Bulletin of Catholic University of Peking

60 BULLETIN NUMBER FOUR

Charchar, before learned arbiters. Being worsted in both of these and menaced there- after by the ensuing wrath of the people, the heresiarch fled toa camp ofthe Arabs. Hewas intercepted by the soldiers of the Persian King and flayed alive at the latter’s command in 277 A.D. That Terebinthus of Turbo is spoken of as a distinct person in this narrative

may be due to a misinterpretation of farbitha, - the Aramaic word for

“disciple.” Hence Terebinthus (Tepé8iv@0s) whom Latin and Greek writers identify sometimes with the Scythian Fatak or Patekios (Haréxws) and sometimes with Mani, may be none other than Manihimself who, according to oriental writers, was both the son and disciple of Fatak Babak of Hamadan. Such an assumption, at least, would tend to harmonize, in some degree, the occidental with the oriental version of Mani’s origin.

The account given by Persian, Syrian, and Arabian writers differs materially from that of the Acta Archelai. The most important source of their version of the matter is the Fihrist al’ulum (‘‘Compendium of Sciences’’), the work of the Arab historian Abu’ Lfaradsh which was finished at Bagdad in the year 988 A.D. According to this narrative, Mani wes born at Ctesiphon, the winter residence of the Parthian Kings, in 215-6 A.D. His father’s name was Fatak Babak, the Patekios of Latin and Greek writers The latter came originally from Ecbatana, the capital of Media. Fatak (Iarékxwos) became a convert to the religious ideas of the Moghtasilas, a baptist sect of the lower Euphrates, and lived among them with his son Mani, whose personal name may have been Shuravik (Cubricus). The title “Mani” which later replaced his personal name seems to be derived from the Babylonian Aramaic Mana, and its meaning is probably ‘‘bright,” or “illustrious.”” The young Mani had a revelation of his doctrine at the age of twelve but did not divulge it till later. His first preaching took place in the royal residence on the coronation day of Sapor (Shapur) I, in 241-2 A.D. Mani presented himself as a messenger of God, but the Mazdean priests rejected his doctrine as a menace to the Zoroastrian religion. Sapor’s attitude was such as to compel Mani to flee. He remained outside the Persian empire for about 30 years, returning only in the closing years of Sapor’s reign. He was favored by Hormisdas, who succeeded Sapor

in 242 4.D. But the next Persian monarch, Varahran I, had him arrested and crucified at Shahpur in 276-7 a.D. His corpse was flayed, and the skin stuffed with straw was suspended over one of the city gates as a warning to his followers. Varahran simultaneously inaugurated a severe persecution of the Manichzans, proscribing the practice of this religion in Persia.

Manicheism was essentially a syncretic and eclectic religion bern of the clash of many conflicting religions in Mesopotamia and a consequent desire to harmonize their tenets by means of fusion. The Fihrist quotes-Mani as declaring that the purpose of his religious system was to blend Zoroastrianism with Christianity. And his religion was, in fact, a” mere synthesis of Zoroastrian dualism, Babylonian folklore, Jewish Cabalism, Buddhistic metempsychosis, and Christian Trinitarianism. Dualism, however, was its dominant note, and its cardinal doctrine of two eternal principles of Light and Darkness, Good and Evil, was what gave the system its distinctive character. The religion spread with great rapidity to many parts of Asia, Europe, and Northern Africa. The great St. Augustine himself was for a time under its influence, which, indeed, persisted for centuries in Europe, especially in Spain, France, amd Italy. The Albigensian or Catharist heresy, which broke out in the Middle Ages, represents a recrudescence of Manichezism, the medieval Manicheism being in all probability historically continuous with the older form.

The theoretical system of Mani is very complex. His fundamental tenet, as stated above, is the existence of two Principles, viz., of good and evil respectively. One of these, namely, the Good Principle, is the Lord of the Kingdom of Light, while the other, namely, the Bad Principle, is the Lord of the Kingdom of Darkness. Each of these principles created natures similar to itself and distributed them through their respective kingdoms. The sun and moon are made of good matter; the stars and the air of mixed matter; the terrestrial globe of the basest matter. The men who live in this world consist of three parts, a body made of depraved matter, a sensual soul filled with lusts and descending from the devil, and a rational soul derived from the divine Light, which always wills aright and can only sin by consenting to the lusts of the sentient or