524 Cohen
opponents in the Acacian schism to the “Manichean wickedness”.113 Given the
rhetorical use of the accusation of Manicheanism the references to this sect in
the biographies of Gelasius, Symmachus, and Hormisdas may well owe more
to the circumstances in which the Liber Pontificalis was composed, especially
in the context of the Acacian and Laurentian schisms, than any particular
anti-Manichean campaign initiated by these bishops.114 Nevertheless, it is true
that Gelasius warned new bishops not to ordain Africans without deliberation
(nulla ratione), since some of them were known to be Manicheans while oth-
ers were re-baptized.115 In another letter Gelasius also reported that he had
learned that congregants of the church of Squillace (Scyllaceum in Calabria)
had refused to participate in the Eucharist, an accusation that echoes those
made by Leo the Great and Augustine against the Manicheans.116 However, the
particular superstitio in Squillace is not named.
Roman bishops’ concern for heresy—especially Pelagianism and
Manichaeism—was of course theological and soteriological. But it was also
connected to anxieties over private religious practices that took place out-
side the supervision of the church.117 This was especially true in the case of
Pelagianism, which had long associations with domestic religiosity, asceticism,
113 The accusation against Symmachus can be inferred from his response to the emperor
written in 506. Symmachus, ep. 10, ed. Thiel, pp. 700–8. Christological error as “Manichean
wickedness”, for example in Symmachus, ep. 13.6, ed. Thiel, pp. 717–22. “Declinemus sacri-
legum Eutychetis errorem cum Manichaea malitia congruentem.”
114 As I argue in Cohen, “Schism and the Polemic of Heresy”.
115 Gelasius, ep. 15, ed. Thiel, pp. 379–80. Manicheanism and Donatism (presumably the tar-
get of the reference to re-baptism) were both associated with Africa. Interestingly almost
100 years after Gelasius’ letter, Gregory the Great wrote to the bishop of Squillace with the
same warning, using almost identical phrasing. It is difficult to imagine that Donatists
and Manicheanism continued to trouble Italian bishops at the dawn of the 7th century.
See Gregory the Great, ep. 2.37, ed. D. Norberg, S. Gregorii Magni Registrum epistularum,
Corpus Christianorum Series Latina vols. 140, 140a, Turnhout 1982.
116 Gelasius, ep. 37, ed. Thiel, pp. 450–2. Leo, t r. 42.5, ed. A. Chavasse, Leo Magnus Tractatus,
Turnhout 1973, pp. 238–50. Augustine, de haeresibus 46.11, eds. R. Van der Plaetse/
C. Beukers, Sancti Aurelii Augustini De haeresibus, Turnhout 1969, p. 316 explains that
the Manicheans avoid wine because its bitterness is a property of the prince of dark-
ness: “Nam et uinum non bibunt, dicentes fel esse principum tenebrarum, cum uescan-
tur uuis.” On the Manichean refusal to drink wine, see Grillmeier, “Verweigerung der
Kelchkommunion durch römische Manichäer unter Papst Leo I”, pp. 151–61.
117 Late antique episcopal opposition to estate-based worship was often closely tied to
broader questions of discipline and heresy. See, for example, Bowes, “ ‘Christianization’
and the Rural Home”, pp. 155–60 and Private Worship, Public Values, p. 102. Christian
Roman emperors had consistently legislated against private meetings of the ‘heretics’,