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The Munichees. Sect. I. 299
says hey dares not call tlie virgins of lieretics virgins; and
artinns that' the sobriety of heretics is worse than the greatest
dissoluteness.
1 suppose the reason of these hard sentences may be, what
is somewhere observed by Aug'ustine, that'' actions are
qualified by the views and ends with which they are performed.
I presume that all these passages of ancient writers may
be sufficient to render it probable, that the Manichees had no
doctrines which countenanced a licentious course of life.
Some of their elect, it is likely, failed ^ in observing the strict
rules by which they were bound ; but so it was with the
catholics: there were bad livers likewise among them ; some*^
who pretended to much sanctity and devotion were guilty of
great enormities. Augustine's complaint of the Manichees
is verified in all parties; men** say, and do not; they commend
and teach what they do not perform.
VII. The Manichees seldom had the protection of the
Roman laws. Tillemont, in his history of this people, has
an entire article concerning the laws of the emperors against
them. In Augustine's Morks against the Manichees we find
frequent notice of the difliculties they lay under. Faustus®
glories in the persecutions they endured, as a proof of their
being good christians: this was a common subject of boasting
among' them : and they argued that*^ they were not of
y TaQ yap twv alpEriKuv hk nv tnroifjii irort TrapOevng fyw. Chr. De Virgin.
T. i. p. 268. B. ' Kai yap afftXytiag aTra