Freemasonry becomes more apparent, and we may picture to ourselves the
Mithraists as a vast society spread over the whole of the Empire,
consisting mainly of soldiers, and entirely confined to the male sex.
The example of the Emperor Julian, himself a devotee of Mithras, but
actively concerned in the propagation of the worship of other
divinities, such as Apollo, Serapis, Mars, and Cybele[973], shows that
its real aim was not so much the conversion of individuals as the
inclusion of all other cults within itself. It was doubtless with this
view that Julian recalled from exile those heresiarchs who had been
banished by the Christian emperors and insisted on equal toleration for
all sects of Jews and Christians[974]. Themistius is no doubt merely
echoing the sentiments of the Mithraist emperor when he writes to his
Christian successor Jovian that no lover of wisdom should bind himself
to any exclusively national worship, but should acquaint himself with
all religions[975]. God, he says, requires no agreement on this subject
among men, and their rivalries in matters of faith are really beneficial
in leading their minds to the contemplation of other than worldly
things. But this highly philosophic temper was not reached all at once;
and it is probable that the worship of Mithras was, on its first
importation into the West, but one foreign superstition the more, as
little enlightened and as exclusively national as the Jewish, the
Egyptian, or any of the others. It was probably its rise to imperial
favour under the Antonines, when Commodus and many of the freedmen of
Caesar’s House were initiated, that first suggested to its votaries the
possibility of using it as an instrument of government; and henceforth
its fortunes were bound up with those of the still Pagan State. Its
strictly monarchical doctrine, using the adjective in its ancient rather
than in its modern connotation, must have always endeared it to the
emperors, who were beginning to see clearly that in a _quasi_-Oriental
despotism lay the only chance of salvation for the Roman Empire. Its
relations with Mazdeism in the strict form which this last assumed after
the religious reforms of the Sassanian Shahs have never been elucidated,
and M. Cumont seems to rely too much upon the later Avestic literature
to explain everything that is obscure in the religion of Mithras. If we
imagine, as there is reason to do, that Western Mithraism was looked
upon by the Sassanian reformers as a dangerous heresy[976], the Roman
Emperors would have an additional reason for supporting it; and it is
significant that it was exactly those rulers whose wars against the
Persians were most successful who seem to have most favoured the worship
of the Persian god. When Trajan conquered Dacia, the great province
between the Carpathians and the Danube now represented by Hungary and
Roumania, he colonized it by a great mass of settlers from every part of
the Roman Empire, including therein many Orientals who brought with them
into their new home the worship of their Syrian and Asianic gods[977].
It was hence an excellent field for the culture of a universal and
syncretic religion such as that of Mithras, and the great number of
Mithraea whose remains have been found in that province, show that this
religion must have received hearty encouragement from the Imperial
Court. From its geographical position, Dacia formed an effective
counterpoise to the growing influence upon Roman policy of the Eastern
provinces, and it might have proved a valuable outpost for a religion
which was always looked upon with hostility by the Greek-speaking
subjects of Rome. Unfortunately, however, a religion which allies itself
with the State must suffer from its ally’s reverses as well as profit by
its good fortunes, and so the Mithraists found. When the Gothic invasion
desolated Dacia, and especially when Valerian’s disaster enabled the
Goths to gain a footing there which not even the military genius of
Claudius could loosen, Mithraism received a blow which was ultimately to
prove fatal. The abandonment of Dacia to the Goths and Vandals by
Aurelian in 255 A.D., led to its replanting by a race whose faces were
turned more to Constantinople than to Rome, and who were before long to
be converted to Christianity _en masse_[978]. Diocletian and his
colleagues did what they could to restore the balance by proclaiming, as
has been said above, the “unconquered” Mithras the protector of their
empire at the great city which is now the capital of the Austrian
Empire; but the accession of Constantine and his alliance with the
Christian Church some twenty years later, definitely turned the scale
against the last god of Paganism. Although the Mithraic worship may have
revived for a moment under the philosophic Julian, who was, as has been
said, peculiarly addicted to it, it possessed no real power of
recuperation, and was perhaps one of the first Pagan religions to be
extinguished by the triumphant Christians[979]. In 377 A.D., Gracchus,
the Urban Prefect of Rome, being desirous of baptism, carried into
effect a promise made, as St Jerome boasts, some time before, and
breaking into a chapel of Mithras, “overturned, broke in pieces and cast
out” the sculptures which had seen the admission of so many
initiates[980]. His example was followed in other parts of the Empire,
and it is probable that some decree was obtained from the Emperor
Gratian legalizing these acts of vandalism[981]. It is in this reign, M.
Cumont finds, that most of the Mithraea were wrecked, and the very few
which have come down to us in more complete state owe their preservation
to the caution of their congregations, who blocked or built up the
entrances to them in the vain hope that a fresh turn of the wheel might
again bring their own cult to the top[982]. A conservative reaction
towards the older faiths did indeed come for a moment under Eugenius;
but it was then too late. The masses had turned from Mithraism to
Christianity, and the only adherents of the “Capped One” were to be
found among the senators and high officials who had long connived at the
evasion of the edicts prohibiting all forms of Pagan worship. The
invasions of Alaric and Attila probably completed what the Christian mob
had begun.
M. Cumont and Sir Samuel Dill are doubtless right when they attribute
the downfall of Mithraism in great measure to its attitude towards
women[983]. Mithraism was from the first essentially a virile faith, and
had little need of the softer emotions. Hence we find in it none of the
gorgeous public ritual, the long hours spent in mystic contemplation
before the altar, or the filial devotion of the flock to the priest,
that we see in the worship of the Alexandrian Gods. In spite of the
great authority of M. Cumont, whose statements on the subject seem to
have been accepted without much enquiry by later writers, it will
probably appear to the impartial student that the priests of Mithras
were more like the churchwardens or elders of Protestant communities at
the present day than the active and highly organized hierarchy of the
Alexandrian divinities and of the Catholic Church. It is, as we have
seen, most probable that they never visited their chapels except in
company with the other devotees when an initiation into one or other of
the seven degrees of the cult was to be performed, and, judging from the
scanty numbers of the congregation, this can only have been at fairly
long intervals. Hence the daily prayers and sacrifices of themselves and
their congregations were probably rendered elsewhere, either in the
privacy of their homes, or in the temples of other gods. In neither case
would they have much need for the assistance of women in their
propaganda, who would, moreover, have probably felt little interest in a
worship from the most solemn and distinctive parts of which they were
excluded. The Mithraists therefore had to dispense with the support of a
very large and important fraction of the community which was easily won
over to the side of their rivals. Exceptional causes such as the
perpetual shifting of the legions from one end of the Empire to the
other at a time when communications between them were many times more
difficult than now, may have prevented such considerations for some time
from having their full weight. When once they did so, the issue could
not long be in doubt.
Nor was the very real, if somewhat vague, monotheism which Mithraism
taught, very likely to attract, at first sight, the enthusiasm of a
large and mixed population engaged in civil pursuits. If the conjecture
made above be correct, the Mithraist in the ordinary way acknowledged no
other god than Mithras, although he would probably have admitted that he
was but the representative and antitype of the supreme Jupiter whom he
recognized as the official head of the State pantheon. As for the other
gods, he probably considered them as mere abstract personifications of
the powers of Nature, who were at the most the creatures and subjects of
Mithras “the friend,” and whom it might please him to propitiate by acts
of worship which the god would know how to appreciate. This is not very
far from the theories of the Stoics, always dear to the nobler spirits
in the Roman Empire, and coupled with the high Stoic ideal of duty,
forms one of the best working philosophies for the soldier ever devised.
But the soldier, removed as he is from care for his daily necessities,
and with instant and ready obedience to another will than his own
constantly required of him, has always held different views on such
subjects to the civilian; and such ideas were rather above the heads of
the crowd, sunk for the most part in abject poverty, utterly absorbed in
the struggle for daily bread, and only anxious to snatch some passing
enjoyment from a life of toil. What they, and even more urgently, their
womenfolk needed was a God, not towering above them like the Eternal
Sun, the eye of Mithras and his earthly representative, shedding his
radiance impartially upon the just and the unjust; but a God who had
walked upon the earth in human form, who had known like themselves pain
and affliction, and to whom they could therefore look for sympathy and
help. Such a god was not to be found in the Mithraic Cave.
For these reasons, probably, Mithraism fell after a reign of little more
than two centuries. Yet for good or ill, few religions have lived in
vain; and some of the ideas which it made popular in Europe have hardly
yet died out. The theory that the emperor, king, or chief of the State
is of a different nature to other men, and is in a peculiar manner the
care of the gods, was first formulated in the West during the time that
Mithraism was in power and is a great deal more the creation of the
Persian religion than of the Egyptian, in which he was said to be the
incarnation of the Sun-God. This is fairly plain from the custom to
which M. Cumont has lately drawn attention of releasing at the funeral
or apotheosis of a Roman emperor a captive eagle, representing the soul
of the dead ruler, the upward flight of the bird being held typical of
the soul’s ascension into heaven[984]. The connection of this practice
with Mithraism is evident, since “eagle” was one of the names given to
the perfect Mithraist, or he who had taken all the seven degrees of
initiation, and had therefore earned the right to be called _pater
sacrorum_[985]. The Christian emperors of Rome continued probably the
practice and certainly the nomenclature associated with it, and
Constantine and his successors were hailed by the Mithraic epithets of
“aeternus,” “invictus,” and “felix” as freely as his Pagan predecessors.
From this period the notion of the “divinity that doth hedge a king”
descended to comparatively modern times, and “Sacred Majesty” was an
epithet of our own kings down to the reign of the last Stuart. Probably,
too, it was the custom of releasing an eagle at a royal funeral which so
impressed the popular imagination that the metaphor became transferred,
as such things generally are sooner or later, to the lower ranks of the
community, and the figure of the soul being borne aloft on wings took
the place that it still occupies in popular Christian literature.
The share that Mithraism had in diffusing the practices of magic and
astrology is by no means so clear. That the Mithraists, like other
pagans of the early centuries, were addicted to magic is one of the most
frequent accusations brought against them by Christian writers, and the
word magic itself, as has been said above, is derived from those Magi
from whom the Mithraists were said to have derived their doctrine. In
support of this, it can certainly be said that the worshippers of
Mithras by rendering a modified cult to Ahriman, whom the Christians
identified with Satan, laid themselves open to the suspicion of
trafficking with devils, and it is quite possible that they, like the
followers of many other religions at the time, looked with favour upon
the compulsion rather than the propitiation of the lower powers. Yet the
strict monotheism of the faith which practically looked to Mithras for
the ultimate control and regulation of all sublunary things, is
certainly against this conclusion; and it should be noticed that the
laws against the practices of magic and astrology, then so intertwined
that it is difficult to separate them[986], were quite as severe under
emperors like Commodus and Diocletian who worshipped Mithras, as under
those of their successors who professed the faith of Christ. The rites
of Hecate, however, were, as we have seen, closely connected with those
of Mithras and were generally in the hands of Mithraists. These Hecatean
rites seem to have been almost entirely magical in their character, and
it is the name of Hecate that was handed down as that of the patroness
of sorcerers through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance[987]. One of
the priests of Mithras also goes out of his way to declare on his
epitaph that he is _studiosus astrologiae_, and on the whole the
Christian accusation was probably not without foundation.
Footnote 768:
Droysen, _Hist. de l’Hellénisme_, t. II. pp. 33, 289.
Footnote 769:
_Op. cit._ III. pp. 351, 352; 439, 450. As Droysen points out, in this
respect there was no practical difference between Parthian and
Persian.
Footnote 770:
As in B.C. 41, when the Parthians under Pacorus “rushed” Palestine.
See Morrison, _The Jews under the Romans_, p. 58, for authorities. Cf.
Chapter V. Vol. I. p. 101, n. 3, _supra_.
Footnote 771:
This is shown by, among other things, the claims of the kings of
Armenia, Cappadocia, and Pontus to be descended from the seven heroes
who delivered Persia from the Magians after the death of Cambyses. See
Droysen, _op. cit._ II. p. 519; III. pp. 82, 83.
Footnote 772:
Droysen, _op. cit._ III. p. 83.
Footnote 773:
Horace, _Odes_, Bk IV. Ode 5. Cf. his _Carmen Seculare_.
Footnote 774:
Renan, _L’Antéchrist_, pp. 317, 318, for authorities. A critical essay
on the Neronic myth and its congeners is to be found in Dr Charles’
_Ascension of Isaiah_, p. li _sqq._
Footnote 775:
Gibbon, _Decline and Fall_ (Bury’s ed.), vol. I. pp. 5, 205.
Footnote 776:
Gibbon, _op. cit._ I. p. 209. Severus’ victories are doubted by
Gibbon; and Prof. Bury apparently supports his author.
Footnote 777:
_Op. cit._ I. pp. 269, 270. Prof. Bury in his Appendix 17 points out
that the whole history of Valerian’s capture is still very obscure.
Footnote 778:
_Op. cit._ I. p. 340.
Footnote 779:
_Op. cit._ I. p. 375. See Prof. Bury’s note 83 on page cited.
Footnote 780:
_Op. cit._ II. pp. 228-231.
Footnote 781:
_Op. cit._ I. p. 373.
Footnote 782:
Gibbon, _op. cit._ V. pp. 78 sqq. Winwood Reade, _Martyrdom of Man_,
pp. 249, 250, tells the story excellently and dramatically.
Footnote 783:
Horace, _Odes_, Bk I. Ode 38.
Footnote 784:
Gibbon, _op. cit._ I. p. 382. Cf. Cumont, _Religions Orientales_, p.
