen alethas to stoma k.t.l.

  4. 950

    O men gar porneusas, pros mian horan d epithumian telei ten praxin; kataginoskon de tes praxeos hos miantheis oide loutrou epideomenos, kai ginoskei tes praxeos to musaron. O de Manichaios thusiasteriou meson, hou nomizei, tithesi tauta, kai miainei kai to stoma kai ten glottan. para toioutou stomatos, anthrope k.t.l.

  5. 951

    hou nomizei. The Manichees boasted of their superiority to the Pagans in not worshipping God with altars, temples, images, victims, or incense (August. contra Faustum XX. cap. 15). Yet they used the names, as Augustine affirms (l. c. cap. 18): "Nevertheless I wish you would tell me why you call all those things which you approve in your own case by these names, temple, altar, sacrifice."

  6. 952

    Kakeinoi peri ouranon tas dusphemous echousi glossas. 'Iesous legei peri tou patros autou, Ostis ton helion autou anatellei epi dikaious kai adikous, kai brechei epi ponerous kai agathous. kakeinoi legousin, hoti hoi huetoi ex erotikes manias ginontai, kai tolmosi legein, hoti esti tis parthenos en ourano eueides meta neaniskou eueidous, kai kata ten ton kamelon e lukon kairon, tous tes aischras epithumias kairous echein, kai kata ten tou cheimonos kairon, maniodos auton epitrechein te partheno, kai ten men pheugein phasi, ton de epitrechein, eita epitrechonta hidroun, apo de ton hidroton autou einai ton hueton. Tauta gegraptai en tois ton Manichaion bibliois; tauta hemeis anegnomen, k.t.l.

  7. 953

    .

  8. 954

    Gr. episteme. See note on Introductory Lect. § 4.

  9. 955

    .

  10. 956

    semnotatos is the reading of the chief mss. But the printed editions have semnotetos, comparing it with such phrases as stoma atheotetos (vi. 15), and metanoia tes soterias (xiv. 17).

  11. 957

    This saying is quoted three times in the Clementine Homilies as spoken by our Lord. See Hom. II. § 51; III. § 50; XVIII. § 20: "Every man who wishes to be saved must become, as the Teacher said, a judge of the books written to try us. For thus He spake: Become experienced bankers. Now the need of bankers arises from the circumstance that the spurious is mixed up with the genuine." On the same saying, quoted as Scripture in the Apostolic Constitutions (II. § 36), Cotelerius suggests that in oral tradition, or in some Apocryphal book, the proverb was said to come from the Old Testament, and was added by some transcriber as a gloss in the margin of , or . Dionysius of Alexandria, Epist. VII., speaks of "the Apostolic word, which thus urges all who are endowed with greater virtue, Be ye skillful money-changers,'" referring apparently as here to , , "try all things, &c." (See Euseb. E.H. VII. ch. 6 in this series: Suicer. Thesaurus, Trapezites: and Resch. (Agrapha, pp. 233-239.)

  12. 958

    , .

  13. 959

    Compare § 13 of this Lecture, where Cyril seems to refer especially to the heresy of Manes, as described in the Disputatio Archelai, cap. 6: "If you are desirous of being instructed in the faith of Manes, hear it briefly from me. That man worships two gods, unbegotten, self-originate, eternal, opposed one to the other. The one he represents as good, and the other as evil, naming the one Light, and the other Darkness."

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series II, Volume 7, ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace (1890–1900). Public domain. Text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library.