Archelaus, Acts of the Disputation with Manes

The true Thesaurus; to wit, the Disputation conducted in Carchar, a city of Mesopotamia, before Manippus and Aegialeus and Claudius and Cleobolus, who acted as judges. In this city of Mesopotamia there was a certain man, Marcellus by name, who was esteemed as a person worthy of the highest honour for his manner of life, his pursuits, and his lineage, and not less so for his discretion and his nobility of character: he was possessed also of abundant means; and, what is most important of all, he feared God with the deepest piety, and gave ear always with due reverence to the things which were spoken of Christ. In short, there was no good quality lacking in that man, and hence it came to pass that he was held in the greatest regard by the whole city; while, on the other hand, he also made an ample return for the good-will of his city by his munificent and oft-repeated acts of liberality in bestowing on the poor, relieving the afflicted, and giving help to the distressed. But let it suffice us to have said thus much, lest by the weakness of our words we rather take from the man’s virtues than adduce what is worthy of their splendour. I shall come, therefore, to the task which forms my subject. On a certain occasion, when a large; body of captives were offered to the bishop Archelaus by the soldiers who held the camp in that place, their numbers being some seven thousand seven hundred, he was harassed with the keenest anxiety on account of the large sum of money which was demanded by the soldiers as the price of the prisoners’ deliverance. And as he could not conceal his solicitude, all aflame for the religion and the fear of God, he at length hastened to Marcellus, and explained to him the importance and difficulty of the case. And when that pattern of piety, Marcellus, heard his narration, without the least delay he went into his house, and provided the price demanded for the prisoners, according to the value set upon them by those who had led them captive; and unlocking the treasures of his goods, he at once distributed the gifts of piety among the soldiers, without any severe consideration of number or distinction, so that they seemed to be presents rather than purchase-moneys. And those soldiers were filled with wonder and admiration at the grandeur of the man’s piety and munificence, and were struck with amazement, and felt the force of this example of pity; so that very many of them were added to the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, and threw off the belt of military service, while others withdrew to their camp, taking scarcely a fourth part of the ransom, and the rest made their departure without receiving even so much as would defray the expenses of the way.

Marcellus, as might well be expected, was exceedingly gratified by these incidents; and summoning one of the prisoners, by name Cortynius, he inquired of him the cause of the war, and by what chance it was that they were overcome and bound with the chains of captivity. And the person addressed, on obtaining liberty to speak, began to express himself in these terms: My lord Marcellus, we believe in the living God alone. And we have a custom of such a nature as I shall now describe, which has descended to us by the tradition of our brethren in the faith, and has been regularly observed by us up to the present day. The practice is, that every year we go out beyond the bounds of the city, in company with our wives and children, and offer up supplications to the only and invisible God, praying Him to send us rains for our fields and crops. Now, when we were celebrating this observance at the usual time and in the wonted manner, evening surprised us as we lingered there, and were still fasting. Thus we were feeling the pressure of two of the most trying things men have to endure — namely, fasting and want of sleep. But about midnight sleep enviously and inopportunely crept upon us, and with necks drooping and unstrung, and heads hanging down, it made our faces strike against our knees. Now this took place because the time was at hand when by the judgment of God we were to pay the penalty proper to our deserts, whether it might he that we were offenders in ignorance, or whether it might be that with the consciousness of wrong we nevertheless had not given up our sin. Accordingly at that hour a multitude of soldiers suddenly surrounded us, supposing us, as I judge, to have lodged ourselves in ambush there, and to be persons with full experience and skill in fighting battles; and without making any exact inquiry into the cause of our gathering there, they threatened us with war, not in word, but at once by the sword. And though we were men who had never learned to do injury to any one, they wounded us pitilessly with their missiles, and thrust us through with their spears, and cut our throats with their swords. Thus they slew, indeed, about one thousand and three hundred men of our number, and wounded other five hundred. And when the day broke clearly, they carried off the survivors among us as prisoners here, and that, too, in a way showing their utter want of pity for us. For they drove us before their horses, spurring us on by blows from their spears, and impelling us forward by making the horses’ heads press upon us. And those who had sufficient powers of endurance did indeed hold out; but very many fell down before the face of their cruel masters, and breathed out their life there; and mothers, with arms wearied, and utterly powerless with their burdens, and distracted by the threats of those behind them, suffered the little ones that were hanging on their breasts to fall to the ground; while all those on whom old age had come were sinking, one after the other, to the earth, overcome with their toils, and exhausted by want of food. The proud soldiers nevertheless enjoyed this bloody spectacle of men continually perishing, as if it had been a kind of entertainment, while they saw some stretched on the soil in hopeless prostration, and beheld others, worn out by the fierce fires of thirst and with the bands of their tongues utterly parched, lose the power of speech, and beheld others with eyes ever glancing backwards, groaning over the fate of their dying little ones, while these, again, were constantly appealing to their most unhappy mothers with their cries, and the mothers themselves, driven frantic by the severities of the robbers, responded with their lamentations, which indeed was the only thing they could do freely. And those of them whose hearts were most tenderly bound up with their offspring chose voluntarily to meet the same premature fate of death with their children; while those, on the other hand, who had some capacity of endurance were carried off prisoners here with us. Thus, after the lapse of three days, during which time we had never been allowed to take any rest, even in the night, we were conveyed to this place, in which what has now taken place after these occurrences is better known to yourself.

