Franz Cumont
1907/1908
translated by Jason Colavito
2025
NOTE
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The myth of the seduction of the archons is one of the strangest in ancient literature. It tells of powerful demons who are lashed to the firmament, of a divine messenger who sexually arouses them, and of the semen they ejaculate onto the earth, which was suffused with divine power the archons had stolen from on high. The story is best known from versions given by the Church Fathers against the Manicheans, but according to Epiphanius’ Panarion 26.1.9 it was also part of the doctrine of the contemporary Gnostic Christian sect (or, more accurately, sex cult) known as the Borborites, who held that Barbelo, the Gnostic “Mother of All Living,” would steal back power from the archons through their sexual emissions. They therefore consumed semen as part of their eucharist. The myth seems also to be connected to the obscure claim in the late Orphic Argonautica (lines 17-19) that the Giants (i.e. the Titans) “spilled their gloomy seed from the sky begetting the men of old,” a much more explicit version of an early claim that humans descended from the Titans (Hymn to Apollo v. 335; Dio, Orations 30.10, etc.).
While the Manichean story as it was known in Late Antiquity is suffused with Gnostic and Zoroastrian motifs, obvious in naming the evil powers “archons,” in more recent times, the discovery of Coptic papyrus fragments of the early Manichaean text known as The Kephalaia of the Teacher show that the “archons” were originally termed “Watchers” and were heavily influenced by the Watchers from the Book of Enoch. In the Kephalaia (38 and 45; see here under “Mani” for trans.), the myth of the rebellion of the Watchers from the Book of Enoch is interlaced with the seduction of the archons story, suggesting Enoch’s tale of the sexual sin of the Watchers, who lusted after human women, is the ultimate origin of Mani’s account. The Manichaean archons, the Watchers, and the Greek Titans all perform similar functions, have astrological or cosmological connections, and are all punished with binding. In 1907, the Belgian archaeologist and historian Franz Cumont (1868-1947) published an important article on the seduction of the archons in the Revue d’histoire et de littérature religieuse 12, which he later revised for his 1908 monograph La cosmogonie manichéenne d'après Théodore bar Khôni. I translate the revised article below. However, parts of Cumont’s article are obscure for the modern reader due to references to texts and people who are no longer common knowledge, and it was evident from Cumont’s notes that he assumed readers would be referencing the original ancient texts cited in the notes as they read his article. Therefore, I have adapted Cumont’s article by inserting the relevant texts in translation, moving some of the notes to the body where they are very obviously integral to the text rather than supplementary, and inserting brief descriptions of people and texts for clarity where Cumont assumed familiarity. Although Cumont likely leaned too far in connecting Mani’s text to Zoroastrian beliefs, given that there are more pronounced connections to apocryphal Jewish texts and Greek ideas, his article is nevertheless an important and essential guide to the literature on the largely forgotten myth of the seduction of the archons. |
THE SEDUCTION OF THE ARCHONS
Franz Cumont
Christian polemicists delight in repeating a licentious myth, which was recounted in the books of Mani and particularly in his Treasure of Life. This fable, which they are indignant about (though not without reason), appears in two different forms.
In the first, the Princes of Darkness or Archons, after having defeated and absorbed the luminous gods, were seized by the Living Spirit, sent by God, and were crucified or chained in heaven. To these male and female demons, an androgynous figure sometimes appears, the Virgin of Light, who appears to some in the form of a seductive young girl, to others in that of a handsome young man. The impure Archons are inflamed with the desire to possess this vision; they make vain efforts to attain it, but it always eludes them. They scream with lust, and sweat trickles from their gigantic bodies: It is the rain falling on the earth in the roar of storms.
This story is told with some variations in the following texts:
In the first, the Princes of Darkness or Archons, after having defeated and absorbed the luminous gods, were seized by the Living Spirit, sent by God, and were crucified or chained in heaven. To these male and female demons, an androgynous figure sometimes appears, the Virgin of Light, who appears to some in the form of a seductive young girl, to others in that of a handsome young man. The impure Archons are inflamed with the desire to possess this vision; they make vain efforts to attain it, but it always eludes them. They scream with lust, and sweat trickles from their gigantic bodies: It is the rain falling on the earth in the roar of storms.
This story is told with some variations in the following texts:
Acta Archelai, ch. 9 (fourth century CE)
IX. A certain maiden, beautiful and adorned, exceedingly elegant, by stealth approaches the rulers who are in the firmament, having been brought forth by the living spirit and crucified. When she appears, she shows herself to men as a beautiful woman, but to women she appears as a handsome and desirable young man.
Now, the rulers, when they see her adorned, are moved with desire toward her and, because they cannot seize her, are violently inflamed by the fires of love — for they are seized by the heat of lust.
So then, when they run after her and she suddenly vanishes, appearing nowhere, the great ruler produces clouds from himself, in order to darken the whole world in his anger. When he is greatly troubled, just as a man sweats after labor, so too this ruler sweats from his tribulation — and his sweat becomes rain.
Moreover, the ruler of the harvest, if he has been deceived by the maiden, pours out famine upon the whole earth, so that people are afflicted with death. For this body is called “the world,” in likeness to this great world, and all humans who are below have their roots bound above.
Therefore, when he has been deceived by the maiden, he begins to cut off the roots of humans; and when their roots have been cut off, pestilence arises, and thus they die. But if he has struck the upper parts of the root more violently, an earthquake occurs and the shaking of the Homophoroi follows. And this is the cause of death.
