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The Religion of Light: Mani and Manichaeism
| Article
# : |
10373 |
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Section : |
Modern Thought
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| Issue
Date : |
12 / 1986 |
5,722 Words |
| Author
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David J.Levy
David J.Levy is professor of sociology at Middlesex
Polytechnic in London. He has written widely on social theory,
including two books, Realism (1981) and Political Order, which
is still in press. |
Editor's Indtroduction
Manichaeism, one of the most powerful but least understood religious forces in the history of Western civilization, has been a topic of considerable research during the last thirty years. The British scholar, Samuel Lieu, has recently published a comprehensive work that aims at incorporating findings on this ancient Near Eastern sect, whose rise paralleled and overlapped with that of Christianity. Manichaeism has usually been known through its influence on other religions, particularly Christianity and the widespread medieval Christian heresy of Albigensianism. It has also been linked by scholars to other Near Eastern dualistic belief systems, specifically Gnosticism and Zoroastrianism.
Daniel J. Levy takes a different approach. Drawing on relevant scholarship, he tries to examine Manichaeism as distinct from other mythically related religions. Focusing on the magnetic and ascetic personality of Mani, the father of the movement, he shows how Manichaeism appealed to those hopes and needs that institutionalized Zoroastrianism could no longer satisfy. Levy is aware of the obvious point that Manichaeans and Zoroastrians were both dualists waiting for the end of the world in the form of the final triumph of divine Good over divine Evil. He suggests, however, that an equally significant point is that Manichaeans made inroads among Zoroastrians by combining an established mythology with the ideal of ascetic purity.
It may be equally noteworthy that Manichaeism entered medieval Europe with the Cathar (later called Albigensian) heresy as an alternative to institutionalized Christianity. In Europe, the dietary
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