Sarapion of Thmuis: Against the Manicheans and Pastoral Letters (review)

This book is primarily an introduction to and a new translation of Sarapion's Against the Manicheans. It is paired with an introduction (comparatively shorter) to two pastoral letters by Sarapion: one to bishop Eudoxius and the other to a community of monks. The introductory remarks are grouped together into Part One of the book. The translations of the three texts are grouped together into Part Two of the book. The translations are the first of their kind in English, which will go a long way toward rectifying the lack of knowledge about this mid-fourth century Egyptian bishop.

The introduction opens with a nice survey of both Sarapion (fl. 329-70 C.E.) and his context in Thmuis. The introduction surveys the different people or groups against whom Sarapion applied his efforts while bishop of Thmuis, including the Tropici, the Manicheans, and rival claimants to the bishop's throne. The introduction depicts Sarapion as one who, while in contention with these groups and individuals, rarely treated them as outright heretics but as those whose views deserved attention and could use some revision in light of scriptural evidence.

Since Sarapion's text Against the Manicheans dominates the second part of the book, the bulk of the introduction is spent on this text. The introduction follows Fitschen's date of 326 for the text, who argued that this was so because of the text's failure to use Nicene language in Trinitarian contexts; Sarapion probably was not yet attuned to the intricacies of the anti-Arian movement. The introduction summarizes Sarapion's text as a two-pronged argument against Manichean theology. One prong is hermeneutical. The Manicheans claim to follow Jesus, but they are shown not to believe the words of Jesus found in the scriptures. Herbel convincingly demonstrates Sarapion's reliance on a hermeneutical circle, of reading the Old Testament in light of the New Testament and vice versa. This is a supposed response to Manicheism's rejection of the Old Testament. The other prong is moral. Herbel points out Sarapion paired the vice of "heedlessness" with the virtue of self-control in an effort to defeat Manicheism. Indeed, in §7 of the text, Sarapion compares the two sides of Manicheism's dualism to heedlessness and self-control. Moreover, Sarapion is noted as using, especially in §44-47, the language of the Stoics delineating four virtues and four vices, again demonstrating the consistent presence of both in each person.

While it is helpful to note Sarapion's reliance on Stoicism, what is missing here is a sense of why this was important for defeating the Manicheans. The introduction touches on this briefly (31-32), where it says that making the body an aid to virtue is a criticism of Manichean dualism. Missing in this introduction are a few paragraphs summarizing Manichean theology from the perspective of that community, or at least some explanation of the context in which Sarapion came into contact with it. Herbel notes (39) that Fitschen has said these two prongs of attack nail the coffin on Manichean theology, but that means the reader of this volume needs to go back to Fitschen, or elsewhere, for a further study of the Manichean context to which Sarapion addressed himself. A similar point can be made about the Stoic ideas of consolation and conflagration, which, as the introduction notes, lie behind Sarapion's concept of damnation in his Letter to Bishop Eudoxius. Again, the interested reader is directed to the Cambridge Companion to the Stoics for further information on these ideas. A little more background in this introduction on these matters, rather than requiring the reader to look elsewhere, would have been helpful.

In terms of the translations, the author has made an eminently readable text, especially suitable to students who may encounter this text in a course on early Christianity. For those with an acquaintance with Greek, a few footnotes are quite helpful (in a few cases...