171. Lactantius, _de Mort. Persecutor._ c. XXI., says that this was
the conscious aim of Galerius. Although his authority in such a matter
is suspect, there can be little doubt of the fact.
Footnote 785:
The actual decree of the emperors is given in Cumont, _Textes et
Monuments_, t. II. inscr. 367. The date should probably be 304 A.D.
See n. on Table of Dates, Vol. I. _supra_.
Footnote 786:
Plutarch, _Vit. Pomp._ c. XXIV.
Footnote 787:
Cumont, _Rel. Or._ pp. 167, 168; 173, 174; _id._ _T. et M._ I. pp. 9,
10. Cf. _P.S.B.A._ 1912, pp. 127, 128.
Footnote 788:
Cumont, _T. et M._ I. p. 247.
Footnote 789:
Dill, _Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius_, pp. 593-597.
Footnote 790:
Cumont, _T. et M._ I. p. 248.
Footnote 791:
For the list see Cumont, _T. et M._ I. p. 258, n. 7. He thinks the
worship was first introduced here by the legions from Germany.
Footnote 792:
Avezou and Picard, “Bas-relief Mithriaque,” _R.H.R._ t. LXIV. (Sept.
Oct. 1911), pp. 179 _sqq._
Footnote 793:
Cumont, _T. et M._ I. p. 223, n. 2.
Footnote 794:
Herodotus, Bk I. c. 131. Cf. F. Max Müller, _Hibbert Lectures_, p.
276. The similarity of name between Varuna and the Greek Ouranos is
fairly obvious. Prof. Hope Moulton, _Early Zoroastrianism_, 1913, pp.
391, 392, n. 3, argues that the Persian god of the sky was called
Dyaush or Zeus.
Footnote 795:
Certainly of the Mitannians, who, according to Prof. Hugo Winckler,
were one of the two main branches of the Hittites, and a Syrian
people. See his report on Excavations at Boghaz Keui in the
_Mitteilungen_ of the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft for 1907. The text
is given in the _J.R.A.S._ for 1910, pp. 723 _sqq._
Footnote 796:
If we accept the latest theory which makes Russia the original home of
the Aryan race (see Zaborowski, _Les Peuples Aryens d’Asie et
d’Europe_, Paris, 1908, p. 424) it may have even had a European
origin.
Footnote 797:
Cumont, _T. et M._ I. p. 225.
Footnote 798:
James Darmesteter, _Essais Orientaux_, Paris, 1883, p. 113.
Footnote 799:
Casartelli, _La Philosophie Religieuse du Mazdéisme sous les
Sassanides_, pp. 17, 18.
Footnote 800:
_Op. cit._ p. 73.
Footnote 801:
660-583 B.C. See A. V. Williams Jackson, _Zoroaster_, N.Y. 1901, p. 15
and Appx II. and III. Cf. D. Menant, “Parsis et Parsisme,”
_Conférences au Musée Guimet_ (Bibl. de Vulgarisation), 1904, t. XVI.
1ère Ptie, p. 149.
Footnote 802:
Darmesteter, _Le Zend Avesta_ (Annales du Musée Guimet), Paris, 1892,
p. xxvii, for dates. West, _Pahlavi Texts_, pt I. (Sacred Books of the
East), pp. lxviii-lxix; pt II. p. xxiv. Cf. Hope Moulton, _op. cit._
pp. 126, 127.
Footnote 803:
Herodotus, Bk III. c. 61 _sqq._
Footnote 804:
_The Sculptures and Inscriptions of Darius the Great at Behistun_,
British Museum Publications, 1907.
Footnote 805:
_Op. cit._ pp. 8, 9.
Footnote 806:
_Op. cit._ p. 14.
Footnote 807:
Maspero, _Hist. Ancienne des Peuples de l’Orient Classique_, Paris,
1899, t. III. p. 674; Rawlinson, _History of Herodotus_, 1862, vol.
II. p. 458.
Footnote 808:
Herodotus, Bk I. c. 140; VII. c. 113.
Footnote 809:
_Op. cit._ Bk I. c. 131.
Footnote 810:
Plutarch, _de Is. et Os._ c. XLVI.
Footnote 811:
As in the book called “The Illumination of Bel” found in
Assurbanipal’s Library at Kuyunjik. See Sayce, “Astronomy and
Astrology of the ancient Babylonians and Assyrians,” _T.S.B.A._ vol.
III. pp. 146 _sqq._ Cf. Chapter III, vol. I. p. 114 _supra_ for
examples.
Footnote 812:
That tables were actually used for this purpose, was shown in the
_Pall Mall Magazine_ for August, 1896 and with more detail in
_Star-Lore_ for April, 1897.
Footnote 813:
Dill, _Nero to Marcus Aurelius_, pp. 449, 450, for authorities.
Footnote 814:
_Circa_ 270 A.D. See Cumont, _T. et M._ I. p. 26.
Footnote 815:
See Chap. III, Vol. I. p. 103, n. 4, _supra_.
Footnote 816:
See Chap. IV, Vol. I. p. 123 _supra_.
Footnote 817:
Cumont, _T. et M._ I. pp. 19-20, relies on a passage quoted by
Damascius from a certain Eudemos who may or may not be Eudemos of
Rhodes (Alexander’s contemporary) that, “of the Magi and all the
warrior [or Medic: ἄρειον] race some call the intelligible” [_i.e._
that which can be apprehended by the mind only and not by the senses]
“and united universe Topos (place), while others of them call it
Chronos (Time), and that from this universe are to be distinguished a
good God and evil demon; or as some say, prior to these, Light and
Darkness.” “Both the one and the other school therefore,” Damascius
goes on, “after the undivided Nature, make the double series of the
higher powers distinct from one another, of one of which they make
Oromasdes the leader, and of the other Arimanius.” It seems evident
from the above words, that only a certain sect of the Magi in the time
of this Eudemos put Time at the head of their pantheon. Cf. Cory’s
_Ancient Fragments_, 1832, pp. 318, 319.
Footnote 818:
Cumont, _T. et M._ I. p. 19.
Footnote 819:
See “The Lion-headed God of the Mithraic Mysteries,” _P.S.B.A._ 1912,
pp. 125-142, and p. 251 _infra_.
Footnote 820:
Darmesteter, _Ormuzd et Ahriman_, Paris, 1877, p. 1, quoting a lost
book of Aristotle mentioned by Diogenes Laertius.
Footnote 821:
Cumont, _T. et M._ II. p. 326 and Fig. 193.
Footnote 822:
_Op. cit._ II. p. 336, reproduced in the article in the _P.S.B.A._
quoted in n. 2, p. 237 _supra_. In the collection of busts of the gods
on the arch surrounding the Tauroctony at Bologna, the head of Zeus
wearing the modius of Serapis appears with six others who, reading
from left to right, are the Sun, Saturn, Venus, Jupiter, Mercury, Mars
and the Moon. Although Jupiter here occupies the centre and place of
honour, it is probable that both he and the other gods are here merely
symbols of the planets. See Cumont, _op. cit._ II. p. 261 and Fig. 99.
Footnote 823:
_Op. cit._ II. p. 349, and Pl. VI. So in the bas-relief of Sarrebourg,
unfortunately much mutilated (_op. cit._ II. p. 514), a similar
assembly of gods includes Neptune, Bacchus, and Vulcan, who are
certainly not gods of the planets.
Footnote 824:
For these inscriptions, see Cumont, _op. cit._ t. II., Inscriptions 80
(p. 107), 129 (p. 115), 318 (p. 140), 386 (p. 149), 522 (p. 167), and
470 (p. 160).
Footnote 825:
_Op. cit._ II. p. 98.
Footnote 826:
_Op. cit._ II. p. 141.
Footnote 827:
_Op. cit._ II. pp. 160, 392, 393, and article in _P.S.B.A._ quoted in
n. 2, p. 237 _supra_.
Footnote 828:
Plutarch, _de Is. et Os._ c. XLVI. Cf. Origen, _adv. Cels._ Bk I. c.
60.
Footnote 829:
Herodotus, Bk VII. c. 114.
Footnote 830:
Clem. Alex. _Strom._ Bk V. c. 11, says Zeus is the same as Hades. He
quotes Euripides as authority for the statement, but I do not know the
play in which it appears. He also, _op. cit._ Bk V. c. 14, quotes
Xenocrates as saying that there is an “Upper and Lower” Zeus.
Footnote 831:
Heracles, of course, applied compulsion to Hades. For the magic
compulsion of the same power, see the Magic Papyrus of the Bibl. Nat.
in Wessely’s _Griech. Zauberpap._ p. 38.
Footnote 832:
_P.S.B.A._ 1912, p. 137, for authorities.
Footnote 833:
Jean Reville, _La Religion à Rome sous les Sevères_, Paris, 1886, p.
30.
Footnote 834:
Cumont, _T. et M._ II. p. 91, no. 2; p. 99, nos. 30, 34; p. 102, no.
49; p. 103, no. 53.
Footnote 835:
_Op. cit._ II. p. 99, no. 29.
Footnote 836:
_Op. cit._ II. p. 105, no. 62; p. 116, no. 131.
Footnote 837:
_Op. cit._ II. p. 96, nos. 17, 20; p. 117, no. 139; p. 145, no. 354.
Footnote 838:
Pindar, _Isthm._ V. 1, where the Sun is said to be the son of Theia.
Footnote 839:
Cumont, _T. et M._ I. p. 225, and n. 1; cf. Darmesteter, _Ormuzd et
Ahriman_, p. 65.
Footnote 840:
Cumont, _T. et M._ I. p. 231.
Footnote 841:
_Op. cit._ I. p. 200.
Footnote 842:
_Op. cit._ I. pp. 304-306. The best and clearest example of these
scenes is perhaps that given in the bas-reliefs surrounding the
Tauroctony in the Mithraeum at Osterburken. See _Op. cit._ II. p. 350
(Monument 246).
Footnote 843:
_Op. cit._ II. Fig. 1 of Mon. 246 (p. 350).
Footnote 844:
_Op. cit._ I. pp. 159 _sqq._
Footnote 845:
Cumont, _op. cit._ II. p. 395, and Fig. 315.
Footnote 846:
_Op. cit._ II. p. 350, f (2) of Osterburken.
Footnote 847:
It is not invariable, as the sculptor was sometimes evidently governed
by considerations of space.
Footnote 848:
_Op. cit._ II. p. 350, f (5) of Osterburken. Cf. Mon. 245, Pl. V
(Neuenheim) and Mon. 251, Pl. VII (Heddernheim).
Footnote 849:
West, _Pahlavi Texts_, Pt 1, _S.B.E._ p. 20 (Bundahish); Porphyry, _de
antro nympharum_, c. 18. Cf. Döllinger, _J. und H._ I. p. 419, and
Tiele, _Religion of the Iranian Peoples_ (Eng. ed.), Bombay, 1912, Pt
1, p. 113.
Footnote 850:
Cumont, _T. et M._ II. p. 298, Fig. 154 (Sarmizegetusa); p. 309, Fig.
167 (Apulum); p. 326, Fig. 193 (Sissek). Döllinger, _J. und H._ I. p.
141, thinks this cup-shaped boat represents the Moon. But see against
this Cumont, _op. cit._ I. pp. 167, 168.
Footnote 851:
Cumont, _T. et M._ II. p. 515 and Pl. IX, Mon. 273 _ter_ d (8)
(Sarrebourg). Cf. _ibid._ II. p. 310, Fig. 168, Mon. 192 _bis_ b (7),
also I. p. 167 and n. 5.
Footnote 852:
_Op. cit._ II. p. 346, e (1) and Pl. V (Neuenheim); II. p. 350, f (3)
(Osterburken); II. p. 339, b (6) and Pl. IV (Mauls).
Footnote 853:
_Op. cit._ II. p. 309, a (1) (Apulum); II. p. 326, b (3) and Fig. 193
(Sissek).
Footnote 854:
_Op. cit._ II. p. 346, e (4) (Neuenheim); II. p. 309, a (2) (Apulum);
II. p. 515, d (10) (Sarrebourg).
Footnote 855:
Cumont, _op. cit._ I. p. 304, puts these scenes in a slightly
different order. That followed here is that adopted in the Mithraeum
at Heddernheim, _op. cit._ II. Pl. VII, where the sequence is fairly
plain.
Footnote 856:
_Op. cit._ II. p. 365, d (7) (Heddernheim).
Footnote 857:
_Op. cit._ II. p. 338, c (5) (Klagenfurt).
Footnote 858:
_Op. cit._ II. p. 350, f (8) (Osterburken).
Footnote 859:
_Op. cit._ I. p. 172.
Footnote 860:
_Op. cit._ II. p. 272, c (2) (Serdica); II. pp. 303, 304, c (1)
(Temesvar); II. p. 326, b (1) (Sissek).
Footnote 861:
_Op. cit._ II. p. 337, c. (4) (Klagenfurt).
Footnote 862:
_Op. cit._ I. p. 173.
Footnote 863:
_Op. cit._ II. p. 201.
Footnote 864:
Cumont, _op. cit._ I. p. 173, and n. 3.
Footnote 865:
Most of the monuments show the remains of colour.
Footnote 866:
Like the thrust of the Spanish bull-fighter which is supposed to split
the heart.
Footnote 867:
Sometimes, though very rarely, the serpent is absent, as in the
Mithraeum discovered at Krotzenburg near Hanau. _Op. cit._ II. p. 353.
