Founded by the third-century Persian Prophet Mani, this Gnostic sect was once a contender among the great religions of the Old World.
Manichaeism was a major Gnostic religion that died out after spreading to both ends of Eurasia within its thousand-year course. The story of this sect, which, for a time, it seemed, could have become one of the major world religions alongside Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, and others, began with the Prophet Mani (210-276AD) in Parthian Babylon. Following his death under Bahram I of Persia, Mani's teachings were heard from Rome to China, only to be eventually extinguished through competition with Christianity in the West, Islam in the Middle East, and to fall away with the decline of the Uyghur Empire in central Asia.
Multicultural Roots
After receiving divine revelations from a spirit called The Twin, Mani began his preaching career. His teachings are foremost characterized by syncretism and philosophical dualism. Though the first tradition to influence Mani was probably a Gnostic form of Christianity, he also drew heavily from Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, and Greek philosophy, claiming that Jesus, the Buddha, Zoroaster, and Plato were all prophets alike, and that he himself was the most recent in this lineage. From the start, Mani referred to himself as an apostle of Jesus and as the promised paraclete of the Gospel of John. From Buddhism, Manichaeism adopted the use of the term "Buddha," applying it to Mani. Further, the Prophet's death is described with the Buddhist concept of parinirvana in The Death of Mani. From Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism adopts the name Ormuzd for the divine figure of the Primal Man, a variant of the name of the Persian God of Light, Ahura Mazda. The other great contribution of Persian thought to Mani's Gnosticism is the second feature of Manichaeism: its dualism.
Dualism and Salvation
The dualistic good-evil universe of the Manicheans is perhaps the religion's best-known feature, lending us the term "Manichean" as an adjective describing any dualist philosophy. The most fundamental feature of the Manichean world is an eternal battle between good/light and evil/darkness that is unceasing and irreconcilable. Mani's enlightenment, his bodhi or gnosis, is the separation of the spark of light that is in mankind from the darkness of the flesh that incarcerates it.
When the light in man is freed by death from the bondage of the demons Az and Ahriman, it was said to travel into the heavens, being purified by the sun's light. The soul would wait upon the moon until it could be filled with light, becoming full, before being discharged into complete divine realization.
Other Resources:
- An in-depth overview from the Center for Ancient Iranian Studies
- Selections of Manichean Primary Texts from Harvard
SOURCES:
Archelaus, Acts of the Disputation with Manes. http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0616.htm
The Other Bible, editor Willis Barnstone (Harper San Francisco: 1984). Pp. 39-50.
