Manichaeism

MANICHAEISM, the religion of Mani or Manes, which spread from Babylonia and during the 4th century was widely influential in the Empire.

Life of

Mani.—According to the Mohammedan tradition, Mani was born in the year 527 of the astronomers of Babylon (A.D. 215-216). He received a careful education at Ctesiphon from his father Fatak or Patak (II arktos). As the father con nected himself at a later period with the confession of the Moghtasilah, or "Baptists," in southern Babylonia, the son also was brought up in the religious doctrines and exercises of this sect. These Baptists were apparently connected with the Elke saites and the Hemerobaptists, and certainly with the Mandaeans. It is probable that this Babylonian sect had absorbed Christian elements. Thus the boy early became acquainted with very different forms of religion.

When Mani had reached the age of twenty-five or thirty years he began to proclaim his new religion. This he did at the court of the Persian king, Shapar I., and, according to the story, on the coronation day of that monarch (241-2). He did not remain in Persia, but undertook long journeys for the purpose of spreading his religion, and also sent forth disciples. According to the Acta Archelai, his missionary activity extended westwards into the territory of the Christian church ; but from Oriental sources it is certain that Mani rather went into Transoxiana, western China, and southwards as far as India. His labours there as well as in Persia were not without result. Like Mahomet after him and the founder of the Elkesaites before him, he gave him self out for the last and highest prophet, who was to surpass all previous divine revelation, which only possessed a relative value, and to set up the perfect religion. In the closing years of the reign of Shapur I. (c. 27o) Mani returned to the Persian capital, and gained adherents even at court. But the dominant priestly caste of the Zoroastrian Magians, on whose support the king was dependent, were naturally hostile to him, and after some successes Mani was made a prisoner, and had then to flee. The successor of Shapur, Hormizd (272-273), appears to have been favourably disposed towards him, but Bahram I. abandoned him to the fanaticism of the Magians, and caused him to be executed in the capital in the year 276-7. The Persian government made great efforts to exterminate the new religion, but in vain. Mani composed a number of books and epistles in Aramaic and at least one in Persian. These were in great part still known to the Mohammedan historians, but are now mostly lost.

Manichaean System.

The Manichaean system is one of con sistent, uncompromising dualism, in the form of a fantastic phil osophy of nature. The distinction between the physical and the

ethical, the natural and the spiritual, did not exist for Mani. When he co-ordinates good with light, and evil with darkness, this is no mere figure of speech, but light is actually good and darkness evil. From this it follows that religious knowledge involves the knowl edge of nature and her elements, and that redemption consists in a process of freeing the element of light from the darkness. Under such circumstances ethics becomes a doctrine of abstinence in re gard to all elements originating within the sphere of darkness.

The self-contradictory character of the present world forms the point of departure for Mani's speculations. From the con tradictory character of the world he concludes the existence of two beings, originally quite separate from each other—light and darkness. Each is to be thought of according to the analogy of a kingdom. Light presents itself to us as the good primal spirit (God, radiant with the virtues of love, faith, fidelity, high mindedness, wisdom, meekness, knowledge, understanding, mys tery and insight), and then further as the heavens of light and the earth of light, with their guardians the glorious aeons or angels. Darkness is likewise a spiritual kingdom (more correctly, it also is conceived of as a spiritual and feminine personification), but it has no "God" at its head. It embraces an "earth of dark ness." As the earth of light has five tokens (the mild zephyr, cooling wind, bright light, quickening fire, and clear water), so has the earth of darkness also five (mist, heat, the sirocco, dark ness and vapour). Satan with his demons was born from the kingdom of darkness. These two kingdoms stood opposed to each other from all eternity, touching each other on one side, but remaining unmingled. Then Satan made an incursion into the kingdom of light, into the earth of light. The God of light, with his syzygy, "the spirit of his right hand," now begot the primal man, and sent him, equipped with the five pure elements, to fight against Satan. But the latter proved himself the stronger, and the primal man was for a moment vanquished. And although the God of light himself now took to the field, and with the help of new aeons (the spirit of life, etc.) inflicted total defeat upon Satan, and set the primal man free ; the latter had already been robbed of part of his light by the darkness, and the five dark ele ments had already mingled themselves with the generations of light.