Alexander of Lycopolis (ca. 300) testimony about Mani

Alexander of Lycopolis (ca. 300) testimony about Mani

... like that Manichaîos, who is a Persian by descent, who according to our teaching surpassed everybody in telling amazing stories. 
... They say he arose during Valerian, campaigned together with Sapores the Persian, and died after having incurred his anger. 
The following account of his teaching came to us from those who knew the man.
He postulated two principles (arkhaí): God and Matter (húlê), of whom God was good and Matter evil (kakós).
God had more good than Matter had evil. 
When he says Matter he does not, however, like Plato mean that which becomes all things when it takes on quality and form (which is why Plato calls it all-absorbing and mother and nurse), or like Aristotle the element in which form and lack appear, but something different from these.  
For he calls Matter the unordered movement that is in every being. 
Alongside with God there are other powers (dúnamis), serving him, as it were: all good; likewise with Matter: all evil. 
The splendor and the light and the upper region was all with God; the murkiness and the darkness and the nether region was all with Matter. 
God also had aspirations, but all those good, and matter likewise, but all evil.
Once upon a time Matter became desirous (epithumía) to reach the upper region, but when she reached it she was amazed at all the splendor and light that was with God and wished to oust God and assume power herself. 
Now God wished to punish her, but had nothing evil with which to punish her, for there was nothing evil in the house of God. 
So he sent against Matter a power, which we call the soul (psukhê), which was to mingle completely with her. 
For it would mean the death of Matter when subsequently it was separated from her. 
And so, according to God’s foresight (prónoia), the soul was mixed with Matter, something dissimilar with something dissimilar. 
But through this mixture not only Matter suffered, but the soul as well. 
For in the same way that a bad vessel often causes its contents to change, so also did the soul inside Matter suffer and deteriorated from its actual nature (oúsa phúsis) into participating (metousía) in evil. 
God was sorry about this and sent another power, which we call the demiurge [the Living Spirit]. 
After arriving and having taken the creation of the world in hand, he extracted from Matter as much of the power as had not yet suffered anything untoward (átopos) from the mixture, and so first sun and moon came into being. 
That which had become only moderately evil became the stars and the rest of the sky. 
The part of matter which was left after the sun and moon had been separated from it was thrown outside the world, and that is that fire which burns but is darkish and dull like the night. 
In the other elements and the plants and animals consisting of them the divine power was unequally mixed.
So in this way the world came into being, and in it the sun and the moon by their becoming and disappearing ever separate from Matter the divine power and lead it up to God.  For after the demiurge another power in the light form of the sun came down and performed all this [the Third Messenger]. 
Now, this work is very clear and obvious even to the blind, as it were. 
For when it waxes the moon receives the light that has been separated out from Matter and it becomes full of it at this time. 
But when it has become full, then as it diminishes it leads it to the sun, which sends it on to God. 
When it has done this it starts taking up again, after the next full moon, the soul transmuting up to it.
And having received it he likewise lets it be carried up to God on its own. 
And this it does constantly. 
And an image is to be seen in the sun which is like that of a man. Matter became envious of it and fashioned a man from herself according to how much power she possessed through the mixture. 
Thus man too has some of the soul in him.  Indeed, the image contributed a lot to the fact that man has more of the divine power than other mortal living beings, for he is an image of divine power. 
As for Christ, he is the Nous. 
He too once came from the upper region and released the greatest part of this power for God. 
And, of course, in the end he was crucified and so brought Gnosis, in such a way that the divine power was insinuated into, even crucified in Matter. 
Now, since God’s decision is that Matter is to be annihilated, one should abstain from everything that has a soul, but satisfy oneself with vegetables and everything that has no feelings, and also abstain from marriage, sex, and child-making, in order that the soul does not transhume even more within Matter through the sequence of
generations. 
One should not oneself by performing mechanical cleansings try to expel those things with which the mixture with Matter has sullied the power. 
These are the main points of what they say. 
They worship mostly the sun and the moon, not as gods, but as a way to reach God. 
But when the divine power has been completely separated, then, they say, the outer fire will collapse and will consume both itself and everything else that remains of Matter.''

