Acts of Archelaus (Acta Archelai)

1. The Literary Testimonies. XIII

Socrates (Hist. eccl. I, 22) provides a history of Manes excerpted from Hegemonius (Chapters 62, 63) and a brief report on his teaching; at the end, he writes: "We say these things not having fabricated them, but having come across them in the dialogue of Archelaus, the bishop of Carchar, one of the cities in Mesopotamia; for Archelaus himself says that he debated him face-to-face and explains the aforementioned things in his life."

In later historians, a use of the Acta or a direct acquaintance with them cannot be proven.

The question regarding the sources and the authorship of the earlier history of Manichaeism, which is found in Photius, Georgius Monachus, Petrus Hegumenus, and Petrus Siculus, and regarding their mutual relationship, is not yet entirely settled. The material from the Acta is mediated through Cyril, Epiphanius, and Socrates1.

Finally, there appears the note of an anonymous writer who is said to have lived around 880 (Synodikon, Libellus synodicus, Joh. Pappus, Strasbourg 1601, No. 28, p. 12), whose details are not, however, drawn from Hegemonius. The note reads: "A divine and holy partial synod gathered in Mesopotamia by Archelaus, Bishop of Carchar, and Diodorus, a priest, against Manes the murky one and Diodorus the presbyter, which, having refuted them in many ways, declared them excommunicated."

2. The Original. Language and Authorship.

Regarding the language in which the work was originally composed, there was a dispute until very recently. The assumption of a Greek original would likely never have been called into question had Jerome not designated Syriac as the original language. The question of language is connected to that of authorship. If the writing were a genuine report of a disputation actually held at Carchar in Mesopotamia, then the assumption of a Syriac original would have the highest probability. This...

1) As with Cyril and Epiphanius, the virgin birth and the upbringing on the mountain are also missing in Photius. Photius says only in this place (Contra Manichaeos I, 12, Migne Gr. 102, 37): "And Terebinthus dared to name him as having been born of a son of god from a virgin." Both occurrences are mentioned by the other writers and, as it seems, are taken directly or indirectly from Socrates.