Bar Khôni also makes the appearance of this last Legate responsible for

the appearance of man upon the earth, as to which he recites a story

which seems at first sight to be an elaboration of the Gnostic and

Manichaean tradition preserved by the Christians and mentioned above.

The Legate, he makes Manes say, was of both sexes, and on his appearance

in the Sun-ship, both the male and female rulers of Darkness became so

filled with desire that they began to give up the light which they had

taken from the sons of the First Man. With this was mingled their own

sin, half of which fell into the sea and there gave birth to a horrible

monster like the King of Darkness. This was conquered and slain by

Adamas of the Light, but that which fell upon the land fructified as the

five kinds of trees[1138]. Moreover, the female demons, who were

pregnant at the time, miscarried and their untimely births ate of the

buds of the trees. Yet these females remembered the beauty of the Legate

whom they had seen, and Asaqlun or Saclas[1139], son of the King of

Darkness, persuaded them to give him their sons and daughters, in order

that he might make from them an image of the Legate. This they did, when

he ate the male children and his wife Namraël consumed the female. In

consequence Namraël gave birth to a son and a daughter who were called

Adam and Eve. Jesus was sent to Adam and found him sleeping a sleep of

death, but awoke him, made him stand upright, and gave him to eat of the

Tree of Life, while he separated him from his too seductive companion.

This story is not confirmed by any of the new documents; and in the

present state of our knowledge it is impossible to say whether it

contains an old Asiatic tradition, of which the Biblical accounts of the

protoplasts and of the Sons of God making love to the daughters of men

are the only remnants which have till now come down to us, or whether—as

is at least as likely—the whole story is a blend by the Manichaeans of

Jewish, Mandaite, and Pagan legends. The main point in it for our

consideration is its introduction of a Jesus who is certainly not the

same as the Jesus _patibilis_ whom St Augustine and the other Christian

Fathers make Manes describe as born of the Living Spirit and the Earth,

and as hanging on every tree. This other Jesus, who came to the earth in

the time of Adam, is a fourth emissary or Saviour put forth by the

second and third creations according to the _Fihrist_ and called by Bar

Khôni “Jesus the shining one.” In the Turfan texts he is, as has been

said, perhaps equated with the Virgin of Light, and in the Tun-huang

treatise he is spoken of as “Jesus the Victorious[1140].” Evidently he

is conceived as one of the Burkhans or Buddhas who fight against the

Powers of Darkness, and the Jesus _patibilis_ is but another name for

the fragments of light or “armour” of the First Man left on this earth.

The borrowing of the name revered among Christians is but one of the

compromises by which the Manichaeans hoped to draw those of other faiths

into their net.

A like plasticity is shown in the organization of the Manichaean Church.

The first disciples of Manes, to whom he gave special commandments,

were, according to Christian tradition, only seven in number, in which

if anywhere in the system we may see a reflexion of the seven

Amshaspands of the Avesta[1141]. But later there seems to have been

instituted a band of twelve Apostles in manifest imitation of the

Apostles of Jesus, who perhaps corresponded to the Masters or highest

degree that we have seen called the Sons of Gentleness. These were

presided over by a Manichaean Pope who figured as the representative and

Vicegerent of Manes himself. There were also seventy-two bishops

answering to the seventy-two disciples of Christ, who are perhaps to be

identified with the Sons of Knowledge. Then came the Presbyters or Sons

of Intelligence whose functions were chiefly those of missionaries and

who were perpetually, like Faustus, travelling for the propagation of

the faith[1142]. This seems to have been the organization generally

adopted for Christian countries, and we meet with it there up to a very

late date. Yet there is no reason to suppose that it was necessarily

copied by the Manichaeans of Central Asia or India, or that the

Manichaeans always obeyed some central authority. What organization they

did adopt outside Europe and Africa we shall probably have to wait to

discover when more of the documents coming from Turkestan have been

deciphered.

The extreme simplicity of the Manichaean ritual also made easy to them

all such adaptations to the ways of their neighbours. Hating images with

as much energy, perhaps, as Zoroaster himself, they had neither statues

nor lights nor incense in their meeting-places, which must in the West

have been as bare and as unadorned as a Scottish conventicle. The whole

service seems to have consisted of hymns and prayers, in the first of

which the mythology of the sect doubtless found expression, while the

second mainly consisted of those praises of the Powers of Light, which

praises were thought, as has been said, to have an actual and objective

existence and thus to fulfil a considerable part in the scheme of

redemption. Up to the present we have very few examples of the hymns.

The _Hymn of the Soul_, of which Prof. Bevan has published an English

translation, is probably Manichaean in origin[1143], and St Augustine

tells of a “love song” in which the Father, meaning thereby probably

Srôsh, the third legate[1144], is represented as presiding at a banquet

crowned with flowers and bearing a sceptre, while twelve gods, three

from each quarter of the globe, are grouped round him “clothed in

flowers” singing praises and laying flowers at his feet. These are said

to represent the seasons[1145]; and we hear also of myths doubtless

expressed in song describing the great angel Splenditenens, whose care

is the portions of Light still imprisoned in matter and who is always

bewailing their captivity[1146]; and of his fellow angel Omophorus who,

as has been said, bears the world on his shoulders like the classical

Atlas[1147]. Doubtless, too, some of these hymns described that last

conflagration, which seems to have occupied so great a place in the

speculations of the early Manichaeans, when the justified faithful,

secure in the two great ships which sail about on the ocean of the upper

air, shall behold the world in flames and the last portion of the

imprisoned Light mounting in the Column of Praises, while Satan and his

hosts are confined for ever in the gross and dark matter which is

henceforth to be their portion[1148]. Possibly the Turfan discoveries

may yet recover for us some important fragments of this lost literature.

With regard to the prayers, we are a little better informed. “Free us by

thy skill, for we suffer here oppression and torture and pollution, only

that thou (the First Man?) mayest mourn unmolested in thy kingdom,” is

one of those which St Augustine has preserved for us[1149]. So, too, the

Mahommedan tradition has handed down a series of six doxologies or hymns

of praise out of a total of twelve which seem to have been obligatory,

perhaps on all Manichaeans, but certainly on the Perfect. The suppliant

is, we are told, to stand upright, to wash in running water or something

else, in which we may perhaps see either the origin or an imitation of

the ceremonial ablutions of the Mussulman, then to turn towards the

Great Light, to prostrate himself and to say:

“Blessed be our guide, the Paraclete, the Messenger of the Light.

Blessed be his angels, his guards, and highly praised his shining

troops.”

Then he is to rise and, prostrating himself again, to say:

“Thou highly-esteemed one, O thou shining Mânî our guide, thou the

root of illumination, branch of uprightness, thou the great tree,

thou who art the sovereign Remedy.”

A third prostration, and the praise runs:

“I prostrate myself and praise with a pure heart and a sincere

tongue, the Great God, the Father of the Lights and of their

elements, the most highly praised, the glorified, thee and all thy

Majesty and thy blessed worlds that thou hast called forth! To

praise thee is to praise equally thy troops, thy justified ones, thy

word, thy majesty, thy good pleasure. For thou art the God who is

all Truth, all Life, and all Justice.”

Then comes a fourth prostration and the sentence:

“I praise all the gods, all the shining angels, all the lights, and

all the troops who are from the Great God, and I prostrate myself

before them.”

The speech after the fifth prostration is:

“I prostrate myself and I praise the great troops, and the shining

gods who, with their Wisdom spread over the Darkness, pursue it and

conquer it.”

While the sixth, and last given in full, is simply:

“I prostrate myself and I praise the Father of Majesty, the eminent

one, the shining one who has come forth from the two

sciences[1150].”

It seems fairly plain that these praises are addressed not so much to

the “King of the Paradise of Light” or Highest God of Goodness as to the

lesser Powers of Light. The recent expeditions of European scholars to

Central Asia have succeeded in recovering for us almost in full the

Confession-Prayer repeated ritually by the Manichaean Hearers or laymen

which, besides confirming the Christian and Mahommedan accounts of

Manes’ teaching summarized above, shows a greater belief in the efficacy

of repentance and the enforcement of a stricter morality upon all

classes of Manichaeans than we should have imagined from the accounts of

their adversaries[1151]. We are fortunate in possessing more than one

text of this Confession-Prayer, that found by the energy of our English

emissary, Dr (now Sir Marc Aurel) Stein, in the “Cave of the Thousand

Buddhas” at Tun-huang, proving almost identical with the one discovered

in Turfan by the Russian Expedition and now in St Petersburg, while both

can be checked and supplemented by fragments also found at Turfan by

Profs. Grünwedel’s and von Le Coq’s expeditions to the same place and

taken to Berlin[1152]. The title and first few lines of this prayer have

been lost, owing to the fact that the Chinese plan of writing on a

continuous sheet of paper many yards in length, which was then rolled up

with the last lines innermost, was adopted by its transcribers. All the

specimens yet found are in Turkish, the Russian MS. being in the dialect

called after the nation using it, Ouigour or Uighur, and like that found

by Dr Stein and the Berlin fragments, in the Manichaean modification of

the Estranghelo or Syriac script. The prayer or litany is in 15 sections

or classes, the number having doubtless a mystical reference[1153], and

is followed in the Russian and English examples by a recapitulation

which is not without value. The version which follows is a compound of

all the three sources mentioned above, and has been here divided into

three parts, although it is not so in the original, for convenience of

commentary.

KHUASTUANIFT.

Sect. I. “[The Son of?] the God Khormuzta even the Fivefold God

descended from the heavens with the purity of all the gods, to war

against the Demon; he (the Fivefold God) battled against the

Shimnus[1154] of evil deeds, and against the five species of the

Kingdom of the Demons. God and the Devil, Light and Darkness then

intermingled. The youth of the Divine Khormuzta even the Fivefold

God, and our souls, joined battle with Sin and the Demon-world and

became ensnared and entangled with it. All the princes of the Demons

came with the insatiable and shameless Demon of Envy and a hundred

and forty myriads of demons banded together in evil intent,

ignorance, and folly. He himself, the Born and Created (_i.e._ the

Fivefold God or son of Khormuzta) forgot the eternal heaven of the

Gods and became separated from the Gods of Light. Hence, O my God!

if the Shimnu (Great Devil) of evil intent has led astray our

thoughts and inclined us to devilish deeds.—If, becoming thereby

foolish and without understanding, we have sinned and erred against

the foundation and root of all bright spirits, even against the pure

and bright Azrua the Lord[1155].—If thereby Light and Darkness, God

and the Devil have intermingled ...

here follows a lacuna of several pages which Prof. von Le Coq suggests

was filled with “an explanation of the allegorical story of the combat”

and its practical application.

“... If we have said ... is its foundation and root.—If we have said

if anyone animates a body it is God; or that if anyone kills, it is

God.—If we have said Good and Evil have alike been created by God.

If we have said it is He [God] who has created the eternal Gods. If

we have said the Divine Khormuzta and the Shimnu (Great Devil) are

brethren[1156]. O my God, if in our sin we have spoken such awful

blasphemies, having unwittingly become false to God. If we have thus

committed this unpardonable sin. O my God, I N.N.[1157] now repent.

To cleanse myself from sin, I pray: _Manâstâr hîrzâ!_ (My sin

remit!)”

Sect. II. “When because of the God of the Sun and Moon and of the

Gods enthroned in the two resplendent Palaces, the foundation and

root of the light of all the Burkhans[1158] of Earth and Water go to

the heaven prepared for their assembly (foundation and root), the

first gate they reach is the God of the Sun and Moon. In order to

deliver the Fivefold God and to sever the Light from the Darkness he

rolls along the lower part of the heavens in fulness and lights up

the four corners of the earth. O my God, if in our sin we have

unwittingly sinned against the God of the Sun and Moon, the Gods

enthroned in the two resplendent Palaces. If, although calling him

the True, Mighty, and Powerful God, we have not believed in him. If

we have uttered many spoken blasphemies. If we have said the God of

the Sun and Moon dies, and his rise and setting comes [?] not by

[his own?] strength, and that should he [trust to his?] own

strength, he will not rise [?]. If we have said, our own bodies were

created before the Sun and Moon. To cleanse ourselves from this

unwitting sin also, we pray: _Manâstâr hîrzâ_ (Our sin remit).”

Sect. III. “Since, in defence of the Fivefold God, even the youth of

the Divine Khormuzta, his five members, that is to say, First, the

God of the Ether; Secondly, the God of the Wind; Thirdly, the God of

the Light; Fourthly, the God of the Water; Fifthly, the God of the

Fire, having battled against Sin and the Demon-world were ensnared

and entangled[1159], and have intermingled with the Darkness. Since

they were unable to go to the heaven of God and are now upon the

earth. Since the ten heavens above, the eight earths beneath, exist

on account of the Fivefold God. Since of everything that is upon the

earth the Fivefold God is the Majesty, the Radiance [?], the

Likeness, the Body, the Soul, the Strength, the Light, the

Foundation and the Root. O my God, if in our sin we have unwittingly

offended against or caused grief to the Fivefold God by an evil and

wicked mind. If we have allowed our fourteen members to gain

domination over us. If by taking animated beings with our ten

snake-headed fingers and our thirty-two teeth, we have fed upon them

and have thus angered and grieved the Gods [?][1160]. If we have in

any way sinned against the dry and wet earth, against the five kinds

of animals, and against the five kinds of herbs and trees. O my God,

to cleanse ourselves from sin, so pray we now: _Manâstâr hîrzâ!_

(Our sin remit!)”

Sect. IV. “If we have unwittingly sinned against the divine Burkhans

of the hosts (of the Messenger God[1161]) and against the

merit-attaining pure Elect. If although we have called them the true

and divine Burkhans and the well-doing and pure Elect, we have not

believed on them. If although we have uttered the word of God, we

have through folly acted against it and not performed it [?]. If

instead of spreading the decrees and commandments, we have impeded

them. O my God, we now repent and to cleanse ourselves from sin, we

pray: _Manâstâr hîrzâ!_ (Our sin remit!)”

Sect. V. “If we have wandered into sin against the five kinds of

animated beings, that is to say, First, against two-footed man;

Secondly, against the four-footed animals; Thirdly, against the

flying animals; Fourthly, against the animals in the water; Fifthly,

against the animals upon earth which creep on their bellies. O my

God, if in our sin against these five kinds of animated and moving

beings from the great to the small, we have beaten and wounded,

abused, and injured, and pained, or even put them to death. If thus

we have become the tormentors of so many animated and moving beings.

O my God, to cleanse ourselves from sin, so pray we now: _Manâstâr

hîrzâ!_ (Our sin remit!)”