(trans. Jason Colavito)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lecture 6.34-35 (c. 350 CE)
34. Of these things the Church admonishes and teaches you, and touches mire, that you may not be bemired: she tells of the wounds, that you may not be wounded. But for you it is enough merely to know them: abstain from learning by experience. God thunders, and we all tremble; and they blaspheme. God lightens, and we all bow down to the earth; and they have their blasphemous sayings about the heavens. These things are written in the books of the Manichees. These things we ourselves have read, because we could not believe those who told of them: yes, for the sake of your salvation we have closely inquired into their perdition.
35. But may the Lord deliver us from such delusion: and may there be given to you a hatred against the serpent, that as they lie in wait for the heel, so you may trample on their head. Remember what I say. What agreement can there be between our state and theirs? What communion has light with darkness (2 Corinthians 6:14)? What has the majesty of the Church to do with the abomination of the Manichees? Here is order, here is discipline, here is majesty, here is purity: here even to look upon a woman to lust after her (Matthew 5:28) is condemnation. Here is marriage with sanctity, here steadfast continence, here virginity in honour like the Angels: here partaking of food with thanksgiving, here gratitude to the Creator of the world. Here the Father of Christ is worshipped: here are taught fear and trembling before Him who sends the rain: here we ascribe glory to Him who makes the thunder and the lightning.
(trans. E. H. Gifford)
Titus of Bostra, Against the Manichaeans 1.17 and 2.56 (before 378)
17. […] As for all the other things he mythologizes and writes, like an old crone, using the Syriac tongue—how the earth is supported (not failing to include the poetic myth), how rain is formed (saying it is the sweat of the rulers of matter)—these and similar struggles of his writings would be superfluous to bring forward for refutation. […]
56. As for the rain, he says it is a superfluity and defines it as the sweat of the rulers of matter, who burn with passion for the powers of the Good and are thus worn down by desire. He tries to demonstrate the supposed excessiveness and wastefulness of this (as he sees it), by pointing to the sea, the desert, and the unseeded land—like some pedantic accountant criticizing God as if He spent His water supplies in vain and without moderation. […]
(trans. Jason Colavito)
Epiphanius, Panarion 66 (Against Manichaeans) (c. 378 CE)
27,1 But this, in turn, is the reason why people die. A lovely, beautifully adorned Virgin, very attractive, is attempting to rob the archons who have been brought up by Living Spirit and crucified in the firmament. She appears as a lovely women to the males and as a handsome, desirable youth to the females. (2) And when the archons see her with all her adornment they go mad with love; and because they cannot catch her they become dreadfully hot, and their minds are ravished with desire. (3) Now when they run after her the Virgin disappears. Then the chief archon emits the clouds to darken the world in his anger; and if he is extremely vexed he perspires and is out of breath, like a man. And his sweat is the rain.
27,4 At the same time, if the archon of destruction is robbed by the Virgin, he sheds pestilence on the whole world to slay human beings. For this body of ours may be called a world which answers to great world, and all people have roots below which are fastened to the realms on high. Thus, when the archon is robbed by the Virgin, he begins to cut men’s roots. (5) And when their roots are cut a pestilence sets in and they die. But if he shakes the heavens by [tugging at) the cord of their root, the result is an earthquake, for the Porter is moved at the same time. This is the reason for death
(trans. Frank Williams [1987])
Theodoret, Haereticarum fabularum compendium 5.10 (c. 450 CE)
For it is not, according to the most obscene fables of Mani, that the princes of matter, lusting after the daughter of light, and pursuing her, sweat and supply rain, but the Craftsman of the universe gives a sign, and the clouds are forced.
(trans. Jason Colavito)
Additional References—Abjuration formula, Migne, Patrologia Graeca, Vol. I, col. 1464 B: “Sweat of the wicked rulers (archons).” In the East, Ephrem the Syrian already knows this fable (“Through the thunderclaps and lightning they anger the Holy One, because according to their account it is the lustful voice of the Archon who sees the Virgin.” — translated from Kessler, Māni, p. 300), and it spread in the West even among the Priscillianists of Spain. Orosius (Commonitorium, chap. 2, ed. Schepss, p. 154, line 14) says: “For he says that a certain Virgin is a light (or of light), whom God, wishing to give rain to mankind, shows to the prince of the moist things. As he desires to seize her, he grows agitated, sweats, and causes rain; and when deprived of her, he bellows and arouses thunder with his roar.”
According to the Shikand-gumanig Vizar, a ninth century Zoroastrian work of theology by Mardan-Farrukh, “rain is the seed of the Mazanians (demons) who are attached to the firmament.”
If one could trust this assertion of the Mazdean author, the Manichaean legend would undoubtedly be linked to a well-known myth — that of the union of heaven and earth, which the storm fertilizes. In a land where human life depends on rain, it was easy to associate rain with the generative fluid.
But the isolated assertion of a late author cannot outweigh the impressive body of testimony that speaks of the “sweat” of the Archons. There is probably here a confusion between this first fable and the one that follows.
In the authors I have just cited, the fable is merely ridiculous, judges Isaac de Beausobre (1734), the author of an important scholarly work on Manicheanism, but in St. Augustine and Evodus, it is horribly obscene. This second tradition offers two differences from the first: First, it is not the Virgin of Light who reveals herself in her dual aspect to the captive demons; it is generally “Virtues” who kindle the lust of the Archons: they leave the “luminous ships,” the Sun and the Moon, where they reside, to come and reveal themselves in the form of unclothed youths and resplendent maidens. These are the very expressions used in the Latin translation of the Treasury, from which St. Augustine quotes a long excerpt:
According to the Shikand-gumanig Vizar, a ninth century Zoroastrian work of theology by Mardan-Farrukh, “rain is the seed of the Mazanians (demons) who are attached to the firmament.”
