Page:The history of Witchcraft and demonology.djvu/46

 connected with the Bogomiles and the Mandæans or Johannites.

It is true that in his recent study The Religion of the Manichees, Dr. F. G. Buskitt, with a wealth of interesting detail and research, has endeavoured to show that the Bogomiles, the Cathari, the Albigenses, and other unclean bodies only derived fragments of their teaching from Manichæan sources, and he definitely states “I think it misleading to call these sects, even the Albigensians, by the name of Manichees.” But in spite of his adroit special pleading the historical fact remains; although we may concede that the abominable beliefs of these various Gnostics were perhaps a deduction from, or a development of, the actual teaching of Mani. Yet none the less their evil was contained in his heresy and a logical consequence of it.

In the early years of this century important discoveries of Manichæan MSS. have been made. Three or four scientific expeditions to Chinese Turkestan brought back some thousands of fragments, especially from the neighbourhood of a town called Turfan. Many of these screeds are written in the peculiar script of the Manichees, some of which can be deciphered, although unfortunately the newly found documents are mere scraps, bits of torn books and rolls, and written in languages as yet imperfectly known. Much of the new doctrine is of the wildest and most fantastic theosophy, and the initiate were, as we know, sufficiently cunning not to commit the esoteric and true teachings to writing, but preferred that there should be an oral tradition. One important piece, the Khuastuanift, i.e. “Confession,” has been recovered almost in its entirety. It is in the old Turkestan Turkish language, and seems full of the most astounding contradictions or paradoxes, a consensus of double meanings and subtleties.

The question is asked whether we ought to consider Manichæism as an independent religion or a Christian heresy? Eznih of Kolb, the Armenian writer of the fifth century, when attacking Zoroastrianism, obviously treats Manichæism as a variety of Persian religion. The orthodox documents, however, from Mark the Deacon onwards treat Manichæism as in the main a Christian heresy and this is assuredly the correct view. There is in existence a polemical fragment, a