The works of Nathaniel Lardner - The Christian Researcher - Home

368 Credibility of the Gospel History.
' you, at hearing- this, will exclaim against it as injustice
' and calumny. You will say that you praise and recom-
' mend perfect chastity, but you do not forbid marriage;
* forasmuch as you do not hinder your auditors, the second
' order among you, from marrying', and having wives.' It
is not easy to conceive that e they, who severely censured the
polygamy of the patriarchs, should approve of worse things
in christians.
XIII. It is a difficult question whether the Manichees
believed free-will. It is generally denied ; but Beausobre
does not concur in that sentence. He has discoursed largely
upon this point, and I refer to'' him. I shall however cite
a part of what he says.
'If' by free-will be meant a power of doing- good, and
* resisting- evil, it is certain that the Manichees ascribed it to
' the soul, which was sent into matter. For, first, when we
' showed the opinion of these men concerning the creation
' of the world, we saw that, among- the souls which God
' sent to combat matter, there were some that preserved their
' purity entire ; others that were but little affected with the
' contagion of matter ; and others that were so corrupted,
' that they were left in this lower stage of the world. The
' Creator placed them according to their merits. Secondly,
' when Augustine asks Fortunatus why God sent souls into
' matter, that Manichee answers, to'' tame it, and reduce it
' to order. They must therefore have had the power of so
' doing. Finally, what suffers me not to doubt that Mani
' acknowledged the soul's liberty in its state of innocence,
* is a passage in his letter to Henoch ; " the' first soul that
' came from the God of light received the machine of the
' body to govern it with a rein." '
And, after a long discussion, that learned writer sums up
all these three"" propositions :
' 1. The Manichees allowed
' the soul to be free in its origin, and in its state of innocence.
gradiis, diicere atque habere non prohibentur uxores. De Mor. Manich. c. 18.
n. 05. 8 Nee quod Jacob, filius ejus, inter Rachel et Liam
duas germanas sorores, earumque singulas famulas, quatuor uxorum maritus,
tamquam hircus erraverit ; ut esset quotidie inter quatuor scorta certamen, quaenam
eum venientem de agro prior ad conc:ubituiii raperet. Faust. 1. 22. cap. 5.
h T. 2. p. 433—448. ' lb. p. 438.
•t
et in contraria natura esse animam diximus, idco ut contrariae
-. naturaa modum imponeret modo imposito contrariae naturae, sumit eandem
Deus. Fort. Disp. 2. n. 33. vid. et. n. 34.
' Operae, inquit, pretium est advertere, quia prima anima, quae a Deo luminis
manavit, accepit fabricam istam corporis, ut earn frseno suo regeret. Man.
ap. Aug. Op. Imp. 1. 3. c. 186.
"> lb. p. 447.