Writings in Connection with the Manichaean Heresy

even his ultimate success as a teacher was due in great measure to his skill in painting, which was so considerable as to earn for him among the Persians the distinctive title, "Mani the painter." His disposition was ardent and lively, but patient and self-restrained. His appearance was striking, as he wore the usual dress of a Persian sage: the high-soled shoes, one red and the other green; the mantle of azure blue that changed color as he moved; the ebony staff in his right hand, and the Babylonian book under his left arm.

The meaning of his name, Mani, Manes, or Manichaeus, has been the subject of endless conjecture. Epiphanius supposes that he was providentially so named so that men might be warned against the mania of his heresy.¹ Hyde, whose opinion on any Oriental subject must have weight, tells us that in Persian mani means painter, and that he was so called from his profession. Archbishop Usher conjectured that it was a form of Manaem or Menahem, which means "Paraclete" or "Comforter," founding this conjecture on the fact that Sulpicius Severus calls the Israelitish king Menahem² "Mane." Gataker supplements this idea by the conjecture that Manes took this name at his own instance and in pursuance of his claim to be the Paraclete. It is more probable that, if his name was really given on account of this meaning, he received it from the widow who seems to have adopted him when a boy and may have called him her "Consolation." But it is also possible that Manes was not an uncommon Persian name, and that he adopted it for some reason too trifling to discover.³

While still a young man, he was ordained as a Christian priest and distinguished himself in that capacity by his knowledge of Scripture and the zeal with which he discharged his sacred functions. His heretical tendencies, however, were very soon manifested, stimulated, we may suppose, by his anxiety to make the Christian religion more acceptable to those who adhered to the Eastern systems. Excommunicated from the Christian Church, Manes found asylum with

¹ See also Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, vii. 31, with Heinichen's note.
² 2 Kings xv. 14.
³ "Perhaps we seek mystery where there is none." — BEAUSOBRE, i. 79.