The works of Nathaniel Lardner - The Christian Researcher - Home

294 Credibility of the Gospel History.
denoting the higher order so often found in Augustine, is
also used in the like manner'' by Gregory Nazianzen ; and
that' some Manichees, who were only in the rank of auditors,
appear to have practised much strictness and abstemiousness,
resembling that required of their elect.
Beausobre thinks that'' the auditors were so called, because
they heard in the church whilst others taught and
instructed.
I do not remember to have seen in him, or any one else, a
reason assigned for the use of the word elect, denoting all
those of the sect which were not auditors ; but perhaps they
borrowed it from those texts of the gospels and epistles
where the word is used for christians, or God's peculiar
people ; as Matt. xxiv. 22, 24, 31 ; Luke xviii. 7 ; Rom. viii.
33; Col. iii, 12, and other places: Augustine' has a passage
which may lead us to this thought.
Photius, in his first book against the Paulicians, usually
reckoned a branch of the Manichees, relates a singularity
of theirs: they''^ reduced all their sect, or the professors of
their principles, to six churches; the first was called Macedonia,
the second Achaia, the third was called the church
of the Philippians, the fourth that of the Laodiceans, the
fifth that of the Ephesians, the sixth that of the Colossians ;
themselv^es" they called christians; the catholics they named
Romans, as'' if they had been mere heathens. This fancy of
reducing" their sect to six churches is also taken notice of
by P Peter of Sicily, and the author of The Form of abjuring
Manichgeism, as it is in*! Cotelerius, and"^ Tollius.
Moreover, it was a common thing among them, their
leaders especially, to change the name by which they were
first called for that of some apostolical man. Photius'
produced several instances : Simeon, who changed his name
''
ojffTTfQ 01 Mavty^aioi roig iKKsKroiQ XsyofXivoiQ, oXjjv rrjv vooov avroiQ
fKKoXvnTovTtQ. Gfeg. N. Or. 52. p. 746. C.
' Nam (juiJam vester auditor, in ilia memorabili abstinentia nihilo electis
cedens. De M. Manich. c. 20. n. 74. in. ^ T. 2. p. 763.
' Electi c|uidem Dei sunt omnes sancti, et habemus hoc in scripluris : sed
usurparimt sibi illud nomen, et quasi i'amiliarius sibi applicaverunt, ut tanquam
proprie jam Electi appellentur. Enarr. in Ps. 140. n. 10.
'" 'E| ^£ avT(t)v avoficXoysmv (KK\i]mac, wc '''V'" F^ MoKtSoviav koKhsiv,
K. \. Phot. 1. i. cap. V. in. " Km thq luv aXriQwQ ovrag
XpiziavyQ 'P(jj[icitHg oi r(ti(Ta\iTr]pioi ovo/^iaZnoiVy HinToig St Tt)v KXrjcriv, rig
uWoT^iioi TravrtXojg KaOf^riKacn, tujv j^piTiavwi' Tri^tunrTsmv, Phot. lb. I. I.
cap. 6. ° Seipsos—christianos nunciipant ; nos autem—Romanes,
ethnico nomine proprium pcrmutare conati, appellant. Pet. Sic. ap.
Bib. Petr. T. 16. p. 756. B. i' Vid. supr. not."
1 Ap. B,ecof^Mit. Clem. 1. 4.c. 27.
* Phot. ib. 1. i. c. iv.
" Insign. Ital, p. 144.