§ 136. The Manichaean System.
§ 136. The Manichaean System.
Manichaeism is a compound of dualistic, pantheistic, Gnostic, and ascetic elements, combined with a fantastic philosophy of nature, which gives the whole system a materialistic character, notwithstanding its ascetic abhorrence of matter. The metaphysical foundation is a radical dualism between good and evil, light and darkness, derived from the Persian Zoroastrism (as restored by the school of the Magasaeans under the reign of the second Sassanides towards the middle of the second century). The prominent ethical feature is a rigid asceticism which strongly resembles Buddhism.926 The Christian element is only a superficial varnish (as in Mohammedanism). The Jewish religion is excluded altogether (while in Mohammedanism it forms a very important feature), and the Old Testament is rejected, as inspired by the devil and his false prophets. The chief authorities were apocryphal Gospels and the writings of Mani.
1. The Manichaean theology begins with an irreconcilable antagonism between the kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness. And this is identified with the ethical dualism between good and bad. These two kingdoms stood opposed to each other from eternity, remaining unmingled. Then Satan who with his demons was born from darkness, began to rage and made an assault upon the kingdom of light. From this incursion resulted the present world, which exhibits a mixture of the two elements detached portions of light imprisoned in darkness. Adam was created in the image of Satan, but with a strong spark of light, and was provided by Satan with Eve as his companion, who represents seductive sensuousness, but also with a spark of light, though smaller than that in Adam. Cain and Abel are sons of Satan and Eve, but Seth is the offspring of Adam by Eve, and full of light. Thus mankind came into existence with different shares of light, the men with more, the women with less. Every individual man is at once a son of light and of darkness, has a good soul, and a body substantially evil, with an evil soul corresponding to it. The redemption of the light from the bonds of the darkness is effected by Christ, who is identical with the sun spirit, and by the Holy Ghost, who has his seat in the ether. These two beings attract the lightforces out of the material world, while the prince of darkness, and the spirits imprisoned in the stars, seek to keep them back. The sun and moon are the two shining ships (lucidae naves) for conducting the imprisoned light into the eternal kingdom of light. The full moon represents the ship laden with light; the new moon, the vessel emptied of its cargo; and the twelve signs of the zodiac also serve as buckets in this pumping operation.
The Manichaean christology, like the Gnostic, is entirely docetic, and, by its perverted view of body and matter, wholly excludes the idea of an incarnation of God. The teachings of Christ were compiled and falsified by the apostles in the Spirit of Judaism. Mani, the promised Paraclete, has restored them. The goal of history is an entire separation of the light from the darkness; a tremendous conflagration consumes the world, and the kingdom of darkness sinks into impotence.
Thus Christianity is here resolved into a fantastic dualistic, and yet pantheistic philosophy of nature; moral regeneration is identified with a process of physical refinement; and the whole mystery of redemption is found in light, which was always worshipped in the East as the symbol of deity. Unquestionably there pervades the Manichaean system a kind of groaning of the creature for redemption, and a deep sympathy with nature, that hieroglyphic of spirit; but all is distorted and confused. The suffering Jesus on the cross (Jesus patibilis) is here a mere illusion, a symbol of the world-soul still enchained in matter, and is seen in every plant which works upwards from the dark bosom of the earth towards the light, towards bloom and fruit, yearning after freedom. Hence the class of the "perfect" would not kill nor wound a beast, pluck a flower, nor break a blade of grass. The system, instead of being, as it pretends, a liberation of light from darkness, is really a turning of light into darkness.
2. The morality of the Manichaeans was severely ascetic, based on the fundamental error of the intrinsic evil of matter and the body; the extreme opposite of the Pelagian view of the essential moral purity of human nature.927 The great moral aim is, to become entirely unworldly in the Buddhistic sense; to renounce and destroy corporeity; to set the good soul free from the fetters of matter. This is accomplished by the most rigid and gloomy abstinence from all those elements which have their source in the sphere of darkness. It was, however, only required of the elect, not of catechumens. A distinction was made between a higher and lower morality similar to that in the catholic church. The perfection of the elect consisted in a threefold seal or preservative (signaculum).928
(a) The signaculum oris, that is, purity in words and in diet, abstinence from all animal food and strong drink, even in the holy supper, and restriction to vegetable diet, which was furnished to the perfect by the "bearers," particularly olives, as their oil is the food of light.
(b) The signaculum manuum: renunciation of earthly property, and of material and industrial pursuits, even agriculture; with a sacred reverence for the divine light-life diffused through all nature.
(c) The signaculum sinus, or celibacy, and abstinence from any gratification of sensual desire. Marriage, or rather procreation, is a contamination with corporeity, which is essentially evil.
This unnatural holiness of the elect at the same time atoned for the unavoidable daily sins of the catechumens who paid them the greatest reverence. It was accompanied, however, as in the Gnostics, with an excessive pride of knowledge, and if we are to believe the catholic opponents, its fair show not rarely concealed refined forms of vice.