*******

Alexander of Lycopolis was the writer of a short treatise, in twenty-six chapters, against the Manicheans (J. P. Migne, Patrologia Graeca, XVIII, 409-448). He says in the second chapter of this work that he derived his knowledge of Manes' teaching apo ton gnorimon (from the man's friend).

The work is a specimen of Greek analytical procedure in the service of Christian theology, "a calm but vigorous protest of the trained scientific intellect against the vague dogmatism of the Oriental theosophies".

Photius says (Contra Manichaeos, i, 11) that he was Bishop of Lycopolis (in the Egyptian Thebaid), but Otto Bardenhewer opines (Patrologie, 234) that he was a pagan and a Platonist.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_of_Lycopolis

Parthian text on the End of the World

 

Parthian text on the End of the World

M 2 II Pa
And then the battle-stirring gods lead and guide their aeons and those who are of the same form, which they had called into the great earth and placed (there), by  divine proclamation to the new world and settle there in the same way as nomads, who (going) from place to place with their tents, horses, and possessions, put up and pull down (the tents). 
 But that power of the light that is so mixed with darkness that it cannot be separated from it again, which is not of the same form because from the beginning it foresaw, “So it is for me, because it was so decided.”  Therefore it is not called of the same form.

 And again, those five (sons of First Man) prayed in the battle to Ohrmezdbag (First Man), “Do not leave us in the corpse of darkness, but send us power and a helper!”  And Ohrmezdbag promised them, “I will not abandon you to the powers of darkness.”  In that case it was not the power that knew, “For me the mixing with darkness in the beginning reaches an injury and heaviness so wretched that I cannot be taken away and separated from darkness.”
No, that was the power that knew, “My mixture is of such a kind that I can be purified and saved by the help of Ohrmezdbag and the brothers.”  And they did not pray for that reason that, if they did not pray, then Ohrmezdbag would not help them.  But to them on account of that prayer.  And the hope and promise of Ohrmezdbag increased the(ir) power in the same way as fighters whose power increases through the zeal put on by the voice and the heart of their friends.

 And the gods will not be sorrowful because of that bit of light that is mixed with darkness and cannot be separated out, for sorrow is not characteristic of them.  On the contrary, through the peace and joy that is radically characteristic of them, through (the fact) that they are joyous and for that reason that they have subdued and bound Ahrimen together with the enemy.
And for a short while they clothed themselves inwardly with the costume of joy, but outwardly they were visible in armed warlike appearance.  And after they have bound it in a prison of oblivion and they themselves are ruling over it, then they are joyous, proud, and happy, because nobody can any longer do them harm.

 And when all the battle-stirrers have rested for a short while in the new world and when also that little bit of the light earth and its mountains, wherefrom the materials for building the new world had been taken, has been restored, and when also the last man stands as the mightiest in stature, and when the warlike gods together with the five lights have been healed from their wounds, then all the jewels, the apostles, and the battle-stirring gods stand up and appear before the sovereign of paradise with pleas and prayer: First Ohrmezdbag together with the Last Man, the Mother of the Righteous, the Friend of the Lights, Narêsafyazd (Third Messenger), Bamyazd (Great Builder), the Living Spirit, Jesus the splendor, the Maiden Light, and the Great Manohmed (Nous), these light fathers together with their gods, apostles, and aeons, all rightly in one thought, with one praise, in one voice, in one word, in one wish.

 They raise their voice in prayer and worship for the great jewel Sroshaw, the primeval, the righteous god, the highest of gods, and they say, “You, you are the father of the light, of primeval existence from eternity, and to your dominion there is no harm.  And also that sinner who boasted deceitfully and fought with your greatness has been seized and bound in an extraordinary tomb, out of which he can no longer go.  And also the earth, the dwelling-place of the enemies, we have overthrown and filled up and above we have built the light fundament of the new world. 

And for you there are no more enemies and rivals, but yours is the eternal victory.  Come now, and show mercy upon us!  Uncover your bright figure, the loveliest of sights, for us who are longing for turning to it and becoming glad and joyous through it.”  Then the sovereign of paradise ...

