The Manicheans deceive the unskilled with their doctrines.
For who is so deaf to divine voices as to be ignorant of what the Prophets say about the disdain for earthly gold and silver? For they bring forth from the Apostle, in order to deceive men, what he says: "The love of money is the root of all evil, which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows," as if you could easily find some book of the ancient Scriptures where avarice is not blamed and condemned as worthy of execration. But since the question now is about gold and silver, why do they not listen to the Prophet saying: "Their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the Lord"? If only someone would hear this eagerly and infuse it into the marrow of their soul, would they not, distancing themselves entirely from the enticements of false happiness, call upon God in embrace, having stripped off the old man to be clothed in immortality? But why should we treat this question any longer? I believe it is clear to your Charity that the sect of the Manichaeans does not operate with truth but with fraud when dealing with the unlearned, so that they prefer the new scriptures to the old, not in their entirety but by excerpting certain sentences, which they try to show as being contrary to themselves in order to deceive the unlearned. However, there is no new Testament or epistle of the Apostles or even a book of the Gospel from which such things cannot be done, so that by certain sentences one book might seem to be contrary to itself, unless its entire context is examined with the most diligent intention of the reader.