Raúl Villegas-Marín: Abjuring Manichaeism in Early Sixth-Century Rome: The Commonitorium quomodo sit agendum cum Manichaeis attributed to Prosper of Aquitaine

The so-called Commonitorium quomodo sit agendum cum Manichaeis qui confitentur prauitatem huius nefandi erroris was conceived as an aide-mémoire for Catholic bishops having to deal with former Manichaeans wishing to abjure this heresy. It consists on a list of ten anathematisms against Manichaean tenets that repentants were to be required to subscribe (mainly borrowed from Augustine of Hippo's anti-Manichaean works), as well as a forma of the letter attesting their recantation that they were to be granted with, and a kind of protocol to be observed when reconciling them with the Catholic Church. As it well be shown, in its present form the Commonitorium was composed in Rome by the beginning of the 6th century, even if it probably derives from an archetype dating back to the pontificate of Leo the Great (440-461).