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Manichaeans & Marriage
Why Did The Manichaeans Eschew Sexuality?
By Yesai Nasrai, O:N:E:

Manichaeans Laity (Hearers or Listeners) were allowed to marry but were encouraged to practice birth control. The Elect (Monks & Nuns) were forbidden to enter into worldly forms of householder marriage. Why was this so? Did Mani believe sexuality or loving families were evil? To properly understand this situation, it is important to first get to the root of just what marriage is and is not, how attitudes toward it in Christianity have evolved, and then proceed to analyze why Mani thought such an obstacle to true spirituality.

"Sex to the pious Mandaean is the holiest mystery of life and it is enjoined upon him to regard it as such and to pronounce the most sacred name, 'the great Life', before performing a sexual act. Continence is praised but celibacy is an unnatural and unholy state, condemned in the GR (Ginza Right), especially in polemical passages referring to monasteries and convents." - The Secret Adam by Drower, p 10

Of some non-Nazorean Gnostic sects it was said: "They recognize each other by secret signs and marks; they fall in love almost before they are acquainted; everywhere they introduce a kind of religious lust, a promiscuous `brotherhood' and `sisterhood.' Minucius Felix, Octavius 9, G. H. Rendall, trans., p. 337.[Note: The Order does not condone this degree of promiscuity!]

The more conservative Valentinians view on marriage and sexuality, as recorded by Irenaeus (Adv. haer. 1.6,4), was that those "who have experienced that 'mystery of syzygies' are enjoined to enact marital intercourse in ways that express their spiritual, psychic, and bodily integration, celebrating the act as a symbol of the divine pleromic harmony. But those who remain uninitiated are to refrain from sexual intercourse."

The Bible, and Mani toward his lay Listeners, encouraged reproduction. The bible says: And God saw everything that He had made, and, behold, it was very good (Genesis 1:21-26; 2:18; 1:27-31).

Several passages in the Gospels condemn porneia. This word carried a number of different meanings. At times porneia means prostitution, at other times it refers to non marital sex in general. It is difficult to be certain, for example, whether the term applied to premarital intercourse between persons betrothed to one another or, indeed, to any type of non-commercial, heterosexual relations of the kind conventionally labeled fornication. Since neither the Torah nor rabbinical teachers contemporary with Jesus prohibited intercourse between unmarried partners as a moral offense, perhaps porneia referred primarily to sex with prostitutes, adultery, and other promiscuous relationships.  (Brundage 1987: 58). [Note: The Order does not accept the complete authority of the New Testament!]

The Pauline school held: "Marriage is honorable, and the bed undefiled." (Saint Paul, Hebrews 13:4).

This St. Paul nevertheless had a reputation for corrupting the Roman ideal of woman a property, as we read in the The Acts of Paul and Thecla: "Away with the sorcerer, for he has corrupted all our women." Acts of Paul and Thecla, New Testament Apocrypha, vol. 2, 10, p.356; 5, p.357. [Note: The Order does not accept the authority of this Acts!]

Private ownership of goods and woman was considered normal in many ancient societies. Nazoreans rejected this world view. Their attitude found its way into the Book of Acts in the Bible where one reads:  "And there came fear upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were wrought by the apostles. And all those which believed were joined together, and had all things common. And they sold their possessions and substance, and did part them to all men, as every man had need." (Bible, Acts, 2:44-46).

Mani's prohibition against worldly forms of marriage for his Electi was perhaps a prohibition against slavery and the abuse and ownership of woman so prevalent in his day. One scholar has written:

"For much of Western history, marriage was an exchange of property, i.e. the woman was being given by her father to her husband. The union of property & money & lineage were what was being celebrated --- not so much the union of two lovers."

Although the early forms of Nazorean Christianity, and Manichaeanism,  treated woman as equals, later Catholic Christianity continued the non-Nazorean  pattern of viewing woman as inferior property and dangers to true spirituality.

Early Christianity, with its Nazorean Gnostic roots, had quite a reputation for non conservative attitudes toward woman and sexuality. To combat this, and to convince Romans that the evolving orthodox Roman Christianity held  celibate or monogamous practices similar to the Roman ideal, some zealous  young Christians sought to prove their "purity" by castrating themselves and campaigning against sexuality.  At least one young man in Alexandria during the time of Justin Martyr (c. A.D. 100-165) petitioned the Augustal Prefect to allow himself to be castrated in order to prove to the pagans that indiscriminate sex with his "sisters" was not what Christianity was all about. Justin, Apologia I, 29.2..

