From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

“Manichaean” redirects here. For the writing system, see Manichaean script.

Not to be confused with Mandaeism.

Manichaeism
آیینِ مانی 摩尼教
Sealstone of Mani, rock crystal, possibly 3rd century CE, Iraq. Cabinet des Médailles, Paris.[1][2] The seal reads “Mani, messenger of the messiah”, and may have been used by Mani himself to sign his epistles.[3][1]
Type	Universal religion
Classification	Iranian religion
Scripture	Manichaean scripture
Theology	Dualistic
Region	Historical: Europe, East Asia, Central Asia, West Asia, North Africa, Siberia Current: Fujian, Zhejiang
Language	Middle Persian, Classical Syriac, Parthian, Classical Latin, Classical Chinese, Old Uyghur language, Tocharian B, Sogdian language, Greek
Founder	Mani
Origin	3rd century AD Parthian, Sasanian Empire
Separated from	Jewish Christian Elcesaite sect, and the teachings of Jesus, Buddha, and Zoroaster
Separations	showManichaean schisms

A portrait of a Persian Manichaean. Line drawing copy of two frescoes from cave 38B at Bezeklik Grottoes.

An image of a Manichaean temple with stars and seven firmaments. Line drawing copy of two frescoes from cave 38B at Bezeklik Grottoes.

Manichaeism (/ˌmænɪˈkiːɪzəm/;^[4] in Persian: آئین مانی Āʾīn-ī Mānī; Chinese: 摩尼教; pinyin: Móníjiào) is a former major world religion,^[5] founded in the 3rd century CE by the Parthian^[6] prophet Mani (216–274 CE), in the Sasanian Empire.^[7]

Manichaeism teaches an elaborate dualistic cosmology describing the struggle between a good, spiritual world of light, and an evil, material world of darkness.^[8] Through an ongoing process that takes place in human history, light is gradually removed from the world of matter and returned to the world of light, whence it came. Mani’s teaching was intended to “combine”,^[9] succeed, and surpass the teachings of Platonism,^[10][11] Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Marcionism,^[9] Hellenistic and Rabbinic Judaism, Gnostic movements, Ancient Greek religion, Babylonian and other Mesopotamian religions,^[12] and mystery cults.^[13][14] It reveres Mani as the final prophet after Zoroaster, the Buddha, and Jesus.

Manichaeism was quickly successful and spread far through Aramaic-speaking regions.^[15] It thrived between the third and seventh centuries, and at its height was one of the most widespread religions in the world. Manichaean churches and scriptures existed as far east as China and as far west as the Roman Empire.^[16] Before the spread of Islam, it was briefly the main rival to early Christianity in the competition to replace classical polytheism. Under the Roman Dominate, Manichaeism was persecuted by the Roman state and was eventually stamped out in the Roman Empire.^[5]

Manichaeism survived longer in the east than it did in the west. The religion was present in West Asia into the Abbasid Caliphate period in the 10th century. It was also present in China despite increasingly strict proscriptions under the Tang dynasty and was the official religion of the Uyghur Khaganate until its collapse in 830. It experienced a resurgence under the Mongol Yuan dynasty during the 13th and 14th centuries but was subsequently banned by the Chinese emperors, and Manichaeism there became subsumed into Buddhism and Taoism.^[17] Some historic Manichaean sites still exist in China, including the temple of Cao’an in Jinjiang, Fujian, and the religion may have influenced later movements in Europe, including Paulicianism, Bogomilism, and Catharism.

While most of Manichaeism’s original writings have been lost, numerous translations and fragmentary texts have survived.^[18]

An adherent of Manichaeism is called a Manichaean, Manichean, or Manichee.^[19]

History

Life of Mani

Main article: Mani (prophet)

Mani was an Iranian^[20][21][a] born in 216 CE in or near Ctesiphon (now al-Mada’in, Iraq) in the Parthian Empire. According to the Cologne Mani-Codex,^[22] Mani’s parents were members of the Jewish Christian Gnostic sect known as the Elcesaites.^[23]

Mani composed seven works, six of which were written in the late-Aramaic Syriac language. The seventh, the Shabuhragan,^[24] was written by Mani in Middle Persian and presented by him to Sasanian emperor Shapur I. Although there is no proof Shapur I was a Manichaean, he tolerated the spread of Manichaeism and refrained from persecuting it within his empire’s boundaries.^[25]