3. Organization. Manichaeism differed from all the Gnostic schools in having a fixed, and that a strictly hierarchical, organization. This accounts in large measure for its tenacity and endurance. At the head of the sect stood twelve apostles, or magistri, among whom Mani and his successors, like Peter and the pope, held the chief place. Under them were seventy-two bishops, answering to the seventy-two (strictly seventy) disciples of Jesus; and under these came presbyters, deacons and itinerant evangelists.929 In the congregation there were two distinct classes, designed to correspond to the catechumens and the faithful in the catholic church: the "hearers;"930 and the "perfect," the esoteric, the priestly caste,931 which represents the last stage in the process of liberation of the spirit and its separation from the world, the transition from the kingdom of matter into the kingdom of light, or in Buddhistic terms, from the world of Sansara into Nirwana.
4. The worship of the Manichaeans was, on the whole, very simple. They had no sacrifices, but four daily prayers, preceded by ablations, and accompanied by prostrations, the worshipper turned towards the sun or moon as the seat of light. They observed Sunday, in honor of the sun, which was with them the same with the redeemer; but, contrary to the custom of the catholic Christians, they made it a day of fasting. They had weekly, monthly, and yearly fasts. They rejected the church festivals, but instead celebrated in March with great pomp the day of the martyrdom of their divinely appointed teacher, Mani.932 The sacraments were mysteries of the elect, of which even Augustin could learn very little. Hence it has been disputed whether they used baptism or not, and whether they baptized by water, or oil. Probably they practised water baptism and anointing, and regarded the latter as a higher spiritual baptism, or distinguished both as baptism and confirmation in the catholic church.933 They also celebrated a kind of holy supper, sometimes even under disguise in catholic churches, but without wine (because Christ had no blood), and regarding it perhaps, according to their pantheistic symbolism, as the commemoration of the light-soul crucified in all nature. Their sign of recognition was the extension of the right hand as symbol of common deliverance from the kingdom of darkness by the redeeming hand of the spirit of the sun.
Comp. vol. 1. 564 sqq., and my History of the Apost. Church, § 165-169.
The heathen enemies of Christianity, as Julian the Apostate, called them sometimes "Galileans." So also Epictetus in the only passage, in which he alludes to the Christians.
Praescr. Haeret. c. 13.
Minut. Felix, Octav. 36: "Ceterum quod plerique PAUPERES dicimur non est infamia nostra, sed gloria; animus enim ut luxu solvitur, ita frugalitate firmatur."
jElkessai'oi (Epiphanius); jHlcassaiv (Hippolytus); JElkesaitaiv (Origen). Also Samyai'oi, from vm,v, , sun.
Duvnami" kekallumevnh, ys'K] lyje. Comp. the duvnami" a[sarko"in the Clem. Homilies, XVII. 16. Other derivations: from Elkesi, a village in Galilee (Delitzsch); from yD'v lae; from syvij;K,l]a' = apostatae.
See the fragments collected in Hilgenfeld’s Nov. Test. extra Canonem receptum, III. 153-167.
Johanneschristen, Chrétiens de Saint Jean.
Mandäische Grammatik, by Th. Nöldeke. Halle, 1875.
For further particulars see the article of Kessler in Herzog, above quoted.
Klhvmento'" tw'n Pevtrou ejpidhmiw'n khrugmavtwn ejpitomhv.
The Tübingen School, under the lead of Dr. Baur, has greatly exaggerated the importance of these heretical fictions which the unknown author never intended to present as solid facts. Thus Hilgenfeld says (l. c. p. 1) There is scarcely a single writing which is of so great importance for the history of Christianity in its first age, and which has already given such brilliant disclosures [?] at the hands of the most renowned critics in regard to the earliest history of the Christian Church, as the writing ascribed to the Roman Clement, the Recognitions and Homilies."Their importance is confined to the history of heresy, which with the Tübingen school is the most interesting portion of ancient church history.
The Tübingen school first denied the use of the fourth Gospel, but the discovery of the missing portion by Dressel in 1853 has settled this point, for it contains (Hom. XIX. 22) a clear quotation from John 9:1-3.
The hypothesis has been most fully carried out by Lipsius in his article on Simon Magus in Schenkel’s "Bibellexicon, " vol. V. 301-321.
Comp. Hom. XVII. 19 (p. 351 sq. ed. Dressel) with Gal. 2:11, where Paul uses the game word kategnwmevno" of Peter.
Hom. II. 22 sqq. (p. 57 sqq.).
The prwvth th'/ ajnqrwpovthri paradoqei'sa swthvrio" qrhskeiva.
Pu'r kaqavrsion, ignis purgatorius.
Clericus, Möhler, Schliemann, Uhlhorn, Schwegler, partly also Lehmann. Uhlhorn has since modified his view (1876).
Particularly Hilgenfeld and Ritschl, find among older writers, Cave and Whiston. Salmon also assigns the priority of composition to the Recognitions.
