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De la nature du bien

CHAPITRE XLVI. CRIMINELLE DOCTRINE DE LA LETTRE FONDAMENTALE.

Les Manichéens soutiennent également qu'Adam, le premier homme, a été créé par les princes des ténèbres, mais que dans cette création ils ont agi de manière à ne pas laisser s'échapper la lumière qui était en eux. En effet, dans la Lettre fondamentale ils nous représentent le père du premier homme, le prince des ténèbres siégeant au milieu des autres princes et leur adressant les paroles suivantes que Manès nous a conservées: « Que vous semble-t-il de cette grande lumière qui commence à briller? Voyez comme elle agite le pôle, comme elle ébranle une multitude de puissances ! Il m'a donc paru convenable de vous demander tout ce que vous possédez de lumière; alors de ce héros qui nous a apparu dans toute sa gloire, je reproduirai l'image, et c'est par cette image que nous pourrons régner un jour, quand nous serons délivrés des ténèbres. Après une mûre délibération sur ces paroles, ils proclamèrent la justesse et l'équité de la demande qui leur était faite. En effet, ils ne pouvaient pas espérer qu'ils conserveraient toujours cette lumière; ils crurent donc plus convenable a de l'offrir spontanément à leur chef, comptant bien qu'ils pourraient ainsi régner un jour. Maintenant voyons comment ils se dépouillèrent de la lumière qu'ils possédaient. Toutes les divines Ecritures, toutes les révélations célestes sont pleines de l'explication de ce mystère. Il est du reste très-facile de comprendre comment les sages ont reçu cette connaissance, puisqu'elle jaillit d'elle-même à l'esprit de celui qui se livre attentivement à cette étude ». Manès entre ici dans des détails que la pudeur nous défend de reproduire. Cette assemblée des princes des ténèbres est formée, comme nous le disions plus haut, d'hommes superbes et de femmes ravissantes. Une scène d'horrible corruption se produit. Le prince des ténèbres dévore avidement le produit de ce libertinage; ainsi repu, il s'approche de sa propre femme et rejette ainsi tous les maux qu'il s'était incorporés par son horrible manducation, en y ajoutant ceux qu'il possédait auparavant. Tel est le moyen par lequel se formèrent toutes les images des choses célestes et terrestres ; voilà comment l'univers se peupla d'habitants.

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Concerning the Nature of Good, Against the Manichaeans

Chapter 46.--The Unspeakable Doctrine of the Fundamental Epistle.

For they even say that Adam, the first man, was created by certain princes of darkness so that the light might be held by them lest it should escape. For in the epistle which they call Fundamental, Manichaeus wrote as follows respecting the way in which the Prince of Darkness, whom they represent as the father of the first man, spoke to the rest of his allied princes of darkness, and how he acted: "Therefore with wicked inventions he said to those present: What does this huge light that is rising seem to you to be? See how the pole moves, how it shakes most of the powers. Wherefore it is right for me rather to ask you beforehand for whatever light you have in your powers: since thus I will form an image of that great one who has appeared in his glory, through which we may be able to rule, freed in some measure from the conversation of darkness. Hearing these things, and deliberating for a long time among themselves, they thought it most just to furnish what was demanded of them. For they did not have confidence in being able to retain the light that they had forever; hence they thought it better to offer it to their Prince, by no means without hope that in this way they would rule. It must be considered therefore how they furnished the light that they had. For this also is scattered throughout all the divine scriptures and the heavenly secrets; but to the wise it is easy enough to know how it was given: for it is known immediately and openly by him who should truly and faithfully wish to consider. Since there was a promiscuous throng of those who had come together, females and males of course, he impelled them to copulate among themselves: in which copulation the males emitted seed, the females were made pregnant. But the offspring were like those who had begotten them, the first obtaining as it were the largest portion of the parents' strength. Taking these as a special gift their Prince rejoiced. And just as even now we see take place, that the nature of evil taking thence strength forms the fashioner of bodies, so also the aforesaid Prince, taking the offspring of his companions, which had the senses of their parents, sagacity, light, procreated at the same time with themselves in the process of generation, devoured them; and very many powers having been taken from food of this kind, in which there was present not only fortitude, but much more astuteness and depraved sensibilities from the ferocious race of the progenitors, he called his own spouse to himself, springing from the same stock as himself, emitted, like the rest the abundance of evils that he had devoured, himself also adding something from his own thought and power, so that his disposition became the former and arranger of all the things that he had poured forth; whose consort received these things as soil cultivated in the best way is accustomed to receive seed. For in her were constructed and woven together the images of all heavenly and earthly powers, so that what was formed obtained the likeness, so to speak, of a full orb."