Acts of Archelaus (Latin version) 1–19

The Acts of Archelaus. The true treasure, or the disputation held in Carchar, a city of Mesopotamia, by Archelaus the bishop against Manes, with Manippus, Aegialeus, Claudius, and Cleobolus as judges.

In that city there was a man named Marcellus, who was held in very high repute for his life, his pursuits, and his family, and also for his good sense and integrity. He was rich in means as well, and, what is greatest of all, he feared God most devoutly and always listened with fear to the things that were said about Christ; there was nothing good at all that this man lacked. For this reason he was held in the highest honour by the whole city, and he for his part often repaid his city with very many gifts, giving to the poor, relieving the afflicted, bringing help to the distressed. But lest by weakness of words we detract from the man's virtues rather than set out what is worthy of them, let it be enough to have said this; I will come to the work that has been proposed.

At a certain time, when a multitude of captives had been brought before the bishop Archelaus by the soldiers who kept the camp there, seven thousand seven hundred in number, no small anxiety gripped him, because the soldiers were demanding gold for their release. Since he could not conceal it, he was greatly troubled for the sake of religion and the fear of God, and at last, hurrying to Marcellus, he set out the matter to him. As soon as the most pious Marcellus heard this, without any delay at all he went into his house, preparing the ransom for the captives, however much those who had brought the prisoners should demand; and at once, opening the treasuries of his goods, he dealt out the price of his piety to the soldiers without any count or any distinction, so that it seemed rather gifts than ransom. They were amazed, and they embraced so immense a piety and generosity in the man; struck with astonishment at the deed, they were moved by the example of mercy, so that very many of them were brought to the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ and laid aside the belt of military service. Others, having taken scarcely a quarter of the ransom, went back to their own camp; and the rest went away taking only as little as would be enough for the journey.

When these things had been done, Marcellus was very glad, and, summoning one of the captives, named Cortynius, he asked him the cause of the war, and by what chance they had been overcome and bound in the chains of captivity. He, having been given leave to speak, began thus: "We, my lord Marcellus, believe in the living God alone. We have a custom of this kind, which came down to us by the tradition of our fathers and has been kept by us to this day: every year we go out of the city, together with our wives and children, and pray to the only and invisible God, asking him for rain for our crops and harvests. While we were celebrating this at the usual time and in the usual way, evening came upon us as we lingered, fasting, and the two hardest things of all weighed on us, fasting and keeping watch. About the middle of the night an envious and untimely sleep crept over us, and with our necks weighed down and slack, our heads drooping, it struck our foreheads against our knees. This happened because the time had come for us to pay the penalty for our deserts by the judgment of God; for perhaps we were sinning without knowing it, or even, knowing it, did not stop.

"At that hour, then, a multitude of soldiers suddenly surrounded us, thinking, I suppose, that we had sat down there to lay an ambush, or that we were at all practised in or eager for battle. Without inquiring at all into the reason for our gathering, they declared war on us, not with words but with the sword; and men who had never learned to do wrong to anyone they wounded without any mercy with missiles, ran through with spears, and cut down with blades. They killed about one thousand three hundred men of us, and wounded five hundred. When day dawned, they brought here as captives those of us who had survived, and even so granted us no mercy; for they drove us before their horses, goaded by blows of their spear-shafts and pushed on by the horses' heads. Whoever had strength to endure held out; but very many fell before the faces of their cruel masters and breathed out their souls. Mothers, their arms exhausted and sinking under the burden, let the little ones hanging at their breasts fall to the ground, driven on by the threats of those who pursued them; and all the aged, overcome by toil and worn out by hunger, collapsed to the ground. But the arrogant soldiers enjoyed this bloody spectacle of people falling as if it were some pleasure: they saw some fainting and laid on the ground; in others, exhausted by burning thirst, they watched even the passage of the voice blocked as the moisture of the tongue dried up; others they saw with eyes turned back, groaning over the death of their little ones as they expired, while the children cried out with wailing to their most unhappy mothers, and the mothers, driven on by the brutality of the robbers, answered with groans, the only thing they were free to use. If any of them gave way too tenderly to love for their own children, they chose of their own accord to share their children's lot of death; but those who could bear anything were brought here as captives. So after three days had passed, in which we had not had any rest even by night, we were brought to this place; and what was done here after that you yourself know better."

