was an innate characteristic of the Gnostic brood; whence it followed that they became apparent in small sects only, computed at some scores, and, though numerous, never attained the weight of union as a religious body. Gradually they were dissolved by the preponderance of the Catholic Church, which absorbed their members and proscribed their peculiar tenets.[1]
There was, however, one form of dualism which arose beyond the borders of the Empire, and, from its centre in Persia, spread with great rapidity eastwards to the frontiers of China, and westwards as far as the Atlantic ocean. This international faith, for such it became in less than a century, was called Manichaeism from its founder Mani, of whom little certain is known; but he was probably a native of Ecbatana, the Median capital.[2] As the prophet of a new dispensation, Mani belongs to the second class of makers of religion, that is, he did not claim to be himself a god, but only an apostle commissioned by the Deity. His life ex-*
- [Footnote: Hell to be crucified there a second time for the salvation of devils; see
Origen, De Principiis, I, vi, 2, 3; Labbe, Concil. (1759), ix, 533, can. 7, etc.]
- ↑ Unless it should be maintained that Christianity germinated in Gnostic soil, the most vigorous growth which overshadowed and in the end annihilated its weaker associates, a not untenable hypothesis.
- ↑ The two portly folios devoted to the history of Manichaeism (Amst., 1734), by Beausobre, must now be supplemented by more recent, though less extensive, works, owing to the activity of modern scholars among Oriental sources. St. Augustine was a Manichaean for eight years, and the most reliable details are to be collected from his writings after he became a Christian, and issued diatribes against his former teachers. Socrates gives a short life of Mani, fabulous in great part most likely; i, 22; the latest researches are those of Kessler. The best summary will be found in Harnack, Hist. of Dogma, iii, p. 317, to which is appended a bibliography of the subject.
