Manichaeism

=== Cosmogony ===
[[File:Yüen dynasty Manichaean diagram of the Universe.jpg|thumb|upright=0.9|''[[Manichaean Diagram of the Universe]]'' depicts the Manichaean [[religious cosmology|cosmology]].]]

Manichaeism presents an elaborate description of the conflict between the spiritual world of light and the material world of darkness. The beings of both the world of darkness and the world of light have names. There are numerous sources for the details of the Manichaean belief. These two portions of the scriptures are probably the closest thing to the original writings in their original languages that will ever be available. These are the Syriac quotation by the [[Church of the East]] Christian [[Theodore bar Konai]] in his 8th century Syriac [[scholion]], the Ketba de-Skolion,<ref name="Konai"/> and the Middle Persian sections of Mani's [[Shabuhragan]] discovered at [[Turpan]] (a summary of Mani's teachings prepared for [[Shapur I]]).<ref name="Shabuhragan"/>

From these and other sources, it is possible to derive an almost complete description of the detailed Manichaean vision<ref>Jonas, Hans The Gnostic Religion, 1958, Ch. 9: Creation, World History, Salvation According to Mani.</ref> (a complete list of Manichaean deities is outlined below). According to Mani, the unfolding of the universe takes place with three creations:{{citation needed|date=September 2017}}

; The First Creation
: Originally, good and evil existed in two completely separate realms, one the World of Light ({{zh|c=明界}}), ruled by the Father of Greatness together with his five Shekhinas (divine attributes of light), and the other the World of Darkness, ruled by the King of Darkness. At a certain point, the Kingdom of Darkness notices the World of Light, becomes greedy for it, and attacks it. The Father of Greatness, in the first of three "creations" (or "calls"), calls to the Mother of Life, who sends her son Original Man ({{lang-arc|Nāšā Qaḏmāyā}}) to battle with the attacking powers of Darkness, which include the Demon of Greed.

The Original Man is armed with five different shields of light (reflections of the five [[Shekhina]]s), which he loses to the forces of darkness in the ensuing battle, described as a kind of "bait" to trick the forces of darkness, as the forces of darkness greedily consume as much light as they can. When the Original Man comes to, he is trapped among the forces of darkness.

; The Second Creation
: Then the Father of Greatness begins the Second Creation, calling to the Living Spirit, who calls to his five sons, and sends a call to the Original Man (Call then becomes a Manichaean deity). An answer (Answer becomes another Manichaean deity) then returns from the Original Man to the World of Light. The Mother of Life, the Living Spirit, and his five sons begin to create the universe from the bodies of the evil beings of the World of Darkness, together with the light that they have swallowed. Ten heavens and eight earths are created, all consisting of various mixtures of the evil material beings from the World of Darkness and the swallowed light. The sun, moon, and stars are all created from light recovered from the World of Darkness. The waxing and waning of the moon is described as the moon filling with light, which passes to the sun, then through the [[Milky Way]], and eventually back to the World of Light.

; The Third Creation
: Great demons (called [[archon (Gnosticism)|archons]] in bar-Konai's account) are hung out over the heavens, and then the Father of Greatness begins the Third Creation' Light is recovered from out of the material bodies of the male and female evil beings and demons, by causing them to become sexually aroused in greed towards beautiful images of the beings of light, such as the Third Messenger and the Virgins of Light. However, as soon as the light is expelled from their bodies and falls to the earth (some in the form of abortions – the source of [[fallen angel]]s in the Manichaean myth), the evil beings continue to swallow up as much of it as they can to keep the light inside of them. This results eventually in the evil beings swallowing huge quantities of light, copulating, and producing Adam and Eve. The Father of Greatness then sends [[Jesus the Splendour]] to awaken Adam, and to enlighten him to the true source of the light that is trapped in his material body. Adam and Eve, however, eventually copulate, and produce more human beings, trapping the light in bodies of mankind throughout human history. The appearance of the Prophet Mani was another attempt by the World of Light to reveal to mankind the true source of the spiritual light imprisoned within their material bodies.

{{gallery|align=center|mode=packed
|File:Analysis of Doctrinal Iconography of Mani’s Cosmology.jpg|Analysis of Mani's cosmology as illustrated in the [[Manichaean Diagram of the Universe|Manichaean Diagram]]
|File:Cathayan Manichaean Cosmology - Heaven Scene.jpg|Heaven scene from the Manichaean Diagram
|File:Virgin of Light (Manichaean Cosmology).jpg|"Maiden of Light" from the Manichaean Diagram
}}

==== Cosmology ====
In the sixth century, many Manichaeans saw "the earth" as "a rectangular [[parallelepiped]] enclosed by walls of crystal, above which three [sky] domes" existed, with the other two being above and larger than the first one and second one, respectively.<ref name="Gnostic">{{Cite book |last=Doresse |first=Jean |title=The Secret Books of the Egyptian Gnostics |publisher=MJF Books |year=1986 |isbn=978-1-56731-227-0 |location=New York |page=269 |language=en-US}}</ref> These represented the "three [[heaven]]s" in [[Chaldea#Religion|Chaldean religion]].<ref name="Gnostic" />