According to one tradition, Mani invented the unique version of the Syriac script known as the Manichaean alphabet^[26] that was used in all of the Manichaean works written within the Sasanian Empire, whether they were in Syriac or Middle Persian, as well as most of the works written within the Uyghur Khaganate. The primary language of Babylon (and the administrative and cultural language of the Empire) at that time was Eastern Middle Aramaic, which included three main dialects: Jewish Babylonian Aramaic (the language of the Babylonian Talmud), Mandaean (the language of Mandaeism), and Syriac, which was the language of Mani as well as the Syriac Christians.^[27]

While Manichaeism was spreading, existing religions such as Zoroastrianism were still prevalent, and Christianity was gaining social and political influence. Although having fewer adherents, Manichaeism won the support of many high-ranking political figures. With the assistance of the Sasanian Empire, Mani began missionary expeditions. After failing to win the favour of the next generation of Persian royalty and incurring the disapproval of the Zoroastrian clergy, Mani is reported to have died in prison awaiting execution by the Persian emperor Bahram I. The date of his death is estimated at 276–277 CE.

Influences

See also: Chinese Manichaeism and Docetism

Mani believed that the teachings of Buddha, Zoroaster,^[28] and Jesus were incomplete, and that his revelations were for the entire world, calling his teachings the “Religion of Light”. Manichaean writings indicate that Mani received revelations when he was twelve years old and again when he was 24, and over this period, he grew dissatisfied with the Elcesaites, the Jewish Christian Gnostic sect he was born into.^[29] Some researchers also point to an important Jain influence on Mani as extreme degrees of asceticism and some specific features of Jain doctrine made the influence of Mahāvīra’s religious community more plausible than even the Buddha.^[30] Fynes (1996) argues that various Jain influences, particularly ideas on the existence of plant souls, were transmitted from Western Kshatrapa territories to Mesopotamia and then integrated into Manichaean beliefs.^[31]

Mani wore colorful clothing abnormal for the time that reminded some Romans of a stereotypical Persian magus or warlord, earning him ire from the Greco-Roman world because of it.^[32]

Mani taught how the soul of a righteous individual returns to Paradise upon dying, but “the soul of the person who persisted in things of the flesh – fornication, procreation, possessions, cultivation, harvesting, eating of meat, drinking of wine – is condemned to rebirth in a succession of bodies.”^[33]

Mani began preaching at an early age and was possibly influenced by contemporary Babylonian-Aramaic movements such as Mandaeism, Aramaic translations of Jewish apocalyptic works similar to those found at Qumran (e.g., the Book of Enoch literature), and by the Syriac dualist-Gnostic writer Bardaisan (who lived a generation before Mani). With the discovery of the Mani-Codex, it also became clear that he was raised in the Jewish Christian sect of the Elcasaites and possibly influenced by their writings.^{[citation needed]}

According to biographies preserved by ibn al-Nadim and the Persian polymath al-Biruni, Mani received a revelation as a youth from a spirit, whom he would later call his “Twin” (Imperial Aramaic: תאומא tɑʔwmɑ, from which is also derived the Greek name of Thomas the Apostle, Didymus; the “twin”), Syzygos (Koinē Greek: σύζυγος “spouse, partner”, in the Cologne Mani-Codex), “Double,” “Protective Angel,” or “Divine Self.” This spirit taught him wisdom that he then developed into a religion. It was his “Twin” who brought Mani to self-realization. Mani claimed to be the Paraclete of the Truth promised by Jesus in the New Testament.^[34]

Manichaeism’s views on Jesus are described by historians:

Jesus in Manichaeism possessed three separate identities:
(1) Jesus the Luminous,
(2) Jesus the Messiah and
(3) Jesus patibilis (the suffering Jesus).

(1) As Jesus the Luminous … his primary role was as supreme revealer and guide and it was he who woke Adam from his slumber and revealed to him the divine origins of his soul and its painful captivity by the body and mixture with matter.

(2) Jesus the Messiah was an historical being who was the prophet of the Jews and the forerunner of Mani. However, the Manichaeans believed he was wholly divine, and that he never experienced human birth, as the physical realities surrounding the notions of his conception and his birth filled the Manichaeans with horror. However, the Christian doctrine of virgin birth was also regarded as obscene. Since Jesus the Messiah was the light of the world, where was this light, they reasoned, when Jesus was in the womb of the Virgin? Jesus the Messiah, they believed, was truly born only at his baptism, as it was on that occasion that the Father openly acknowledged his sonship. The suffering, death and resurrection of this Jesus were in appearance only as they had no salvific value but were an exemplum of the suffering and eventual deliverance of the human soul and a prefiguration of Mani’s own martyrdom.

