Manichaeism

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Manichaeism (; Persian: آئین مانی, romanized: Āʾīn-i Mānī; Chinese: 摩尼教; pinyin: Móníjiào) was a major world religion founded in the third century AD by the Parthian Iranian prophet Mani (216–274) in the Sasanian Empire. It taught an elaborate dualistic cosmology describing the struggle between a good spiritual world of light, and an evil material world of darkness. Through an ongoing process in human history, light is gradually removed from the world of matter and returned to the world of the divine. Mani's teachings were intended to integrate, succeed, and surpass the "partial truths" of various prior faiths and belief systems, including Ancient Babylonian and other Mesopotamian traditions, Ancient Greek traditions, Greco-Roman mystery traditions, Platonism, Iranian and Zoroastrian traditions, Brahmanism, Sramanic traditions including Jainism and Buddhism, both Hellenistic and Rabbinic Jewish traditions, and Christian traditions including Marcionite, Bardaisanite, and Elkesaite. Most...

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