From : Prods Oktor Skjærvø - An Introduction to Manicheism

Manichaean Scriptures Psalm CCXXIIII of the Manichaean Bema Psalms

A page from the Cologne Mani Codex, in Greek. 5th century AD, 

found near the ancient Lycopolis, Egypt.

Manichaean Scriptures Psalm CCXXIIII of the Manichaean Bema Psalms

Let us worship the Spirit of the Paraclete.
Let us bless our Lord Jesus who has sent us the Spirit of Truth. He came and separated us from the Error of the world, he brought us a mirror, we looked, we saw the Universe in it.

When the Holy Spirit came he revealed to us the way of Truth and taught us that there are two Natures, that of Light and that of Darkness, separate one from the other from the beginning.

The Kingdom of Light, on the one hand, consisted in five Greatnesses, and they are the Father and his twelve Aeons and the Aeons of the Aeons, the Living Air, the Land of Light ; the great Spirit breathing in them, nourishing them with his Light.

But the Kingdom of Darkness consists of five storehouses, which are Smoke and Fire and Wind and Water and Darkness; their Counsel creeping in them, moving them and inciting them to make war with one another.

Now as they were making war with one another they dared to make an attempt upon the Land of Light, thinking that they would be able to conquer it.
But they know not that which they have thought to do they will bring down upon their own heads.

But there was a multitude of angels in the Land of Light, having powers to go forth to subdue the enemy of the Father, whom it pleased that by his Word that he would send, he should subdue the revels who desired to exalt themselves above that which was more
exalted than they.

Like unto a shepherd that shall see a lion coming to destroy his sheep-fold: for he uses guile and takes a lamb and sets it as a snare that he may catch him by it : for by a single lamb he saves his sheep-fold. After these things he heals the lamb that has been wounded by the lion:

This too is the way of the Father, who sent his strong son ; and he produced from himself his Maiden equipped with five powers, that she might fight against the five abysses if the Dark.

When the Watcher stood in the boundaries of light, he showed to them his Maiden who is his soul; they bestirred themselves in their abyss, desiring to exalt themselves over her, they opened their mouth desiring to swallow her.

He held her power fast, he spread her over them, like nets over fishes, he made her rain down upon them like purified clouds of water, she thrust herself within them like piercing lightning.
She crept in their inward parts, she bound them all, they not knowing it.

When the First Man had finished his war the Father sent his second son. He came and helped his brother out of the abyss; he established this whole world out of the mixture that took place of the Light and the Darkness.

He spread out all the powers of the abyss to ten heavens and eight earths, he shut them up into this world once, he made it a prison too for all the powers of Darkness, it is also a place of purification for the Soul that was swallowed in them.

The sun and moon he founded, he set them on high, to purify the Soul.
Daily they take up the refined part to the height, but the dregs however they erase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . mixed, they convey it above and below.

This whole world stands firm for a season, there being a great building which is being built outside this world. So soon as the builder shall finish, the whole world will dissolve and set on fire that the fire may smelt it away.

All life, the relic of Light wheresoever it be, he will gather to himself and of it depict and image.
And the counsel of death too, all the Darkness, he will gather together and make a likeness of its very self, it and the Ruler.

In a moment the living Spirit will come . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . he will succor the Light. But the counsel of death and the darkness he will shut up in the dwelling that was established for it, that it might be bound in it for ever.

There is no other means to bind the Enemy save this means; for he will not be received to the Light because he is a stranger to it : nor again can he be left in his land of Darkness, that he may not wage a war greater than the first.

A new Aeon shall be built in the place of the world that shall dissolve, that in it the powers of the Light may reign, because they have performed and fulfilled the will of the Father entire, they have subdued the hated one, they have . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . over him for ever.

This is the Knowledge of Mani, let us worship him and bless him.
Blessed is every man that shall have trust in him, for he it is shall live with all the Righteous. Glory and victory to our Lord Mani, the Spirit of Truth, that cometh from the Father, who has revealed to us the Beginning, the Middle and the End.
Victory to the soul of the blessed Mary, Theona, Pshaijmnoute.

