The Journal of Religious History

Vol. 17, No. 3, June 1993

I A I N GARDNER

The Eschatology of Manichaeism as a

Coherent Doctrine

A study of the eschatology of Manichaeism provides an excellent

opportunity to sample and evaluate the history of religions as a discipline.
Mani (216-76), a native of Babylonia, first proclaimed his divine
revelation openly in the year 240 CE. Thus, Manichaeism developed and
spread at a critical moment in time and place, and the symbols and features
of its eschatology, in particular, provide both obvious and suggestive
threads of contact, such as between Iran and India, gnostic Christianity
and emergent Islam. Nevertheless, it can also be shown that the eschatology
has an authenticity and integrity true to the Manichees’ own vision and
experience, to their entire thought world. This raises precisely the focal
point of the most serious criticism levelled at historians of religions, that
they have no means by which to explore and express the coherence and
heart of religions, the very essence of which is a unity of experience. There
is thus the well-known methodological tension between the synchronic
approach of the phenomenologist who is able to claim empathy with his
or her subject matter; and the diachronic study by the historian who will
emphasize attention to the reality of the historical object and the basic
nature of the dialectical process.
While contemporary theoreticians seek to resolve this tension, this article
notes that the study of Manichaeism has been so fruitful for the historian’s
search for origins and influences that the appreciation of the text as it
presently stands has hardly begun. This is particularly evident in three
separate articles on eschatology published in the 1980s by Stroumsa,
Koenen and Olsson.’ This present article seeks not to criticize the valuable
work undertaken, but to provide some balance to the approach.
Manichaeism has only recently come to be counted in the ranks of the
great religions, as the study of it has come of age. Traditionally in the
West, Manichaeism was regarded as a Christian heresy, as an ever-present
1 . G . Stroumsa, ‘Aspects de I’Eschatologie Manichkenne’,Revue de I’Histoire des Religions,
Vol. 198, No. 2, 1981, pp. 163-81; L. Koenen, ‘Manichaean Apocalypticism at the
Crossroads of Iranian, Egyptian, Jewish and Christian Thought’, Codex Manichaicus
Coloniensis, L. Cirillo and A. Roselli (eds), Cosenza 1986, pp. 285 - 332; T. Olsson, ‘The
Manichaean Background of Eschatology in the Koran’, Manichaean Studies, P. Bryder (ed.),
Lund 1988, pp. 273 -82.

Iain Gardner is Chair of Religious Studies, Edith Cowan University, Perth, Western
Australia.

257
258 J O U R N A L OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY

temptation towards dualism. The great pioneers of objective scholarship,

such as Isaac de Beausobre,2 were forced to rely on the highly stylized
accounts of the heresiologists, until the later part oi^the nineteenth century
when actual Manichaean sources used by Syriac and Arab writers began
to be made available. The revolution in the subject then continued as the
great Central Asian expeditions of the early twentieth century returned
to Europe laden with Manichaean texts in Turkic, Iranian and Chinese
scripts; and thus in the heyday of the ‘Religionsgeschichtlicher Schule’an
Iranian basis to Manichaeism was often favoured. However, as this century
draws to a close, and with the benefits of new discoveries and much
intensive scholarship, Mani’s own background can now more certainly be
placed in the heterodox Jewish -Christian and gnostic currents of the
. ~ last decade has been marked by the publication of S.
Syriac ~ r i e n t The
N. C . Lieu’s Manichaeism in the Later Roman Empire and Medieval China?
the first history of the religion that is both reliable and to any extent
comprehensive; the first international conferences at Lund (1987) and Bonn
(1989); the foundation of an International Association of Manichaean
Studies (1989, president: Kurt Rudolph); and a projected Journal of
Manichaean Studies. The way is now prepared for a new stage of
scholarship which must address vital but problematic questions in the
history of religions. Perhaps the most important of these are the influence
of Manichaeism on early Islam and on contemporary developments in
Buddhism. A brief digression on the first of these will serve to indicate
how much is at issue.
The question of connections between Manichaean concepts and the
origins of Islam has been raised a number of times, but never satisfactorily
pursued or solved. Naturally it necessitates an overtly secularist
interpretation of the Qur’an. From the point of view of the historian of
religions, Islam belongs to the Semitic family of religions, and certain
features of its world-view are to be explained by reference to historical
and cultural developments in Judaism and Christianity. Thus details in
the account of the attempted seduction of Joseph (surah 12) are made
comprehensible by reference to post-biblical tradition, rather than by a
direct reading of Genesis. Such points are a mainstay of this tradition of
scholarship. As regards Manichaean influence, the basic question can be
simply put: do certain emphases or idiosyncratic features of the Qur’an
betray contact of some sort between Muhammad and Manichaean ideas?
Obvious candidates for such a list include: the succession of prophets and
books; the universality of the final messenger and his heavenly revelation;
the question of the messenger and the paraclete; the ‘trick’ of Jesus’ death.
Recently, Tord Olsson has taken such points as accepted truth, and has
asserted that certain features of the qur’anic eschatology also betray
Manichaean influence. These particular details will be discussed below.
2. I. de Beausobre, Histoire de Manichee et du Manichdisme, 2 vols, Amsterdam 1734, p. 9.
3. Vindicating the intuitions of F. C . Burkitt, The Religion ofthe Manichees, Cambridge
1925. See particularly the Coptic library discovered at Medinet Madi, and the Cologne Mani-
Codex. For the Mani-Codex, see A. Henrichs and L. Koenen, ZPE, Vol. 19, 1975; Vol. 32,
1978; Vol. 44, 1981; Vol. 48, 1982.
4. S. N. C. Lieu, Manichaeism, Manchester 1985.
 E S C H A T O L O G Y OF M A N I C H A E I S M 259
Now that the context of this article’s question has been made clear, it
is time to turn directly to Manichaean eschatology. Manichaeism shares
with other Semitic religions, notably Christianity, an apparent ambiguity
between the events of individual salvation after death (microcosmic
eschatology), and the process of collective or macrocosmic eschatology
at the end of time. This ambiguity results in part from the influence of
different prior traditions, and in part from the natural desire to be assured
of an immediate ascent to Heaven after death. The failure of any imminent
apocalypse, as envisaged by both the Manichaean and Christian churches
in their primitive forms, also served to heighten the confusion. One obvious
consequence is the question as to whether one is judged straightaway or
at the end of time. As regards Manichaeism, it is helpful to examine the
pathway of individual salvation first; and then the collective eschatology.
The account will make some brief reference to the historical background,
and to future influences as such occur; however, the overall argument will
demonstrate the deep-structure coherence of Manichaean thought that lies
beneath its use of eclectic sources.
Manichaeism is pre-eminently the religion of divine loss, suffering and
redemption. Nothing in the cosmos is created anew; but, rather, all beings,
forms, even the heavenly bodies, are products of the history of the mixture
and separation of the Two Natures’: divine Light and material Darkness.
The Manichees proclaimed that theirs was the religion of ‘the Two
Principles and the Three Times’. History and mixture belong to the Second
Time between the two eternities of the beginning and the end. This time
began when the Darkness first became aware of the Light; this inflamed
the blind grasping desire which is its very essence. Evil sought to possess
the good for itself, and attacked. The Father of Greatness defended his
kingdom by the emanation of the Primal Man. The battle must be taken
to the enemy, for it would be sacrilegious to have war, change and an
end to bliss in the household of the Father himself. Throughout the history
the Father remains outside in eternity, and all the emanated Gods that
have gone out to do battle must be barred from their household. Therefore
a New Aeon, consubstantial with the eternal paradise, is built by the Great
Architect for the time of mixture. Here the Gods rest, and the ascended
Light awaits its final return to the Father.
First the Primal Man descended into the abyss of the Darkness. With
him was the part of the divine which became the devoured and mixed
Living Soul in matter. This is variously described: the Five Light-Elements,
or the ‘soul’ of the Primal Man; his ‘armour’; or personified as his Five
Sons, the Light-Gods. The Primal Man was defeated and stripped of this
armour. Although he is subsequently rescued, his Sons, the Living Soul,
have been devoured and thus mixed in the bodies of the demonic powers.
5 . C. R. C. Allberry, A Manichaean Psalm-Book [Manichaean Manuscripts in the Chester
Beatty Collection, Vol. 111, Stuttgart 1938, 9, 9 - 11 physis [Hereafter referred to as Ps-Bk];
Kephalaiu [Hereafter referred to as Keph.] Ch. CXX ousia; Augustine contra Fel. 11, 11,
‘Manichaeusdicit duas esse naturas’. For the text of the Kephalaiu, see C. Schmidt, H. Ibscher,
H. J. Polotsky, A, Bohlig, Kephalaiu, I. Hdfte, Liefering 1 - 10, Stuttgart 1940 (ManichCsche
Handschriften der Staatlichen Museen Berlin, Band I); A. Bohlig, Kephalaia 1.2, Stuttgart
1966.
260 JOURNAL OF ‘RELIGIOUS HISTORY

