His environment was mainly Jewish-Christian with some Gnostic features. His community was presumably Ebionite.
He had visionary experiences.
He left his religion and decided to “preach the true message of Jesus in a new gospel”.
To start with a study of Manichaeism we must examine the life of the founder of Manichaeism, Mani. Mani was born, acording to Manichaean documents, in 216 CE north of Babylon called Mardinu, which is now lost. His parents were Elchasaites, a Gnostic-Judeau-Christian sect which were vegetarian condemned animal sacrifice but followed all other Jewish law strictly. Furthermore, the Elchasaites were strict about their rites, abandoning the Jewish fire for the waters which they considered sacred, and had very strict laws of purity regarding who they could share food with and how such food was prepared. Other than that, little about this sect is known, but it is clear that Mani followed it until he was 25 and it shaped the practices of Manichaeism.
At 25, he supposedly had a revelation, the second of two, where he was told by an angel to reveal the true teachings (at least according to the Hagiography that has been passed down) and he declared his religion and began proselytizing throughout his area. This brought him into conflict with his community as his proselytization efforts took him to the houses of “pagans” and other “unclean” people where he would share their food and drink with them. The Elchasaites disagreed with this and confronted him, he objected to their practices on the grounds that Jesus and Paul did not follow such strict laws and thus he broke with the Elchasaites and moved deeper into Persia.
He traveled east and began establishing his first echoes of a church. Inspired by the apocryphal Acts of Thomas, he moved into India to meet with the Christian communities there and his preaching became popular in the two years he was there. His hagiography describes him as having converting a Buddhist king, but the event is likely apocryphal since, contrary to popular belief, Mani did not spend time in Buddhist circles or study Buddhism. His familiarity with Buddhist doctrine was likely quite slim and only really became part of Manichaean doctrine after his death. He did, however, encounter Buddhism, likely this is where he added the Buddha to his list of prophets (as the prophet of the East).
After two years in India, he returned to Persia where he formed ties with Zoroastrian mystics and began forming relationships with powerful leaders, sometimes taken as conversions (though they were likely not). That said, he did genuinely convert merchants and others who led conversion efforts and expanded his conversion efforts to multiple ethno-linguistic groups. Mani’s new church sought to move beyond the barriers of language and nation, creating a universal church. The Kephalaia gives his mission thus;
He [Jesus] who elected his church in the West, his church has not reached the East. He [Buddha] who elected his church in the East, his election [ekloge] has not come to the West. My hope is to administer [my church] in such a way that it reaches the West and that it may be carried at the same time to the East. And the voice of its preaching will be heard in every language, and it will be announced in every city. My church is superior, in this primary respect, to preceding churches, for the preceding churches were elected only for particular places and particular cities. I administer my church in such a way that it comes to all cities and that its good news reaches all countries.
Mani found his young church at a disadvantage after the death of the Persian King Shapur, who was quite sympathetic to him and tolerant of religious plurality. His son Bahram was a bit of a religious fundamentalist and upon taking charge force Mani and his followers out of the court. Mani began his dualistic and prophetic writings such as the Manichaean Book of Giants, which condemned tyrants and proclaimed his religion.
Near the end of his life Mani made a fatal error in converting Bat, the son of Bahram. Bahram had Mani brought to him where he was hung in chains for a period of time before succumbing to exhaustion and dying. Bahram arrested most of the other Manichaean leaders and had them killed. What happened to Mani’s body is a matter of some debate with the most colorful stories involve his headless corpse stuffed and crucified in a cruel mockery of Jesus (which seems unlikely but was too colorful not to mention.)
Cosmology:
Manichaean cosmology was complicated, it involved a struggle between light and dark that created the earth in a battle for the realm of light. In this cosmology, humans were made up of light and dark essence and the goal was to eliminate the dark through purity and become light again to live in the light realm. Essentially, and this is very abridged, the Great Father lived in the realm of light and the King of Dark lived in the realm of darkness. Each realm was divided into five, with the light realm being the spiritual and mental and the dark realm being physical elements. The King of the Dark decided he would invade the Light realm sending fear into the inhabitants. The Great Father called upon the Mother of Life who in turn called upon the Primordial Man to combat the King of the Dark and his “sons”. The Primordial Man and his five “sons” went to combat the King of the Dark.