(3) The pain suffered by the imprisoned Light-Particles in the whole of the visible universe, on the other hand, was real and immanent. This was symbolized by the mystic placing of the Cross whereby the wounds of the passion of our souls are set forth. On this mystical Cross of Light was suspended the Suffering Jesus (Jesus patibilis) who was the life and salvation of Man. This mystica crucifixio was present in every tree, herb, fruit, vegetable and even stones and the soil. This constant and universal suffering of the captive soul is exquisitely expressed in one of the Coptic Manichaean psalms.^[35]

Augustine of Hippo also noted that Mani declared himself to be an “apostle of Jesus Christ”.^[36] Manichaean tradition is also noted to have claimed that Mani was the reincarnation of religious figures from previous eras such as the Buddha, Krishna, and Zoroaster in addition to Jesus himself.

Academics note that much of what is known about Manichaeism comes from later 10th- and 11th-century Muslim historians like al-Biruni and ibn al-Nadim in his al-Fihrist; the latter “ascribed to Mani the claim to be the Seal of the Prophets.”^[37] However, given the Islamic milieu of Arabia and Persia at the time, it stands to reason that Manichaens would regularly assert in their evangelism that Mani, not Muhammad, was the “Seal of the Prophets”.^[38] In reality, for Mani the metaphorical expression “Seal of Prophets” is not a reference to his finality in a long succession of prophets as it is used in Islam, but rather as final to his followers (who testify or attest to his message as a “seal”).^[39][40]

Other sources of Mani’s scripture were the Aramaic originals of the Book of Enoch, 2 Enoch, and an otherwise unknown section of the Book of Enoch entitled The Book of Giants. Mani quoted the latter directly and expanded upon it, becoming one of the six original Syriac writings of the Manichaean Church. Besides short references by non-Manichaean authors through the centuries, no original sources of The Book of Giants (which is actually part six of the Book of Enoch) were available until the 20th century.^[41]

Scattered fragments of both the original Aramaic Book of Giants (which were analyzed and published by Józef Milik in 1976)^[42] and the Manichaean version of the same name (analyzed and published by Walter Bruno Henning in 1943)^[43] were discovered along with the Dead Sea Scrolls in the Judaean desert in the 20th century and the Manichaean writings of the Uyghur Manichaean kingdom in Turpan. Henning wrote in his analysis of them:

It is noteworthy that Mani, who was brought up and spent most of his life in a province of the Persian empire, and whose mother belonged to a famous Parthian family, did not make any use of the Iranian mythological tradition. There can no longer be any doubt that the Iranian names of Sām, Narīmān, etc., that appear in the Persian and Sogdian versions of the Book of the Giants, did not figure in the original edition, written by Mani in the Syriac language.^[43]

By comparing the cosmology of the books of Enoch to the Book of Giants, as well as the description of the Manichaean myth, scholars have observed that the Manichaean cosmology can be described as being based, in part, on the description of the cosmology developed in detail within the Enochic literature.^[44] This literature describes the being that the prophets saw in their ascent to Heaven as a king who sits on a throne at the highest of the heavens. In the Manichaean description, this being, the “Great King of Honor”, becomes a deity who guards the entrance to the World of Light placed at the seventh of ten heavens.^[45] In the Aramaic Book of Enoch, the Qumran writings, overall, and in the original Syriac section of Manichaean scriptures quoted by Theodore bar Konai,^[46] he is called malkā rabbā d-iqārā (“the Great King of Honor”).^{[citation needed]}

Mani was also influenced by writings of the gnostic Bardaisan (154–222 CE), who, like Mani, wrote in Syriac and presented a dualistic interpretation of the world in terms of light and darkness in combination with elements from Christianity.^[47]

Mani was heavily inspired by Iranian Zoroastrian theology.^[28]

Noting Mani’s travels to the Kushan Empire (several religious paintings in Bamyan are attributed to him) at the beginning of his proselytizing career, Richard Foltz postulates Buddhist influences in Manichaeism:

