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Topic: Manichaeans


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In the News (Sat 4 Jul 09)

  
  MANICHAEISM - LoveToKnow Article on MANICHAEISM   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-06)
Manichaean tradition relates that Mani received revelations while yet a boy, and assumed a critical attitude towards the religious instruction that was being imparted to him.
Manichaean ethics is not merely negative, however, since it is necessary to cherish, strengthen and purify the elements of light, as well as free oneself from the elements of darkness.
The seat of the Manichaean pope was for centuries in Babylon, at a later period in Samarkand.
www.1911encyclopedia.org /M/MA/MANICHAEISM.htm   (8621 words)

  
 Manichaeism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Manichaean monasteries existed in Rome in 312 during the time of the Christian Pope Miltiades.
By 354, Hilary of Poitiers wrote that the Manichaean faith was a significant force in southern France.
In 296, Diocletian decreed against the Manichaeans: "We order that their organizers and leaders be subject to the final penalties and condemned to the fire with their abominable scriptures.", resulting in numerous martyrs in Egypt and North Africa.
en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Manichaeism   (1502 words)

  
 Manichaeanism and Wolfram's Parzival
Manichaeanism was a very dualistic religion, emphasizing the conflict of God vs. Satan, good vs. evil, life vs. death, light vs. dark, etc. According to Manichaean beliefs, the current era is characterized by a mixture of good and evil, with the light (divine power) being trapped by dark forces of matter.
The goal of all Manichaeans was to free the light from the bondage of matter so that eventually all the divine substance would be reunited (as it had been at the beginning of time).
The Manichaean church was headed by a sort of pope (in a direct line of succession from Mani), under whom there were 12 teachers, 72 regional directors, and many lesser officers.
www.cs.utk.edu /~mclennan/Classes/US310/Manichaeanism.html   (1406 words)

  
 phorum - Chinese Culture Forum at Asiawind - The Persian religion of Manichaeans in Tang China
Manichaeanism ("Mo-ni-jiao" in Chinese) was introduced into China by Persians towards the end of the 7th century and began to spread one century later.
Manichaeanism reappeared, strangely enough, on the coasts of Fukien and Zhejiang in the 11th and 12th centuries AD, and also in the interior of these provinces.
However, it could be that the influence of Manichaeanism was perpetuated in China until the 14th century AD: the name of the Ming Dynasty (Ming=light) (1368-1644) may have been suggested to its founder by the persistent memory of Manichaean traditions in the secret societies of the Mongol Yuan age.
www.asiawind.com /forums/read.php?f=2&i=194&t=194&v=f   (331 words)

  
 Manichaeism
During the Roman Empire, Manichaeism got a strong position in North Africa — St. Augustine was a Manichaean for 9 years before his conversion to Christianity.
Central in the Manichaean teaching was dualism, that the world itself, and all creatures, was part of a battle between the good, represented by God, and the bad, the darkness, represented by a power driven by envy and lust.
There were two groups of Manichaeans, the class of elected, and the laymen.
i-cias.com /e.o/manichae.htm   (678 words)

  
 Augustine Against the Manicheans - Catholic Faith - 3-4/99
Manichaeanism was part of the Gnostic current of the time, yet unlike some esoteric Gnostic sects, it also was a universal religion spread by proselytizing.
Also at the time he was a Manichaean, Augustine was not able to distinguish sensible from intelligible things,7 the very concept he uses in his anti-Manichaean writings to disprove their teaching on two souls.
Manichaeans are correct when they say evil is contrary to nature, says Augustine, but in that statement is the overthrow of their whole doctrine, because to be contrary to nature is to be no nature.
www.catholic.net /rcc/Periodicals/Faith/MARAPR99/augustine.html   (6426 words)

  
 Mani Ascendant   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-06)
Every Manichaean is seen as a celebration of the divine, so proselyzation focuses on how when one joins the church, one joins with the body of the Ormuzd and a chance at the everlasting escape.
Every Manichaean is expected to have a family or at least adopt, for every soul born in a man has a chance of becoming freed through right acts and right thoughts.
Manichaeanism is becoming another normal minority faith, along with the Buddhists and the Jains, and the Manichaean Persians of India are seen more and more as another people of India and not sojourners with allegences to another land, like their Zoroastrian breathren.
www.iav.com /~vangogh/ascendant.html   (9115 words)

