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Wellsprings
Mani

Mani

216 CE–274 CE · Ctesiphon

Mani (c. 216 - c. 274/277) was a prophet of the Sasanian era and the founder of Manichaeism, a dualist religion of cosmic light versus darkness. Born near Ctesiphon in Babylonia, he preached across the Sasanian empire and as far as India before dying in prison under King Bahram I. Manichaeism spread widely and deeply influenced - and rivaled - early Christianity (Augustine was a Manichaean hearer for nine years before his conversion); the Church treated it as a dangerous rival faith rather than an internal heresy, and the Roman state outlawed it by imperial edict.

Contested teaching

Mani founded Manichaeism, an independent dualist religion - not a Christian heresy condemned by a church council. The Roman state outlawed it by imperial edict, and Augustine (a Manichaean 'hearer' for nine years) later wrote against it.

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Stop 1 of 3216–240Birth And Mission

CtesiphonMesopotamia (Sasanian Persia)

What they did here

Mani was born near Ctesiphon in Babylonia and began proclaiming his dualist revelation across the Sasanian realm.

About Ctesiphon

Ctesiphon (al-Mada'in), on the Tigris southeast of modern Baghdad in Iraq, was the capital of the Sasanian Persian Empire until its conquest by the Muslims around 637; its great arched hall (Taq Kasra) still stands. The companion Salman al-Farisi (d. c. 657), the Persian convert close to the Prophet, is traditionally buried at al-Mada'in, where a shrine marks his tomb.

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The world in their lifetime

Thinkers, teachers, and rulers whose lives overlapped with Mani’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.

Works

No works attributed in the corpus yet.