If one could trust this assertion of the Mazdean author, the Manichaean legend would undoubtedly be linked to a well-known myth — that of the union of heaven and earth, which the storm fertilizes. In a land where human life depends on rain, it was easy to associate rain with the generative fluid.
But the isolated assertion of a late author cannot outweigh the impressive body of testimony that speaks of the “sweat” of the Archons. There is probably here a confusion between this first fable and the one that follows.
In the authors I have just cited, the fable is merely ridiculous, judges Isaac de Beausobre (1734), the author of an important scholarly work on Manicheanism, but in St. Augustine and Evodus, it is horribly obscene. This second tradition offers two differences from the first: First, it is not the Virgin of Light who reveals herself in her dual aspect to the captive demons; it is generally “Virtues” who kindle the lust of the Archons: they leave the “luminous ships,” the Sun and the Moon, where they reside, to come and reveal themselves in the form of unclothed youths and resplendent maidens. These are the very expressions used in the Latin translation of the Treasury, from which St. Augustine quotes a long excerpt:
Augustine, Concerning the Nature of Good, Against the Manichaeans 44 (after 404 CE).
… For they say that the powers of light are transformed into beautiful males and are set over against the women of the race of darkness; and that the same powers again are transformed into beautiful females and are set over against the males of the race of darkness; that through their beauty they enkindle the foulest lust of the princes of darkness, and in this manner vital substance, that is, the nature of God, which they say is held lettered in their bodies, having been loosed from their members relaxed through lust, flies away, and when it has been taken up or cleansed, is liberated. This the wretches read, this they say, this they hear, this they believe, this they put as follows, in the seventh book of their Thesaurus (for so they call a certain writing of Manichaeus, in which these blasphemies stand written): “Then the blessed Father, who has bright ships, little apartments, dwelling-places, or magnitudes, according to his in dwelling clemency, brings the help by which he is drawn out and liberated from the impious bonds, straits, and torments of his vital substance. And so by his own invisible nod he transforms those powers of his, which are held in this most brilliant ship, and makes them to bring forth adverse powers, which have been arranged in the various tracts of the heavens. Since these consist of both sexes, male and female, he orders the aforesaid powers to bring forth partly in the form of beardless youths, for the adverse race of females, partly in the form of bright maidens, for the contrary race of males: knowing that all these hostile powers on account of the deadly and most foul lust innate in them, are very easily taken captive, delivered up to these most beautiful forms which appear, and in this manner they are dissolved. But you may know that this same blessed Father of ours is identical with his powers, which for a necessary reason he transforms into the undefiled likeness of youths and maidens. But these he uses as his own arms, and through them he accomplishes his will. But there are bright ships full of these divine powers, which are stationed after the likeness of marriage over against the infernal races, and who with alacrity and ease effect at the very moment what they have planned. Therefore, when reason demands that these same holy powers should appear to males, straightway also they show by their dress the likeness of most beautiful maidens. Again when females are to be dealt with, putting aside the forms of maidens, they show the forms of beardless youths. But by this handsome appearance of theirs, ardor and lust increase, and in this way the chain of their worst thoughts is loosed, and the living soul which was held by their members, relaxed by this occasion escapes, and is mingled with its own most pure air; when the souls thoroughly cleansed ascend to the bright ships, which have been prepared for conveying them and for ferrying them over to their own country. But that which still bears the stains of the adverse race, descends little by little through billows and fires, and is mingled with trees and other plants and with all seeds, and is plunged into divers fires. And in what manner the figures of youths and maidens from that great and most glorious ship appear to the contrary powers which live in the heavens and have a fiery nature; and from that handsome appearance, par of the life which is held in their members having been released is conducted away through fires into the earth: in the same manner also, that most high power, which dwells in the ship of vital waters appears in the likeness of youths and holy maidens to those powers whose nature is cold and moist, and which are arranged in the heavens. And indeed to those that are females, among these the form of youths appears, but to the males, the form of maidens. By his changing and diversity of divine and most beautiful persons, the princes male and female of the moist and cold race are loosed, and what is vital in them escapes; but whatever should remain, having been relaxed, is conducted into the earth through cold, and is mingled with all the races of darkness” Who can endure this? Who can believe, not indeed that it is true, but that it could even be said? Behold those who fear to anathematize Manichaeus teaching these things, and do not fear to believe in a God doing them and suffering them!
(trans. Albert H. Newman)
We will also provide a curious passage from the Contra Faustum where Augustine summarizes the same legend, and shows how the Western Manicheans linked the Christian Trinity to it: Christ, "sun of justice," became the Messenger (in sole virtutem) and divine Wisdom is identified with the Virgin of Light (in luna sapientiam).
Augustine, Contra Faustum 20.6 (c. 400 CE)
Very different is your wicked fancy about youths of both sexes proceeding from this ship [of the sun], whose beauty excites eager desire in the princes and princesses of darkness; and so the members of your god are released from this humiliating confinement in the members of the race of darkness, by means of sinful passion and sensual appetite. And to these filthy rags of yours you would unite the mystery of the Trinity; for you say that the Father dwells in a secret light, the power of the Son in the sun, and His wisdom in the moon, and the Holy Spirit in the air.
(trans. Richard Stothert)
This myth is no longer about causing rain, but about releasing the “vital principle” locked in the genitals of these perverse spirits, that is to say, in accordance with Manichean theology, the particles of light that they have absorbed. These “luminous souls” then return to heaven, their first homeland. However, the vague expressions that Mani used to designate the substance that the ardor of their concupiscence was to bring forth from the Archons, lent themselves to the most scabrous interpretations. Christian writers did not fail to extract them from it, and, as we shall see, they were not entirely wrong.