Source : http://gnosis.org/library/bc23.htm

Manichaeism - Nicholas J. Baker-Brian

Manichaeism - Nicholas J. Baker-Brian

 An Ancient Faith Rediscovered

 Conclusion (page 140)

From the long vie w accorded to a writer of the eleventh century, Mani’s apostolic and missionary success could be explained solely by the sponsorship that he had secured for himself and his disciples from the Persian ruling elite and its vassals throughout Iranshahr. The reasons for the worldly success of the Manichaeans as provided by al-Bir uni’s assessment of Mani’s religion in his Chronolog y of Ancient Nations where, under the protection of Ardashir I, Shapur I and Hormizd I, ‘Manichaeism increased by degrees’,
appear to be corroborated in the historiographical traditions of Manichaeism. In the later historicising sources from Central Asia, relationships leading to imperial protection proceeded directly from the teaching and healing abilities of Mani in the courts of the Sasanian empire.

The conversion of Shapur’s brother, Mihr-Shah, the r uler of Mesene in southern Babylonia, from devout sceptic to awed follower, after Mani had shown him the gardens of the ‘Paradise of Light’, represents the type of visionary experience associated with Mani’s speculative teachings that was so prized by the followers of the apostle.  Fur thermore, in Tur fan text M566 I, which may preserve a tradition recounting Mani’s first audience with Shapur I, Mani announces before a monarch ‘I am a physician from Babylon’, followed by his healing of an unnamed female, presumably of royal lineage, who declares, ‘From where are you, my God and my redeemer?’

For al-Biruni, so long as Mani could maintain good relations with kings and princes, both he and his disciples were protected and at liberty to teach and attract followers. However, Mani’s for tunes changed with the accession of Vahram I, the brother of Hormizd, to the Sasanian throne in 273. Al-Bir uni saw two issues as responsible for the termination of imperial support, both appearing to be reversals of the very things that had won Mani suppor t in the first place, i.e., his role as restorer of physical wellbeing, and his teachings. In the first instance, al-Bir uni recalls the comments made by the Christian author Jibra’ilb. Nuh in his anti-Manichaean work written as a response to the ninth century treatise of the Manichaean leader during the Abbasid period, Abu Ali Raja ibn Yazdanbakht (cf. al-Nadim, Fihrist ; B. Dodge 1970, II.805), that Mani was arrested and thrown into prison by Vahram because he had failed to free a relative of the king from possession by the devil.

That Mani appears to have offended Vahram as a result of the inefficacy of his healing is also indicated in a portion of a biographical work (M3) recounting Mani’s final audience before Vahram at the royal palace in Belapat in Khuzistan in 276. ‘ You are not welcome’, was the terse insult addressed by Vahram to Mani as he stood waiting for his royal audience at the doors of the palace. Vahram continued: ‘Eh, what are you good for since you go neither fighting nor hunting? But perhaps you are needed for this doctoring and this physicking? And you don’t do even that!’

The second ‘failing’ noted by al-Biruni constitutes, on the surface at least, a clash of ideologies, with Vahram quoted as saying of Mani: ‘This man has come for ward calling people to destroy the world. It will be necessary to begin by destroying him, before anything of his plans should be realised.’
Vahram’s words explaining his antipathy to Mani echo demonstrably the eschatological ‘impulse’ within Manichaeism, as evidenced, for example, in the Šābuhragān or the Coptic Homilies, and is reminiscent of Jesus’s saying in Luke’s gospel 12.49: ‘I have come to set fire to the ear th, and how I wish it were already kindled!’ The suggestion that Manichaeism represented a threat to the established social order may also be found in the infamous rescript issued in 302 by the Roman emperor Diocletian and his partners in imperial r ule – known collectively as the Tetrarchy (i.e., the Four Rulers). The Tetrarchs pronounced that the Manichaeans’ influence on Roman society should be severely checked, if necessary through the application of the death penalty, because of their habitual tendency to commit ‘many evil deeds, disturbing the tranquillity of the peoples and causing the gravest injuries to the civic communities [of the Roman empire].’