When Marcellus, the man of consummate piety, had heard this recital, he burst into a flood of tears, touched with pity for misfortunes so great and so various. But making no delay, he at once prepared victuals for the sufferers, and did service with his own hand for the wearied; in this imitating our father Abraham the patriarch, who, when he entertained the angels hospitably on a certain occasion, did not content himself with merely giving the order to his slaves to bring a calf from the herd, but did himself, though advanced in years, go and place it on his shoulders and fetch it in, and did with his own hand prepare food, and set it before the angels. So Marcellus, in discharge of a similar office, directed them to be seated as his guests in companies of ten; and when the seven hundred tables were all provided, he refreshed the whole body of the captives with great delight, so that those who had strength to survive what they had been called to endure, forgot their toils, and became oblivious of all their ills. When, however, they had reached the fifteenth day, and while Marcellus was still liberally supplying all things needful for the prisoners, it seemed good to him that they should all be put in possession of the means of returning to their own parts, with the exception of those who were detained by the attention which their wounds demanded; and providing the proper remedies for these, he instructed the rest to depart to their own country and friends. And even to all these charities Marcellus added yet larger deeds of piety. For with a numerous band of his own dependants he went to look after the burying of the bodies of those who had perished on the march; and for as many of these as he could discover, of whatsoever condition, he secured the sepulture which was meet for them. And when this service was completed he returned to Charra, and gave permission to the wounded to return thence to their native country when their health was sufficiently restored, providing also most liberal supplies for their use on their journey. And truly the estimate of this deed made a magnificent addition to the repute of the other noble actions of Marcellus; for through that whole territory the fame of the piety of Marcellus spread so grandly, that large numbers of men belonging to various cities were inflamed with the intensest desire to see and become acquainted with the man, and most especially those persons who had not had occasion to bear penury before — to all of whom this remarkable man, following the example of a Marcellus of old, furnished aid most indulgently, so that they all declared that there was no one of more illustrious piety than this man. Yea, all the widows, too, who were believers in the Lord had recourse to him, while the imbecile also could reckon on obtaining at his hand most certain help to meet their circumstances; and the orphaned, in like manner, were all supported by him, so that his house was declared to be the hospice for the stranger and the indigent. And above all this, he retained in a remarkable and singular measure his devotion to the faith, building up his own heart upon the rock that shall not be moved.

Accordingly, as this man’s fame was becoming always the more extensively diffused throughout different localities, and when it had now penetrated even beyond the river Stranga, the honourable report of his name was carried into the territory of Persia. In this country dwelt a person called Manes, who, when this man’s repute had reached him, deliberated largely with himself as to how he might entangle him in the snares of his doctrine, hoping that Marcellus might he made an upholder of his dogma. For he reckoned that he might make himself master of the whole province, if he could only first attach such a man to himself. In this project, however, his mind was agitated with the doubt whether he should at once repair in person to the man, or first attempt to get at him by letter for he was afraid lest, by any sudden and unexpected introduction of himself upon the scene some mischance might possibly befall him. At last, in obedience to a subtler policy, he resolved to write; and calling to him one of his disciples, by name Turbo, who had been instructed by Addas, he handed to him an epistle, and bade him depart and convey it to Marcellus. This adherent accordingly received the letter, and carried it to the person to whom he had been commissioned by Manes to deliver it, overtaking the whole journey within five days. The above-mentioned Turbo, indeed, used great expedition on this journey, in the course of which he also underwent very considerable exertion and trouble. For whenever he arrived, as a traveller in foreign parts, at a hospice — and these were inns which Marcellus himself had supplied in his large hospitality, — on his being asked by the keepers of these hostels whence he came, and who he was, or by whom he had been sent, he used to reply: I belong to the district of Mesopotamia, but I come at present from Persis, having been sent by Manichaeus, a master among the Christians. But they were by no means ready to welcome a name unknown to them, and were wont sometimes to thrust Turbo out of their inns, refusing him even the means of getting water for drinking purposes. And as he had to bear daily things like these, and things even worse than these, at the hands of those persons in the several localities who had charge of the mansions and hospices, unless he had at last shown that he was conveying letters to Marcellus, Turbo would have met the doom of death in his travels.

On receiving the epistle, then, Marcellus opened it, and read it in the presence of Archelaus, the bishop of the place. And the following is a copy of what it contained: —