Consider Evodius (De Fide 17): “What does this sound like but that divine majesty may find ways of escape even through the genitalia of demons?” Similarly, Augustine in On Heresies 46.9, after having related the myth, adds: “Moved by the requisite of this superstition, their elect are compelled to take a eucharist mixed with human semen. […] But they deny that they do this”; and he continues to speak with complacency on this abomination. He expresses the same idea in more veiled terms in On the Nature of Good 45.
The honest Beausobre, who cannot resign himself to making Manichaeism responsible for “such strange profanations,” prefers to cast doubt on the testimony of St. Augustine. “I do not accuse him of lying,” he says, “but I am persuaded that he was deceived by a translation or rather by some unfaithful extract from the Treasure of Manichaeus.” It would be very surprising if a controversialist as erudite as the great African bishop had not been exactly familiar with the books of a sect in which he had remained for nine years. But any doubts that one might have about the accuracy of the passage he cites have been dispelled by the discovery of the eighth-century Syriac Book of Scholia. Here is what Theodore bar Khoni said about the “impure teaching” of Mani: “When the ships (the Sun and the Moon) arrived in the middle of the sky, the Messenger made his forms appear, both the male form and the female form, and he was seen by all the Archons, sons of Darkness, male and female. At the sight of the Messenger, who was beautiful in his forms, all the Archons were filled with desire, the males desired the female form and the females the male form, and they began in their desire to return this light which they had absorbed by taking it away from the five resplendent gods.”
As we can see, this summary by the Syriac writer is in complete agreement with the Latin tradition, except for one detail: the role attributed here to vague Virtues (Virtutes) is filled here by a very specific character, the “Messenger.” But we shall see that this is a difference of expression rather than a divergence of doctrine.
To my knowledge, the only Latin text where the “Messenger” is mentioned is a passage by Evodius, which relates specifically to the seduction of the Archons; this author speaks of “the blessed Father, who resides in the luminous vessels, the one who is called the third Messenger (legatus tertius), the highest Virtue, who transformed his virtues into beings of different sexes.”
Why is this Messenger called “third”? One might assume that he was identified with the Holy Spirit, whom the Manicheans called “third majesty.” But Theodore bar Khoni gives us the key to this mythological enigma: the Messenger was the third creation of the Great Father.
Greek tradition was not ignorant of the existence of this heavenly envoy, but his title is distorted by a very ancient paleographic corruption. The Acta Archelai say that, when the centuries are over, the signal for universal conflagration will be given by “the third Elder.” Scholars have vainly endeavored to understand what this “third Elder” could be, who suddenly appeared at the end of the world without ever having been on the scene before. We now see that we must simply read “the Third Messenger,” which is the exact equivalent of the legatus tertius of Evodius; and, indeed, the Fihrist similarly asserts that on the last day the “Messenger of Salvation” (Heilsbote) will arrive from the East. We can therefore remove the mysterious “Ancient One” from the list of Manichean gods.
Furthermore, the Acta unite the Messenger with the Virgin of Light and place them both with “the twelve female pilots” in the celestial vessels; it is not clear here whether it is the Sun or the Moon. This is also where the Virtutes of St. Augustine are located, and they refer to nothing other than the twelve virgins created by the Messenger and who identify with him. Western Manicheans will have felt some reluctance to speak of dimorphic monsters and ambiguous sex, but the doctrine developed in the Latin extract from the “Treasury” is basically the same as that more crudely expounded in other sources. The male and female “Virtues” are not conceived as independent beings, possessing their own essence, but as manifestations of the “blessed Father” who resides in the Sun. Evodius teaches us that this is the “Messenger”—and of another unnamed power who inhabits the Moon, and who was doubtless identified with the luminous Virgin. Theodore’s text similarly shows us the Messenger embarking with the twelve Virtues on the “celestial vessels” and discovering his forms when they reach the middle of the sky. Similarly, Alexander of Lycopolis, who expounds the Manichean myths with philosophical terminology, places “the power created after the Demurge (Living Spirit),” that is to say the Messenger, in the light of the sun, where it appears in human form. This agrees perfectly with Theodore. Finally, a Pahlavi treatise on Mazdean controversy, which dates from the 9th century, adds valuable testimony to that of the Greek and Syriac authors. The Sikand-Gûmânik Vizar or “Explanation which dispels doubt” contains a very remarkable exposition in its conciseness of the Manichean doctrine, which it combats. The author reports that to wrest from the spirits of Evil, attached to the firmament, the light they had swallowed, “the twelve Glorious Ones make the daughters of Time appear to the male demons.” At the sight of them, the concupiscence of the latter is awakened, their seed escapes, and, the light it contained falling on the earth, plants, trees and harvests are born from it. There are here, if the translations are correct, some errors of detail: it is not the twelve Glorious Ones, that is to say, as West understands it, the twelve signs of the zodiac that make the daughters of Time appear, but the twelve glorious virgins, who discover themselves. The whole of the story remains in conformity with the content of the Treasury of Mani, only what among the Christian controversialists is given only as an interpretation, is, in this Persian book of apologetics, affirmed without ambiguity: it is their seed that the lustful demons let flow on the earth. If the author has thus misunderstood, we think, Mani’s thought, he remains, as we shall see, in the true Iranian tradition.
