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50 Years of European Manichaeism

[ Posted On: 2007-03-26 ]

What European politicians and statesmen, intellectuals and philosophers tried to exorcise with the most ardent fervor is precisely what they have immutably been so far: Manichaean!

Europe had tried in the past various forms of union; Roman Empire, Western Roman Empire, Eastern Roman Empire, Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, Ottoman Empire (at its zenith it included territories belonging to no less than 19 European states of today), Empire of All the Russias, Napoleonic France, Austrian Empire (and its offspring, Austria – Hungary), Hitler's Third Reich, and Soviet Union.

None of them attempted a peaceful expansion, nor was this possible; all of them were multinational, multi-ethnic, multi-linguistic, multicultural and multi-religious unions, whereby one culture, one religion and one language was supposed as unifying link, and had therefore to prevail over the rest.

The European Union comes as the last effort, and contrarily to the previous it is supposed to be a peaceful union of countries that accept a certain political democratic system, involving Human Rights, protection of the Minorities, the rule of Law, and adopt a liberal economic model (Copenhagen criteria). The European lawmakers and statesmen underscore every now and then the transparence of their policies and their commitment to Humanism and other intellectual movements that emanate from the Renaissance world. Knowledge, Truth, Search for Truth, Science, Exploration, Discovery, Moral Values accepted as Universal, and other Renaissance world categories are said to prevail.

For this reason any mendacious, duplicitous and irrational policies are rejected and refuted as Manichaean or Manichaeist; the use of these adjectives pertains to the form and not the contents of the Manichaean Cosmogony that evolved around two supreme powers, allowing considerations of an authentic Dualism.

The Manichaean Doctrine and Expansion

Based on sources involving more than 10 different languages (from Latin to Syriac, and from Sogdian to Coptic, including Arabic and Chinese), we able to reconstitute the most elaborate and sophisticated system of Cosmogony in the World History. According to Mani's doctrine, before the existence of Heaven and Earth, there were two Principles, the Good the Bad.

The Good Principle dwells in the realm of light and is called the Father of Majesty (Megethos in Greek, Abba D'rabbutha in Syriac – a late Aramaic language), or the Father with the Four Persons (Tetraprosopon in Greek as opposed to Tetragrammaton of the Hebrew God), probably because Time, Light, Force, and Goodness were regarded as its essential manifestations.

Opposed to the Father of Majesty is the King of Darkness. He is actually never called God, but otherwise, he and his kingdom down below are exactly parallel to the ruler and realm of the light above.

Manichaeism did not survive down to our times; although it expanded from NW Africa and NW Europe to China, in various parts of the world was superseded by Roman Catholicism, Eastern Roman Orthodoxy, Monophysitic Christianity (Northern Mesopotamia – SE Turkey), Nestorian Christianity (Iraq, Persia, and India), Parsism (Persia and India), Buddhism (Tibet and China), Islam (Egypt, Persian Gulf, and Central Asia). The last Manichaean temple was still functioning before 150 years in the eastern coast of China!

With the aforementioned in mind, and with the similarities between Manichaeism and some of the superseding religions, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism to name the most impressive affinities, one can easily understand to what extent Manichaeism has been at the same time copied, misinterpreted and deprecated. Already the attitude of accepting a theoretical element, attributing to it a different meaning than that it had within the earlier, original, environment (or system), and then denigrating the earlier system bears witness of duplicitous attitude.

You do not need to be Manichaean in order to be duplicitous, and none can demonstrate that the Manichaeans were duplicitous. But when duplicity becomes a lifestyle, a basic trait of cultural and behavioural system, then there are strong chances that system leans to a Dualism. There is no need to call any Dualism ‘Manichaeism' of course.

The Manichaean Origins of Europe

Mani's Ten Commandments forbade idolatry, mendacity, avarice, murder (i.e. all killing), fornication, theft, seduction to deceit, magic, hypocrisy (secret infidelity to Manichæism), and religious indifference (agnosticism or atheism).