When he heard this, the most pious Marcellus burst into many tears, pitying such great and varied misfortunes. But without delay he prepared food, serving the exhausted people himself, in imitation of our father the patriarch Abraham, who once, when he had received angels as guests, did not order his household servants to bring a calf from the herds, but, old as he was, carried it himself on his shoulders, and with his own hands set before the angels the food he had prepared himself. Marcellus performed the same service in like manner: he had them recline at table in tens, and with seven hundred tables set up for them all, he refreshed them all with great joy, so that those who had been able to survive forgot their toils and became unmindful of all their misery. When the fifteenth day was passing, Marcellus abundantly supplying everything to the captives, he resolved that all of them should be given the means of returning home, except those who were kept back by the care of their wounds; to these he gave suitable treatment, and ordered the rest to go home.

But Marcellus added to all these duties of piety still greater ones: he went out with a great company of his own people to bury the bodies of those killed on the road, and all that he could find he gave burial, as was fitting. When this service was completed, he returned again to Carchar, and from there let the wounded, once their health was restored, return to their homeland, with a very generous provision prepared for the journey. The report of this deed added an immense heap to Marcellus's other good works; for a great fame of Marcellus's piety ran through all that region, so that very many people from various cities burned with the desire to see and get to know the man, especially those who had not been used to enduring want before. To all of them this excellent man ministered most kindly, imitating the example of Marcellus of old, so that all said that there was no one more outstanding in piety than this man. All the widows, too, who believed in the Lord ran to him; the weak also counted on most certain help from him; and all the orphans were fed by him. What more shall I say? Marcellus was called the lover of the poor, and his house was called the guest-house of strangers and the poor. Above all, he held to the care of the faith excellently and uniquely, building his heart upon the immovable rock.

So when his fame was very often spread abroad in various places, it crossed even the river Stranga and carried word of him, to be admired, into the region of the Persians, where a certain Manes was staying. When the report of such a man reached him, he turned over in his mind a great deal how he might ensnare him in the nooses of his teaching, hoping that Marcellus could become a champion of his doctrine. For he presumed that he could take hold of the whole province if he could first bring such a man under himself. His mind was torn between two thoughts, whether to go to him himself or first to try to approach him by letter; for he feared that if he came in unexpectedly and suddenly, some harm might arise for him. At last, following the craftier counsel, he decided to write. He summoned one of his disciples, named Turbo, who had been instructed by Addas, handed him the letter, and ordered him to go and deliver it to Marcellus; and he took it and delivered it to the man to whom Manes had ordered, having completed the whole journey in five days.

For he travelled at speed, and in this the aforesaid Turbo endured a great deal of toil and hardship. Whenever, travelling as a stranger, he came in the evening to a lodging (and these inns the most hospitable Marcellus had himself furnished), and was asked by the keepers of the lodgings where he came from, who he was, and by whom he was sent, he would say: "I am a Mesopotamian, but I come from Persia, sent by Manichaeus, the teacher of the Christians." But they did not gladly welcome a name unknown to them, and even thrust Turbo out of the lodgings themselves, without granting him even the chance of water to drink. As he suffered these things one by one every day, and worse than these, from those who were in charge of the stopping-places and lodgings in each place, the stranger Turbo would have met his death had he not at last told them that he was carrying a letter to Marcellus.

