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The Manichces. Sect. I. 285
other Manichees' were banished into some island by the
Roman proconsul ; but it was not long' before they were
released. Tillemont" supposeth this to have happened in
the year 38G.
I cannot tell how it came to pass, that in Fabricius it is
said,'' Augustine heard Faustus nine years; when Augustine,
in the place referred to, and elseAvhere, assures us, that it was
not till the ninth year of his being in the Manichaean sentiments
that Faustus came to Carthage.
Faustus is spoken of by' Cave as flourishing at the year
400; but that is placing him too late. Augustine forsook
the Manichees before he was quite thirty years of age ; he
became acquainted with Faustus in his twenty-eighth or
twenty-ninth year: at which time he speaks of Faustus as
a bishop, and very famous in his party. If Augustine was
born in 354, Faustus must have come to Carthage, and their
acquaintance must have begun in 382 or'' 383. Augustine's
book against Faustus seems not to have been written till
about the year 400; but the book of Faustus might be
written a good while before, and he himself dead ; as indeed
I suspect he was, from Augustine's manner of writing' at
the beginning" of his work, and elsewhere. However, I
willingly place Faustus at the year 384 ; though, according
to the preceding argument, that is rather too late.
7. Hierax is reckoned among- Manichaean writers by*"
Fabricius and Beausobre. This last writer speaks of him
in this manner: ' he" was an Egyptian, a native of Leon-
' topolis, M'ell skilled in the learning of the Greeks and
' Egyptians: he was not one of those extravagant Manichees
' that reviled the law and the prophets ;' and a great deal
more, which I need not transcribe.
But, with submission, I see no reason to call Hierax, or
Hieracas, a Manichee : that supposition depends upon the
authority" of Photius, and Peter of Sicily, and the Anathemas,
or Form of abjuring Manichfeism, before taken notice
' Faustus autera, convictus vel confessus quod ManichcBus esset, cum aliis
nonnullis secum ad judicium proconsulare perductis,— in insulam relegafus
est. Contr. Faust 1. 5. c. 8. ^ St. Augustin. Art. 18. Mem. T. 13. p. 43.
'' et novem annos a se auditum testatur. Conf. 1. 5. c. 6. Fabric. Bib.
Gr. T. V. ' p. 288. Hist. Lit. T. i. p. 344.
^ Nam annum aetatis vica«imum nonum egit Carthagine cum Fausto. Libro
enim 6 Confessionum cap. xi. scribit : Et ecce jam tricenariam aetatem gerebam.—Erat
tunc annus Christi tricentesimus octogesimus tertius. Pagi in Baron.
Ann. 377. n. iii. ' Faustus quidem fuit gente Afer.—Noveram ipse
homincm, quemadmodum cum commemoravi in libris Confessionem mearum.
Contr. Faust. 1. i. c. 1. " B