Footnote 868:
Cumont, _op. cit._ I. pp. 207, 208. Following the mention by Dionysius
the Areopagite of a “threefold Mithras,” M. Cumont thinks that the two
torch-bearing figures are representations of Mithras himself. The
theory is ingenious, but not very plausible. See _loc. cit._ pp.
208-213.
Footnote 869:
_Op. cit._ I. p. 186, for authorities. Cf. Döllinger, _J. und H._ I.
p. 420. Tiele, _Rel. of Iran. P._ pt 1, p. 118, says that “originally”
the bull was slain not by Ahriman, but by its creator.
Footnote 870:
_Op. cit._ I. p. 197. Cf. Porphyry, _de antro nymphar._ c. XVIII.
Footnote 871:
D. Menant, “Les Rites Funéraires,” _Conférences au Musée Guimet_, t.
XXXV. pp. 181, 182.
Footnote 872:
Cf. Plutarch, _de Is. et Os._ c. XLVII.
Footnote 873:
So Cumont, _T. et M._ I. pp. 182, 305.
Footnote 874:
_Op. cit._ I. p. 192.
Footnote 875:
_Op. cit._ II. Pl. VIII.
Footnote 876:
_Op. cit._ I. p. 175, Fig. 10, where some of the guests at the banquet
wear the masks of crows and other animals corresponding to the
Mithraic degrees.
Footnote 877:
Justin Martyr, _First Apology_, c. LVI.
Footnote 878:
Cumont, _T. et M._ II. Pl VIII, shows this most clearly. Pl. V
(Neuenheim), Fig 213, opposite p. 337 (Virunum), and p. 278, Fig. 121
(Orsova), leave no doubt possible.
Footnote 879:
Cumont, _op. cit._ I. p. 178, and Fig. 11.
Footnote 880:
The Juppiter Optimus Maximus of the Palazzo Altieri. _Op. cit._ II. p.
104.
Footnote 881:
Darmesteter, _Ormuzd et Ahriman_, p. 65.
Footnote 882:
Porphyry, _de antro nympharum_, c. XXIV.
Footnote 883:
_Op. cit._ cc. V. VI.
Footnote 884:
Plutarch, _de Is. et Os._ c. XLVI.
Footnote 885:
Porphyry, _de antro nymph._ c. XXIV.
Footnote 886:
_Op. cit._ cc. V. VI.
Footnote 887:
Cumont, _T. et M._ I. pp. 198 _sqq._ Damascius (in Cory’s _Ancient
Fragments_, 1832, p. 319) attributes to the “Sidonians” a theogony
which would make “Otos,” said by Cory to mean the Night Raven, the
Νοῦς νοητός born from Aer and Aura. Has this anything to do with the
symbolism of the crow, found always as the attendant of Mithras at the
Tauroctony?
Footnote 888:
Söderblom, _La Vie Future d’après le Mazdéisme_, Paris, 1901, pp. 265,
266, for authorities. Cf. Casartelli, _La Philosophie Religieuse du
Mazdéisme_, p. 186.
Footnote 889:
Cumont, _T. et M._ I. p. 168. He relies on a fragment of Dion
Chrysostom which does not appear to have this meaning. See _ibid._ II.
p. 64.
Footnote 890:
M. Cumont, _op. cit._ I. p. 82, says that the sex is left undecided,
so as to show that Infinite Time, the Supreme God according to him of
the Mithraic pantheon, can produce by himself. This is certainly not
the case with one of the statues given among his own monuments (_op.
cit._ II. p. 213, Fig. 44), or that lately recovered from the
Mithraeum at Sidon, for which see Pottier, “La Collection Louis de
Clercq,” _Conférences au Musée Guimet_, Bibl. de Vulg. t. XIX. 1906,
Pl. opp. p. 236, or _P.S.B.A._ 1912, Pl. XIX, Fig. 18, or Cumont, _Les
Mystères de Mithra_, Bruxelles, 1913, p. 235.
Footnote 891:
Cumont, _T. et M._ II. p. 213, Figs. 43, 44.
Footnote 892:
_Op. cit._ II. p. 216, Fig. 47; p. 238, Fig. 68; p. 259, Fig. 96.
Footnote 893:
_Op. cit._ II. p. 196, Fig. 22. A hole in the back of the head, made
apparently for “fire-breathing” purposes, was found in the Sidon
statue also. See Cumont, _Les Mystères_, fig. 27.
Footnote 894:
_T. et M._ II. p. 375.
Footnote 895:
_Op. cit._ I. p. 78.
Footnote 896:
The only evidence that he produces of this last fact is a quotation
from Damascius, whose authority seems to be “Eudemus the Peripatetic,”
given in n. 4, p. 236 _supra_, that some of the Magi call the νοητὸν
ἅπαν καὶ τὸ ἡνωμένον Topos and others Chronos. A good divinity and an
evil demon according to the same author descend from this power, one
of whom he says is called Oromasdes and the other Arimanius. It is not
very clear how much of this is Eudemus and how much Damascius. No
other author gives any hint that would allow us to attribute so early
an age to Zervanism.
Footnote 897:
_P.S.B.A._ 1912, pp. 139-142.
Footnote 898:
Firmicus Maternus, _de errore_, c. IV. See Cumont, _T. et M._ I. p.
140, n. 7.
Footnote 899:
They are mentioned together in the great Magical Papyrus of the
Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris, Wessely, _Griechische Zauberp._ p.
73.
Footnote 900:
Cumont, _T. et M._ I. p. 141.
Footnote 901:
The absence of any corresponding statue of the goddess is perhaps
accounted for by the misogynic character of the Mithraic worship. Yet
an empty niche corresponding to the one containing the lion-headed
figure appears in some Mithraea.
Footnote 902:
Neander, _Ch. Hist._ II. p. 7 and note.
Footnote 903:
Plutarch, _de Is. et Os._ c. XLV.
Footnote 904:
Cumont, _T. et M._ I. p. 5, quoting West, _Pahlavi Texts_, Pt V. p.
xxvi, 50.
Footnote 905:
F. Rosenberg, _Le Livre de Zoroastre_, St Petersburg, I. p. 10, and n.
3, says that the reform of Zoroaster was specially directed to the
abolition of the worship of Ahriman.
Footnote 906:
Cumont, _T. et M._ II. Monument 246, e (5) Osterburken, and others as
in t. I. p. 157 and n. 3. Cf. also Pl. XVI, Fig. 7, in _P.S.B.A._
1912.
Footnote 907:
The Orphic invocation of the Titans referred to in Chap. IV, vol. I.
p. 116, n. 3 _supra_ can be thus explained.
Footnote 908:
Cumont, _T. et M._ II. p. 215, Fig. 46 (Pl. XVIII, Fig. 13 of
_P.S.B.A._ 1912); II. p. 238, Fig. 68 (Pl. XVIII, Fig. 15 of
_P.S.B.A._ 1912).
Footnote 909:
So in the leaden _dirae_ from Cyprus now in the British Museum the
Lord of Hell is invoked as “the god who is set over the gate of hell
and the keys of heaven.” _P.S.B.A._ t. XIII., 1891, p. 177.
Footnote 910:
Cumont, _T. et M._ I. p. 294.
Footnote 911:
Wessely, _Griechische Zauberp._ pp. 32 _sqq._
Footnote 912:
Georges Lafaye, “L’Initiation Mithriaque,” _Conférences au Musée
Guimet_, t. XVIII. 1906, pp. 98 _sqq._
Footnote 913:
Wessely, _Gr. Zauberp._ _Op. cit._ in note 2 _supra_, and Lafaye, _op.
cit. passim_.
Footnote 914:
Wessely, _op. cit._ p. 61.
Footnote 915:
See Chapter IX, p. 108 _supra_.
Footnote 916:
Lafaye, _L’In. Mith._ pp. 111, 112, goes further and says that both
Gnostics and Manichaeans derived their doctrine from Mithraism, which
formed a half-way house between Paganism and Christianity. But see
Chapter XIII, _infra_.
Footnote 917:
Origen, _adv. Cels._ Bk VI. c. 22. For “musical” there should probably
be read mystical, the τ being easily omitted by a copyist.
Footnote 918:
Cumont, _T. et M._ I. p. 38.
Footnote 919:
Charles, _Bk of the Secrets of Enoch_, pp. xxx _sqq._
Footnote 920:
The Greek Apocalypse of Baruch, published by James in _Cambridge Texts
and Studies_, vol. V. No. 1, p. 44.
Footnote 921:
_adv. Cels._ Bk VI. c. 22. He has, however, got the order wrong, as
copper is generally associated with the planet Venus, tin with
Jupiter, iron with Mars, silver with the Moon, gold with the Sun, and
lead with Saturn.
Footnote 922:
Bouché Leclercq, _L’Astrologie Grecque_, p. 23, for authorities.
Footnote 923:
_Op. cit._ p. 276. Cf. Cumont, _T. et M._ I. p. 40.
Footnote 924:
Porphyry, _de Abstinentia_, Bk IV. c. 16.
Footnote 925:
Cumont, _T. et M._ I. p. 129, n. 6, for list of monuments.
Footnote 926:
_Op. et loc. cit._; _id._ _Rel. Or._ p. 179.
Footnote 927:
See p. 234, _supra_. The figure of the divine archer in the winged
disk which figured on the coins called darics is, perhaps, the
exception which proves the rule. Or is this meant for the Fravashi or
genius of the king? Cf. Hope Moulton, _Early Zoroastrianism_, p. 260.
Footnote 928:
Somewhere about 204 B.C. See Cumont, _Rel. Or._ p. 58.
Footnote 929:
Orelli, _Inscpt. Latinar. selectar._ Turin, 1828, vol. I. pp. 406-412.
Footnote 930:
See Cumont, _T. et M._ II. p. 95, inscr. 15, p. 98, inscr. 23; p. 100
inscr. 40; p. 101, inscr. 41. The tomb of Vincentius in the Catacomb
of Praetextatus at Rome would show an instance of the joint worship of
Sabazius, the consort of the Great Mother, and of Mithras, if we could
trust Garrucci’s restoration, for which see his _Les Mystères du
Syncrétisme Phrygien_, Paris, 1854. It has been quoted in this sense
by Hatch, _H.L._ p. 290; but Cumont, _T. et M._ II. pp. 173 and 413,
argues against this construction. For the pictures themselves, see
Maass, _Orpheus_, München, 1895, pp. 221, 222.
Footnote 931:
Cumont, _T. et M._ II. p. 261, Fig. 99.
Footnote 932:
Kenyon, _Gk. Papyri_, p. 65.
Footnote 933:
This is the more likely because his second initiator bears the name of
Asinius, which, as he himself says (Apuleius, _Metamorph._ Bk XI. c.
27), was not unconnected with his own transformation into the shape of
an ass. The Emperor Commodus was initiated into both religions
(Lampricius, _Commodus_, c. IΧ.).
Footnote 934:
See n. 1, p. 259, _supra_.
Footnote 935:
Dill, _Nero to Marcus Aurelius_, p. 625, n. 3, quoting Gasquet,
_Mithras_, p. 137. See also Gibbon, vol. III. p. 498, Bury (Appendix
15).
Footnote 936:
Justin Martyr, _First Apology_, c. LXVI.
Footnote 937:
Porphyry, _de antro nymph._ c. 15. Tertullian, _de Praescpt._ c. 40.
Footnote 938:
Porphyry, _op. et loc. cit._
Footnote 939:
See Cumont, _T. et M._ I. p. 339, for authorities.
Footnote 940:
Augustine, _In Johann. evang. tractatus_, VII. or Cumont, _T. et M._
II. p. 59. This last thinks it more probable that the passage refers
to Attis, as there is an allusion in it to redemption by blood. But
this would hardly apply to the self-mutilation of the Galli, while it
would to the blood-bath of the Taurobolium and Criobolium which so
many high initiates of Mithras boast of undergoing.
Footnote 941:
J. Maurice, “La Dynastie Solaire des Seconds Flaviens,” _Rev.
Archeol._ t. XVII. (1911), p. 397 and n. 1.
Footnote 942:
Cumont, _T. et M._ I. p. 339, quoting Minucius Felix.
Footnote 943:
_Op. cit._ I. p. 65.
Footnote 944:
The remains of five Mithraea were found in Ostia alone.
Footnote 945:
Cumont, _T. et M._ II. p. 204, Fig. 30, and p. 493, Fig. 430; or
_P.S.B.A._ 1912, Pl. XIII. Figs. 1 and 2.
Footnote 946:
Cumont, _T. et M._ I. p. 62.
Footnote 947:
The story quoted from Pseudo-Augustine (Cumont, _op. cit._ I. p. 322)
about the hands of the initiates being bound with chickens’-guts which
were afterwards severed by a sword might account for the number of
birds’ bones.
Footnote 948:
Cumont, _op. cit._ II. p. 21, gives the passage from Lampridius
mentioned in n. 1, p. 260, _supra_.
Footnote 949:
_Op. cit._ I. p. 322, quoting Zacharius rhetor.
Footnote 950:
See Chapter II, Vol. I. p. 62, _supra_.
Footnote 951:
Cumont, _T. et M._ II. p. 18, for the passage in St Jerome in which
these degrees are enumerated. They all appear in the inscriptions
given by Cumont, except that of Miles or Soldier. An inscription by
two “soldiers” of Mithras has, however, lately been found at Patras
and published by its discoverers, M. Charles Avezou and M. Charles
Picard. See _R.H.R._ t. LXIV. (1911), pp. 179-183.
Footnote 952:
Cumont, _T. et M._ I. pp. 315 _sqq._
Footnote 953:
Tertullian, _de Corona_, c. 15.
