Manichaeism Quotes

“Upright, nonviolent, chaste, abstinent, and poor-such was the Manichaean monk who practiced the five commandments laid down by Mani to express his ideal of evangelical blessedness and purpose. (…) Manichaean ethics, regarded as diabolical and insane in the West, had the effect among the peoples of Upper Asia of helping to moderate bloodthirsty behavior: "Countries with barbaric customs where blood used to stream," al-Biruni noted (in Pelliot's translation), "were transformed into a land where one ate vegetables; states where one used to kill were transformed into a kingdom where one exhorted others to do good". These lines (…) suggest the civilizing impact of such an ethics in Turco-Mongolian lands in the second half of the eighth century.”
― Michel Tardieu, Manichaeism

“In enjoining the monk to "nonviolence" [Sogd puazarmya], in the literal sense of the word, the second commandment, or seal of the hands, forbade the monk from engaging in any violent act liable to injure one of the five elements-light, fire, water, wind, air-that are found in a mixed state in living creatures, or in plants, or in nature itself. The cosmological foundation of this commandment had to do with the conviction that imprisoned in every composite body are particles of pure light that await release (...)”
― Michel Tardieu, Manichaeism

“(…) the Manichaean stands in the same relation to his stomach as the demiurge and his sons stand to the world, which is to say that he is a maker of light. The microcosm repeats the macrocosm. (…) Chewing, swallowing, and digestion work to separate the dark matter of food, evacuated in stools, from its luminous and divine part, the "limb of God" [membrum dei], which brings about the return to pure light. (…) thanks to the luminosity trapped within his body (otherwise known as the sanctitas), the elect is able to filter the light by separating out what is unclean and keeping intact the filtered part, which is then liberated and restored to the world from on high. (…) According to the fine formula of the Chinese Manichaeans, "The universe is the pharmacy where the luminous bodies heal”
― Michel Tardieu, Manichaeism

“The third commandment forbade monks from committing any act that might favor, directly or indirectly, the reproduction of living beings, animals, or plants. Thus, if cutting down a tree contravened the second commandment, planting one was an infraction of the third: "He who has planted a [fruit-yielding tree] shall pass through several bodies until the [tree] has been felled:' The theological reason for this was Simple: to encourage reproduction was to endlessly retard the process by which the particles of light trapped in the bodies of living things were finally and permanently liberated.”
― Michel Tardieu, Manichaeism