The entire history of the Second Time is then exactly the history of mixture
and the processes of redemption as the divine attempts to purify, distil
and reunite that part of itself which was lost; while the Darkness attempts
to retain and bind to itself that which it has captured. Individual souls
and the Light particles that are scattered everywhere in the material world,
particularly in fruit and vegetables, are all parts of the first dismembered
Living Soul. To turn to eschatology: throughout history individuals are
saved by gnosis and right-living as they respond to the messengers of Light.
Similarly, Light-particles are purified from the dregs of matter by a variety
of natural means and ascend as vapour to be gathered and distilled by
angels in the sun and moon.6 Kephalaia chapter LXXI details the path
of ascent (although here the context is the final ‘gathering in’ at the end
of time):
Light-+Fire-+Water+Wind+Air (that is, Five Light-Elements)+
Answer-t Call-tpurified Nous (which is the noeron)-+
Column of Glory+Primal Man (that is, moon)-+Messenger (that is,
sun)-tAeons of Greatness.
The Five Light-Elements are the Living Soul in its passive and suffering
aspect, elsewhere the Cross of Light, the divine stretched out and nailed
to matter. The Call and Answer, elsewhere the Thought of Life, are the
Soul’s instinct and will to salvation, thus purifying trapped psyche to
become awakened nous. This redemptive sequence, which can be
internalized as a psychological process,’ has its outward literal reality in
the Soul’s ascent up the Column of Glory or Light to the moon, thence
to the sun, and finally to paradise.
Mani sought to explain everything within one all-embracing system, and
the astonishing symbolism can be read on various levels, including the
mythic and scientific. On the one hand the Column of Glory seems to have
been the Manichaean adaptation of the widespread idea that the Milky
Way is the pathway of ascending souls. At the same time it is also
personified as a divine figure, the Perfect Man (see Ephesians iv. 12f.).
As such it is the reunified trunk or column of the Primal Man, once
devoured and scattered, now gathered together. It is a representation of
the church as the body of Jesus, in its ascent to the Father. Furthermore,
the observable waxing and waning of the moon seemed to Mani to be
evidence of the arrival of the purified Light, and then its passage onwards
to the Sun. However, the two luminaries are much more than staging posts
on the way to paradise. They purify the Light, as well as transporting it
(thus ‘ships’ or ‘chariots’). They are like farmers working redemption in
the cosmos in the field of the Living Soul,’ and will only come to rest after
the final victory. The Sun and Moon not only hold the thrones of the Gods,
but may even be identified with them. Thus, for their various roles, the Sun
6 . E.g., Khvastvcinift XI A; M183II (For details of Iranian texts, see M. Boyce, A Catalogue
of the Iranian Manuscripts in Manichaean Script in the German Turfan Collection [Deutsche
Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, Institut fur Orientforschung, 4.51, Berlin 1960); Ps-Bk
10, 30; 11, 2; Keph. 15, 8 - 10.
7. E.g., Keph. 20, 12-18, 25-31.
8. Keph. 245, 1-7.
 ESCHATOLOGY OF MANICHAEISM 26 1
and Moon received much devotion: ‘And near nightfall when Jesus [that
is, moon] rose, Gabriab stood before Jesus in prayer and spoke thus to
him’.’ The Sun and the Moon are the posteres of the heavens;” they are
the Buddhas of Light.”
According to al-Biruni, Mani explained:
The other religious bodies blame us because we worship sun and moon, and
represent them as an image. But they do not know their real natures; they do
not know that sun and moon are our path, the door whence we march forth
into the world of our existence [that is, heaven], as this has been declared by
Jesus. l2
The Mani-Codex relates that it was his heavenly syzygos that revealed to
the youthful Mani the secrets of the sun, moon and pillar. In turn Mani
requested that ‘the souls of the victors coming out of the world might be
seen by the eyes of men’.13 Mani himself was supposed to have ascended
only as far as the moon, where he waits, in close attendance upon his flock.
Some eschatological texts appear to replace the account of the ascent
through the luminaries with a more personal vision where the soul is
judged, and if victorious meets a guide and receives various gifts. However,
this is not an alternative or variant, as some scholars have suggested; rather,
it is a different way of looking at the same process, and many texts conflate
elements from both accounts. l4 In this personal approach, various figures
and images appear, often overlapping, and it can be difficult to distinguish
the literal from the purely figurative. However, three symbolic complexes
can be discerned, though they are not necessarily distinct: (1) the judge
and judgment; (2) the sage or guide, Maiden, robe, Twin and gifts given
to the ascending soul; and (3) the ship, its pilot, merchandise and the
customs houses. The concept of a judgment appears both on the individual
level after death, and as the final judgment at the end of time. In the first
sense:
Mani said, ‘These are the three roadways upon which the souls of men are
divided. One of them leads to the Gardens [of Paradise] and is for the Elect.
The second one, leading to the world and things horrible, is for those who guard
the cult and help the Elect. The third leads to the underworld and is for the
man who is a sinner.’15
Indeed, in his pictorial representation of the mythos, the Eikon, Mani
portrayed the salvation of the righteous and the eternal damnation of
sinners. However, apparently he could not portray the middle way of those
9. TM 389a R23sqq, ‘The Manichaean Fasts’, W. B. Henning (trans.), Journal ofthe Royal
Asiatic Society, 1945, p. 155.
10. Ex., Keph. 218, 16ff.
11. Tsii Chi, ‘Mo Ni Chiao Hsia Pu Tsan’, Bulletin ofthe School of Oriental and African
Studies, Vol. XI, 1943, p. 178.
12. Alberuni‘s India, E. Sachau (ed.), New Delhi 1964. Voi. 2, p. 169.
13. Mani-Codex, p. 37.
14. E.g., Manichuische Homilien [Hereafter referred to as Horn.] (Manichaische
Handschriften der Sammlung A. Chester Beatty), H. I. Polotsky and H. Ibscher (eds), Vol. 1,
Stuttgart 1934, 6, 19-28.
15. TheFihrist of al-Nadim, B. Dodge (trans.), Vol. 11, New York and London 1970, p. 7%.
262 J O U R N A L OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY

who would pass on through metaggismos and might eventually go to

Heaven or He11.I6
A number of modern scholars have drawn attention to these three
categories as a characteristic Manichaean teaching. Olsson has attempted
to interpret the qur’anic surah 56 ‘in the light of Manichaean evidence’.”
This text distinguishes: the foremost (as-scTbiqun)or al-muqarrabzin(those
who are brought nigh, that is, to God); those of the right side; those of
the left side. However, as Olsson recognizes, the Qur’an refers to the Last
Day, while the majority of relevant Manichaean texts are concerned with
salvation within time. Although the three categories may still be discerned
at the last judgment, the absence of all the other characteristic features
of Manichaean eschatology in the Qur’an makes the link tenuous at best.
The thesis also ignores traditional Islamic exegesis which refers ‘the
foremost’ sometimes to the companions of the Prophet, or to those most
advanced in the faith. In such circumstances the case must be regarded
as ‘not proven’.
To return to Manichaeism, the role of personal judge is taken by various
figures depending on the situation in the mythos, and the devotional and
cultural attitude of the author of the text. Interestingly, in later texts from
a Buddhist cultural milieu, the entire imagery concerning judgment is de-
eschatologized, and the representatives of judgment are understood as the
’*
soul’s own virtues. In contrast, the much earlier Kephalaia chapter
XXVIII lists twelve judges, of whom Jesus is the eighth between the Third
Messenger and the Maiden of Light. Tenth in the same list is the intriguing
abstract figure known as the Judge in the aer. In a more poetic account
from the Psalm-Book:
He will appear unto thee, even the Judge, with a face full of joy; he will wash
thee also and purify thee with his pleasant dews. He will set thy foot on the
path of Truth and furnish thee with thy wings of Light, like an eagle hovering,
ascending out of his air [aer].19
Generally, any of the redeeming Gods of the third emanation may appear
as judge, for instance the Third Messenger.” But undoubtedly Jesus is
the most common, evidencing his strong devotional impact.
The judge is closely associated, and may sometimes be identified
with, the sage or guide who presents gifts and victory prizes to the
ascending soul. According to the systematic account in the Kephalaia
chapter VII the guide is the Form (morphe) of Light who is the third
power of the Nous of Light (the Fourth Father), whose first and second
powers are the Apostle of Light and the Twin, Each of these figures
is closely related. The Twin has the double function of revealer and
protecting angel, and appears to Mani after his death; just as the Form
of Light, to each of the Manichaean faithful. Also the Form of Light,
who in turn is the Fifth Father, appears with three angels, one carrying
16. Keph. ch. XCII.
17. Olsson, ‘Manichaean Background of Eschatology in the Koran’, p. 273.
18. See H . J. Klimkeit, Hindu Deities in Manichaean Art (typewritten), pp. 13f.
19. Ps-Bk 100, 27-31; see also 26, 10: KeDh. 35, 25f.; 83, 4 - 8 ; 117. 22-8.
20. E.g., Iranian text M39.
 ESCHATOLOGY OF MANICHAEISM 263
the victory-prize, the second the robe of glory, and the third a crown and
other insignia.’*
I Father of 0) Great Spirit
Greatness (ii) Beloved of Lights
(iii) Third Messenger

