Letter 236: Augustine warns Deuterius about a Manichaean subdeacon hidden among clergy.

To my Most Blessed lord Deuterius, venerably dear brother and fellow bishop: Augustine sends greetings in the Lord. I thought I could do nothing better than write especially to Your Holiness, lest through negligence in your province the enemy ravage the flock of our Lord Jesus Christ, for he does not cease laying traps to destroy souls purchased at so great a price. It has been established among us that a certain Victorinus, a subdeacon from Malliana, is a Manichaean. He was hiding in that sacrilegious error under the name of a cleric, and he is already an old man. He was exposed in such a way that, when I questioned him before he was refuted by witnesses, he could not deny it. He already knew that there were so many and such witnesses to whom, incautiously, he had poured himself out, that if he tried to deny it he would appear not merely shameless but insane. He confessed, however, that he was a hearer of the Manichaeans, not one of the elect. Those called hearers among them eat meat, cultivate fields, and, if they wish, have wives. Those called elect do none of these things. But the hearers bend their knees before the elect so that hands may be laid on them as suppliants, not only by Manichaean presbyters, bishops, or deacons, but by any of the elect. They also adore the sun and moon with them and pray to them. On the Lord's day they fast with them, and they believe with them all the blasphemies by which the Manichaean heresy is detestable. They deny that Christ was born of a virgin; they do not confess that his flesh was true, but false; and therefore they contend that his passion was false and that there was no resurrection. They blaspheme the patriarchs and prophets. They say the law given through Moses, servant of God, did not come from the true God but from the prince of darkness. They think that the souls not only of human beings but also of cattle are from God's substance, and are altogether parts of God. Finally, they say the good and true God fought with the race of darkness, mixed a part of himself with the princes of darkness, and that this part, stained and bound throughout the whole world, is purified through the foods of their elect and through the sun and moon. Whatever could not be purified from that part of God, they assert, will at the end of the age be bound in an eternal and penal chain. Thus God is believed not only violable, corruptible, and defilable, because a part of him could be brought to such evils, but also unable, even at the end of the age, to be wholly purified from such pollution, uncleanness, and misery. This subdeacon, while pretending to be catholic, not only believed these intolerable blasphemies with them but taught them as much as he could. He was exposed while teaching, because he trusted people as though they were learners. After he confessed that he was a hearer of the Manichaeans, he did ask me to call him back into the way of catholic truth. But I confess that I deeply shuddered at his deception under the appearance of a cleric, and I took care that he be restrained and expelled from the city. Nor was this enough for me unless I also made him known to Your Holiness by my letter, so that, cast down from clerical rank with suitable ecclesiastical severity, he may be known to all as someone to avoid. If he asks for a place of penance, let him be believed only if he reveals to you the others whom he knows to be there, not only in Malliana but in the whole province.

EPISTOLA 236 Scripta post a. 395. A. Deuterio episcopo nunciat Victorinum subdiaconum, qui clam Manichaeorum errores docuerat, deprehensum et confessum (n. 1), admonens ne illic recipiatur ad poenitentiam nisi prodat quotquot novit eodem infectos errore (n. 3), docens qui apud Manichaeos auditores, qui vero electi appellentur (n. 2). DOMINO BEATISSIMO, ET VENERABILITER CARISSIMO FRATRI ET COEPISCOPO DEUTERIO, AUGUSTINUS, IN DOMINO SALUTEM. Victorinus haereticus confessus. 1. Nihil melius me facere posse arbitratus sum, quam ut tuae Sanctitati potissimum scriberem, ne per neglegentiam in vestra provincia Domini nostri Iesu Christi ovile vastet inimicus, qui non desinit insidiari, ut perdat animas tam magno pretio comparatas. Mallianensem quemdam subdiaconum Victorinum, apud nos constitit esse Manichaeum, et in tam sacrilego errore sub nomine clerici latitabat: nam est etiam aetate iam senex. Ita est autem manifestatus, ut etiam ipse a me interrogatus, antequam a testibus coargueretur, negare non posset. Tot enim et tales esse iam sciebat, quibus se incautus effuderat, ut nihil aliud, si negare tentaret, quam, non dico impudentissimus, sed insanissimus appareret. Auditorem sane Manichaeorum, non electum se esse confessus est. Qui auditores, qui electi apud Manichaeos. 2. Auditores autem qui appellantur apud eos, et carnibus vescuntur, et agros colunt, et, si voluerint, uxores habent; quorum nihil faciunt qui vocantur electi. Sed ipsi auditores ante electos genua figunt, ut eis manus supplicibus imponantur non a solis presbyteris, vel episcopis, aut diaconibus eorum, sed a quibuslibet electis. Solem etiam et lunam cum eis adorant et orant. Die quoque dominico cum illis ieiunant, et omnes blasphemias cum illis credunt, quibus Manichaeorum haeresis detestanda est; negantes scilicet Christum natum esse de virgine, nec eius carnem veram confitentes fuisse, sed falsam: ac per hoc et falsam eius passionem, et nullam resurrectionem fuisse contendunt. Patriarchas Prophetasque blasphemant. Legem per famulum Dei Moysen datam, non a vero Deo dicunt, sed a principe tenebrarum. Animas non solum hominum, sed etiam pecorum, de Dei esse substantia, et omnino partes Dei esse arbitrantur. Deum denique bonum et verum dicunt cum tenebrarum gente pugnasse, et partem suam tenebrarum principibus miscuisse, eamque toto mundo inquinatam et ligatam per cibos electorum suorum, ac per solem et lunam purgari asseverant: et quod purgari de ipsa parte Dei non potuerit, in fine saeculi aeterno ac poenali vinculo colligari; ut non solum violabilis et corruptibilis et contaminabilis credatur Deus, cuius pars potuit ad mala tanta perduci, sed non possit saltem totus a tanta coinquinatione et immunditia et miseria vel in fine saeculi purgari. Victorinus, excommunicatus, quibus condicionibus recipiendus. 3. Has cum illis intolerabiles blasphemias, subdiaconus iste quasi catholicus, non solum credebat, sed quibus viribus poterat, et docebat. Nam docens patefactus est, cum se quasi discentibus credidit. Rogavit me quidem, posteaquam se Manichaeorum auditorem esse confessus est, ut eum in viam veritatis doctrinae catholicae revocarem: sed, fateor, eius fictionem sub clerici specie vehementer exhorrui, eumque coercitum pellendum de civitate curavi. Nec mihi hoc satis fuit, nisi et tuae Sanctitati eum meis litteris intimarem, ut a clericorum gradu congrue ecclesiastica severitate deiectus, cavendus omnibus innotescat. Petenti autem poenitentiae locum, tunc credatur, si et alios quos illic novit esse, manifestaverit vobis, non solum in Malliana, sed in ipsa tota omnino provincia.