Mani (Μάη;?, Manes, Mαvιχαιos, Manichaeus) is said, in the Acta Archelai, to have originally been called “Cubricus” (according to Kessler, a corruption of “Shura-ik ,, ). Nothing reliable about his life was ever known in the Graeco-Roman empire; for the account in the Acta Archelai is quite incredible, and shaped by the objects of its author. If criticism may succeed in showing the sources from which this account has flowed, in ascertaining the tendencies which have been at work in it, and thus in extracting some solid matter, it can only do so by starting from the Oriental, the Mohammedan, tradition, which is comparatively worthy of credence. It is therefore to the latter alone that we must apply for information. According to it, Mani was a high-born Persian of Ecbatana. The year of his birth is uncertain, but Kessler accepts as reliable the statement made by Birunl, that Mani was born in the year 527 of the astronomers of Babylon (215-216 A.D.). He received a careful education at Ctesiphon from his father Fûtâk (∏ατεκιos). As the father connected 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 (see the Fihrisi) were apparently connected with the Elkesaites and the Hemerobaptists, and certainly with the Mandaeans. It is not improbable that this Babylonian sect had absorbed Christian elements. Thus the boy early became acquainted with very different forms of religion. If even a small part of the stories about his father is founded on fact,—and there is no doubt that most of them are mere Manichaean legends,—it was he who first introduced Mani to that medley of religions out of which his system arose. Manichaean tradition relates that Mani received revelations while yet a boy, and assumed a critical attitude towards the religious instruction that was being imparted to him. This is the more incredible since the same tradition informs us that the boy was as yet prohibited from making public use of his new religious views. It was only when Mani had reached the age of twenty-five or thirty years that he began to proclaim his new religion. This he did at the court of the Persian king, Sapor I., and according to the story, on the coronation-day of that monarch (241-42). A Persian tradition says that he had previously been a Christian presbyter; but this is certainly incorrect. Mani did not remain long 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 Transoxania, western China, and southwards as far as India. His labours there as well as in Persia were not without result. Like Mohammed after him and the founder of the Elkesaites before him, he gave himself 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 Sapor I. (e. 270) Mani returned to the Persian capital, and gained adherents even at court. But the dominant priestly caste of the 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 Sapor, Hormuz (272-273), appears to have been favourably disposed towards him, but Bahrâm I. abandoned him to the fanaticism of the Magians, and caused him to be crucified in the capital in the year 276-7. The corpse was flayed, and Mani’s adherents were cruelly persecuted by the king.

Mani himself composed a large number of works and epistles, which were in great part still known to the Mohammedan historians, but are now lost. The later heads of the Manichaean churches also wrote religious treatises, so that the ancient Manichaean literature must have been very extensive. According to the Fihrist, Mani made use of the Persian and Syriac languages; but, like the Oriental Marcionites before him, he invented an alphabet of his own, which the Fihrist has handed down to us. In this alphabet the sacred books of the Manichaeans were written even at a later period. The Fihrist reckons seven principal works of Mani, six being in the Syriac and one in the Persian language; regarding some of these we also have information in Epiphanius, Augustine, Titus of Bostra, and Photius, as well as in the formula of abjuration (Cotelerius, PP. Apost. Opp., i. 543) and in the Acta Archelai. They are (1) The Book of Secrets (see Acta Archel.), containing discussions bearing on the Christian sects spread throughout the East, especially the Marcionites and Bardesanites, and dealing also with their conception of the Old and New Testaments; (2) The Book of the Giants (Demons ?); (3) The Book of Precepts for Hearers (probably identical with the Epistola Fundamenti of Augustine, and with the Book of Chapters of Epiphanius and the Acta Archelai , , this was the most widely spread and most popular Manichaean work, having been translated into Greek and Latin; it contained a short summary of all the doctrines of fundamental authority); (4) The Book Shdhpurakdn (Flügel was unable to explain this name; according to Kessler it signifies “epistle to King Sapor”; the treatise. was of an eschatological character); (5) The Book of Quickening (Kessler identifies this work with the “Thesaurus [vitae]” of the Acta Archelai, Epiphanius, Photius, and Augustine, and if this be correct, it also must have been in use among the Latin Manichaeans); (6) The Book πραγματεία (of unknown contents); (7) a book in the Persian language, the title of which is not given in our present text of the Fihrist, but which is in all probability identical with the “holy gospel” of the Manichaeans (mentioned in the Acta Archel. and many other authorities). It was this work which the Manichaeans set up in opposition to the Gospels. Besides these principal works, Mani also wrote a large number of smaller treatises and epistles. The practice of writing epistles was continued by his successors. These Manichaean dissertations also became known in the Graeco-Roman empire, and existed in collections. There also existed a Manichaean book of memorabilia, and of prayers, in Greek, as well as many others, all of which were destroyed by the Christian bishops acting in conjunction with the authorities. A Manichaean epistle, addressed to one Marcellus, has, however, been preserved for us in the Acta Archelai.