I1 Third (9 Column of Glory - Perfect Man

Messenger (ii) Jesus Splendour
(iii) Maiden of Light - Sophia

I11 Jesus Splendour (i) Nous of Light - Father of all the apostles
(ii) Great Judge in the aer
(iii)Boy - Call and Answer
IV Nous of Light (i) Apostle of Light
(ii) Twin-a companion for the Apostle
(iii)Form of Light - for the Elect and Hearers
V Form of Light (i) Angel with victory-prize
(ii) Angel with garment of Light
(iii)Angel with diadem, wreath, and crown of
Light
Mani and his followers delighted in complex schematizations of this sort,
often involving pentads. The details should not be taken too strictly, since
all divine figures are ultimately forms of the same reality and different
groupings and names were freely used. The essential point is the underlying
rationale, and this remains remarkably constant in Manichaean texts for
all periods and areas. The Fihrist of al-Nadim recounts the same event:
When death comes to one of the Elect [Zuddfqu], Primal Man sends him a
light shining deity in the form of the Wise Guide. With him are three deities,
with whom there are the drinking vessel, clothing, headcloth, crown, and diadem
of Light. There accompanies them a virgin who resembles the soul of that
member of the Elect.”
The deities disperse the devils surrounding the Elect one, give the gifts,
and together they mount up the Column of Praise to the moon, and so on.
The symbolism utilized here is interesting in that while details such as
the gifts are specifically eschatological, the major features repeat the
patterning that Manichaeism applies to all ‘saving moments’. Of these the
redemption of the Primal Man by the Living Spirit is the mythological
archetype, which is repeated in all its important elements, at the beginning
of historical time, in the redemptive mission of Jesus Splendour to Adam.
Typical features are the scattering of the demonic powers and beasts that
beset the sleeping or dead one; the awakening, or imparting of gnosis;
the raising up by the right hand; the discarding of the fleshly body; and
21. Thus Keph. 36, 9 -21. Details of the figures and gifts vary, particularly in the poetic
accounts such as in the Coptic Psalm-Book, e.g., 22, 16- 19; 57, 28f.; 69, 8 - 10; 81, 9;
and the Parthian Huvizfagrnun, VI, C, 4ff.
22. Fihrist, Dodge (trans.), p. 795.
264 JOURNAL OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY

the return or ascent to the Kingdom of Light. While in broad terms these
are classic gnostic traits, it is in Mandaic texts that the Manichaean find
specific echoes. Thus the following Mandaean passage draws both upon
the coming of the sage and the salvation of Adam:
The Releaser came, the Man, the Messenger drew near. He came, he stood
by the pillow of Adam . . . and awoke him from sleep and spoke to him: ‘Arise,
arise, Adam, throw off this stinking body, the clay coat in which you lived.
Cast off the bodily coat, the rotting body . . . and smite the Seven and the
Twelve, the men who created you . . . The Life sent me to you because he longs
for you. Set your course t o the place of Light, the place where you once lived,
the abode in which your fathers sit.”’
The eschatological guide is not only saviour, but also personal protector
and companion; just as the sleeping soul has during life to awaken him
or her by gnosis, to care for, and guide. The Sage is always the Nous,
either as itself or personified in redeeming God or apostle. Most frequently
the personification is Jesus, although it may be Mani himself who after
death has become fully united with his Twin as the Para~lete.’~ Again,
it is the Mandaean parallels that are most numerous and close to the
symbolism:
A Saviour that cometh towards you
Is all radiancy and light from head to foot
Like the wreath in his right hand.
And on his two arms is a robe.
Bestir yourselves! Put on your robes!
Put on your living wreaths, gird on your girdles.25
This raises the important and difficult question of the robe of glory that
the ascending soul puts on.
In Manichaeism the language of clothing and garments recurs constantly.
However, certain usages help towards an understanding of the
eschatological robe. The Nous as itself, or as any redeemer figure, enters
into and ‘wears’ the Living
(0)Father, Mind [nous] of Light, come and wear [phorein] me (until)
I have recited the woe of the Son of Man.
(My) Lord Jesus, come and wear [phorein] me until I purify the
body [?soma]of the First Man”
The point is to reunify nous and psyche, separated when the Primal Man
lost his Five Sons (Soul), when he had his armour ripped off him by the
evil powers.” The Five Sons were a robe of Light put upon the powers
of Darkness to bind and shackle The Living Soul is clothing and

23. GL I, 2, W. Foerster (trans.) Gnosis, Oxford 1972, Vol. 11, p. 274. In Mandaeism death
is personified as Sauriel, the ‘releaser’, who is also identified with KuJia (truth), as are the
other redeemers.
24. See e.g., M64; Ps-Bk CCXXXVII.
25. Canonical Prayerbook of the Mandaeans 67, E. S. Drower (trans.), Leiden 1959, p. 54.
26. E.g., Ps-Bk 116, 26f.; 181, 38f.
27. Ps-Bk 162, 23 -6; also 178, 1-4.
28. E.g., see Ps-Bk 206, 21f.; Keph. 28, 12f.
29. Ps-Bk 201, 29f.
 ESCHATOLOGY OF MANICHAEISM 265
a diadem that the evil ones put exactly parodying the robe and gifts
that the ascending soul will receive.
However, although the Living Soul is a robe cast over evil, it is also
trapped and itself clothed in hyle. When it ascends it must throw off its
‘dirty garments’ and put on the robe of Light again. ‘(I have left) the
garment upon the earth, the senility of diseases that was with me; the
immortal robe I have put upon me.’31 The incorruptible robe is the
untrapped divine pair of the redeemed soul, with which it is now reunited;
and it is the embodied piety, taking shape and being enlivened as the
individual acts in his or her life.32
The relationship between the ascending figure and the robe is that
between the two sides of the divine, and so the robe is directly associated
with the concept of the Twin. Mani spoke of ‘my closely-fitting S y ~ y g o s ’ . ~ ~
Thus, although the robe is one of the gifts presented by the Saviour-guide,
the Form of Light, it is also the image of the Saviour, and the pair of
the ascending, now liberated, soul. It is a pure mirror for the warrior in
a world of mixture, the Maiden, a female counterpart and image of the
Saviour, usually Jesus, and of the soul:
the image [eikon] of the Saviour has come unto me . . .
Lo, the Light of the Maiden has shone forth on me, the glorious
likeness (of the truth), with her three angels, the
(givers of) grace . . .
(The gates of) the skies have opened before me through the rays of
(My) Saviour and his glorious likeness of Light.34
The complex shifting figures and images of the Manichaean account have
close parallels in Mandaean literature. Here the guide is Sauriel, the releaser:
I have lifted mine eyes to heaven
And my soul waited on the House of Life.
And the Life who heard my cry
Sent toward me a deliverer.
The deliverer who came to me
Brought me that which was lovely;
H e opened out a robe and showed me its radiance
And I cast off the stinking body.
He grasped me with the palm of his right hand
And led me over the waters of death.
. . . And led me onward, in the likeness of Life he supported me
Life supported Life, Life found its own.
Its own self did Life find
And my Soul found that for which it had 10oked.~’
In addition to the robe the ascending soul receives gifts such as a wreath.36

