By Water & Blood

On Manes

Manes was a Persian, as they say, by race, and for a long time dragged the yoke of slavery; and while serving he was called Scythianus. Becoming heir of his mistress, he was not content at growing rich beyond hope, nor did he hymn the giver of good things, but moved his tongue into blasphemy and impious mythology, becoming a most perfect instrument of the enemy of the truth. This man said that there are two unbegotten and eternal things, God and Matter, and named God Light and Matter Darkness; and Light Good, and Darkness Evil; and he also set other names upon them. For he named Light a good tree, filled with good fruits; and Matter an evil tree, bearing fruits that agree with the root. He said that God stood apart from Matter and was altogether ignorant—both he of Matter and Matter of him; and that God held the northern and eastern and western parts, and Matter the southern; and that many ages later Matter quarreled with itself, and its fruits with one another; and when the war had been constituted, and some were pursuing and others being pursued, they arrived as far as the borders of the Light; then, seeing the Light, they both rejoiced at it and marveled, and wished to campaign against it all together and to seize it and to mix their own darkness with the Light.

So Matter, as the inconsistent and babbling and senseless myth said, rushed with the demons and the idols and the fire and the water against the Light that had appeared. But God, shuddering at the sudden campaign—for he did not have, he says, fire so as to use thunderbolts and lightning-bolts, nor water so as to bring a flood, nor iron or any other weapon—contrives such a thing. Taking a portion of the Light, he sent it forth to Matter like a kind of bait and hook; and Matter, clinging to it and spreading itself over it, swallowed what was sent and was bound and was pierced as by a kind of snare. From this, they say, God was compelled to craft the world. The parts of the world, they say, are not his creations, but Matter’s. He crafted, wishing to dissolve its constitution and to bring the warring things into peace, so as little by little also to free the Light mixed with Matter. And they say that the human being was not molded by God, but by the ruler of Matter; and they name this one Saklas; and that Eve likewise came to be by Saklas and Nebrod; and that Adam was created beast-formed, and Eve soulless and motionless; and that the masculine virgin, whom they name daughter of the Light and also style Ioel, shared with Eve both life and light; and that Eve freed Adam from the beastliness, then later was stripped of the light; and that Saklas first mixing with her had from her a beast-formed child. Then they say that he also had communion with her again. But perhaps someone would reasonably blame even me for enduring to write these things. For this reason, leaving aside the other myths and nonsense, I shall briefly say the heads of the impious heresy.

These name the sun and the moon gods, sometimes calling it Christ, and offering as a sufficient proof of this that the sun was eclipsed at the time of the cross; and sometimes saying that they are boats conveying the souls of the dead from Matter to the Light. For thus, he says, little by little it is freed from the wicked mixture. And they say that the moon becomes crescent-shaped and halved by being emptied; and that it takes the light-formed souls from Matter and deposits them into the Light; and thus little by little the Light is freed from the wicked mixture. And when the whole nature of the Light has been separated from Matter, then they say that God will hand it over to fire and make one clod; and with it also the souls that have not believed in Manes. The devil he sometimes calls Matter, sometimes ruler of Matter. Marriage he says is a legislation of the devil. And they slander the philanthropy done for the poor, saying that it is a service of Matter. The Lord, they say, took up neither soul nor body, but appeared as a human being while having nothing human; and the cross and the passion and the death came to be in fantasy. They cast out the resurrection of bodies as a myth. For they have supposed no portion of Matter worthy of salvation. They say that transmigrations of souls take place, and that some are sent down into bodies of winged creatures, others into those of cattle and wild beasts and reptiles. They think that all things are ensouled—fire and water and air and plants and seeds. For this reason those called perfect among them neither break bread nor cut a vegetable, but also openly rise up against those who do these things as murderers; yet they still eat the things cut and broken. They also use sorceries in a special way, performing their unholy mysteries; and for this reason their teaching is hard to wash out, and it is very difficult to turn aside from the working of the soul-destroying demons one who has shared in the foul rites—demons that bind those people’s souls with the charms of those who initiate.

This Manes at the beginning had three disciples, Aldas and Thomas and Hermas. And he sent Aldas as herald to the Syrians, and Thomas to the Indians. And when these returned saying that they had endured terrible things of every kind, no one enduring to receive Manes as teacher, the thoroughly wicked man dared both to style himself Christ and to name himself Holy Spirit, and said that he had been sent according to the Savior’s promise. For the Lord promised to send another Advocate. This man, making twelve disciples according to the Lord’s pattern, arrived at Mesopotamia, fleeing the king of the Persians. For having boasted that he would heal the king’s son who had fallen into a certain affliction, he clothed him with greater evils. And when from there too he was driven out as a manifest anti-god, and reached Persia, being seized by the king he underwent the Persian punishment, and stripped of his skin was handed over to dogs. Such was the end of Manes; these are the heads of the impious heresy. For if someone should wish to go through all the babble of the myths, he would need very many books. Such doctrines the thoroughly evil demon sounded into the minds of unholy human beings; such captains and commanders he used, arraying himself against the truth. But he wove, to speak prophetically, a spider’s web. For the Master very easily refuted the lie and dissolved the companies of its advocates. Against the impiety of Manes the excellent advocates of piety wrote—Titus and Diodorus, the one shepherding the church of the Bostrenes, the other guiding the metropolis of the Cilicians. George of Laodicea also wrote, a man who led the heresy of Arius, yet had been reared in the studies of the philosophers. And besides these also Eusebius the Phoenician, of whom we made mention before. But I shall pass over to the other phalanx.