_Sketch of the History of Manichaeism._--Manichaeism first gained a firm footing in the East, i.e. in Persia, Mesopotamia and Transoxiana. The persecutions it had to endure did not hinder its extension. The seat of the Manichaean pope was for centuries in Babylon, at a later period in Samarkand. Even after the conquests of Islam the Manichaean Church continued to maintain itself, indeed it seems to have become still more widely diffused by the victorious campaigns of the Mahommedans, and it frequently gained secret adherents among the latter themselves. Its doctrine and discipline underwent little change in the East; in particular, it drew no nearer to the Christian religion. More than once, however, Manichaeism experienced attempts at reformation; for of course the _auditores_ very easily became worldly in character, and movements of reformation led temporarily to divisions and the formation of sects. Towards the close of the 10th century, at the time the _Fihirst_ was written, the Manichaeans in Mesopotamia and Persia had already been in large measure ousted from the towns, and had withdrawn to the villages. But in Turkestan, and as far as the Chinese frontier, there existed numerous Manichaean communities and even whole tribes that had adopted the name of Mani. Probably it was the great migrations of the Mongolian race that first put an end to Manichaeism in Central Asia. But even in the 15th century there were Manichaeans living beside the Thomas-Christians on the coast of Malabar in India (see Germann, _Die Thomas-Christen_, 1875). Manichaeism first penetrated the Greek-Roman Empire about the year 280, in the time of the emperor Probus (see the _Chronicon_ of Eusebius). If we may take the edict of Diocletian against the Manichaeans as genuine, the system must have gained a firm footing in the West by the beginning of the 4th century, but we know that as late as about the year 325 Eusebius had not any accurate knowledge of the sect. It was only subsequent to about 330 that Manichaeism spread rapidly in the Roman Empire. Its adherents were recruited on the one hand from the old gnostic sects (especially from the Marcionites--Manichaeism exerted besides this a strong influence on the development of the Marcionite churches of the 4th century), on the other hand from the large number of the "cultured," who were striving after a "rational" and yet in some manner Christian religion. Its polemics and its criticism of the Catholic Church now became the strong side of Manichaeism, especially in the West. It admitted the stumbling-blocks which the Old Testament offers to every intelligent reader, and gave itself out as a Christianity without the Old Testament. Instead of the subtle Catholic theories concerning divine predestination and human freedom, and instead of a difficult theodicaea, it offered an exceedingly simple conception of sin and goodness. The doctrine of the incarnation of God, which was especially objectionable to those who were going over to the new universal religion from the old cults, was not proclaimed by Manichaeism. In its rejection of this doctrine Manichaeism agreed with Neo-Platonism; but, while the latter, notwithstanding all its attempts to conform itself to Christianity, could find no formula by which to inaugurate within its own limits the special veneration of Christ, the Western Manichaeans succeeded in giving their teaching a Christian tinge. The only part of the Manichaean mythology that became popular was the crude, physical dualism. The barbaric elements were judiciously screened from view as a "mystery"; they were, indeed, here and there explicitly disavowed even by the initiated. The farther Manichaeism advanced into the West the more Christian and philosophic did it become. In Syria it maintained itself in comparative purity. In North Africa it found its most numerous adherents, gaining secret support even among the clergy. Augustine was an _auditor_ for nine years, while Faustus was at that time the most esteemed Manichaean teacher in the West. Augustine in his later writings against the Manichaeans deals chiefly with the following problems: (1) the relation between knowledge and faith, and between reason and authority; (2) the nature of good and evil, and the origin of the latter; (3) the existence of free will, and its relation to the divine omnipotence; (4) the relation of the evil in the world to the divine government.