Both complaints almost certainly convey the reaction of the ruling authorities to the impact of Mani’s theological radicalism on the religious landscapes of Persian and Roman society, although both are also clear expressions of Mani’s and Manichaeans’ inability to argue convincingly at different times for protected status from the ruling powers of Rome and Persia.
Other factors, some within Mani’s control and some outside, also led to a loss of authoritative support for the religion during the third century. Vahram’s anxiety about Mani winning away a local client king, Baat, from the Mazdean religious law of the Sasanian court  was coupled with the rise of the ambitious Zoroastrian, Karder, chief of the magi, who was given a central role in mediating the insinuations levelled against Mani before Vahram, as portrayed in the narrative of Mani’s final days from the Coptic homilies of Medinet Madi.

In the case of the Tetrarchs’ reaction to those Manichaeans appearing in Roman territor y late in the third century, their hostility was conditioned as much by their own ambitions for a renewal of Roman religious and imperial identity as it was by their hostility to Persia and the assumed Persian origins of the Manichaeans. In both cases, acting against the Manichaeans provided the perfect excuse for the intensification of power by those already in a position of privilege greater than that enjoyed by the Manichaeans themselves. 

However, whilst the Manichaeans’ career as ‘the Other’ may have begun in the pagan- and Mazdeaninfluenced cour ts of Late Antiquity, it was their Christian brethren who did the most to refine the identity of the Manichaeans as religious deviants. Patristic writers left to posterity the portrait of the Manichaeans as insane heretics, their madness deemed to derive not from their teachings alone but also from the ‘mania’ of Mani himself, a characterisation deriving from the similarity of Mani’s name to the Greek
participle maneis  meaning ‘raving’: an appropriate etymological description, so thought his opponents, for the madness of the apostle and for the insane beliefs and practices of his church.

During its long history and across the breadth of its geographical diffusion, the Manichaean church perpetually rubbed up against the authority of the state. Nevertheless, exclusiveness and collective suffering provided the Manichaeans with important components of their own identity, which they located in the cosmic template of the loss of the Five Sons and their troubled existence in the world as the persecuted Living Soul, and also in the historical template of Mani’s own persecution under Vahram I. 

The last days of Mani’s life, as revealed by al-Biruni’s sources and the Parthian and Middle Persian historical fragments M6033 I, M6031 II and M3,  likely all emerged from the homiletic tradition of Manichaeism’s ‘lamentation literature’, exemplified by the contents of the Coptic homilies recently edited and translated
anew by Nils Arne Pedersen (2006). Mani’s fall from favour, his imprisonment and death, were soon memorialised by his followers as a ‘Narrative about the Crucifixion’, in imitation of Jesus the Apostle’s passion and death. In the narrative from the codex, Mani’s passion is analogised alongside that of Jesus, and in a manner which por trays the persecutions of the early Sasanian Manichaean church, beginning during the reign of Vahram I and intensified under Vahram II, as a continuation of the bodily suffering of Mani as he lay weighed down by the chains and shackles of his gaolers (Manichaean Homilies 48.19–22).

In spite of the persecution of Manichaeans at various times by Sasanian, Roman and Byzantine authorities, the followers of Mani survived and indeed flourished for many centuries, not least in the Uighur empire under the rule of Bügü Khan during the eighth century.
The longevity of eastern Manichaeism stood in stark contrast to the fate of the Manichaeans at the hands of the Byzantine inheritors of Roman rule where, at some unspecified point in the sixth century, they are considered to have been eradicated following an especially fierce round of anti-Manichaean laws and activities instituted by the emperor Justinian I (ruling 527–65).

However, in the Christian theological tradition, ‘Manichaean’ lived on as a term of abuse: the defining features of the term as a heresiological identifier – dualism, docetism, diet, rejection of the Old Testament and repudiation of marriage – derive almost entirely from the anti-Manichaean writings of Late Antiquity, which were put to the service of providing an imposed, heretical identity for those Christian traditions appearing to exhibit one or more of these ‘Manichaean’ characteristics. In the Byzantine empire from the eighth century onwards, ‘Manichaean’ was applied to those Christian par ties who were vie wed as standing in the tradition of a dualistic theology, foremost among them being the so-called Paulicians and Bogomils.