  
 [No title]
The Manichaeans agree with me as regards the duty of loving God and our neighbor, but they deny that this is taught in the Old Testament.
Attend, then, ye Manichaeans, if perchance there are some of you of whom your superstition has hold so as to allow you yet to escape.
Thine, as is fit, are the many hospitable, the many friendly, the many compassionate, the many learned, the many chaste, the many saints, the many so ardent in their love to God, that in perfect continence and amazing indifference to this world they find happiness even in solitude.
www.thirdmill.org /files/english/texts/ecf/ecf13.txt   (18527 words)

  
 The Sassanids, to 500 CE
The persecution of Manichaeans continued and includedthe persecution of Christians, Jews and Buddhists.
As with the autocracies before, freedom to worship depended upon the whim of the ruler, and for awhile persecution was lifted from the Manichaeans, Christians and Jews.
Mazdak's movement was a religious sect - said to be Manichaean and said to be Zoroastrian - that had been founded by his father.
fsmitha.com /h1/ch22c.htm   (1896 words)

  
 Biography St. Augustine
His quest took him to the Manichaean sect with which he remained as a "hearer" for nine years.
The Manichaeans taught a radical dualism: an absolute evil power or substance (a "Kingdom of Darkness"), and the opposite, a good power or substance (a "Kingdom of Light").
Through a Manichaean contact with the pagan senator, Symmachus, Augustine was appointed professor of rhetoric in Milan (384), then the residence of the Roman emperor.
www.tlogical.net /bioaugustine.htm   (3380 words)

  
 The Alexiad, book XIV, Turks, Franks, Cumans and Manichaeans (1108-1115)   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-06)
But John Tzimisces converted our opponents of the Manichaean heresy into our allies, as far as arms are concerned, by opposing them as redoubtable forces to these Scythian nomads, and from that time the cities had a respite from most of their incursions.
For, as all the inhabitants of Philippopolis were Manichaeans except a few, they tyrannized over the Christians there and plundered their goods, caring little or naught for the envoys sent by the Emperor.
Therefore as they were the most blasphemous of all the Manichaeans and clearly drifting into melancholy madness, he had them cast into the prison called Elephantine, and while supplying them liberally with all necessaries, he allowed them to die in company with their sins alone.
www.earth-history.com /Europe/eur-alexiad-book-14.htm   (9172 words)

  
 Mani's Vegan Diet
From these animals get their food, and, where there is sexual intercourse, fetter in the flesh the member of God, and, turning it from its proper course, they come in the way and entangle it in errors and troubles.
So then, if food consisting of vegetables and fruits comes to the saints, that is, to the Manichaeans by means of their chastity, and prayers, and psalms, whatever in it is excellent and divine is purified, and so is entirely perfected, in order to restoration, free from all hindrance, to its own domain.
Hence you forbid people to give bread or vegetables, or even water, which would cost nobody anything, to a beggar, if he is not a Manichaean, lest he should defile the member of God by his sins, and obstruct its return.
www.essene.com /History&Essenes/mani.htm   (14600 words)

  
 OccultForums.com - Manichaean Gnosticism   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-06)
The Byzantine emperor Justinian issued an edict against the Manichaeans, and Saint Augustine, who for 9 years had been a Manichee, wrote and spoke against this heresy, as well as described his own experience in his Confessions.
I have personally argued that the Manichaeans are not Gnostic, but I am always, seriously, willing to listen to debates to the contrary.
This means that the article is already inconsistant in it's claim that Manichaeans are Gnostic....
www.occultforums.com /showthread.php?t=5496   (921 words)

  
 2003 Atlanta Schedule
In particular, the application of “non- injury,” one of the five fundamental Manichaean commandments, to the earth, water, vegetables, and fire is disclosed as distinctive also to Jainism but foreign to Buddhism.
A major endeavour for future Manichaean studies is playing a decisive role in mapping the literary common ground of rhetorical strategies, topoi of discourse, and hermeneutical mechanisms relentlessly operating at those marginal points of early Christianity where a plurality of voices (including Manichaeans) fought within a complex ideological fight for being the "true Christians".
The first-generation Manichaean missionary to the West, Adda (or Adimantius), wrote a treatise on this subject that is mentioned in several Christian sources and partially responded to by Augustine in his Contra Adimantum.
www4.nau.edu /manichaean/2003abstracts.asp   (1095 words)

