(a) Siyāsat Nāmah Nizām al-Mulk: ed. Charles Schefer, Paris, 1897, pp. 166–181.

(b) Shahrastānī: ed. Cureton, pp. 192–194.

(c) Al-Ya‘qūbī: ed. Houtsma, 1883, Vol. I, p. 186.

(d) Al-Bīrūnī: Chronology of Ancient Nations: tr. E. Sachau, London, 1879, p. 192.

[13:1] "If I see aright, five different conceptions can be distinguished for the period about 400 A.D. First we have the Manichaean which insinuated its way in the darkness, but was widely extended even among the clergy". (Harnack's History of Christian Dogma, Vol. V, p. 56). "From the anti-Manichaean controversy sprang the desire to conceive all God's attributes as identical i.e. the interest in the indivisibility of God", (Harnack's History of Christian Dogma, Vol V, p. 120).

[13:2] Some Eastern sources of information about Mānī's Philosophy (e.g. Ephraim Syrus mentioned by Prof. A. A. Bevan in his Introduction to the Hymn of the Soul) tell us that he was a disciple of Bardesanes, the Syrian gnostic. The learned author of "al-Fihrist", however, mentions some books which Mānī wrote against the followers of the Syrian gnostic. Burkitt, in his lectures on Early Eastern Christianity, gives a free translation of Bardesanes' De Fato, the spirit of which I understand, is fully Christian, and thoroughly opposed to the teaching of Mānī. Ibn Ḥazm, however, in his Kitāb al-Milal w’al-Niḥal (Vol. II, p. 36) says, "Both agreed in other respects, except that Mānī believed darkness to be a living principle."

[16:1] It is interesting to compare Mānī's Philosophy of Nature with the Chinese notion of Creation, according to which all that exists flows from the Union of Yin and Yang. But the Chinese reduced these two principles to a higher unity:—Tai Keih. To Mānī such a reduction was not possible; since he could not conceive that things of opposite nature could proceed from the same principle.

[17:1] Thomas Aquinas states and criticises Mānī's contrariety of Primal agents in the following manner:—

(a) What all things seek even a principle of evil would seek.
But all things seek their own self-preservation.
⁂ Even a principle of evil would seek its own self-preservation.

(b) What all things seek is good.
But self-preservation is what all things seek.
⁂ Self-preservation is good.
But a principle of evil would seek its own self-preservation.
⁂ A principle of evil would seek some good—which shows
that it is self-contradictory.