The Perivodoi Pevtrou dia; Klhvmento",and the still older Khruvgmata Pevtrou (about a.d. 140-145), the contents of which are mentioned in Recogn. III. 75, and the oldest Acta Petri, parts of which are preserved in the apocryphal Acta Petri et Pauli. See Lipsius, Quellen der röm. Petrus-Sage, 1872, pp. 14 sqq. Uhlhorn assents in his last art. in the new ed. of Herzog, III. 285. Dr. Salmon (in Smith and Wace, 1. 571) likewise assumes that both are drawn from a common original, but that the author of Homilies borrowed the biographical portions from Recognitions.
Lovgo" gnwvsew" , lovgo" sofiva" , 1 Cor. 12:8; Comp. 13:2, 12; Jno. 17:3.
Yeudwvnumo" gnw'si" 1 Tim. 6:20.
1 Cor. 8:1.
Rom. 1:22.
Baur takes too comprehensive a view of Gnosticism, and includes in it all systems of Christian philosophy of religion down to Schelling and Hegel.
Sir William Hamilton and Dean Mansel.
Hume, Spencer, Comte. As to Kant, he started from Hume, but checked the scepticism of the theoretical reason by the categorical imperative of the practical reason. See Calderwood’s article "Agnosticism" in Schaffs "Rel. Encycl." vol. I.
He calls Gnosticism a "Verteufelung der Natur."
Even some of the more recent writers, as Bishop Kaye (Eccl. History of the Second arid Third Centuries), and the translators of Irenaeus in the "Ante-Nicene Christian Library" (Edinb. 1868, vol. 1st, Introductory Notice) have the same idea of the Gnostic system as an impenetrable wilderness, of absurdities. But Mansel, Lightfoot, and Salmon show a clear knowledge of the subject, and agree; substantially with Neander’s account.
Povqen to; kakovn, orhJ kakiva: unde malum? (See Tertullian, De Praescript. 7; Adv. Marc. I. 2; Euseb. H. E, V. 27; Baur, Gnosis, p. 19.
Dr. Lipsius, Die Apokryphen Apostelgeschichten und Apostellegenden (1883), vol. 1. P. 7.
Adv. Haer.l.c. 20. §1: jAmuvqhton plh'qo" ajpokruvfwn kai; novqwn grafw'n, a}}" aujtoi; e[plasan, pareisfevrousin eiv" katavplhxin tw'n ajnohvtwn kai; ta; th'" ajlhqeiva" mh; ejpistamevnwn gravmmata.
Hippol. Philos. IV. 46, V. 8, 13, 20.
Dovkhti", favntasma.
Buqov".
So in the old Hindu philosophy, absolute Being is regarded as the ground of all existence. It is itself devoid of qualities, incapable of definition, inconceivable, neither one thing nor another thing, yet containing in itself the possibilities; of all things; and out from its dark depths the universe was evolved through some mysterious impulse. The Vedas describe it thus: "It is neither Brahma, nor Vishnoo, nor Sivan, but something back of these, without passion, neither great nor small, neither male nor female, but something far beyond."
Nou'", lovgo" , sofiva, duvnami", ajlhvqeia, zwhv , etc.
Probolhv (from probavllw), a putting forward, a projection.
Basilides and Saturninus use the former illustration; Marcos uses the latter.
JH kavtw sofiva, jAcamwvq (Iren. 1. 4; in Stieren, I. 44), h'j;k]mrot or a'KiymWt the Chaldaic form of the Hebrew j;k]m;h .
Dhmiourgov", a term used by Plato in a similar sense.
Peumatikoiv.
Swmatikoiv, fusikoiv, sarkikoiv, uJlikoiv.
Yucikoiv.
OiJ polloiv.
Dei' katacrh'sqai th'/ sarkiv, the flesh must be abused to be conquered.
Comp. 2 Thess. 2:4
De Praescr. Haeret., c. 41.
bdeluriva.
blasfhmw'n diabavllei th;n dhmiourgivan .
Gibbon, who devotes four pages (Ch. XV.) to the Gnostics, dwells exclusively on the anti-Jewish feature, and makes them express his own aversion to the Old Testament. He calls them (from very superficial knowledge, but with his masterly skill of insinuation) "the most polite, the most learned, and the most wealthy of the Christian name," and says that, being mostly averse to the pleasures of sense, "they morosely arraigned the polygamy of the patriarchs, the gallantries of David, and the seraglio of Solomon," and were at a loss to reconcile "the conquest of Canaan, and the extirpation of the unsuspecting natives with the common notions of humanity and justice."
The Tübingen school, which denies the historical character of the Acts, resolves also the story of Simon into a Jewish Christian fiction, aimed at the apostle Paul as the real heretic and magician. So Baur, Zeller, and Volkmar. Lipsius ingeniously carries out this Simon-Paul hypothesis, and declares (I. c. p. 303): "Der Kern der Sage ist niches als ein vollständig ausgeführtes Zerrbild des Heidenapostels, dessen Zäge bis in’s einzelne hinein die Person, die Lehre, und die Lebenschicksale des Paulus persifliren sollen." But the book of Acts gives the earliest record of Simon and is the production, if not of Luke, as we believe with the unanimous testimony of antiquity, at all events of a writer friendly to Paul, and therefore utterly unlikely to insert an anti-Pauline fiction which would stultify the greater part of his own book. Comp. the remarks above, §114, p. 438.