  
 Gnosticism [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]
However, the Manichaeans understood this as a plan on the part of the Ruler of Light to sow the seeds of resistance within the Darkness, making possible the eventual overthrow of the chaotic realm.
The Manichaeans believed that these particles ascend to the moon, and that when the moon is full, it empties these particles into the sun, from whence they ascend to the "new Aeon," also identified with Mithra, the "Living Spirit" (Rudolph, pp.
This belief led the Manichaeans to establish strict dietary and purity laws, and even to require selected members of their church to provide meals for the "Elect," so that the latter would not become defiled by harming anything containing light particles.
www.iep.utm.edu /g/gnostic.htm   (8278 words)

  
 PSCO 25: Utz   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-06)
Nevertheless, it is clear from the existence of two Manichaean magical texts, one in Middle Persian, and the other in Parthian, that the Manichaeans sanctioned the use of magical invocations of angels and other "powers" for protection against a wide range of malevolencies.
In the Manichaean cosmogony the Watchers became dews [dyw], or "demons," and Yaksas who were imprisoned in the firmament when the world was constructed and who were kept under the supervision of the Rex Honoris, one of the five sons of the Living Spirit.
It should be recalled that the Manichaeans especially in Iran, Central Asia, and the Far East, followed the practice of adapting their doctrine and literature to local religious and cultural environments.
ccat.sas.upenn.edu /psco/year25/8803c.shtml   (1938 words)

  
 Manichaeans - History for Kids!
Manichaeans believed that the world was divided into the forces of Good and the forces of Evil, and God was the leader of the good side and the Devil was the leader of the bad side.
Some Manichaeans were killed, and many others moved to the Sassanian Empire.
The great theologian Augustine, for instance, was a Manichaean first, and only later abandoned Manichaeanism for Catholicism.
www.historyforkids.org /learn/religion/christians/manichaean.htm   (357 words)

  
 The Truth Seeker - Transforming Evil -- Tackling the Problem
In the past hundred years or so, many Manichaean writings have been discovered, and quite a lot is now known of Mani’s philosophy and teaching.
While it may be true that many Manichaeans and later Manichaean-inspired sects such as the Cathars had beliefs based on these ideas, quite another understanding of their philosophy is also possible, as can be seen from the intricate Manichaean creation legend, told in many versions in the surviving literature.
The Manichaeans, said Steiner, understood that - according to a vast cosmic plan - evil was to be allowed to peak.
www.thetruthseeker.co.uk /print.asp?ID=1617   (3149 words)

  
 Manichaean Morality
Augustine (The Morals of the Manichaeans), a sect to which he belonged himself for nine years before his conversion to Christianity, he argues that the existence and nature of God so orders the world that the absence of hierarchical structures in the thought of any person should be taken as a sign of his/her insanity.
Since man is higher than the animals, a point Augustine makes elsewhere (On Christian Doctrine) because possession of a soul elevates him above the brutes, and since animals are higher than plants, a "natural" hierarchy is born from the fact that God created everything that exists in the world.
In Chapter 6, for instance, he discusses the concept of corruption by arguing that only a good thing can actually be corrupted, not an evil one, because he defines evil as an absence of the good.
www.geocities.com /Athens/Delphi/9976/01august3.html   (563 words)

  
 Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2000.09.18   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-06)
The amazing Manichaean textual finds of the 1900's have led to a revolution in Manichaean studies (especially in the last decade or so) whereby they are studied in terms of what they had to say about themselves.
He then looks at how the Manichaeans 'correct' these ceremonies to create something uniquely their own which they believe was in fact the original form and function of the sacred meal.
Unfortunately the topic of Manichaean art or artwork that depicts the Manichaeans is a little studied area (although this may change soon with the publishing of Gulacsi's new book).
ccat.sas.upenn.edu /bmcr/2000/2000-09-18.html   (2482 words)