In the medieval West of the eleventh century, the charge of being ‘Manichaean’ was widely cast onto various dissenting groups, and most notoriously towards the Cathars during the twelfth century. It is highly problematical to suggest that a genealogical association existed between the Manichaeans of Late Antiquity and the ‘Manichaeans’ of Byzantine and medieval times, as some commentators have never theless tried to do, for the principal reason that the identities of the latter-day ‘heretics’ were drawn primarily from the longstanding catalogue of Manichaean traits supplied by writers such as Augustine.

Nevertheless, the development of the label ‘Manichaean’ in the medieval period shared a fundamental similarity with its emergence in Late Antiquity. During the four th century and beyond, the term played a central role in the ‘heresiological name-game by assisting in the criminal prosecution of religious par ties and individuals who, whether through real or invented connections with genuine Manichaeans, faced a range of disabling civil actions under the anti-heresy laws introduced by Theodosius I during the final three decades of the 300s.

Similarly, during the medieval period of Europe’s ‘great heresies’, the prosecution and punishment of heretics proceeded from the identification of those ‘Manichaean’ traits displayed in the beliefs and practices of dissenting individuals or par ties.
There was a predictable continuation of the use of ‘Manichaean’ in the accusatory exchanges between Catholic and Protestant par ties during the European Reformation of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, with patristic characterisations of Manichaean teaching as deterministic and damaging to the free employment of the will featuring prominently in the debates of the period.

However, it was Mani’s idea that the presence and operation of evil in the world is attributable to the contrary substance, the very thing which Augustine claimed had failed to convince him of Mani’s teachings, which rescued Manichaeism from being eternally condemned as the  substantialist heresy of the early church. In Pierre Bayle’s  Historical and Critical Dictionar y (published 1697), a work of enormous influence on the European Enlightenment, Manichaeism remained a substantialist heresy that was nevertheless to be preferred to Catholicism in that, according to Bayle’s entry on the Manichaeans, it offered a rationally defensible account of God’s goodness in its ascribing of the origins of physical suffering to a separate principle co-eternal with God.

It is in the Enlightenment adoption of the ancient Manichaeans as the deistic alternative to Catholicism’s supposedly irrational defence of God, evil and creation, that the roots of the historical study of Manichaean theology are to be found. The Huguenot scholar Isaac de Beausobre developed Bayle’s defence of Manichaeism in his Critical History , a two-volume study published between 1734 and 1739, producing ‘a precise and careful account of the history of Manichaeism’.
For Beausobre, the critical approach of his work concerned a detailed handling of the patristic sources for Mani and Manichaeism from Late Antiquity, very many of which had become available for the first time in new, critical editions which Beausobre made very good use of: he was largely reluctant to conclude that the Greek and Latin sources about Manichaeism contained anything other than lies and distortions of Mani’s life and teachings.

Whilst Reformation and Enlightenment interest in the religion of Mani was influenced by the concerns of apologetics and polemics, these have since made way during the twentieth century for ‘the task of legitimation and recovery’, in the industry of scholars working on the ‘cultural products’, i.e., the ideas, texts and ar t of Manichaeism. As Richard Lim has noted, a move beyond the work of legitimation and recover y is surely on the cards, perhaps indeed in a direction beyond the seemingly solid edifice of ‘Manichaean’ and ‘Manichaeism’, as the principal way of discussing and compart mentalising the products of those followers who recognised the spiritual worth of Mani’s teachings: ‘By insisting on the identification and recover y of Manichaeans across the centuries and the continents as one of their chief goals, scholars in the field are unwittingly joining forces with the likes of Augustine to create and sustain a master discourse about who and what the Manichaeans were.’

Finally, whilst those studying Manichaeism catch brief glimpses of the appeal that Mani held for his followers during Late Antiquity and beyond, it is perhaps fair to say that the full spectrum of reasons for the flourishing of the religion will continue to elude us. 

