Note 002 After some examination of the various opinions of Tillemont, Beausobre, Lardner, etc., I am convinced that Manes did not propagate his sect even in Persia, before the year 270. It is strange that a philosophic and foreign heresy should have penetrated so rapidly into the African provinces; yet I cannot easily reject the edict of Diocletian against the Manichaeans, which may be found in Baronius. (Annal. Eccl. A.D. 287.)

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Note to Chapter 21 of Decline and Fall by Gibbon