on the Active and Intellectual por- whence he made his escape; but However, the oriental writers MANICHEES, or MANI-cited by D'Herbelot and Hyde, among tell us that Manes, after having CHEANS (Manichæi,) a sect of ancient heretics, who asserted two principles; so called from their author Manes, or Manichæus, aed Sapor in the Parsian throne, Persian by nation, and educated but who was not able to defend the Magi, being himself him, at length, against the united one of that number before he em-hatred of the Christians, the Magi, the Jews, and the Pagans, was braced Christianity. This heresy had its first rise shut up in a strong castle, to serve about the year 277, and spread him as a refuge against those who itself principally in Arabia, Egypt, persecuted him on account of his and Africa. St. Epiphanius, who doctrine. They add, that, after treats of it at large, observes that the death of Hormizdas, Varanes the true name of this heresiarch I, his successor, first protected was Cubricus; and that he chang-Manes, but afterwards gave him ed it for Manes, which in the up to the fury of the Magi Persian or Babylonish language signifies vessel. A rich widow, whose servant he had been, dying without issue, left him stores of wealth; after which he assumed the title of the apostle or envoy of Jesus Christ. Manes was not contented with the quality of apostle of Jesus Christ, but he also assumed that of the paraclete, whom Christ had promised to send : which Augustine explains, by saying, that Manes endeavoured to persuade men that the Holy Ghost did personally dwell in him with full authority. He left several disciples; and among others, Addas, Thomas, and Hermas. These he sent in his life-time into several provinces to preach his doctrine. Manes having undertaken to cure the king of Persia's son, and not succeeding, was put in prison upon the young prince's death," some whose resentment against him was nevertheless, he observes, that every bold dogmatizer is not an impostor. The doctrine of Manes was a motley mixture of the tenets of Christianity with the ancient philosophy of the Persians, in which he had been instructed during his youth. He combined these two systems, and applied and accommodated to Jesus Christ the characters and actions which the Persians attributed to the god Mithras. He established two principles, viz. a good and an evil one: the first a most pure and subtile matter, which he called light, did nothing but good; and the second a gross and corrupt substance,which he called darkness, nothing but evil. This philosophy is very ancient; and Plutarch treats of it at large in his Isis and Osiris. Our souls, according to Manes, were made by the good principle, and our bodies by the evil one; those two principles being,according to him, co-eternal and independent of each other. Each of these is subject to the dominion of a surperintendent Being, whose existence is from all eternity. The Being who presides over the light is called God; he that rules the land of darkness bears the title of hyle or demon. The ruler of the light is supremely happy, and in consequence thereof benevolent and good; the prince of darkness is unhappy in himself, and desirous of rendering others partakers of his misery, and is evil and malignant. These two beings have produced an immense multitude of treatures resembling themselves, and distributed them throughtheir respective provinces. After a contest between the ruler of light and the prince of darkness, in which the latter was defeated, this prince of darkness produced the first parents of the human race. The beings engendered from this original stock consists of a body formed out of the corrupt matter of the kingdom of darkness, and of two souls; one of which is sensitive and lustful, and owes its existence to the evil principle; the other rational and immortal, a particle of that divine light which had been carried away in the contest by the army of darkness, and immersed into the mass of malignant matter. The earth was created by God out of this corrupt mass of matter, in order to be a dwelling for the human race, that their captive souls might by degrees be delivered from their corporeal prisons, and the celestial elements extricated from the gross substance in which they were involved. With this view God produced two beings from his own substance, viz. Christ and the Holy Ghost: for the Manicheans held a consubstantial Trinity. Christ, or the glorious intelligence, called by the Persians Mithras, subsisting in and by himself, and residing in the sun, appeared in due time among the Jews, clothed with the shadowy form of a human body, to disengage the rational soul from the corrupt body, and to conquer the violence of malignant matter. The Jews, incited by the prince of darkness, put him to an ignominious death, which he suffered not in reality, but only in appear-vent their ever renewing a war in ance, and according to the opin- the regions of light. ion of men. When the purposes of Christ were accomplished, he returned to his throne in the sun, Mánes borrowed many things from the ancient Gnostics; on which account many authors con appointing apostles to propagatesider the Manicheans as a branch of the Gnostics. his religion, and leaving his followers the promise of the para- In truth, the Manichean docclete or comforter, who is Manes trine was a system of philosophy the Persian. Those souls who be- rather than of religion. They lieve Jesus Christ to be the Son of made use of amulets, in imitation God renounce the worship of the of the Basilidians; and are said god of the Jews, who is the prince to have made profession of astroof darkness, and obey the laws de-nomy and astrology. They denied livered by Christ, and illustrated that Jesus Christ, who was only by Manes the comforter, are gra- God, assumed a true human body, dually purified from the contagion and maintained it was only imagiof matter and their purification nary; and therefore they denied being completed, after having his incarnation, death, &c. They passed through two states of trial, pretended that the law of Moses by water and fire, first in the moon did not come from God, or the and then in the sun, their bodies good principle, but from the evil return to the original mass (for the one; and that for this reason it was Manicheans derided the resurrec-abrogated. They rejected almost tion of bodies,) and their souls as-all the sacred books in which cend to the regions of light. But Christians look for the sublime the souls of those who have neg-truth of their holy religion. They lected the salutary work of puri- affirmed that the Old Testament fication pass after death into the was not the work of God, but of bodies of other animals and na- the prince of darkness, who was tures, where they remain till they substituted by the Jews in the place have accomplished