vastness eludes, or at least renders very difficult, definite historical treatment.
(1) Origin and Principles of Manicheism.—For the fountain of the Manichean heresy we must turn to India (see Baur, Das Manichäische Religionssystem, Tübingen, 1831, pp. 433–451, where there is satisfactory evidence that elements derived both from Buddhism and from Zoroastrism are found in the Manichean system). Darmester recognized the influence of the Zend-Avesta and Zoroastrism upon Manicheism: cf. Zend-Avesta in Sacred Books of the East, t. iv. intro. p. xxxvii. For a thorough exposition of this system see the two large works of Beausobre, Baur's vol. of 500 pp., and Neander's Church Hist. (Bohn's ed.), t. ii. pp. 157–195. We must content ourselves with sketching the leading principles of the sect. Manes probably at first merely desired to blend Christianity and Zoroastrism together. From Zoroastrism he took his Dualism, which consisted of two independent principles absolutely opposed to each other, with their opposite creations: on the one side God (Ahura-Mazda), the original good from whom nothing but good can proceed; on the other side original evil (Angro-Mainyus), whose essence is wild, self-conflicting tumult, matter, darkness, a world full of smoke and vapour. The powers of darkness, contending in wild rage, approached so near in their blind struggle to the realm of light that a gleam from that hitherto unknown kingdom reached them, whereupon they strove to force their way into it. The good God, in order to guard His boundaries, produced the Aeon Mother of Life, by whom the first or spiritual man was produced, together with the five elements, wind, light, water, fire, and matter, to carry on the struggle; which, however, are not identical with the actual elements, but are the elements of the higher world, of which the mundane and actual elements are a copy framed by the Prince of Darkness, a view we find worked out by the Cathari of the 12th cent. (Gieseler, H. E. iii. 452). Primitive man is worsted by the spirits of darkness, who take from him some of his armour, which is his soul (ψυχή). He prays to the Light-King, who sends the Spirit of Life, who rescues him and raises him once more to the Light-Kingdom. Meanwhile the Powers of Darkness had succeeded in swallowing part of the luminous essence of the primeval heavenly man, which they proceeded to shut up in material bodies, as in a prison. But this very violence is the means of their destruction. The Divine Spirit is only enclosed in the material prisons for a time and with a view to final deliverance. To illustrate this Manes used a parable. A shepherd sees a wild beast about to rush into the midst of his flock. He digs a pit and casts into it a kid; the beast springs into the pit to devour his prey, but cannot extricate himself. The shepherd, however, delivers the kid and leaves the lion to perish (Disp. c. Archel. c. 25; Epiph. Haer. lxvi. c. 44). The Spirit of Life at once began his preparations for purifying the souls which had been mixed up with the kingdom of darkness. That part of the soul which had not been affected by matter he placed in the sun and moon, whence it might send forth its influence to release and draw back towards itself, through the refining processes of vegetable and animal life, kindred souls diffused through all nature; for the sun and moon play as important a part in the Manichean as they do in the Persian, Indian, and Mithraic systems (C. B. Stark, Zwei Mithraeen, Heidelberg, 1864, p. 43). To prevent this gradual despiritualization the powers of darkness resolve to produce a being in whom the soul of nature, which was ever striving after liberty, might be securely imprisoned. This is man as he is now, shaped after the image of the primitive man with whom they originally waged war. He was formed by the prince of darkness, and embraces in himself the elements of both worlds, the soul springing from the Light-Kingdom, the body from that of darkness. The powers of darkness now perceive that the light-nature, by concentrating itself in man, has become powerful. They therefore seek to attach him by every possible enticement to the lower world. Here comes in the Manichean story of the Fall, which resembles that of the Ophites. The Powers of Darkness invited man to partake of all the trees of Paradise, forbidding only the tree of Knowledge. But an angel of light, or Christ Himself, the Spirit of the Sun, counteracted their artifices in the shape of the serpent, the parts of the Biblical narrative being thus reversed, God's share being ascribed to the devil and vice versa. The Manichean standpoint with respect to the Fall determined their attitude towards the whole O.T., which they rejected as the work of the evil principle. Likewise their theory about the creation of the material part of man determined their view of the Incarnation, which they regarded as wholly Docetic; if a material body was a prison and a burden to the spirit of man, Christ could scarcely voluntarily imprison His divine Spirit in the same. "Moreover, the Son, when He came for man's salvation, assumed a human appearance, so that He appeared to men as if He were a man, and men thought He had been born" (Epiph. Haer. lxvi. 49). This Docetic view of the Incarnation destroyed the reality of His life, His death, resurrection, and ascension, and struck at the root of all historical Christianity, so that we find at last some later Manicheans maintaining a distinction between the mundane or historical Christ, who was a bad man, and the spiritual Christ, Who was a divine deliverer (Gieseler, H. E. iii. 407, note 28). They attached a mystical signification to orthodox language about our Lord, whereby they could use it to deceive the unwary. Thus they could speak of a suffering son of man hanging on every tree—of a Christ crucified in every soul and suffering in matter. They gave their own interpretation to the symbols of the suffering Son of Man in the Lord's Supper (cf. Petrus Sic. Hist. Man. in Bigne's Bib. PP. xvi. 760). For a thorough exposition of the relations between Manicheism and Buddhism see Baur, l.c. pp. 433–451, where he points out Buddhist influence on Manichean doctrines as to the opposition between matter and spirit, upon the creation and end of the world, and upon moral questions. The most striking points of contact are metempsychosis (Baur, l.c. p. 440), and the stress laid upon
