Manichaeus Redivivus: The Use of Ancient Heresiological Categories in Pre-Tridentine Anti-Protestant Catholic Controversy

In Catholic anti-Protestant polemics, the attempt to construct "genealogies of error" has often been a central strategy. The "heretical" doctrines of Luther and his followers were traced back to Hus, to Wycliffe, and even further. One of the most significant associations is that between Luther (and, more generally, Protestant doctrines) and Mani, founder of the syncretic dualistic religion that bore his name. For early sixteenth-century Catholic controversialists, Protestantism echoes Manichaeism in its questioning of free will, appearing as a determinist doctrine that would deprive individuals of moral responsibility. Protestant authors reacted to this identification, accusing Catholics of neo-Pelagianism. This paper focuses on the early decades of the controversy, before the Council of Trent, specifically the first instances in Catholic anti-Protestant treatises where heresiological categories and motifs inherited from late antique Christianity were employed (e.g., from Chrysostom and Augustine). In particular, the present investigation maps the most interesting occurrences of the polemical use of the figure of Mani and Manichaeism, because such use touches the doctrinal heart of the controversy: the matters of free will, grace, and the human capacity to cooperate (or not) in one’s salvation. The analysis concerns not only prominent works such as those of Erasmus and Eck, but also other writings, especially from the Italian milieu.