Buddhist influences were significant in the formation of Mani’s religious thought. The transmigration of souls became a Manichaean belief, and the quadripartite structure of the Manichaean community, divided between male and female monks (the “elect”) and lay followers (the “hearers”) who supported them, appears to be based on that of the Buddhist sangha.^[48]

The Kushan monk Lokakṣema began translating Pure Land Buddhist texts into Chinese in the century prior to Mani arriving there. The Chinese texts of Manichaeism are full of uniquely Buddhist terms taken directly from these Chinese Pure Land scriptures, including the term “pure land” (Chinese: 淨土; pinyin: jìngtǔ) itself.^[49] However, the central object of veneration in Pure Land Buddhism, Amitābha, the Buddha of Infinite Light, does not appear in Chinese Manichaeism and seems to have been replaced by another deity.^[50]

Spread

Roman Empire

Manichaeism reached Rome through the apostle Psattiq in 280, who was also in Egypt in 244 and 251. It flourished in the Faiyum in 290.

Manichaean monasteries existed in Rome in 312 during the time of Pope Miltiades.^[51]

In 291, persecution arose in the Sasanian Empire with the murder of the apostle Sisin by Emperor Bahram II and the slaughter of many Manichaeans. Then, in 302, the first official reaction and legislation against Manichaeism from the Roman state was issued under Diocletian. In an official edict called the De Maleficiis et Manichaeis compiled in the Collatio Legum Mosaicarum et Romanarum and addressed to the proconsul of Africa, Diocletian wrote:

We have heard that the Manichaeans […] have set up new and hitherto unheard-of sects in opposition to the older creeds so that they might cast out the doctrines vouchsafed to us in the past by the divine favour for the benefit of their own depraved doctrine. They have sprung forth very recently like new and unexpected monstrosities among the race of the Persians – a nation still hostile to us – and have made their way into our empire, where they are committing many outrages, disturbing the tranquility of our people and even inflicting grave damage to the civic communities. We have cause to fear that with the passage of time they will endeavour, as usually happens, to infect the modest and tranquil of an innocent nature with the damnable customs and perverse laws of the Persians as with the poison of a malignant (serpent) … We order that the authors and leaders of these sects be subjected to severe punishment, and, together with their abominable writings, burnt in the flames. We direct their followers, if they continue recalcitrant, shall suffer capital punishment, and their goods be forfeited to the imperial treasury. And if those who have gone over to that hitherto unheard-of, scandalous and wholly infamous creed, or to that of the Persians, are persons who hold public office, or are of any rank or of superior social status, you will see to it that their estates are confiscated and the offenders sent to the (quarry) at Phaeno or the mines at Proconnesus. And in order that this plague of iniquity shall be completely extirpated from this our most happy age, let your devotion hasten to carry out our orders and commands.^[52]

By 354, Hilary of Poitiers wrote that Manichaeism was a significant force in Roman Gaul. In 381, Christians requested Theodosius I to strip Manichaeans of their civil rights. Starting in 382, the emperor issued a series of edicts to suppress Manichaeism and punish its followers.^[53]

Augustine of Hippo (354–430) converted to Christianity from Manichaeism in the year 387. This was shortly after the Roman emperor Theodosius I issued a decree of death for all Manichaean monks in 382 and shortly before he declared Christianity the only legitimate religion for the Roman Empire in 391. Due to the heavy persecution, the religion almost disappeared from Western Europe in the fifth century and from the eastern portion of the empire in the sixth century.^[54]

According to his Confessions, after nine or ten years of adhering to the Manichaean faith as a member of the group of “hearers”, Augustine of Hippo became a Christian and potent adversary of Manichaeism (which he expressed in writing against his Manichaean opponent Faustus of Mileve), seeing their beliefs that knowledge was the key to salvation as too passive and unable to affect any change in one’s life.^[55]

I still thought that it is not we who sin but some other nature that sins within us. It flattered my pride to think that I incurred no guilt and, when I did wrong, not to confess it … I preferred to excuse myself and blame this unknown thing which was in me but was not part of me. The truth, of course, was that it was all my own self, and my own impiety had divided me against myself. My sin was all the more incurable because I did not think myself a sinner.^[56]

Some modern scholars have suggested that Manichaean ways of thinking influenced the development of some of Augustine’s ideas, such as the nature of good and evil, the idea of hell, the separation of groups into elect, hearers, and sinners, and the hostility to the flesh and sexual activity, and his dualistic theology.^[57]

More at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manichaeism