Prayer was obligatory four times a day: at noon, late in the afternoon, after sunset, and three hours later. Prayer, accompanied by twelve prostrations, was made facing the sun or, in the night, the moon; it was preceded by a ceremonial purification with water, therefore pre-modeling Islamic practices.

Manichaeans fasted on the first day of the week in honor of the sun, and kept the fast during two days after every new moon. In addition, a monthly fast, observed from sunrise to sunset, was begun on the eighth day of the month.

Manichæans practiced Baptism, Eucharist, and "Consolation," an imposition of hands by one of the Manichaean High priests.

On March 20, 242 CE (beginning of Sassanid Era in Iran), Mani proclaimed himself the Paraclete promised by Jesus; he rejected the Old Testament in its entirety, but adopted three Christian books later considered by the Official Roman Church as Apocrypha, namely the Gospel of Thomas, the Teaching of Addas, and the Shepherd of Hermas.

Jesus Christ was to Mani an Aeon or persistent personification of Light in the world;

The historical Jesus was entirely repudiated by Mani; that material Jesus was "the son of a poor widow," “the Jewish Messiah whom the Jews crucified," "a devil who was justly punished for interfering in the work of the Aeon Jesus”. Mani used the term "Evangel" (Gospel) for his message.

In no country did Manichæism enter more insidiously into Christian life than in Egypt. One of the governors of Alexandria under Constantine was a Manichæan, whereas St. Athanasius says that Anthony the Hermit had forbidden all intercourse with "Manichæans and other heretics".

In the Eastern Roman Empire, Manichaeism came to a zenith around 400 CE, but then rapidly declined. Around150 years later, it once more rose into prominence. The Emperor Justinian himself disputed with them; Barsymes the Nestorian prefect of Theodora, was an avowed Manichæan too. After a certain decline at the moment of the rise of Islam, Manichaeism flooded the Eastern Roman Empire again, this time under the name of Paulicians, or Bogomiles (8th – 10th centuries).

In the Western Roman Empire, the special home of Manichæism was in Proconsular Africa, where Adimantus had risen to theoretical and spiritual prominence.

After the edict of Diocletian against Manichaeans, we hear no more of them until the days of St. Augustine. It is well known how St. Augustine (383) found a home at Rome in the Manichæan community, which must have been considerable. The Father of the Catholic Church was Manichaean before adopting Christianity, but we have not yet got a Manichaean account of the extent St. Augustine's ‘Christian' theology was of Manichaean nature and background. After he became Christian, St. Augustine complained that, although the Manichæans pretended to be Christians, their feast of the death of Mani exceeded in solemnity that of the Death and Resurrection of Christ. This is quite telling! St. Augustine engaged in many debates against Manichaeans, but this testifies mainly to Manichaean impact on the – under formation – Christian theology and religion.

Around 420, Ursus, the imperial prefect, arrested some Manichæans in Carthage and made them renounce. When the Vandals conquered Africa, the Manichæans thought of gaining the Arian Christian clergy by secretly entering their ranks, but Huneric (477-484), King of the Vandals, who accepted Arianism as the correct Christianity, burnt, murdered, and finally dispersed them. Despite all that, at the end of the 6th century, Africa was considered as the hotbed of Manichæism. The same warning was repeated by Gregory II (701), and after the Islamic expansion by Nicholas II (1061).

The spread of Manichæism in Spain and Gaul is involved in obscurity on account of the uncertainty concerning the real teaching of Priscillian. In the years 384-388, a special sect of Manichæans arose in Rome called Martari, or Mat-squatters, who, supported by a rich man called Constantius, tried to start a sort of monastic life for the Elect in contravention of Mani's command that the Elect should wander about the world preaching the Manichæan Gospel.

