Manichaeism Sentence Examples

Manichaeism, which combined the adoration of Zoroaster and Christ, became the refuge of those supporters of Mithraism who were inclined to compromise, while many found the transition to orthodox Christianity easy because of its very resemblance to their old faith.

In the later heresy of Manichaeism there were affinities to Gnosticism, but it was a mixture of many elements, Babylonian-Chaldaic theosophy, Persian dualism and even Buddhist ethics (p. 126).

Their religion has points of connexion with old Iranian and Assyrian beliefs and traces of Manichaeism and Nestorianism.

Wolff's list is of some historical importance - atheism, deism (a God without care for men) and naturalism (denial of supernatural revelation); anthropomorphism (assigning a human body to God); materialism, and idealism (non-existence of matter); paganism (polytheism); Manichaeism, Spinozism, Epicureanism.

The Albigenses have received much sympathy, as being a kind of pre-Reformation Protestants; but it is now recognized that their tenets were an extreme form of Manichaeism.

It was through Neoplatonism that Augustine got rid of scepticism and the last dregs of Manichaeism.

And it is interesting to observe how, e.g., St Augustine, though desperately combating the dualism of the Manichaeans, yet afterwards introduced a number of dualistic ideas into Christianity, which are distinguishable from those of Manichaeism only by a very keen eye, and even then with difficulty.

Kessler, the latest historian of Manichaeism, opines that Mani's own declaration on this point is not to be relied upon, and has tried to prove that it was rather of Semitic or Chaldaic origin.

The aim is not self-destruction, but self-preservation; and yet the ethics of Manichaeism appears in point of fact as thoroughly ascetic. The Manichaean had, above all, to refrain from sensual enjoyment, shutting himself up against it by three seals - the signaculum oris, manus and sinus.

The worshipper turned towards the sun, or the moon, or the north, as the seat of light; but it is erroneous to conclude from this, as has been done, that in Manichaeism the sun and moon were themselves objects of worship. Forms of prayer used by the Manichaeans have been preserved to us in the Fihrist.

An asceticism so strict and painful as that demanded by Manichaeism could only be practised by few; hence the religion must have abandoned all attempts at an extensive propaganda had it not conceded the principle of a twofold morality.

We have here essentially the same condition of things as in the Catholic Church, where a twofold morality was also in force, that of the religious orders and that of secular Christians - only that the position of the electi in Manichaeism was a more distinguished one than that of the monks in Catholicism.

It is certain that Manichaeism, in those districts where it was brought much into contact with Christianity, became additionally influenced by the latter at a very early period.

In this respect Manichaeism experienced the same kind of development as Neo-Platonism.

It remains to be asked whether Buddhistic elements can also be detected in Manichaeism.

A detailed comparison shows the difference between Buddhism and Manichaeism in all their principal doctrines to be very great, while it becomes evident that the points of resemblance are almost everywhere accidental.

This is also true of the ethics and the asceticism of the two systems. There is not a single point in Manichaeism which demands for its explanation an appeal to Buddhism.

How are we to explain the rapid spread of Manichaeism, and the fact that it really became one of the great religions?

Manichaeism was thus able to satisfy the new wants of an old world.

Manichaeism indeed, though it applies the title "redeemer" to Mani, has really no knowledge of a redeemer, but only of a physical and gnostic process of redemption; on the other hand, it possesses in Mani the supreme prophet of God.

If we consider in conclusion that Manichaeism gave a simple, apparently profound, and yet convenient solution of the problem of good and evil, a problem that had become peculiarly oppressive to the human race in the and and 3rd centuries, we shall have named the most important factors which account for the rapid spread of the system.

More than once, however, Manichaeism experienced attempts at reformation; for of course the auditores very easily became worldly in character, and movements of reformation led temporarily to divisions and the formation of sects.

Probably it was the great migrations of the Mongolian race that first put an end to Manichaeism in Central Asia.

It was only subsequent to about 330 that Manichaeism spread rapidly in the Roman Empire.

Its adherents were recruited on the one hand from the old gnostic sects (especially from the Marcionites - Manichaeism exerted besides this a strong influence on the development of the Marcionite churches of the 4th century), on the other hand from the large number of the "cultured," who were striving after a "rational" and yet in some manner Christian religion.

Its polemics and its criticism of the Catholic Church now became the strong side of Manichaeism, especially in the West.

The doctrine of the incarnation of God, which was especially objectionable to those who were going over to the new universal religion from the old cults, was not proclaimed by Manichaeism.

The farther Manichaeism advanced into the West the more Christian and philosophic did it become.

