Acts of Archelaus (Latin version)

Contents

Reading pages: 1–19 · 20–29 · 30–37 · 38–45 · 46–54 · 55–64 · 65–68

1. 1Marcellus, a devout and generous citizen of Carchar, pays the ransom of 7,700 captives brought to Bishop Archelaus.
2. 2The captive Cortynius tells Marcellus how his people were attacked by soldiers during their annual prayer for rain and driven cruelly to Carchar.
3. 3Marcellus feeds and heals the captives, buries the dead, sends everyone home, and becomes famous throughout the region for his charity.
4. 4Manes hears of Marcellus and sends Turbo, a disciple of Addas, with a letter; Turbo is turned away at every inn until he mentions Marcellus.
5. 14Manes arrives at Carchar in strange Persian dress; Marcellus convenes a public debate between him and Archelaus before four pagan judges.
6. 15Manes opens the debate: he claims to be the Paraclete promised by Jesus and argues that the law and the prophets come from Satan, not from the Father of Christ.
7. 16Manes sets out his doctrine of two natures and two places and argues from the variety of human faces that man was made by the rulers and matter, not by God.
8. 17Archelaus begins his reply; when Manes seizes on the word "adversary," Archelaus argues that an adversary by choice can become a friend, and presses Manes on whether his two natures can change.
9. 18The judges define change; Archelaus argues that two unchangeable natures could not be told apart, while changeable ones imply a single unbegotten principle, and demands to know against whom evil acted before creation.
10. 19Archelaus presses Manes on the fruits of the evil tree: if they are human sins, men would be the tree, and evil could cease when men stop sinning or perish.
11. 20Manes says the evil one was always evil; Archelaus argues that the serpent became evil only after man, that the law given to man is God's, and that man could not be the work of a witless evil principle.
12. 21Archelaus argues from the parables of the new wine and the new patch that soul and body are made by one God and work in harmony.
13. 22Archelaus compares body and soul to a temple and its statue and to a ship and its rudder, to show that both have one maker.
14. 23The judges rule that body and soul have one maker; Archelaus argues that the Lord's Prayer is addressed to the Father in heaven, not to the maker Manes posits.
15. 24Archelaus argues from Jesus' woe on the Pharisees that the maker of the outside also made the inside, and that God confined to a fixed place would be less than human rulers.
16. 25The judges argue that light fills the world; Archelaus explains darkness as the shadow cast by created bodies, chiefly the earth, so that it is not unbegotten.
17. 26The judges award the point to Archelaus; he presses Manes to say who built the wall dividing the kingdoms of light and darkness, and what the other was doing meanwhile.
18. 27Manes says the good God set the firmament as a wall; Archelaus argues that a walled God is weak, and that whoever threw the wall down, God or the evil one, Manes's system fails.
19. 28Manes tells a parable of a shepherd who traps a lion with a kid thrown into a pit; Archelaus argues that this makes God betray a soul and use tricks out of weakness.
20. 29The judges reject Manes's parable: a shepherd who hands his lamb to the lion could not justly punish it, and they award the point to Archelaus.
21. 30Archelaus turns from the two natures to Manes's claim to be the Paraclete, and tells a parable of a man who comes to a sealed storehouse without keys or seals and is driven off as a thief.
22. 31Archelaus tells a parable of a rich man's steward and his will, and argues that a Paraclete who came three hundred years late, under Probus, would make Jesus a liar.
23. 32Manes retorts that the same complaint would hold for all who lived before Christ; Archelaus answers that the righteous before Moses kept the law written in their hearts, and that the written law was given in mercy.
24. 33Manes cites John 8:44 and "death reigned from Adam to Moses" for his two principles; Archelaus answers that a death that began in time and will be swallowed up is not unbegotten.
25. 34Archelaus explains why the law is called a ministry of death: it limited death's reign to transgressors, and Christ came to avenge Moses and the righteous when death broke that covenant.
26. 35Archelaus explains "the curse of the law" by the sabbath and the law's strict penalties, which Christ relieved by forgiveness, and "the power of sin" by the golden calf.
27. 36Archelaus explains the devil as a fallen angel who chose evil, argues that every creature has free choice, and turns Manes's own belief in judgment against his view of the soul as part of God.
28. 37Archelaus explains who is "the father of the devil" in John 8:44: those who conceive and bring forth his wickedness, first the serpent, then Cain, and later Judas.
29. 38Archelaus distinguishes senses of "father," argues that Christ did not delay in sending the Paraclete but sent him at once to the apostles and above all to Paul, and cites Paul's letters as his testament.
30. 39Archelaus cites Paul and Jesus' warnings against false apostles and false Christs to show that Manes, coming centuries later without any sign or link to the apostles, is one of them.