Apol. I, 26 (Sivmwna mevn tina Samareva, to;n ajpo; kwvmh" legomevnh" Gittw'n); comp. Clem. Hom. I. 15; II. 22 (ajpo; Gitqw'n); Hippol. Philos. VI. 7 (oJ Gitthnov").There was such a place as Givttai, not far from Flavia Neapolis (Nablus), Justin’s birthplace. It is now called Kuryet Jît (Dschit). See Robinson’s Pal. II. 308, and Otto’s note on the passage in Justin (Opera I. 78).
According to Josephus, Ant. XX. 7, 2. The identity is assumed by Neander, De Wette, Hilgenfeld. There was on the island of Cyprus a city named Kivtion (Thucyd. I. 112, 1), which Justin M. may possibly have confounded with Gitthon, in Samaria, as he confounded Simo and Semo on the statue in Rome. But it is much more likely that Josephus was mistaken on a question of Samaria than Justin, a native of Flavia Neapolis (the ancient Shechem).
hJ Duvnami" tou' qeou' h{ Megavlh, Acts 8:10. According to the Clementine Homilies (II. 22) and Recognitions (II.7), Simon called himself " the Supreme Power of God"(ajnwtavth duvnami" ,Virtus Suprema).
The memory of this incident is perpetuated in the name of simony for profane traffic in ecclesiastical offices.
The legendary accounts, both catholic and heretical, vary considerably. Justin M. reports Simon’s visit to Rome, but assigns it to the reign of Claudius (41-54), and says nothing of an encounter with Peter. Other reports put the journey in the reign of Nero (54-68). According to Hippolytus, Simon was buried alive at his own request, being confident of rising again on the third day, as a pseudo-Christ. According to the Apostolical Constitutions, he attempted to fly, but fell and broke his thigh and ankle-bone in answer to the prayers of Peter, and died in consequence of this injury. According to Arnobius, he attempted to ascend in a fiery chariot, like Elijah, but broke his leg, and in the confusion of shame committed suicide by throwing himself from a high mountain. See Lipsius, l.c. p. 310.
He reports (Apol. I26 and 56) that Simon Magus made such an impression by his magical arts upon the Roman Senate and people that they paid him divine homage, and erected a statue to him on the island of the Tiber. But he mistook Semo Sancus orSangus, a Sabine-Roman divinity unknown to him, for Simo Sanctus. For in 1574 a statue was found in the place described, with the inscription: Semoni Sanco Deo Fidio sacrum, etc. The mistake is repeated by Irenaeus Adv. Hoer. I. 23, 1, Tertullian Apol. 13, and Eusebius, but Hippolytus who resided at Rome does not mention it. See Otto’s note on Just. I. 26, Opera I. 79 sq. (ed. III).
jApovfasi" megavlh.
Philos. VI. 6 sqq.
Dei' katacrh'sqai th'/ sarkiv.
He adds the curious statement (Strom. III.c. 4) that on a certain occasion Nicolas was sharply reproved by the Apostles as a jealous husband, and repelled the charge by offering to allow his beautiful wife to become the wife of any other person. Extremely improbable.
Khvrinqo".
Both recorded by, Irenaeus III.c. 3, § 4 as illustrating Tit. 3:10. But the same story of John in the bath is also told of Ebion, whose very existence is doubtful.
oJ a[vvnw Cristov". He also calls the Holy Spirit hJ a[vnw duvnami" , the power from on high which came down upon Jesus. Valentine called the Jewish Messiah (oJ kavtw Cristov"). The best account of Cerinth’s Christology is given by Dorner.
The chiliastic eschatology of Cerinthus is omitted by Irenaeus, who was himself a chiliast, though of a higher spiritual order, but it is described by Caius, Dionysius (in Eusebius), Theodoret, and Augustin.
Comp. Euseb. Hist. Eccl. IV. 7 and Clem. Alex. Strom. IV. 12. p. 599 sq. Origen (Hom. in Luc. I: 1) says that Basilides "had the audacity (ejtovlmhsen) to write a Gospel according to Basilides;" but he probably mistook the commentary for an apocryphal Gospel. Hippolytus expressly asserts that Basilides, in his account of all things concerning the Saviour after "the birth of Jesus" agreed with "the Gospels."
The prevailing opinion is that Hippolytus gives the system of Basilides himself, Irenaeus that of his school. So Jacobi, Uhlhorn, Baur, Schaff (first ed.), Möller, Mansel, Hort. The opposite view is defended by Hilgenfeld, Lipsius, Volkmar and Scholten. The reasoning of Hort in favor of the former view, l.c. p. 269 sq., is based on the extracts of Clement of Alex. from the ejxhghtikav of Basilides. He assumes the priority of the Valentinian system, from which Basilides proceeded to construct his own by contrast. But history puts Valentinus about a decade later.
