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8. But yet who was it that ordered Manichaeus to write on these
things likewise, skill in which was not necessary to piety? For Thou
hast told man to behold piety ind wisdom, of which he might be in
ignorance although having a complete knowledge of these other things;
but since, knowing not these things, he yet most impudently dared to
teach them, it is clear that he had no acquaintance with piety. For
even when we have a knowledge of these worldly matters, it is folly to
make a profession of them; but confession to Thee is piety. It was
therefore with this view that this straying one spake much of these
matters, that, standing convicted by those who had in truth learned
them, the understanding that he really had in those more difficult
things might be made plain. For he wished not to be lightly esteemed,
but went about trying to persuade men "that the Holy Ghost, the
Comforter and Enricher of Thy faithful ones, was with full authority
personally resident in him." When, therefore, it was dis covered
that his teaching concerning the heavens and stars, and the motions of
sun and moon, was false, though these things do not relate to the
doctrine of religion, yet his sacrilegious arrogance would become
sufficiently evident, seeing that not only did he affirm things of
which he knew nothing, but also perverted them, and with such
egregious vanity of pride as to seek to attribute them to himself as to
a divine being.
9. For when I hear a Christian brother ignorant of these things,
or in error concerning them, I can bear with patience to see that man
hold to his opinions; nor can I apprehend that any want of knowledge
as to the situation or nature of this material creation can be injurious
to him, so long as he does not entertain belief in anything unworthy of
Thee, O Lord, the Creator of all. But if he conceives it to
pertain to the form of the doctrine of piety, and presumes to affirm
with great obstinacy that whereof he is ignorant, therein lies the
injury. And yet even a weakness such as this in the dawn of faith is
borne by our Mother Charity, till the new man may grow up "unto a
perfect man," and not be "carried about with every wind of
doctrine." But in him who thus presumed to beat once the teacher,
author, head, and leader of all whom he could induce to believe this,
so that all who followed him believed that they were following not a
simple man only, but Thy Holy Spirit, who would not judge that such
great insanity, when once it stood convicted of false teaching, should
be abhorred and utterly cast off? But I had not yet clearly
ascertained whether the changes of longer and shorter days,and nights,
and day and night itself, with the eclipses of the greater lights, and
whatever of the like kind I had read in other books, could be
expounded consistently with his words. Should I have found myself
able to do so, there would still have remained a doubt in my mind
whether it were so or no, although I might, on the strength of his
reputed godliness, rest my faith on his authority.
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