It will be seen that in these first five sections or clauses of the

Confession, we have a confirmation in all essential points of the

version of the faith taught by Manes as it has been preserved for us by

the Mahommedan authors quoted above. It is even possible that it was

from this source that the author of the _Fihrist_ and Al-Bîrûnî derived

some of their information concerning the Manichaeans, and although it is

impossible as yet to fix any date for the Confession except within very

wide limits, it may be said that it is probably earlier than either of

the Mahommedan writers. It is certainly earlier than 1035 A.D., the date

at which the grotto at Tun-huang in which one of the copies was bricked

up[1162]. But it seems plain that it must have long before been used in

the Manichaean worship from the fact that copies differing little, if at

all, from each other have been found in two different scripts. As two of

these are in the Turkish language, it seems likely that they were

translated for proselytizing purposes into this from the earlier Syriac

version shortly after the conquest of the Tou-kiue or Turks by the

Ouigours, which some authors put as far back as the VIIth century

A.D.[1163] The tenets of the Manichaeans must have been well settled for

this to be possible, and we have here, therefore, an account at first

hand of Manichaean teaching at a date much earlier than the Mahommedan

authors quoted above, and first reduced to writing between the earliest

promulgation of Manes’ own teaching and the Mahommedan conquest of

Persia. It is, therefore, contemporary, or nearly so, with the period of

activity of the Zoroastrianism revived by the Sassanides, and it is

interesting to find how much nearer in appearance to the cosmology and

theology of the Avesta are those of the _Khuastuanift_ than is the

Christianized form of Manichaeism introduced into Europe and Africa and

combated by St Augustine. Khormuzta, the First Man, is certainly Ahura

Mazda, Oromazes, or Ormuzd, while the Fivefold God here spoken of as the

“youth” is clearly to be identified with his five sons or the armour

left below on his defeat[1164]. Hence it is probable that the

Manichaeans in Upper Asia did not wish to appear as the worshippers of

any other deities than those of the Persian nation[1165], although where

Christianity was the religion of the State, they were willing to call

these deities by other names[1166]. Yet the dualism which is the real

characteristic of the faith of Manes here as elsewhere admits of no

compromise, and the sin against which the Section II is directed is

plainly that Zervanist heresy which would make _Zervan akerene_ or

Boundless Time the author of all things, and Ormuzd and Ahriman alike

his sons. The part played by the Sun and Moon in the redemption of the

Light is here the same as that assigned to them in both the Christian

and the Mahommedan accounts of Manes’ own teaching, but nothing is here

said of the wheel which appears in the former[1167]. The Divine

“Burkhans” mentioned in Section III are, as we shall see later, the

Divine Messengers sent from time to time into the present world to

assist in the redemption of the Light. The sinfulness of feeding upon,

injuring, or even angering the lower animals is here much more strongly

insisted upon than in the other documents and demands repentance even in

the case of the Hearers, and this points directly to a closer connection

with Buddhism than hitherto has been thought possible. It is plainly

opposed to the later Zoroastrian teaching, which makes the killing of

certain animals belonging to the creation of Ahriman a religious duty;

and may therefore have only been adopted by the Manichaeans when they

found themselves in contact with a large community of professed

Buddhists.

The next five sections of the _Khuastuanift_ run thus:

Sect. VI. “If, O my God, we have wandered into sin, and have

committed the ten kinds of sin in thoughts, words, and deeds. If we

have made up fraudulent lies; if we have sworn false oaths; if we

have borne false witness; if we have treated as guilty guiltless

men; if by fetching and carrying tales we have set men at variance,

and thereby have perverted their minds; if we have practised magic;

if we have killed many animated and moving beings; if we have given

way to wanton pleasures; if we have wasted the hard-earned gains of

industrious men; if we have sinned against the God of the Sun and

Moon[1168]. If in our past and present lives since we have become

Manichaeans [_i.e._ Hearers] we have sinned and gone astray, thereby

bringing confusion and discord upon so many animated beings, O my

God, to cleanse ourselves from sin, so pray we now, _Manâstâr

hîrzâ!_ (Our sin remit!)”

Sect. VII. “Who is he who wandering in sin comes to the entry of the

two poison-laden ways, and to the road which leads astray to the

Gate of Hell? The first is he who holds to false doctrines; the

second is he who invokes the Demon as God and falls down before him.

O my God, if wandering in sin, we have failed to recognize and

understand the true God and his pure faith, and have not believed

what the Burkhans and the pure Elect have preached[1169], and have

instead believed on those who preach falsely, saying ‘I preach the

true God, and I expound the faith rightly.’ If we have accepted the

words of such a one and have unwittingly kept wrongful fasts, and

have unwittingly bowed ourselves wrongfully, and wrongfully given

alms; or if we have said ‘We will acquire merit’ and thereby have

unwittingly committed evil deeds; or if, invoking the Demon and the

Fiend as God, we have sacrificed to them animated and moving beings;

or if, saying, ‘this is the precept of the Burkhan,’ we have put

ourselves under a false law and have bowed ourselves, blessing it.

If, thus sinning against God, we have prayed to the Demon. O my God,

to cleanse ourselves from sin, so pray we now: _Manâstâr hîrzâ!_

(Our sin remit!)”

Sect. VIII. “When we came to the knowledge of the true God and the

pure Law, we knew the Two Principles and the Law of the Three

Ages[1170]. The Light Principle we knew to be the Paradise of God

and the Dark Principle to be the Land of Hell. We knew what existed

before Heaven and Earth, the Earth of God, was. We knew how God and

the Demon fought with one another, and how Light and Darkness became

mingled together, and how Heaven and Earth were created. We knew how

the Earth of the Rulers and its Heaven will disappear, and how the

Light will be freed from the Darkness, and what will then happen to

all things. We believed in and put our faith in the God Azrua, in

the God of the Sun and Moon, in the Mighty God[1171], and in the

Burkhans, and thus we became Hearers. Four bright seals have we

carved upon our hearts. One is Love which is the seal of the God

Azrua[1172]; the second is Faith, which is the seal of the God of

the Sun and Moon; the third is the Fear of God which is the seal of

the Fivefold God; and the fourth is the wise Wisdom, which is the

seal of the Burkhans. If, O my God, we have turned away our spirits

and minds from these four (categories of) Gods; if we have spurned

them from their rightful place, and the Divine Seals have thus been

broken, O my God, to cleanse ourselves from sin, so pray we now:

_Manâstâr hîrzâ!_ (Our sin remit!)”

Sect. IX. “In the Ten Commandments, we have been ordered to keep

three with the mouth, three with the heart, three with the hand, and

one with the whole self. If, O my God, we have wittingly or

unwittingly by cleaving to the love of the body, or by listening to

the words of wicked companions and friends, of associates and

fellows; or by reason of our having much cattle and other

possessions; or by our foolish attachment to the things of this

world, we have broken these ten commandments, and have been found

wanting and of no avail: O my God, to cleanse ourselves from sin, so

pray we now: _Manâstâr hîrzâ!_ (Our sin remit!)”

Sect. X. “We have been ordered to render every day, with a whole

mind and a pure heart, four praises to the God Azrua, to the God of

the Sun and Moon, to the Mighty God, and to the Burkhans. If from

lack of the fear of God or from slackness our praises have been

offered unseemly, or if in offering them we have not turned our

hearts and minds towards God, so that our praises and prayers have

not reached God in pure wise, but have remained in another place: O

my God, to cleanse ourselves from sin, so pray we now: _Manâstâr

hîrzâ!_ (Our sin remit!)”

This second part of the Confession, perhaps, deals with errors of

conduct as the first does with errors of belief. The ten sins given in

the VIth Section do not agree exactly with the list given in the

_Fihrist_ which says that the Manichaean Hearers were enjoined to

abstain from prayers offered to idols, from lying, from greed, from

murder, adultery, theft, from false teaching, from magic, from doubt in

religion, and from slackness in action[1173]; but perhaps all these

prohibitions could be read into the list in the _Khuastuanift_. The

VIIth Section seems to be directed not so much against other religions

as against schisms within the Manichaean Church[1174], and it is evident

that its authors knew of bloody sacrifices offered to the Powers of

Darkness as described by Plutarch apart from the magic or sorcery

condemned in the preceding section. In the VIIIth Section, we have also

for the second time a new name for God in the word Azrua, which Prof.

von Le Coq leaves unexplained; but which M. Gauthiot considers to be the

same as, or rather the equivalent in Soghdian of Zervan[1175]. Zervan,

however, can hardly be here the Supreme God worshipped by Yezdegerd,

especially as the _Khuastuanift_ has just, as we have seen, formally

condemned as blasphemers those who say that Ormuzd and Ahriman are

brethren, and therefore by implication those who give both Powers Zervan

for a father. It seems more likely that the name is either a corruption

of Ahura Mazda or perhaps of the Sanskrit Asura; but in any event, there

can be no doubt that it denotes the King of the Paradise of Light, as

the Highest Good God is called in the _Fihrist_. The division of the Ten

Commandments of Manes into three of the mouth, three of the hand, three

of the heart, and one of the whole being recalls St Augustine’s

description of the three seals, the _signaculum oris_, _signaculum

manus_, and _signaculum sinus_, observed by the Manichaeans[1176]; while

the description in Section X of the four praises (or hymns) to be

rendered daily bears out what is said above as to the praises of man

being of importance for the actual redemption of the Light.

The remaining sections of the _Khuastuanift_ are:

Sect. XI. “We have been ordered to give reverently seven kinds of

alms for the sake of the pure Law. It has also been ordered that

when the angels of the Light of the Five Gods and the two Appellant

and Respondent Gods bring to us the Light of the Five Gods which is

to go to the Gods to be purified, we should in all things order

ourselves [or, ‘dress ourselves,’ according to Le Coq] according to

the Law. If, through necessity or because of our foolishness, we

have not given the seven kinds of alms according to the Law, but

have bound the Light of the Five Gods, which should go to the Gods

to be purified, in our houses and dwellings, or if we should have

given it to evil men or to evil animals, and have thereby wasted it

and sent it to the Land of Evil, O my God, to cleanse ourselves from

sin, so pray we now: _Manâstâr hîrzâ!_ (Our sin remit!)”

Sect. XII. “We have been ordered to keep every year 50 days of

_Vusanti_[1177] after the manner of the pure Elect, and thereon [?]

to please God by observing pure fasts. If, by reason of the care of

our houses and dwellings or of our cattle and other possessions; or

by reason of our need and poverty [foolish attachments, _apud_ Le

Coq]; or because of the greedy and shameless Demon of Envy; or of

our irreverent hearts, we have broken the fast, either wittingly or

by foolishness; or having begun it have not fasted according to the

Rite and the Law. O my God, to cleanse ourselves from sin, so pray

we now: _Manâstâr hîrzâ!_ (Our sin remit!)”

Sect. XIII. “We have been ordered to pray every Full Moon

[literally, every day of the Moon-God], to acknowledge before God,

the Law, and the pure Elect, our sins and transgressions in prayer

for the cleansing of ourselves from sin. If now wittingly, or by

feebleness of mind, or from idleness of body, or because our minds

were set on the cares and business of this world, we have not thus

gone to prayer for the cleansing of ourselves from sin. O my God, to

cleanse ourselves from sin, so pray we now: _Manâstâr hîrzâ!_ (Our

sin remit!)”

Sect. XIV. “We have been ordered to keep each year seven

_Yimki_[1178] [Days of Atonement?] and one month’s rigid fast[?]. We

have also been ordered when meeting together in the House of Prayer

to keep the _Yimki_ and to observe the fast, to acknowledge in

prayer with a whole mind to the Divine Burkhans the sins which we

have committed during the year and which we know through our senses.

O my God, if we have not kept the _Yimki_ seemly; if we have not

observed the month’s rigid fast perfectly and seemly; if we have

failed to acknowledge in prayer the sins of the year which we know

through our senses, and have thus failed in so many of our duties. O

my God, to cleanse ourselves from sin, so pray we now: _Manâstâr

hîrzâ!_ (Our sins remit!)”

Sect. XV. “How many evil thoughts do we not think every day! How

many deceitful and unseemly words do we not speak! How many unseemly

deeds do we not do! Thus do we prepare torments for ourselves by

crimes and frauds. Since we have walked body and soul in the love of

the greedy and shameless Demon of Envy, and the Light of the Five

Gods which we absorb in our food every day thereby goes to the Land

of Evil. Wherefore, O my God, to cleanse ourselves from sin, so pray

we now: _Manâstâr hîrzâ!_ (Our sins remit!)”

Here follows a lacuna of four lines, after which the Confession resumes:

“O my God. We are full of defects and sins! We are thine adversaries

and grieve thee by thoughts, words and deeds, for the sake of the

greedy and shameless Demon of Envy. Gazing with our eyes, hearing

with our ears, seizing with our hands, and trampling with our feet,

we ever torture and impede the Light of the Five Gods, the dry and

wet earth, the five kinds of animals, and the five kinds of plants

and trees. So full are we of defects and sins! On account of the Ten

Commandments, the seven kinds of Alms, the three seals, we are

called Hearers; yet we cannot perform what these claim of us. If,

wandering in sin, we have sinned against the Gods of Light, against

the pure Law, against the Herald God[1179] and the Preacher, the Men

of God [the Preachers, according to Le Coq], against the pure Elect.

If we have not walked according to the letter and spirit of the

spoken words of God. If we have grieved the hearts of the Gods. If

we have been unable to keep the Days of Atonement, the rigid fast,

to offer the Praises and the Blessings according to the Law and the

Rite. If we have been found lacking and unprofitable, and have day

by day and month by month committed sins and trespasses—to the Gods

of Light, to the Majesty of the Law, to the pure Elect, to cleanse

ourselves from sin, so pray we now: _Manâstâr hîrzâ!_ (Our sin

remit!)”

These last five sections of the _Khuastuanift_ give us a glimpse of the

religious observances of the Manichaeans which alters somewhat the

picture of them which we should have formed from the account of St

Augustine and other Christian writers. The seven kinds of alms referred

to in Section XI, are not, as might be thought, the gifts to necessitous

or helpless persons prescribed alike by the Christian and the Mahommedan

religions. It is apparent both from the context and from other sources

of information that they are the offerings of food made by the lay or

lowest members of the Manichaean community to the Elect or Perfect, who

are spoken of in the subsequent sections as being already a species of

Gods. This practice was certainly known to St Augustine, and was not

likely to sink into oblivion in a community in contact with Buddhists,

among whom monks living upon food given in alms by the faithful were a

common sight. But the reason assigned by St Augustine for the practice,

which was before obscure, here receives full explanation. The particles

of light diffused through matter, and therefore inhabiting the bodies of

animals and plants, could only, in Manichaean opinion, be set free by

passing into the bodies of the semi-divine Elect. Thus says St Augustine

in his treatise against the Manichaean Perfect, Faustus[1180]:

“This foolish notion of making your disciples bring you food, that

your teeth and stomach may be the means of relieving Christ who is

bound up in it, is a consequence of your profane fancies. You

declare that Christ is liberated in this way—not, however, entirely;

for you hold that some tiny particles of no value still remain in

the excrement, to be mixed up and compounded again in various

material forms, and to be released and purified at any rate by the

fire in which the world will be burned up, if not before.”