30. Ps-Bk 208, 6f.

31. Ps-Bk 81, 8f.; see 99, 27-30; 146, 41f.
32. This is made explicit in the ‘Hymn of the Pearl’.
33. Mani-Codex, p. 23.
34. Ps-Bk 81, 2 - 7 ; also see 66, 22-4; 112, 9f.
35. Canonical Prayerbook of the Mandaeans, p. 99.
36. Canonical Prayerbook, pp. 66, 69, 70, etc.
266 J O U R N A L OF R E L I G I O U S HISTORY

In Mandaeism, also, the soul that descends and returns is itself equated
to a garment; it is ‘well-equipped’just as with the Manichaean Primal Man
and his armour. The eschatological putting on of the robe is a reunification
as the ascending soul meets its counterpart. This dmufa has forever
remained in the ideal world of Mhnia Kuifa, and reflects the good deeds
of the soul in the cosmos.
The third symbolic complex is that of the pilot, ship and merchandise.
Here again the imagery is rich, and similarly shared by both Manichaeism
and Mandaeism. In Psalm of Thomas I11 the evil powers are thieves who
attacked the ship of the Living Ones, wounded the glorious helmsman
and scattered the treasure. The Mighty One hears of this, and
He called an envoy [presbeutes], a
storehouse [tarnieion]of life, which is the Mind [nous],he called an
envoy [presbeutes]and sent him forth unto the ship, (saying), ‘Goto the (place)
whither the wind has taken the ship; tow the ship and bring it up
hither; tend its helmsman.37
The treasure is gathered and put on board; this and the return of the ship
indicates the final ascent and victory.
Generally there is an eschatological context for these symbols, which
may be combined with those of the judge, guide, or gifts.38Certainly the
pilot of the ship is another manifestation of the redeeming NOUS,and again
Jesus is popular.39 Such symbols were easily developed, in a mercantile
environment, to include those of trade. The pilot, his ship, and the sea
may be macrocosmic (redeeming God or apostle; gnosis, church,
congregation of souls; cosmos, heavens) or microcosmic (nous or gnosis;
body or soul; world, life). So it is with the merchant (redeeming God or
apostle; nous or gnosis) and his merchandise (souls; good deeds). The
Psalm-Book recounts the final ascent of the Primal Man, his merchandise
being the redeemed souls:
The Fathers of Light came that they might help their loved
one.
They helped the First Man, he cried before him
in joy: ‘Behold me, behold my merchandise’.
Great is the joy that there was, the First Man being
in their midst, laden with garlands and palms.
May it happen to us together that we may be counted in his merchandise and
rejoice with all the aeons.40
On a microcosmic level, where a soul’s merchandise is its good deeds,
judgment takes place on arrival at the ‘customs houses’ where all must
be shown to the officials. The ship that arrives empty returns to
metaggismos, and the Psalm-Book comment is exactly echoed in the
Mandaean Johannesbuch, ‘Wehe dem Leeren, der Leer im Hause der
Zollner da~teht’.~’
37. PS-Bk 208, 11 - 15.
38. E.g., PS-Bk 95, 24-7; 213, 2-6, 15-27.
39. E.g., PS-Bk 151, 8-10, 31-152, 8; 166, 11.
40. PS-Bk 202, 12 - 19.
41. Johunnesbuch, 47, Lidzbarski p. 175; compare Ps-Bk 217, 24-218, 8.
 ESCHATOLOGY OF M A N I C H A E I S M 267

The poetic texts powerfully developed the images of the dangerous sea,
the bravery of the pilot and the safety of the harbour. Although in
Manichaeism it is the material world around that is a frightening place,
and the ascent after death a time of rejoicing, there are occasional
illogicalities in the texts that reflect the astral fears of the surrounding
cultures: ‘that he may escape from the Hebdomas of these Barbarians and
take his stand against the seven helmsmen’.42However, in general the
ascent of the soul brings rest and a re-entrance into eternity. This world
itself is a kind of death, an evil dream in the sleep (ignorance) induced
by mixture, and already foreshadows the total death of the damned. For
the Manichee, therefore, bodily death is to be welcomed. To mourn is
a sin: ‘Let no man weep for me’.43 Physical resurrection is, of course,
anathema.
And I saw that it [that is, the abandoned body] became dark, and there is no
(light therein);
hideous in appearance and overpowering in form.
The Saviour said to me: Spirit! behold the husk
(you have) abandoned in the deep in terror (and) destruction.
Truly for you it was a deceptive partner,
a distressful prison in every hell.
And truly for you it was an unruly death,
which (severed) your soul from life for ever.
And truly for you it was a path of stumbling
which was wholly deeds of dread, and much sickness.44
At this point a brief account of the characteristic features of personal
salvation in Manichaeism, microcosmic eschatology, can be made. In terms
of cosmology the path of ascent via the Column of Glory, moon and sun
evidences Mani’s astonishing endeavour to establish a scientific religion
with an entirely material basis. Both Light and Darkness, God and matter,
are substances; and attempts from the time of the Christian heresiologists
to the present to understand this in terms of Hellenistic categories, a
dualism of spirit and matter, are fundamentally mistaken. The divine soul
is distilled and released from the shackles of matter, and visibly ascends
through the heavens leaving the colourless, dark and stinking husks of
matter behind it. At this level, Mani’s understanding should be placed in
the context of the cosmology and astrology of the times. The elusive
teachings of Bardaisan are an important comparison and influence; but
at the same time the inner logic of Mani’s teachings has an authenticity
of its own. Within this Mani radically materializes Pauline theology so
that the church, as the body of Jesus, takes substance in the figure of the
Perfect Man ascending through the heavens. This will culminate (see below)
when, at the end of time, as the Last Man the redeemed Light stands before
the Father of Greatness.
While the substantial mechanism of ascent is explained thus, across it
is laid the gnostic hope in personal judgment and redemption. A shifting
42. Ps-Bk 53, 18f.
43. Ps-Bk 62, 25.
44. AngudRoshnun, VIII, 12 - 16; translation in Asmussen, Manichuean Literature, pp. %f.
268 JOURNAL OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY

series of saviour figures, manifestations of Nous, descend to awaken and

guide upwards the lost and bewildered soul. While this draws on common
gnostic traits, the details and the imagery are specific to Manichaeism and
Mandaeism (also the ‘Hymn of the Pearl’), evidencing a common thought-
world. Here the distinctive features betray Iranian traits (see the figure
of the ciaem?), a point which is reinforced when we turn to the account
of macrocosmic eschatology. Essentially Zoroastrian emphases on the end
of time underpin apocalyptic motifs drawn from common Judaeo-
Christian sources.
Individual and collective eschatology are woven together in Manichaeism
in a remarkable way, for the history of the Living Soul is in a very real
sense that of each individual. Indeed, a realization of the vital importance
of history and the cosmos greatly aids our understanding of the religion
in contrast to the differing types of gnostic and Indian atemporalism.
Revelation - and salvation - history builds towards an apocalyptic vision
itself original, though based firmly on traditional Semitic and Iranian
models.
According to Kephalaia chapter LVII the passage of time is accompanied
by a continual reduction of the amount of Light in the world, as more
of the trapped divine is released and saved. Whereas Adam lived to a great
age, now human life is short and the end draws near. As evil comes to
predominate in the cosmos, so life becomes worse, and the last generations
will be a time of increasing deformity and corruption.
Koenen points out that primitive Manichaeism was born in an atmosphere
of apocalyptic expectation. Mani’s revelation and his life are themselves
the beginning of the eschatological event!’ An early text in the Homilies,
the Sermon of the Great War, which is to be dated to the first generation
after Mani’s death, expects some of those who had personally met the apostle
of Light to experience the coming of the Great King. This would be a time
of peace prior to the appearance of the Antichrist and subsequent return
of Jesus as judge. This illustrates an inevitable tension between the logic
of increasing corruption, and the church’s natural hope for its own
missionary success, especially at a time of persecution. This tension is
resolved by the preaching of a final opportunity for conversion, the victory
of the church and a last concentration of the Light still remaining in the
Although for later generations the apocalypse inevitably retreated
into lhe future, the hint of this-worldly millennialism serves again to illustrate
the maturity of Manichaeism in its accommodation to the world, in contrast
to the gnostic cults. An (admittedly Mandaic) passage from the Psalms of
Thomas enthuses:
The world
(shall) be full of glory, the earth shall be without suspicion, the
whole world shall contain the Righteous, they of the earth shall dwell in (peace.47
Manichaeism presents an original apocalyptic conception, which is
45. Koenen, ‘Manichaean Apocalypticism at the Crossroads’, pp. 286, passim. See
pp. 298 - 307 for details of the sequence of apocalyptic events.
46. Koenen pp. 3 0 0 - 1 .
41. Ps-Bk 207, 10- 12.
 ESCHATOLOGY OF MANICHAEISM 269
theoretically based upon the inner logic of the system. Certainly many
of the images are taken from pre-existing material, and iqdeed Mani
directly used Gospel apocalyptic in his earliest writing: the SGbuhragdn.
Yet the framework of Manichaean eschatology is a carefully balanced
section of the ‘history’. At the final redemption or restoration (fraiegird
in Iranian texts), the Sons of the Living Spirit who hold the cosmos in
place leave their tasks, and the whole elaborate structure collapse^.^^ The
gods of the second emanation complete their roles, and coherence is given
to the entire system. The Living Spirit combated and fettered the archons
at the beginning, he eternally achieves this when he fastens them to the
bolos. As he redeemed the Primal Man from the abyss, so he will draw
up the Last Man. The Living Spirit and his Five Sons built the cosmos,
so now they will destroy it.
The final destruction is inevitably combined with the end of time, which
is a product of the workings of the cosmos as a machine for the distillation
of the Light: ‘and when God Khradeshahr [that is, Jesus] will be in the
world, then day, month and year will stop. And harm will overcome greed
and lust and pain and torment . . . and evil years and disgrace they will
shake off, and they will sin no more.’49 The apocalyptic collapse of the
cosmos climaxes in the Great Fire which will last for exactly 1468 years,”
and which achieves some further purification of the Light.”
The eschatological text M 211 describes how the Gods lead the unhurt
parts of the Light to the New Paradise. Various events are related, then,
and when also the Last Man [that is, the Light that has remained unliberated
until the end of the world] stands [there] as the mightiest in stature, and when
the warlike gods together with the Five Lights have been healed from [their]
wounds, then all the Jewels, the apostles, and the battle-stirring gods stand
up and appear before the Sovereign of Paradise with imploring and prayer:
First God Ohrmizd together with the Last Man.52
The first descent and final ascent are placed exactly together in the two
figures, the Primal anthropos and the Last andrias. This indicates the
regathering of the primal ‘trunk’ devoured and diversified since the first
tragedy (similarly the stulos). ‘I will await my brethren, the sons of Light,
until their stature (?) is completed for them . . . when (they) are complete
in their stature . . . I will strike my foot on the earth and sink their
Darkness down’.53 Everything is drawn together at this moment. The
Messenger reveals his ‘glorious image’, and the Living Spirit brings the
Last Statue up to the aeons of Light.54
48. E.g., Acta Archelai 11.
49. Shabuhragan, in Asmussen, Manichaean Literature, p. 105.
50. E.g., Fihrist, p. 783. Note that the same figure appears in the gnostic text The Concept
pf Our Great Power VI, 4, 46, 2%. The figure is best explained as a Sothis period plus one
week’ of seven years, as first suggested by C. Ogden in 1930. See Koenen, ‘Manichaean
Apocalypticism’, p. 321. In the latter part of the article Koenen’s search for the historical
origins of Manichaean apocalyptic motifs goes well beyond the provable.
51. E.g., Augustine, contra Fuust. 11, 5 .
52. M211, in Asmussen, Manichaean Literature, p. 136.
5 3 . From Ps-Bk 206, 27 - 207, 6.
54. Thus Keph. 86, 7 - 15.
270 JOURNAL OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY

