Manes’ ideas as to the salvation of man’s soul again differ little in the two streams of tradition. The Christian, here perhaps the fuller of the two, describes him as teaching that the soul of man, as also that of beasts, birds, other animals, and plants, is part of the light which was won by the demons from the First Man, while all bodies are of that matter which is the same as darkness. Man’s body, we are told, is called a cosmos by parallelism with the great Cosmos, and all men have roots here below bound to things which are above[[1079]]. It is the cutting of these roots by the demons which causes death. On the death of a man who has attained the knowledge of the truth during this life, his soul is taken up in the wheel to the Sun, by whom after it has been purified it is passed over to the Moon, the two luminaries being represented as ships or ferry-boats sailing to-and-fro in the upper air. When the Moon is full, she ferries the souls with which she is filled towards the East, and then delivers them to the Aeons of Light who place them in the Pillar of Glory before described. She then returns for a fresh supply greatly reduced in circumference, whereby her waxing and waning is explained[[1080]]. In the case of a man who has not attained the knowledge of the truth, a small portion of the soul only is purified and is then reincarnated in the body of a dog, a camel, or some other animal, according to the sins which it has committed. Thus, if he has killed a mouse, he will become a mouse, if a chicken a chicken, and so on, while those who have been employed in the reaping of corn will themselves become corn or some other kind of plant in order that they may be reaped and cut in turn. The soul of the homicide will, it is said, go to inhabit the body of a leper[[1081]]. There will, apparently, be five of these reincarnations[[1082]], and between them the soul which has not found knowledge of the truth is given over to the demons in order that they may subdue it in the “Gehennas” of fire. This, like its transference into other bodies, is for the sake of teaching it better; but if it still remains without knowledge, it is cast into the great fire until the Consummation of the World[[1083]].
The Mahommedan tradition as to what occurs at death goes into more details, and it is here that we catch the first glimpse of that doctrine of predestination which plays so prominent a part in the later teaching of the Manichaean Church. When a just or perfect or “true” Manichaean is on the point of death, the First Man sends to him a “shining god of light” in the form of “the Wise Guide” accompanied by three other gods and with them “the bowl of water, the garment, the fillet for the head, the circlet and the crown of light[[1084]].” With them comes the virgin who is like to the soul of the just one. There also appear to him the devil of greed, that of pleasure, and others with them. Directly the just one who is dying sees them, he calls to his help the goddess[[1085]] who has taken the form of the Wise Guide and the three gods her companions. They draw near to him, and at the sight of them the devils turn and flee. Then the gods take the just one, do on him the crowns and the garment, put in his hand the bowl of water, and mount with him to the Column of Praises in the sphere of the Moon, to the First Man and to Nahnaha the Mother of Life, until they reach the place in the Paradise of Light he occupied in the beginning[[1086]]. His body remains stretched (upon the earth) in order that the Sun, the Moon, and the Gods of Light may take from it its powers, i.e. the Water, the Fire, the gentle Breeze, which are then borne upwards to the Sun and become a god. The rest of the body, which is all darkness, is cast into hell[[1087]].
This description of the lot of the blessed after death is certainly taken from no other source than that from which the Zoroastrian books put forth by the Sassanian kings are drawn.
“At the end of the third night,” says the Hatoxt Nask[[1088]], one of the earliest Zoroastrian documents that have come down to us, “at the dawn of day, the soul of the faithful thinks that it is in a garden and smells its perfumes. Towards it a wind seems to blow from the region of the South perfumed, more perfumed than any other wind. Then the soul of the faithful thinks that he breathes this wind with his nostrils. ‘Whence blows this wind, the most perfumed that I have breathed with my nostrils?’ While encountering this breeze, his religion (conscience, daena, spiritual life), appears to him in the form of a beautiful young girl, shining, with white arms, robust, of fair growth, of fair aspect, tall, high-bosomed, of fair body, noble, of shining race, with the figure of one who is 15 years old, as fair in form as the fairest creatures that exist. Then the soul of the faithful speaks to her, and asks ‘What virgin art thou, thou the most beautiful in form of the virgins that I have ever seen?’ Then she who is his religion answers: ‘O youth of good mind, of good words, of good deeds, of good religion, I am thine own religion incarnate[[1089]].’”