With the substitution of the “Light of the Fivefold God” for Christ—the

use of this last name being probably either the gloss of St Augustine

himself, or else the concession made by the Manichaean missionaries

after their manner to the religious prepossessions of those among whom

they hoped to gain converts—we have here the doctrine more plainly

stated in the _Khuastuanift_. The Hearers are to labour perpetually,

idleness being one of the Manichaean deadly sins, and to present the

fruits of their labour in the shape of food to the Perfect. Not only

will the particles of Light imprisoned in this last thus be conveyed to

the Land of the Gods; but it will be prevented from going to the Land of

Evil, which it would do if it were consumed by the bodies of the Hearers

or, _a fortiori_, of those profane persons who belonged to other faiths

than the Manichaean. Thus is explained the inhumanity of which many

writers accuse the Manichaean community, which led them to refuse food

to their neighbours in time of famine, alleging that all that they

produced must be reserved for those of the Faith[1181].

This explains also the merit assigned to the observance of the many

fasts enjoined in the concluding sections of the _Khuastuanift_. The

fifty _Vusanti_ fasts together with the month’s rigid fast to be kept by

the Hearers would all have the effect of diminishing their consumption

of food in the shape of animals and plants, which hinders the liberation

of the particles of Light imprisoned therein. In the choice of the days

set apart for these fasts we see another instance of the Manichaean

practice as assimilating the outward observances of other religions. The

fifty _Vusanti_ fasts would give an average of very nearly one a week,

and were probably kept on Sunday, the distinction between the Elect and

the Hearers in this respect noted by the Mahommedan writer being

probably due to some misconception. The month’s rigid fast possibly

accorded with the Arab Ramadan and must have been very useful in

preventing the Hearers from appearing singular when among Mahommedans;

and the seven _Yimki_ or Days of Atonement seem to have been copied from

the observances of the Jews. So possibly was the ritual practice alluded

to in the XIVth section of meeting together at certain times to confess

their sins, and as this is here said to take place in the House of

Prayer, it entirely disposes of the theory set up by earlier writers

that the Manichaeans had no temples, synagogues, or churches of their

own[1182]. The confession and prayer enjoined in Section XIII were

doubtless to be repeated privately and in whatever place the Hearer

found himself at the fortnightly periods there specified, and this

Litany was very probably the _Khuastuanift_ itself[1183].

What other ritual was performed in these Manichaean meeting-places is

still doubtful. The Christian writers declare that the Manichaeans

celebrated a sacrament resembling the Eucharist with the horrible

accompaniments before alluded to in the case of the followers of Simon

Magus[1184]. The same accusation was made, as has been many times said

above, by nearly all the sects of the period against each other, and we

have no means of determining its truth. It is however fairly certain

from the silence observed on the subject by the _Khuastuanift_ that no

sacramental feast of any kind was either celebrated by or in the

presence of the Hearers or general body of Manichaeans. If the Perfect

or Elect partook of any such meal among themselves, it possibly

consisted of bread and water only and was probably a survival of some

custom traditional in Western Asia of which we have already seen the

traces in the Mysteries of Mithras[1185]. The pronounced Docetism which

led the Manichaeans to regard the body of the historical Jesus as a

phantom shows that they could not have attributed to this meal any

sacramental efficacy like that involved in the doctrines either of the

Real Presence or of the Atonement.

The case is different with regard to pictures. The Manichaeans forbade

the use of statues or probably of any representations of the higher

spiritual powers, no doubt in recollection of the idea current among the

Persians even in Herodotus’ time, that the gods had not the nature of

men. Yet the Jewish and later the Mahommedan prohibition against making

likenesses of anything had evidently no weight with them, and even

before the recent discoveries there was a tradition that Manes himself

was in the habit of using symbolical pictures called Ertenki-Mani as a

means of propaganda[1186]. The truth of this is now amply confirmed by

the German discoveries at Turfan, where Prof. von Le Coq found frescoes

representing possibly Manes himself, together with paintings on silk

showing the souls of the faithful dead in the Moon-ship[1187]. Sir Marc

Stein seems to have secured similar relics at Tun-huang, and when these

are more thoroughly examined it is possible that they may throw light

upon many points of Manichaean symbolism yet obscure to us. The fact

that the Manichaean meeting-houses were decorated with symbolical

pictures seems thereby already established.

Of their fasts, the principal ones have been already indicated in the

_Khuastuanift_, and their feasts seem to have been few, almost the only

one of which any mention has come down to us being that which was called

the Festival of the Bema or pulpit, when an empty chair on five steps

was placed in a conspicuous position in the meeting-house and adored by

all present. This was said to have been done in commemoration of Manes

as their founder and on the date preserved as the anniversary of his

death[1188]. If it be really true that any Manichaeans whether Hearers

or otherwise kept Sunday as a holiday, it must have been, as Neander

suggests, not because it was the day of the Resurrection, in which their

Docetic doctrines prevented them from believing, but as the day of the

Sun. In like manner they probably observed Christmas as the birthday not

of Jesus, but of the Sun-god in accordance with the traditions preserved

by the worshippers of Mithras[1189]. St Augustine speaks, too, of their

keeping Easter[1190]. It seems possible that this was only done in

Christian countries, in accordance with their usual custom of conforming

in outward matters, and we have no evidence of their doing anything of

the sort in Turkestan.

Of the sacred books of the Manichaeans we hear much, although only one

has survived to us in anything like completeness. Thus we hear from

Al-Bîrûnî that the Manichaeans have a gospel of their own “the contents

of which from the first to the last are opposed to the doctrine of the

Christians,” and this he says was called “the Gospel of the

Seventy[1191].” He also tells us of a book written by Manes himself

called _Shaburkan_ or Shapurakhan which was doubtless written for the

edification of King Shâpûr or Sapor, the son of Ardeshîr, whose name it

bears[1192]. In this Manes seems to have described his own birth and his

assumption of the office of heavenly messenger or “Burkhan,” besides the

saying as to the Burkhans before him, Zoroaster, Buddha, and Jesus, as

described above[1193]. We also hear from Al-Bîrûnî that he wrote a

gospel arranged according to the 22 letters of the alphabet, which does

not seem to be the same as the Gospel of the Seventy[1194], and we hear

from other sources of a Book of the Giants, a Book of Secrets, a Book of

Precepts, a Book of Lifegiving, and others, together with many letters

or epistles all supposed to be by Manes’ own hand[1195]. As has been

said, he and his followers rejected the Old Testament entirely, not

indeed denying its inspiration, but declaring this to have come from the

Evil Principle. Of the New Testament, Faustus, the Manichaean Perfect

who disputed with St Augustine, puts the matter very clearly when he

says:

“We receive only so much of the New Testament as says anything to

the honour of the Son of Glory, either by Himself or by His

apostles; and by the latter only after they had become perfect and

believers. As for the rest, anything that was said by them either in

their simplicity and ignorance, while they were yet inexperienced in

the truth, or with malicious design was inserted by the enemy among

the statements of truth, or was incautiously asserted by other

writers and thus handed down to later generations—of all this we

desire to know nothing. I mean all such statements as these—that He

was shamefully born of a woman; that as a Jew He was circumcised;

that He offered sacrifices like a heathen; that He was meanly

baptized, led into the wilderness, and miserably tempted[1196].”

Thus it seems that the Manichaeans accepted only such facts of the

Gospel narrative as did not conflict with their own doctrines, and

although they are said to have had an especial veneration for St Paul,

there is no reason to think that this extended to the writings of the

Apostle to the Gentiles, or had any other motive than that of external

conformity with the religion of those whom they were endeavouring to

convert. As himself the Paraclete announced in the New Testament, Manes

claimed for himself an authority superior to that of all apostles, and

if he made use of any of the writings attributed to them, it was

probably only in the shape of isolated passages divorced from their

context. On the other hand, his followers seem to have made free use of

apocryphal or pseudepigraphical books written in the names of the

apostles and containing statements which could be explained as

confirming Manes’ teaching. A great number of these had as their common

authors the names of St Thomas and St Andrew, and the Fathers declare

that they were for the most part the work of one Leucius, whom they

assert was a Manichaean[1197]. It may be so; but, as all the copies of

these works which have come down to us have been expurgated or, in the

language of the time, “made orthodox,” by the removal of heretical

matter, there is little proof of the fact.

More authentic, however, than these pseudepigrapha and much fuller than

the extracts preserved by Christian or Mahommedan writers is a treatise

found in the cave of the Thousand Buddhas at Tun-huang which has been

published only last year. It seems by an extraordinary chance to have

nearly escaped us, having been apparently missed by all the European

expeditions because it was written in Chinese characters. Hence it was

removed to Pekin by orders of the Chinese Government under the

impression that it was Buddhist in its nature, and has since been

published in a Chinese publication founded for the purpose of preserving

the Tun-huang MSS. by Mr Lo Tchen-yu, a Chinese scholar of great

philosophical and archaeological attainments[1198]. It is written on a

continuous roll of paper over six metres in length, which has led

unfortunately to the disappearance of the title and the first few words

of the treatise. The remainder shows, however, that it purports to be a

sort of allocution addressed by Manes, here as in the _Khuastuanift_

called the “Legate of the Light,” to Adda or Addas, whom we know from

the Christian documents before quoted to have been one of the three

great missionaries said to have been dispatched by Manes into foreign

countries to propagate his doctrine[1199]. Of these three, Thomas,

Hermas, and Addas, the last-named is said to have been allotted

“Scythia,” which here as elsewhere doubtless means Turkestan, and his

name therefore gives a reasonable air of authenticity to the text. The

whole document is written in the form of a Buddhist _sutra_, and has

been translated with an excellent commentary by the French Sinologist,

M. Edouard Chavannes, with the help of M. Paul Pelliot, the leader of

the French Expedition to Turkestan which probably first discovered

it[1200]. It entirely confirms the Mahommedan account of the teaching of

Manes given above as well as that appearing in the _Khuastuanift_, and

shows that St Augustine, alike in his authentic writings and in the

tract _de Haeresibus_ generally, although perhaps wrongfully, attributed

to him, was drawing from well-informed sources. There are many grounds

for thinking that it may originally have been written in Pahlavi, in

which case it may have been contemporary with Manes himself; but it

frequently makes use of Buddhist phrases often derived from the

Sanskrit[1201]. If the view here taken of the date of the original

treatise is well founded, these may have been introduced by Manes during

the time that the tradition mentioned above says that he spent in

Turkestan for the elaboration of his doctrine. At all events they show

that the practice of adapting his religion, as far as might be, to

accord with that previously held by those among whom he was trying to

make proselytes, goes back to the very origin of the sect.

This treatise was evidently written for edification rather than for

instruction, and gives us a curious idea of the imagery by which the

Manichaean teachers sought to enforce their teaching. The theory of the

macrocosm and the microcosm, which teaches that the body of man is in

itself a copy of the great world or universe, is here carried to

excess[1202], and we hear much of the “trees” which certain demons,

previously sticking to the elements, says the treatise, “like a fly to

honey, a bird to bird-lime, or a fish to the hook[1203],” plant in the

soul to the corruption and ultimate death of the better desires there

implanted by the Light. The combat waged against the diabolic vices by

the virtues is also described with great minuteness, but in language in

which it is sometimes difficult to discover whether the author is

consciously using allegory or not. Thus he says that the Devil, to whom

he attributes the formation of the body of man, “shut up the Pure Ether”

(one of the five light elements)

“in the city of the bones. He established (there) the dark thought

in which he planted a tree of death. Then he shut up the Excellent

Wind in the city of the nerves. He established (there) the dark

feeling in which he planted a tree of death. Then he shut up the

strength of the Light in the city of the veins. He established

(there) the dark reflection in which he planted a tree of death.

Then he shut up the Excellent Water in the city of the flesh. He

established there the dark intellect, in which he planted a tree of

death. Then he shut up the Excellent Fire in the city of the skin.

He established there the dark reasoning in which he planted a tree

of death. The Demon of Envy [the name generally used in the treatise

for the Devil] planted these five poisonous trees of death in the

five kinds of ruined places. He made them on every occasion deceive

and trouble the original luminous nature, to draw in from without

the nature which is stranger to it, and to produce poisonous fruit.

Thus the tree of the dark thought grows within the city of the

bones; its fruit is hatred: the tree of the dark feeling grows

within the city of the nerves; its fruit is irritation: the tree of

the dark reflection grows within the city of the veins; its fruit is

luxury [wantonness]: the tree of the dark intellect grows within the

city of the flesh; its fruit is anger: the tree of the dark

reasoning grows within the city of the skin; its fruit is folly. It

is thus then that of the five kinds of things which are the bones,

the nerves, the veins, the flesh, and the skin, he made a prison and

shut up there the five divisions of the First Principle of

Light....[1204]”

and so on. One might sometimes think one was reading John Bunyan and his

Holy War with its defence of the town of Mansoul.

Most of the information contained in this Pekin Treatise has been dealt

with in its place, but there are one or two matters concerning the

cosmology of Manes which are of importance as showing the connection of

his system with that of his predecessors. One regards the two great

angels, here called Khrostag and Padvaktag[1205] or the Appellant and

Respondent, who are mentioned in the _Khuastuanift_ (p. 343 _supra_) as

bringing the light to be purified[1206]. As has been said above, they

show a great likeness to the two last Amshaspands of Zoroastrianism

called Haurvetât and Ameretât; and like them are never mentioned

separately, but always together[1207]. Another point, already referred

to, is that the Zoroastrian Sraôsha, the strong archangel who guards the

world at night from the demons, is here mentioned several times by

name[1208]. Yet another point is that the two sexes are here said to

have been formed by the devil out of jealousy and rage at beholding the

sun and moon, and in imitation of the two luminaries. This is an

entirely different story not only from those given above as Manichaean

but from that given in the _Great Announcement_ attributed to Simon

Magus, and both differ from that told in the _Pistis Sophia_. It seems

plain therefore that in attributing these various origins to the

division of mankind into sexes, none of the three teachers was drawing

upon tradition, but was merely inventing _ad hoc_.

There remains to be considered the history of the sect, as to which we

have become better informed during the last few decades than at one time

seemed possible[1209]. Prohibited in the Roman Empire from the outset,

they nevertheless made their way along both shores of the Mediterranean,

and all the efforts of the Imperial authorities proved powerless to

suppress them. Constantine directed an enquiry into their tenets, it is

said, with some idea of making them into the religion of the State, and

although he found this impracticable or unsafe, he seems to have been at

first inclined to extend to them toleration[1210]. His successors,

however, quickly reverted to the earlier policy of Diocletian, and law

after law of gradually increasing severity was passed until adherence to

Manichaeism was finally punished with death and confiscation[1211].

