Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Archelaus/Acts of Disputation/Chapter XXXVI

by Archelaus

36. None of your party,^[1] O Manes, will you make a Galatian; neither will you in this fashion divert us^[2] from the faith of Christ. Yea, even although you were to work signs and wonders, although you were to raise the dead, although you were to present to us the very image of Paul himself, you would remain accursed still.^[3] For we have been instructed beforehand with regard to you: we have been both warned and armed against you by the Holy Scriptures. You are a vessel of Antichrist; and no vessel of honour, in sooth, but a mean and base one, used by him as any barbarian or tyrant may do, who, in attempting to make an inroad on a people living under the righteousness of the laws,^[4] sends some select vessel on beforehand, as it were destined to death, with the view of finding out the exact magnitude and character of the strength possessed by the legitimate king and his nation: for the man is too much afraid to make the inroad himself wholly at unawares, and he also lacks the daring to despatch any person belonging to his own immediate circle on such a task, through fear that he may sustain some harm. And so it is that your king, Antichrist, has despatched you in a similar character, and as it were destined to death, to us who are a people placed under the administration of the good and holy King. And this I do not say inconsiderately or without due inquiry; but from the fact that I see you perform no miracle, I hold myself entitled to entertain such sentiments concerning you. For we are given to understand beforehand that the devil himself is to be transformed into an angel of light, and that his servants are to make their appearance in similar guise, and that they are to work signs and wonders, insomuch that, if it were possible, the very elect should be deceived.^[5] But who, pray, are you then, to whose lot no such position of kinship has been assigned by your father Satan?^[6] For whom have you raised from the dead? What issue of blood do you ever staunch? What^[7] eyes of the blind do you ever anoint with clay, and thus cause them to have vision? When do you ever refresh a hungering multitude with a few loaves? Where do you ever walk upon the water, or who of those who dwell in Jerusalem has ever seen you? O Persian barbarian, you have never been able to have a knowledge of the language of the Greeks, or of the Egyptians, or of the Romans, or of any other nation; but the Chaldean tongue alone has been known to you, which verily is not a language prevalent among any great number of people,^[8] and you are not capable of understanding any one of another nationality when he speaks. Not thus is it with the Holy Spirit: God forbid; but He divides to all, and knows all kinds of tongues, and has understanding of all things, and is made all things to all men, so that the very thoughts of the heart cannot escape His cognizance. For what says the Scripture? “That every man heard the apostles speak in his own language through the Spirit, the Paraclete.”^[9] But why should I say more on this subject?^[10] Barbarian^[11] priest and crafty coadjutor of Mithras, you will only be a worshipper of the sun-god Mithras, who is the illuminator of places of mystic import, as you opine, and the self-conscious deity;^[12] that is, you will sport as his worshippers do, and you will celebrate, though with less elegance as it were, his mysteries.^[13] But why should I take all this so indignantly? Is it not accordant with all that is fitting, that you should multiply yourself like the tares, until that same mighty father of yours comes, raising the dead, as he will profess to do, and persecuting almost to hell itself all those who refuse to yield to his bidding, keeping multitudes in check by that terror of arrogance in which he entrenches himself, and employing threatenings against others, and making sport of them by the changing of his countenance and his deceitful dealing?^[14] And yet beyond that he shall proceed no further; for his folly shall be made manifest to all men, as was the case with Jamnes and Mambres.^[15] The judges said: As we have heard now from you, as Paul himself also seems to tell us, and, further, as we have learned likewise from the earlier account given in the Gospel, an introduction to preaching, or teaching, or evangelizing, or prophesying, is not, in this life at least, held out on the same terms to any person in times subsequent to the apostle’s:^[16] and if the opposite appears ever to be the case, the person can only be held to be a false prophet or a false Christ. Now, since you have alleged that the Paraclete was in Paul, and that He attested all things in him, how is it that Paul himself said, “We know in part, and we prophesy in part; but when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away?”^[17] What other one did he look for, when he uttered these words? For if he professes himself to be looking for some perfect one, and if some one must needs come, show us who it is of whom he speaks; lest that word of his perchance appear to carry us back to this man, Manes, or to him who has sent him, that is to say, Satan, according to your affirmation. But if you admit that that which is perfect is yet to come, then this excludes Satan; and if you look for the coming of Satan, then that excludes the perfect.

Footnotes

1. The text gives “ex vobis.” But perhaps we should read “ex nobis” = none of us.
2. The Codex Casinensis has “Galatam facies vicit, o nostras feras”, for which we adopt the correction, “Galatam facies, nec ita nos.”
3. O Satan! The Codex Casinensis gives “anathema esse ana,” which may be an error, either for “anathema es, Satana,” or for “anathema es et maranatha.” [“O Satan” is less probable.]
4. The text is legum; for which regum, kings, is also suggested.
5. Matt. xxiv. 24.
6. The text gives, “qui neque necessarium aliquem locum sortitus es,” etc. Routh proposes “necessarii.” The sense seems to be that Manes had nothing to prove any connection between him and Christ.
7. Reading “quos luto,” etc., for the “quod luto” of the codex.
8. [Note, against Canon Farrar and moderns, the persuasion of antiquity as to the miraculous gift of tongues; the charismata of others, also, besides the Apostles.] The text is, “quæ ne in numerum quidem aliquem ducitur.”
9. Acts ii. 6.
10. The text gives “Quid dicabo,” which may stand for “quid dicam;” or perhaps the translator intends to use “dicare” in the sense of urge.
11. Reading barbare, for which the text offers barba.
12. Conscium. [For Mithras, see vol. iii. p. 475.]
13. In this sentence the sense is somewhat obscure, in consequence of the corruptions of the text in the codex. We adopt the emendations “locorum mysticorum,” for mysteriorum, and “apud eos ludes” for ludis. In the end of the clause Migne gives, as in the translation, “et tanquam minus elegans,” etc. But Routh reads mimus = and like an elegant pantomimist, etc.
14. The Codex Casinensis gives the sentence thus: “…adveniat? suscitans mortuos? pene usque ad gehennam omnes persequens, qui si ut obtemperare noluerit, plurimos deterrens arrogantiæ metu, Quod est ipse circumdatus, aliis adhibet minas vultus sui conversione circumdatio ludificat.” The emendation adopted by Migne and Routh consist in removing these two interrogative marks, and in reading qui sibi for qui si ut, noluerint for noluerit, quo est for Quod est, adhibens for adhibet, and et circumductione ludificans for the last two words.
15. 2 Tim. iii. 8, 9.
16. The sense is again obscure throughout this sentence, owing to the state of the text. The codex gives us this clause, “nulli alio atque posterum,” etc., for which “nulli alii æque in posterum” is proposed.
17. 1 Cor. xiii. 9, 10.