Two Manichæan Magical Texts with an Excursus on The Parthian ending -ēndēh

Abstract

It is surprising that the Manichaean religion did not become altogether submerged in the slime of witchcraft and sorcery. There were countless demons to be warded off and nearly as many divine and semi-divine beings that could be invoked. Mani, it is true, had regarded his " gods " as hardly more than exponents of particular functions of the Godhead, and had been conscious of the inadequacy of the anthropomorphic terms he had ill-advisedly employed:the resplendent hosts, he said in his Treasure of Life, will be called young women and virgins, fathers and mothers, sons, brothers and sisters, because such is the custom in the books of the prophets. In the country of joy there is neither male nor female... they do not differ from each other in weakness and force, in length and shortness, in figure and looks; they are like similar lamps which are lighted by the same lamp and nourished by the same material (Beruni, India, transl., i, 39).