When Turbo had said these things, Archelaus was violently inflamed; but Marcellus was not moved, waiting for God to come to the help of his truth. Archelaus, however, was anxious for the people, as a shepherd for his sheep when wolves are laying their snares. So Marcellus presented Turbo with very many gifts and told him to stay in Archelaus's house. On that very day Manes arrived, bringing with him chosen young men and virgins, twenty-two in all; and first of all he looked for Turbo at Marcellus's door, and, not finding him, he went in to greet Marcellus. When Marcellus saw him, he was first astonished at the clothes he wore. For he had a kind of shoe that is commonly called "triple-soled"; a cloak of many colours, of an airy hue, as it were; in his hand he held a very stout staff of ebony wood; he carried a Babylonian book under his left arm; and he had covered his legs with trousers of different colours, one of them red, the other of a leek-green colour; and his face looked like that of an old Persian artisan and war-leader.

Marcellus at once sent for Archelaus, who came sooner than said, and was driven in his mind to attack him because of his very dress and appearance, and most of all because he had gone over privately in his own mind what he had learned from Turbo's report, and had come carefully prepared. But the most prudent Marcellus, setting aside all eagerness for quarrels, decided to hear both, inviting the leading men of the city. From these he chose judges, pagans by religion, four in number, whose names are these: Manippus, most expert in the art of grammar and the discipline of rhetoric; Aegialeus, a very distinguished chief physician, and outstandingly learned in letters; and Claudius and Cleobolus, two brothers, excellent rhetoricians. So a magnificent assembly was held, so that the house of Marcellus, which was immense, was filled with those who had been called together to listen. When those who proposed to speak against each other had taken their places in the sight of all, the chosen judges sat down higher than everyone, and Manes was given the first turn to speak. So when a great silence had fallen, he began in this way.

"I, brothers, am a disciple of Christ and an apostle of Jesus. Because of the great kindness of Marcellus I have hurried here to teach him how one ought to keep the way of divine religion, so that Marcellus, who has now subjected himself to the teaching of Archelaus like one who has surrendered, may not, like dumb animals that lack understanding and do not notice what they are doing, be struck in the end with the loss of his soul, when he no longer has the opportunity to prepare the observance of divine worship. I know and am sure that, once Marcellus has been corrected, all of you too will be able to be saved; for your city hangs suspended on his judgment. If empty presumption is cast off by each one of you, and what I say is heard with love of the truth, you will receive the inheritance of the age to come, the kingdom of heaven. I am the Paraclete who was foretold by Jesus to be sent, to convict the world of sin, of judgment, and of righteousness; just as Paul, who was sent before me, said that he knew in part and prophesied in part, reserving for me what is perfect, so that I might do away with what is in part. Accept, then, this third testimony, that I am an elect apostle of Christ; and if you are willing to receive my words, you will find salvation, but if you are unwilling, eternal fire will consume you. For as Hymenaeus and Alexander were handed over to Satan so that they might learn not to blaspheme, so you all will be handed over to the prince of punishments, because you have laid hands on the Father of Christ, when you say that he is the cause of all evils, the founder of injustice, and the creator of all wickedness, producing sweet and bitter water from the same spring, which cannot by any reasoning happen or be understood.

"Whom ought one to believe? These teachers of yours, who eat meat and enjoy the most abundant luxuries, or the Saviour Jesus Christ, who says, as it is written in the book of the Gospels: 'A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit'? And in another place he affirms that the father of the devil is a liar and a murderer from the beginning; and again that the darkness had a desire to pursue the word that had been brought forth from the light at the beginning; and he speaks of the enemy, the sower of the tares, and of the prince of the age, the god of this world, who blinds the minds of men so that they do not serve the gospel of Christ. Is this a good god, who does not want his own people to be saved? And not to go over many other things and use up the time, delaying the true teaching, let it be enough to have said this, and let me return to my purpose, to show fittingly that the teaching of these men is absurd, and that nothing is to be ascribed to God, the Father of our Lord the Saviour, but that we should take Satan as the cause of our evils; for it must be thrown back on him, since all evils of this kind are produced by him. And the things written in the prophets and the law are likewise to be ascribed to him; for he is the one who then spoke in the prophets, suggesting to them many ignorant notions about God, and temptations and lusts. They also show him to be a devourer of blood and flesh. All these things belong to Satan himself and to his prophets; he wished to transform them into the Father of Christ and to write a few true things, so that through these the rest, which are false, might also be believed.

