Of their fasts, the principal ones have been already indicated in the Khuastuanift, and their feasts seem to have been few, almost the only one of which any mention has come down to us being that which was called the Festival of the Bema or pulpit, when an empty chair on five steps was placed in a conspicuous position in the meeting-house and adored by all present. This was said to have been done in commemoration of Manes as their founder and on the date preserved as the anniversary of his death[[1188]]. If it be really true that any Manichaeans whether Hearers or otherwise kept Sunday as a holiday, it must have been, as Neander suggests, not because it was the day of the Resurrection, in which their Docetic doctrines prevented them from believing, but as the day of the Sun. In like manner they probably observed Christmas as the birthday not of Jesus, but of the Sun-god in accordance with the traditions preserved by the worshippers of Mithras[[1189]]. St Augustine speaks, too, of their keeping Easter[[1190]]. It seems possible that this was only done in Christian countries, in accordance with their usual custom of conforming in outward matters, and we have no evidence of their doing anything of the sort in Turkestan.
Of the sacred books of the Manichaeans we hear much, although only one has survived to us in anything like completeness. Thus we hear from Al-Bîrûnî that the Manichaeans have a gospel of their own “the contents of which from the first to the last are opposed to the doctrine of the Christians,” and this he says was called “the Gospel of the Seventy[[1191]].” He also tells us of a book written by Manes himself called Shaburkan or Shapurakhan which was doubtless written for the edification of King Shâpûr or Sapor, the son of Ardeshîr, whose name it bears[[1192]]. In this Manes seems to have described his own birth and his assumption of the office of heavenly messenger or “Burkhan,” besides the saying as to the Burkhans before him, Zoroaster, Buddha, and Jesus, as described above[[1193]]. We also hear from Al-Bîrûnî that he wrote a gospel arranged according to the 22 letters of the alphabet, which does not seem to be the same as the Gospel of the Seventy[[1194]], and we hear from other sources of a Book of the Giants, a Book of Secrets, a Book of Precepts, a Book of Lifegiving, and others, together with many letters or epistles all supposed to be by Manes’ own hand[[1195]]. As has been said, he and his followers rejected the Old Testament entirely, not indeed denying its inspiration, but declaring this to have come from the Evil Principle. Of the New Testament, Faustus, the Manichaean Perfect who disputed with St Augustine, puts the matter very clearly when he says:
“We receive only so much of the New Testament as says anything to the honour of the Son of Glory, either by Himself or by His apostles; and by the latter only after they had become perfect and believers. As for the rest, anything that was said by them either in their simplicity and ignorance, while they were yet inexperienced in the truth, or with malicious design was inserted by the enemy among the statements of truth, or was incautiously asserted by other writers and thus handed down to later generations—of all this we desire to know nothing. I mean all such statements as these—that He was shamefully born of a woman; that as a Jew He was circumcised; that He offered sacrifices like a heathen; that He was meanly baptized, led into the wilderness, and miserably tempted[[1196]].”
Thus it seems that the Manichaeans accepted only such facts of the Gospel narrative as did not conflict with their own doctrines, and although they are said to have had an especial veneration for St Paul, there is no reason to think that this extended to the writings of the Apostle to the Gentiles, or had any other motive than that of external conformity with the religion of those whom they were endeavouring to convert. As himself the Paraclete announced in the New Testament, Manes claimed for himself an authority superior to that of all apostles, and if he made use of any of the writings attributed to them, it was probably only in the shape of isolated passages divorced from their context. On the other hand, his followers seem to have made free use of apocryphal or pseudepigraphical books written in the names of the apostles and containing statements which could be explained as confirming Manes’ teaching. A great number of these had as their common authors the names of St Thomas and St Andrew, and the Fathers declare that they were for the most part the work of one Leucius, whom they assert was a Manichaean[[1197]]. It may be so; but, as all the copies of these works which have come down to us have been expurgated or, in the language of the time, “made orthodox,” by the removal of heretical matter, there is little proof of the fact.
