Anathematismi Et Fidei Catholicae Professio

At the same time. Prosper, converted from the Manichaeans. The Anathematisms and Profession of the Catholic Faith of Prosper. The chapters of Saint Augustine which ought to be read aloud in a public voice and subscribed by one's own hand, concerning those of whom there is suspicion that they are Manichaeans. I. Whoever believes that there are two unbegotten natures existing from different principles, one good, which is God, and the other evil, which God did not create, mutually opposing each other, let him be anathema. (In the codex of Gervasius, reading: "having their own princes, and their own evils which God did not create, let him be anathema.") II. Whoever believes that two natures waged war among themselves, and that a part of the nature of God in that same war was mixed with the princes of darkness and with all races belonging to the evil nature, and is held bound, oppressed, and polluted by them, through which he also makes it believed that the nature of God is mutable and capable of being polluted, let him be anathema. III. Whoever believes that a part of God is held bound and polluted in demons, and in all kinds of animals and fruits (or shrubs), and is released and purified through the foods of the Manichaean elect, so that it is believed that a polluted part of God is held in cucumbers, in melons, and in radishes, and in leeks, and in whatever most worthless little plants (or herbs), and that it is assisted when these are eaten by the Manichaean elect, let him be anathema.

IV. Whoever believes that the first man (who is called Adam) was not made by God, but was born from the princes of darkness, so that the part of God which was held captive in their members might be held more copiously and abundantly in him, let him be anathema. V. Whoever believes that man was created in such a way that the male and female princes of darkness had intercourse, and gave their offspring to the greater prince of darkness, and that he devoured them all, and had intercourse with his own wife, and thus from her begat Atlas, whom they blasphemously call the father of Adam, binding in him the great part of God which had been bound in all the offspring of the princes of darkness that they gave him to devour, let him be anathema. VI. Whoever believes that the princes of darkness are bound in the heaven like a sphere, having within themselves the vital substance (that is, the part of God) bound up in straits and anguish, and that it is freed from their members when the blessed father, who has the shining ships as resting places and habitations (that is, the sun and moon), transforms his powers into beautiful women, whom he sets before the male princes of darkness to be desired, and into beautiful men, whom he sets before the female princes of darkness to be desired, so that through that very desire the vital substance (that is, the part of God) is released from them and, freed from their members, is purified, let him be anathema.

VII. Whoever believes that a part of God, which could not be freed and purified from the admixture (commixture) of the race of darkness, is damned and affixed (affixed) forever to a horrible globe, in which globe the race of darkness is enclosed, let him be anathema. VIII. Whoever believes that the law which was given through Moses was not given by the good and true God, and that the prophets who were among the people of Israel and are held in the canon of the divine Scriptures in the Catholic Church did not speak by the Spirit of the good and true God, let him be anathema. IX. Whoever believes that the Son of God, Jesus Christ, did not have true flesh, nor was born from the seed of David from the Virgin Mary, nor had a true body, nor suffered a true death of the flesh, nor rose from the dead, but was only a spirit (without flesh), and that he wished to appear in flesh in such a way that flesh was thought to be there which was not; and in this way contradicts the Gospel, with the Lord himself saying: “See my hands and my feet: touch and see, because a spirit has no bones and flesh, as you see me to have” (Luke 24). Therefore, whoever confesses Christ as true God in such a way that he also denies him to be fully man, let him be anathema.

X. Whoever believes that the coming of the Holy Spirit Paraclete, whom the Lord in the Gospel promises will come to the apostles, was not immediately fulfilled after the Lord’s ascension on the day of Pentecost, but believes that it came many years later in Mani or in his disciple Adimantus, let him be anathema. XI. Whoever denies that this flesh which we bear, that is, human bodies, will rise again, let him be anathema. XII. Whoever believes that human souls are transferred again into other bodies or animals, let him be anathema. XIII. Whoever says that the sun and moon are celestial ships for transporting souls or the substance of God, and ascribes to them or to this visible light any divinity, and does not hold them as the rest of creation made by the Lord of heaven and earth for human service, let him be anathema. XIV. Whoever believes that all flesh of quadrupeds, serpents, birds, and fish, or of all things that exist in the world, was not created by the true God but by the princes of darkness, let him be anathema.

