Well before the major modem discoveries of Manichaean manuscripts, the 18th-century French Huguenot scholar Isaac de Beausobre conjectured that the Manichaean "Book of Giants" was somehow related to a Jewish apocalypse known as the Book of Enoch (Histoire critique de
Manichee et du Manicheisme [Amsterdam: J.
Such despotism, according to Rossetti, resulted in the adaptation of
Manichee strategies by authentic Christians who had to resort to the screen language of the Troubadourian senhal (Provencal, "sign, high sign, signal") in order to mask their true meaning (nucleus) under an insincere or hypocritical surface (cortex or shell).
Martin, accused by the church of being a Socinian heretic, admits to Candide that he is a
Manichee, though none are supposed to be left in the world.
Addressed to an old friend Honoratus, who in student days at Carthage was converted to join him at the
Manichee conventicle and unlike Augustine had remained a member of the sect, sharply critical of Catholic orthodoxy, the tract seeks not to expound Augustine's faith but to undermine two prominent
Manichee objections, namely the morality of the Old Testament and the preference for faith and authority before reason and logic.
The author is convinced that the historiographical interpretations since the 1950s have moved too far from the traditional
Manichee models in favor of socioeconomic paradigms.
In his Histoire critique de
Manichee et du manicheisme (Amsterdam, 1734-1739), the Hugenot scholar Isaac de Beausobre, the true founder of Manichaean studies, had already recognized the paramount importance of Jewish apocryphal literature in the immediate background of Manichaeism.
In his Confessions and Retractions, and between the lines in his numerous letters, he reveals himself as a man ever in flux: from a lustful adolescent to an ascetic old man, from a rationalizing
Manichee to a Catholic who accepted much on faith.
Chapter 3 treats Augustine's earliest notions of ascent and descent, for he came to understand that the perfection he sought as a
Manichee and as a Platonist would be possible only through the mediation of the divine descending in such a way as to effect humanity's elevation and transformation.
As in his book these articles reveal him to be a sound, suggestive, and often enthusiastic guide through the complex evidence of
Manichee life and thought in the Roman East.
Even when he became a
Manichee he was not leaving the Church--Manichaeism was for him a purified and superior form of Christianity.
In early Augustinian texts such as contra Faustum 18.4 or 32.8-9 the Jeremiah text is brought out to answer
Manichee contentions that the Old Testament has no proper place in a truly Christian Bible.
Augustine would have felt that celebrating the Kalends could be open to
Manichee criticism.
And if there is a certain seeming earnestness in such a move on Hauerwas' part, should we not remind ourselves that it is Augustine's willingness to attempt the discernment of the goodness of the created order (which is, after all, not overlooked in salvation, but is its object) which gives proof of the distance he places between his Christian present and his
Manichee past?