"So it is good for you to receive nothing at all of everything written up to John, and to embrace only the kingdom of heaven proclaimed from his days. For they made fools of themselves, bringing in ridiculous and childish things, with a few words sketched in outline in the law, not knowing that if good things are mixed with evil ones, even what is good is destroyed by the corruption of the evil. If there is anyone who can show that the law holds to what is right, it ought to be kept; but if I show it to be evil, it must be done away with and cast off, since it contains a ministry of death, formed in letters, which, covering the glory of Moses' face, was destroyed. So it is not without danger for any of you to join the New Testament together with the law and the prophets, as if both belonged to one teacher; for the teaching of our Saviour is renewed from day to day, while the other, growing old and aged, will soon be destroyed. This is plain to those who are able to discern: as the branches or trunk of a tree, when they have grown old, bear no more fruit but are cut off, and the limbs of bodies, when they have become corrupt, are amputated (for the poison of corruption spreads from the limbs through the whole body, and unless the disease receives a remedy by a skilled physician's care, the whole body is infected), so too you who receive the law, unless you recognize whose it is, will lose your souls together with your salvation. For the law and the prophets were until John the Baptist; but from John the law of truth, the law of promises, the law of heaven, a new law, is proclaimed to the human race. And as long as there was no one to show you the truest knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, you had no sin; but now you both see and hear, and you wish to deny it, so that the law which has been destroyed and abandoned … as Paul, who is held most approved among you, says in one of his letters in this way: 'For if I build up again the things that I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.' He says this judging them to be Gentiles, because they were under the elements of the world before the fullness of faith came, believing in the law and the prophets."

The judges said: "If you have anything still clearer, tell us about the manner of your teaching and the heading of your faith." Manes said: "I say that there are two natures, one good and the other evil; and that the one which is good dwells in certain regions, while the evil one is both this world and everything in it, which are placed like prison-houses in the portion of the evil one, as John says: 'The whole world lies in the evil one,' and not in God. Therefore we have said that there are two places, one good and the other evil, which is outside it, so that, having room in these, it could receive into itself the creation of the world. For if we speak of a monarchy of one nature, and say that God fills all things and that there is no place outside him, who will be the receiver of creation? Where will the Gehenna of fire be? Where the outer darkness? Where the weeping? Shall I say, in himself? Far from it; otherwise he too will be tormented in them alike. Do you not think this, all you who have a care for your salvation? I will give you an example, so that you may understand more fully. The world is one vessel. If the substance of God has filled this whole vessel, how can anything more now be placed in that vessel? If it is full, how will it receive what is put in, unless some part is emptied out of the vessel? Or where will what is emptied out go, since there is no place? Where is the earth? Where is heaven? Where is the abyss? Where are the stars? Where are the thrones? Where are the powers? Where are the rulers? Where is the outer darkness? Who is it that laid their foundations, and where? No one can say, unless perhaps he blasphemes. And how could he create creatures, if matter did not exist? For if they were made from things that did not exist, it would follow that these visible creatures are better and full of all virtues. But if there is wickedness in them, and death, and corruption, and whatever is contrary to the good, how can we say that they were made by another nature?

