Reflections of Myth and Mani’s ritual on Christianity

Document Type : مروری

Abstract

Mani is one of the prophets of ancient Iran who founded the Gnostic and universal religion of Manichaeism. He was born on April 14, 216, from a father from Hamedan and a Parthian mother in Assyria in Mesopotamia. From a young age, he devoted his life to Manichaeism propaganda. By 277, with the efforts of Mani Manichaeism was able to reach the West to Syria, Saudi Arabia, the Balkans, Africa, Spain, Italy, and so on. It expands and reaches east to the Indian Ocean and the China Sea Eventually, Mani's successes worried Zoroastrian priests so much that they provoked Bahram Shah to imprison Mani. However, when he died in prison at the age of sixty, he had written many books and established a global ritual that had many followers around the world. One such person is St. Augustine, who was a Manichaean Newshun for about ten years. Even after accepteing Christianity he retained Manichaean duality. The aim of the paper is to prove that Augustine used the Manichaean worldview to lay the foundation of his political philosophy.

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