MANICHAEUS and MANICHAEISM, Sylvester Hassell Mani, Manes, or Manichaeus, a Persian (Born A.D. 215, died 276), originated a dualistic religious system, deriving its theory chiefly from Parsism, its morals chiefly from Buddhism, and a few elements from a corruption of the New Testament. Manes taught that there are two original and independent principles of Light and Darkness, each presiding over his own kingdom, and in a state of perpetual conflict with the other, the principle of Light being God, and that of darkness being Demon or Matter; that God created Christ, and Demon created Adam; that Manes was the promised Paraclete, or Comforter; that by obedience to the precepts of Christ and Manes natural men became new men, but had to be additionally purified after death in the fire of the Sun and then in the water of the Moon; that less sanctified souls were to be tortured and purged by successive migrations in other bodies; that those persistently wicked would be chained to the burnt inert mass of the world, while the powers of darkness would be forever confined to their own dismal region; and that the Sun and Moon were to be reverenced as the representatives of God.
He sent out twelve so-called apostles and seventy-two bishops, and under them a body of priests, Deacons, and itinerant evangelists. He either forbade or disesteemed baptism with water, and enjoined unction with oil. His followers were divided into two classes, called the “Perfect,” who were required to be exceedingly abstemious, and the “Hearers,” who enjoyed larger liberties.
Manichaeism prevailed over a great deal of the Roman Empire, but lost its most objectionable features as it came westward, and it continued to have adherents till the thirteenth, or, some say, till the sixteenth century. The Catharists, Paulicians, Bogomiles and Albigenses were probably (at least many of them) unjustly suspected of holding its tenets. (Hassell’s History pg 378)