A Discourse on the Albigensian Heresy

...poreal original: corporeum. So far, not bad. But the final point he had posed, he immediately overturned, deciding nevertheless that it [the divine light] could be seen by these physical eyes, provided they were strengthened by celestial and Divine power. He claimed this same view was held by a great number of Greek Fathers; yet he calls upon no others than some poem of John of DamascusSt. John of Damascus (c. 675–749), a Syrian monk and priest known for his defense of icons and systematic theology., and a passage from Gregory of Nazianzus'sGregory of Nazianzus (c. 329–390), a 4th-century Archbishop of Constantinople and one of the "Cappadocian Fathers." 40th Oration, which does not settle the matter at all. He saves his full argument for the 14th-century Greeks disputing over the Thaboritic lightThe "Light of Mount Tabor," referring to the divine light witnessed by the Apostles at the Transfiguration of Jesus; a central topic in the 14th-century Hesychast controversy., about whom PetaviusDenis Pétau (1583–1652), a French Jesuit theologian known for his work on the history of dogma. (1), ThomassinusLouis Thomassin (1619–1695), a French Oratorian theologian. (2), and other theologians have long since written; to these he adds the authority of Leo AllatiusLeo Allatius (c. 1586–1669), a Greek scholar and librarian at the Vatican who sought to reconcile the Eastern and Western Churches. (3).

Thus it appears he wished to mock the unwary or the unskilled. Indeed, the Editors of TrévouxThe "Trevoltins," Jesuit scholars who published the "Mémoires de Trévoux," a famous 18th-century literary and scientific journal. (4) rebuked Allatius rather harshly; we, however, forgive the learned man, who clung too tenaciously to his fellow Greeks, and who here handled the Fathers more in the manner of grammarians than theologians.

We can by no means forgive BeausobreIsaac de Beausobre (1659–1738), the Huguenot historian whose work on Manichaeism is the subject of this critique., when in Book III, chapters 1 and 2, he strives to tear down the Christian dogma that God’s nature is free from all matter and body, and denies that it is contrary to the Christian Faith to deny that He is entirely spiritual, as He is customarily believed and said to be. He could have been taught here by his own Manichaeans, had he not preferred at this point to turn aside toward VorstiusConrad Vorstius (1569–1622), a Remonstrant theologian accused of denying God's absolute spirituality. and the SociniansA rationalist Christian sect that often held heterodox views on the nature of God, sometimes suggesting God had a form of "spiritual body.". For the Manichaeans spoke of God as light in such a way that they established matter as another principle entirely opposed to Him, which had nothing in common with Him; therefore, God was removed from all matter.

Not only do our own writers testify to this, stating what was the chief of their dogmas—among whom is TheodoretTheodoret of Cyrrhus (c. 393–457), a bishop and influential theologian. (5): He said there were two unbegotten and eternal things: God and matter; and he called God light, and matter darkness; and light good, and darkness evil... he said God was removed from matter, and was entirely unknown, both He by matter, and matter by Him; but ManiThe 3rd-century Persian prophet and founder of Manichaeism. himself also began his famous Treasury in this way, according to the testimony of EpiphaniusEpiphanius of Salamis (c. 310–403), a bishop known for his "Panarion," a work cataloging heresies. (6): There was God and matter, light and darkness, good and evil, which were so utterly contrary to one another that no communion joined one with the other original Greek: ἦν θεὸς καὶ ὕλη, φῶς, καὶ σκότος, ἀγαθὸν, καὶ κακὸν τοῖς πᾶσιν ἀκρῶς ἐναντία, ὡς κατὰ μηδὲν ἐπικοινωνεῖν θάτερον θατέρῳ.. What then shall we say? Except that when he said God was light, the Manichaean named God by the name of light just as our painters are accustomed to represent the human soul in the likeness of a small flame or fire; since, just as they must express the thing we want by a certain appearance, so we must express it by some name...

(1) Dogmatic Theology, book 1, chapter 12.
(2) Dogmatic Theology, Treatise 1, book 4, chapter 1.
(3) On Consent, book 2, chapter 17, column 837.
(4) Year 1736, article 1, page 14.
(5) Leo Allatius.
(6) Heresies 66, no. 14.