All life, the relic of Light wheresoever it be, he will

gather to himself and of it depicit [zographeinl an image [andrim].
And the counsel of death too, all the Darkness,
he will gather together and make a likeness [zogruphein] of its very self,
(it and the) Ruler [~rchbn].’~
The Darkness attempted to scatter the Soul it had captured, and so to
keep it for itself; but the Light has succeeded in its redemptive mission,
for it has gathered together its
According to the hbuhragan, the Five Gods, that is the Five Sons of
&e Primal Man and ’their Splendour’, who had originally been seized by
Az and Ahrimen, will again be whole as they first were.” They will leave
the cosmos in the Great Fire and be purified, pass up to the moon, sun
and paradise ‘in the form of Ohrmizdbay’. It is the originally lost ‘trunk’
of the Primal Man (Ohrmizd), the Five Sons, that ascends now as the Last
Statue. This image is reaffirmed in the Psalm-Book
Rise up, o First Man, gather the host
of the Gods . . .
Rise up, o First Man, set in order the fragments of (the)
tower(?)’*
In the most important ritual of the Manichaean community, the annual
Bema festival, an eikon of Mani was placed upon the judgment seat.
However, Mani only occupied that position as a proxy for Jesus:
Thou art glorious, blessed Bema, that shall reign unto
the end of the world, until Jesus shall come and sit upon it
and judge all races.59
Belief in the eschatological return of Jesus was intrinsic to Manichaeism,
and is found in both Eastern and Western texts. The Sermon of the Great
War in the Homilies gives an account of the last judgment, the separation
of the sheep from the goats, and Jesus’ ascent back to the Light-kingdom.
However, the use of Matthew xxv. 31ff. goes back to Mani himself, as
is made evident by the Sabuhragan where Jesus appears as God
XradeSahr, ‘he who has wisdom as his kingdom’. A sign appears upon
the Earth and among the heavenly bodies. A great call is sent out into
the world. All are brought before the judge who separates them to left
and right, to paradise or to hell.@ The Elect are transformed into angels.61
The Manichaean accounts include traditional features such as the coming
of false prophets and the Antichrist. Syncretism between Christian and
Iranian sources is evidenced by the appearance of a ‘false Mithra’ as
55. Ps-Bk 1 1 , 8-12.
56. E.g., Keph. 29,3; and M21, Khrdshtag to Ohrmizd: ‘Collect your limbs!’A very common
gnostic theme: see the Ophites according to Irenaeus, udversus Huer. 1.32.14.
5 7 . This is devotional optimism. It is clear that the Manichees expected some of the Light
to be eternally lost. Thus the dramatic account of the final tragedy in Keph. 149, 29 - 150,
12 where the remainder of the Living Soul cries. weem and shrieks as the Last Statute ascends.
58. Ps-Bk 198, I f and 5f.; also i98, 13. The Psalm is eschatological.
59. PS-Bk 25, 24-6.
60. See also Ps-Bk 154, 3 - 12.
61. Horn. 38. 15f.
 ESCHATOLOGY OF MANICHAEISM 27 1
Antichrist in a text from Turfan.62 In the Mandaean account, at the last
judgment the damned fall into blazing fire or the ocean of Suf. This is
the end of the world when ‘the light rises up and the darkness returns to
its place’. The accounts are developed in terms of Christ’s earthly
millennium. However, in Mandaeism the Christian Jesus is the false
Messiah, the son of Maryam, whose return succeeds the Moslem age. He
performs wonders so that all the creatures, and even the claybricks, testify
to him. Yet, ‘he is a false Messiah that walketh by fraud and sorcery’.63
Jesus has, by a curious inversion, himself become the Antichrist!
The ‘history of the Living Soul’ concerns the middle of the Three Times,
the period of mixture. However, the final and eternal separation of the
Two Principles that succeeds it will not be as the beginning. Manichaeism
emphasizes suffering and the vulnerability of the good more than any other
major religion. Part of God himself is liable to be eternally lost and
damned.
This teaching received massive attack from the Christian world. It is
the doctrine of the bolos; the Greek word is found even in Ephraem’s
Syriac, and is a technical term in Manichaeism. For Augustine it is the
globus (or mama), which seems to have exerted a strange fascination upon
its greatest opponent?’ ‘nec tamen etiam tunc totum Christum dicitis posse
liberari, sed eius bonae divinaeque naturae novissimas residuasque
particulas, quae ita sordidatae sunt, ut nullo mod0 dilui valeant, damnari
in aeturnum confixas globo horrid0 t e n e b r a r ~ m ’ . ~ ~
Augustine’s pupil Evodius, apparently quoting from M a d s own
Fundamental Epistle, provides further details. Some souls become so
entangled in the world and in evil that they become irrevocably attached
to what they have loved, so that by their own misdeeds, ‘a vita et Iibertate
sanctae lucis alienarentur. Non igitur poterunt recipi in regna illa pacifica,
sed configentur in praedicto horribili globo, cui etiam necesse est custodiam
adhiberi’.66 These teachings are not the invention of Christian polemic.
The eschatological text M2II teaches that some of the Light is so mixed
with the Darkness that it cannot be separated from it. Indeed, this Light
is no longer homomorphic with the Gods, ‘because it was determined to
be (so)!’ However, the Gods are not sorrowful, for sorrow is not a divine
characteristic. Mani himself wrote in the Book of Mysteries:
Apostles ask, ‘Messiah, what should be the end of those souls which did not
receive the truth nor learn the origin of their existence?’ Whereupon he said:
‘Any weak soul which has not received all that belongs to her of truth perishes
without any rest or bli~s’.~’

