Auditores

Auditores

(hearers). The Manichaeans were divided into electi and auditores, corresponding, according to some writers, to clergy and laity, and, according to others, to the faithful and catechumens. By the Manichaean rule a different course of conduct was prescribed to the elect from that of the auditors. The latter might eat flesh, drink wine, bathe, marry, trade, possess estates, etc., all which things were forbidden to the elect. — Mosheim, Comm. 2, 399.