The Medieval Manichee: A Study of the Christian Dualist Heresy

One can only marvel at Mr. Runciman's scholarship, his knowledge of Eastern history and languages was remarkable; he was acquainted with Latin, Greek, Russian, French, Arabic and many other Balkan languages. The sources he consulted and quoted are exhaustive and sometimes not easily accessible. He can only be commended for the depth of his research and making known to the reader the existence of a vast literature dealing with the subject covered in this book. Nevertheless, it must be remembered that Mr. Runciman was a secular historian dealing with a religious subject, this obviously leads him to some unjustified conclusions. Despite his obvious erudition, the author fails to give us an adequate assessment of those he ranked among the Medieval Manichee. His appreciation of these people is often pejorative and even derogatory at times. The sources available and used by Mr. Runciman are almost all hostile, since the opponents and in particular the Inquisition made sure that all the writings of those called Manichee were destroyed. All historians know this fact and should therefore be very careful in quoting them. The information gathered by those who dealt directly with these people and which was included in their histories, reports, letters and other writings was bias and therefore largely unreliable. When one desires to write objectively about a movement like say the Paulicians, he should be aware of these well known facts and take them into account so as to present an accurate picture of his subject. It is clear that in his book Mr. Runciman took many sources he read for granted. He failed to weigh things in the balance of objectivity and sometimes he even contradicts common sense. He repeats many of the aberrations that were written a foretime without intimating that his sources could be questionable. Historically this book is helpful for its broad outline and bibliographical notes. But it is my personal view that it fails totally to tell us the true story of these "Manichee".

Steven Runciman's book on the Dualist heresy is quite well done. But in the end, we are surprised by his failure to connect the gnostic aspects of the Medieval Manichee to later occult movements, such as Freemasonry. Even without this perspective, the book is excellent, and highly recommended. One of the aspects of Runciman's writing that we admire so much is his apparent attention to the great Hilaire Belloc's primary admonition to the writer of history: that he must be just. No doubt, Runciman presents history in a manner that reflects scrupulousity and exactitude. He is also eminently readable. Again, like Belloc, we could rightly style his works as popular histories, that both entertain and enlighten. Our objection to this very important work is simply that the author leaves his reader in something of a lurch at its end. Runciman does a masterful job of connecting the Cathar heresy to previous heretical movements throughout history. But then, in conclusion, he seemingly shies away from brining the connections forward into modernity. One explanation for this may be that, as we have learned from other sources, Runciman dabbled in the occult rather frequently. This could explain his evident hesitancy to connect the unspeakable vileness of the Cathars and Bogomils with more contemporary movements. This notwithstanding, we strongly recommend Runciman's work to those who would understand this very important aspect of the history of Western Civilization.

This is still the go-to book for a broad view of how the heresy of spirit/matter dualism spread from its pre-Christian origins in Persia, through various pseudo-Christian manifestations, moving westward over the centuries until it reached its much-hyped popular guise as Catharism. This is a world-hating ideology that does not deserve the good press it gets merely for having been persecuted by the Catholic Church. Runciman, as an Anglican, does not carry water for the Catholic Church, but he is realistic about the nature and implications of dualist-gnosticism.

Obviously, this book is a little old being originally published in the eighty's. However, it is still a great read and one of the best books on the subject. Best of all it is short and easy to read so if you want just a cursory overview of dualism this is where to start. If you want to learn more after reading this one, I suggest Yuri Stoyanov's The Other God. Stoyanov's work is longer and much more difficult to read but it has been recently revised in 2001 and is a more complete look at dualism not only Christian but also Zoroastrianism and other similar belief system