and his money the widow inherited. And having neither kinsmen nor any other friend, she determined to buy with the money a boy named Cubricus; him she adopted and educated as a son in the learning of the Persians, and thus sharpened an evil weapon against mankind. So Cubricus, the vile slave, grew up in the midst of the philosophers, and on the death of the widow inherited both the books and the money. Then, lest the name of slavery might be a reproach, instead of Cubricus he called himself Manes, which in the language of the Persians signifies 'Discourse.'"

In the year A.D. 242, at the coronation of King Sapor I., Manes, now twenty-four years of age, and fed upon the doctrines of the Baptizers, and of the Aristotelian and Buddhist philosophy of the Scythianus books, as well as on the varied experiences of his Wanderjahre, proclaims his new religion. It was an auspicious moment. King Sapor was the successor of Ardashir, who had driven out the Parthian dynasty and restored a Persian Empire under the Persian dynasty of the Sassanid House. It was a strictly nationalistic movement, encouraged by the Magian priests, and the new rulers were bent on restoring that ancient faith of the land which had been overthrown when Alexander burnt its sacred books and proscribed its sacred rites. Manes apparently thought it a favourable opportunity for proclaiming a new religion. So he announced himself as the prophet of God to his own people of Babylonia. "What Buddha was to India, Zoroaster to Persia, Jesus to the lands of the West, that am I to Babylonia."

In its first form, his preaching was a protest against the forcing of Zoroastrianism on his own people of Babylon

by the victorious Sassanid House, and it is probable that, had he been left alone, his religion would have had nothing but a mere local importance. But the Magians did not want to see Babylonia aroused to national enthusiasm by the preaching of a new national faith, and Manes was driven into exile. His exile, followed later by his martyrdom, changed his system from a merely local cult to one of world-wide significance. He wandered as an exile through the countries north, north-east, and east of the newly constituted Persian kingdom, from which he was an outcast, and when, venturing to return to Persia, e was cruelly put to death by his enemies, his disciples seized upon his memory with enthusiasm, and carried his teachings far and wide through Europe and Asia. Manichaeism was for many centuries a serious menace to the Christian Church.