XV. Whoever does not detest but venerates the symbol or prayer of the Manichaeans, and wishes either to recall it or to utter it with his mouth, let him be anathema. XVI. Whoever believes that human souls are from the substance of God, and that human bodies are either made or are being made by the prince of darkness, let him be anathema. XVII. Whoever believes that the devil was not made by God as a good angel, and that he did not become the devil by his own will through pride, falling, and asserts that he was not created by God among the other angels, but was always coeternal with God, let him be anathema. XVIII. Whoever believes that Manes, or Manichaeus, who preached all the things written above that are worthy of anathema and condemnation, had the Holy Spirit as Paraclete, since the Spirit of truth could not teach all those things, but the spirit of falsehood could, let him be anathema. XIX. Anathema also to Mani himself, or Manichaeus, who taught and wrote down all the above-mentioned impieties and other sacrilegious and damnable fables, and tried to persuade wretched people to believe them, intent upon seducing spirits and the teachings of demons and liars.

XX. Anathema to Adimantus, and to all his disciples and followers; and, as has already been said, whoever believes that the Paraclete Spirit has come into him, let him be anathema. XXI. Also to all the authors of the aforementioned perversity, and to their doctrine or law, or to all their secrets, and to their prayers and sacrileges contrary to the Catholic faith, and to all their scriptures which are held outside the canon of the Church, which right faith does not accept, let there be anathema. ABJURATION AND PROFESSION OF FAITH OF PROSPER. In the name of Christ, I, Prosper, have read this document of the anathema of the Manichaeans, and, pronouncing anathema to all the above-written errors, I have subscribed with my own hand, and, having repudiated all their impieties, with the fullest faith I have said and do say anathema to their doctrines and traditions; and I promise and pledge, under divine attestation, that I believe and follow in all things whatever the Catholic Church confesses. Noted on the 13th day before the Kalends of December, under the consulship of Olybrius the Younger, most illustrious man (in the year of Christ 526).

Note of Jacobus Sirmond, S.J. In the codex of the Church of Lyons, which supplied these chapters to us, they are subjoined to the Council of Carpentras: but the order of the consuls requires that they precede. For Olybrius held the consulship in the year of Christ, Mavortius in the following year. Moreover, these are very similar, except that fewer are covered in the appendix of St. Augustine, volume X, under this title: “Memorandum of the Blessed Augustine to the Church (destined to the universal Church) concerning the caution with which Manichaeans, if they have been converted, ought to be received.” Observation of Philippe Labbé, S.J. In an old codex, which is in the library of the College of Gervais in Paris, and is said to have been the book of the priory of St. Salvius, bishop and martyr, at Valenciennes in the march of France, written in the time of Prior Hugh, after the book of St. Augustine on Heresies to Quodvultdeus the bishop, there follow immediately some things which may shed light on the preceding little work.

Likewise, Augustine, Bishop of the Catholic Church. I have already anathematized Manichaeus, and his doctrine, and the spirit that through him spoke such abominable blasphemies, because that spirit was a seducer, not of truth, but of nefarious error; and now I anathematize the aforementioned Manichaeus and the spirit of his error. I, Felix, who had believed Manichaeus, now anathematize him and his doctrine and the seductive spirit that was in him, which said that God the Father mixed his own nature with the race of darkness, and foully liberated it, so that his powers transform themselves into females against male demons, and afterwards fix the remnants of his own part in the eternal stain of darkness. All these and the other blasphemies of Manichaeus I anathematize. I, a convert, one of the Manichaeans, have written this, because if I depart before the acts are subscribed, I am to be regarded as if I had not anathematized Manichaeus.