Pagans like the Emperor Julian and his friend and teacher Libanius were

able occasionally to intervene in their favour; but no sect was ever

more relentlessly persecuted, and the institution of the Dominican

Inquisition can be traced back to the _Quaestiones_ set up by Justinian

and Theodora for their routing out and suppression[1212]. In the case of

what was practically a secret society, it would be difficult to say

whether the Imperial measures would have availed to entirely destroy

their propaganda, and it is possible that the Manichaean Church always

maintained a sporadic existence in Europe[1213] until events to be

presently mentioned led to its revival in the Xth century. Meanwhile in

the East, they remained on the confines of what was, up to the

Mahommedan conquest in 642 A.D., the Persian Empire, and no doubt after

their manner professed outward adherence to the Zoroastrian faith, while

at the same time propagating their own doctrines in secret[1214]. It was

probably the Arab conquest which drove them to make their headquarters

on the very borders of the civilized world as known to the ancients and

in what is now Turkestan. Here a large part of the population seems to

have been Buddhist, doubtless by reason of its dealings with China, and

in the presence of that gentle faith—whose adherents boast that they

have never yet shed blood to make a convert—the Manichaeans enjoyed

complete toleration for perhaps the first time in their history[1215].

They made use of it, as always, to send out missionaries into the

neighbouring countries, and certainly obtained a foothold in China,

where the Chinese seem to have confused them with the Christians. Their

hatred of images doubtless caused the iconoclastic Emperors of the East

to enter into relation with them, and we hear that Leo the Isaurian

induced many of them to enter the Imperial armies. It was possibly these

last whom the Emperor John Tzimiskes settled in what is now Bulgaria,

whence, under the names of Paulicians, Bogomiles, and other aliases,

they promoted that movement against the Catholic Church which provoked

the Albigensian Crusades and the establishment of the Dominican

Inquisition in the West[1216]. To follow them there would be to travel

beyond the scope of this book; and it need only be said in conclusion

that they formed the bitterest and the most dangerous enemies that the

Catholic Church in Europe ever had to face. It was possibly this which

has led the rulers of the Church of Rome to brand nearly all later

heresy with the name of Manichaean; yet it may be doubted whether some

of their doctrines did not survive in Europe until the German

Reformation, when they may have helped to inspire some of the wilder

Protestant sects of the XVIth and XVIIth centuries. With the suppression

of the Albigenses, however, the existence of Manichaeism as an organized

faith comes to an end.

Footnote 988:

So Cumont, _T. et M._ I. pp. 45, 349, 350. He seems to rely, however,

entirely on the passage in the _Acta Archelai_ (as to which see n. 1,

p. 280 _infra_), wherein the supposed bishop Archelaus addresses the

equally imaginary Manes as “Savage priest and accomplice of

Mithras!”—possibly a mere term of abuse. See Hegemonius, _Acta

Archelai_, ed. Beeson, Leipzig, 1906, c. XL. p. 59.

Footnote 989:

Cumont, _T. et M._ I. p. 41. He sees in the scenes which border the

Tauroctony references or parallels to the fig-leaves of Genesis, the

striking of the rock by Moses, and the ascension of Elijah. In the

so-called Mithraic Ritual of the Magic Papyrus of Paris, there are

certain Hebrew words introduced, such as πιπι (a well-known perversion

of the Tetragrammaton), σανχερωβ and σεμες ιλαμ (The “Eternal Sun”).

Footnote 990:

See the story which Josephus, _Antiq._ XX. cc. 2, 3, 4, tells about

Izates, king of Adiabene, who wanted to turn Jew and thereby so

offended his people that they called in against him Vologeses or

Valkash, the first reforming Zoroastrian king and collector of the

books of the Zend Avesta. Cf. Darmesteter, _The Zend Avesta_ (Sacred

Books of the East), Oxford, 1895, p. xl. Cf. Ém. de Stoop _La

Diffusion du Manichéisme dans l’Empire romain_, Gand, 1909, p. 10.

Footnote 991:

_Circa_ 296, A.D. See Neander, _Ch. Hist._ II. p. 195, where the

authenticity of the decree is defended. For the provocation given to

the Empire by the anti-militarism of Manes see de Stoop, _op. cit._

pp. 36, 37.

Footnote 992:

Al-Bîrûnî, _Chronology of Ancient Nations_, p. 190. The date he gives

is twelve years before the accession of Ardeshîr. E. Rochat, _Essai

sur Mani et sa Doctrine_, Genève, 1897, p. 81, examines all the

different accounts and makes the date from 214 to 218 A.D.

Footnote 993:

Epiphanius, _Haer._ LXVI. c. 1, p. 399, Oehler; Socrates, _Hist.

Eccl._ Bk I. c. 22; Hegemonius, _Acta Archelai_, c. LXIV.

Footnote 994:

Muhammed ben Ishak, commonly called En-Nadîm, in the book known as the

_Fihrist_, translated by Flügel, _Mani, seine Lehre und seine

Schriften_, Leipzig, 1862, pp. 83, 116, 118, 119. Cf. Rochat, _op.

cit._ p. 75.

Footnote 995:

Al-Bîrûnî, _Chronology_, p. 190.

Footnote 996:

Flügel, _op. cit._ p. 84; Rochat, _op. cit._ p. 83.

Footnote 997:

Hegemonius, _Acta Arch._ c. XL., p. 59, Beeson. Rochat, _op. cit._ pp.

9-49, discusses the authenticity of the _Acta_ chapter by chapter. He

thinks the pretended discussion between Archelaus and Manes

unhistorical, and the account of it possibly modelled on that between

St Augustine and Faustus the Manichaean. The remainder of the _Acta_

he considers fairly trustworthy as an account of Manes’ own tenets.

This may well be, as Epiphanius, _Haer._ LXVI. cc. 6-7, 25-31,

transcribes the epistle to Marcellus, its answer, and the exposition

of Turbo, and could scarcely have heard, as early as 375 A.D., about

which time he wrote, of St Augustine’s discussion. The _Acta_ owe much

to the care of the American scholar, Mr Beeson of Chicago, who has

given us the careful edition of them mentioned in n. 1, p. 277

_supra_. It is a pity that he did not see his way to keep the old

numeration of the chapters.

Footnote 998:

Beausobre, _Hist. du Manichéisme_, Paris, 1734, Pt I. Bk II. cc. 1-4.

Cf. Stokes in _Dict. Christian Biog._ _s.v._ Manes; Rochat, _op. cit._

p. 83.

Footnote 999:

Rochat, _op. cit._ p. 89.

Footnote 1000:

Abulfarag in Kessler, _Forschungen über die Manichäische Religion_,

Berlin, 1889, Bd I. p. 335; Rochat, _op. cit._ p. 84; Neander, _Ch.

Hist._ II. p. 168.

Footnote 1001:

Flügel, _op. cit._ p. 85. Cf. Al-Bîrûnî, _India_ (ed. Sachau), p. 55,

where Manes quotes the opinion of Bardesanes’ “partizans.” There are

many words put into the mouth of Manes in the work quoted which argue

acquaintance with the _Pistis Sophia_.

Footnote 1002:

Abulmaali in Kessler, _op. cit._ p. 371; Firdaûsi, _ibid._ p. 375;

Mirkhônd, _ibid._ p. 379. Cf. Rochat, _op. cit._ p. 81. He is said to

have painted his pictures in a cave in Turkestan (Stokes in _Dict.

Christian Biog._ _s.v._ Manes), which would agree well enough with the

late German discoveries at Turfan, for which see A. von Le Coq in

_J.R.A.S._ 1909, pp. 299 _sqq._

Footnote 1003:

Flügel, _op. cit._ p. 85.

Footnote 1004:

Al-Jakûbi in Kessler, _op. cit._ pp. 328, 329; cf. Rochat, _op. cit._

p. 88.

Footnote 1005:

Al-Bîrûnî, _Chronology_, pp. 191, 192.

Footnote 1006:

Rochat, _op. cit._ p. 89. Al-Bîrûnî, whom he quotes, however, says

merely that the Manichaeans increased under Ormuz, and also that Ormuz

“killed a number of them.” See last note.

Footnote 1007:

Al-Jakûbi in Kessler, _op. cit._ p. 330. But Darmesteter (see passage

quoted in n. 2, p. 284 _infra_) puts this event as happening after

Ormuz’ death and under Shapur II.

Footnote 1008:

Al-Bîrûnî, _Chronology_, p. 191. The town is called Djundi-sâbur or

Gundisabur.

Footnote 1009:

Al-Jakûbi, _ubi cit. supra_; Eutychius quoted by Stokes, _Dict.

Christian Biog._ _s.v._ Manes.

Footnote 1010:

Rochat, _op. cit._ p. 93, examines all the evidence for this and comes

to the conclusion given in the text.

Footnote 1011:

Malcolm, _History of Persia_, London, 1821, Vol. I. pp. 95, 96.

Footnote 1012:

G. Rawlinson, _The 6th Oriental Monarchy_, 1873, p. 222; Rochat, _op.

cit._ p. 53.

Footnote 1013:

See Chap. XII _supra_, p. 232.

Footnote 1014:

See n. 1, p. 278 _supra_.

Footnote 1015:

Al-Bîrûnî, _Chron._ p. 187, makes Manes the successor or continuator

of Bardesanes and Marcion. This was certainly not so; but it was

probably only from their followers that he derived any acquaintance

with Christianity. See n. 7, p. 280 _supra_. So Muhammad or Mahommed,

four centuries later, drew his ideas of the same faith from the

heretics of his day.

Footnote 1016:

Rhys Davids, _Buddhist India_, 1903, p. 318, says that after 300 A.D.

Buddhism was everywhere in decay in India.

Footnote 1017:

Rochat, _op. cit._ p. 58.

Footnote 1018:

Darmesteter, _Zend Avesta_, pp. xl, xli.

Footnote 1019:

_Op. cit._ pp. xlvii _sqq._

Footnote 1020:

Al-Bîrûnî, _Chron._ p. 192.

Footnote 1021:

Elisaeus Vartabed in Langlois’ _Collection des Hist. de l’Arménie_,

Paris, 1868, t. II. p. 190. The story is repeated almost word for word

by Eznig of Goghp, _ibid._ p. 875. Cf. Neander, _Ch. Hist._ II. p.

171.

Footnote 1022:

Rochat, _op. cit._, following Kessler, shows, it seems, conclusively,

that this is another name for Manes’ father, Fatak or Patecius.

Footnote 1023:

She was a courtezan at Hypselis in the Thebaid according to

Epiphanius, _Haer._ LXVI. c. 11, p. 400, Oehler. As Baur, _Die

Manichäische Religionssystem_, Tübingen, 1831, p. 468 _sqq._ has

pointed out, this is probably an imitation of the story told about

Simon Magus and his Helena (see Chap. VI _supra_). It seems to have

arisen as an embroidery, quite in Epiphanius’ manner, upon the story

in the _Acta_, that Scythianus married a captive from the Upper

Thebaid (Hegemonius, _op. cit._ c. LXII. p. 90, Beeson).

Footnote 1024:

Many guesses have been made as to the allusions concealed under these

names, as to which see Rochat, _op. cit._ pp. 64-73. Neander (_Ch.

Hist._ II. p. 16) quotes from Ritter the suggestion that Terebinthus

may come from an epithet of Buddha, _Tere-hintu_ “Lord of the Hindus.”

One wonders whether it might not have been as fitly given to a Jewish

slave sold at the Fair of the Terebinth with which Hadrian closed his

war of extermination.

Footnote 1025:

These four books may have been intended for the _Shapurakhan_, the

_Treasure_, the _Gospel_ and the _Capitularies_, which Al-Bîrûnî,

_Chron._ p. 171, attributes to Mani. Cf. Epiphanius, _Haer._ LXVI. c.

2, p. 402, Oehler, and the _Scholia_ of Théodore bar Khôni in Pognon,

_Inscriptions Mandaïtes des Coupes de Khouabir_, pp. 182, 183.

Footnote 1026:

Epiphanius, _op. cit._ c. 1, p. 398, Oehler.

Footnote 1027:

Colditz in Kessler, _op. cit._ pp. 15, 16. Cf. Rochat, _op. cit._ pp.

65, 66.

Footnote 1028:

Morrison, _Jews under Romans_, p. 325 for authorities. Philo, _de Vit.

Contempl._ etc. c. III. says that similar communities existed in his

time near the Mareotic lake in Egypt. But the date of the treatise and

its attribution to Philo are alike uncertain. The first mention of

Buddha in Greek literature is said to be that by Clem. Alex. _Strom._

Bk I. c. 15.

Footnote 1029:

Harnack in _Encyc. Britann._ 9th edition, _s.v._ Manichaeans, p. 48,

says “There is not a single point in Manichaeism which demands for its

explanation an appeal to Buddhism.” This may be, but the discoveries

at Turfan and Tun-huang have made a connection between the two more

probable than appeared at the time he wrote. See also Kessler as

quoted by Rochat, _op. cit._ pp. 192, 193.

Footnote 1030:

This appears from the Chinese Treatise at Pekin mentioned later. See

p. 293, n. 2.

Footnote 1031:

Rochat, _op. cit._ p. 194. So Socrates, _Eccl. Hist._ Bk I. c. 22,

calls Manichaeism “a sort of heathen (Ἑλληνίζων) Christianity.”

Footnote 1032:

Hegemonius, _Acta_, c. VII. p. 91, Beeson; Flügel, _op. cit._ p. 86.

Footnote 1033:

Certainly none is recorded in the Christian accounts, where Darkness

is called Hyle or Matter. En Nadîm (Flügel, _op. cit._ p. 86) makes

Manes call the good God “the King of the Paradise of Light” and (p.

90) the Spirit of Darkness, Hummâma. Schahrastâni, as quoted in

Flügel’s note (p. 240), makes this word mean “mirk” or “smoke”

(_Qualm_). It would be curious if Hummâma had any connection with the

Elamite Khumbaba, the opponent of the Babylonian hero Gilgamesh,

because this personage already figures in Ctesias’ story about

Nannaros, which has been recognized as a myth relating to the

Moon-god.

Footnote 1034:

τὸ τῆς ὕλης δημιούργημα Hegemonius, _Acta_, c. VIII. p. 9, Beeson. Cf.

Alexander of Lycopolis, _adv. Manichaeos_, c. II.

Footnote 1035:

Epiph. _Haer._ LXVI. c. 6, p. 408, Oehler; Hegemonius, _Acta_, c. V.

pp. 5-7, Beeson. The authenticity of the letter is defended by

Kessler, _op. cit._ p. 166. Cf. Rochat, _op. cit._ p. 94 _contra_.

Footnote 1036:

τῶν κακῶν ἐπὶ τὸν θεὸν ἀναφέρουσιν, ὧν τὸ τέλος κατάρας ἐγγύς. It is

evidently intended for a quotation from Heb. vi. 8, which however puts

it rather differently as ἐκφέρουσα δὲ ἀκάνθας καὶ τριβόλους ἀδόκιμος

καὶ κατάρας ἐγγύς, ἧς τὸ τέλος εἰς καῦσιν. “But that which beareth

thorns and briers is to be rejected and is nigh unto cursing; whose

end is to be burned.” The _Khuastuanîft_ or Manichaean confession

mentioned later repeats this phrase about God not being the creator of

evil as well as of good. See p. 335 _infra_.

Footnote 1037:

Hegemonius, _Acta_, c. VII. p. 9, Beeson.