Herein, as already remarked, be resembles Hegel, who likewise begins with the idea of absolute non-entity, and reconstructs the universe ex nihilo. In both systems "nothing" must be understood in a non-natural sense, as opposed to all definite, concrete being or form of existence. It is in fact identical with the most abstract conception of pure being. Nichts ist sein, and Sein ist Nichts, but, set in motion by a dialectic process, they produce the Werden, and the werden results in Dasein. And here again the latest German philosophy meets with the oldest Hindu mythology. See the note on p. 453.
ajrrhto", ajkatonovmasto" .
oJ oujk w}n qeo".
panspermiva-a Stoic idea.
ajkivnhto" kinhthv"
uiJovth" trimerhv".
nou'", lovgo" , frovnhsi", sofiva, duvnami" , dikaiosuvnh, andeijrhvnh.
Hence it is called mimhtikhv.
sterevwma
ktivsei", ajrcaiv, dunavmei" , ejxousivai.
jAbrasavxorjAbraxav". Abraxas is a euphonic inversion, which seems to date from the Latin translator of Irenaeus.
Thrice a = 3; b = 2; r = 100; " = 200; x = 60. Epiphanius mentions that the Basilidians referred the word to the 365 parts (mevlh) of the human body as well as to the days of the year. But modern writers are inclined to think that the engravers of the Abrasax gems and the Basilidians received the mystic name from an older common source. Dr. Hort suggests the derivation from Ab-razach, Ab-zarach, i.e. "the father of effugence," a name appropriate to a solar deity. According to Movers, Serach was a Phoenician name for Adonist, whose worship was connected with the seasons of the year. Comp. Bellermann, Ueber die Gemmen der Alten mit dem Abraxasbilde (Berlin, 1817, ’19) King, The Gnostics and their Remains (London, 1864), Hort, l.c., Matter, Abraxas,"etc. in Herzog, I. 103-107, and Kraus, in his " Real-Encykl. der christl. Alterthümer,"I. 6-10 (with illustrations).
Philosoph., VII. 22. He also quoted John 2:4, "My hour is not yet come" , and Luke 1:35, "A Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and a power of the Most High shall overshadow thee." It is true that Hippolytus sometimes mixes up the opinions of the matter with those of his followers. But there is no ambiguity here where Basilides is introduced with fhsiv, "he says," while when quoting from the school he uses the formula "according to them (kat j_ aujtouv"). The joint testimony of these early heretics (to when) we must add the pseudo-Clementine Homilies and the heathen Celsus) is overwhelming against the Tübingen hypothesis of the the origin of the fourth Gospel. See vol. I. p. 707, and Abbott, Authorship of the Fourth Gospel. p. 85 sqq.
Oujalentivno" or Balenti'no" .
"No other system," says Baur (I. 203), "affords us such a clear insight into the peculiar character of the Gnosis, the inner connection of its view of the world, and the deeper intellectual character of the whole."
Clemens Alex. Strom. I. VII. p. 898 (ed. Potter). Nothing certain is known of Theudas.
Epiph. Haer. XXXI. 2. The Jewish extraction may be inferred from some of his terms, as "Achamoth."
De Praesc. Haer. c. 30, and Adv. Valent. c. 4. Tertullian and the orthodox polemics generally are apt to trace all heresies to impure personal motives.
Iren. III. 4, 3. Comp. Euseb. H. E. IV. 10, 11 (quoting from Irenaeus). All authorities agree that he taught at Rome before the middle of the second century.
buqov",alsopropavtwr, proarchv, aujtopavtwr.
· Iren. I. 1, § 1; Tert. Adv. Val. c. 7.
Philos. VI. 24. There seems, however, to have been a difference of opinion among the Valentinians on the companionship of the Bythos, for in ch. 25 we read: "The Father alone, without copulation, has produced an offspring ... he alone possesses the power of self-generation."
suvzugoi. The same number of aeons as in Hesiod’s theogony.
Also called oJ pathvr (as immediately proceeding from the propavtwr), the Father, also oJ monogenhv", the Onlv Begotten (comp. John 1:18), and the ajrchv as the Beginning of all things (Comp. ejn ajrch'/, John 1:1).
The iJera; tetraktuv" of the Pythagoreans. Tert. (c. 7): " prima quadriga Valentinianae factionis, matrix et origo cunctorum."
"Es ist eine tiefe Idee des Vatentinianischen Systems," says Neander (II. 722), dass, wie alles Dasein in der Selbstbeschränkung des Bythos seinen Grund hat, so das Dasein alter geschaffenen Wesen auf Beschränkung beruht."
The ejnergeiva meristikh; kai; dioristikhv and theejnergeiva eJdrastikh; kai; sthristikhv.
Usually identified with Chocmah, but by Lipsius and Jacobi with Chakmuth, the world-mother, which has a place in the system of Bardesanes. The idea of Sophia as the mediatrix of creation is no doubt borrowed from the Proverbs and the Wisdom of Solomon.
oujsiva a[morfo" kai; ajkataskeuvasto" .Philos. VI. 28 (30 ed. Duncker and Schneidewin, I. 274). The Thohuvabohu of Genesis.