The famous Roman Christian theologian Origin reputedly castrated himself as well.  Yet as late as A.D. 320, Emperor Licinius was promulgating laws that forbade Christian men and women in the Eastern empire from appearing in company together in their houses of prayer. This restriction was no doubt an attempt to deal with what was considered sexual impropriety on the part of some Christian communities who were not conforming to the new fangled Roman views of monogamy and celibacy. Eusebuis, Life of Constantine, I.53, E.C. Richardson, trans., Library of the Nicene Fathers, I:497.

The more tolerant Pauline school gradually evolved more and more destructive attitudes toward human sexuality by the second and third century. Tertullian (c. 150-230), Saint Jerome (331-420) and Saint Augustine (354-430) condemned  human sexuality as evil. This was in stark contrast to the healthy Nazorean attitude toward all things natural and useful to humankind.

"Tertullian was so repulsed by sex he publicly renounced his own sexual relationship with his wife and taught that sexual intercourse drives out the Holy Spirit. Women, he declared, are "the devil's door: through them Satan creeps into men's hearts and minds and works his wiles for their spiritual destruction." Tertullian, De exhortatione castitatis 11.1, in CCL 2:1030-31,

Tertullian considered sex shameful conduct and marveled at how a priest's blessing could transform this sinful act into semi sanctified behavior. He was particularly revolted by widows and others who would remarry, equating the sin of such "filthy sensualists" to fornication, adultery and murder(Tertullian, De exhortatione castitatis 9.1 and De monogamia 4.3, 10.7, 15.1, in CCL 2:1027, 1229, 1233, 1243, 1250, see also Brundage, 1987: 68).

And  Saint Jerome (331-420) said: Anyone who has too passionate a love for his wife is an adulterer!"

 Augustine, the leading theologian of the fourth century, embraced the false Roman faith on April 25, 387 along with his "illegitimate" son, leaving behind his wife and his second mistress. He probably did this to avoid heavy taxes and restrictions then imposed on Manichaeans. He had separated  and ceased living together with his first concubine of 17 years, the mother of his son. He turned his home in Hippo into a celibate orthodox monastery, and as Bishop of Hippo, proceeded to write very influential writings that heavily affected  Christianity, such as City of God.. Saint Augustine spoke of marriage as "a medicine for immorality," since marriage took sex into the more "respectable" realm of procreation.

The non-gnostic ascetic monks of the fourth century made celibacy an ideal: "only through monastic celibacy can man recover that natural--and sexless--state for which [man] was originally created `in the image'" of God (Sherrard, 1976: 8).

Some early monastics became so much against all forms of sexuality  that they all but declared God an unfit Creator, who obviously should have invented a better way of dealing with the problem of procreation. Arnobius (d. c. A.D. 317) [Note: The Order does not accept the  the Old Testament story of God creating the world and humanity!]

Methodius thought sex was "unseemly," and Ambrose, a "defilement." Saint John Chrysostom, the "golden-mouthed" orator of the fourth century, had little golden to say about the fair sex in general: "Among all savage beasts, none is found as harmful as woman."

. . . Virtually all restrictions that now apply to sexual behavior in Western societies stem form moral convictions enshrined in medieval canonical jurisprudence."

In the post-apostolic period Christian writers began expressing much more restrictive views of the role of sex in human life. . . . Church leaders needed to deal with the problems that sexual relations raised within the Christian community. There was a broad agreement that marital sex was acceptable, although a number of important writers sought to discourage sex among the devout. A few [so-called?] aberrant Christian groups taught that Christians were not subject to sexual restrictions and might have relations with anyone whom they pleased. Other doctrinal deviants wished to ban all sexual relations, even in marriage (Brundage, 1987: 74, 75).

What the modern world still understands by "sin" stems not from the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth, or from the tablets handed down from Sinai, but from the early sexual vicissitudes of a handful of men who lived in the twilight days of imperial Rome (Tannahill, 1992: 138).

