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Mani did not teach the concept of an eternal hell. Evil is ultimately contained, densified and rendered inactive. All souls are possessed of a Light-Mind of which Jesus is the personification. | Mani did not teach the concept of an eternal hell. Evil is ultimately contained, densified and rendered inactive. All souls are possessed of a Light-Mind of which Jesus is the personification. | ||
An excerpt from the Manichaean scriptures describes the soul saying: “O Light-Mind, the Sun of my heart that gives my Soul the things of the Light, thou art my witness, that I have no comfort save in thee.” To which Jesus answers: “I am thy Higher Self, a security and seal; thou art my body, a garment I have put on in order to terrify the Powers, while I (myself) am thy Light, the original Effulgence!”<ref>Duncan Greenlees, ''The Gospel of the Prophet Mani'' (Adyar, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1956), pp. 221, 225.<ref> | An excerpt from the Manichaean scriptures describes the soul saying: “O Light-Mind, the Sun of my heart that gives my Soul the things of the Light, thou art my witness, that I have no comfort save in thee.” To which Jesus answers: “I am thy Higher Self, a security and seal; thou art my body, a garment I have put on in order to terrify the Powers, while I (myself) am thy Light, the original Effulgence!”<ref>Duncan Greenlees, ''The Gospel of the Prophet Mani'' (Adyar, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1956), pp. 221, 225.</ref> | ||
Mani had taught that the pre-existent souls who came to redeem the world from Darkness became tainted with the lust of the evil archons and thus had fallen into bodies. The Church Fathers refused to recognize or believe that angels who had fallen had taken on physical bodies. Mani’s exposure of the forces of darkness present and embodied in the world (fallen angels, archons, Watchers, giants) precipitated an intense persecution of this universal church and religion from those very forces themselves. | Mani had taught that the pre-existent souls who came to redeem the world from Darkness became tainted with the lust of the evil archons and thus had fallen into bodies. The Church Fathers refused to recognize or believe that angels who had fallen had taken on physical bodies. Mani’s exposure of the forces of darkness present and embodied in the world (fallen angels, archons, Watchers, giants) precipitated an intense persecution of this universal church and religion from those very forces themselves. |