Writings in Connection with the Manichaean Heresy

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No reader of the accompanying volume can be expected to take a very lively interest in its contents unless he has before his mind some facts regarding the extraordinary genius to whom the heresy of Manichaeism owes its origin and its name. His history is involved in considerable obscurity, owing to the suspicious nature of the documents from which it is derived and the difficulty of constructing a consistent and probable account out of the contradictory statements of the Asiatics and the Greeks. The ascertained facts, therefore, are few and may be briefly stated.¹

According to the Chronicle of Edessa, Mani was born A.D. 240. From his original name, Corbicius or Carcubius, Beausobre conjectures that he was born in Carcub, a town of Chaldea. He belonged to a Magian family, and while still a youth won a distinguished place among the sages of Persia. He was master of all the lore peculiar to his class and was, besides, so proficient a mathematician and geographer that he was able to construct a globe. He was a skilled musician and had some knowledge of the Greek language—an accomplishment rare among his countrymen. But his fame, and

¹ Beausobre (Critical History of Manes and Manichaeism, Amsterdam 1734, 2 vols.) has collected everything that is known of Mani. The original sources are here sifted with unusual acuteness and with great and solid learning, though the author’s strong “bias in favor of a heretic” frequently leads him to make unwarranted statements. Burton’s estimate of this entertaining and indispensable work (Heresies of the Apostolic Age, p. xxi.) is much fairer than Pusey’s (Augustine’s Confessions, p. 314). A brief account of Mani and his doctrines is given by Milman with his usual accuracy, impartiality, and lucidity (History of Christianity, ii. 259, ed. 1867). For anyone who wishes to investigate the subject further, ample references are there given. A specimen of the confusion that involves the history of Mani will be found in the account given by Socrates (Ecclesiastical History, i. 22).