Footnote 1038:

En Nadîm in Kessler, _op. cit._ pp. 386, _sqq._ Kessler’s translation

of En Nadîm, which is given in the first Appendix to the work quoted,

differs slightly from that of Flügel and depends on a somewhat better

text than the last-named. It is therefore used when possible in the

remaining notes to this chapter. Flügel’s book, however, has the

advantage of a commentary of some 300 pages marked with great

erudition, and must still be consulted by anyone wishing to be

acquainted with its subject.

Footnote 1039:

Plutarch, _de Is. et Os._ c. XLV., says, however, that “evil must have

a principle of its own,” so that it cannot be the work of a benevolent

being. As he is generally supposed to have taken his account of the

Persian teaching from Theopompos of Chios, who was at the Court of

Ptolemy about 305 B.C., his evidence is against those who, like M.

Cumont, would make the “Zervanist” opinion, which assumes a common

principle for good and evil, pre-Christian. Yet the point does not yet

seem capable of decision, as Plutarch _may_ here be only giving us his

own opinion.

Footnote 1040:

Casartelli, _op. cit._ p. 44.

Footnote 1041:

This is really the _crux_ of the whole question. If the idea could be

traced back to the philosophers of Ionia (_e.g._ Heraclitus of

Ephesus) and their theory of eternal strife and discord being the

cause of all mundane phenomena, it is difficult to say whence the

Ionians themselves derived it, save from Persia. We can, of course,

suppose, if we please, that the Persians did not invent it _de novo_,

but took it over from some of their subjects. Among these, the

Babylonians, for instance, from the earliest times portrayed their

demons as not only attempting to invade the heaven of the gods, but as

being in perpetual warfare with one another. But the very little we

know of Babylonian philosophy would lead us to think that it inclined

towards pantheism of a materialistic kind rather than to dualism.

Footnote 1042:

En Nadîm, in Kessler, _op. cit._ p. 387; Flügel, _op. cit._ p. 86.

Footnote 1043:

The likeness of this to the cosmogony of the Ophites and their

successor Valentinus is of course marked (cf. Chaps. VIII and IX

_supra_). Manes may have borrowed it directly from Valentinus’

follower Bardesanes, whose doctrines were powerful in Edessa and

Mesopotamia in his time, or he may have taken it at first-hand from

Persian or Babylonian tradition. That Manes was acquainted with

Bardesanes’ doctrines, see n. 7, p. 280 _supra_.

Footnote 1044:

En Nadîm in Kessler, _op. cit._ p. 387; Flügel, _op. cit._ p. 86.

Flügel’s text adds to these members other “souls” which he names Love,

Belief, Faith, Generosity, and Wisdom. Kessler substitutes Courage for

Generosity and seems to make these “souls” the members’ derivatives.

Footnote 1045:

See last note.

Footnote 1046:

See Chapter XII, p. 251 _supra_. Here, again, the traditional and

monstrous figure of Satan may have been copied from the sculptured

representations of the composite demons of Babylonia (_e.g._ Rogers,

_Religion of Babylonia and Assyria_, Frontispiece and Figs. 1 and 13).

Yet if we take the Mithraic lion, as M. Cumont would have us do, as

the symbol of fire and the serpent as that of the earth, we have in

the five sorts of animals the five στοιχεῖα or elements of Aristotle.

Cf. Aetius, _de Placitis Philosophorum_, ed. Didot, Bk I. c. iii. § 38

(Plutarch, _Moralia_, II.), p. 1069. Yet the nearest source from which

Manes could have borrowed the idea is certainly Bardesanes, who,

according to Bar Khôni and another Syriac author, taught that the

world was made from five substances, _i.e._ fire, air, water, light

and darkness. See Pognon, _op. cit._ p. 178; Cumont, _La Cosmogonie

Manichéenne d’après Théodore bar Khôni_, Bruxelles, 1908, p. 13, n. 2.

Footnote 1047:

En Nadîm in Kessler, _op. cit._ p. 388; Flügel, _op. cit._ p. 87. As

the ancients were unacquainted with the properties of gases, it is

singular that they should have formed such a conception as that of the

compressibility and expansibility of spirits. Yet the idea is a very

old one, and the Arabian Nights story of the Genius imprisoned in a

brass bottle has its parallel in the bowls with magical inscriptions

left by the Jews on the site of Babylon (Layard, _Nineveh and

Babylon_, 1853, pp. 509 _sqq._), between pairs of which demons were

thought to be imprisoned. Cf. Pognon, _op. cit._ p. 3. Something of

the kind seems indicated in the “Little Point,” from which all

material powers spring, referred to by Hippolytus and the Bruce

Papyrus.

Footnote 1048:

So in the _Pistis Sophia_, it is the “last Parastates” or assistant

world who breathes light into the Kerasmos, and thus sets on foot the

scheme of redemption. Cf. Chapter X, p. 146 _supra_.

Footnote 1049:

Yet the Fundamental Epistle speaks of the twelve “members” of God,

which seem to convey the same idea See _Aug. c. Ep. Fund._ c. 13.

Footnote 1050:

Thus En Nadîm in Kessler, _op. cit._ pp. 388, 389; Flügel, _op. cit._

p. 87. But here the Christian tradition gives more details than the

Mahommedan. Hegemonius, _Acta_, c. VII., p. 10, Beeson, and Bar Khôni

(Pognon, p. 185), are in accord that the God of Light produced from

himself a new Power called the Μήτηρ τῆς Ζωῆς or Mother of Life, that

this Mother of Life projected the First Man, and that the First Man

produced the five elements called also his “sons,” to wit, wind,

light, water, fire and air, with which he clothed himself as with

armour. See Cumont, _Cosmog. Manich._ p. 16, n. 4, for the harmonizing

of the texts [N.B. the omission of πῦρ from his quotation from the

_Acta_ is doubtless a clerical error]. The identification of the

Mother of Life with the “Spirit of the Right [Hand]” is accepted by

Bousset, _Hauptprobleme_, pp. 177, 178, and may be accounted for by

the crude figure by which the Egyptians explained the coming-forth of

the universe from a single male power. See Budge, _Hieratic Papyri in

the Brit. Mus._ p. 17.

Footnote 1051:

These were also the “sons” of Darkness or Satan. See Bar Khôni

(Pognon, p. 186). The reason that led the God of Light to send a

champion into the lists was, according to Bar Khôni (Pognon, p. 185),

that the five worlds of his creation were made for peace and

tranquillity and could therefore not help him directly in the matter.

Cf. St Augustine, _de Natura Boni_, c. XLII. But Manes doubtless found

it necessary to work into his system the figure of the First Man which

we have already seen prominent in the Ophite system. Cumont, _Cosmog.

Manich._ p. 16, says few conceptions were more widely spread

throughout the East. It is fully examined by Bousset, _Hauptprobleme_,

in his IVth chapter, “Der Urmensch.” The First Man is, in the Chinese

treatise lately found at Tun-huang in circumstances to be presently

mentioned, identified with the Persian Ormuzd and the five elements

are there declared to be his sons. See Chavannes and Pelliot, _Un

Traité Manichéen retrouvé en Chine_, pt 1, _Journal Asiatique_, série

X., t. XVIII. (1911), pp. 512, 513. The 12 elements which helped in

his formation seem to be mentioned by no other author than En Nadîm.

St Augustine, however, _Contra Epistulam Fundamenti_, c. 13, speaks of

the “12 members of light.” The Tun-huang treatise also mentions “the

12 great kings of victorious form” whom it seems to liken to the 12

hours of the day. As the _Pistis Sophia_ does the same with the “12

Aeons” who are apparently the signs of the Zodiac, it is possible that

we here have a sort of super-celestial Zodiac belonging to the

Paradise of Light, of which that in our sky is a copy. It should be

remembered that in the Asiatic cosmogonies the fixed stars belong to

the realm of good as the representatives of order, while the planets

or “wanderers” are generally evil.

Footnote 1052:

En Nadîm in Kessler, _op. cit._ p. 389; Flügel, _op. cit._ pp. 87, 88.

According to the Christian tradition, the Powers of Darkness devoured

only the soul of the First Man which was left below when his body, as

will presently be seen, returned to the upper world. See Hegemonius,

_Acta_, c. VII., p. 10, Beeson.

Footnote 1053:

Both the Christian and the Mahommedan traditions agree as to this

result of the fight, which is paralleled not only by the more or leas

successful attempt of Jaldabaoth and his powers to _eat_ the light of

Pistis Sophia, but also by a similar case in orthodox Zoroastrianism.

For all these see Cumont, _Cosmog. Manich._ p. 18, n. 4. Bar Khôni

(Pognon, p. 186), goes further and describes the surrender of the

First Man as a tactical effort on his part, “as a man who having an

enemy puts poison in a cake and gives it to him.” Alexander of

Lycopolis (_adv. Manich._ c. III.), on the other hand declares that

God could not avenge himself upon matter (as he calls Darkness) as he

wished, because he had no evil at hand to help him, “since evil does

not exist in the house and abode of God”; that he therefore sent the

soul into matter which will eventually permeate it and be the death of

it; but that in the meantime the soul is changed for the worse and

participates in the evil of matter, “as in a dirty vessel the contents

suffer change.” These, however, are more likely to be the ideas of the

Christian accusers than the defences of the Manichaean teachers.

Footnote 1054:

En Nadîm in Kessler, _op. cit._ pp. 389, 390; Flügel, _op. cit._ p.

87. As Kessler points out, En Nadîm gives two accounts doubtless taken

from different Manichaean sources. In one, he says simply that the

King of the Paradise of Light followed with other gods and delivered

the First Man, the actual victor over Darkness being called “the

Friend” of the Lights (like Mithras). He then goes on to say that Joy

(_i.e._ the Mother of Life) and the Spirit of Life went to the

frontier, looked into the abyss of hell and saw the First Man and his

powers were held enlaced by Satan, “the Presumptuous Oppressor and the

Life of Darkness”; then she called him in a loud and clear voice, and

he became a god, after which he returned and “cut the roots of the

Dark Powers.” For Bar Khôni’s amplification of this story see p. 302,

n. 1, and p. 324 _infra_. The whole of this, together with the cutting

of the roots, is strongly reminiscent of the _Pistis Sophia_.

Footnote 1055:

En Nadîm in Kessler, _op. cit._ pp. 391, 392; Flügel, _op. cit._ p.

98. The _Acta_ (Hegemonius, _op. cit._ c. VIII., p. 11, Beeson) say

that the “Living Spirit” before mentioned “created the Cosmos,

descended clothed with three other powers, drew forth the rulers (οἱ

ἄρχοντες) and crucified them in the firmament which is their body the

Sphere.” “Then he created the lights (φωστῆρες) which are the remnants

of the soul, caused the firmament to encompass them, and again created

the earth [not the Cosmos] with its eight aspects.” The Latin version

after “earth” adds “they (_sic!_) are eight.” which if it refers to

the aspects would agree with En Nadîm. Alexander of Lycopolis (_adv.

Manich._ c. III.), who had been a follower of Manes and was a

Christian bishop some 25 years after Manes’ death, says that “God sent

forth another power which we call the Demiurge or creator of all

things; that this Demiurge in creating the Cosmos separated from

matter as much power as was unstained, and from it made the Sun and

Moon; and that the slightly stained matter became the stars and the

expanse of heaven.” “The matter from which the Sun and Moon were

taken,” he goes on to say, “was cast out of the Cosmos and resembles

night” [Qy the Outer Darkness?], while the rest of the “elements”

consists of light and matter unequally mingled. Bar Khôni (Pognon,

_op. cit._ p. 188), as will presently be seen, says that the Living

Spirit with the Mother of Life and two other powers called the

Appellant and Respondent [evidently the “three other powers” of the

_Acta_] descended to earth, caused the Rulers or Princes to be killed

and flayed, and that out of their skins the Mother of Life made 11

heavens, while their bodies were cast on to the earth of darkness and

made 8 earths. The Living Spirit then made the Sun, the Moon, and

“thousands of Lights” (_i.e._ Stars) out of the light he took from the

Rulers. That this last story is an elaboration of the earlier ones

seems likely, and the flaying of the Rulers seems to be reminiscent of

the Babylonian legend of Bel and Tiamat, an echo of which is also to

be found in the later Avestic literature. See West, _Pahlavi Texts_

(S.B.E.), pt iii. p. 243. Cf. Cumont, _Cosmog. Manich._ p. 27, n. 2.

Footnote 1056:

En Nadîm in Kessler, _op. cit._ p. 392; Flügel, _op. cit._ pp. 89-90.

This would agree perfectly with the system of the _Pistis Sophia_,

where it is said that the “receivers of the Sun and Moon” give the

particles of the light as it is won from matter to Melchizedek, the

purifier, who purifies it before taking it into the Treasure-house

(pp. 36, 37, Copt.). The idea that the Sun’s rays had a purifying

effect shows shrewd observation of nature before his bactericidal

power was discovered by science. So does the association of the Moon

with water, which doubtless came from the phenomenon of the tides. Is

the Column of Glory the Milky Way?

Footnote 1057:

The Ecpyrosis or final conflagration is always present in orthodox

Mazdeism, where it inspires its Apocalypses, and is in effect the

necessary conclusion to the drama which begins with the assault on the

world of light by Ahriman. For references, see Söderblom, _op. cit._

chap. IV. From the Persians it probably passed to the Stoics and thus

reached the Western world slightly in advance of Christianity. “The

day when the Great Dragon shall be judged” is continually on the lips

of the authors of the _Pistis Sophia_ and the Μέρος τευχῶν Σωτῆρος,

and the conception may therefore have reached Manes from two sources

at once. The angels maintaining the world as mentioned in the text are

of course the Splenditenens and Omophorus about to be described.

Footnote 1058:

Hegemonius, _Acta_, c. VIII. p. 12, Beeson. St Augustine (_contra

Faustum_, Bk XX. c. 10) mentions the Wheel briefly and rather

obscurely. It seems to have fallen out of the account of Bar Khôni.

But see the Tun-huang treatise (Chavannes et Pelliot, _op. cit._

1^{ère} partie, pp. 515, n. 2, 516, 517, n. 3). There can be little

doubt that it is to be referred to the Zodiac. The Aeons of the Light

seem to be the five worlds who here play the part of the Parastatae in

the _Pistis Sophia_.