In Rome itself between 370 and 4 4 0 Manichaeism gained a large amount of support, especially among the scholars and public teachers.

Manichaeism in the West had also some experience of attempts at reformation from the ascetic side, but of these we know little.

In North Africa Manichaeism appears to have been extinguished by the persecution of the Vandals.

And if it has not been quite proved that so early as the 4th century the Priscillianists of Spain were influenced by Manichaeism, it is at least undoubted that the Paulicians and Bogomiles, as well as the Catharists and the Albigenses, are to be traced back to Manichaeism (and Marcionitism).

Thus the system, not indeed of Mani the Persian, but of Manichaeism as modified by Christian influences, accompanied the Catholic Church until the 13th century.

Among the sources for a history of Manichaeism the most important are the Oriental.

It wds the Acta Archelai, however, that became the principal source on the subject of Manichaeism for Greek and Roman writers.

The more complete the picture, however, which may here be obtained of Manichaeisrn, the more cautious must we be in making generalizations from it, for it is beyond doubt that Western Manichaeism adopted Christian elements which are wanting in the original and in the Oriental Manichaeism.

The most important works on Manichaeism are Beausobre, Hist.

The various researches which have been made regarding Parsism, the ancient Semitic religions, Gnosticism, &c., are of the greatest importance for the investigation of Manichaeism.

He detected in his bishop Gnosticism, Manichaeism and Sabellianism, and was convinced that he himself was the champion of pure doctrine against heresy.

Mose important was the two-fold mission to Britain - of St Augustine in 596, of Mellitus, Paulinus and others in 601; but Gregory also made strenuous efforts to uproot paganism in Gaul, Italy, Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica, Arianism in Spain, Donatism in Africa, Manichaeism in Sicily, the heresy of the Three Chapters in Istria and northern Italy.

This old-world wisdom of the Hindus, a thousand years before our era, is worthily to be paralleled from the Manichaeism of about the year 400.

The rigid adherents to the synod of Dort accused them of Pelagianism, and even of Manichaeism, and the controversy between the parties was carried on with great zeal; yet the whole question between them was only, whether the will of man is determined by the immediate action of God upon it, or by the intervention of a knowledge which God impresses on the mind.

After that Manichaeism was persecuted and extirpated in Iran.

Certainly his polemic as a Christian against the Manichaeism of his youth constitutes a curious preface to his vehement rejection of Pelagian libertarianism.

There were also at the same time followers of Zoroastrianism, of Nestorian Christianity, and even of Manichaeism.

The heresy, notwithstanding the severe measures taken against it, continued to spread in France as well as in Spain; in 412 Lazarus, bishop of Aix in Provence, and Herod, bishop of Arles, were expelled from their sees on a charge of Manichaeism.

Its legitimate successor was Manichaeism, which afforded a refuge to those mystics who had been shaken in faith, but not converted, by the polemics of the Church against their religion.

So far as can be discovered the heretical sects of the middle ages rested upon a system of Manichaeism which was imported into Europe from the East (see Manichaeism).

At one time the Primal Man, who sank down into matter, has freed himself and risen out of it again, and like him his members will rise out of darkness into the light (Poimandres); at another time the Primal Man who was conquered by the powers of darkness has been saved by the powers of light, and thus too all his race will be saved (Manichaeism); at another time the fallen Sophia is purified by her passions and sorrows and has found her Syzygos, the Soter, and wedded him, and thus all the souls of the Gnostics who still languish in matter will become the brides of the angels of the Soter (Valentinus).

Manichaeism first penetrated the Greek-Roman Empire about the year 280, in the time of the emperor Probus (see the Chronicon of Eusebius).

In its rejection of this doctrine Manichaeism agreed with Neo-Platonism; but, while the latter, notwithstanding all its attempts to conform itself to Christianity, could find no formula by which to inaugurate within its own limits the special veneration of Christ, the Western Manichaeans succeeded in giving their teaching a Christian tinge.

For Manichaeism is an attempt to weld the doctrine of the Gospel and the doctrine of Zoroaster Manlchae- into a uniform system, though naturally not without lam, an admixture of other elements, principally Babylonian and Gnostic. Mani, perhaps a Persian from Babylonia, is said to have made his first appearance as a teacher on the coronation day of Shapur I.

This explains the charge of Manichaeism levelled against Priscillian (Jerome, for his talk of the Sordes nuptiarum, had been similarly accused, and to escape popular indignation had retired to Bethlehem),' and to this was added the accusation of magic and licentious orgies.