"Ignorance having arisen within the Pleroma in consequence of Sophia, and shapelessness (ajmorfiva) in consequence of the offspring of Sophia, confusion arose in the pleroma (qovrubu" ejgevneto ejn plhrwvmati)."Philos. VI. 26 (31 in Duncker and Schneidewin).
oJ fivlo" tou' numfivou, John 3. 29.
Didaskaliva ajnatolikhv. Hippol. VI. 35 (p. 286).
They are collected by Grabe, Spicil. II. 83-117, Stieren, in his ed. of Iren. Tom. I. 938-971. Clement of Alexandria (Strom. IV. 9) quotes also from a Commentary of Heracleon on Luke 12:8.
Baur (I. 203) significantly ignores Heracleon’s Commentary, which is fatal to his hypothesis of the late origin of the fourth Gospel.
The Epistola ad Floram is preserved by Epiphanius (Haer XXIII. § 3). Stieren, in a Latin inaugural address (1813), denied its genuineness, but Rossel in an Appendix to Neanders Church History (Germ. ed. II. 1249-1254, in Torrey’s translation I. 725-728), and Heinrici (l.c. p. 75 sqq.) defend it.
Marcos and the Marcosians are known to us from Clement of Alex. and Iren. (I. 13-21). Hippolytus (VI. 39 sqq., p. 296 sqq.) and Epiphanius depend here almost entirely on Irenaeus, who speak of Marcos as still living.
It is to be derived from l/q , voice (not from lKO, all), and [B'r]a', four. The confusion was first discovered by Heumann (1743), and more fully explained by Volkmar, Die Colarbasus-Gnosis, in Niedner’s "Zeitschrift für Hist. Theol." 1855, p. 603-616. Comp. Baur, I. 204, note, and Hort in Smith and Wace, I. 594 sq.
Comp. Aug. Hahn: Bardesanes, Gnosticus Syrorum primus hymnologus. Lips. 1819. A. Merx: Bardes. v. Edessa. Halle, 1863. Lipsius: In the "Zeitschrift für wissenschaftl. Theol." 1863, p. 435 sqq. A. Hilgenfeld. Bardesanes, der letzte Gnostiker. Leipz. 1864. K. Macke: Syrische Lieder gnostischen Ursprungs, in the "Tüb. Theol. Quartalschrift" for 1874. Dr. Hort: Bardaisan, in Smith and Wace, I. 256-260 (very thorough).
Eusebius (IV. 30) and Jerome (De Vir. illutstr. 33), misled by the common confusion of the earlier and later Antonines, assign him to the reign of Marcus Aurelius (161-180), but according to the Chronicle of Edessa (Assemani, Bibl. Or. I. 389) He was born July 11, 155, and according to Barhebraeus (Chron. Eccl. ed. Abbeloos and Lamy, 1872, p. 79) he died in 223, aged 68 years. Hilgenfeld, Jacobi and Hortl adopt the latter date.
Dr. Hort (p. 252) thinks that "there is no reason to suppose that Bardaisan rejected the. ordinary faith of Christians, as founded on the Gospels and the writings of the Apostles, except on isolated points." The varying modern constructions of his system on a Gnostic basis are all arbitrary.
Peri; eiJmarmevnh".It was formerly known only from a Greek extract in Eusebius’s Proeparatio, Evang. (VI. 9, 10). The Syriac original was discovered among the Nitrian MSS of the British Museum, and published by Cureton, in Spicilegium Syriacum. London 1855, with an English translation and notes. Merx gives a German translation with notes (p. 25-55). The treatise is either identical with the Book of the Laws of Countries, or an extract from it. Dr. Hort doubts its genuineness.
Ephraem the Syrian speaks of a book of 150 hymns, by which Bardesanes list had beguiled the people, and makes no mention of Harmonius; but Sozomen and Theodoret report that Harmonius was the first to adapt the Syrian language to metrical formal, and music, and that his hymns and times were used till the time of Ephraem. Dr. Hort explains this contradiction, which has not received sufficient attention, by supposing that the book of hymns was really written by Harmonius, perhaps in his father’s lifetime, and at his suggestion. But it is equally possible that Bardesanes was the author and Harmonius the editor, or that both were hymnists. The testimony Ephraem cannot be easily set aside as a pure error. Fragments of hymns of Bardesanes have been traced in the Acta Thomae by K. Macke in the article quoted above. The Syriac hymns of Ephraem are translated into German by Zingerle (1838), and into English by H. Burgess (1853).
Epiphanius and others mention, as a reason, his seduction of a consecrated virgin; but this does not agree well with his asceticism, and Irenaeus and Tertullian bring no charge of youthful incontinence against him.
So Tertullian: but Irenaeus tells a similar story of Cerdo. Tertullian also reports that Marcion was repeatedly (semel et iterim) excommunicated.
Adv. Haer. iil.c. 3, § 4: jEpiginwvskw to;n prwtovtokon tou' Satana'.