So, too, the Vendidad, which may be a little later in date than the document just quoted, represents Ahura Mazda as saying in answer to Zarathustra himself:
“After a man has disappeared, after a man dies, the impious and malevolent demons make their attack. When the dawn of the third night shines forth and the day begins to lighten, the well-armed Mithra arrives at the mountains giving forth holy radiance and the Sun rises. Then, O Spitama Zarathustra ... she comes, the beautiful, the well-made, the strong, of fair growth, with her dogs, full of discernment, rich in children [i.e. fruitful], the longed-for, virtuous one. She leads the souls of the faithful above the Hara Berezaiti; she sustains them across the bridge Chinvat in the road of the spiritual divinities. Vohu Mano rises from his golden throne. Vohu Mano says, ‘O faithful one, how hast thou come hither from the perishable world to the imperishable?’ Rejoicing, the faithful pass before Ahura Mazda, before the beneficent Immortals, before golden thrones, before the house of hymns, the dwelling of Ahura Mazda, the dwelling of the beneficent Immortals, the dwelling of the other faithful ones. When the faithful is purified, the wicked and malevolent demons tremble by reason of the perfume after his departure as a sheep pursued by a wolf trembles at the [scent of the?] wolf[[1090]].”
To return, however, to the Mahommedan account of Manes’ doctrine. This last by no means confined his survey of the state of man’s soul after death to the single case of the justified dead.
“When death draws nigh to a man who has fought for religion and justice, [he is represented as saying,] and who has protected them by protecting the Just, the gods whom I have mentioned appear and the devils are there also. Then he calls the gods to his help and seeks to win them by showing to them his works of piety, and that which he has done to protect the religion and the Just. The gods deliver him from the devils, while leaving him in the condition of a man in this world, who sees fearful shapes in his dreams, and who is plunged in dirt and mud[[1091]]. He remains in this state until his Light and his Spirit are freed [evidently by transmigration] when he arrives at the meeting-place of the Just. Then, after having wandered for long, he dons their vesture. But when death appears to the sinful man, to him who has been ruled by greed and desire, the devils draw near to him, they seize him, torment him, and put fearful shapes before his eyes. The gods are there also with the vesture, so that the sinful one thinks they have come to deliver him. But they have only appeared to him to reproach him, to remind him of his actions, and to convince him of his guilt in having neglected the support of the Just. He wanders unceasingly throughout the world, and is tortured until the coming of the End of the World, when he will be thrown into hell. Thus, Manes teaches,” continues the tradition, “that there are three paths for the soul of man. One leads to Paradise, which is the path of the Just. Another leads back to the world and its terrors, which is the path of the protectors of the faith and the helpers of the Just. The third leads to hell, which is the path of the sinful man[[1092]].”
Yet there is nothing to show that the sins which thus doom a man to hell are within his choice to commit or to leave alone as he chooses. Rather does it appear that his freedom from sin depends on the admixture of light which enters into his composition at his birth. Of all this the Christian tradition says nothing.
It is, nevertheless, in the division here set forth of the adherents of the religion into the Just and the protectors of the Just, that the great distinction between the Manichaean religion and all its contemporaries appears. Both traditions are agreed that those who listen to the teaching of Manes are to be divided into five classes, viz. the Masters who are the sons of Gentleness; those who are enlightened by the Sun, who are the sons of Knowledge or the Priests; the Elders who are the sons of Intelligence; the Just who are the sons of Discretion; and the Hearers who are the sons of Discernment[[1093]]. The first three classes we may safely neglect for the present, as they evidently correspond to the three superior or directing orders of the Manichaean Church to which we shall have to return later; but the last two, the Just and the Hearers, give us the key to the organization of the sect, and explain how it was able to maintain itself for so long against its numerous enemies. He who would enter into the religion, says the Mahommedan tradition, must examine himself that he may see whether he is strong enough to conquer desire and greed, to abstain from meats, from wine, and from marriage, to avoid all that can be hurtful in (to?) water or fire, and to shun magic and hypocrisy[[1094]]. These abstinences are those that are demanded of the perfect Manichaeans, who have been called above the Just or the Sons of Discretion, and who with their superiors constitute the Manichaean Church. These are they whom the Christian tradition speaks of as the Elect, and for whom, as we have seen, there is reserved after death a glorious ascension and an immediate return to the Paradise of Light. So Valentinus, like many other Gnostics, divided Christians into the two classes of pneumatics and psychics, the first-named of whom were to occupy a more distinguished position in the world to come than the other. There is nothing to show, however, that Valentinus or any other Gnostic ever imposed any discipline on the pneumatics than that prescribed for the psychics, or that he thought that those who were going to take a higher rank in the next world should observe a stricter mode of life in this. The Catholics, indeed, had already adopted the view that the celibate member of the Church possessed “a higher calling” than his married brethren; but there is no reason to suppose that they therefore assigned to them a higher place in the next world, or thought that those who had not the gift of continence were to be permitted any relaxation of the moral law imposed upon celibate and married alike. It is therefore probable that it was from Buddhism, with which Manes must have made himself well acquainted during his journeys into India, that he borrowed the scheme by which those who believed in the truth of his teaching could delay subjecting themselves to the austerities necessary for salvation until their next incarnation.