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Epiphanius wrote the Panarion about 375 AD. It was published about three years later. It is a hateful diatribe against all beliefs different from his own. He loves to make fun of the beliefs and practices of others. He derides vegetarian and veganism, belief in a Heavenly Mother, and other true Essene and Manichaean beliefs. As an example, this is what he says about Mani’s teaching of a Heavenly Mother:

“For Mother of Life, whom Mani calls a power, is born of God as his emanation, something it is "a shame even to say. No one whose mind is sound can suppose that there is anything female in the Godhead.”

"If you would like to learn the creed of Mani, hear it from me in a condense form. Mani believes in two gods, unbegotten, self engendering, eternal, and each other's Opposites. And he teaches that one is good and the other evil and calls the one Light, and the other, Darkness. The soul in human beings is part of the light, but the body is part of the darkness and the creature of matter. Now Mani says that there has been a mixture or confusion of these in the following way-likening the two gods to the following illustration: Suppose two kings were at war with each other, and they had been enemies from the first, and each had his respective territory. But in the battle the darkness sallied forth from its territory and assailed the light.

 Now when the good Father found the darkness had invaded his land he emitted a power from himself called Mother of life, and she emitted First Man and clothed him with the five elements. These are wind, light, water, fire and matter. Putting these on as battle gear he went below and did battle with the darkness. But as they fought against him the archons of the darkness ate part of his armor,' that is, the soul.

 Then First Man was dreadfully hard pressed there below by the darkness, and if the Father had not heard his prayer and sent another power he had emitted, called Living Spirit, and if Living Spirit had not descended and given First Man his right hand and drawn him out of the darkness, FirstMan might well have been captured long ago.
 Thereafter First Man abandoned the soul below. And when Manichaeans meet they give each other their right hands' for this reason, as a sign that thy have been saved from the darkness. For Mani says that all the sects are in the darkness. Then Living Spirit created the world ; and he himself descended clothed with three other powess, brought the archons up and crucified them' in the firmament, which is their body, the sphere.

 Then in turn, Living Spirit created the luminaries, which are remnants of the sou and made them circle the firmament And he created the earth in its turn, in eight forms. But beneath it is the Porter, who bears it on his shoulders ; and whenever he gets tired of bearing it he shivers, becoming the cause of an earthquake out of its time. This is why the good Father sent his Son from his bosom to the heart of the earth and its lowest depths, to give the Porter his due punishment For whenever there is an earth quake he is either trembling from fatigue or shifting the earth to his other shoulder.

Next, matter too created growing things from herself And since they were being stolen by certain archons, she called all the chief archons, took power from each, made man as we know him in First Man's image, and bound the soul in him. This is the reason for the mixture.

But when Living Father saw the soul squeezed into the body, in IS mercy and compassion he sent his beloved Son for the soul's salvation-½r he sent him for this reason and because of the porter And when he Son arrived he changed his appearance into a man’s and appeared to men as a man, though he was not one; and people supposed that he had been begotten [like a man'. And when he came he made the handiwork intended for the salvation of souls, and a device with twelve water jars which is turned by the sphere and draws up the souls of the dying. And the greater luminaries takes these with its rays, cleanses them and transfers them to the moon, and this is how what we call the disk of the moon gets full-for Mani says that the two luminaries are ships, or ferry-boats.'

 Then, if the moon is filled [with souls], it ferries them across to the east wind, and thus gets its load dislodged and is It lightened, and begins to wane. And it fills the ferry-boat again, and again discharges its cargo of the souls which are drawn up by the water jars, until it has saved its par' of the soul. For Mani says that all soul, and every living and moving thing, partake of the essence of the good Father. When the moon has delivered her load of souls to the aeons of the Father; they remain in the pillar of glory, which is called the perfect air.' But this air is a pillar of light, since it is full of souls being purified. This is the reason the souls are saved.

 But this, in turn, is the reason why people die. A lovely, beau-tifully dressed Virgin with a very winning manner 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. And when the archons see her with all her adornment they go mad with love; and because they cannot catch her' they become frightfully hot, and their minds are ravished with desire. Now when they sun after her the Virgin disappears. Then the chief archon emits the clouds to darken the world in his anger; and f he is extremely vexed he perspires and is out of breath, like a man. But his sweat is the rain.

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 miniature world which answers to this 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. 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 earth quake, for the Porter is moved at the same time. This is the reason for death.

 But I shall also tell you how the soul is reincarnate in other bodies. First a little of it is purified, and then it is Put into the body of a dog or camel, or another animal. But if a soul has committed murder, it is put into the bodies of Lepers. If it is found to have reaped grain, it is put into stammerers. These are the names of the soul: reason, mind, intelligence, thought, understanding.

But reapers, who reap grain, are like the archons who were in the darkness at the beginning, when they ate some of First Man's armor. Thus they must be re-embodied in grass, beans, barley, wheat or vegetables,' so that they too may be reaped and cut down. Again, if someone eats bread' he must become bread himself and be eaten. If one kills a bird, he too will be a bird. If one kills a mouse, he will also be a mouse.