Mani’s ancient Christian opponents certainly witnessed at first hand the appeal of Mani, although the central rationale of their writings was to convey a reversal of the religious value of Mani’s teachings. The historical investigation of sources, therefore, will continue to leave numerous gaps in our appreciation of Mani and the Manichaeans, some of which may nevertheless be filled via other forms of imaginative expression. Alongside the great, scholarly monuments of Manichaean studies, it is perhaps worth concluding with a brief mention of arguably the most thoughtful and ingenious treatment of Mani’s life and times from the last century, Amin Maalouf ’s ‘historical novel’, The Gardens of Light. 

Academic research and historical fiction differ primarily, I would argue, in the way that fiction conveys the concerns and prejudices of its author in the characterisation of its subject; these interests are experienced more acutely and certainly acknowledged more openly by the novelist than by the scholar, for the very reason that the characters created by the novelist often serve as mediums for the expression of some intensely personal influences and experiences. In the novel’s epilogue, Maalouf addresses a question which will have crossed the minds of all those who have thought about and studied Mani and Manichaeism over the years:

Nothing remains of [Mani’s] books, of his works of art and of his fervour, nothing of his generous faith, his passionate quest, his message of harmony between men, nature and the deity. Of his religion of beauty, of his subtle religion of Darkness and Light, we have retained only the words ‘Manichaean’, ‘Manichaeism’, which have become insults on our lips. Because all the inquisitors of Rome and Persia conspired together to disfigure Mani and wipe out his name and memory. In what way was he so dangerous that it was necessary to even drive him out of our memories?

Few scholars would be willing to address this question, let alone provide a concrete answer. By contrast, different parameters operate in the world of the novel, and the curious combination of radicalism and toleration in the actions and teachings of Maalouf ’s Mani provide a partial answer to the question as he walks through a very modern-sounding landscape of religious and civil conflict. 

This Mani is portrayed as offering a consistent challenge to the established voices of authority: the religious order of the ‘ White-clad brethren’ in which he was raised, the conventions of his own social class and the caste system of Persian society, and the majesty of the Sasanian kings and princes, are all ‘turned upside down’ by Mani’s personality and message. In line with the ancient Manichaean sources, Mani falls from Vahram’s favour because he has failed to show his worth to the r uling dynasty, and because his teachings pay little regard to the dogmatic pretensions of the chief magus, Karder. 

Maalouf has imagined a character that inhabits fully the historical landscape of third-century Persia by prompting seismic shifts in its religious and social order as a result of Mani disclosing to the world the revelations made known to him by his divine Twin. This appears to be one of many impressions of Mani that students obtain from studying Manichaeism, particularly in its late-antique context, and it will almost certainly continue to be the case that, whether through fiction or academic investigation, Mani and Manichaeism will have an impact on all those who encounter this most fascinating ancient religion.

Published by T&T Clark International A Continuum Imprint The Tower Building, 

11 York Road, London SE1 7NX 80 Maiden Lane, Suite 704, Ne w York, NY 10038
www.continuumbooks.com

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http://www.mediafire.com/view/?izdxm2t7tgaotma

 

Rudolf Steiner - An Esoteric Cosmology

An Esoteric Cosmology

II

THE MISSION OF MANICHEISM

The purpose of this lecture is to expand and deepen what was said in the preceding lecture.

The difference between Occult Brotherhoods before and after Christianity is that before the advent of Christianity their chief mission was to guard the sacred tradition; afterwards, it was to form and mould the future. Occult science is not abstract and dead but active and living.

Christian occultism is derived from the Manicheans whose founder, Manes, lived on the Earth three hundred years after Jesus the Christ. The essence of Manichean teaching relates to the doctrine of Good and Evil. In ordinary thought, the Good and the Evil are two irreducible qualities, one of which — the Good — must destroy the other — the Evil. To the Manicheans, however, Evil is an integral part of the cosmos, collaborating in its evolution, finally to be absorbed and transfigured by the Good. The great feature of Manicheism is that it studies the function of Evil and of suffering in the world.