Footnote 1059:

Hegemonius, _Acta_, c. VIII. pp. 11, 12, Beeson, mentions Omophorus,

but not Splenditenens. Splenditenens is, however, well known to St

Augustine, who describes him (_contra Faustum_, Bk XV. c. 7) as

_Splenditenentem magnum, sex vultus et ora ferentem, micantemque

lumine_, “Great Splenditenens, bearing six faces and mouths, and

glittering with light.” So later (_op. cit._ Bk XX. c. 9) he says,

_Splenditenentem, reliquias eorumdem membrorum Dei vestri in manu

habentem, et cetera omnia capta, oppressa, inquinata plangentem, et

Atlantem maximum subter humeris suis cum eo ferentem, ne totum ille

fatigatus abjiciat_. “Splenditenens, who has in his hand the remains

of these members of your God [_i.e._ the five elements or ‘sons’ of

the First Man] and who mourns the capture and oppression and

defilement of all the rest; and huge Atlas, who bears everything with

him on his shoulders, lest he should be wearied and cast it away.” Bar

Khôni (Pognon, pp. 188, 189) describes them both, and calls

Splenditenens “the Ornament of Splendour,” while he makes the pair two

of the five sons of the Living Spirit, as more clearly appears in the

Tunhuang treatise (Chavannes et Pelliot, _op. cit._ p. 549, and notes

2 and 5). Where Manes found the figure of Splenditenens is not

apparent, but the world-bearing angel is an old conception in Western

Asia, as M. Cumont has shown in his before-quoted _Cosmogonie

Manichéenne_, App. II. He appears prominently on the Mithraic

monuments and was no doubt the original of the Greek Atlas.

Footnote 1060:

Alexander of Lycopolis, _op. cit._ c. III., says plainly that the Sun

and Moon were formed out of that part of the light (here called

δύναμις “power”), which, although it had been captured by the powers

of matter, had not been contaminated, while that which had suffered

some slight and moderate stain became the stars and sky. The _Acta_

(Hegemonius, _op. cit._ c. VIII. p. 11, Beeson), as we have seen, says

that the Living Spirit created the lights (φωστῆρες, luminaria), which

are the remnants of the soul (_i.e._ the armour of the First Man) and

caused the firmament to surround them. The author here evidently

refers to the Sun and Moon only.

Footnote 1061:

The whole of this story, which is the reverse of edifying, is studied

by M. Cumont, with the fullest references to the authorities, in his

_Cosmogonie Manichéenne_ before quoted, to which it forms Appendix I,

under the heading “La Séduction des Archontes.” To this I must refer

the reader, only remarking that, while I fully agree that the goddess

in question is probably derived from the Mother of the Gods who under

the name (_inter alia_) of Atargatis was worshipped throughout Asia

Minor, I do not see that she had any connection with the “Virgin of

Light” of the _Pistis Sophia_. This Virgin of Light did, indeed, pass

into Manichaeism, but she had there a very different name and

attributes from the Mother of the Gods. See p. 323, n. 4 _infra_.

Footnote 1062:

En Nadîm in Kessler, _op. cit._ p. 393; Flügel, _op. cit._ pp. 90, 91.

Footnote 1063:

Kessler, _op. et pag. cit._ n. 1, says it has dropped out of the text,

which seems likely.

Footnote 1064:

Hegemonius, _Acta_, c. XII. pp. 19, 20, Beeson. The story is given

_verbatim_ later, p. 306 _infra_.

Footnote 1065:

The Mandaeans or Disciples of St John described on p. 305 seem a

likely source, as they have many traditions about the protoplasts,

some of which clearly go back to before the Christian Era. None of

those mentioned by Brandt, _Die Mandäische Religion_, Leipzig, 1889,

pp. 34-39, however, seem to be exactly similar to the story in the

text.

Footnote 1066:

This Mother of Life is one of the most prominent, though not one of

the most active figures in the Manichaean pantheon. Her identification

with the Spirit of the Right Hand or first Power created by the

Supreme God of Light has been mentioned above (note 1, p. 293

_supra_). She doubtless has her immediate origin in the great mother

goddess worshipped throughout Western Asia, whose most familiar name

is Cybele, but whom we have seen (Chap. II _supra_) identified with

Isis, Demeter, and all the goddesses of the Hellenistic pantheon. See

as to this, Bousset, _Hauptprobleme_, pp. 58 _sqq._, although he, too,

falls into the error of identifying with her the Virgin of Light of

the _Pistis Sophia_. That the name “Mother of Life” at least passed to

all these goddesses is certain; but it also found its way into

Egyptian Christianity; for in the Coptic spell or amulet known as the

_Prayer of the Virgin in Bartos_ (_i.e._ Parthia), studied by Mr W. E.

Crum (_P.S.B.A._ vol. XIX. 1897, p. 216), the Virgin Mary is

represented as saying “I am Mariham (Μαριάμ), I am Maria, I am the

Mother of the Life of the whole World!”, and the popularity of the

“Prayer” is shown by its frequent appearance in Ethiopic and Arabic

versions (_op. cit._ p. 211). So, too, in the evidently Christian

_Trattato Gnostico_ of F. Rossi (_Memorie della Reale Accademia di

Torino_, ser. II. t. xliii. p. 16) the magician says “I entreat thee,

O God, by the great revered Virgin (παρθένος) in whom the Father was

concealed from the beginning before He had created anything.” Bar

Khôni, again (Pognon, pp. 209-211), speaks of the Kukeans, who seem to

have been a semi-Christian sect, and who taught that the coming of

Jesus to earth had for its object the redemption of His bride, the

Mother of Life, who was detained here below, like the Helena of Simon

Magus. Mother of Life is mentioned in all the Mahommedan and Christian

writers who have treated of Manichaeism (for the references, see

Chavannes et Pelliot, _op. cit._ 1^{ère} partie, p. 511, n. 1), in the

Pahlavi MS. discovered by the Germans at Turfan (F. W. K. Muller,

_Handschriften-Reste in Estrangelo-Schrift_, pp. 47, 55), and in the

Chinese treatise from Tun-huang (Chavannes et Pelliot, _op. cit._ p.

511 _et al._). In this last, she is called Chan-mou, which is

translated “the Excellent Mother,” and En Nadîm in one passage

(Kessler, _op. cit._ p. 399; Flügel, _op. cit._ p. 100) calls her

Nahnaha, which Flügel would translate “The Aversion of the Evil Ones.”

It should be noticed, however, that her part in the cosmogony is

small, and that she acts upon the world, like all these supercelestial

powers, only through her descendants or “sons.” These are treated of

later (see p. 323 and n. 1, p. 302 _infra_). Titus of Bostra as quoted

by Flügel, _op. cit._ p. 210, speaks of her as δύναμις τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ

οὐκέτι φῶς αἰσθητὸν ἀλλ’ ὡς ἂν φαίη προβολὴ τοῦ θεοῦ. “[The] Power of

the Good One, no longer a perceptible light, but as if one should say,

an emanation of God.” Some years ago, we could hardly have looked for

her prototype or first appearance in the history of religions in any

other direction than Babylonia, where the worship of Ishtar, her

Babylonian counterpart, goes back as far as we can trace Babylonian

religion. Now, however, it is plain that other races than the

Babylonians may have been concerned in the spread of the worship of

the Great Mother throughout Western Asia. In the Zoroastrian faith,

she seems to appear as Spenta Armaiti, the one certainly female power

among the seven Amshaspands, who in the Pahlavi texts is set over the

earth, as Vohu Mano is made protector of the beasts, Asha Vahishta of

the fire, and Khshathra Vairya is set over metals. But besides this,

she is identified in the Gâthâs with the Wisdom of God (for references

see pp. 136-137 of M. Carnoy’s article in the _Muséon_ mentioned

below), an identification which Plutarch (_de Is. et Os._ c. XLVII.)

admits by translating her name as σοφία, and like the Sophia of the

Gnostics is given as a spouse to her creator Ahura Mazda, to whom she

bears the First Man Gayômort (Darmesteter, _Le Zend-Avesta_, t. I. pp.

128-129). Yet we now know that this figure may have come into the

Zoroastrian pantheon neither from Semitic sources nor, as Darmesteter

thought, from Plato. M. A. Carnoy in a study called _Armaiti-Ârmatay_

(_Muséon_, n.s. vol. XIII. (1912), pp. 127-146) shows the identity of

the Persian Amshaspand with the Vedic goddess Aramati. We have already

seen that the Vedic gods Varuna and Mitra were worshipped by Hittites

in Asia Minor before the XIIth century B.C., and Prof. Garstang

believes that the Earth-Mother was the great goddess of the Hittites,

and was the one worshipped in Roman times at Hierapolis or Mabug as

the _Dea Syria_ or Atargatis, a name that he equates with Derceto, the

mother of Semiramis in classic legend, and declares to be compounded

of Ishtar or Astarte and the Aramaic “Athar or Athe.” See Strong and

Garstang, _The Syrian Goddess_, pp. 1-8, and notes 24, 25, and 30, on

pp. 52, 53 and 30 _op. cit._ Zoroaster and Manes may therefore have

taken their mother goddess from an Aryan rather than from a Semitic

original.

Footnote 1067:

This Living Spirit is the most active agent of the Light in the

Manichaean system, and seems to have held his place unaltered through

all the changes of Manichaean teaching. Alexander of Lycopolis

(_contra Manich._ c. III.) speaks of him as the Δημιουργός or

Architect of the Universe. The earliest part of the _Acta_

(Hegemonius, c. VII. p. 10, Beeson) says that he was put forth from

the Father (or Supreme God of Light) in consequence of the prayers of

the First Man after his defeat, that he delivered this last, crucified

or bound the Archons in the firmament (as Jeû is said to have done in

the _Pistis Sophia_), made the Sun and Moon and appointed their

courses, and further made the eight earths. St Augustine, _contra

Faustum_, Bk XX. c. 1, makes the Manichaean Faustus call him the

“Third Majesty whom we acknowledge to have his seat and his

lodging-place in the whole circle of the atmosphere. From whose powers

and spiritual inpouring also, the earth conceived and brought forth

the suffering Jesus who is the life and salvation of men and is

hanging on every tree.” St Augustine further speaks (_op. cit._ Bk XX.

c. 9) of “your mighty (_potentem_ for _viventem_) Spirit, who

constructs the world from the captive bodies of the race of darkness

or rather from the members of your God held in subjection and

bondage.” St Augustine (see _contra Faustum_, Bk XV. c. 6) also knows

that the Living Spirit has, like the First Man, five sons, to whom we

shall return later. The Mahommedan writers have much less to say on

the subject. En Nadîm (Kessler, _op. cit._ p. 390; Flügel, _op. cit._

p. 88) says abruptly that “Joy [_i.e._ the Mother of Life] and the

Spirit of Life went to the frontier, looked into the abyss of hell and

saw there the First Man and his angels,” whereupon the Spirit of Life

called the First Man with a voice of thunder and the latter “became a

god.” This story is so without connection with the context that

Kessler is probably right in attributing it to another source from

that from which the _Fihrist_ has drawn up to this point. The source

in question was probably a late one; for Bar Khôni (_op. cit._ pp.

186-188) supplies many more details which will be given in the text.

Bar Khôni also amplifies the story in the _Fihrist_ into a description

of how the Living Spirit, on seeing the First Man in the Darkness,

spoke “a word which took the appearance of a pointed sword” (cf.

Revelation i. 16), and how this word caused to appear the image of the

First Man. A dialogue then ensues between apparently the sword and the

image, which appear to be here identified with the Appellant and

Respondent of later Manichaeism, and the pair are drawn up out of

hell. See Cumont, _Cosmog. Manich._ p. 24, and note 5. Al Bîrûnî,

_Chronology_, p. 190, also knows of the Spirit of Life and says that

Manes “preached” of him. In the Turfan texts there is occasional

mention of the “Spirit” together with the Father and the Son (Müller,

_Handschriften-Reste_, pp. 26, 28), and also of the “commands” of the

Holy Spirit to the Hearers, which are plainly allusions to the Living

Spirit or Ζῶν Πνεῦμα of the Christian Fathers. In the Tun-huang

treatise (Chavannes et Pelliot, _op. cit._ pp. 510, 556) he is

repeatedly mentioned, and although nothing is said of his demiurgic or

world-creating powers, the part which he and the Mother of Life play

in the rescue of the First Man after his defeat is recognized, and he

is spoken of as forming the third person of a Trinity of which the two

other members are the Father or highest God of Light and the “Son of

the Light.” Finally (_op. cit._ p. 557), he is said to be “a white

dove,” whereby his likeness to the Holy Spirit of the Christian

Trinity already noted by Faustus is emphasized (see Augustine, _ubi

cit. supra_ and Bk XX. c. 6).

Footnote 1068:

This conception of Jesus as a warrior has already been seen in the

_Pistis Sophia_, see p. 156 _supra_. So we read of “Jesus the

victorious” in the Tun-huang treatise, p. 566, n. 3.

Footnote 1069:

En Nadîm in Kessler, _op. cit._ pp. 393 _sqq._; Flügel, _op. cit._ pp.

90 _sqq._ Theodore bar Khôni (Pognon, _op. cit._ pp. 189 _sqq._),

gives a much more elaborate account of the creation of man and the

other animals, for which and for its explanation the reader must be

referred to the elaborate analysis of M. Cumont (_Cosmog. Manich._ pp.

34-49, and App. II., “La Séduction des Archontes”). It should be

noted, however, that some part of this story was known to St

Augustine. See especially _contra Faustum_, Bk VI. c. 8.

Footnote 1070:

So Rochat, _op. cit._ pp. 157, 158.

Footnote 1071:

Kessler, _op. cit._ pp. 72, 80; Brandt, _Mandäische Religion_, p. 178.

Footnote 1072:

Rochat, _op. cit._ pp. 156-178, has carefully examined the

resemblances between the system of Manes and that of the Mandaites and

declares that it is at present impossible to say which of them has

borrowed from the other.

Footnote 1073:

Hegemonius, _Acta_, c. XII., pp. 19, 20, Beeson.

Footnote 1074:

_Op. cit._ c. VIII., p. 12, Beeson.

Footnote 1075:

Chavannes et Pelliot (_op. cit._ p. 517, n. 3) make this the work of

the Living Spirit, but they are clearly wrong. The text of the _Acta_

referred to in the last note leaves no doubt that it is that of the

“Son.”

Footnote 1076:

Hegemonius, _Acta_, c. XI., p. 18, Beeson.

Footnote 1077:

This is the tradition evidently known to the author of the Μέρος

τευχῶν Σωτῆρος when he makes Jesus say “When I spoke with Enoch out of

the Tree of Knowledge in the Paradise of Adam.” (See Chap. X, p. 173

_supra_.)

Footnote 1078:

Al Bîrûnî, _Chronology_, p. 190.

Footnote 1079:

Hegemonius, _Acta_, c. IX., p. 14, Beeson. This idea of the macrocosm

and microcosm according to which the body of man is a _replica_ of the

universe is found in nearly all later mysticism—also in the Cabala and

in the later Zoroastrian treatises. In the Tun-huang treatise it forms

the chief theme of the homiletic part of the work.

Footnote 1080:

_Op. cit._ c. VIII., pp. 12, 13, Beeson. The Latin version has _vir_

“man” for _aer_ “air” in its description of the Column of Glory.

Probably a clerical error.

Footnote 1081:

_Op. cit._ c. X., pp. 15, 16, Beeson. The word used is κέλεφος; but

the Latin texts all read “elephant.”

Footnote 1082:

Ἐρῶ ... πῶς μεταγγίζεται ἡ ψυχὴ εἰς πέντε σώματα, _op. et cap. cit._

p. 15, Beeson.