The Armenian bishop, Esnig, however, brings it nearer to the other forms of Gnosticism. According to him Marcion assumed three heavens; in the highest dwelt the good God, far away from the world, in the second the God of the Law, in the lowest his angels; beneath, on the earth, lay Hyle, or Matter, which he calls also the power (duvnami") or essence (oujsiva) of the earth. The Hyle is a female principle, and by her aid, as his spouse, the Jewish God of the Law made this world, after which he retired to his heaven, and each ruled in his own domain, he with his angels in heaven, and Hyle with her sons on earth. Möller (p. 378) is disposed to accept this account as trustworthy. Salmon thinks; it such a system as Marcion may have learned from Cerdo, but he must have made little account of the mystic element, else it would be mentioned by the earlier writers.
" Separatio legis et evangelii proprium et principale opus est Marcionis." Tertullian, Adv. Marc I. 19.
"Subito Christus, subito Joannes. Sic sunt omnia apud Marcionem, que suum et plenum habent ordinem apud creatorem." Tert. IV. 11.
Renan (L’englise chrét., p. 358) says of the shadowy narrative of Christ’s which Marcion elaborated on the basis of his mutilated Luke: "Si Jesus ne nous avait été connu que par des textes de ce genre, on aurait pu douter s’il avaitvraiment existé, ous’il n’ était pas une fiction, A PRIORI, dégagée de tout lien avec le réalité. Dans un pareil système, le Christ ne naissait pas (la naissance, pour Marcion, était une souillure), ne souffrait pas, ne mourait pas."
Tertullian, I. 29; IV. 10.
Tert. I. 14.
So they understood. 1 Cor. 15:29.
Euseb. Vit. Const. III. 64.
Flügel’s; Mani, p. 160, 167 (quoted by Salmon). Prof. Jacobi (in Herzog, V. 236) quotes a letter of Hasenkamp to Lavater of the year 1774, and later authorities, to prove the lingering existence of similar opinions in Bosnia and Herzegowina.
JOfianoiv, from o[fi", serpent, Serpentini.
From vj;nI.
As Baur (K. Gesch. I. 195) expresses it: "Die Schlange ist mit EinemWort der durch die Gegensätze dialectisch sich hindurchwindende Weltentwicklungsprocess relbst."
Augustin, De Haer. c. 17 and 46.
tWhB; aD;l]y", product of chaos.
From peravw, to pass across, to go beyond (the boundary of the material world). We know their system from the confused account of Hippolytus, Philos. I. v. 7 sqq. He says, that their blasphemy against Christ has for many years escaped notice. Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Epiphanius are silent about the Peratae. Clement of Alex. mentions them.
The following specimen of Peratic transcendental nonsense is reported by Hippolytus (v. 12): "According to them, the universe is the Father, Son, [and] Matter; [but] each of these three has endless capacities in itself. Intermediate, then, between the Matter and the Father sits the Son, the Word, the Serpent, always being in motion towards the unmoved Father, and [towards] matter itself in motion. And at one time he is turned towards the Father, and receives the powers into his own person; but at another time takes up these powers, and is turned towards Matter. And Matter, [though] devoid of attribute, and being unfashioned, moulds [into itself] forms from the Son which the Son moulded from the Father. But the Son derives shape from the Father after a mode ineffable, and unspeakable, and unchangeable ... No one can be saved or return [into heaven] without the Son, and the Son is the Serpent. For as he brought down from above the paternal marks, so again he carries up from thence those marks, roused from a dormnant condition, and rendered paternal characteristics, substantial ones from the unsubstantial Being, transferring them hither from thence."
Kai>noi (Hippol. VIII. 20), Kai>anistaiv (Clem. Alex. Strom, VII. 17), Kai>anoiv (Epiph. Haer. 38), Caiani, Cainaei.
This second form, says Renan (L’égl. chrét, p. 177), is common in inscription.
So Mosheim, Neander, Baur, Gieseler, Renan. But Möller (p. 371) disputes the dualism of Saturninus, and maintains that Satan and the God of the Jew, ; are alike subordinate, though antagonistic beings. But so is Ahriman in the Parsee dualism, and the Demiurge in all the Gnostic systems.
Hippol. Philos. VII. 32: eijkovna" kataskeuavzousi tou' Cristou' levgonte" uJpo; Pilavtou tw'// kairw/'/ ejkeivnw// genevsqai.
This was the conjecture of Mosheim, which has been worked out and modified by Volkmar in a monthly periodical of the Wissenschaftl. Verein at Zürich. He maintains that the deity worshipped at Same was the new appearing moon, oJ jEpifanhv".
The chronology, is not certain. Zahn and Harnack put his birth at a.d. 110, his conversion at 150, his death at 172. Funk puts the birth and conversion about 10 years later.
jEgkrati'tai, also jEgkratei'", jEgkrathtaiv, Continentes, the abstemious; or, JYdroparastavtai, Aquarii.
Lipsius regards him as one of the earliest, Salmon (in "Smith & Wace," III. 587), with greater probability, as one of the latest Gnostics. The silence of Irenaeus favors the later date.
This was enough to condemn him in the eyes of a Montanist.
Hippol. l.c.: e[fh to;n qeo;n ejx u{lh" sugcrovnou kai; ajgennhvtou pavnta pepoihkevnai.