 And again, if one is sick in this world, he must be reembodied in a poor man when he leaves his tabernacle, so that he may go begging, and after this go away to eternal punishment'. Since this body belongs to the archons and matter; whoever plants a persea must pass through many bodies until that persea is planted. But if anyone builds a house, bits of him will be put into all the kinds of bodies there are. whoever bathes plants his soul in the water. And whoever does not give his alms to the elect will be punished in the hells and reincarnate in the bodies of catechumens until he gives many alms. And for this reason they offer the elect whatever food is their choicest.'
And when they are about to eat bread they pray first and tell the bread 'I neither reaped you, nor ground you, nor pounded you, nor put you into an oven; someone else did these things, and brought you to me. I eat without guilt "And whenever [an elder] says this for himself, he tells the catechumen, 'I have prayed for you," and the catechumen withdraws. For as I told you a moment ago that whoever reaps will be reaped, so whoever throws wheat into a thresher will be thrown in himself-or if he kneads dough he will be kneaded, or if he bakes bread he will be baked. And for this reason they are forbidden to do work.

And again, thy say that there are other worlds, since the luminaries set from this world and rise in those. And whoever walks the ground injures the earth - and whoever moves his hand injures Y air because the air is the soul of men, animals, birds, fish, reptiles everything in the world. For I have told you that this body does
belong to God but to matter and that it is darkness and must itself made dark.

 But as to Paradise, which is a name for the world: Its plants lusts and other impostures which destroy men's reasoning. But that plant in Paradise through which the good is recognized is Jesus, and knowledge of him in the world. One who takes [its fruit] can distinguish good from evil. The world itself, however, is not God's; it
made from a part of matter, and all things are therefore destroyed. The thing the archons stole from First Man is the very thing that fills the moon, and is cleaned out of the world every day. And if the soul departs without knowing the truth, it is given to the demons to subdue the hells of fire. And after its punishment it is put into other bodies be subdued, and so it is thrown into the great fire until the consum-ation

 Now this is what he says about your prophets. There are spirits of impiety or iniquity which belong to the darkness that arose at the beginning, and because the prophets were deceived by these they did not tell the truth. For that archon has blinded their minds. And anyone who follows their words will die forever, imprisoned in the clod [of earth], because he did not learn the Paraclete's knowledge.

Mani has commanded only his elect, of whom there are no more than seven, "When you finish eating, pray and put oil on your heads which has been exorcised with many names, as a support for this faith.,, The names have not been revealed to me; only the seven employ them. And again, he says that the name of Sabaoth, which is revered and of great importance among you, is human in nature and a father of lust And so, he says, the foolish worship lust, thinking it is God.

 This is what he says about the creation of Adam. The person who said "Come and let us make man in our image and after our likeness "-that is, n accordance with the form which we have seen
is the archon who told the other archons, Give me the light which we have taken and let us make a man in the form of us archons and the form we have seen, which is First Man. "

And so they created the man. But they likewise created Eve and gave her some of their lust for Adam's deception. And the fashioning of the world from the archons' handiwork was done through Adam and Eve.

 God has nothing to do with the world itself and takes no pleasure in it, because it was stolen from him by the archons at the beginning and became a burden to him. This is why he sends emissaries and steals his soul from them i.e., the archons every day through these luminaries, the sun and the moon, by which the whole world, and all creation, is taken away. Mani says that the god who spoke with Moses, and with the Jews and their priests, is the archon of darkness; thus Christians, Jews and pagans are one and the same, since they believe in the same god.
 For as that god is not the God of truth, he deceives them with his lusts. Therefore all who hope in that god, the god who spoke with Moses and the prophets, must be imprisoned with him, since they have not hoped in the God of truth. For that god spoke with them in accordance with his lusts.

After all this he finally says, as he himself has written,' when the elder makes his image manifest, the Porter will drop the earth outside. Then the great fire will be let loose and consume the whole world.
 Next he will drop the clod that is interposed between [the world and] the new aeon, so that all the souls of sinners may be imprisoned forever; These events will take place when the image arrives.

But all the emanations-Jesus, who is in the smaller ship, Mother of Life, the twelve steersmen, the Virgin of Light, the third Elder; who is in the larger ship, Living Spirit, the wall of the great fire, the wals f the wind, the air the water; and the living fire within-have their dwellings on high near the lesser luminary, until the fire destroys the whole world over a period of years whose length I do not know. And after this there will be a restoration of the two natures, and the archons will occupy their own realms below, while the Father will occur the realms above; and have received his own back.

Mani imparted this entire teaching to his three disciples and told each of them to make his way to his own area: Addas was assigned the east, Syria fell to Thomas, but the other, Hermeias, journeyed to Egypt. And they are there to this day for the purpose of establishing the teaching of this religion."