62. See A. Bohlig, ‘Der Synkretismus des Mani’, Synkretismus im syrisch-persisch

kulturgebiet, A. Dietrich (ed.), Gottingen 1975, p. 166.
63, The Haran Gawaita and the Baptism of Hibil-Ziwa, E. S . Drower (ed.), Studi e Testi
No. 176, Vatican City 1953, pp. 19f.
64. See E. Buonaiuti, ‘Manichaeism and Augustine’s Idea of Massa Perditionis’,Harvard
Theological Review, Vol. XX, 1927, pp. 117-27.
65. Augustine, contra Faust. 11, 5 , Zycha, Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum,
Vol. XXV, VI, 2, pp. 258f.
66. Euodius, defide contra Munich. 5 , Zycha, Corpus Scriptorum, XXV, VI, 2, p. 953.
67. Alberuni’s India, Sachau (ed.), Vol. 1 , pp. 54f.
272 J O U R N A L OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY

Manichaeism has developed a long way from Gnostic esotericism.

Salvation is not by necessity, correct ethics are essential, sin and hell are
very real possibilities. This terrible claim that some of the divine can be
lost is faced unflinchingly,
The parts of the dead souls will be (fettered)
in the tomb of death where all is blackness.
. . . And they will become the bricks (?) (which are) spoilt and smashed,
which are not fit to go up to the keepers of the Building.68
Particular sins condemn the soul to eternal damnation; for instance,
the practice of magical arts and charms.69Yet, it is necessary to be careful,
for it is clear that Manichaeism does not keep properly distinct two different
senses of damnation. Firstly, there are the hells to which the condemned
sinners are sent. These are part of the cosmos and belong to the Second
Time. The individual is judged at death, and may be sent to Hell. An
ambiguity must be discerned here. In a Western religious culture such a
hell would be eternal; but in an Indian culture it may be temporary within
the system of rnetaggisrnos. Secondly, there is the teaching that concerns
the Third Time, after the destruction of the cosmos and ‘history’. This
is damnation in the ensuing eternal separation of the Two Principles; the
‘second death’ of the Kephalaia. Souls that are lost are punished in the
Great Fire and eternally bound with the powers of Darkness. The duration
of mixture is completed.
At the end of history the Gods and apostles will gather before the Father
of Greatness and say:
that sinner who boasted deceitfully and fought with your Greatness has been
seized and bound in an extraordinary tomb, out of which he can no longer
go. And also the earth, the dwelling-place of the enemies, we have overthrown
and filled up and above we have built the light fundament of the New Aeon.
And for you there are no more enemies and rivals, but yours is the eternal
victory.”
The Kephalaia provides other details. The souls of condemned sinners will
be crucified and chained to the enemy. Males will be bound to the bolos,
but females separated in the taphos, so that they may never again have
sex and multiply. A great stone will be rolled over to ensure the eternal
burial of evil.71
Victory, although a victory that was totally condemned by the Christian
writers, has gone to the Light. The Primal Man has succeeded in his task,
and the Father receives again his due p o s s e s ~ i o nNow,
. ~ ~ finally, the Father
himself reveals his eikon to the returned Light that has gathered in the
New Aeon.73 It has been separated ever since the first emanation,
68. Angad ROshnan VII, 35; VII, al, in Asmussen, Manichaean Literature, p. 95.
69. Thus Keph. 31, 24-33.
70. MZII, in Asmussen, Manichaean Literature, pp. 136f.
71. Thus Keph. 105, 1-35.
72. See Keph. 286, 13-5.
73. The New Aeon is made by the Great Architect at the beginning of the time of mixture
as a resting place for the Gods and the redeemed Light. The Primal Man is the king, and
at the end of time the demons will be imprisoned in its centre. See Koenen, ‘Manichaean
Apocalypticism’, pp . 306 - 7.
 ESCHATOLOGY OF MANICHAEISM 273
throughout the time of mixture. The divine is then taken in to the Father,
into his hidden tamieia, and achieves final peace. The Father no longer
hides him~elf.’~

This paper has presented a summary account of the eschatological

teachings of Manichaeism. There are a number of problems in providing
such a summary, most importantly the nature of the sources that have
diverse temporal and cultural contexts. It has to be borne in mind that
the Manichees sought to stress the universality of the revelation as the
summation of prior religions, together with their conceptual worlds.
Therefore it was logical, whether as missionaries or as a persecuted
minority, for them to deliberately clothe their doctrines in the languages
of other faiths. Thus Mani himself in the hbuhragan preferred to speak
of the great God XradeSahr, rather than of the eschatological Jesus.
Similarly the very nature of Manichaean thought allowed considerable
flexibility in the fluctuating roles of the gods. Such processes force the
scholar to be cautious; nevertheless, once this is recognized, the evidence
repeatedly shows that the basic doctrines remained remarkably constant
over great distances and long periods of time.
What then can be concluded from this summary? The most important
point is that Manichaeism proffers an original and daring recognition of
the reality of evil and suffering, while its eschatology provides a promise
of salvation that is full of hope. The logic of the dualism is taken inexorably
to a conclusion that avoids the easy solutions of the gnostic cults. For
the historian of religion, Manichaeism aids an understanding of the cross-
fertilization of ideas both within the various branches of the Semitic family
of religions, and beyond that to the Iranian and Indian religious worlds.
However, it must always be borne in mind that the Manichees remained
true to the inner logic of their own experience, and that this was more
than the sum of the eclectic sources upon which Mani can be shown to
have drawn.

Author’s Note

Since this article was prepared for publication there has been a remarkable
new discovery of Manichaean texts at the Roman site of Kellis, in the
Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt. Excavation of the site (led by Dr C . A. Hope of
Monash University) is continuing; but an initial account of the find and
its relevance for Manichaean studies will be provided by my article, ‘A
Manichaean Liturgical Codex Found At Kellis’, to be published in
Orientaliaduring 1993. Many of the new texts contain valuable information
concerning Manichaean eschatology.

74. Keph. 103, 2-30.