Felix, converted from the Manichaeans, said under the testimony of God that I confess all things truly, of which I know that there are Manichaeans or Manichaean women in the Caesarean regions: Mary and Lampadia, wife of Mercurius the silversmith, with whom we also prayed together at the home of the Elect Eucharis; Caesaria and her daughter Lucilla; Candidus, who dwells at Tipasa; Victorina; the Spanish woman; Simplicianus, father of Antoninus; and Paul and his sister, who were at Hippo, whom I also knew through Mary and Lampadia to be Manichaean women. This only I know. But if anything else is found that I know beyond what I have said, I myself confess myself guilty. COMMONITORY OF SAINT AUGUSTINE, BISHOP, TO THE MANICHAEAN PRESBYTER. You equivocate without cause, since it is plainly evident what sort you are. The brothers who spoke with you have informed me. It is well that you do not fear death, but you ought to fear that death which you bring upon yourself by blaspheming God in such a way, and because you understand that visible death, which all men know, is the separation of mind from body, that is not a great thing to understand. But as for what you add about your own, that it is the separation of good from evil: if the mind is good, and the body evil, the one who mixed them is not good. You say that the good God mixed them. Therefore, either he is evil, or he feared evil. Why do you boast that you do not fear man, when you fashion for yourself a God who feared the darkness, so that he mixed good and evil?

But do not be puffed up in spirit, as you have written, because we make you great by wanting to hinder your poisons, lest the pestilence creep to men. For the apostle does not make great those whom he calls dogs when he says: Beware of dogs; nor did he make great those whose speech he said creeps like a cancer. Therefore I declare to you in the name of Christ, that if you are prepared to solve the question in which your predecessor Fortunatus failed, and from which he went away in such a way that he would not return unless, by the discussion held with the brothers, he found something he could reply against, then dispute with the brothers. But if you are not prepared for this, depart from here and do not pervert the ways of the Lord and ensnare and infect weak souls with poisons, lest, with the helping right hand of our Lord, you be put to shame in a way you did not expect. A REMINDER FROM SAINT AUGUSTINE, BISHOP OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, ON HOW TO ACT WITH MANICHAEANS WHO ARE CONVERTED, AND THOSE WHO REPENT OF THIS ABOMINABLE ERROR.

When they have anathematized the same heresy of the Manichaeans according to the form written below, and each one of them has given a libellus of his confession and penance, and of their anathema, seeking in the church either the place of a catechumen or of a penitent, if his libellus has pleased the bishop, and when he has received it, let him give him a letter with the day and the consul, so that he may suffer no trouble from the earlier time, either from the public laws or from ecclesiastical discipline. And after that day, if he appears a Manichaean by any indications, let him feel the severity of justice, which is to be applied to such matters, that is, that Christians abstain from his company, or friendship, or any association whatsoever, according to apostolic discipline (authority). Moreover, let those who have received letters from the bishop be commended to their neighboring or cohabiting religious Catholics, whether clerics or laity, through whose care for them they may frequent the hearing of the word of God, and by whose testimony they may become known. And let them not easily be admitted to baptism if they are catechumens, nor to reconciliation if they have received the place of penance, unless the danger of death is pressing, or if the bishops have known them to be tested for some time through the testimony of those to whom they were commended.

Therefore, the form according to which those who are being corrected must anathematize this heresy is as follows. I. Whoever believes there are two natures, etc., which were set forth a little earlier, with some omissions, as we have briefly noted in the article of the eleventh section. LIKEWISE, THE FORM OF THE LETTER WHICH THE BISHOP GIVES TO THE CONVERTS IS THIS. Since you repent of having been a hearer of the Manichaeans, as you yourself have confessed, pronouncing anathema against the blasphemies and the most impious and most foul heresy of theirs, from which only the Catholic faith has saved you, you shall have this letter against those who might think to cast up to you the error of past time, insofar as it pertains to that nefarious sect, which letter was written on that day and in that consulship. As for the Elect of the Manichaeans who say they are converting to the Catholic faith, even if they themselves have anathematized the same heresy according to the above form, letters are not to be given to them easily; but they ought to be with the servants of God, whether clerics or laity, in a monastery or in a hospice, until they appear to have been completely freed from that superstition: and then either they are to be baptized, if they have not been baptized, or reconciled, if they have received a place for penance, lest, having quickly received letters, they abandon the places in which they had been commended.

Here ends the memorandum of Bishop Augustine concerning the heresy of the Manichaeans, under the curse of anathema.