their probation. of the true God. They abstainSome, however, more perverse and ed entirely from eating the flesh obstinate, are consigned to a se- of any animal; following herein verer course of trial, being deli- the doctrine of the ancient Pithavered over for a time to the power goreans: they also condemned of malignant aerial spirits, who tor- marriage. The rest of their errment them in various ways. After ors may be seen in St. Epiphathis, a fire shall break forth and nius and St. Augustine; which consume the frame of the world; last, having been of their sect, and the prince and powers of may be presumed to have been darkness shall return to their pri- thoroughly acquainted with them. mitive seats of anguish and misery, Though the Manichees professin which they shall dwell for ever. ed to receive the books of the These monsions shall be surround-New Testament, yet in effect they ed by an invincible guard, to pre-only took so much of them as suited with their own opinions. [ wealth; to feed on flesh, to enter They first formed to themselves a into the bonds of conjugal tencertain idea or scheme of Chris-derness; but this liberty was tianity; and to this adjusted the granted them with many limitawritings of the apostles, pretend-tions, and under the strictest coning that whatever was inconsistent ditions of moderation and tempewith this had been foisted into the rance. The general assembly of New Testament by the later wri-Manicheans was headed by preters, who were half Jews. On sident, who represented Jesus the other hand, they made fa- Christ. There were joined to him bles and apocryphal books pass twelve rulers or masters, who were for apostolical writings; and even designed to represent the twelve are suspected to have forged seve- apostles; and these were followed ral others, the better to maintain by seventy-two bishops,the images their errors. St. Epiphanius gives of the seventy-two disciples of our a catalogue of several pieces pub-Lord. These bishops had presbylished by Manes, and adds ex-ters or deacons under them, and tracts out of some of them. all the members of these religious These are the Mysteries, Chap-orders were chosen out of the ters, Gospel, and Treasury. class of the elect. Their worship Christian appointment of baptism, and the eucharist. They kept the Lord's day, observing it as a fast; and they likewise kept Easter and the Pentecost. The rule of life and manners was simple and plain, and consistwhich Manes prescribed to his fol-ed of prayers, reading the scriplowers was most extravagantly ri- tures, and hearing public disgorous and severe. However, he courses, at which both the audidivided his disciples into two tors and elect were allowed to be classes; one of which comprehend-present. They also observed the ed the perfect Christian, under the name of the elect; and the other the imperfect and feeble, under the title of auditors or hearers. The elect were obliged to rigorous and entire abstinence from flesh, Towards the fourth century the eggs, milk, fish, wine, all intoxi-Manicheans concealed themselves cating drink, wedlock, and all under various names, which they amorous gratifications; and to successively adopted, and changed live in a state of the severest pe-in proportion as they were disconury, nourishing their emaciated vered by them. Thus they asbodies with bread, herbs, pulse, sumed the names of Encratites, and melons, and depriving them-Apotactics, Saccophori, Hydroselves of all the comforts that arise parastates, Solitaries, and several from the moderate indulgence of others, under which they lay connatural passions, and also from a cealed for a certain time, but variety of innocent and agreeable could not, however, long escape the pursuits. The auditors were al- vigilance of their enemies. About lowed to possess houses, lands, and the close of the sixth century, this sect gained a very considerable influence, particularly among the Persians. civility. Good manners, according to Swift, is the art of making those people easy with whom we converse. Pride, ill-nature, and want of ill manners. Without some one of these defects no man will behave himself ill for want of experience; or of what, in the language of some, is called knowing the world. For the effect that Christianity has on the manners of men, see article CHRISTIANITY. Toward the middle of the twelfth century, the sect of Ma-of sense, are the three great sources nichees took a new face, on account of one Constantine, an American, and an adherer to it; who (took upon him to suppress the reading of all other books besides the evangelists and the epistles of St. Paul, which he explained in such a manner as to make them contain a new system of Mani- MARCELLIANS, a sect of cheism. He entirely discarded all ancient heretics, towards the close the writings of his predecessors; of the second century; so called rejecting the chimeras of the Va- from Marcellus of Ancyra, their lentinians, and their thirty æons; leader, who was accused of revivthe fable of Manes, with regarding the errors of Sabellius. Some, to the origin of rain, and other however, are of opinion, that Mardreams; but still retained the im- cellus was orthodox, and that they purities of Basilides. In this man-were his enemies the Arians who ner he reformed Manicheism, in- fathered their errors upon him. somuch that his followers made | St. Epiphanius observes, that there no scruple of anathemizing Scy-was a great deal of dispute with thian, Buddas, called also Addas regard to the real tenets of Marand Terrebinth, the contempora- cellus; but as to his followers it ries and disciples, as some say, is evident that they did not own and, according to others, the pre-the three hypostases; for Marceldecessors and masters of Manes, lus considered the Son and Holy and even Manes himself; Constan- Ghost as two emanations from the tine being now their great apostle. Divine nature, which, after perAfter he had seduced an infinite forming their respective offices, number of people, he was at last were to return again into the substoned by order of the emperor. stance of the Father; and this opinion is altogether incompatible with the belief of three distinct persons in the Godhead. This sect prevailed in Bosnia and the adjacent provinces about the close of the fifteenth century; propagated their doctrine with confidence, and held their religious assemblies with impunity. MANNERS: the plural noun has various significations; as the general way of life, the morals or the habits of any persons; also ceremonial behaviour or studied VOL. II. MARCIONITES, or MARCIONISTS, Marcionista, a very ancient and popular sect of heretics, who, in the time of Epiphanius, were spread over Italy, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Arabia, Persia, and other countries: they were thus denominated from their auL |