Against the Doctrines of Mani

Contents

Reading pages: 1–14 · 15–27

1. 1Alexander praises the simple moral teaching of Christianity and explains how later disputes split it into sects.
2. 2Alexander introduces Mani, his first missionaries in Egypt, and his two principles, God and matter.
3. 3Alexander reports the Manichaean myth: matter attacks God's realm, God sends soul into matter, and the Demiurge makes the world to free it.
4. 4Alexander reports the Manichaean teaching on the moon and sun as vessels of souls, the making of man, Christ as Mind, and the abstinence of the Elect.
5. 5Alexander notes the Manichaeans' use of Greek myths and explains why refuting a teaching with no accepted premises is hard, unlike arguing with Christians who appeal to inspired Scripture.
6. 6Alexander argues that Mani's definition of matter as disorderly motion leads to more principles than two and makes no sense.
7. 7Alexander examines which kind of motion Mani's matter could be and shows that none fits.
8. 8Alexander argues that alteration cannot make matter evil, and that neither as bodies nor as incorporeals can God and matter be the only two principles.
9. 9Alexander argues that matter could not have risen to God's region by itself, and that its desire for the good would not have been evil or a reason for God's jealousy.
10. 10Alexander says the Manichaean war of matter against God outdoes the myths of the poets and wrongly ascribes envy and anger to God.
11. 11Alexander asks whether the power God sent was equal or inferior to God, and whether matter's powers are equal or inferior to matter, finding both answers absurd.
12. 12Alexander answers the claim that the divine power is gradually overcoming evil by pointing out that evils have not lessened since Cain, as had been answered to Zeno's conflagration.
13. 13Alexander shows that the heavens are orderly and that, on Manichaean principles, disasters and wars would be goods because they free the divine power.
14. 14Alexander mocks the conclusion that destructive animals and men would deserve honour, and says education and law, not Manichaean myth, answer vice.
15. 15Alexander argues that pleasure and desire belong to sensation and bodily need, not to an evil principle, and that man can master them.
16. 16Alexander argues that if anyone can become good all can, so education and wisdom matter, and praises Jesus for bringing ordinary working people to God and the good.
17. 17Alexander argues that every account of where the divine power came from, and how it was mixed with matter, contradicts the Manichaean system.
18. 18Alexander denies that matter can perish when the divine power leaves it, and asks by which part of himself Mani could have learned his doctrine.
19. 19Alexander finds the sending of a second, creative power as absurd as the first and asks why God needed two powers.
20. 20Alexander argues that if sun and moon are made from divided parts of the divine power, the divine power is itself matter.
21. 21Alexander argues that since the Manichaeans hold the divine power to be alike throughout, they cannot explain why the sun and moon remained pure while the rest was tainted.
22. 22Alexander uses astronomy to refute the Manichaean idea that the moon's phases come from souls being collected and passed to the sun.
23. 23Alexander argues that the divine power cannot be lessening if all stays the same, and that the Manichaean account of man as a work of matter modelled on an image in the sun is incoherent.
24. 24Alexander attacks the Manichaean doctrine of Christ as Mind and contrasts their view of the cross as a demonstration with the church's teaching that Christ gave himself for the forgiveness of sins.
25. 25Alexander mocks the Manichaean abstinence from meat and marriage and contrasts their literal myths with allegorical readings of the Giants and of the angels and the daughters of men.
26. 26Alexander argues that the dark fire outside the world is simply matter, and that it can neither destroy nor be destroyed as the Manichaeans claim.
27. 27Alexander concludes that the outer fire, being of the same nature as matter, could not destroy it.