Footnote 954:
Porphyry, _de antro nymph._ c. 15.
Footnote 955:
Cumont, _T. et M._ I. p. 322. Gregory of Nazianza (A.D. 320-390) is
the first authority for these tortures (κολάσεις) in point of time.
Nonnus the Mythographer gives more details, but is three centuries
later.
Footnote 956:
Renan, _Marc-Aurèle_, p. 577.
Footnote 957:
Cumont, _T. et M._ I. p. 73.
Footnote 958:
_Op. cit._ II. p. 294, Fig. 149; p. 298, Fig. 154; p. 300, Fig. 156;
p. 304, Fig. 161; p. 488, Fig. 421.
Footnote 959:
_Op. cit._ I. p. 175, Fig. 10.
Footnote 960:
_Op. cit._ I. p. 39, n. 6, quoting the _Arda Viraf namak_. A quotation
from Arnobius, _adv. gentes_, which follows, merely says that the Magi
boast of their ability to smooth the believers’ passage to heaven.
Footnote 961:
See Chap. VIII, p. 74, n. 3, _supra_.
Footnote 962:
That those who had taken the degree of Pater were called ἀετοί or
eagles appears from Porphyry, _de Abstinentia_, Bk IV. c. 16. Cumont
doubts this; see _T. et M._ I. p. 314, n. 8. The idea probably had its
origin in the belief common to classical antiquity that the eagle
alone could fly to the sun, from which the Mithraist thought that the
souls of men came, and to which those of perfect initiates would
return. Cf. _op. cit._ I. p. 291.
Footnote 963:
Lafaye, _L’Initiation Mithriaque_, p. 106.
Footnote 964:
Cumont, _T. et M._ II. p. 56.
Footnote 965:
Porphyry, _de Abstinentia_, Bk IV. c. 16 says this was so.
Footnote 966:
Cumont, _T. et M._ I. p. 318, n. 1, points out that an initiate might
become Pater Patrum immediately after being made Pater or Pater
sacrorum simply. This appears from the two monuments both dated the
same year of Vettius Agorius Praetextatus, _op. cit._ II. p. 95.
Footnote 967:
See Ammianus Marcellinus Bk XXII. c. 7, for his life under Julian. His
career is well described by Dill, _Roman Society in the Last Century
of the Western Empire_, 1899, pp. 17, 18, 30, 154, 155.
Footnote 968:
Cumont, _T. et M._ II. p. 100, inscr. 35; p. 98, inscr. 24.
Footnote 969:
_Op. cit._ II. p. 130, inscr. 225; p. 132, inscr. 239; p. 134, inscr.
257. The two decurions may of course have been decurions of the rite
only, as to which see _op. cit._ I. p. 326.
Footnote 970:
_Op. cit._ I. p. 324: Tertullian, _Praescpt._ c. 40.
Footnote 971:
Cumont, _T. et M._ I. p. 65. Thirty-five seems to be the greatest
number belonging to any one chapel.
Footnote 972:
_Op. cit._ I. p. 327.
Footnote 973:
Amm. Marcell. _passim_.
Footnote 974:
Neander, _Ch. Hist._ III. p. 136.
Footnote 975:
Marinus, _vita Procli_, pp. 67, 68; Neander, _op. cit._ III. p. 136.
Footnote 976:
Witness the reduction of Mitra, who plays such an important part in
the religion of the Vedas, to the far lower position of chief of the
Izeds or Yazatas in the Sassanian reform.
Footnote 977:
Cumont, _T. et M._ I. p. 250, for authorities.
Footnote 978:
Gibbon, _Decline and Fall_ (Bury’s ed.), I. p. 260 n. 106.
Footnote 979:
Reville, _Religion sous les Sevères_, p. 102.
Footnote 980:
Cumont, _T. et M._ I. p. 347.
Footnote 981:
Dill, _Last Century_, etc. p. 29, n. 2.
Footnote 982:
Cumont, _T. et M._ I. p. 347.
Footnote 983:
_Op. cit._ I. pp. 329, 330; Dill, _Nero to Marcus Aurelius_, p. 624.
Footnote 984:
Cumont, “L’aigle funéraire des Syriens et l’apothéose des empereurs.”
_R.H.R._, 1910, pt ii. pp. 159 _sqq._
Footnote 985:
Cf. the “solitary eagle” of the Magic Papyrus quoted on p. 265
_supra_.
Footnote 986:
Maury, _La Magie et L’Astrologie_, _passim_. The Zend Avesta also
denounces magic as did the later Manichaeism. See p. 342 _infra_.
Footnote 987:
As in Shakespeare’s _Macbeth_.
CHAPTER XIII
MANES AND THE MANICHAEANS
It is generally said that the religion of Mithras ended and was absorbed
in Manichaeism, which may thus be supposed to have inherited some, at
least, of its doctrines[988]. This is one of those statements which are
copied by one author from another until they acquire by mere repetition
the force of an axiom; but its truth is not obvious, nor does it appear
to rest upon any sound foundation. Except in the fact that both
Mithraism and Manichaeism came in the first instance from Persia, there
is little likeness between the two faiths, which are in all essential
respects diametrically opposed to each other. A strict dualism, or the
eternal antagonism of two equal principles, is the distinguishing
feature of the religion of Manes, while the worship of Mithras rested,
as has been said in the last chapter, on an equally uncompromising
monotheism, which made the Supreme Being, whether known as Jupiter or
Ormuzd, at once the creator and the governor of the universe. In this
respect, it drew near to Judaism, which it may have aimed at
incorporating with itself, and was not ashamed to place on its monuments
scenes which can be referred to the Old Testament[989]. Manichaeism, on
the other hand, looked on Judaism with horror, rejected the Old
Testament entirely, and was not improbably born in an outbreak of
anti-Semitic fury[990]. But the discrepancy of doctrine is as nothing
compared to the wide difference in those external matters which in a new
religion most strike the imagination of the crowd, and have therefore
much to do with its success or failure. The Mithraist was accustomed, as
we have seen, to an allegorical and symbolical ritual in which the
material image of his god was for ever before him; but the Manichaean,
as we shall see later, forbade the use of images and his worship
consisted merely of prayers and hymns. The Mithraists made frequent use
in their ceremonies of the sacrifice of animals; but the Manichaeans
looked with displeasure on the taking of the life even of plants. The
worshipper of Mithras not only gloried in the outward profession of his
religion, but by his avoidance of the wearing of garlands forced the
notice of it on those of his fellows who were not of the faith. The
follower of Manes, on the contrary, concealed his religion as carefully
as Basilides wished his followers to conceal theirs, and even went to
the length of outwardly adopting a creed different from his own. It is
not therefore to be wondered at that the rulers of the Roman Empire,
whose acquaintance with the worship of Mithras was a thousand times more
profound than our own, should have favoured Mithraism and have made
every effort to suppress Manichaeism. The very emperors who placed their
reformed State under the protection of Mithras imposed the penalty of
death upon those of their subjects who should venture to teach the
religion of Manes[991].
Not less different were the sanctions with which Mithraism and
Manichaeism appeared in the West. The worship of Mithras came into the
Roman world unobtrusively and without any claim to an exclusive
revelation or special means of propaganda. But Manichaeism had at its
back the personality of one of those wonderful men who appear at rare
intervals in the world’s history, to leave behind them a memorial of
their empire over the minds of their fellows in the shape of a new
creed. Manes was indeed, as the discoveries of the last decade have
taught us, an innovator in religion entirely worthy to rank with
Zoroaster, Buddha, and Muhammad, and when the difficulties in the way of
his missionary activity are considered, his influence upon the religious
ideas of those who came after him was at least as marked as that of any
of them. Manes or Mânî—the first being the Greek form of the name—was
born, according to his own deliberate statement, about the year 216
A.D., in a village of Babylonia called Mardînû situate on the Kutha
canal to the south of Ctesiphon[992]. According to Christian tradition,
his real name was Corbicius or Kubrik and he was a slave of unknown
birth[993]; according to the Mahommedan writers his father was one
Patecius or Fatak, while his mother is sometimes described as the “Lady
Mary,” sometimes as a Parthian princess, and is sometimes named
Karossa[994]. Such legends grow up naturally round the birth of all
founders of religions, and we should believe them the less in this case
that they have been handed down to us by the professors of religions
bitterly opposed to that of Manes. Yet the story about the Parthian
princess seems confirmed by the free access that he seems to have always
possessed to the court of the Persian monarchs of his time. Manes
himself says, according to Al-Bîrûnî, that illumination came to him in
his thirteenth year[995]; but this is contradicted by the _Fihrist_,
which puts the age at which he received revelation as twenty-four[996].
The _Acta Archelai_, a Christian source obviously suspect in the state
it has come down to us, would make him a priest of Mithras[997], a
tradition which may have originated at a date when the Catholic Church
recognized the danger to itself involved in the spread of the Mithraic
religion. Another story would make him a Magus or one of the priestly
caste entrusted by Ardeshîr with the propagation of the reformed
religion of Zoroaster[998], which is discredited by the fact that it was
the Magi who were from the outset his bitterest enemies[999]. A late
Oriental writer says that he was a Christian priest having a cure of
souls at Ahvâz[1000], the capital city of the province of Huzitis, which
again is negatived by the fact that he seems from his writings to have
had little more than a hearsay knowledge of Catholic Christianity,
although they show some acquaintance with the heresies of Bardesanes and
Marcion[1001]. He is said to have acquired great skill in painting which
he used to illustrate his teaching[1002], and to have been a learned
mathematician and astronomer. This is likely enough; but the only events
of his life which seem well attested, are that he began at an early age
to propagate his doctrine and that he succeeded in converting to it
Peroz or Fîrûz the son of Ardeshîr, through whose means he obtained a
formal hearing from Sapor or Shâpûr, the conqueror of Valerian and
Ardeshîr’s successor, shortly after this king’s accession to the
throne[1003]. Sapor seems to have listened to Manes with respect and,
according to an Oriental writer, to have even favoured his propaganda,
until the Magi, to whom the revival of the Zoroastrian religion had been
committed, convinced him of his error[1004]. On this, Manes was exiled
from Persia and retired, says Al-Bîrûnî, to India, China, and Thibet
preaching his gospel[1005]. On Sapor’s death, he returned to Persia
under Hormisdas or Ormuz, and again, it is said, succeeded in converting
to his tenets the reigning monarch[1006]. On Varanes’ or Bahram’s
accession to the throne the following year, however, he was seized and
put to death as a heretic after a disputation with the Chief of the
Magi, in which he failed to support the test of an ordeal by molten
metal proposed to him[1007]. The most likely account of his death
narrates that he was decapitated, and that his skin stuffed with straw
was suspended at the gate of the town where the execution took
place[1008]. This was followed by a great persecution of the Manichaeans
throughout Persia, and it is fairly evident that this, like his own
fate, was due to the hostility he had aroused in the Magi[1009]. The
date of his death is fixed with some accuracy at 275 A.D., so that he
would then have reached the age of sixty years[1010].
The causes underlying this sudden appearance of a new religion are
doubtless to be looked for in the political and religious history of
Persia at the time. Ardeshîr, as has been said above, gave new life to
the feeling of Persian nationality which the Parthian Kings had kept
alive during Greek supremacy in Asia, and succeeded in again founding a
Persian Empire. Like Alexander, Antiochus Epiphanes, and again,
Diocletian, he seems to have been thoroughly alive to the great effect
that a faith common to the whole empire would have in uniting the
peoples under his sway.
“Never forget,” he says in the supposed testament that he is said to
have left for the guidance of his son Sapor, “that as a king you are
at once the protector of religion and of your country. Consider the
altar and the throne as inseparable and that they must always
sustain each other. A sovereign without religion is a tyrant, and a
people which have no religion may be deemed the most monstrous of
all societies. Religion may exist without a State, but a State
cannot exist without religion; and it is by holy laws that a
political association can alone be bound[1011].”
Yet in spite of these sentiments, more pithily expressed perhaps in the
“No bishop, no king” of our own James I, the task of founding a common
religion for the whole of the new Persian empire must have presented
some uncommon difficulties. Apart from the strong Semitic element
dominant in their Babylonian province, the Parthians had always been
eclectic in matters of faith, and Vonones, one of the last kings of
Parthia, had shown himself to be a Philhellene of a type which must have
been peculiarly offensive to a sovereign who was trying to revive the
old Persian nationality[1012]. The worship of Mithras, the god most
favoured by the legions with whom Ardeshîr was soon to be at
death-grips, must have been equally out of the question; and the
knowledge of this is probably to be seen in the low place in the
celestial hierarchy assigned to the old Vedic god in the Avesta of
Ardeshîr’s day[1013]. The Jewish religion in Central Asia had lately
given signs of proselytizing fervour, and it was the going-over of a
Parthian kinglet against the will of his people to the Jewish faith
which first, according to one account, gave the excuse for the
intervention of Vologeses or Valkhash and the subsequent reformation or
revival of the Zoroastrian religion[1014]. At the same time,
Christianity had already begun to share with Mithraism the devotion of
the legions stationed on the Roman frontier, and in the Gnostic form
favoured by the teaching of Marcion and Bardesanes was pushing into
Persia from Armenia and Edessa[1015]. Nor can we doubt that Buddhism,
already perhaps struck with decay in its native country of India[1016],
but flourishing exceedingly further East, was trying to obtain a
foothold in that very Bactria which was afterwards said to have been the
historic scene of Zoroaster’s activity. Other small, but, as the event
was to show, highly vitalized faiths, were current in Western Asia, and
the power of the Magi when Ardeshîr overthrew the Parthian power had
declined so greatly that the statues of the Parthian kings were placed
in the temples of the gods and adored equally with those of the
divinities[1017]. The Persians of Herodotus’ time, who did not believe
in deities who had the same nature as men, would have blushed at such a
profanation.
