John 1:18

New Testament

16 For we have all received from his fullness one gracious gift after another. 17 For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came about through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God. The only one, himself God, who is in closest fellowship with the Father, has made God known. 19 Now this was John’s testimony when the Jewish leaders sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” 20 He confessed—he did not deny but confessed—“I am not the Christ!”

Archelaus Acts of the Disputation with Manes 5

Acta Archelai
Patristic

For these men refer the beginning and the end and the paternity of these ills to God Himself —whose end is near a curse. For they do not believe the word spoken by our Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ Himself in the Gospels, namely, that a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. And how they can be bold enough to call God the maker and contriver of Satan and his wicked deeds, is a matter of great amazement to me. Yea, would that even this had been all the length to which they had gone with their silly efforts, and that they had not declared that the only-begotten Christ, who has descended from the bosom of the Father, is the son of a certain woman, Mary, and born of blood and flesh and the varied impurities proper to women! Howbeit, neither to write too much in this epistle, nor to trespass at too great length upon your good nature, — and all the more so that I have no natural gift of eloquence — I shall content myself with what I have said.

 Notes and References

"... The main argument given by Mani for the existence of Two Natures is that God cannot be responsible in any way for the existence of evil. He readily admits that the majority of people believe in only one nature, but if this were true, it would “insult the goodness of God” and attribute the source of all evil to God (Acts of Archelaus 5.4). Here begins the thrust of the Manichaean point of view found in the AA: it is impossible to contemplate that God has created evil in the form of Satan, or impossible to contemplate that God is the source of any evil. The whole point of this introductory letter is to show that there are two natures, good and evil. Mani cites Matthew 7:18 to try to convince Marcellus that there are two natures. Intimately tied in with the two natures is the idea that Christ could not have been born of a woman, and here Mani cites John 1:18 ..."

Kaatz, Kevin "The Light and the Darkness: The Two Natures, Free Will, and the Scriptural Evidence in the Acta Archelai" in BeDuhn, Jason, and Paul Allan Mirecki (eds.) Frontiers of Faith: The Christian Encounter with Manichaeism in the Acts of Archelaus (pp. 103-118) Brill, 2007

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