How did the prophet of Babylonia introduce such bizarre fantasies into his writings, and what was his source of inspiration? It must be sought in the Mazdean beliefs, which he claimed to reform. According to Avestan theology, the Messenger of Ahura-Mazda is the god Nairyó-Sañha (Pahlavi: Néryôsang, Syriac: Narsaï). His cult was popular in the Euphrates valley and as far as Armenia. He was represented, perhaps in imitation of the Hellenic Hermes, as an ephebe whose youthful beauty exerted an irresistible seduction. In the Avesta, the epithet “tall of stature” is attached to his name. The Syriac Acts of Mar Pethión recount that the saint, having remained in prison without eating for two months and six days, “the chief of the Magi found him alive and similar in the freshness of his face and all his appearance to the god Narsai.” A Mazdean legend tells the following about the creation of this charming genius: “Satan [Ahriman] having allowed the women to ask for whatever they wanted, Ormuzd was afraid that they would ask to have relations with the righteous and that this would result in punishment for them. He looked for an expedient and made the god Narsai, a personage of five hundred years (?). He placed him completely naked behind Satan so that the women could see him, desire him and ask Satan for him. The women raised their hands to Satan and said to him: “Satan, our father, give us the god Narsai as a present.” As we can see, it is absolutely the same theme that was taken up by Mâni, and the resemblance even extends to certain details, because the Treasure of Life notes, like the story of the Magi, that the “Virtues” will show themselves to the female archons without clothes (specie puerorum investium). This could be only a bawdy tale, as we find in all mythologies, but other fables, even more shameless, clarify the character of Néryósang and bring him even closer to the Manichean Messenger. The reader will forgive us if the translations of the Zend and the Pahlavi defy honesty here.
Néryósang is originally a fiery genius. The Avesta calls him “the fire that resides in the navel of kings”, that is to say “which is transmitted from king to king by heredity.” He ensures the propagation of the race of heroes and generally causes “the increase of the world.” It is he who makes the “germ of the Keanide princes” grow and to whom that of Zoroaster was entrusted: “Three times,” relates the Bundahishn, “Zoroaster approached Hvôgvi and each time the germ fell to the ground. Néryósang gathered what was in this seed of light and strength, entrusted it to Anâhîd, and when the time came it would join a mother’s breast...” A similar legend was current about Gayômart, the Primitive Man: I quote West’s translation: Gayômard, in passing away, gave forth seed; that seed was thoroughly purified by the motion of the light of the sun, and Néryósang kept charge of two portions and Spendarmad (the goddess of the Earth) received one portion.” From this seed was then born the first human couple.
Here we find Gayômart, the Primitive Man, compared to Néryôsang in the Mazdean legend. It is likely that the Manichaean “Messenger” is the successor of both and that he combines in his person traits borrowed from these two mythical figures. According to the Acta Archelaï, the first man was formed in the image of Primitive Man, and indeed in the Gnostic stories from which the Mani drew inspiration, Adam, as is natural, is created in imitation of the celestial Man. Now, according to the true Manichaean doctrine, formulated in the Treasure of Life, the form that the demons perceive is not that of Man but that of the “Messenger,” who shines in the sun. There is here a clear confusion between Néryôsang and Gayômart. We can go further; it is probably this very confusion that caused Mani to designate the sun as the residence of the Messenger. The latter, according to Zoroastrianism, “purifies the seed of Gayômart,” as we have just seen, and numerous clues tend to prove that in Mazdaism, as in other sects, Primitive Man was assimilated to the solar god, whether he was called Helios or Mithra.
Now, in Pahlavi literature, a series of traits have been noted which, although attenuated in the orthodox tradition, seem to prove that Gayômart, conceived as a young androgyne, would be, almost like the Greek Narcissus, fallen in love with his own image, and the sweat with which, according to the Bundahishn (3.19), Ormuzd covered him, would originally be another liquid. If this interpretation of an obscure passage is the true one, we see how great is the similarity which brings Gayômart closer to the Manichean Messenger.
The androgynous character attributed to the Messenger, as perhaps to Gayômart, is not sufficient to explain the importance that the “Virgin of Light,” which is its feminine manifestation, had assumed in the Manichaean cult. The fragments of Turfan have taught us, in fact, how frequently she was invoked in the hymns of sect. It is clear that in her survives an ancient pagan goddess, much venerated. The name of this “Virgin of Light” seems to have been borrowed from the Gnostics: at least it appears frequently in the Pistis Sophia; but her person is certainly older. What is the Avestan divinity to which this “virile Virgin” immediately brings to mind? Obviously Anâhita, the warrior goddess, in whom the Greeks sometimes recognized their Athena. The character of Anahita is, in fact, strangely close to the Manichean conception. This “very high Virtue which resides in the moon, vessel of life-giving waters,” as the Treasure of Mâni says, is singularly reminiscent of Anâhita, goddess of fertilizing waters, which flow from a celestial source located in the region of the stars. If the first is a seductive virgin, capable of exciting desires, the second is “a beautiful young girl, very strong and beautiful in size... dazzling” (Yasht 5.19). Finally, if the latter represents in the Avesta “much more feminine purity than the power of the sexual instinct,” “it is nevertheless noted that “she purifies the germ of males and the matrix of females” (Yasna 45.2), and it is to her that the seed of Zoroaster is entrusted. Outside of orthodox Mazdaism, she becomes an Asiatic Aphrodite, a great goddess of fertility, to the point of admitting sacred prostitutions into her cult.
Finally, let us recall that the bull was particularly sacred to him; now, we know that the usual epithet for the Moon in the Avesta is gaocithra, “containing the germ of the bull,” because the semen of the primitive Bull was carried to the moon for purification.
