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The Cult Dossier · No. 013 · Syncretic / Other Nrm

Manichaeism

The Religion of Light

c.240 – 14th c. CE in China · Sasanian Persia; spread from Roman North Africa to Tang China

I. ANTIQUITY — THE MYSTERY CULTS

Fully religious — a world religion, not a sect

Who led it

MANI (c.216–274 CE), born in Mesopotamia, raised in the Elchasaite baptist sect. Declared himself the Seal of the Prophets and the Paraclete promised by Jesus, the final messenger after Zoroaster, Buddha and Jesus.

What it worshipped and taught

Absolute dualism of two co-eternal principles, Light (God, spirit) and Darkness (matter, body). The cosmos is a machine for distilling trapped Light out of matter. Elaborate mythology of the Primal Man, the Living Spirit and the Column of Glory. Two classes: the ELECT, bound to celibacy, vegetarianism and poverty, who liberated Light by digesting sacred food; and the HEARERS, who supported them and hoped to be reborn as Elect.

Who was in it

Mani; King Shapur I, his protector; King Bahram I, his executioner; the Zoroastrian high priest Kartir; Mar Ammo; the Uyghur khagan Bögü; AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO, a Hearer for nine years (373–382) before converting and becoming Manichaeism's fiercest critic.

How it ended, or where it stands

Persecuted simultaneously by Zoroastrians, Christians, Muslims and Confucians; extinct by roughly the 17th century.

The dead

Unknown, extensive

Of note

THE SUPERLATIVE PREVIOUSLY HERE — ‘the most persecuted major religion in world history’ — IS NOT MEASURABLE AND HAS BEEN WITHDRAWN. What is documented is stranger and better: MANICHAEISM WAS PERSECUTED SIMULTANEOUSLY BY ZOROASTRIANS, CHRISTIANS, MUSLIMS AND CONFUCIANS, across a range running from Persia to China and a span of roughly fourteen centuries. Almost no other faith was hunted by that many mutually hostile establishments at once. It is also the origin of MANICHAEAN as a term for absolute good-versus-evil thinking — a word that outlived the religion by centuries.

Its timeline

  1. c.228–240 CE Mani receives revelations from his Twin (syzygos) and begins preaching.
  2. c.240 CE Missionary journey to India; converts the Turan Shah.
  3. 242 CE Gains the patronage of Shapur I; writes the Shabuhragan for him.
  4. 274 or 277 CE DIED IN PRISON AT GUNDESHAPUR after 26 DAYS IN CHAINS. THE FAMOUS ACCOUNT IS A LEGEND. The story that he was flayed alive, stuffed with straw and crucified above the city gate HAS NO HISTORICAL BASIS. What more plausibly happened is post-mortem mutilation — decapitation, with the head displayed. THE CRUCIFIXION IMAGE CAME FROM HIS OWN FOLLOWERS, who depicted his death that way in DELIBERATE ANALOGY TO THE CRUCIFIXION OF JESUS; the embellishment then passed into the historical record. The date is uncertain: 2 March 274 or 26 February 277, the underlying record being an Aramaic lunar date whose year was never written down.
  5. 297 CE Diocletian's edict against the Manichaeans — burning of leaders and books.
  6. 762 CE Uyghur Khaganate adopts Manichaeism as state religion — the only state ever to do so.
  7. 843–845 CE Tang persecution; Uyghur collapse.
  8. 1368 onward Chinese Manichaeism survives underground as Ming-jiao; the Cao'an temple in Fujian, built 1339, still stands.

Its people

Mani

the Apostle of Light; the Seal of the Prophets

Founder, Manichaeism · c.216 – 274/277 CE · active c.240–274 CE

Raised in a Jewish-Christian baptist sect in Mesopotamia, he received revelations from a spirit he called his Twin and broke away to found a religion he designed from the outset to be universal — he wrote his own scriptures in multiple languages, illustrated them himself, and organised missions east and west. He won the patronage of the Persian king Shapur I and preached freely for thirty years. Under Shapur's successor Bahram I the Zoroastrian priesthood moved against him. He was imprisoned in chains and died in custody; THE ACCOUNT OF HIS DEATH THAT SURVIVES IS NOT HISTORY BUT THEOLOGY. The famous story — flayed alive, stuffed with straw, crucified over the gates of Gundeshapur — has no historical basis. He died in prison after 26 days in chains; his body was most plausibly decapitated after death and the head displayed. THE CRUCIFIXION VERSION ORIGINATED WITH HIS OWN FOLLOWERS, who cast his death as a deliberate parallel to that of Jesus. A founder's martyrdom being rewritten by his church into the shape of an earlier martyrdom is a mechanism this dossier records repeatedly; here it worked so well that it entered the standard histories.

Before the law. Imprisoned by the Sasanian state at the urging of the Zoroastrian high priest Kartir, and died in chains. He was not, on the evidence, executed by flaying or crucifixion — that account is a later embellishment.

Where things stand. Deceased. His religion was later persecuted by four separate civilisations and is extinct.

  1. c.228–240 CE Receives revelations; begins preaching.
  2. c.240 CE Missionary journey to India.
  3. 242 CE Gains Shapur I's patronage.
  4. 274 or 277 CE Dies in prison at Gundeshapur after 26 days in chains, probably followed by post-mortem decapitation and display of the head.

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