From this unpromising welter of creeds and cults, Ardeshîr delivered the
State by restoring the worship of Ahura Mazda as the State religion. One
of his first cares was to collect the fragments of the books which we
now know as the Zend Avesta, in which the revelations of the national
prophet Zoroaster were set down in a language not then understanded of
the people. It was afterwards said that the MSS. of these books had
purposely been destroyed or scattered by Alexander; but the fact seems
to be that they had fallen into discredit through the turning-away of
the Persians towards Hellenic and Semitic gods; and that a previous
attempt to restore their authority by Valkhash or Vologeses I, the
Parthian king who reigned from 50 to 75 A.D., had met with little
encouragement from his subjects[1018]. Most modern scholars are now
agreed that the Avesta and the literature that grew up round it contain
many doctrines not to be found in the Persian religion current in
Achaemenian times, and evidently brought into it from foreign sources
under the Hellenistic and Parthian kings. Such as it is, however, the
Avesta formed the Sacred Book of Ardeshîr’s reformation; while, in the
order of the Magi, by him restored to more than their former power, the
reformed Zoroastrian faith possessed an active, established, and
persecuting Church, which reigned in Persia without a serious rival
until the Mahommedan invasion.
Yet the first struggles of the reformation must have been sharp, and
Darmesteter was doubtless justified when he saw in Manichaeism the first
and possibly the strongest expression of the revulsion of Ardeshîr’s
subjects against the rigid orthodoxy which he sought to impose upon
them[1019]. That such a feeling persisted for some time is plain from
the fact that Manes’ “heresy” is said by Al-Bîrûnî to have been followed
by that of Mazdak, who seems to have preached, like the Antinomian sects
of Cromwell’s time, a kind of Socialism including the community of women
and of property[1020]. There arose also about the same time or a little
later the sect of Zervanists referred to in the chapter on Mithras, who
taught that Boundless Time was the origin of all things and was superior
to Ormuzd and Ahriman, to both of whom he was said to have given birth.
They seemed to have gained great power in the reign of Yezdegerd II;
and, if we may trust the Armenian authors, a proclamation commanding
adherence to their doctrines was put forth by Yezdegerd’s general Mihr
Nerses on his invasion of Armenia in 450 A.D.[1021] But the earliest and
most enduring of these heresies or rebellions against the purified and
restored religion of Ahura Mazda appears to have been that of Manes.
Were now the doctrines that Manes preached to his own undoing his
invention, or did he draw them from some pre-existent source? It is
said, in a Christian account which has come down to us, that they were
the work of one Scythianus[1022], a native, as his name implies, of
“Scythia” (which here probably means Turkestan) and a contemporary of
the Apostles, who married an Egyptian slave and learned from her all the
wisdom of the Egyptians[1023]. With the help of this and the tincture of
dualism which he extracted from “the works of Pythagoras,” the story
goes on to say, Scythianus constructed a system which he taught to a
disciple named Terebinthus, otherwise called Buddas or Buddha, before
his own death in Judaea[1024]. This Terebinthus gave out that he was
born of a virgin and had been nursed by an angel on a mountain; and he
also wrote four books in which the doctrines of Scythianus were set
down[1025]. These books he entrusted to an aged widow with whom he
lived, and he was afterwards struck dead while performing a magical
ceremony. On his death, she bought a boy of seven years old named
Corbicius, whom she enfranchised, and to whom she left her property and
Terebinthus’ books some five years later. Thus equipped, Corbicius took
the name of Manes, which may signify “Cup” or “Vessel[1026],” and began
to preach. This history has evidently been much corrupted and by no
means agrees with the account before quoted from Oriental sources which
bears greater marks of authenticity; but it is thought by some to be,
like the 14th chapter of Genesis, a sort of allegory in which the names
of peoples and systems are given as those of individual men[1027]. If
this be so, we should perhaps see in Scythianus the representative of
those non-Aryan tribes of Medes of whom the Magi formed part, while in
the name of Buddha we might find that of one of those Judaean
communities holding a mixture of Magian and Buddhist tenets who
according to one tradition were for long encamped near the Dead
Sea[1028]. Yet there is nothing specifically Buddhist or Egyptian about
the doctrines of Manes as we know them[1029], and if there were any
likeness between the mythology and observances of the cult and those of
its predecessors, it was probably introduced by Manes’ followers rather
than by himself[1030]. As to the doctrines of the Magi, Manes certainly
had no occasion to go to Judaea to find them; for in the Persia of
Ardeshîr and Sapor he must have heard quite as much of them as he
wished.
Probably, therefore, the Christian account of Manes’ sources is untrue,
or rather, as M. Rochat suggests, it was composed at a time and place in
which Manichaeism had become a heresy or alternative creed attached, so
to speak, not to Zoroastrianism but to Christianity, and had picked up
from this and other faiths many accretions[1031]. The doctrine of Manes
which has come down to us from other sources is extremely simple, and
seems to accord better with the Puritanical simplicity of life and
ritual afterwards practised by his followers. Both the Christian and the
Mahommedan traditions agree that he believed that there were two gods,
uncreated and eternal, and everlastingly opposed to each other[1032].
One of these is the God of Light and the other the God of Darkness; but
he does not seem to have given any specific or proper name to
either[1033]. It is possible that this last-named being may have been
identified by him with Matter[1034], although this would seem to be a
remnant of the Platonic philosophy of which there is no other trace in
his teaching. But it is certain that he regarded the God of Darkness as
entirely evil, that is to say, malevolent, and as a power to propitiate
whom man should make no attempt. “I have considered it needful to
despatch this letter to you” says an epistle which there is much reason
to consider expresses the opinions, if not the actual words, of Manes
himself[1035]:
“first for the salvation of your soul and then to secure you against
dubious opinions, and especially against notions such as those teach
who lead astray the more simple (ἁπλούστεροι), alleging that both
good and evil come from the same Power, and introducing but one
principle, and neither distinguishing nor separating the darkness
from the light, and the good from the bad and the evil (φαῦλον), and
that which is without man from that which is within him, as we have
said formerly, so that they cease not to confuse and mingle one
thing with another. But do not thou, O my son, like most men,
unreasonably and foolishly join the two together nor ascribe them
both to the God of Goodness. For these teachers attribute to God the
beginning and the end, and make him the father of these ills _the
end of which is near a curse_[1036].”
Although this epistle bears evident marks of having been worked over and
amplified by some writer of a later age than that of the founder of
Manichaeism, there cannot be much doubt that it contains his teaching on
the Two Principles of all things. In the Christian account of Manes’
doctrine which M. Rochat thinks earlier than the epistle quoted above,
Manes’ _quondam_ follower Turbo says after recantation that his master
reverences two gods “unbegotten, self-existing (αὐτοφυεῖς), eternal and
set over against each other,” and that “he represents one as good, the
other as wicked, giving to the one the name of Light and to the other
that of Darkness[1037].” So, too, the Mahommedan writers who give what
seems to be an independent account of Manes’ opinions are agreed that he
deduced the origin of the world from “two Original Principles, one of
which is Light and the other Darkness, and which are separated one from
the other[1038].” The absolute opposition from the outset of good and
evil therefore formed the pivot of Manes’ whole system, and was opposed
quite as much to the Christian and Jewish creeds as to the Mithraic and
other modifications of Persian religious ideas then or later in vogue,
which held that evil like good was the creation of the Supreme Being,
and that Ahriman or Pluto was a god having subordinate authority to, but
of the same nature as, Ormuzd or Zeus. This uncompromisingly dualistic
theory gives an origin to evil independent of that of good, and can only
lead logically to the assertion of its eternity. Whether Manes gave
utterance to it for the first time, or derived it from a theology then
current in Persia, there is little evidence to show[1039]. The Zend
Avesta itself in its Sassanian recension does not seem to pronounce
clearly on this point, and has been thought by some high authorities to
teach the subordinate origin and ultimate extinction of evil[1040], and
by others exactly the reverse. It does, however, seem to be clear that
unless Manes invented _de novo_ the doctrine above quoted, it must have
been from Persia that he obtained it. No other country with which he can
have become acquainted has yet been shown to possess it[1041].
Exclusively Oriental, too, in its origin must be the history of the
conflict between these two Principles which follows. Each of them
apparently dwelt in his own domain for countless ages untroubled by the
existence of the other. The Light is the uppermost and is, according to
the Mahommedan version of Manes’ doctrine, without bounds in height and
on each side. The Darkness lies below it, and is in like manner
boundless in depth and in lateral extent[1042]. Hence there is a long
frontier at which they touch, and this spot was filled from the
beginning by the celestial air and the celestial earth. If we may read
into the tradition something which is not expressed there, but which
seems to follow logically from it, this atmosphere and this earth were
the heavier parts of the Divine substance, which sinking down formed a
kind of sediment or deposit[1043]. Each of these Two Principles has five
“members” or components, and this partition into five seems in the
Manichaean teaching to run through all things. Thus, the Mahommedan
tradition tells us that the “members” of the God of Light are
Gentleness, Knowledge, Intelligence, Discretion, and Discernment, those
of the Air the same five, of the (celestial) earth, the Breeze or Ether,
Wind, Light, Water, and Fire, and of the Darkness Smoke, Flame, Hot
Wind, Poison or Pestilence, and Gloom or Fog[1044]. In this, and
especially in its deification of abstract principles, we may see a
reflection of Gnostic teaching which may easily have reached Manes from
Valentinus by way of Bardesanes and the Oriental or Edessan School. On
the other hand, the borrowing may have been the other way, and Simon
Magus may have obtained these notions from the Persian Magi and have
handed them on to Valentinus and his successors. This does not seem so
likely as the other, but the point can hardly be settled until we know
more than we do at present of the state of the Persian religion from the
time of the Achaemenian kings to the Sassanian reform.
However that may be, both the Christian and Mahommedan traditions are
agreed that the aggressor in the struggle between the good God and the
bad was the Evil One. The Mahommedan source, here fuller than the
Christian, tells us that the Darkness remained in an unorganized
condition for ages, although consisting of the five members enumerated
above. These parts, however, seem to have sunk down and produced another
Earth called the Darker Earth, from which in course of time came forth
Satan. Satan was not, like the King of the Paradise of Light, without
beginning, but came into being from the union of these five members of
Darkness, having the head of a lion, the body of a serpent, the wings of
a bird, the tail of a fish, and four feet like those of crawling
animals[1045], in which figure we may see a kind of reflection of the
Mithraic Ahriman[1046]. Satan, on his emergence on the Darker Earth,
perceived the rays of light from the upper world, piercing as we may
suppose through the gloomy atmosphere of his own world, and conceived a
hatred for them. Seeing, too, that these rays gained much in strength by
their combination and mutual support, he withdrew within himself so as
to unite himself more closely with his members[1047]. Then again
springing upwards, he invaded the realms of Light with the intention of
there spreading calamity and destruction. The aeon—or world as the
_Fihrist_ calls it—of Discernment was the first to be aware of this
invasion[1048], and reported it to the aeon Knowledge, from whom it
passed to the others in turn until it at last reached the ear of the
Good God, here, as elsewhere in the _Fihrist_, called the King of the
Paradise of Light. With the aid of the Spirit of his Right Hand, of his
five worlds or members before mentioned, and of his twelve elements, of
which we have before heard nothing[1049], he made the First Man,
clothing him by way of armour with the five “species” or powers of the
celestial earth, the Breeze, Wind, Light, Water and Fire as before
enumerated[1050]. With these He despatched him to fight Satan, who in
his turn did on his armour in the shape of _his_ five “species,” Smoke,
Flame, Poison, Hot Wind, and Gloom[1051]. The fight lasted long, but in
the end Satan triumphed, and dragged the First Man down into the Realm
of Darkness, where he took from him his light[1052]. During the fight,
too, the elements had become mingled, so that the Ether henceforth was
mixed with the Smoke, the Fire with the Flame, the Light with the
Darkness, the Wind with the Hot Wind, and the Cloud with the Water. This
it is which brings about the confusion or mixture seen in the present
world, wherein everything which is beautiful, pure, or useful, such as
gold and silver, comes from the armour of the First Man, and everything
foul, impure, and gross, from that of his infernal opponent[1053]. After
the fight, the King of the Paradise of Light descended with another
Power called the Friend of the Lights, who overthrew Satan, and the
Spirit of the Right Hand or Mother of Life recalled, either by her voice
or by another power called the Living Spirit, the First Man from his
prison in the lowest Darkness. The First Man, on his deliverance, in
this account mounts again to the Realms of Light, but before doing so
“cuts the roots” of the Five Infernal Elements so that they can no more
increase[1054]. Then the King of the Paradise of Light orders an angel
to draw the Confusion or Mixture of the Elements to that part of the
Realm of Darkness which touches the Realm of Light, and to create out of
it the present world, so as to deliver the imprisoned elements of Light
from the Darkness with which they are contaminated. This is done, and a
Universe having six heavens and eight earths is formed, each heaven
having twelve gates, together with terraces, corridors, and places in
such profusion as to point to some confusion in the translation into the
Syriac which has come down to us. The only thing that concerns us in
this, perhaps, is that the visible world, presumably the lowest of the
eight, has a ditch dug round it in which is thrown the Matter of
Darkness as it is separated from the Light, and outside this a wall so
that it cannot escape. This is in view of the End of the World[1055].