Here lies a whole set of ancient Mazdean beliefs that Mani appropriated and transformed. In Persian religion, Primitive Man and the Bull succumb to the blows of the Spirit of Darkness and release their fertile semen. Néryósang and Anâhid collect it, and these “seminal energies” are carried to the Sun and the Moon for purification; only Spendarmad, Mother Earth, receives a portion. Similarly, in Manichaeism, Primitive Man is defeated by the demons who absorb his life-giving light; But the Divine Messenger and the Luminous Virgin compel them to deliver it, and this “vital substance,” which must be clarified in the celestial light, rises into the Sun or the Moon, while a coarser part falls back to Earth, where it bears fruit.
Mani thus seized upon an ancient myth of shameless naturalism, taught by the Magi of the Sassanid Empire, but he sought, through a bold interpretation, to make it an episode in the struggle between its two eternal principles. The “vital substance” becomes for him the light held captive by the Princes of Darkness. This chapter of the Manichaean cosmogony could thus appear to Orientals as the revelation of a long-intuited truth. But, beneath the veil of symbolism, the obscenity of the primitive legend still shone through, and its crudeness must have shocked both the conscience and the taste of the Latins. The same was true of many other fables of Manichaeism.
This was written when Mr. Bousset, in his penetrating research on Gnosticism, brought new elements which complicate the mythological problem of the “seduction of the archons.” He recalled that, according to Epiphanius, the Simonians, the Nicolaitans, the Gnostics professed similar beliefs. A goddess who takes the names of Barbelo, Helena or Noria, showing herself to the Archons, excites their concupiscence, and, taking advantage of the fact that they abandon themselves to their impure passions to steal their seed, thus collects the divine element which they contained, to bring it back to its celestial source. Although these beliefs, which Epiphanius alone reports, are perhaps “late outgrowths of gnosis,” I do not believe that they can be regarded as a borrowing from Manichaeism. Their form is, in fact, much closer to primitive naturalism and their impurity is cruder than those of the Manichaean myth, where the sperm has, if I dare say, volatilized into particles of light. The research of Mr. Bousset seems to me to have made it very probable that we are dealing with an old legend intended to justify certain obscene rites of the cult of the Great Fertile Mother, worshipped under various names throughout Western Asia, and Anahita, who, in Armenia, as we recalled, admitted the practice of sacred prostitution in her temples, could all the more so become the heroine of a scabrous fable.
It must be remembered that the beliefs of orthodox Zoroastrianism are often nothing more than reworkings of old naturalistic myths, which have sometimes survived in popular traditions or dissident sects.
In summary, the view that makes the most sense to me is that the “myth of seduction,” found in both Manichaeism and Gnosticism, was borrowed from this composite religion of Mesopotamia, where indigenous elements had long since combined with Iranian doctrines. This would explain the affinities of this legend, on the one hand, with certain Avestan traditions and, on the other, with those of Semitic paganism.
Consider Evodius (De Fide 17): “What does this sound like but that divine majesty may find ways of escape even through the genitalia of demons?” Similarly, Augustine in On Heresies 46.9, after having related the myth, adds: “Moved by the requisite of this superstition, their elect are compelled to take a eucharist mixed with human semen. […] But they deny that they do this”; and he continues to speak with complacency on this abomination. He expresses the same idea in more veiled terms in On the Nature of Good 45.
The honest Beausobre, who cannot resign himself to making Manichaeism responsible for “such strange profanations,” prefers to cast doubt on the testimony of St. Augustine. “I do not accuse him of lying,” he says, “but I am persuaded that he was deceived by a translation or rather by some unfaithful extract from the Treasure of Manichaeus.” It would be very surprising if a controversialist as erudite as the great African bishop had not been exactly familiar with the books of a sect in which he had remained for nine years. But any doubts that one might have about the accuracy of the passage he cites have been dispelled by the discovery of the eighth-century Syriac Book of Scholia. Here is what Theodore bar Khoni said about the “impure teaching” of Mani: “When the ships (the Sun and the Moon) arrived in the middle of the sky, the Messenger made his forms appear, both the male form and the female form, and he was seen by all the Archons, sons of Darkness, male and female. At the sight of the Messenger, who was beautiful in his forms, all the Archons were filled with desire, the males desired the female form and the females the male form, and they began in their desire to return this light which they had absorbed by taking it away from the five resplendent gods.”
As we can see, this summary by the Syriac writer is in complete agreement with the Latin tradition, except for one detail: the role attributed here to vague Virtues (Virtutes) is filled here by a very specific character, the “Messenger.” But we shall see that this is a difference of expression rather than a divergence of doctrine.
To my knowledge, the only Latin text where the “Messenger” is mentioned is a passage by Evodius, which relates specifically to the seduction of the Archons; this author speaks of “the blessed Father, who resides in the luminous vessels, the one who is called the third Messenger (legatus tertius), the highest Virtue, who transformed his virtues into beings of different sexes.”
Why is this Messenger called “third”? One might assume that he was identified with the Holy Spirit, whom the Manicheans called “third majesty.” But Theodore bar Khoni gives us the key to this mythological enigma: the Messenger was the third creation of the Great Father.
Greek tradition was not ignorant of the existence of this heavenly envoy, but his title is distorted by a very ancient paleographic corruption. The Acta Archelai say that, when the centuries are over, the signal for universal conflagration will be given by “the third Elder.” Scholars have vainly endeavored to understand what this “third Elder” could be, who suddenly appeared at the end of the world without ever having been on the scene before. We now see that we must simply read “the Third Messenger,” which is the exact equivalent of the legatus tertius of Evodius; and, indeed, the Fihrist similarly asserts that on the last day the “Messenger of Salvation” (Heilsbote) will arrive from the East. We can therefore remove the mysterious “Ancient One” from the list of Manichean gods.
