A literary history of Persia

154 THE SASANIAN PERIOD2. Manes and the Manicheeans.At the end of the Parthian period, in the fourth year otKing Ardawan (A.D. 215-216), as we learn from the Chronologyof Ancient Nations (Sachau's translation, p. 121) ofMa h ' stne learned al-Birunid"trine(early eleventh century),was born Manes, or Mani, the founder of theManichaean religiona religion which, notwithstanding thefierce persecutions to which it was exposedboth in the Eastand the West, alike at the hands of Zoroastrians and Christians,from the very moment of itsappearance until the exterminationof the unfortunate Albigenses in the thirteenth century,continued for centuries to count numerous adherents, and toexercise an immense influence on religious thought both inAsia and Europe.In the system which he founded Manes was essentiallyeclectic but ; though he drew materials both from the ancientBabylonian and from the Buddhist religions,his main endeavourwas, as Gibbon has " said, to reconcile the doctrines of Zoroasterand Christ," an attempt which resulted in his being " pursuedby the two religions with equal and unrelenting hatred." Hissystem, however, is to be regarded rather as a ChristianisedZoroastrianism than as a Zoroastrianised Christianity,since hewas certainlya Persian subject, and probably at least half aPersian ;wrote one of his books (the Shaburqan, or Shahpuhrakan^characterised bythe Muhammadan al-Biruni as"of all Persian books one thatmay be relied upon," since"Mani in his law has forbidden telling lies,and he had noneed whatever for falsifying history ") in Persian forKingShapur, whose conversion he hoped to effect, and was finallyput to a cruel death by one of Shapur's successors. 1The sources of our information about the life, doctrines, andwritings of Manes are both Eastern and Western, and since1Hormuzd, Bahram I or Bahrain II (see Noldeke's Qcsch. d. Sasan,,p. 47, n. 5 ad calc.).