AND THE NEW MANICHAEANS.

For they worshipped fire as a great God. The author refers here to the Persian Magi, who viewed fire as a physical manifestation of the divine. They considered it lawful for a son to be joined to his mother or a father to his daughter. Furthermore, they practiced divination and predictions, claiming that the Gods appeared to them. They believed the air was full of spirits original: "dæmonibus," here meaning intermediate spirits or supernatural beings, not necessarily "demons" in the modern sense, which flow into the eyes of those watching as a thin vapor. They forbid outward adornment and the use of gold. Their clothing is white, their bed is the ground, and their food consists of vegetables, cheese, and coarse bread. They use a reed for a staff, and attaching cheese to its tip, they bring it to their mouths to eat.

The Magi: Persian priests of Mithras, or the Sun.

Horomasdes, Arimanius, and Mithras (the Sun): the three Persian deities.

IV. The Persian Magi were the priests of the Sun, whom the Persians called Mithras. From this come those words of Archelaus Archelaus was a 3rd-century bishop famously associated with the "Acts of Archelaus," a fictionalized debate against Mani, the founder of Manichaeism. against Mani (1): You barbarian Priest of Mithras and trickster, you worship only the Sun—the illuminator of mystical places and witness to secrets, as you believe—and this is the game you play among them, and like an elegant actor, you perform the mysteries. For among the Persians, on the authority of their Magi, there were three supreme Deities: Mithras, Horomasdes, and Arimanius. They did not separate Fire—for which they had built public temples called Pyrea From the Greek word for fire, pyr.—from the Sun, as the nature of the Sun is the same as fire.

But Mithras, according to the testimony of Plutarch A Greek historian and philosopher (c. 46 – 119 AD) who wrote extensively on Persian customs. whom I mentioned above, was a mediator original: "mesites," meaning an intermediary or middleman., that is, an intermediary between two opposing Deities, Horomasdes and Arimanius, as if he might mitigate the force and power of these two contrary principles. However, what Plutarch says—that Horomasdes was born from the purest light and Arimanius, conversely, from gloom—must not be understood as if one was the literal son of light and the other the son of gloom. This is because these two contrary deities were, among the Persians, eternal, unbegotten, and uncreated principles. Therefore, Horomasdes is said to be "born" from the purest light because he consisted of the purest light; Arimanius, truly, was "born" from gloom because he consisted of gloom and darkness. Nor indeed does that testimony of Theodore of Mopsuestia A 4th-century Christian theologian and influential biblical interpreter. stand in the way, which is found in (2) Photius regarding Persian history...

(1). Archelaus, in Zacagni's Ecclesiastical Collection, volume 1, number 36, page 63.
(2) Photius, Library, Codex 81.