Manichæus, or MANI, the founder of the sect of the Manichæans, who, according to the Mohammedan and most trustworthy tradition, was born at Ecbatana about 215 A.D., and educated at Ctesiphon under his father Futak, who joined the sect of the Moghtasilah (Baptists) in which his son was brought up. This sect was connected with the Mandæans (q.v.), and most probably also with the Elkesaites and Hemerobaptists, and may also have borrowed something from Christianity. At about the age of thirty Mani began to proclaim his new religion at the court of the Persian king, Sapor I., and then undertook long missionary journeys, returning to the court about 270. Pursued by the enmity of the Magians he was obliged to flee, was protected by the next king, Hormuzd, but under his successor, Bahram I., was abandoned to the hatred of his enemies, who crucified him in 276 and flayed his lifeless body. His numerous epistles and writings are lost, and we know of them only from the Arabic catalogue, the Führst, and from allusions in Epiphanius, Augustine, and Photius.
MANICHEISM was a great religious system that sprung up in western Asia about the close of the 3d century, and which, although it utterly disclaimed being denominated Christian, yet was reckoned among the heretical bodies of the Church. It was not an offshoot from Christianity, but was based on the ancient Babylonian religion, and was thus really a Semitic religion of nature modified by Christian and Persian elements, systematised and elevated into a gnosis, and made applicable to human life by a deduced system of ethics. But, while it borrowed nothing from Christianity proper, it derived part of its terminology and some of its conceptions from Christianity as developed among the sects of the Basilidians, Marcionites, and Bardesanes. The Western Manichæans adopted many Christian elements which were not present in the original system of its founder nor in its purer Eastern development. It is possible, although it has not yet been satisfactorily proved, that it borrowed some elements from Buddhism. Baur was the first to work out the theory of a Buddhist element, and was followed by Neander, Hilgenfeld, and other scholars; but his argument has been assailed by Le Page Renouf, Zeller, Lightfoot, and Harnack. Manichæism was essentially a complete dualism, materialistic in so far as the physical and ethical were confounded, and its success, says Harnack, was due to the fact that it united an ancient mythology and a thorough-going materialistic dualism with an exceedingly simple spiritual worship and a strict morality. As has been said, it assumed two chief principles, whence had sprung all visible and invisible creation, and which—totally antagonistic in their natures—were respectively styled the Light, the Good, or God, and the Darkness, the Bad, Matter, or Archon. They each inhabited a region akin to their natures, and excluding each other to such a degree that the region of Darkness and its leader never knew of the existence of that of the Light. Twelve æons—corresponding to the twelve signs of the zodiac and the twelve stages of the world—had emanated from the Primeval Light; while Darkness, filled with the eternal fire, which burned but shone not, was peopled by demons, who were constantly fighting among themselves. In one of these contests, pressing towards the outer edge, as it were, of their region, they became aware of the neighbouring region, and forthwith united, attacked it, and succeeded in carrying captive the Ray of Light that was sent against them at the head of the hosts of Light, and which was the embodiment of the Ideal or Primal Man. The God of Light himself now hastened to the rescue, and with the help of new æons defeated Darkness and set free the primal man in his greater and better part. The smaller and fainter portion, however—the Jesus patibilis of the Western Manichæans—remained in the hands of the powers of Darkness, and out of this they formed, after the ideal of the Man of Light, mortal man. But even the small fraction of light left in him, broken in two souls, would have prevailed against them, had they not found means to further divide and subdivide it by the propagation of this man. Thus man was originally formed in the image of Satan, but contained within him a spark of the heavenly light, which awaits its final deliverance by separation from the enveloping darkness. The demons sought to obscure it further by sensuality and dark forms of belief and faith, such as Paganism and Judaism; but the spirits of Light are constantly engaged in drawing out the dimmed and buried light hidden in the world, by opening up to men the true gnosis of nature, and weaning them away from sensuality and error. Thus there appeared in the world a succession of teachers, as Adam, Noah, Abraham, and probably Zoroaster and Buddha. Jesus also was such a teacher, but he was neither the historical Christ of Christianity, nor the Messiah of the Jews, but a phantasmal Jesus (Jesus impatibilis), who did not actually suffer, as he seemed, on the cross, but only allowed himself to become an example of endurance and passive pain for his own, the souls of light. Since even his immediate adherents, the apostles, were not strong enough to suffer as he had commanded them, he promised them a Paraclete, who should complete his own work. This Paraclete was Mani, who surrounded himself, like Christ, with twelve apostles, and sent them into the world to teach and to preach his doctrine of salvation. The end of the world will be fire, in which the region of Darkness will be consumed.
To attain to the region of eternal light, it is necessary that Passion, or rather the Body, should be utterly subdued; hence rigorous abstinence from all sensual pleasures—asceticism, in fact, to the utmost degree—is to be exercised. The believers are divided into two classes—the Electi (Perfecti) and the Catechumeni (Auditores). The Elect have to take the oath of abstinence from evil and profane speech (including 'religious terms such as Christians use respecting the Godhead and religion'), and from flesh, eggs, milk, fish, wine, and all intoxicating drinks; from the possession of riches, or, indeed, any property whatsoever; from hurting any being—animal or vegetable; from heeding their own family, or showing any pity to him who is not of the Manichæan creed; and finally, from breaking their chastity by marriage or otherwise. The Auditors were comparatively free to partake of the good things of this world, but they had to provide for the subsistence of the Elect, and their highest aim also was the attainment of the state of their superior brethren. In this Manichæan worship, the Visible Representatives of the Light (sun and moon) were revered, but only as representatives of the Ideal, of the Good or supreme God. Neither altar nor sacrifice was to be found in their places of religious assemblies, nor did they erect sumptuous temples. Fasts, prayers, occasional readings in the supposed writings of Mani, were all their outer worship. The Old Testament they rejected unconditionally; of the New Testament they adopted certain portions, as revised and redacted by the Paraclete. Sunday, as the day on which the visible universe was to be consumed, the day consecrated to the sun, was kept as a great festival; and the most solemn day in their year was the anniversary of the death of Mani. The later Manichæans celebrated mysteries analogous to the Christian sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper. St Augustine belonged to the sect for about nine years, and is our chief authority on this subject.
The outward history of the sect is one of almost continuous persecution. Yet it spread rapidly from Persia and Mesopotamia to Syria, northern Africa, and even Constantinople and Rome, drawing adherents from the remnants of the old Gnostic sects, especially from the Marcionites, and on the other hand from men of a rationalistic temperament who were repelled by such dogmas as that of the Incarnation. Both the Roman and Byzantine emperors enacted stringent laws against the Manichæans, the most severe being Valentinian III. and Justinian. Pope Leo the Great persecuted them in Rome, and in northern Africa they were exterminated by the Vandals. But their peculiar doctrines lingered on into the middle ages, and influenced many sects, as the Priscillianists, Paulicians, Bogomiles, Catharists, and Albigenses.
See Beausobre, Hist. critique de Manichée et du Manichéisme (1734); Baur, Das Manich. Religionssystem (1831); Flugel, Mani (1862); Kessler's Untersuchung zur Genesis des Manich. Religionssystem (1876), and his excellent articles, 'Mani' and 'Manichäer,' in vol. ix. of Herzog-Plitt's Real-Encyclopädie; Geyler, Das System des Manichæismus (1875); also Harnack's admirable article in the Encyclopædia Britannica.