Required reading
Ante-Nicene Fathers (Vol 6) (Available from Amazon or free here) - Conclude the writings of Anatolius and minor writers.
My summary
Today we begin a work attributed to Archelaus concerning the heretic Manes.
Firstly the writing narrates how Manes came to speak to some Gentile judges. Basically the whole occasion is organised by Marcellus, a prominent Christian. Manes is trying to convert Marcellus to Manichaeism because Marcellus has a great reputation amongst the Christian world (due to his rescue of some Christian prisoners which is also reported in the narrative).
Then the work records the dialogue between Manes, Archelaus (Marcellus' bishop) and the judges. This week, Archelaus gives various arguments against the idea that darkness is ungenerated (and therefore equal with God).
What grabbed me
I found this to be a very interesting well written piece on a significant heresy.
But some of the teachings of Manes are simply crazy: '... if any one eats bread, he must needs also become bread and be eaten. If one kills a chicken,he will be a chicken himself. If one kills a mouse, he will also become a mouse himself. If, again, one is wealthy in this world, it is necessary that, on quitting the tabernacle of his body, he should be made to pass into the body of a beggar, so as to go about asking alms, and thereafter he shall depart into everlasting punishment. Moreover, as this body pertains to the princes and to matter, it is necessary that he who plants a persea should pass though many bodies until that persea is prostrated. And if one builds a house for himself, he will be divided and scattered among all the bodies. If one bathes in water, he freezes his soul; and if one refuses to give pious regard to his elect, he will be punished through the generations, and will be translated into the bodies of catechumens, until he render many tributes of piety; and for this reason they offer to the elect whatever is best in their meats. And when they are about to eat
bread, they offer up prayer first of all, addressing themselves in these terms to the bread: "I have neither reaped thee, nor ground thee, nor pressed thee, nor cast thee into the baking-vessel; but another has done these things, and brought thee to me, and I have eaten thee without fault." And when he has uttered these things to himself, he says to the catechumen, "I have prayed for thee;" and in this manner that person then takes his departure.'
Praying to bread? Now I've seen it all.
Next week's reading
Continue the work of Archelaus by reading up to the paragraph beginning '41. On receiving this epistle, Archelaus was astonished at the man's boldness.'
Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.
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