Around the middle of the 6th century, Manichæism seemed to have died out in Western Europe, but in reality it survived through a number of secret societies down to the times of the Paulicians and Bogomili. When the latter were driven out by the Byzantine emperors, they met with groups in the North of Italy and the South of France whereby the quintessence of Manichaean teachings had survived, and they merged with them, giving successively birth to the formidable Cathars, the Knights Templar, the Rosicrucians, and the Free Masons.

The Manichaean Nature of today's Europe

Two diametrically opposed groups of power for various reasons supported the rise of a European Union, trying - each one - to pull the institutions under formation close to their own ideals. We attest these two groups in frontal battle of ideas and concepts, not followers and armies thus far.

The Catholic pledge for Christian Europe clashes with the Free Masonic concept of a secular Europe; associations fight against or in favor of abortion, and issues like Euthanasia have risen to points of discord. Homosexual marriages and homo-parental legislation have become issues of fundamental political determination. Soon or later, Europe – united or not – will have to choose between two diametrically opposed groups that have shaped its History, leading Europeans to battlefields and death.

In parallel with this ideological confrontation between the Catholic church and the descendants of European Manichaeism, another issue should draw more attention; even if eliminated at the ideological level, Manichaean dualism reigns in the sphere of political language and behaviour.

Suffice it that we refer to the highly symbolic Berlin Declaration that is expected to be signed in terms of a 50 years European panegyric, and we are met with an abundance of duplicitous statements that are made to hide realities and to unveil imaginative considerations.

The first chapter of the Berlin Declaration is expected to make a tribute to the success stories of EU integration, citing peace, prosperity – attributed to the internal market and the single currency - and stability as "central achievements of European unification".

Peace and prosperity were truly met in Bosnia, Croatia, and Kosovo. The bombardments of Belgrade were geared precisely for that!

A passage also notes that "accession of new member states helped unite the continent and consolidate democracy and the rule of law in Europe”.

Probably, it is for this reason that Kosovo, Transnistria and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus have not yet been recognized as states!

The text reads as follows: “The division of the continent could not have been overcome if the people in Central and Eastern European had not so yearned for freedom".

This is the reason so great respect is paid to the passionate desire of Corsicans, Catalans and Scots for Freedom.

The second chapter focuses on "Features of European unification/cooperation" and singles out "democracy and the rule of law as the foundations of EU membership" and "equal rights and duties for all member states as well as transparency and subsidiarity as foundations of the EU." This is referred to as the "Community method."

What then prohibits the Brussels bureaucrats from entering into discussions with Ukraine, Albania and Bosnia where free elections have been held?

In the third chapter, we can read an open Apology for European Manichaeism under the title "Central values on which European unification builds".

The declaration states that "the focus is on the human person whose dignity is inviolable, freedom and responsibility, solidarity as a crucial element of the European way of life, diversity is the hallmark of Europe making tolerance and respect essential."

That is why the diversity of the Macedonian minority in Bulgaria and the Turkish minority in Greece (comically called Muslim minority) has been highly evaluated.

The fourth part of the Berlin statement does highlight the EU's external and internal priorities, with energy policy and climate protection topping the list as "two components of a strategy to counter the global threats together" in which the EU should have a "pioneering role".

Ending genocides in Darfur and elsewhere in Africa could not be a priority for the Human Rights Champion Europe; certainly not!

Justice and home affairs policies are also dealt with thanks to a passage talking about "securing elementary human and civil rights for all".

Paris suburbs have a deep understanding of the excerpt, and this may probably be the Achilles' heel of the ailing European Manichaeism.

Article Source: http://www.afroarticles.com/article-dashboard

About The Author: Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis - is Orientalist, Assyriologist, Egyptologist, Iranologist, Islamologist, Historian and Political Scientist. Dr. Megalommatis, 49, is the author of 12 books, dozens of scholarly articles, hundreds of encyclopedia entries, and thousands of articles. He speaks, reads and writes more than 15, modern and ancient, languages.

| View Profile & All Articles By: Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis |

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