Furthermore, the Acta unite the Messenger with the Virgin of Light and place them both with “the twelve female pilots” in the celestial vessels; it is not clear here whether it is the Sun or the Moon. This is also where the Virtutes of St. Augustine are located, and they refer to nothing other than the twelve virgins created by the Messenger and who identify with him. Western Manicheans will have felt some reluctance to speak of dimorphic monsters and ambiguous sex, but the doctrine developed in the Latin extract from the “Treasury” is basically the same as that more crudely expounded in other sources. The male and female “Virtues” are not conceived as independent beings, possessing their own essence, but as manifestations of the “blessed Father” who resides in the Sun. Evodius teaches us that this is the “Messenger”—and of another unnamed power who inhabits the Moon, and who was doubtless identified with the luminous Virgin. Theodore’s text similarly shows us the Messenger embarking with the twelve Virtues on the “celestial vessels” and discovering his forms when they reach the middle of the sky. Similarly, Alexander of Lycopolis, who expounds the Manichean myths with philosophical terminology, places “the power created after the Demurge (Living Spirit),” that is to say the Messenger, in the light of the sun, where it appears in human form. This agrees perfectly with Theodore. Finally, a Pahlavi treatise on Mazdean controversy, which dates from the 9th century, adds valuable testimony to that of the Greek and Syriac authors. The Sikand-Gûmânik Vizar or “Explanation which dispels doubt” contains a very remarkable exposition in its conciseness of the Manichean doctrine, which it combats. The author reports that to wrest from the spirits of Evil, attached to the firmament, the light they had swallowed, “the twelve Glorious Ones make the daughters of Time appear to the male demons.” At the sight of them, the concupiscence of the latter is awakened, their seed escapes, and, the light it contained falling on the earth, plants, trees and harvests are born from it. There are here, if the translations are correct, some errors of detail: it is not the twelve Glorious Ones, that is to say, as West understands it, the twelve signs of the zodiac that make the daughters of Time appear, but the twelve glorious virgins, who discover themselves. The whole of the story remains in conformity with the content of the Treasury of Mani, only what among the Christian controversialists is given only as an interpretation, is, in this Persian book of apologetics, affirmed without ambiguity: it is their seed that the lustful demons let flow on the earth. If the author has thus misunderstood, we think, Mani’s thought, he remains, as we shall see, in the true Iranian tradition.
How did the prophet of Babylonia introduce such bizarre fantasies into his writings, and what was his source of inspiration? It must be sought in the Mazdean beliefs, which he claimed to reform. According to Avestan theology, the Messenger of Ahura-Mazda is the god Nairyó-Sañha (Pahlavi: Néryôsang, Syriac: Narsaï). His cult was popular in the Euphrates valley and as far as Armenia. He was represented, perhaps in imitation of the Hellenic Hermes, as an ephebe whose youthful beauty exerted an irresistible seduction. In the Avesta, the epithet “tall of stature” is attached to his name. The Syriac Acts of Mar Pethión recount that the saint, having remained in prison without eating for two months and six days, “the chief of the Magi found him alive and similar in the freshness of his face and all his appearance to the god Narsai.” A Mazdean legend tells the following about the creation of this charming genius: “Satan [Ahriman] having allowed the women to ask for whatever they wanted, Ormuzd was afraid that they would ask to have relations with the righteous and that this would result in punishment for them. He looked for an expedient and made the god Narsai, a personage of five hundred years (?). He placed him completely naked behind Satan so that the women could see him, desire him and ask Satan for him. The women raised their hands to Satan and said to him: “Satan, our father, give us the god Narsai as a present.” As we can see, it is absolutely the same theme that was taken up by Mâni, and the resemblance even extends to certain details, because the Treasure of Life notes, like the story of the Magi, that the “Virtues” will show themselves to the female archons without clothes (specie puerorum investium). This could be only a bawdy tale, as we find in all mythologies, but other fables, even more shameless, clarify the character of Néryósang and bring him even closer to the Manichean Messenger. The reader will forgive us if the translations of the Zend and the Pahlavi defy honesty here.
Néryósang is originally a fiery genius. The Avesta calls him “the fire that resides in the navel of kings”, that is to say “which is transmitted from king to king by heredity.” He ensures the propagation of the race of heroes and generally causes “the increase of the world.” It is he who makes the “germ of the Keanide princes” grow and to whom that of Zoroaster was entrusted: “Three times,” relates the Bundahishn, “Zoroaster approached Hvôgvi and each time the germ fell to the ground. Néryósang gathered what was in this seed of light and strength, entrusted it to Anâhîd, and when the time came it would join a mother’s breast...” A similar legend was current about Gayômart, the Primitive Man: I quote West’s translation: Gayômard, in passing away, gave forth seed; that seed was thoroughly purified by the motion of the light of the sun, and Néryósang kept charge of two portions and Spendarmad (the goddess of the Earth) received one portion.” From this seed was then born the first human couple.
Here we find Gayômart, the Primitive Man, compared to Néryôsang in the Mazdean legend. It is likely that the Manichaean “Messenger” is the successor of both and that he combines in his person traits borrowed from these two mythical figures. According to the Acta Archelaï, the first man was formed in the image of Primitive Man, and indeed in the Gnostic stories from which the Mani drew inspiration, Adam, as is natural, is created in imitation of the celestial Man. Now, according to the true Manichaean doctrine, formulated in the Treasure of Life, the form that the demons perceive is not that of Man but that of the “Messenger,” who shines in the sun. There is here a clear confusion between Néryôsang and Gayômart. We can go further; it is probably this very confusion that caused Mani to designate the sun as the residence of the Messenger. The latter, according to Zoroastrianism, “purifies the seed of Gayômart,” as we have just seen, and numerous clues tend to prove that in Mazdaism, as in other sects, Primitive Man was assimilated to the solar god, whether he was called Helios or Mithra.
