CHAPTER XV

MANICHaeISM

WHEN we reach this point in our history of the Mahayana, it behoves us to turn a glance to that great religious movement which began in the middle of the third century.

Mani, or Manichaeus, to give him the name by which he was generally known, was born in A D. 215, almost contemporaneously with the fall of the Han Dynasty. He was descended from a distinguished Persian family which had emigrated from Ecbatana in Persia, and had settled in Babylonia. His early days were spent amongst the Mugtasilahs, or Baptizers, a sect which his father, Fathak,

joined shortly after Mani's birth, a sect out of which sprang in later years the sect of the Mandaeans, and which was undoubtedly a form of Gnosticism. But the boy separated himself from this body when he was about fourteen, choosing to spend the next eleven years in travelling in search of a religion. I believe I am right in saying that some of the recently discovered Central Asian manuscripts now in the Berlin Ethnographical Museum show conclusively that his travels at this period embraced Egypt.

It was from Egypt, though indirectly, that he obtained the books which eventually gave a definite shape to his religious speculations. The story is told by St. Cyril of Jerusalem ("Cat. Lect.," vi. 22). It has been almost uniformly rejected by modern scholars; but I hope that what I have been able to show of the existence of Buddhism in Alexandria during the first century of our era may lead some scholars to reconsider their verdicts. I will give St. Cyril's own words, which are mainly taken from the Acta Archelai.

"There was in Egypt one Scythianus, a Saracen by birth, having nothing in common either with Judaism or with Christianity. This man, who dwelt at Alexandria and imitated the life of Aristotle, composed four books--one called a Gospel which had not the Acts of Christ, but

the mere name only; and one other called the Book of Chapters; and a third of Mysteries; and a fourth, which they circulate now, the Treasure. This man had a disciple, Terebinthus by name. But when Scythianus purposed to come into Judaea and make havoc of the land, the Lord smote him with a deadly disease, and stayed the pestilence. But Terebinthus, his disciple in this wicked error, inherited his money and books and heresy, and came to Palestine, and becoming known and condemned in Judaea, he resolved to pass into Persia; but lest he should be recognized there also by his name, he changed it and called himself Buddas. However, he found adversaries there also in the priests of Mithras; and being confuted in the discussion of many arguments and controversies, and at last hard pressed, he took refuge with a certain widow."

Here Terebinthus died. "The books, however, which were the records of his impiety, remained; and both these