More authentic, however, than these pseudepigrapha and much fuller than the extracts preserved by Christian or Mahommedan writers is a treatise found in the cave of the Thousand Buddhas at Tun-huang which has been published only last year. It seems by an extraordinary chance to have nearly escaped us, having been apparently missed by all the European expeditions because it was written in Chinese characters. Hence it was removed to Pekin by orders of the Chinese Government under the impression that it was Buddhist in its nature, and has since been published in a Chinese publication founded for the purpose of preserving the Tun-huang MSS. by Mr Lo Tchen-yu, a Chinese scholar of great philosophical and archaeological attainments[[1198]]. It is written on a continuous roll of paper over six metres in length, which has led unfortunately to the disappearance of the title and the first few words of the treatise. The remainder shows, however, that it purports to be a sort of allocution addressed by Manes, here as in the Khuastuanift called the “Legate of the Light,” to Adda or Addas, whom we know from the Christian documents before quoted to have been one of the three great missionaries said to have been dispatched by Manes into foreign countries to propagate his doctrine[[1199]]. Of these three, Thomas, Hermas, and Addas, the last-named is said to have been allotted “Scythia,” which here as elsewhere doubtless means Turkestan, and his name therefore gives a reasonable air of authenticity to the text. The whole document is written in the form of a Buddhist sutra, and has been translated with an excellent commentary by the French Sinologist, M. Edouard Chavannes, with the help of M. Paul Pelliot, the leader of the French Expedition to Turkestan which probably first discovered it[[1200]]. It entirely confirms the Mahommedan account of the teaching of Manes given above as well as that appearing in the Khuastuanift, and shows that St Augustine, alike in his authentic writings and in the tract de Haeresibus generally, although perhaps wrongfully, attributed to him, was drawing from well-informed sources. There are many grounds for thinking that it may originally have been written in Pahlavi, in which case it may have been contemporary with Manes himself; but it frequently makes use of Buddhist phrases often derived from the Sanskrit[[1201]]. If the view here taken of the date of the original treatise is well founded, these may have been introduced by Manes during the time that the tradition mentioned above says that he spent in Turkestan for the elaboration of his doctrine. At all events they show that the practice of adapting his religion, as far as might be, to accord with that previously held by those among whom he was trying to make proselytes, goes back to the very origin of the sect.
This treatise was evidently written for edification rather than for instruction, and gives us a curious idea of the imagery by which the Manichaean teachers sought to enforce their teaching. The theory of the macrocosm and the microcosm, which teaches that the body of man is in itself a copy of the great world or universe, is here carried to excess[[1202]], and we hear much of the “trees” which certain demons, previously sticking to the elements, says the treatise, “like a fly to honey, a bird to bird-lime, or a fish to the hook[[1203]],” plant in the soul to the corruption and ultimate death of the better desires there implanted by the Light. The combat waged against the diabolic vices by the virtues is also described with great minuteness, but in language in which it is sometimes difficult to discover whether the author is consciously using allegory or not. Thus he says that the Devil, to whom he attributes the formation of the body of man, “shut up the Pure Ether” (one of the five light elements)
“in the city of the bones. He established (there) the dark thought in which he planted a tree of death. Then he shut up the Excellent Wind in the city of the nerves. He established (there) the dark feeling in which he planted a tree of death. Then he shut up the strength of the Light in the city of the veins. He established (there) the dark reflection in which he planted a tree of death. Then he shut up the Excellent Water in the city of the flesh. He established there the dark intellect, in which he planted a tree of death. Then he shut up the Excellent Fire in the city of the skin. He established there the dark reasoning in which he planted a tree of death. The Demon of Envy [the name generally used in the treatise for the Devil] planted these five poisonous trees of death in the five kinds of ruined places. He made them on every occasion deceive and trouble the original luminous nature, to draw in from without the nature which is stranger to it, and to produce poisonous fruit. Thus the tree of the dark thought grows within the city of the bones; its fruit is hatred: the tree of the dark feeling grows within the city of the nerves; its fruit is irritation: the tree of the dark reflection grows within the city of the veins; its fruit is luxury [wantonness]: the tree of the dark intellect grows within the city of the flesh; its fruit is anger: the tree of the dark reasoning grows within the city of the skin; its fruit is folly. It is thus then that of the five kinds of things which are the bones, the nerves, the veins, the flesh, and the skin, he made a prison and shut up there the five divisions of the First Principle of Light....[[1204]]”
and so on. One might sometimes think one was reading John Bunyan and his Holy War with its defence of the town of Mansoul.
