A Discourse on the Albigensian Heresy

...specifically concerning the Eucharist. For it is well known that while our Eucharist is considered holy, they held it to be foul and detestable; although Beausobre Isaac de Beausobre (1659–1738), a Protestant historian who wrote a famous defense of the Manichaeans. denies this in our time (1). Regarding Baptism, the matter may seem more obscure (2): But they either used it at their own discretion or denied its necessity, as Tillemont Sébastien le Nain de Tillemont, a 17th-century French ecclesiastical historian known for his accuracy. has shown (3), and as Photius (4) notes: even if they rejected the baptism of salvation, they nevertheless pretended to accept it. I say nothing of marriage, which it is clear from Augustine and all others that the ancient Manichaeans condemned. Concerning the Albigensians, Peter [the Sicilian] testifies that they affirmed sacred marriage is merely prostitution; nor can anyone be saved within it by begetting children, etc. original: "sacrum matrimonium meretricium esse; nec aliquem in ipso salvari posse, filios &c. generando"; he adds that since they distinguished two classes among themselves—those called the Perfect and those named Believers—the Perfect feigned chastity and utterly detested the eating of meat, eggs, and cheese. It is surely clear that these practices are Manichaean in origin.

II. And thus far, in a single effort, we have achieved two things: we have explained what the primary dogmas of the Albigensians were, and we have asserted that these were the same as those of the ancient Manichaeans. Johann Christoph Wolf opposed the first of these points, while Beausobre opposed the second. Although Beausobre’s work certainly requires a longer and more diligent refutation—and I might add, by a more learned man—especially its second part, which deals with Dogma. For the first part, which is historical, has been recently and extensively refuted by the author of the Exercises on the Works of Saint Leo. Indeed, those books are written not only impiously, but in the manner of old knaves—that is, craftily and fraudulently—yet not in such a way that they can be ignored. To demonstrate his care and diligence, Beausobre breaks things down into minute detail; he inquires anxiously into every point, digresses into various curiosities, and cites a great abundance of uncommon authors. This is clearly done to entice and retain his readers, overwhelming them, if not by the weight of his arguments, then by their sheer number and volume. Furthermore, he clears the Manichaeans of certain charges as if they were imposed through slander, while admitting that other errors were indeed theirs, yet he crafts an excuse for them. In this excuse, he attempts with great zeal to obscure Apostolic tradition and weaken all arguments for the Catholic faith. To do this more freely and to lead the matter where he wishes, he undermines the credibility of the ancient writers whose authority he fears in the Preface prefixed to his other books. He claims some had not seen the Manichaean books and therefore followed uncertain rumors, and others, he claims, did not understand them. Among the former group, he includes Cyril of Jerusalem, even though he cannot deny what Archelaus Archelaus was a 3rd-century bishop whose "Acts of Archelaus" is a primary source for early Manichaeism. recounts.