31. 40Archelaus denounces Manes as a forerunner of Antichrist who works no miracles and knows only Chaldean; the judges then ask him whom Paul was awaiting when he spoke of "what is perfect."
32. 41Archelaus argues that the "perfect" Paul awaited is Christ at his coming in glory, when prophecy, tongues, and knowledge will be done away, and that Manes has done away nothing.
33. 42Archelaus contrasts Manes with earlier heretics who never claimed to be the Paraclete, and argues from Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and the Last Judgment that Manes cannot be the perfect one to come.
34. 43The crowd drives Manes away; the narrator notes that the debate was written down at Marcellus's wish; Turbo is ordained deacon, and Manes flees to the village of Diodorus, whose presbyter writes to Archelaus.
35. 44Diodorus writes to Archelaus that Manes is teaching that the law of Moses comes from the evil prince, and lists the contrasts Manes draws between the law and the Gospel.
36. 45Diodorus reports Manes's use of 2 Corinthians 3, Galatians, and Romans against the law, and asks Archelaus to answer.
37. 46Archelaus replies to Diodorus that the Old and New Testaments are one fabric, and that Moses was a tutor and foster-father who handed God's people over to Christ, as the parable of the rich man shows.
38. 47Archelaus answers Manes's contrasts: Jesus' teaching on retaliation advances from justice to goodness, the spoiling of Egypt was just wages, and Jesus too accepts gifts from the rich.
39. 48Archelaus argues that Christ, Lord of the sabbath, did not destroy it, and that he fulfilled circumcision by circumcision of the heart, which alone saves, while not condemning the fleshly rite.
40. 49Archelaus explains the "ministry of death" and the veil of Moses: the lesser glory of Moses is not rejected, as a lamp is not despised at sunrise, and the veil lies over the hearts of those who read Moses without turning to Christ.
41. 50Archelaus interprets the veil as the prophecy of Gen 49:10 and Deut 18:15, fulfilled in Christ, and then lists parallels between Moses and Jesus; the letter to Diodorus closes.
42. 52Using Archelaus's letter, Diodorus argues against Manes that two unbegotten principles would need two old or two new testaments, and that Jannes and Mambres, not Moses, resisted the truth.
43. 53Archelaus arrives at Diodorus's village as Manes challenges Diodorus, recalls Manes's failure with Marcellus, and invites him to choose the question.
44. 54Manes, claiming the patience of an apostle, spars with Archelaus over who should debate, and denies that Christ was born of Mary, citing sayings that he "came" and was "sent."
45. 55Manes argues from "Who is my mother?" and Peter's confession that Jesus had no human mother or brothers, so that Mary cannot be his mother.
46. 56Archelaus answers that Jesus did not rebuke the messenger but simply would not leave his work of teaching and healing for his family, as he taught his disciples to put God first.
47. 57Archelaus contrasts Jesus' sharp rebuke of Peter and of the confessing demons with his gentle answer to the messenger, explaining the answer by a parable of a king interrupted in battle.
48. 58Archelaus argues that denying Christ's birth from Mary destroys his passion, resurrection, the resurrection of the dead, and the judgment, and asks Manes on whom the Spirit descended at the baptism.
49. 59Manes argues that the Son needed no mother or baptism, and that if Jesus was a real man the dove must be a real dove; Archelaus answers that a spirit dwells in a true man, as Manes himself claimed of the Paraclete.
50. 60Archelaus argues that a Christ who was man only in appearance could not have been seized, have suffered, or been baptized, and that he was baptized not for his own sin but to bear the Spirit in the body born of Mary.
51. 61The crowds praise Archelaus; he promises to tell, on the word of Manes's former companion Sisinnius, who Manes is, and recalls the apostolic order of the church.
52. 62Archelaus traces Manes's teaching to Scythianus, a Saracen who learned the wisdom of Egypt, had four books written, and died in Judea, leaving his disciple Terebinthus.
53. 63Terebinthus flees with Scythianus's books to Babylonia, calls himself Buddas, claims a virgin birth, and is accused of lying by Parcus and Labdacus.
54. 64Archelaus continues: a widow inherits Scythianus's books and leaves them to her freed slave Corbicius, who renames himself Manes, rewrites the books, sends out disciples, and is imprisoned after failing to cure the king's son.
55. 65Archelaus continues: in prison Manes has his disciples buy the Christian Scriptures, recasts his teaching with Christ's name and the Paraclete, escapes to the fortress of Arabion, and is still sought by the Persian king.
56. 66Manes flees again, is later captured and executed by the Persian king, and Archelaus adds the account of his death to the record of the disputation.
57. 67Archelaus argues that Manes did not invent his dualism but took it over, and quotes the thirteenth book of Basilides's treatises on light and darkness as an earlier witness to it.
58. 68Archelaus closes by tracing Manes's teaching through Basilides to Scythianus; the work ends with Hegemonius's signature and a short appended catalogue of heresies down to the Apollinarians, Novatians, Montenses, and Luciferians.