  
 Articles - Bogomilism   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-06)
Both Paulicians and Manichaeans were dualists, but the former ascribed the creation of the world to the evil God; the latter, to the good God; and the former held the Scriptures in higher honor.
This has been partly preserved in some of their literary remains, and has taken deep root in the beliefs and traditions of the Bulgarians and other nations with whom they had come into close contact.
According to Slavonic documents the founder of this sect was a certain priest Bogumil, who "imbibed the Manichaean teaching and flourished at the time of the Bulgarian emperor Peter" (927-968).
www.gaple.com /articles/Bogomils?mySession=89ba52b06f670206154cd0cf43d64f7a   (2002 words)

  
 [No title]
For there were many things that I ought to have done to prevent the seeds of the most true religion wholesomely implanted in me from boyhood, from being banished from my mind, having been uprooted by the error and fraud of false and deceitful men.
Therefore the extraneous class of evil souls of the Manichaeans, whatever it may be, is a non-entity.
Fortunatus attempts, without success, to show the consistency of his confession of faith with the Manichaean view of two eternally existing antagonistic principles, and the conflict between the two resulting in the mingling of good and evil in the present order of things by quoting freely from the Christian Scriptures.
www.ewtn.com /library/PATRISTC/PNI4-2.TXT   (6413 words)

  
 Order of Nazorean Essenes
Historical Manichaeanism came to exist in three diverse forms: the Western found in the Roman Empire, the Central found in the Persian Empire, and the Eastern found along the Silk Road and in the Uighar and Chinese realms.
Nestorian/Manichaean Chinese Tablet 781 A.D. Historical Manichaeanism began on Sunday, 20 March, A.D. It was a vibrant continuation of the Gnostic current vivified by Yeshu and Miryai.
Manichaean practices were of two types, those for the Listeners and the more severe for Electi.
essenes.net /bnei3.htm   (2242 words)

  
 Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series I, Vol. IV   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-06)
Unchangeable spirit is God, changeable spirit, having been made, is nature, but is better than body; but body is not spirit, unless when the wind, because it is invisible to us and yet its power is felt as something not inconsiderable, is in a certain sense called spirit.
But if by being diminished it should be consumed so that there is no good, no nature would be left; not only such as the Manichaeans introduce, where so great good things are found that their exceeding blindness is wonderful, but such as any one can introduce.
But now the Manichaeans say that they did such things that they cannot be denied to have had in all their actions measures suitable to themselves.
www.godrules.net /library/fathers/nf04s47.htm   (7850 words)

  
 Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. VI   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-06)
Chapter V.-The Worship of the Sun and Moon Under God; Support Sought for the Manichaeans in the Grecian Fables; The Authority of the Scriptures and Faith Despised by the Manichaeans.
Chapter XIII.-Evil by No Means Found in the Stars and Constellations; All the Evils of Life Vain in the Manichaean Opinion, Which Bring on the Extinction of Life; Their Fancy Having Been Above Explained Concerning the Transportation of Souls from the Moon to the Sun.
The circular motion, indeed, is so orderly and composite, that it is ascribed to the order of all created things; nor does this, in the Manichaean system, appear worthy to be impugned, in which move the sun and the moon, whom alone, of the gods, they say that they venerate.
www.ccel.org /fathers2/ANF-06/anf06-94.htm   (9398 words)

  
 Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series I, Vol. IV
Chapter 11.-The Value of the Symbol of the Mouth Among the Manichaeans, Who are Found Guilty of Blaspheming God.
Chapter 16.-Disclosure of the Monstrous Tenets of the Manichaeans.
Chapter 18.-Of the Symbol of the Breast, and of the Shameful Mysteries of the Manichaeans.
www.bible.ca /history/fathers/NPNF1-04/npnf1-04-07.htm   (15425 words)

  
 CHURCH FATHERS: On the Morals of the Manichaeans (Augustine)
You Manichaeans often, if not in every case, ask those whom you try to bring over to your heresy, Whence is evil?
10.--THREE MORAL SYMBOLS DEVISED BY THE MANICHAEANS FOR NO Now that I have shown, as I think, how much darkness and error is in your opinions about good and evil things in general, let us examine now those three symbols which you extol so highly, and boast of as excellent observances.
If you can succeed in making your sect abandon these and many similar opinions, then you may speak of your mouth being free from blas phemies.
www.newadvent.org /fathers/1402.htm   (14836 words)

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