Manichaeism

Electi Maniqueos, represented as scribes, with panel in uigur. Manuscript of Khocho, Cuenca del Tarim, (Museum für Indische Kunst, Berlin, MIK III 6368 R), paper painting, 8th or 9th centuries.

Manichaeism is the name given to the universalist religion founded by the wise Persian Mani (or Manes; c. 215-276), who claimed to be the last of the prophets sent by God to humanity, following Zoroaster, Buddha and Jesus.

Manichaeism is conceived from its origins as the definitive faith, since it intends to complete and invalidate all the others. By competing in this sense with other religions, such as Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Gnostic Christianity and Islam, numerous phenomena of doctrinal fusion were derived from their contacts with them.

The theological definition of Manichaeism has divided critics. While, for some scholars, the Manichaean phenomenon is not reducible to a dualistic conception of divinity and the cosmos, nor is it definable as Gnosticism, for many other scholars it is essentially Gnostic and dualistic.

Part of its doctrinal essence is based on understanding that there are two creative principles in constant conflict: good and evil. For this reason, by extension and in a pejorative way, this term is also used to refer to the "tendency to reduce reality to a radical opposition between good and bad".

It spread from Late Antiquity through the Roman Empire and the Sassanid Empire, and in the Middle Ages through the Islamic world, Central Asia, Japan, England, France and China, where it would last at least until the 17th century. It has even been said that Manichaeism spread from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

For this reason, their sacred liturgical writings and their own sources are recorded in multiple languages, including Latin, Greek, Coptic, Middle Persian, Chinese, Parthian, Sogdian, etc. For the rest, there are non-Manichean sources that report on the beliefs and customs of this religion from Saint Augustine with his work Against Heretics , to al-Biruni. In the Middle Ages, Catharism and Bogomilism were considered heresies with Manichean roots, and today some sects and new religions declare themselves Manichean or Neo-Manichean, although without a direct or historical relationship with Manichaeism.

History

Maniquea Hall (Moni dian) of the Longxing temple in the Zhengding district in the Chinese province of Hebei.

Electi in a mural painting from Khocho, in the Chinese Turkestan, preserved at the Museum für Indische Kunst in Berlin, X-XI centuries.

It began in the 3rd century in Babylonia, in the Sassanid Empire, spread across the East to China through the Tarim River Basin, and into many parts of the Roman Empire. It was a universalist religion, which took advantage of the Silk Road for its expansion, but which was soon persecuted in the Islamic area and the Christian West, lasting above all in the Far East.

Manichaeism spread west from Alexandria to Carthage, and from there to Hispania. In the late IV century, Saint Jerome would speak of high-born women on the Lusitania who had become adepts of Mani, there being an important center of Manichaeism in Emerita Augusta, where Mithraism already existed. A parallel advance took place in Italy and Gaul.

According to all available evidence, Manichaeism survived mainly in China until the early 17th century, during the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), and some of its ideas and principles even later, early 20th century. Despite the dualism so alien to Chinese concepts, Manichaeism, known under the name of the religion of light, achieved some success thanks to the incorporation of Buddhist and Taoist elements. A Catechism of the Religion of the Buddha of Light has even been drafted in Chang'an, in the year 731, by imperial order.

In 2005 a team of scholars postulated the possibility that a Manichaean cult may have survived to the present.

Life in the Manichaean community

The Manichaean community was divided into two groups:

• The electin Latin electiThey spent their time in prayer, practiced celibacy and were vegetarians. After his death, according to the Manichaean theology, the elect reached the Kingdom of Light.

• The listenersin Latin auditors, they should serve the elect, they could marry (although they were discouraged from having children) and practiced fasting every week. At his death, they hoped to reincarnate in the elect.

For the Kingdom of Light to triumph over darkness, all the elect and listeners had to reach the Kingdom of Light. In reality, it was not a triumph that the Manichaeans were looking for, but a return to the original state, the separation of Good and Evil. As evil is indestructible, the only way to reach the Kingdom of Light is to flee from Darkness.

Bema Festival

The fundamental religious festival of the Manichaeans was the Bema, which was celebrated annually:

The Bema It was originally, in the Syrian Christian Church, a seat located in the middle of the ship from which the bishop presided and the Gospel was read. In the Manicha temples, the Bema It was a throne of five steps, covered by valuable tissues, which symbolized the five scales of the hierarchy. The top of the Bema was always empty, as it corresponded to the seat of Mani. This celebration took place during the spring equinox, and was preceded by fasts, symbolizing the Passion and death of Mani, constituting a strict parallel of the Christian Passover.

Although the Bema is often presumed to be empty, there is some evidence from the Coptic Manichaean script "Psalms of the Bema", that in the Bema there was a copy of the Arzhang, a book illustrated according to tradition by Mani, which narrated the creation of the Universe.

Doctrine

Cosmology maniquea, painting of the Yüen dynasty.

Jesus Christ as the Manique prophet, the figure can be identified as a representation of Jesus Christ by the little golden cross that sits on the pedestal red lotus on his left hand, centuryXIII.

The Manichaeans, like the Gnostics, Mandaeans and Mazdeans, were dualists: they believed that there was an eternal struggle between two opposite and irreducible principles, Good and Evil, which were associated with Light (Zurván) and Darkness. (Ahriman) and, therefore, they considered that the spirit of man is of God but the body of man is of the devil. This was explained through a set of anthropogenic myths, of Gnostic and Zoroastrian influence. In man, the spirit or light is held captive by corporeal matter; therefore, they believe that it is necessary to practice strict asceticism to start the process of releasing the trapped Light. That is why they despise matter, even the body. The "listeners" aspired to reincarnate as "chosen ones", who would no longer need to reincarnate anymore.

Zoroaster, Plato, Jesus, Buddha and many other religious figures would have been sent to humanity to help them in their spiritual liberation, Mani being the Seal of the Prophets.

In practice, Manichaeism denies human responsibility for the evils committed because it believes that they are not the product of free will, but rather the domination of evil over our lives. For this reason they considered the peacock (Pavo cristatus) their sacred animal, because its plumage colors revealed the different spiritual states through which the body passed to achieve purification and transformation into the divine spirit.