Writings in Connection with the Manichaean Heresy

book of Faustus is not indeed reproduced; but there is no reason for doubting that his arguments are fairly represented, and we think there is evidence that even the original expression of them is preserved.¹ Augustine had been acquainted with Faustus for many years. He first met him at Carthage in 383, and found him nothing more than a clever and agreeable talker, making no pretension to science or philosophy, and with only slender reading.² His cleverness is sufficiently apparent in his debate with Augustine; the objections he raises are plausible, and put with acuteness, but at the same time with a flippancy which betrays a want of earnestness and real interest in the questions. In this reply to Faustus, Augustine is very much on the defensive, and his statements are apologetic rather than systematic.

But in an age when the ability to read was by no means commensurate with the interest taken in theological questions, written discussions were necessarily supplemented by public disputations. These theological contests seem to have been a popular entertainment in North Africa; the people attending in immense crowds, while reporters took down what was said on either side for the sake of appeal as well as for the information of the absent. In two such disputations Augustine engaged in connection with Manichaeism.³ The first was held on the 28th and 29th of August, 392, with a Manichaean priest, Fortunatus. To this encounter Augustine was invited by a deputation of Donatists and Catholics,⁴ who were alike alarmed at the progress which this heresy was making in the district of Hippo. Fortunatus at first showed some reluctance to meet so formidable an antagonist, but was prevailed upon by his own sectaries, and shows no nervousness

¹ Beausobre and Cave suppose that we have the whole of Faustus' book embodied in Augustine's review of it. Lardner is of opinion that the commencement, and perhaps the greater part, of the work is given, but not the whole.
² See the interesting account of Faustus in the Confessions, v. 10.
³ His willingness to do so, and the success with which he encountered the most renowned champions of this heresy, should have prevented Beausobre from charging him with misunderstanding or misrepresenting the Manichaean doctrine. The retractation of Felix tells strongly against this view of Augustine's incompetence to deal with Manichaeism.
⁴ Possidius, Vita Aug. vi.