"To understand the evolution from the early sex-affirming Hebraic culture to Christianity's persistent discomfort with sex and pleasure, we have to look at three interwoven threads: the dualistic cosmology of Plato [i.e. the soul and mind are at war with the body], the Stoic philosophy of early Greco-Roman culture [i.e., nothing should be done for the sake of pleasure], and the Persian Gnostic tradition [i.e., that demons created the world, sex and your body--in which your soul is trapped, and the key to salvation is to free the spirit from the bondage of the body by denying the flesh]. Within three centuries after Jesus, these influences combined to seduce Christian thinkers into a rampant rejection of human sexuality and sexual pleasure."

As the Church became part of the mainstream of Roman life, it borrowed increasingly from the pagan world, from which it had formerly been almost totally estranged. In the process, both Christian institutions and thought were irrevocably altered. These developments also signaled the beginning of radical changes in the ways the authorities of both Church and government dealt with sexual matters (Brundage, 1987: 76).

Some modern writers have sought to blame the Christian fear of sexuality on the Manichaeans, but the Manichaeans were only against selfish self-serving sexuality, not loving tantric union.

In contrast to Augustine's new belief, Manichaean woman continued to hold positions of power and authority within Gnostic Christianity. some of this freedom was created by Mani's encouragement of family planning and contraception among laity and monastics.  "Women could, however, be accepted among the perfecti; it is widely speculated that this was the main appeal of Catharism for women. The perfecti were the ministers of the Cathar faith, wandering in pairs through the countryside to be with the credentes. Women and men worked together to gain converts to the faith and maintaining devotion. To be a perfecta gave a woman a higher status than she could ever attain in the Catholic church." - "Searching For A Cathar Feminism, 1100-1300"

Not all Christians held a negative attitude toward human sexuality. Peter Abelard (1079-1142), a medieval theologian who was forcibly castrated by an angry priest and uncle of his female friend, wrote:

No natural pleasure of the flesh may be declared as sin, nor may one impute guilt when someone is delighted by pleasure where he must necessarily feel it. . . . From the first day of our creation when man lived without sin in paradise, sexual intercourse and good tasting foods were naturally bound up with pleasure. God himself had established nature in this way (cited by Robert T. Francoeur in his essay, The Religious Suppression of Eros).

Manichaeans did not condone or practice indiscriminate sexuality but they are accused of practicing non conceiving sexual acts in secret in certain tracts of the Mandaean Ginza scroll written before the six century.  In the eleventh century they were reported as doing the following: "Manichaeans appeared in Aquitaine, leading the people astray. They denied baptism, the cross, and all sound doctrine. They did not eat meat, as though they were monks, and pretended to be celibate, but among themselves they enjoyed every indulgence. They were messengers of Antichrist, and caused many to wander from the faith."
 - Adhémar of Chabannes (c. 1018)

Nazoreans do not condone promiscuous behavior. Scholars do say, however, that "At one time, early humans were promiscuous. Like our closest living relatives, the gorilla, chimpanzee, and orangutan, they were pansexual; that is, prehistoric women and men engaged in sexual activities with all other group members, female and male, young and old. This sexual behavioral pattern would eventually change, however, from rampant promiscuity to one in which we formed pair-bonds based around female prostitution. This transformation occurred around 1 million years ago in an early human ancestor known as Homo erectus." [Note: The Order does not teach a return to such primitive practices!]

Most modern humans do not practice monogamy: "There are some individuals who would call it "lifetime monogamy." But those individuals would be wrong. In fact, anthropological studies show that humans are not designed for lifetime monogamy, and that even in societies (such as the U.S.A. and England) where lifetime monogamy is held to be the ideal, only a tiny fraction of couples actually practice it. To the contrary, nearly all people, following our prehistoric ancestor's basic mating pattern, form a temporary pair-bond with a single mate, separate, then go in search of a new partner with whom she or he forms another brief, tenuous bond. This primal custom is overtly reflected in our obsession with dating, and in our extremely high rates of desertion, infidelity, divorce, and remarriage. Some go even further by incorrectly referring to this type of short-term intimate bonding as "serial monogamy." An objective observer will quickly realize, however, that our love of short-term pair-bonding is actually a form of what is called, "serial polygamy": having a series of temporary monogamous relationships; not simultaneously (as in straight polygamy), but in succession, spread out over time."

Various alternatives to the traditional  monogamous betrothal and marriage pattern have existed in Christendom.  Trial marriages for a year and a day once existed in Christian Scotland, Wales, Ireland, and other places:

"When we are handfasted, as we term it, we are man and wife for a year and a day; that space gone by, each may choose another mate, or, at their pleasure, may call the priest to marry them for life; and this we call handfasting."
     -- Sir Walter Scott, _The Monastery_ (1820), ch. 25.