Though the leading features of Manichaean doctrine can be exhibited clearly even at the present day, and though it is undoubted that Mani himself drew up a complete system, many details are nevertheless uncertain, since they are differently described in different sources, and it often remains doubtful which of the accounts that have been transmitted to us represents the original teaching of the founder.

The Manichaean system is one of consistent, uncompromising dualism, in the form of a fantastic philosophy of nature. The physical and the ethical are not distinguished, and in this respect the character of the system is thoroughly materialistic; for when Mani coordinates good with light, and evil with darkness, this is no mere figure of speech, but light is actually the only good, and darkness the only evil. From this it follows that religious knowledge can be nothing else than the knowledge of nature and her elements, and that redemption can only consist in a physical process of freeing the element of light from the darkness. Under such circumstances ethics becomes a doctrine of abstinence in regard to all elements which have their source within the sphere of darkness.

The self-contradictory character of the present world forms the point of departure for Mani’s speculations. This contradiction presents itself to his mind primarily as elemental, and only in the second instance as ethical, jnasmuch as he considers the sensual nature of man to be the outflow of the evil elements in nature. From the contradictory 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 ten [twelve] virtues of love, faith, fidelity, high-mindedness, wisdom, meekness, knowledge, understanding, mystery, and insight), and then further as the heavens of light and the earth of light, with their guardians the glorious aeons. 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 darkness.” 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, darkness, 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 began to rage, and 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, <fcc.), 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 elements had already mingled themselves with the generations of light. It only remained now for the primal man to descend into the abyss, and prevent the further increase of the generations of darkness by cutting off their roots; but he could not immediately separate again the elements that had once mingled. These mixed elements are the elements of the present visible world, which was formed from them at the command of the God of light. The forming of the world is in itself the beginning of the deliverance of the imprisoned elements of light. The world is represented as an orderly structure of various heavens and various earths, which is borne and supported by the aeons, the angels of light. It possesses in the sun and moon, which are in their nature almost quite pure, large reservoirs, in which the portions of light that have been rescued are stored up. In the sun dwells the primal man himself, as well as the glorious spirits which carry on the work of redemption; in the moon the mother of life is enthroned. The twelve constellations of the zodiac form an ingenious machine, a great wheel with buckets, which pour into the sun and moon, those shining ships that sail continually through space, the portions of light set free from the world. Here they are purified anew, and attain finally to the kingdom of pure light and to God Himself. The later Western Manichaeans termed those portions of light which are scattered throughout the world—in its elements and organisms—awaiting their deliverance, the Jesus patibilis.