"If you consider how the sons of men are begotten, you will find that God is not the creator of man, but another, who is himself also of an unbegotten nature, who has no founder, no creator, no maker, but his own wickedness alone brought him forth as he is. So the union of you men with your wives comes about from an occasion of this kind: when one of you has been filled with meat and other foods, then the stirring of desire arises in him, and so the fruit of begetting a son is increased, not from any virtue, nor from philosophy, nor from any other understanding, but from fullness of food alone, and lust, and sexual immorality. And how will anyone tell me that our father Adam was made in the image and likeness of God, and is like him who made him? How are all of us who have been begotten from him like him? On the contrary, we have very many forms, bearing the likeness of different faces. How true this is I will show you in parables. Picture to me someone who wants to seal a treasure or something else, and, taking wax or clay, wants to impress the seal that he bears of his own face. If another also impresses the figure of his own face in the same way, will a like seal appear? Not at all, even if you are unwilling to confess what is true. But if we are not alike in the seal, but there is a difference among us, how is it not proved that we are the making of the rulers and of matter? For we too exist with different forms according to their form, likeness, and image. And if you wish to learn what union was made from the beginning, and how it was made, I will tell you."

The judges said: "The question how the first union came about is not to be asked until an account is first given of there being two natural principles. For when it is clear that there are two unbegotten things, then the rest too will win belief, even if some part of them does not win our assent; for since the power of judging has been granted to us, we will say what has become clear to our judgment. But let us give Bishop Archelaus also the opportunity to speak to these things, so that, comparing what has been said by both, we may give a verdict for the truth."

Archelaus said: "Although the intent of my adversary is full of enormous audacity and blasphemy …"

Manes said: "Listen, judges, to what he has said: 'adversary'! So there are two things."

Archelaus said: "This man who is disputing with me today seems to me full of madness rather than good sense, because I said 'adversary.' But your objection has been taken from you in a short word, if indeed you thought from this that I would affirm two natures. You come bringing an enormous doctrine; yet neither of the things you assert stands. For one who is an adversary not by nature but by purpose can become a friend and no longer be an adversary; and so when one of us has come to agreement with the other, both will appear as one and the same. This shows that rational creatures have been given free choice, so that they also admit of change, and therefore cannot be of an unbegotten nature. What do you say, then? Are these two natures unchangeable, or changeable, or is one of them changed?"

But Manes delayed, not finding an answer; for he saw what would be concluded from either side, reasoning: "If I say that they are changed, he will answer me with what is written in the Gospel about the trees; but if I deny that they are changeable, he will of necessity demand the state and cause of the mixture." Meanwhile, after a time, Manes answered: "Both are unchangeable as regards their contraries, but changeable as regards their own properties."

Archelaus said: "You seem to me to be raving and forgetting your own propositions, and not even to recognize the force or the qualities of the words you have learned. For you do not know what change is, nor what the unbegotten is, nor what duality is, nor what is past, or present, or future, as I have noticed from what you have just said. For you affirmed that each nature is unchangeable as regards its contraries, but changeable as regards its own properties. But I say that one who is turned within his own properties does not depart from himself, but is in the same things in which he is always, unchangeable; while one who admits of changeability has come to be outside his own properties and passes into what belongs to another."

The judges said: "Changeability carries the one to whom it happens over into something else; as if we were to say that a Jew wishes to become a Christian, or a Christian wishes to be a pagan: this is the kind and cause of changeability. But if a pagan remains in all his own ways, offering sacrifices to his gods and serving in the temples according to custom, so long as he persists in his own ways and makes progress in them, can he be said to have been changed? What do you say, then? Do they admit of change or not?"