This foolish notion be proved from Ps. 19: "He hath placed his tabernacle in the sun."
For a fuller account see two good articles of Dr. Salmon on Docetae and Docetism, in "Smith & Wace," I. 865-870.
See Clement of Alex., Strom. III. 526. From ajntitavssesqai, to defy, rebel against, the law.
Eujgenei'".
See Clem. Alex., Strom. I. f. 304; III. f. 438; VII. f. 722; and Epiphan., Haer. 26 (Oehler’s ed. I. 169 sqq.).
Mavnh", Mavnto" Manicai'o",Manes (Gen. Manetis), Manichaeans (the last form always used by St. Augustin). The name is either of Persian or Semitic origin, but has not yet been satisfactorily explained. Kessler identifies it with Mânâ, Manda, i.e. knowledge, gnw'i",of the Mandaeans. According to the Acta Archelai he was originally called Cubricus, which Kessler regards as a corruption of the Arabic Shuraik.
At least, according to Persian accounts; but the Arabs, who hate painting, and the church fathers are silent about his skill as a painter.
Among these are mentioned the Book of Mysteries, the Book of Giants, the Book of Precepts for Hearers (Capitula orEpistola Fundamenti, from which Augustin gives large extracts), Shâhpûrakân (i.e. belonging to King Shâhpûr), the Book of Life, the Gospel or the Living Gospel. See Kessler, l. c, p. 249 sqq.
Beausobre (vol. I. Pref. p. viii): "Les Actes de cette Dispute sont évidemment une fiction pareille à celle de cet imposteur, qui a pris le nom de Clément Romain, et qui a introduit S. Pierre disputant contre Simon le Magicien."
The cruel death of Mani and the maltreatment of his corpse are well attested but his being skinned alive is perhaps a later Christian tradition. The Disput. Archelai (c. 55) towards the close gives this account: "He was apprehended and brought before the king, who, being inflamed with the strongest indignation against him, and fired will the desire of avenging two deaths upon him—namely, the death of his own son, and the death of the keeper of the prison—gave orders that he should be flayed alive and hung before the gate of the city and that his skin should be dipped in certain medicaments and inflated: his flesh, too, he commanded to be given as a prey to the birds." See the different accounts in Beausobre, I. 205 sq.
The Mormons or Latter-Day Saints of Utah present an interesting parallel, especially in their hierarchical organization; while in their polygamy they as strongly contrast with the ascetic Manichaeans, and resemble the Mohammedans.
926 Kessler (followed by Harnack) derives Manichaeism exclusively from Chaldaean sources, but must admit the strong affinity with Zoroastric and Buddhist ideas and customs. The Fihrist says that Mani derived his doctrine from Parsism and Christianity. On the Buddhistic element, see Baur, p. 433-44,).
927 Schleiermacher correctly represents Manichaeism and Pelagianism as the two fundamental heresies in anthropology and soteriology the one makes man essentially evil (in body), and thus denies the possibility of redemption; the other makes man essentially good, and thus denies the necessity of redemption.
928 The meaning of signaculum is not criterion (as Baur explains, l. c. p. 248), but seal (as is clear from the corresponding Arabic hatâm in the Fihrist). See Kessler.
929 The organization of the Mormons is similar.
930 Auditores, catechumeni, in Arabic sammaûn.
931 Electi, perfecti, catharistae, e[klectoi, tevleioi, in the Fihrist siddîkûn. Faustus terms them the sacerdotale genus.
932 The feast of "the chair," bh'ma, cathedra. The Mormons likewise celebrate the martyrdom of their founder, Joseph Smith who was killed by the mob at Carthage, Illinois (June 27, 1844).
933 Gieseler and Neander are disposed to deny the use of water-baptism by the Manichaeans, Beausobre, Thilo, Baur, and Kessler assert it. The passages in Augustin are obscure and conflicting. See Baur, l.c. p. 273-281. The older Gnostic sects (the Marcionites and the Valentinians), and the New Manichaeans practised a baptismal rite by water. Some new light is thrown on this disputed question by the complete Greek text of the Gnostic Acts of Thomas, recently published by Max Bonnet of Montpellier (Acta Thomae, Lips. 1883). Here both baptism and anointing are repeatedly mentioned, p. 19 (in a thanksgiving to Christ: kaqarivsa" aujtou;" tw'/ sw'/ loutrw'/ kai; ajleivya" aujtou;" tw'/ sw'/ ejleivw/ ajpo; th'" periecouvsh" autou;" plavnh"), 20, 35, 68, (where, however, the pouring of oil is mentioned before water-baptism), 73, 32 (ajleivya" ... kai; ejbaptisen aujtou;" ... ajnelqovntwn de; aujtw'n ejk tw'n uJdavtwn labw;n a[rton kai; pothvrion eujlovghsen eijpwvn...). Comp. The discussion of Lipsius in Die Apokryphen Apostelgeschichten und Apostellegenden (Braunschweig, 1883), p. 331, where he asserts: "Die Wassertaufe stand bei den Manichaeern ebenso wie bei den meisten älteren gnostichen Secten un Uebung."