To understand the development of humanity, it must be viewed in its whole range. Only so can we see its high ideal. To believe that an ideal is not necessary for action is a great error. A man without ideals is a man without power. The function of an ideal in life is like that of steam in an engine. Steam comprises in a small area a vast expanse of ‘condensed space’ — hence its tremendous power of expansion. The magic power of thought is of the same nature. Let us then rise to the thought of the ideal of humanity as a whole, guided by the thread of its evolution through the epochs of time.

Systems like that of Darwin are also seeking for this guiding thread. The grandeur of Darwinian thought is not disputed, but it does not explain the integral evolution of man. It only sees the lower, inferior elements. So it is with all purely physical explanations which do not recognise the spiritual essence of man's being. Theories of evolution based entirely on physical facts, attribute to man an animal origin because science has established that in fossilised man the brow is lacking. Occultism, knowing that physical man is but an expression of etheric man, sees something very different. 

At the present point of time, the etheric body of man has practically the same form as his physical body, although extending a little beyond it. But the farther back we go in history, the greater is the difference in size between the etheric head and the physical head. The etheric head is found to be much larger. Especially was this so in the period of earthly development which precedes our own. The men living at that time were Atlanteans. Geologians, indeed, are beginning to discover traces of ancient Atlantis, of the minerals and flora of this ancient continent now submerged under the ocean that bears its name. Traces of man himself have not yet been discovered but that is only a matter of time. Occult prophecies have always preceded authentic history.

The frontal part of the human head began to develop in the European races which followed those of Atlantis. The focus-point of consciousness in the Atlanteans lay outside the brow, in the etheric head. Today it lies within the physical head, a little higher than the nose.

Nifelheim or Nebelheim (the land of mists) in Germanic mythology is the country of the Atlanteans. In that age the Earth was hotter and still enveloped by vaporous clouds. The continent of Atlantis was destroyed by a series of deluges, as a consequence of which the terrestrial atmosphere cleared, — Then and only then came the blue sky, the storm, rain, the rainbow. That is why the Bible says that when Noah's Ark had come to rest, the rainbow, the “bow in the cloud” was a new token of alliance between God and man.

The ‘I’ of the Aryan race could only be consciously realised when the etheric body was centralised in the physical brain. Not until then could man begin to say: ‘I.’ The Atlanteans spoke of themselves in the third person.

Darwinism has made many errors in regard to the differentiation expressed by the races actually existing on the Earth. The higher races have not descended from the lower races; on the contrary, the latter represent the degeneration of the higher races which have preceded them. Suppose there are two brothers — one of whom is handsome and intelligent, the other ugly and dull-witted. Both proceed from the same father. What should we think of a man who believed that the intelligent brother descends from the idiot? That is the kind of error made by Darwinism in regard to the races. Man and animal have a common origin; the animals represent a degeneration of the one common ancestor, whose higher development comes to expression in man.

This should not give rise to pride, for it is only thanks to the lower kingdoms that the higher races have been able to develop.

Christ washes the feet of the Apostles. That is a symbol of the humility of the Initiate in face of his inferiors. The Initiate owes his existence to those who are not initiated. Hence the deep humility of those who truly know in face of those who do not. The tragic aspect of cosmic evolution is that one class of beings must abase themselves in order that the other may rise. In this sense we can appreciate the beauty of Paracelsus' words: “I have observed all beings — stones, plants, animals — and they seem to me nothing but scattered letters, man being the word, living and whole.”

The animals are crystallised passions.

In the course of human and animal evolution the inferior descends from the superior.

The contradictions in man, the way in which the elements mingle in him, constitute his karma, his destiny.

Just as man has wrested himself from the animal so will he wrest himself from evil. But never yet has he passed through a crisis as severe as that of the present age.

The evil and the good are still within man just as in days of yore the animals were within him.

The aim of Manicheism is to sublimate men to be redeemers.

The Master must be the servant of all.

True morality flows from an understanding of the mighty laws of the universe.

Part of An Esoteric Cosmology by Rudolf Steiner

Eighteen Lectures delivered in Paris, France May 25 to June 14, 1906 GA 94

Copyright © 1978

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