And while Manes delayed, Archelaus said: "If he says that both natures are unchangeable, what is there to prevent our thinking that they are one and the same? For if they are unchangeable, there is no distinction between these natures, which are alike unchangeable and alike unbegotten, and neither of them is recognized as good or evil. But if they are changeable, then plainly it can come about that the good becomes evil and the evil good. And if this can come about, why should we not say that there is one unbegotten, which is the more worthy thing to understand, according to the reason of truth? For we ought to consider how that evil one was evil from the beginning, or against whom he exercised his wickedness before the founding of the world. When heaven did not yet exist and the earth did not yet stand, when there was no man and no animal, against whom did he exercise wickedness? Whom did he oppress unjustly? Whom did he rob and kill? But if you say that he was evil to his own, then without doubt he is shown to be of a good nature. And if all of them too are evil, how can Satan cast out Satan? But, hemmed in, you turn your argument so as to say that the good suffered violence from the evil. Yet not even this can you say without danger, that you should affirm the light to have been conquered; for what is conquered is near to destruction. For what does the divine word say? 'Who can enter the house of a strong man and plunder his goods, unless he is stronger than he?' But if you say that he became evil to men, and showed the marks of his wickedness from that time, then before this he was good, and admits of changeability from the fact that the creation of man is found to have been the cause of wickedness. But finally let him say what evil is, so that he may not perhaps be defending or building up a mere name. And if it is not the name of evil but a substance, let him set out for us the fruits of this wickedness and malice, since the nature of a tree is never known without its fruit."

Manes said: "Let it first be agreed by you that there is another root of wickedness, which God did not plant, and then I will tell you its fruits."

Archelaus said: "The reason of truth does not require this; for I will not agree with you that there is a root of that evil tree, of whose fruits no one has ever tasted. Just as, if someone wishes to buy something, he does not pay the money unless he first learns by tasting whether the produce is dry or juicy, so I will not agree with you that there is an evil and very bad tree unless the quality of its fruits is first made plain; for it is written that a tree is known by its fruits. Tell us, then, Manes, what fruit the tree that is called evil bears, or of what nature it is, what power it has, so that we may believe you that the root of that tree is also such."

Manes said: "The root is evil, and the tree very bad, and its growth is not from God; and its fruits are sexual immorality, adulteries, murders, greed, and all the evil deeds of that evil root."

Archelaus said: "So that we may believe you that these are the fruits of that evil root, give us a taste of them; for you have declared that the substance of this tree, whose fruits are brought forth according to its likeness, is unbegotten."

Manes said: "This very injustice that is in men, and greed, bear witness to the taste of that evil root."

Archelaus said: "So, as you have said, the wicked deeds done by men are the fruits of this tree."

Manes said: "Exactly so."

Archelaus said: "If these are fruits, that is, the evil deeds of men, then men themselves will hold the place of the root and the tree; for you have declared that they bear fruit of this kind."

Manes said: "So I say."

Archelaus said: "You say badly 'so I say'; for you do not say so; otherwise, when men stop sinning, the tree of wickedness will appear fruitless."

Manes said: "What you say is impossible; for if one stops, or another, or several, others will still do it."

Archelaus said: "If it is at all possible for one, and another, and several, as you say, not to sin, it is possible for all to do this as well; for all men are of one maker and of one lump. And so as not to follow you idly through your absurdities, I will shut out by definite rulings what you have put forward in disorder. Do you say that the fruits of the evil root and the evil tree are the deeds of men, that is, sexual immorality, adulteries, perjuries, murders, and the rest like them?"

Manes said: "Yes."

Archelaus said: "Then if it should happen that the human race perishes from the face of the earth, so that they can no longer sin, the substance of this tree will also perish, bearing no more fruit."

Manes said: "And when will what you say happen?"

Archelaus said: "Since I do not know what is to come, for I am a man, I will still not leave this argument undiscussed. What do you say about the human race: is it unbegotten or made?"

Manes said: "It is made."

Archelaus said: "If man is made, who is the father of adultery and sexual immorality and the rest of such things, whose fruit this is? Before man was made, who was there to commit sexual immorality or adultery or murder?"

Manes said: "But since man was formed by the evil nature, it is plain that he himself is the fruit, whether he sins or does not sin; so the name and race of men is once for all of this kind, whether he does just things or unjust."

Archelaus said: "Let us mention this point too. If, as you say, the evil one made man, why does he exercise his wickedness against him?"