So far there is no great difference—at all events, no irreconcilable
difference—between the Christian and the Mahommedan accounts of Manes’
doctrines. The machinery set up for the process of the redemption of the
light, however, differs somewhat conspicuously in the two traditions.
The Mahommedan writers declare that in Manes’ teaching the Sun and Moon
were created for the purification of the Light, the Sun drawing to
itself those light-elements which had become contaminated by the demons
of heat and flame and the Moon exercising a like attraction on those
which had suffered from the embrace of Satan’s other powers. Both
luminaries bear these elements into the Column of Praises or Glory which
is perpetually mounting from the Sun to the World of Light, bearing with
it the praises of men, their hymns of gratitude, and their pure words
and good works[1056]. This will continue until none but a feeble
fragment of the Light remains in this world, when the angels charged
with its maintenance will abandon their task, and return to the World of
Light. A fire will then break out, which will burn for 1468 years and
will set free the remainder of the Light imprisoned in matter by
consuming its envelope. Satan or Hummâma, the Spirit of Darkness, will
then acknowledge his defeat, and will be driven into the tomb prepared
for him, the entrance to which will be closed with a stone the size of
the world[1057]. In the Christian tradition these matters are more
complicated, and Manes is said to have taught that there exists a great
wheel bearing twelve vases or buckets after the fashion of an Egyptian
_sakiyeh_, which raise the redeemed portions of Light to the Sun, who
gives them to the Moon, who in her turn delivers them to the Aeons of
the Light, who place them in the Column of Glory here called the Perfect
Air[1058]. The Christian account is also more detailed with regard to
the functions of the angels charged with the conduct of the world,
making out that one of them supports this earth on his shoulders and is
therefore called Omophorus, great earthquakes and commotions taking
place when from weariness he shifts his burthen from one shoulder to the
other, while another, called Splenditenens, holds the heavens by their
backs[1059]. The stars are also in the Christian tradition fashioned out
of the purer part of the Light which was _not_ captured by the Satanic
powers, whereas the Mahommedan tradition says nothing about their
origin[1060]. The Christian writers also make the Manichaeans tell a
story about the appearance of a beautiful virgin who appears to the male
and female devils who were crucified or fixed in this world on the
deliverance of the First Man. She appears to the male fiends as a
beautiful woman and to the female as a desirable young man; and when
they covet and pursue her, she flies from them and disappears. The anger
of the Great Archon or Satan on this causes the appearance of clouds in
this world and thereby obscures the Sun’s light, whilst his sweat
becomes rain[1061].
On the origin of terrestrial man, there is also considerable discrepancy
between the two streams of tradition. The Mahommedan tells us that Adam
was born from the conjunction of one of “these Archons” or Princes, and
a star. Nothing is said to tell us what is meant by “these” princes, but
as the phrase is used in other passages by the same writer to denote the
Satanic hierarchy one can but suppose that it is one of the rulers of
darkness who is here indicated[1062]. The same writer goes on to say
that the conjunction was “beheld” [or aided?] by a pair of Archons, one
male and the other female, and that a second similar conjunction
resulted in the birth of Eve. There is evidently a reference here to
some legend of which we have lost the trace[1063], and the Christian
tradition assigns to Adam an entirely different origin and declares that
he was made by all the “princes” or archons on the advice of one of
their number, who persuaded the others to give up some of the light they
had received which they knew would otherwise be taken from them and to
make from it man in their own image and after the form of the “First
Man” against whom they had fought with temporary success[1064]. This
story is clearly the same as that which we have already seen current
among the Ophites, and it now seems most probable that it here appears
not—as was once thought—as an interpolation foisted into the teaching of
Manes by the Christian writer, but because both Ophite and Manichaean
derived the story independently of each other from legends current in
Western Asia[1065].
The Mahommedan writer then plunges into a long and elaborate account of
how the “Five Angels,” meaning thereby apparently the “members”
Gentleness, Knowledge, Intelligence, Discretion and Discernment, on
beholding Adam and Eve, prayed to certain powers which seem to be those
which descended with the King of the Paradise of Light after the defeat
of the First Man properly so called. These Powers include the First Man
himself and the Mother of Life[1066], and the Living Spirit[1067], and
were besought by the Five to send to earth a Saviour who should give
Adam and Eve Knowledge and Goodness and deliver them from the devils.
Their prayer was heard, and Jesus was sent upon earth “accompanied by a
god,” with whose aid the Archons were again overthrown and imprisoned,
while Adam and Eve were set free[1068]. Jesus then addressed Adam and
revealed to him the whole secret of the cosmogony, enlightening him upon
the origin and functions of the different heavenly worlds or paradises,
of the gods, of hell, of the devils, of the earth and sky, and of the
sun and moon. He then showed him, continues the Mahommedan tradition,
the seductive power of Eve, put him on his guard against it, and
breathed into him the fear of yielding to it. Adam, it is said, listened
to these commands obediently.
The result of this abstinence on Adam’s part—we are still pursuing the
Mahommedan account of the Manichaean teaching—was seen in the sequel.
The Archon or Demon who was practically the father of the present race
of mankind became enamoured of Eve, and engendering with her begot a son
“ugly and of a reddish colour,” who was named Cain. Cain in turn had
relations with his mother Eve, and from this incest was born a son of
white colour who was named Abel. From the further intercourse of Cain
and Eve were born two daughters, one called “the Wisdom of the World,”
and the other “the Daughter of Pleasure.” Cain took the last-named to
wife and gave the other in marriage to Abel; but he did not know that
the Wisdom of the World was filled with Light and divine wisdom, while
the Daughter of Pleasure possessed nothing of the kind. In the sequel,
one of the Angels had relations with the Wisdom of the World and begot
two daughters, called Help (Farjâd) and Bringer of Help (Barfarjâd).
Abel accused Cain of being the father of these girls, whereupon Cain
killed him and took the “Wisdom of the World” as his own second wife.
The Rulers of Darkness were annoyed at this, and the “Great Devil,” here
called Sindîd, taught Eve magical formulas by the aid of which she again
enticed Adam to intercourse. The result was a son “beautiful and of an
agreeable countenance,” whom Eve wished to kill as having nothing of the
Archons in him. Adam arranged to have the child fed exclusively on milk
and fruits, and drew three magic circles round him bearing the names of
the King of the Paradise of Light, the First Man, and the Spirit of Life
respectively, to protect him against the devils. He then went to a high
place and entreated God for him, whereupon one of the Three Powers last
named appeared and gave him a Crown of Glory, at the sight of which
Sindîd and the Archons fled away. Then a tree appeared to Adam called
the Lotus, from which he drew milk with which to nourish his son whom he
called first after the tree, and then Seth (Schâthîl). Eve, on the
instigation of Sindîd, again persuaded Adam to intercourse, which so
disgusted Seth that he took with him the Wisdom of the World, her two
daughters Help and Bringer of Help, and “Siddikût,” which seems to be
the community of the elect or Perfect Manichaeans, and journeyed to the
East in search of the Divine Light and Wisdom. At their death all these
entered into Paradise, while Eve, Cain, and the daughters of Desire went
to hell[1069].
The story about the protoplasts of the Book of Genesis has been given in
more detail than it perhaps deserves because of its manifest connection
with the doctrines of the extant sect of Mandaites, Hemerobaptists, or
Disciples of St John still to be found in certain villages near the
Shât-el-Arab and even in considerable towns like Bussora. These
sectaries declare themselves to have inherited the faith of John the
Baptist, and have a sacred book called the Sidra Rabba, which has been
known to Europeans since the XVIIth century, and contains, among other
things, many stories like those given above. The Mandaites are a
violently anti-Christian sect, and say that the historical Jesus was a
fiend who obtained baptism from St John the Baptist by means of a trick,
and they display a similar hatred of the religions of both the Jews and
the Mahommedans. Nevertheless, most modern writers consider them related
to, and perhaps the modern representatives of, the Mughtasilah or
“Washers[1070].” This last sect is certainly very ancient, and its
history can in fact be traced as far back as the beginning of the reign
of Trajan[1071], while the Mahommedan author, from whom the traditional
account of Manes’ doctrines has been quoted above, says that Manes was
in his youth one of the Mughtasilah. From this Prof. Kessler, who
perhaps devoted more attention to the Manichaean religion than any
living scholar, built up the theory that the doctrines of the
Mughtasilah were one of the principal sources from which Manes formed
his system. He even says that the Fatak or Patecius whom tradition gives
as a father to Manes must be identified with that Scythianus or
Terebinthus whom the Christian tradition makes Fatak’s predecessor, was
one of the Mughtasilah, and helped Manes both in the construction of his
system and in its propagation[1072]. This may be so, but very little
evidence is available in support of the theory; and the points which the
Mandaites and the Manichaeans undoubtedly possess in common do not seem
to be more than can be explained by the contact which must necessarily
have taken place between two neighbouring sects both persecuted
successively by Persian Shahs, Christian Emperors, and Mahommedan
Caliphs. The Christian tradition of Manes’ teaching concerning the
protoplasts says merely that “he who said ‘Let us make man in our own
image’” was the same Prince of Darkness who thereby counselled the other
Archons to give up their light in order to make man in the likeness
“of the form that we have seen, that is to say, of the First Man.
And in that manner,” it continues, “he created the man. They created
Eve also after the like fashion, imparting to her of their own lust,
with a view to the deceiving of Adam. And by these means the
construction of the world proceeded from the operations of the
Prince[1073].”
The teaching of Manes with regard to Jesus is not very clear in the
Christian tradition, no doubt because the writers who recorded it were
careful to remove from it as much as possible everything which in their
view savoured of blasphemy. Yet the Christian author before quoted makes
Manes say that the God of Light whom he calls “the Good Father” sent his
well-beloved son upon earth for the salvation of man’s soul and “because
of Omophorus” or the world-sustaining angel. This son, by whom he can
hardly mean any other than the historical Jesus, “came and transformed
himself into the semblance of a man and showed himself to men as a man,
although he was not a man, and men imagined that he had been
begotten[1074].” It is also to Him that is attributed the construction
of the wonderful wheel before alluded to as equipped with twelve vases
which the sphere causes to revolve, and which thus scoops up, as it
were, the souls of the dying[1075]. The Christian account also narrates
that in
“the Paradise which is called the Cosmos [Qy the ‘heavenly’ earth or
the Sun?], there are trees such as Desire and other deceits, whereby
the minds of those men [those who reach it?] are corrupted. But the
tree in Paradise, whereby they know the good, is Jesus and the
knowledge of Him which is in the Cosmos. And whoso receives it,
distinguishes between good and evil. Yet the Cosmos itself is not of
God, but it was made from portions of matter, and therefore all
things in it will disappear[1076].”
There is not really any very great difference between this and the
Mahommedan tradition quoted above which makes Jesus the messenger sent
from above to give knowledge to Adam, especially if we consider that
Manes probably, like most of the Gnostics, placed Paradise not upon the
earth but in one of the heavens intermediate between us and the abode of
the Supreme Being[1077]. That Manes supposed Jesus to have descended to
this earth also is plain from his own words quoted by Al Bîrûnî from the
_Shapurakan_ or book written by Manes for King Sapor:
“Wisdom and deeds have always from time to time been brought to
mankind by the messenger of God. So in one age they have been
brought by the messenger called Buddha to India, in another by
Zaradusht [_i.e._ Zoroaster] to Persia, in another by Jesus to the
West. Thereupon this revelation has come down, this prophecy in this
last age through me, Mânî, the messenger of the God of Truth to
Babylonia[1078].”
Manes’ ideas as to the salvation of man’s soul again differ little in
the two streams of tradition. The Christian, here perhaps the fuller of
the two, describes him as teaching that the soul of man, as also that of
beasts, birds, other animals, and plants, is part of the light which was
won by the demons from the First Man, while all bodies are of that
matter which is the same as darkness. Man’s body, we are told, is called
a cosmos by parallelism with the great Cosmos, and all men have roots
here below bound to things which are above[1079]. It is the cutting of
these roots by the demons which causes death. On the death of a man who
has attained the knowledge of the truth during this life, his soul is
taken up in the wheel to the Sun, by whom after it has been purified it
is passed over to the Moon, the two luminaries being represented as
ships or ferry-boats sailing to-and-fro in the upper air. When the Moon
is full, she ferries the souls with which she is filled towards the
East, and then delivers them to the Aeons of Light who place them in the
Pillar of Glory before described. She then returns for a fresh supply
greatly reduced in circumference, whereby her waxing and waning is
explained[1080]. In the case of a man who has not attained the knowledge
of the truth, a small portion of the soul only is purified and is then
reincarnated in the body of a dog, a camel, or some other animal,
according to the sins which it has committed. Thus, if he has killed a
mouse, he will become a mouse, if a chicken a chicken, and so on, while
those who have been employed in the reaping of corn will themselves
become corn or some other kind of plant in order that they may be reaped
and cut in turn. The soul of the homicide will, it is said, go to
inhabit the body of a leper[1081]. There will, apparently, be five of
these reincarnations[1082], and between them the soul which has not
found knowledge of the truth is given over to the demons in order that
they may subdue it in the “Gehennas” of fire. This, like its
transference into other bodies, is for the sake of teaching it better;
but if it still remains without knowledge, it is cast into the great
fire until the Consummation of the World[1083].
The Mahommedan tradition as to what occurs at death goes into more
details, and it is here that we catch the first glimpse of that doctrine
of predestination which plays so prominent a part in the later teaching
of the Manichaean Church. When a just or perfect or “true” Manichaean is
on the point of death, the First Man sends to him a “shining god of
light” in the form of “the Wise Guide” accompanied by three other gods
and with them “the bowl of water, the garment, the fillet for the head,
the circlet and the crown of light[1084].” With them comes the virgin
who is like to the soul of the just one. There also appear to him the
devil of greed, that of pleasure, and others with them. Directly the
just one who is dying sees them, he calls to his help the goddess[1085]
who has taken the form of the Wise Guide and the three gods her
companions. They draw near to him, and at the sight of them the devils
turn and flee. Then the gods take the just one, do on him the crowns and
the garment, put in his hand the bowl of water, and mount with him to
the Column of Praises in the sphere of the Moon, to the First Man and to
Nahnaha the Mother of Life, until they reach the place in the Paradise
of Light he occupied in the beginning[1086]. His body remains stretched
(upon the earth) in order that the Sun, the Moon, and the Gods of Light
may take from it its powers, _i.e._ the Water, the Fire, the gentle
Breeze, which are then borne upwards to the Sun and become a god. The
rest of the body, which is all darkness, is cast into hell[1087].
This description of the lot of the blessed after death is certainly
taken from no other source than that from which the Zoroastrian books
put forth by the Sassanian kings are drawn.
“At the end of the third night,” says the Hatoxt Nask[1088], one of
the earliest Zoroastrian documents that have come down to us, “at
the dawn of day, the soul of the faithful thinks that it is in a
garden and smells its perfumes. Towards it a wind seems to blow from
the region of the South perfumed, more perfumed than any other wind.
Then the soul of the faithful thinks that he breathes this wind with
his nostrils. ‘Whence blows this wind, the most perfumed that I have
breathed with my nostrils?’ While encountering this breeze, his
religion (conscience, _daena_, spiritual life), appears to him in
the form of a beautiful young girl, shining, with white arms,
robust, of fair growth, of fair aspect, tall, high-bosomed, of fair
body, noble, of shining race, with the figure of one who is 15 years
old, as fair in form as the fairest creatures that exist. Then the
soul of the faithful speaks to her, and asks ‘What virgin art thou,
thou the most beautiful in form of the virgins that I have ever
seen?’ Then she who is his religion answers: ‘O youth of good mind,
of good words, of good deeds, of good religion, I am thine own
religion incarnate[1089].’”
So, too, the Vendidad, which may be a little later in date than the
document just quoted, represents Ahura Mazda as saying in answer to
Zarathustra himself:
“After a man has disappeared, after a man dies, the impious and
malevolent demons make their attack. When the dawn of the third
night shines forth and the day begins to lighten, the well-armed
Mithra arrives at the mountains giving forth holy radiance and the
Sun rises. Then, O Spitama Zarathustra ... she comes, the beautiful,
the well-made, the strong, of fair growth, with her dogs, full of
discernment, rich in children [_i.e._ fruitful], the longed-for,
virtuous one. She leads the souls of the faithful above the Hara
Berezaiti; she sustains them across the bridge Chinvat in the road
of the spiritual divinities. Vohu Mano rises from his golden throne.
Vohu Mano says, ‘O faithful one, how hast thou come hither from the
perishable world to the imperishable?’ Rejoicing, the faithful pass
before Ahura Mazda, before the beneficent Immortals, before golden
thrones, before the house of hymns, the dwelling of Ahura Mazda, the
dwelling of the beneficent Immortals, the dwelling of the other
faithful ones. When the faithful is purified, the wicked and
malevolent demons tremble by reason of the perfume after his
departure as a sheep pursued by a wolf trembles at the [scent of
the?] wolf[1090].”
To return, however, to the Mahommedan account of Manes’ doctrine. This
last by no means confined his survey of the state of man’s soul after
death to the single case of the justified dead.
“When death draws nigh to a man who has fought for religion and
justice, [he is represented as saying,] and who has protected them
by protecting the Just, the gods whom I have mentioned appear and
the devils are there also. Then he calls the gods to his help and
seeks to win them by showing to them his works of piety, and that
which he has done to protect the religion and the Just. The gods
deliver him from the devils, while leaving him in the condition of a
man in this world, who sees fearful shapes in his dreams, and who is
plunged in dirt and mud[1091]. He remains in this state until his
Light and his Spirit are freed [evidently by transmigration] when he
arrives at the meeting-place of the Just. Then, after having
wandered for long, he dons their vesture. But when death appears to
the sinful man, to him who has been ruled by greed and desire, the
devils draw near to him, they seize him, torment him, and put
fearful shapes before his eyes. The gods are there also with the
vesture, so that the sinful one thinks they have come to deliver
him. But they have only appeared to him to reproach him, to remind
him of his actions, and to convince him of his guilt in having
neglected the support of the Just. He wanders unceasingly throughout
the world, and is tortured until the coming of the End of the World,
when he will be thrown into hell. Thus, Manes teaches,” continues
the tradition, “that there are three paths for the soul of man. One
leads to Paradise, which is the path of the Just. Another leads back
to the world and its terrors, which is the path of the protectors of
the faith and the helpers of the Just. The third leads to hell,
which is the path of the sinful man[1092].”
Yet there is nothing to show that the sins which thus doom a man to hell
are within his choice to commit or to leave alone as he chooses. Rather
does it appear that his freedom from sin depends on the admixture of
light which enters into his composition at his birth. Of all this the
Christian tradition says nothing.
It is, nevertheless, in the division here set forth of the adherents of
the religion into the Just and the protectors of the Just, that the
great distinction between the Manichaean religion and all its
contemporaries appears. Both traditions are agreed that those who listen
to the teaching of Manes are to be divided into five classes, viz. the
Masters who are the sons of Gentleness; those who are enlightened by the
Sun, who are the sons of Knowledge or the Priests; the Elders who are
the sons of Intelligence; the Just who are the sons of Discretion; and
the Hearers who are the sons of Discernment[1093]. The first three
classes we may safely neglect for the present, as they evidently
correspond to the three superior or directing orders of the Manichaean
Church to which we shall have to return later; but the last two, the
Just and the Hearers, give us the key to the organization of the sect,
and explain how it was able to maintain itself for so long against its
numerous enemies. He who would enter into the religion, says the
Mahommedan tradition, must examine himself that he may see whether he is
strong enough to conquer desire and greed, to abstain from meats, from
wine, and from marriage, to avoid all that can be hurtful in (to?) water
or fire, and to shun magic and hypocrisy[1094]. These abstinences are
those that are demanded of the perfect Manichaeans, who have been called
above the Just or the Sons of Discretion, and who with their superiors
constitute the Manichaean Church. These are they whom the Christian
tradition speaks of as the Elect, and for whom, as we have seen, there
is reserved after death a glorious ascension and an immediate return to
the Paradise of Light. So Valentinus, like many other Gnostics, divided
Christians into the two classes of pneumatics and psychics, the
first-named of whom were to occupy a more distinguished position in the
world to come than the other. There is nothing to show, however, that
Valentinus or any other Gnostic ever imposed any discipline on the
pneumatics than that prescribed for the psychics, or that he thought
that those who were going to take a higher rank in the next world should
observe a stricter mode of life in this. The Catholics, indeed, had
already adopted the view that the celibate member of the Church
possessed “a higher calling” than his married brethren; but there is no
reason to suppose that they therefore assigned to them a higher place in
the next world, or thought that those who had not the gift of continence
were to be permitted any relaxation of the moral law imposed upon
celibate and married alike. It is therefore probable that it was from
Buddhism, with which Manes must have made himself well acquainted during
his journeys into India, that he borrowed the scheme by which those who
believed in the truth of his teaching could delay subjecting themselves
to the austerities necessary for salvation until their next incarnation.
However this may be, there can be little doubt that this is the meaning
of the position he assigned to the Hearers.
“If,” he says according to the Mahommedan author, “he who would
enter into the religion does _not_ feel strong enough to practise
the abstinences before enumerated, let him renounce the attempt. If,
however, he is filled with love for the faith, yet cannot conquer
desire and greed, let him seek to progress by protecting the faith
and the Just, and let him fight against evil actions on the
occasions when he can give himself to labour[1095], piety,
vigilance, prayer and humility. This will fill him with contentment
both in this ephemeral world, and in the eternal world to come, and
he will put on the body of the second degree in the state which
follows after death[1096].”
Unless they are greatly belied, some of his later followers looked upon
this as a licence to the Hearers to commit such sins as they chose[1097]
in this life, yet it is evident that this formed no part of Manes’
original teaching. He imposed upon the Hearers, says the Mahommedan
tradition, ten commandments, which were: to abstain from prayers offered
to idols, from lying, from avarice, from murder, from adultery, from
false teaching, from magic, from double dealing, from doubt in religion
and from slackness and want of energy in action. They also had to recite
certain prayers which will be mentioned in their place, and to fast two
days when the Moon is new as when she is full, as also when the Sun
enters the sign of Sagittary. A three days’ fast was also obligatory on
the first appearance of the Moon after the entry of the Sun into the
signs of Capricorn and of Libra. But they were to feast on Sunday, a day
which the Perfect, according to the Mahommedans, kept as a fast, their
own weekly feast being held on Monday[1098].
The attitude of Manes to other religions was also without precedent or
parallel. Of the Jews and of their religion he seems to have had a
detestation so strong and so deeply rooted that it is difficult not to
see in it some connection with political events of which we have lost
the record. The war of extermination which Hadrian had been forced to
wage against the Jews of Palestine must have been over nearly a century
before Manes began to teach; but the Babylonian Jews can hardly have
been affected by this, and the story of the king of Adiabene quoted
above shows that shortly before the time of Ardeshîr they actively
pursued the proselytizing policy which their countrymen in the West had
been forced to abandon. In doing so, they doubtless contrived, after
their manner, to offend the national prejudices of their hosts, while
showing themselves greedy, as ever, of political power[1099]. This
probably provoked reprisals, and it is quite possible that Manes’
teaching derived some of its strength from the revulsion felt by
Ardeshîr’s Aryan subjects to the borrowings from Judaism to be found
both in Mithraism and the Avestic literature. But whatever its cause,
there can be no doubt about the hatred felt by Manes for the Jewish
religion, which is prominent in every tradition of his teaching. The
earlier Gnostics, like Marcion, had made the God of the Old Testament a
harsh but just and well-meaning tyrant; but Manes would have none of
this, and declared that he was a fiend.
“It is the Prince of Darkness,” the Christian tradition makes him
say, “who spoke with Moses, the Jews, and their priests. Thus the
Christians, the Jews, and the Pagans are involved in the same error
when they worship this God. For he led them astray in the lusts that
he taught them, since he was not the God of Truth. Whence those who
put their hope in that God who spoke with Moses and the Prophets
will be bound with him, because they have not put their trust in the
God of Truth. For he, the God of the Jews, spoke with them according
to their lusts[1100].”
In a very different spirit, however, Manes dealt with all the other
religions that he knew. He acknowledged the Divine origin of the
teachings of Zoroaster, of Buddha, and of Jesus alike, with the
reservation that he should himself be regarded as the Paraclete, which
here seems to mean nothing more than the Legate or Ambassador, sent by
the Good God to complete their teaching. “Mânî, the messenger of the God
of Truth to Babylonia[1101]” is the title which, as we have seen, he
gives himself in the most authentic record of his teaching. He aimed, in
short, at establishing a universal religion which should include within
its scope the three faiths that between them commanded the allegiance of
the whole civilized world, and should acknowledge him as its founder and
chief. Had his plans come to fruition in his lifetime, he would have
attained an empire over the minds of men far greater and wider than any
ever claimed or dreamed of by the most ambitious of the Roman pontiffs.
The full details of the way in which he proposed to establish this new
faith we shall probably never know; but discoveries made during the last
decade have shown us that his plans were well fitted to their purpose.
The successive expeditions of Drs Grünwedel and von Le Coq to Turfan
have shown that up to as late as the XIth century A.D., there was still
a strong body of Manichaeans probably belonging to the Ouigur nation in
Chinese Turkestan, living apparently in complete amity with their
Buddhist countrymen[1102]. The writings that were there discovered, to
which we shall have to refer more in detail later, are mostly written in
a script resembling the Estranghelo or Syriac but with an alphabet
peculiar to the Manichaean religious documents, and which cannot, one
would think, have been adopted by those who used it for any other
purpose than that of concealment[1103]. Judging from this and the
practice of the sect in Europe from the time of Diocletian onward, it
seems highly probable that among Buddhists, the Manichaean hearers
professed Buddhism, and among Zoroastrians, Zoroastrianism, hoping that
thus they might be able to turn their fellows to their way of thinking
without openly dissenting from the reigning religion. The persecution
that Bahram I instituted against them immediately upon Manes’ execution
was perhaps less a reason than a pretext for this.
This is certainly borne out by their proceedings when they found
themselves among Christians.
“You ask me if I believe the gospel,” said the Manichaean Prefect,
Faustus, in his dispute with St Augustine (himself for nine years
before his conversion a Manichaean Hearer). “My obedience to its
commands shows that I do. I should rather ask you if you believe it,
since you give no proof of your belief. I have left my father,
brother, wife and children and all else that the gospel requires;
and you ask me if I believe the gospel. Perhaps you do not know what
is called the gospel. The gospel is nothing else than the teaching
and the precept of Christ. I have parted with all gold and silver. I
have left off carrying money in my purse; content with food obtained
from day to day; without anxiety for the morrow and without care as
to how I shall be fed or wherewithal I shall be clothed; and you ask
if I believe the gospel? You see in me the blessings of the gospel;
and yet you ask if I believe the gospel. You see me poor, meek, a
peacemaker, pure in heart, mourning, hungering, thirsting, bearing
persecutions and hatred for righteousness’ sake; and do you doubt if
I believe in the gospel[1104]?”
So, too, Manes in the epistle to Marcellus which, although much altered
and corrupted by its Catholic transcribers, is probably a genuine
document, is careful to begin in language which seems imitated from the
Epistles of St Paul:
“Manes, an apostle of Jesus Christ, and all the saints who are with
me, and the virgins, to Marcellus, my beloved son; Grace, mercy, and
peace be with you from God the Father, and from our Lord Jesus
Christ; and may the right hand of light preserve you from the
present evil world and from its calamities, and from the snares of
the wicked one, Amen[1105].”
While in the Disputation which follows and which is certainly a later
interpolation, or possibly a concoction of some later author, he is
represented as saying “My brother, I am indeed a disciple of Christ,
and, moreover, an apostle of Jesus.” Yet in spite of this and a few
other passages of the same kind, it is plain that neither Manes, nor any
of those who believed on his teaching, were Christians in any sense in
which the term could not be applied to the followers of Mahommed or many
another professedly anti-Christian teacher. Manes entirely rejected the
account of the Incarnation given in the Gospels, alleging, as a modern
critic might do, that it was not the account of eyewitnesses, but a mass
of fables which had grown up after the memory of the events recorded had
faded away[1106]. Jesus, he said, was not born of woman, but came forth
from the Father or First Man, and descended from heaven in the form of a
man about thirty years of age[1107]. But the body in which He appeared
was an illusion only and was no more that of a real man than the dove
which descended upon Him at the baptism in Jordan was a real dove, and
it was not true to say that He was put to death by the Romans and
suffered on the cross[1108]. So far from that being the case, he
declared that Jesus, the mortal or suffering Jesus, was nothing but the
universal soul diffused throughout Nature and thus tormented by its
association with matter. Thus, he said, the Jesus _patibilis_ may be
said to be hanging from every tree[1109].
To say that such teaching was likely to alter in the course of a
generation or two is merely to assert that it followed the course of
evolution which can be traced in all religions, and it is possible that
in what has been said in the last paragraph concerning Jesus, we have
rather the opinions of the Manichaeans of the fourth century than those
of Manes himself. Yet even in this we see exemplified the chameleon-like
habit peculiar to the Manichaeans of modifying their tenets in outward
appearance so as to make them coincide as nearly as possible with the
views of those whom they wished to win over to them. Thus when the
Catholic doctrine of the Trinity, the Three Persons and One God, began
to take shape under the pressure of the Arian controversy, the
Manichaeans were not long in matching it with a Trinity of their
own[1110]:
“We worship,” said Faustus the Manichaean Perfect, “under the triple
appellation of Almighty God, the Father and His Son Christ and the
Holy Spirit. While these are one and the same, we believe also that
the Father properly dwells in the highest or chief light, which Paul
calls ‘light inaccessible,’ and the Son in the second or visible
light. And as the Son is himself two-fold according to the apostle,
who speaks of Christ as the power of God and the wisdom of God, so
we believe that His power dwells in the Sun and His wisdom in the
Moon[1111]. We also believe that the Holy Spirit, the third majesty,
has His seat and His home in the whole circle of the
atmosphere.[1112] By His influence and inpouring of the spirit, the
Earth conceives and brings forth the suffering Jesus, who, as
hanging from every tree, is the life and salvation of man[1113].”
In like manner, while not denying them in terms, the Manichaeans
attempted to refine away all the significance of the Crucifixion and the
Atonement, by representing them as merely symbolical. In one Apocryphal
book called the _Wanderings of the Apostles_, which seems to be of
Manichaean origin, Jesus appears to St John, who is sunk in grief at the
supposed sufferings of his Master, and tells him that His Crucifixion
was a mere phantasmagoria or miracle-play performed to impress the
plebeian crowd at Jerusalem. Then He vanishes and in His stead appears a
cross of pure light, surrounded by a multitude of other forms
representing the same shape and image. From this cross comes a Divine
voice saying sweetly:
“The cross of light is, for your sakes, sometimes called the Word,
sometimes Christ; sometimes the Door, sometimes the Way; sometimes
the Bread, sometimes the Sun; sometimes the Resurrection, sometimes
Jesus; sometimes the Father, sometimes the Spirit; sometimes the
Life, sometimes the Truth; sometimes Faith and sometimes
Grace[1114].”
As will presently be seen, now that we have under our hands the writings
of Manichaean communities domiciled in Persian and Chinese territory, we
find in them similar compromises with the faiths of Zoroaster and
Buddha.
Yet after the Mahommedan conquest of Asia, and in regions where they
were free, as it would seem, from the pressure of their Zoroastrian and
Christian competitors, the Manichaeans appear to have evolved a theology
as formal and as detailed as any of the Gnostic systems which we have
examined. This is in the main set out by Theodore Bar Khôni, the
Nestorian Bishop of Kashgar, in his _Book of Scholia_ written in Syriac
and Mandaean which has been in part translated by the scholarly care of
M. Pognon, late Consul of France at Aleppo, and has lately been
commentated by M. Cumont. M. Pognon at first identified Bar Khôni with
the nephew of the Nestorian Patriarch Iwannis (Johannes or John), whose
reign began in 893 A.D., and he quoted Assemani’s _Bibliotheca
Orientalis_ in his support[1115]. Later, however, he withdrew this, and
put him a century earlier[1116]. M. Cumont, on the other hand, thinks
that Bar Khôni lived at the end of the VIth century or the beginning of
the VIIth, and therefore before the Mahommedan invasion[1117]. In any
event, the _Scholia_ describe a body of Manichaean doctrine considerably
later in date than any of the Christian sources hitherto referred to,
and probably formed in an atmosphere where the necessity for outward
conformity to either the Zoroastrian or the Christian faith was a good
deal less cogent than it was further west. Its agreement with the
Mahommedan tradition drawn from above is also well marked, and it
derives much support from the Manichaean MSS. lately recovered from the
oasis of Turfan in Turkestan, and in that of Tun-huang in China. It is
possible, although no proofs are yet forthcoming, that it was this
Neo-Manichaeism, as it has been called, that inspired the Manichaean
sectaries who were imported in the IXth and Xth centuries into Bulgaria,
whence their missionaries found their way later into Italy, France, and
other countries of Southern Europe.
The system disclosed in these documents begins, as does nearly every
Manichaean writing, with the assertion of the existence of two gods,
that is to say, the God of Light and the God of Darkness. As the Kingdom
of Darkness, whenever and wherever described, is the exact opposite and
counterpart of that of the Light, we shall not return to it again, but
assume that in describing the one we are _mutatis mutandis_ describing
the other. The God of Light has one substance of which all the powers of
light were made, but three forms or hypostases, called in the Greek
Formula of abjuration “faces” or persons, which added to his own
personality make a supreme tetrad. These three hypostases are his
wisdom, power, and goodness, by which is probably meant that he operates
in the lower powers through these qualities, while remaining himself
remote in the “inaccessible light[1118].” He possesses also five houses
or dwellings, which are also called his worlds and even his members.
Their names according to Bar Khôni are Intelligence, Knowledge, Thought,
Reflexion, and Feeling[1119]. These seem to be ranged in this order
below the dwelling of the inaccessible light, so as to cut off all
approach to it by a fivefold wall. On the attack of the powers of
darkness before mentioned, the God of Light, called by Bar Khôni the
Father of Greatness, that is to say, the Very Great or Greatest[1120],
creates by his word the Mother of Life, who in her turn evokes the First
Man as already described. Thus is constituted, if M. Cumont be right,
the First Triad of Father, Mother, and Son[1121]. From the Turfan
documents, we know that the Father was called, in Turkestan at any rate,
by the name of Azrua or Zervan, and the Son Khormizta or Ormuzd[1122].
As for the appellation of the Mother we are still in ignorance[1123].
When the First Man or Ormuzd marched against his enemy, he also evoked
five elements called sometimes his sons and sometimes his members. These
are the Ether, the Wind, the Light, the Water, and the Fire before
mentioned, which together compose the soul of the world, and hence of
man, who is in every respect its image. When he was conquered by Satan
and dragged down to the lowest pit of hell, he prayed, says Bar Khôni,
seven times to the Very Great Father, and he in compassion created,
again by his word, the Friend of the Lights[1124], who evoked the Great
Ban[1125], who evoked the Living Spirit. Here we have the second triad
or “second creation,” of which, as has been said, only the last member
takes any active part in what follows. As we have already seen, the
Living Spirit speaks a word like a sharp sword, and the image of the
First Man answers[1126] and is drawn up out of hell. These two, the
sword or Appellant and the image or Respondent, together mount towards
the Mother of Life and the Living Spirit, and the Mother of Life
“clothes” the Image—no doubt with a form or “nature,”—while the Living
Spirit does the same with the compelling word[1127]. Then they return to
the earth of darkness where remains the soul of the First Man in the
shape of his five sons.
In the meantime, the Living Spirit has also given birth to five sons.
He, like the Very Great Father of whom he is perhaps the reflexion, has
five worlds named like those of his paradigm from which he draws certain
other powers. From his Intelligence, says Bar Khôni, he produces The
Ornament of Splendour, who is none other than the Splenditenens we have
seen drawing the heavens after him; from his Reason, the Great King of
Honour, who is described as sitting in the midst of the celestial
armies; from his Thought, Adamas of the Light armed with shield and
spear; from his Reflexion the King of Glory whose function is to set in
motion the three wheels of the fire, the water, and the wind, which
apparently raise to the upper spheres the portions of those elements
still left below; and finally from his Feeling the great Omophorus or
Atlas who bears the earths on his shoulders[1128]. Immediately on
evocation, three of these powers were set to work to kill and flay the
rulers of darkness, and to carry their skins to the Mother of Life. She
stretches out the skins to make the sky, thereby fashioning ten or
eleven or even twelve heavens. She throws their bodies on to the Earth
of Darkness, thereby forming eight earths[1129]. Thus the soul or sons
of the First Man are rescued from the Powers of Darkness, and the
machinery of the redemption of the Light is set on foot.
There is, however, a third act to the drama. Again, the lesser Powers of
Light, this time the Mother of Life, the First Man, and the Living
Spirit, cry to the Very Great Father. Satan, or, as the Mahommedan
tradition calls him, Hummâma, is still in existence, although his
“sons,” the Rulers of Darkness, the Hot Wind, the Smoke, and the others
have been crucified or fixed in the firmament, and he is still actively
working with his remaining powers against the Light. The Light-Powers
feel themselves contaminated and oppressed by the contact, and perhaps
even in some fear lest they should again have the worst in a renewal of
the conflict. Again, the Very Great Father hears them and sends to their
assistance a third creation, called this time simply the Messenger.
Who this Messenger is, is the main puzzle of the new documents. The
author of the _Acta_ knew something of him, for he speaks of a “Third
Legate,” who, when the world is burning in the great conflagration which
will mark the redemption of the last particles of light, will be found
in the Ship of the Moon with Jesus, the Mother of Life, the Virgin of
Light and the twelve other powers to be presently mentioned[1130]. M.
Cumont, in his able analysis of Bar Khôni’s system, thinks that this
“Third Legate” resembles the Neryôsang of the Persians, who in the later
Mazdean literature is made the herald of Ormuzd, and has also features
in common with Gayômort the First Man, and Mithras[1131]. But it is
plain from the Tun-huang treatise lately discovered, as well as from the
fragments found at Turfan, that the Third Legate corresponds most
closely to the Mazdean genius or divinity Sraôsha, the angel of
Obedience[1132]. Sraôsha is described in the Srôsh Yashts as the “Holy
and Strong Srôsh,” “the Incarnate Word, a mighty-speared and lordly
god.” He it is who is called the “fiend-smiter,” who is said to watch
over the world and to defend it from the demons, especially at night, to
fight for the souls of the good after death, and, in the older Mazdean
traditions, to judge the dead with Mithra and Rashnu as his assessors,
like Rhadamanthos, Minos, and Eacus among the Greeks[1133]. In the
Turfan texts he is called the mighty, and in the Tun-huang treatise is
likened to a judge, while in both sets of documents he has his proper
appellation of Srôsh[1134].
This third creation was no more content than his two predecessors to
enter upon the task allotted to him without further help. His first act
upon arriving hither, according to Bar Khôni, was to evoke or call into
existence twelve virgins with their vestures, their crowns, and their
guards. The Turfan texts give us the names of these powers, four of whom
seem to be attributes of sovereignty, and eight of them virtues. Their
names in the order of the new texts are respectively, Dominion, Wisdom,
Victory, Persuasion, Purity, Truth, Faith, Patience, Uprightness,
Goodness, Justice and Light, and they are probably the twelve “pilots”
whom the _Acta_ describe as being at the Ecpyrosis in the Moon-ship with
their father, with Jesus, and with the other powers[1135]. But there is
much plausibility in M. Cumont’s theory that this Third Legate or Srôsh
is supposed until that event to inhabit the Sun, and that his 12
“daughters” are the signs of the Zodiac among whom he moves[1136].
According to Bar Khôni, it is the same Legate who is ordered by the
Great Ban to create a new earth and to set the whole celestial
machinery—the Sun and Moon-ships and the three wheels of fire, air, and
water—in motion[1137]. Yet we hear nothing in any other document of any
addition to the number of eight earths already created, and we can only
therefore suppose that Bar Khôni’s phrase refers to the gradual
purification of this world of ours by Srôsh.