Footnote 1083:

The soul of the rich man is in the same chapter said to pass into the

body of a beggar and thereafter εἰς κόλασιν αἰώνιον “to everlasting

punishment.” Is it from this source that the Calvinists took their

doctrine of eternal damnation? The reprobation of the rich as such and

without regard to the use they might make of their wealth perhaps

accounts for the levelling and republican politics of the mediaeval

sectaries.

Footnote 1084:

The Bowl of water reminds one of the cup of soberness and reflection

administered to just souls by the little Sabaoth the Good in the Μέρος

τευχῶν Σωτῆρος. See Chap. X, p. 187 _supra_. The garment was probably

the “heavenly nature” with which the soul had to be clothed before it

could ascend to the upper spheres of light (cf. the _Pistis Sophia_).

That the crown was designed as a protection against the spirits of

evil, there are many indications in the last-mentioned document.

Footnote 1085:

Kessler would here read “gods” for “goddess.”

Footnote 1086:

That is to say, the particular world of light, whether Gentleness,

Knowledge, Intelligence, Discretion, or Discernment, from which the

soul descended. As the “armour” of the First Man, from which the souls

of men are formed, was made with the aid of these five worlds, it is

reasonable to suppose that one or other predominates in the soul of

everyone. Hence probably the degree in the Manichaean hierarchy to

which any hearer might attain was thought to be decided for him before

his birth, and governed his destination after death. Thus it is said

in the _Pistis Sophia_: “Those who have received exalted mysteries

shall be in exalted places, and those who have received humble

mysteries in humble places in the light of my kingdom.” Cf. Chavannes

et Pelliot, _op. cit._ 1^{ère} partie, p. 533, n. 1 and St Augustine

as there quoted.

Footnote 1087:

The words given in the text are almost _verbatim_ from En Nadîm. See

Kessler, _op. cit._ pp. 398-399; Flügel, _op. cit._ p. 100.

Footnote 1088:

One of the 21 Nasks of the Sassanian Avesta.

Footnote 1089:

Söderblom, _op. cit._ p. 83.

Footnote 1090:

_Op. cit._ pp. 89 _sqq._

Footnote 1091:

See the Orphic belief about the uninitiated being plunged in mud, Vol.

I. chap. IV. p. 131 _supra_.

Footnote 1092:

Kessler, _op. cit._ pp. 399-400; Flügel, pp. 100-101.

Footnote 1093:

This is, I think, the only construction to be put on the words of the

_Acta_: τῆς δὲ ψυχῆς ἐστι τὰ ὀνόματα ταῦτα, νοῦς, ἔννοια, φρόνησις,

ἐνθύμησις, λογισμός. Hegemonius, _Acta_, c. X., p. 15, Beeson. For the

Mahommedan tradition, see En Nadîm in Flügel, _op. cit._ p. 95. The

whole question of the organization of the Manichaean Church is

elaborately discussed by Flügel in n. 225 on this passage, _op. cit._

pp. 293-299.

Footnote 1094:

Kessler, _op. cit._ p. 398; Flügel, _op. cit._ pp. 94, 95.

Footnote 1095:

This is perhaps the first instance in antiquity of the Gospel of Work.

That these virtues of the believer are made five in number, so as to

accord with the five worlds of light, needs no demonstration.

Footnote 1096:

See passages from Kessler and Flügel quoted in n. 1, p. 313 _supra_.

Footnote 1097:

Rainerio Saccone, a Manichaean Perfect in Languedoc, who afterwards

turned Inquisitor, said that he had often heard the Elect lamenting

that they had not taken the opportunity of committing more sins before

receiving the “Baptism of the Spirit” which was thought to wash them

away. See H. C. Lea, _History of the Inquisition_, vol. I., p. 94.

Footnote 1098:

Flügel, _op. cit._ pp. 95-97. See, however, n. 4, p. 349 _infra_.

Footnote 1099:

Josephus, _Antiquities_, Bk XX. cc. 2-4, breaks off his history at the

critical point. The Book of Esther is, perhaps, sufficient proof of

the capacity of the Oriental Jews for provoking periodical _pogroms_

at least as freely as their co-religionists in modern Russia. Johnson

(Oriental Religions), _Persia_, 1885, p. 410, quotes, apparently from

Firdûsi, that the “old Persian nobles” were driven by Ardeshîr’s

reforms into Seistan, where they were the ancestors of the present

Afghan clans. As some of these clans call themselves the Beni Israel,

it is possible that the Jews rather than the nobles were expelled on

this occasion, as happened before under Cyrus.

Footnote 1100:

Hegemonius, _Acta_, c. XII. pp. 20-21, Beeson; Ephraem Syrus in

Kessler, _op. cit._ p. 302. For Mahommedan confirmation, see

Schahrastâni in _op. cit._ p. 339.

Footnote 1101:

Al Bîrûnî, _Chronology_, p. 190.

Footnote 1102:

See Le Coq’s _Short Account_ in _J.R.A.S._ 1909, pp. 299-322. Another

and more popularly written one by the same author appeared in the

_Conférences au Musée Guimet_, Paris, 1910 (Bibl. de Vulgarisation, t.

XXXV.).

Footnote 1103:

The Marcionites, another much hated sect, also used a secret script.

Footnote 1104:

St Augustine, _contra Faustum_, Bk V. c. 1.

Footnote 1105:

Hegemonius, _Acta_, c. V., pp. 5, 6.

Footnote 1106:

Augustine, _contra Faust._ Bk VII. c. 1.

Footnote 1107:

_Op. cit._ Bk XXIII. c. 2; _ibid._ Bk XXXII. c. 7.

Footnote 1108:

_Op. cit._ Bk XXVI. cc. 6, 8; _ibid._ Bk XXIX. c. 1.

Footnote 1109:

_Op. cit._ Bk XX. c. 2.

Footnote 1110:

Cumont, _Cosmog. Manich._ p. 15, points out that the Manichaeans had

already figured to themselves their King of the Paradise of Light as

existing in the three Persons of Father, Mother, and Son in the shape

of the Light, the Mother of Life and the First Man. This Trinity

corresponds in every particular with that worshipped in Asia Minor

under the names of Zeus (or Hadad), Cybele, and Atys, at Eleusis as

Dionysos, Demeter, and Iacchos, in Greek Egypt as Osiris, Isis, and

Horus, and in Persia, according to M. Cumont, as Ormuzd, Spenta

Armaiti, and Gayômort. Cf. Bousset, _Hauptprobleme_, pp. 333-337. That

its origin can be traced, as the last-named author seems to think, to

the Babylonian Triad, Ea, Damkina, and Marduk, is more doubtful. The

Manichaeans really acknowledged, as they were never tired of

affirming, only two gods, Light and Darkness, and considered all the

lesser powers of Light, including man’s soul, as formed from God’s

“substance.” When, therefore, they spoke of trinities, tetrads, and so

on, it was in all probability for the purpose of producing that show

of outward conformity with other religions which was one of the most

marked features of their system.

Footnote 1111:

This is a reversal of the position in the _Pistis Sophia_, where the

female power or Virgin of Light is placed in the Sun and the male Iao

in the Moon.

Footnote 1112:

Compare the statement of Herodotus (Bk I. c. 131) that Zeus (or

Ormuzd) in the opinion of the ancient Persians was the name of “the

whole circle of air.”

Footnote 1113:

Augustine, _contra Faust._ Bk XX. c. 2.

Footnote 1114:

This is to be found in Harduin’s _Acta Consilii_. The quotation in the

text is taken from Matter, _Hist. de Gnost._ t. III. p. 89, and

Neander, _Ch. Hist._ II. p. 187.

Footnote 1115:

Pognon, _op. cit._ p. 5; Assemani, _Bibl. Orient._ t. III. p. 198

_cit._

Footnote 1116:

Cumont, _Cosmog. Manich._ p. 106. It seems probable that the Kashgar

in question is the country in Chinese Turkestan still called by that

name. M. Pelliot, however, will have none of this and insists that Bar

Khôni’s Kashgar was Al Wasit near Bagdad. For the controversy, see

_J.R.A.S._ 1913, pp. 434 _sqq._, 696 _sqq._ and 1914, pp. 421-427.

Footnote 1117:

Cumont, _Cosmog. Manich._ p. 1, n. 2, and authorities there quoted.

Footnote 1118:

Ἀναθεματίζω πάντας οὓς ὁ Μάνης ἀνέπλασε θεοὺς, ἤτοι τὸν τετραπρόσωπον

Πατέρα τοῦ Μεγέθους καὶ τὸν λεγόμενον Πρῶτον Ἄνθρωπον ... καὶ τὸν

ὀνομαζόμενον Παρθένον τοῦ φωτὸς κ.τ.λ. “I anathematize all those whom

Manes lyingly makes gods, to wit, the Father of Greatness in four

Persons, and the so-called First Man ... and the famous Virgin of

Light,” etc., Kessler, _op. cit._ p. 403. His quotation of the Formula

is from the works of the Apostolic Fathers edited by Cotelerius in

1724 (Amsterdam). It seems to have been administered to converts from

Manichaeism to Catholicism down to a very late date. See Beausobre,

_Hist. du Manichéisme_, t. I. pp. 66-67.

Footnote 1119:

Pognon, _op. cit._ p. 184. Cumont, _Cosmog. Manich._ pp. 9, 10, would

substitute Reason for Knowledge and Will for Feeling. The Greek names

as given in the _Acta_ (Hegemonius, _op. cit._ c. X. p. 15, Beeson)

are νοῦς, ἔννοια, φρόνησις, ἐνθύμησις, λογισμός which the Latin

translator makes into _mens_, _sensus_, _prudentia_, _intellectus_,

_cogitatio_. The first of these may pass as correct, since Nous

appears as the first emanation of the Highest God in all the systems

which preceded that of Manes and from which he is likely to have

copied. Of the rest, it can only be said that they are the

translations by scribes of Syriac or Mandaite words which were ill

calculated to express metaphysical abstractions, and that their

copyists were seldom well acquainted with the etymology of any of the

three languages. Hence they generally made use of what they thought

were the corresponding expressions in the works of great

heresiologists like Irenaeus and Hippolytus without troubling

themselves much as to their appropriateness. In the passage from the

_Acta_ above quoted, the five qualities named are said to be the

“names of the soul,” which is explained by what is said later (_op.

cit._ c. X. p. 17, Beeson) that “the air (ἀήρ) is the soul of men and

beasts and birds and fish and creeping things.” En Nadîm (Kessler,

_op. cit._ p. 387; Flügel, p. 86), as has been said on p. 291 _supra_,

gives the “members of the air” as Gentleness, Knowledge, Intelligence,

Discretion and Discernment, which are the same as those which he has

just attributed to the King of the Paradise of Light. St Augustine

(_c. Faust._ Bk XX. c. 15) says in like manner that the Manichaeans

thought their souls “members of God,” which seems to refer to the same

belief. Bar Khôni (Pognon, _op. cit._ p. 186), as has been said, not

only assigns the five dwellings of Intelligence, Knowledge, Thought,

Reflexion and Feeling to the Living Spirit, but makes him draw his

five sons from them, and M. Cumont (_Cosmog. Manich._ p. 10, n. 3)

quotes the _Acta Thomae_ as saying that the Third Legate or Srôsh is

“the Legate of the five members, Nous, Ennoia, Phronesis, Enthymesis

and Logismos.” From all which we may gather that the Supreme God of

Light and his “Second” and “Third” creations were each alike thought

to have the same five dwellings or hypostases consisting of abstract

qualities, although the exact significance of the names given to them

for the present escapes us.

Footnote 1120:

This is the usual Oriental and Semitic figure of speech which leads

Arabs at the present day to nickname any European with a large beard

“the Father of Hair,” and makes the Sphinx of Ghizeh the “Father of

Terrors.” In the same way, the Mother of Life means doubtless the Very

Great Life or Source of Life.

Footnote 1121:

Cumont, _Cosmog. Manich._ p. 15.

Footnote 1122:

See the _Khuastuanift_, pp. 335, 342 _infra_, and the Tun-huang

treatise (Chavannes et Pelliot, _op. cit._ p. 513, and n. 1). Cf. also

Müller, _Handschriften-Reste_, p. 102.

Footnote 1123:

She cannot possibly be the Virgin of Light, as in the _Acta_ she is

said to retire at the Ecpyrosis into the Moon-ship along with that

personage. See Hegemonius, _op. cit._ c. XIII. p. 21, Beeson. The name

“Virgin of Light” also appears in the Turfan texts as an epithet of

Jesus, if the words are not wrongly translated. See Müller,

_Handschriften-Reste_, pp. 75, 77. The name Nahnaha given her by En

Nadîm has been referred to in n. 2, p. 300 _supra_.

Footnote 1124:

Probably Mithras, who is in the Vedas and elsewhere called “Mithra the

Friend.” Mithras is invoked under his own name in the Turfan texts

(Müller, _Handschriften-Reste_, p. 77), but the fragment is too

mutilated to be able to deduce from it his place in the pantheon.

Footnote 1125:

This name, to be found nowhere but in Bar Khôni, cannot be explained.

Pognon says it may be written the Great Laban, which gets us no nearer

to its meaning.

Footnote 1126:

The image is probably his body or substance, which is of the substance

of the Very Great Father. So Satan is in the Coptic _Trattato

gnostico_ of Rossi quoted in n. 2, p. 300 _supra_ described as the

ἀρχηπλάσμα, probably as being the very substance of darkness as the

Very Great Father is of the Light.

Footnote 1127:

This is the conjecture of M. Cumont (_Cosmog. Manich._ pp. 24, 25). As

he says in note 5 on the first-mentioned page, the passage as it

stands is inconsistent. The Appellant and Respondent under the names

of Kroshtag and Padwakhtag appear in the _Khuastuanift_ and also in

the Tun-huang treatise (pp. 521 _sqq._) without the part they play in

the world being immediately apparent. The former document, however

(see p. 343 _infra_), speaks of them as being concerned in the

purification of the Light. MM. Chavannes and Pelliot (_op. cit._ p.

521, n. 1) think it possible that they may represent the portions of

the “armour” of the First Man which were not sullied by contact with

matter, and compare them to the last two Amshaspands, Haurvetât and

Ameretât. See also their _Traité Manicheen_, etc. 2^{me} ptie, in the

_Journal Asiatique_, XI série, t. I. (1913), p. 101. One might liken

them to the Cautes and Cautopates appearing in the Mithraic monuments,

as to which see Chapter XII, p. 246 _supra_.

Footnote 1128:

All these subordinate deities were known to St Augustine. Cf. _id. c.

Faust._ Bk XV. c. 6.

Footnote 1129:

Evidently Manes accepted the dictum of Valentinus quoted above (Chap.

IX, p. 104 _supra_), that with celestial powers it is always the

female who gives the form.