Now, in Pahlavi literature, a series of traits have been noted which, although attenuated in the orthodox tradition, seem to prove that Gayômart, conceived as a young androgyne, would be, almost like the Greek Narcissus, fallen in love with his own image, and the sweat with which, according to the Bundahishn (3.19), Ormuzd covered him, would originally be another liquid. If this interpretation of an obscure passage is the true one, we see how great is the similarity which brings Gayômart closer to the Manichean Messenger.
The androgynous character attributed to the Messenger, as perhaps to Gayômart, is not sufficient to explain the importance that the “Virgin of Light,” which is its feminine manifestation, had assumed in the Manichaean cult. The fragments of Turfan have taught us, in fact, how frequently she was invoked in the hymns of sect. It is clear that in her survives an ancient pagan goddess, much venerated. The name of this “Virgin of Light” seems to have been borrowed from the Gnostics: at least it appears frequently in the Pistis Sophia; but her person is certainly older. What is the Avestan divinity to which this “virile Virgin” immediately brings to mind? Obviously Anâhita, the warrior goddess, in whom the Greeks sometimes recognized their Athena. The character of Anahita is, in fact, strangely close to the Manichean conception. This “very high Virtue which resides in the moon, vessel of life-giving waters,” as the Treasure of Mâni says, is singularly reminiscent of Anâhita, goddess of fertilizing waters, which flow from a celestial source located in the region of the stars. If the first is a seductive virgin, capable of exciting desires, the second is “a beautiful young girl, very strong and beautiful in size... dazzling” (Yasht 5.19). Finally, if the latter represents in the Avesta “much more feminine purity than the power of the sexual instinct,” “it is nevertheless noted that “she purifies the germ of males and the matrix of females” (Yasna 45.2), and it is to her that the seed of Zoroaster is entrusted. Outside of orthodox Mazdaism, she becomes an Asiatic Aphrodite, a great goddess of fertility, to the point of admitting sacred prostitutions into her cult.
Finally, let us recall that the bull was particularly sacred to him; now, we know that the usual epithet for the Moon in the Avesta is gaocithra, “containing the germ of the bull,” because the semen of the primitive Bull was carried to the moon for purification.
Here lies a whole set of ancient Mazdean beliefs that Mani appropriated and transformed. In Persian religion, Primitive Man and the Bull succumb to the blows of the Spirit of Darkness and release their fertile semen. Néryósang and Anâhid collect it, and these “seminal energies” are carried to the Sun and the Moon for purification; only Spendarmad, Mother Earth, receives a portion. Similarly, in Manichaeism, Primitive Man is defeated by the demons who absorb his life-giving light; But the Divine Messenger and the Luminous Virgin compel them to deliver it, and this “vital substance,” which must be clarified in the celestial light, rises into the Sun or the Moon, while a coarser part falls back to Earth, where it bears fruit.
Mani thus seized upon an ancient myth of shameless naturalism, taught by the Magi of the Sassanid Empire, but he sought, through a bold interpretation, to make it an episode in the struggle between its two eternal principles. The “vital substance” becomes for him the light held captive by the Princes of Darkness. This chapter of the Manichaean cosmogony could thus appear to Orientals as the revelation of a long-intuited truth. But, beneath the veil of symbolism, the obscenity of the primitive legend still shone through, and its crudeness must have shocked both the conscience and the taste of the Latins. The same was true of many other fables of Manichaeism.
This was written when Mr. Bousset, in his penetrating research on Gnosticism, brought new elements which complicate the mythological problem of the “seduction of the archons.” He recalled that, according to Epiphanius, the Simonians, the Nicolaitans, the Gnostics professed similar beliefs. A goddess who takes the names of Barbelo, Helena or Noria, showing herself to the Archons, excites their concupiscence, and, taking advantage of the fact that they abandon themselves to their impure passions to steal their seed, thus collects the divine element which they contained, to bring it back to its celestial source. Although these beliefs, which Epiphanius alone reports, are perhaps “late outgrowths of gnosis,” I do not believe that they can be regarded as a borrowing from Manichaeism. Their form is, in fact, much closer to primitive naturalism and their impurity is cruder than those of the Manichaean myth, where the sperm has, if I dare say, volatilized into particles of light. The research of Mr. Bousset seems to me to have made it very probable that we are dealing with an old legend intended to justify certain obscene rites of the cult of the Great Fertile Mother, worshipped under various names throughout Western Asia, and Anahita, who, in Armenia, as we recalled, admitted the practice of sacred prostitution in her temples, could all the more so become the heroine of a scabrous fable.
It must be remembered that the beliefs of orthodox Zoroastrianism are often nothing more than reworkings of old naturalistic myths, which have sometimes survived in popular traditions or dissident sects.
In summary, the view that makes the most sense to me is that the “myth of seduction,” found in both Manichaeism and Gnosticism, was borrowed from this composite religion of Mesopotamia, where indigenous elements had long since combined with Iranian doctrines. This would explain the affinities of this legend, on the one hand, with certain Avestan traditions and, on the other, with those of Semitic paganism.
Source: Franz Cumont, “La Séduction des Archontes,” La cosmogonie manichéenne d'après Théodore bar Khôni (Brussels: H. Lamertin, 1908), 54-68.