It is a significant mark of the materialistic and inhuman character of the system that, while the formation of the world is considered as a work of the good spirits, the creation of man is referred to the princes of darkness. The first man Adam was engendered by Satan in conjunction with “sin,” “cupidity,” “desire.” But the spirit of darkness drove into him all the portions of light he had stolen, in order to be able to dominate them the more securely. Hence Adam is a discordant being, created in the image of Satan, but carrying within him the stronger spark of light. Eve is given him by Satan as his companion. She is seductive sensuousness, though also having in her a small spark of light. But if the first human beings thus stood entirely under the dominion of the devil, the glorious spirits took them under their care from the very outset, sending aeons down to them (including Jesus), who instructed them regarding their nature, and in particular warned Adam against sensuality. But this first man fell under the temptation of sexual desire. Cain and Abel indeed are not sons of Adam, but of Satan and Eve; Seth, however, who is full of light, is the offspring of Adam by Eve. Thus did mankind come into existence, its various members possessing very different shares of light, but the men having uniformly a larger measure of it than the women. In the course of history the demons sought to bind men to themselves by means of sensuality, error, and false religions (among which is to be reckoned above all the religion of Moses and the prophets), while the spirits of light carried on their process of distillation with the view of gaining the pure light which exists in the world. But these good spirits can only save men by imparting to them the true gnosis concerning nature and her forces, and by calling them away from the service of darkness and sensuality. To this end prophets, preachers of true knowledge, have been sent into the world. Mani, following the example of the gnostic Jewish Christians, appears to have held Adam, Noah, Abraham (perhaps Zoroaster and Buddha) to be such prophets. Probably Jesus was also accounted a prophet who had descended from the world of light,—not, however, the historical Jesus, the devilish Messiah of the Jews, but a contemporaneous phantom Jesus, who neither suffered nor died {Jesus impatibilis). According to the teaching of some Manichaeans, it was the primal man who disseminated the true gnosis in the character of Christ. But at all events Mani himself, on his own claim, is to be reckoned the last and greatest prophet, who took up the work of Jesus impatibilis and of Paul (for he too finds recognition), and first brought full knowledge. He is the “leader,” the “ambassador of the light,” the “Paraclete.” It is only through his agency and that of his imitators “the elect,” that the separation of the light from the darkness can be completed. The system contains very fantastic descriptions of the processes by which the portions of light when once set free finally ascend even to the God of light. He who during his lifetime did not become one of the elect, who did not completely redeem himself, has to go through a severe process of purification on the other side of the grave, till he too is gathered to the blessedness of the light. It is erroneous, however, to ascribe, as has been done, a doctrine of transmigration to the Manichaeans. Of course men’s bodies as well as the souls of the unsaved, who according to the oldest conception have in them no light whatever, fall under the sway of the powers of darkness. A later view, adapted to the Christian one, represents the portions of light in the unsaved as actually becoming lost. When the elements of light have at last been completely, or as far as possible, delivered from the world, the end of all things comes. All glorious spirits assemble, the God of light himself appears, accompanied by the aeons and the perfected just ones. The angels supporting the world withdraw themselves from their burden, and everything falls in ruins. A tremendous conflagration consumes the world; the perfect separation of the two powers takes place once more; high above is the kingdom of light, again brought into a condition of completeness, and deep below is the (1 now powerless) darkness.

On the basis of such a cosmical philosophy, ethics can only have a dualistic ascetic character. Manichaean ethics is not merely negative, however, since it is necessary to cherish, strengthen, and purify the elements of light, as well as free oneself from the elements of darkness. The aim is not self-destruction, but self-preservation; and yet the ethics of Manichaeism appears in point of fact as thoroughly ascetic. The Manichaean had above all to refrain from sensual enjoyment, shutting himself up against it by three seals, the signaculum oris, manus, and sinus. The signaculum oris forbids all eating of unclean food (which included all bodies of animals, wine, <fcc.,—vegetable diet being allowed because plants contained more light, though the killing of plants, or even plucking their fruit and breaking their twigs, was not permitted), as well as all impure speech. The signaculum manus prohibits all trafiic with things generally, in so far as they carry in them elements of darkness. Finally by the signaculum sinus every gratification of sexual desire, and hence also marriage, is forbidden. Besides all this, life was further regulated by an exceedingly rigorous system of fasts. Certain astronomical conjunctions determined the selection of the fast-days, which in their total number amounted to nearly a quarter of the year. Sunday was regularly solemnized as one, and the practice was also generally observed on Monday. Hours of prayer were determined with equal exactness. The Manichaean had to pray four times a day, each prayer being preceded by ablutions. The worshipper turned towards the sun, or the moon, or the north, as the seat of light; but it is erroneous to conclude from this, as has been done, that in Manichaeism the sun and moon were themselves objects of worship. Forms of prayer used by the Manichaeans have been preserved to us in the Fihrist. The prayers are addressed to the God of light, to the whole kingdom of light, to the glorious angels, and to Mani himself, who is apostrophized in them as “the great tree, which is all salvation.” According to Kessler, these prayers are closely related to the Mandaean and the ancient Babylonian hymns. An...