Nazoreans have never held up the monogamous or celibate ideal. Among the major Nazorean Apostles of Light there are many instances of multiple marriage partners. Zardoz (Zarathustra) had three wives, Sidhartha Buddha had many before he retired to the forest to contemplate, Yohanna (John Baptist) was married to two woman named  Anhar & Qinta, and Yeshu (Jesus) was said to have been married to  Miryai (Mary Magdalene) among others ("The grand reason why the gentiles and philosophers of his school persecuted Jesus Christ was because he had so many wives; there were Elizabeth and Mary and a host of others that followed him." Jedidiah Grant). We know that the great Vajrayana master Padmasambhava had many mates and that his female counterpart, Yeshay Tsogyal, had more than one partner as is customary for advanced female adepts in the Tibetan tradition. (see Multiple Marraige Partners in Nazorean Tradition) None of these are against the Gnostic ethic.

Manichaean Elect took a vow of "conformity with religion" which many interpreted as a vow against any type of sexuality, yet there were many rumors in the Ginza, China and elsewhere, that the Manichaean monastics were not celibate. From  reports found in the Ginza & "Church Fathers", we know that Manichaean Electi were anciently thought to have drunk sacramental wine and engaged in some form of tantric union & marriage within the carefully regulated and cloistered confines and vows of their monastic institutions. These attitudes may have influenced early Nyingma and Tantric Buddhism in Tibet via the Manichaean influence on earlier Bonpo tantric teachings in Tibet.

"Lastly, there is the symbol of the breast, in which your very questionable chastity consists.  For though you do not forbid sexual intercourse, you, as the apostle long ago said, forbid marriage in the proper sense, although this is the only good excuse for such intercourse.....Moreover, when you are so eager in your desire to prevent the soul from being confined in flesh by conjugal intercourse, and so eager in asserting that the soul is set free from seed by the
food of the saints, do you not sanction, unhappy beings, the suspicion entertained about you? .....And as your followers cannot bring these seeds to you for purification, who will not suspect that you make this purification secretly among yourselves, and hide it from your followers, in case they should leave you? " Augustine, Against the Manichees [Note: Augustine, who had been a Manichaean for 9 years, was unfairly hostile toward them and is not seen as any kind of authority!]

Mani's marriage teachings for monastics were instructions to avoid the "householder life" of the typical married couple where woman were inferior and caught in the web of constant drudgery. The "householder life" scenario was one of private ownership, individual possession of shelter, goods, food, and spouses. Because woman were viewed as property, private possession of a wife oft meant private ownership of a slave. Men were always allowed freedom to consort with other woman, but it was the woman who was oft killed for sleeping with anyone other than her husband. Because of the double standard involved, these were issues of ownership of personal property, not issues of morality. Mani sought to free woman from being owned by both their husbands and their possessions. He also sought to free them from constant pregnancy and child rearing. There is every indication that Mani allowed his monks and nuns to be sexual with one another if done in a responsible and non-fertile way. There are many rumors of such. These teachings may survive in the tantric teachings of Dzogchen where male and female intimacy is used to heighten spiritual transformation and understanding of the deep oneness of Deity. Mani's condemnation was of a restrictive lifestyle that went with ancient marriage, not with the  intimacy of the marriage union itself.

The Order of Nazorean Essenes does not condemn sexuality any more than we feel Mani condemned it, but the Order does warn its members to only engage in such after great amounts of prayer and reflection and only with the total approval of all who are involved or who have a stake in such relationships. For those who are filled with the wisdom of Miryai and the compassion of Yeshu, such relationships can bring one closer to the Divine. One must be careful, however, not to enter into relations that damage one's spiritual focus or cause harm to any living being.  The danger of this practice is articulated in the first of the 8 thick actions of the  Secondary Tantric Vows. It is always better to be celibate than to be promiscuous or self serving in intimacies. Human sexuality, like all natural urges, can be channeled and become an instrument of a higher purpose. If unchecked or unregulated, it can also cause much harm and heartache. The Order encourages all to be mindful and compassionate when it comes to expressing themselves in intimate ways, being ever mindful of the restrictions and admonitions put upon such by the enlightened sages of old.

Peace to all . . .