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gave us Descriptions of the Manichaean Heresy A dualistic religious movement founded by the prophet Mani, which taught a strict division between the spiritual world of light and the material world of darkness., or rather I took only one, who always seemed to me one of the most exact: I mean Mr. de Tillemont Louis-Sébastien Le Nain de Tillemont (1637–1698), a French ecclesiastical historian famous for his exhaustive collections of historical documents, though often criticized for his traditionalist devotion to his sources., an excellent Author in terms of collections, but who would be even more so in all respects if he were less credulous, less a slave to his Prejudice, and if he had dared or wished to use all his discernment. Fundamentally, the Modern authors were quite useless to me, my design being not to pile up, without choice or examination, everything that the Ancients tell us about Manichaeus, and about his Errors, but to treat this matter as a Critic A "critic" here refers to the then-emerging field of "Higher Criticism," which used linguistic and historical evidence to challenge the traditional dating or authorship of religious texts., which others had not done. Thus, without stopping at the Compilations of the Moderns, I went straight to the sources, and following the stream of Tradition back to its source, I soon arrived at the ACTS of the Disputation of Archelaus, Bishop of Cascara, with Manichaeus. This is the source from which all the Greeks have drawn.

As soon as I had read this Piece, which the late Mr. Zaccagni Lorenzo Alessandro Zaccagni (1657–1712), a librarian at the Vatican who published the first complete version of the "Acts of Archelaus" in his Collectanea Monumentorum Veterum (1698)., Librarian of the Vatican, was the first to publish in its entirety, I had a great suspicion that the Disputation of Cascara Cascara, or Cascar, was a city in Mesopotamia. The "Acts of Archelaus" depicts a public debate between the local bishop and Mani; the author of this preface argues the event was a literary invention. was nothing but a Fiction of some Greek author who, having acquired memoirs concerning the Life and Dogmas of Manichaeus, wished to write his History and refute his Errors. My examination changed my suspicions into certainty. The fabrication appeared evident to me, and I dare flatter myself that it will appear so to all Readers who have the taste and love for Truth, and in whom Prejudice cannot long hold out against Reason. For the others, it would be folly to try to persuade them. They see only what they want to see. They are not accessible