Most of the information contained in this Pekin Treatise has been dealt with in its place, but there are one or two matters concerning the cosmology of Manes which are of importance as showing the connection of his system with that of his predecessors. One regards the two great angels, here called Khrostag and Padvaktag[[1205]] or the Appellant and Respondent, who are mentioned in the Khuastuanift (p. [343] supra) as bringing the light to be purified[[1206]]. As has been said above, they show a great likeness to the two last Amshaspands of Zoroastrianism called Haurvetât and Ameretât; and like them are never mentioned separately, but always together[[1207]]. Another point, already referred to, is that the Zoroastrian Sraôsha, the strong archangel who guards the world at night from the demons, is here mentioned several times by name[[1208]]. Yet another point is that the two sexes are here said to have been formed by the devil out of jealousy and rage at beholding the sun and moon, and in imitation of the two luminaries. This is an entirely different story not only from those given above as Manichaean but from that given in the Great Announcement attributed to Simon Magus, and both differ from that told in the Pistis Sophia. It seems plain therefore that in attributing these various origins to the division of mankind into sexes, none of the three teachers was drawing upon tradition, but was merely inventing ad hoc.
There remains to be considered the history of the sect, as to which we have become better informed during the last few decades than at one time seemed possible[[1209]]. Prohibited in the Roman Empire from the outset, they nevertheless made their way along both shores of the Mediterranean, and all the efforts of the Imperial authorities proved powerless to suppress them. Constantine directed an enquiry into their tenets, it is said, with some idea of making them into the religion of the State, and although he found this impracticable or unsafe, he seems to have been at first inclined to extend to them toleration[[1210]]. His successors, however, quickly reverted to the earlier policy of Diocletian, and law after law of gradually increasing severity was passed until adherence to Manichaeism was finally punished with death and confiscation[[1211]]. Pagans like the Emperor Julian and his friend and teacher Libanius were able occasionally to intervene in their favour; but no sect was ever more relentlessly persecuted, and the institution of the Dominican Inquisition can be traced back to the Quaestiones set up by Justinian and Theodora for their routing out and suppression[[1212]]. In the case of what was practically a secret society, it would be difficult to say whether the Imperial measures would have availed to entirely destroy their propaganda, and it is possible that the Manichaean Church always maintained a sporadic existence in Europe[[1213]] until events to be presently mentioned led to its revival in the Xth century. Meanwhile in the East, they remained on the confines of what was, up to the Mahommedan conquest in 642 A.D., the Persian Empire, and no doubt after their manner professed outward adherence to the Zoroastrian faith, while at the same time propagating their own doctrines in secret[[1214]]. It was probably the Arab conquest which drove them to make their headquarters on the very borders of the civilized world as known to the ancients and in what is now Turkestan. Here a large part of the population seems to have been Buddhist, doubtless by reason of its dealings with China, and in the presence of that gentle faith—whose adherents boast that they have never yet shed blood to make a convert—the Manichaeans enjoyed complete toleration for perhaps the first time in their history[[1215]]. They made use of it, as always, to send out missionaries into the neighbouring countries, and certainly obtained a foothold in China, where the Chinese seem to have confused them with the Christians. Their hatred of images doubtless caused the iconoclastic Emperors of the East to enter into relation with them, and we hear that Leo the Isaurian induced many of them to enter the Imperial armies. It was possibly these last whom the Emperor John Tzimiskes settled in what is now Bulgaria, whence, under the names of Paulicians, Bogomiles, and other aliases, they promoted that movement against the Catholic Church which provoked the Albigensian Crusades and the establishment of the Dominican Inquisition in the West[[1216]]. To follow them there would be to travel beyond the scope of this book; and it need only be said in conclusion that they formed the bitterest and the most dangerous enemies that the Catholic Church in Europe ever had to face. It was possibly this which has led the rulers of the Church of Rome to brand nearly all later heresy with the name of Manichaean; yet it may be doubted whether some of their doctrines did not survive in Europe until the German Reformation, when they may have helped to inspire some of the wilder Protestant sects of the XVIth and XVIIth centuries. With the suppression of the Albigenses, however, the existence of Manichaeism as an organized faith comes to an end.