They found themselves outmatched and thus offered themselves as “food”, which poisoned the King and his “sons”. The Primordial Man and his sons had intelligence snatched from them after the King and his “sons” had feasted. Recovering, the Primordial Man prayed seven times for the aid of the Great Father. The Great Father called on his servants who called down the chain of command to the Living Spirit, who called on his sons; the Ornament of Splendor, Adamas of Light, the King of Glory, the Great King of Magnificence, and the Porter. The Living Spirit and his sons along with the Mother of Life called out to the Primordial man and brought him out from the darkness.
The Great Father retaliated and had the sons of the King of the Dark killed which created the earth and then sent his messenger to order it. The messenger ordered the planets to spin and revealed his true form, then ejaculated (to expel the sin of the Archons from his body) on the earth creating a serpent (which Adamas killed) and a grove of trees. The beauty of the Messenger’s true form caused the King of Darkness’ daughters, who were pregnant because that was apparently just how they were, to accidentally abort their fetuses who fell to the earth. The King of Darkness took those fetuses and gave them to his companion, most were eaten, but one conceived Adam and Eve with a daughter. Then Jesus went to Adam and revealed the truth of his birth and gave him the apple from the tree of knowledge causing him to realize the loss of purity.
Manichaeism entered China and Mongolia during the Tang dynasty and became the official religion of the Uyghur Khaganate. Here it took on a distinctly Buddhist flavor with Mani being referred to as the Buddha of Light and supplemental Sutras being written to make the doctrine more palatable to the new audience. While still keeping it’s core tenets, Manichaeism presented itself as a form of Buddhism. Much like Nestorian Christianity, it’s success in China came from it’s adoption and synthesis of already existing ideas within China. After Tang persecution, Manichaeans often pretended to be Buddhists or Christians to escape death, but came out to some extent during Mongol rule in China.
Tardieu, Michel. (1997) Manichaeism. University of Chicago Press.
Dan, Jenifer Marie. (2002) Manichaeism and its Spread into China. University of Tennessee Honors Thesis
Lieu, Sammuel L.C. (2002) “Manicaeism in China” Encyclopedia Iranica online edition
Augustine. (400) Against the Manichaeans. I don’t know, some Roman Scribe probably. (Just kidding, Schaff, Philip. The Complete Works of Saint Augustine.)
Mani (ca. 216 –276) grew up in a Jewish-Christian baptizing sect known as the Elkasaites. As a young man, he encountered his “twin,” who gave him revelations from God, and thereafter he presented himself as “The Apostle of Light,” the Paraclete incarnate. He made many converts in Mesopotamia, thanks in part to the protection of Shapur I, but under the infl uence of the high priest Kirdir, he was arrested and put to death during the reign of Bahram I in 276. His religion, Manichaeism, took many elements from Gnostic cosmology, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Judaism, and Christianity. The Manichaeans were divided into two categories of believers, the elect and the auditors, and the religion sought to be universal; to spread his message, Mani painted pictures and wrote in Aramaic and Pahlavi. Afterward, missionaries brought his teachings westward—Manichaeans can be found in Edessa in the 3rd century, for example, while Manichaean writings have been discovered in Egypt and in North Africa and St. Augustine was Manichaean for a time. It also spread to the East, where it survived in China until the 17th century. A number of anti-Manichaean polemical texts were written in Syriac.
Although the Roman emperor Carus (r. 282 –283) was able to take Seleucia-Ctesiphon during the time of Bahram II, the Romans did not make any permanent territorial gains. In 288 a treaty was signed between Diocletian and Bahram. The Church of the East continued to grow in Persian territory, basing its ecclesiastical networks on Persian administrative structure. In Syriac histories in the 3rd century, twenty bishoprics are listed. In 297 the Roman emperor Diocletian issued an anti-Manichaean edict against those who were seen as following a Persian religion, as war had resumed between the Roman Empire and the Persian king of kings, Narseh. The Diocletian reforms allowed for Roman victories to counterbalance those won by Shapur I earlier. He then secured the border with a string of forts built along the Strata Diocletiana, the route between Damascus and Sura, via Palmyra, which was also used for commerce in the region. At this time Christians were persecuted in the Roman Empire, while in the Persian world, Hormizd II (r. 303 –309) was their protector.
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