Footnote 1130:

Hegemonius, _Acta_, c. XIII, p. 21, Beeson. Αἱ δὲ προβολαὶ πᾶσαι, ὁ

Ἰησοῦς ὁ ἐν τῷ μικρῷ πλοίῳ, καὶ ἡ μήτηρ τῆς ζωῆς, καὶ οἱ δώδεκα

κυβερνῆται, καὶ ἡ παρθένος τοῦ φωτὸς καὶ ὁ πρεσβύτης ὁ τρίτος ὁ ἐν τῷ

μεγάλῳ πλοίῳ, καὶ τὸ ζῶν πνεῦμα καὶ τὸ τεῖχος τοῦ μεγάλου πυρὸς καὶ τὸ

τεῖχος τοῦ ἀνέμου, καὶ τοῦ ἀέρος, καὶ τοῦ ὕδατος, καὶ τοῦ ἔσωθεν πυρὸς

τοῦ ζῶντος πρὸς τὸν μικρὸν φωστῆρα οἰκοῦσιν, ἄχρις ἂν τὸ πῦρ

κατανελώσῃ τὸν κόσμον ὅλον· ἐν ποσοῖς πότε ἔτεσιν, ὧν οὐκ ἔμαθον τὴν

ποσότητα. “But all the emanations [_i.e._], Jesus who is in the small

ship, and the Mother of Life and the 12 pilots, and the Virgin of

Light, and the Third Legate who is in the large ship, and the Living

Spirit and the wall [it should be ‘guardian,’ as MM. Chavannes and

Pelliot explain] of the great fire, and the guardian of the Ether, and

of the air, and of the water, and of the inner living fire, abide near

the lesser light until the fire has consumed the whole Cosmos. But for

how many years I have not learned.” The Latin version runs:

_Prolationes autem omnes Jesus in modica navi, et mater vitae et

duodecim gubernatores et virgo lucis et senior tertius. Unde et majori

in navi vivens spiritus adhibetur, et murus ignis illius magni, et

murus venti et aeris et aquae et interioris ignis vivi, quae omnia in

luna habitabunt usquequo totum mundum ignis absumat; in quot autem

annis numerum non didici_:—which appears to be nonsense. The number of

years which Turbo, who is here speaking, had not learned, is said by

En Nadîm to be 1468.

Footnote 1131:

Cumont, _Cosmog. Manich._ pp. 58 _sqq._ and Appendix I.

Footnote 1132:

Chavannes et Pelliot, _op. cit._ (1^{ère} ptie), p. 522, and n. 1. For

the part played by him in the Chinese treatise see _op. cit._ p. 536,

and n. 2. He is called “Mighty Srôsh” in the Turfan texts (Müller,

_Handschriften-Reste_, p. 75).

Footnote 1133:

J. Darmesteter, _The Zend Avesta_, part I. (S. B. E. vol. 4, pp. 87,

99) and part II. (S. B. E. vol. 23, pp. 159-167). All the passages in

which he is referred to come from the Vendidad, but he is also

mentioned in the Bundahish. See West, _Pahlavi Texts_, part I. (S. B.

E. vol. 5, p. 128).

Footnote 1134:

See n. 2 _supra_. M. Cumont (_Cosmog. Manich._ p. 34) thinks that this

Messenger was added to the two triads (of Father, Mother, and Son, and

the Friend of the Lights, Great Ban, and Living Spirit, respectively)

in order to make up “the sacred number of seven.” But seven is a

number singularly neglected by the Manichaeans, who paid the greatest

reverence to five, and preferred to seven the three and the twelve.

Nor do I think that there is any real parallel in Manichaeism to the

Seven Amshaspands of Zoroastrianism. The actual word _amshaspand_ is

used in the Tun-huang treatise (Chavannes et Pelliot, _op. cit._

1^{ère} ptie, p. 544), but with an entirely different signification

from that of archangel or divinity. It seems there to mean simply

“element.” Cf. Chavannes et Pelliot, _op. cit._ 2^{me} partie, p. 101.

Footnote 1135:

I can find no parallel to these powers in any other system, save that

of the _Pistis Sophia_, where appear twelve Saviours of the

Treasure-house of Light, from whom the souls of the Twelve Apostles of

Jesus were said to be drawn. If, therefore, they are not the signs of

the Zodiac, they may be an invention of the Manichaeans to accord with

the _magistri_ or highest order of their Church (see p. 330 _infra_).

Footnote 1136:

Cumont, _Cosmog. Manich._ p. 36.

Footnote 1137:

Pognon, _op. cit._ pp. 189, 190. He says it was the Messenger (or

Srôsh) who ordered the Great Ban to create a new world. M. Kugener,

however (Cumont, _Cosmog. Manich._ p. 37, n. 4), says that the passage

can be read as in the text, and this avoids the improbability of the

younger power or Third Legate giving orders to one of the “second

creation.” The three wheels, fire, water, and earth, may possibly have

been conceived as surrounding the earth, as with the Ophites of the

Diagram. Cf. Chap. VIII, n. 3, p. 74 _supra_.

Footnote 1138:

I read this, perhaps wrongly, thus instead of Five Trees as does

Pognon (_op. cit._ p. 191). The five kinds of trees are often referred

to in the Tun-huang treatise and in the _Khuastuanift_.

Footnote 1139:

This Saclas, who appears many times in Greek heresiology with his wife

Nebrod, called in the text Namraël (for references, see Cumont,

_Cosmog. Manich._ p. 73, and notes 3, 4, and 5), was known to

Hippolytus, who uses both names in his description of the tenets of

the Peratae, a name which may be equivalent to that of the Medes. See

Hipp. _Philosoph._ Bk V. c. 14, pp. 194, 195, Cruice.

Footnote 1140:

Chavannes et Pelliot, _op. cit._ 1^{ère} ptie, p. 566, and n. 3.

Footnote 1141:

Hegemonius, _Acta_, c. XI. p. 18, Beeson.

Footnote 1142:

Augustine, _de Haeresibus_, c. 46, p. 210, Oehler. See also Chavannes

et Pelliot, _op. cit._ 1^{ère} ptie, p. 569, and n. 2; p. 572, and nn.

2, 3; and p. 581, and n. 4. MM. Chavannes and Pelliot discuss the

question of the organization of the Manichaean Church in the second

part of their memoir. See _op. cit._ 2^{me} ptie, pp. 193, 196 and n.

2. They also give a dissertation on the common life of the Elect. It

remains to be seen whether this was anything more than a copy of the

monastic institutions of the Buddhists. For obvious reasons, such an

organization was not adopted in lands where they had outwardly to

conform to other religions.

Footnote 1143:

So Professor Harnack and Mr Conybeare in the _Encyc. Brit._ (XIth

ed.), vol. XVII. p. 576, _s.v._ Manichaeism.

Footnote 1144:

“_Beatus pater_” is the name given to the _Tertius legatus_ by

Evodius, _de recta fide_, _passim_.

Footnote 1145:

Augustine, _c. Faust._ Bk XV. c. 5.

Footnote 1146:

_Op. cit._ Bk XX. c. 9.

Footnote 1147:

Cumont, _Cosmog. Manich._ App. 2, “L’Omophore.” He shows that this

belief in an angel who supports the world on his shoulders goes back

to the Assyrian cylinder-seals, where is found a world-bearing

divinity in exactly the same pose as that reproduced in the Mithraic

bas-reliefs.

Footnote 1148:

One of the silk banners obtained by the German expedition seems to

have depicted this scene. See A. von Le Coq, _Chotscho_:

Facsimile-Wiedergaben der Wichtigerer Funde der Ersten Kgl. Preuss.

Expedition nach Turfan, Berlin, 1913, Bd 1, p. 1 and Pl. IV. 6.

Footnote 1149:

Augustine, _c. Faust._ Bk XX. c. 17. Is the prayer addressed to the

First Man or to Splenditenens, whom St Augustine represents as

mourning over the pollution of the Light?

Footnote 1150:

The praises in the text are all given by En Nadîm. See Flügel, _op.

cit._ p. 96. Are “the two sciences” the Living Spirit and his

Intelligence or Reason? If so the “Father of Majesty” probably means

the _Beatus Pater_ of note 2, p. 331 _supra_.

Footnote 1151:

The Mediaeval Inquisitors were in especial never tired of denouncing

the immorality of the Manichaean Hearers. See H. C. Lea, _History of

the Inquisition_, index.

Footnote 1152:

The original documents are described by Prof. A. von Le Coq in

“Turkish Khuastuanift from Tun-huang,” _J.R.A.S._ 1911, pp. 277-279.

Footnote 1153:

There are many allusions in Manichaean literature to three worlds of

light, which seem to be (1) the light inaccessible, or heaven of God;

(2) the light intelligible, _i.e._ that can be comprehended by the

mind only, which is inhabited by the First Man; and (3) the

perceptible light, of which the Sun and Moon are the rulers. See

especially Chavannes et Pelliot, _op. cit._ 1^{ère} ptie, pp. 564 and

586, and 2^{me} ptie, p. 102, n. 2. The Manichaeans’ addiction to the

number five needs no insistence. Fifteen, _i.e._ 3 × 5, is therefore a

number which came naturally to them.

Footnote 1154:

Shimnu seems to be the Buddhist word for “devil.” Cf. Neander, _Ch.

Hist._ vol. II. p. 181. Prof. von Le Coq (_J.R.A.S._ 1911, p. 300)

says it is of Soghdian origin. Chavannes et Pelliot, _op. cit._

1^{ère} ptie, p. 523, n. 3, seek to show that it is the equivalent of

Ahriman.

Footnote 1155:

On this word see p. 323 _supra_; cf. Chavannes et Pelliot, _op. cit._

1^{ère} ptie, p. 542, n. 2, which seems to summarize all that there is

to be said about it, and p. 342 _infra_.

Footnote 1156:

This was of course the exact statement of Zervanism, which the

_Khuastuanift_ implicitly condemns. Cf. Mihr Nerses’ proclamation in

450 A.D. quoted on p. 285 _supra_.

Footnote 1157:

This was the name of the owner, which was _Raimast Parzind_ in the

Tun-huang text of Sir Marc Stein.

Footnote 1158:

This was the name given to the incarnate, as distinguished from the

spiritual, messengers of the God of Light to man. Thus Zoroaster is

always spoken of in Manichaean literature as a Burkhan, and doubtless

the historical Buddha and Jesus were included in the same category.

Cf. Chavannes et Pelliot, _op. cit._ 1^{ère} ptie, p. 572, n. 2.

Footnote 1159:

Obviously the authors of the _Khuastuanift_ knew nothing of the

doctrine put forth by the Manichaeans in Christian lands that the

First Man offered himself as a sacrifice to destroy the sons of

Darkness. Cf. n. 2, p. 294 _supra_.

Footnote 1160:

Because by so doing the existence of the diabolic creation would be

prolonged.

Footnote 1161:

The words “of the Messenger” [God] are not in Prof. von Le Coq’s

version.

Footnote 1162:

Cf. Chavannes et Pelliot, _op. cit._ 1^{ère} ptie, pp. 503, n. 1. On

this being mentioned in a paper in the _J.R.A.S._ 1913, Dr F. Denison

Ross said that he thought the date should be put 300 years later, _J.

cit._ p. 81. He has since withdrawn this (_J.R.A.S._ 1913, pp.

434-436).

Footnote 1163:

See the luminous historical study by M. Henri Cordier, “Les Fouilles

en Asie Centrale,” _Journal des Savans._, Paris, 1910, pp. 219 _sqq._,

especially pp. 249, 250.

Footnote 1164:

Chavannes et Pelliot, _op. cit._ 1^{ère} ptie, p. 513, n. 1. Müller,

_Handschriften-Reste_, pp. 20, 22. Von Le Coq, _J.R.A.S._ 1911, p.

301.

Footnote 1165:

Ormuzd, “the whole circuit of the sky,” although he calls him, _more

Graecorum_, Zeus, “the sun and moon, the earth, fire, water and the

winds,” were “the only gods whose worship had come down to the

Persians from ancient times” in the days of Herodotus. Cf. Herodotus,

Bk I. c. 131.

Footnote 1166:

Faustus (Aug. _v. Faust._ Bk II. c. 4) distinctly says “Jesus Christ

is the son of the First Man.” Cf. also c. 5.

Footnote 1167:

It is very doubtful whether it is referred to or not in the Tun-huang

treatise. Cf. Chavannes et Pelliot, _op. cit._ 1^{ère} ptie, pp. 515,

n. 2, and p. 516, n. 3.

Footnote 1168:

The Power whom Faustus (Aug. _c. Faust._ Bk XX. c. 2) calls “God the

Son.”

Footnote 1169:

Evidently the incarnate or human messengers, Zoroaster, Buddha, Jesus,

and Manes. The heavenly “legates” are never depicted as “preaching” to

men.

Footnote 1170:

The Past, Present and Future, called the “Three Moments” in the

Tun-huang treatise. See Chavannes et Pelliot, _op. cit._ 11^{me} ptie,

pp. 114, 116.

Footnote 1171:

Probably the strong or mighty Srôsh or _Tertius Legatus_.

Footnote 1172:

This may be compared to the Ophite Diagram in which Agape or Love is

made the summit of the Pantheon. See Chap. VIII p. 68 _supra_. See

also the same dogma in Valentinus, Chap. IX p. 123 _supra_.

Footnote 1173:

Flügel, _op. cit._ pp. 95, 96.

Footnote 1174:

As to these, see En Nadîm in Flügel, _op. cit._ pp. 97-100.

Footnote 1175:

Chavannes et Pelliot, _op. cit._ 1^{ère} ptie, p. 543, n. 2.

Footnote 1176:

Augustine, _de Moribus Manichaeorum_, c. X. Cf. Baur, _Das

Manichäische Religionssystem_, pp. 248 _sqq._ Chavannes et Pelliot,

_op. cit._ 1^{ère} ptie, p. 547, n. 1, examine the question whether

these are borrowed from Buddhism as F. W. K. Müller and Cumont assert,

and incline to the view that Manes took them from Zoroastrianism.

Footnote 1177:

The word _vusanti_ does not seem to be explained by Prof. von Le Coq.

Has it any connection with the Sanskrit _vasanta_ “spring”? In that

case, the 50 days fast may have been continuous like the Christian

Lent and the Mahommedan Ramadan. But it seems more likely that it

refers to the weekly fast on Sunday which, the _Fihrist_

notwithstanding, seems to have been incumbent on all the Manichaeans,

Elect and Hearers alike. So Chavannes et Pelliot, _op. cit._ 2^{me}

ptie, p. 111, n. 2. See n. 4, p. 349 _infra_.

Footnote 1178:

Prof. von Le Coq says (_J.R.A.S._ 1911, p. 307) that this word is as

yet unexplained and may belong to another language than Turkish. One

is almost tempted to see in it a corruption of the Yom Kippur or Day

of Atonement of the Jews. Judaism is the last religion from which the

Manichaeans would have consciously borrowed; but the Jews have always

taken their goods where they found them, and it may well be that both

Jews and Manichaeans were here drawing from a common source.

Footnote 1179: