Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/508

Rh 484 MANICH^EISM Ethics social polity, ^ ml. . of the Mani- ehaeans. the religion of Moses and the prophets), while the spirits of light carried on their process of distillation with the view of gaining the pure light which exists in the world. But these good spirits can only save men by imparting to them the true gnosis concerning nature and her forces, and by calling them away from the service of darkness and sensuality. To this end prophets, preachers of true knowledge, have been sent into the world. Mani, follow ing the example of the gnostic Jewish Christians, appears to have held Adam, Noah, Abraham (perhaps Zoroaster and Buddha) to be such prophets. Probably Jesus was also accounted a prophet who had descended from the world of light, not, however, the historical Jesus, the devilish Messiah of the Jews, but a contemporaneous phantom Jesus, who neither suffered nor died (Jesus impatibilis}. According to the teaching of some Mani- chaeans, it was the primal man who disseminated the true gnosis in the character of Christ. But at all events Mani himself, on his own claim, is to be reckoned the last and greatest prophet, who took up the work of Jesus impatibilis and of Paul (for he too finds recognition), and first brought full knowledge. He is the &quot;leader,&quot; the &quot;ambassador of the light,&quot; the &quot;Paraclete.&quot; It is only through his agency and that of his imitators &quot; the elect,&quot; that the separation of the light from the darkness can be completed. The system contains very fantastic descrip tions of the processes by which the portions of light when once set free finally ascend even to the God of light. He who during his lifetime did not become one of the elect, who did not completely redeem himself, has to go through a severe process of purification on the other side of the grave, till he too is gathered to the blessedness of the light. It is erroneous, however, to ascribe, as has been done, a doctrine of transmigration to the Manichaeans. Of course men s bodies as well as the souls of the unsaved, who according to the oldest conception have in them no light whatever, fall under the sway of the powers of darkness. A later view, adapted to the Christian one, represents the portions of light in the unsaved as actually becoming lost. When the elements of light have at last been completely, or as far as possible, delivered from the world, the end of all things comes. All glorious spirits assemble, the God of light himself appears, accompanied by the aeons and the perfected just ones. The angels supporting the world withdraw themselves from their burden, and everything falls in ruins. A tremendous conflagration consumes the world ; the perfect separation of the two powers takes place once more ; high above is the kingdom of light, again brought into a condition of completeness, and deep below is the (Inow powerless) darkness. O n the basis of such a cosmical philosophy, ethics can only have a dualistic ascetic character. Manichaean ethics j 3 no t merely negative, however, since it is necessary to cherish, strengthen, and purify the elements of light, a3 we ^ as f ree oneself from the elements of darkness. The aim is not self-destruction, but self-preservation ; and yet the ethics of Manichaeism appears in point of fact as thoroughly ascetic. The Manichaean had above all to refrain from sensual enjoyment, shutting himself up against it by three seals, the signaculum oris, maniis, and sinus. The signaculum oris forbids all eating of unclean food (which included all bodies of animals, wine, &c., vege table diet being allowed because plants contained more light, though the killing of plants, or even plucking their fruit and breaking their twigs, was not permitted), as well as all impure speech. The signaculum manus prohibits all traffic with things generally, in so far as they carry in them elements of darkness. Finally by the signaculum sinus every gratification of sexual desire, and hence also marriage, is forbidden. Besides all this, life was further regulated by an exceedingly rigorous system of fasts. Certain astronomical conjunctions determined the selection of the fast-days, which in their total number amounted to nearly a quarter of the year. Sunday was regularly solemnized as one, and the practice was also generally observed on Monday. Hours of prayer were determined with equal exactness. The Manichaean had to pray four times a day, each prayer being preceded by ablutions. The worshipper turned towards the sun, or the moon, or the north, as the seat of light ; but it is erroneous to conclude from this, as has been done, that in Manichaeism the sun and moon were themselves objects of worship. Forms of prayer used by the Manichaeans have been preserved to us in the Fihrist. The prayers are addressed to the God of light, to the whole kingdom of light, to the glorious angels, and to Mani himself, who is apostrophized in them as &quot; the great tree, which is all salvation.&quot; According to Kesslev, these prayers are closely related to the Mandaean and the ancient Babylonian hymns. An asceticism so strict and painful as that demanded by Manichcjeism could only be practised by few; hence the religion must have abandoned all attempts at an extensive propaganda, had it not con ceded the principle of a twofold morality. A distinction was made in the community between the Electi (Perfecti), the perfect Manichseans, and the Cateckumeni (Auditores), the secular Manichaeans. Only the former submitted themselves to all the demands made by their religion ; for the latter the stringency of the precepts was relaxed. They Lad to avoid idolatry, sorcery, avarice, false hood, fornication, &c.; above all, they were not allowed to kill any living being (the ten commandments of Mani). They had also to free themselves as much as possible from the world ; but in truth they lived very much as their non-Manichaean fellow-citizens. We have here essentially the same condition of things as in the Catholic Church, where a twofold morality was also in force, that of the religious orders and that of secular Christians, only that the position of the electi in Manichaeism was a more distinguished one than that of the monks in Catholicism. For, after all, the Christian monks never quite forgot that salvation is given by God through Christ, whereas the Manichoean electi were actually themselves redeemers. Hence it was the duty of the auditores to pay the greatest respect and most assiduous attention to the electi. These &quot; perfect ones,&quot; wasting away under their asceticism, were objects of admiration, and of the most elaborate solicitude. 1 Food was presented to them in abundance, and by their eating it the electi set free the portions of light from the vegetables. They prayed for the auditores, they blessed them and interceded for them, thereby shortening the process of purification the latter had to pass through after death. It was only the electi, too, who possessed full knowledge of religious truths, a point of distinction from Catholicism. The distinction between electi and auditores, however, does not exhaust the conception of the Manichaean Church ; on the contrary, the latter possessed a hierarchy of three ranks, so that there were altogether five grada tions in the community. These were regarded as a copy of the ranks of the kingdom of light. At the head stood the teachers (&quot; the sons of meekness,&quot; Mani himself and his successors) ; then follow the administrators (&quot;the sons of knowledge,&quot; the bishops) ; then the elders (&quot; the sons of understanding,&quot; the presbyters) ; the electi (&quot; the sons of mystery&quot;); and finally the auditores (&quot;the sons of 1 Analogous to this is the veneration in which the Catholic monks and the Neo-Platonic &quot;philosophers&quot; were held, but the prestige of the Manichsean electi was greater than that of the monks and the philosophers.