'IRAQ AND THE PERSIAN GULF' [‎171v] (347/862)

238 HISTORY
called the Mobadh, the mass of the inferior magi (Mogh), and the
temple-priests of the fire-temples (Ehrbadh), under the chief temple-
priest (Ehrbadhan Ehrbadh). Each place had its local fire-temple, a
square domed building with a darkened shrine in which the sacred
fire was kept, and there were great central sanctuaries, like cathe
drals, in the holy places of the empire. With this organization the
Mazdaean religion must have been able to reach every corner of the
provinces. The dominant form of Mazdaeism was that known as
Zervanism, which regarded ‘time’ as the ‘primal god’ from whose
bosom Ahriman and Ahura Mazda were born. Zervanism contem
plated 9,000 years of rule for Ahriman, the principle of Darkness,
whose ally was Woman, and compromised with paganism by ad
mitting Mithras (Sun), Adhur (Fire), and a personification of
‘Mazdaean Faith’ to form with Ahura Mazda a Tetrad of creative
powers.
Manichaeism. The impact of Zervanism on the Graeco-Semitic
civilization of Mesopotamia produced strange forms of belief,
including Manichaeism, a Christian heresy which for long influenced
Christianity and later Islam. Mani first preached at Ctesiphon in
a.d. 242 under the patronage of Sapor I. About thirty years later
the orthodox Vahram I put him to death. His doctrine was a fusion
of Christian and Zoroastrian beliefs and derived in part from the
teaching of Bardaisan, an Aramean-speaking philosopher who lived
at Edessa about a.d. 180. The central notion in Manichaeism is that
the Dark invaded and mixed with the Light, thus producing evil,
out of which was created this world, which he called the Smudge.
‘Salvation’ consisted in restoring Light and Dark to their proper
places. Mani took the human element out of religion and was
concerned far more with things than with human beings. His true
followers, the Elect, lived a life very much more like that of a Bud
dhist monk than that of a Christian ascetic.
Christianity spread rapidly in Mesopotamia during the third
century, mainly from Edessa. Popular tradition brought Thaddeus,
an emissary of the apostle Thomas, to Edessa in the first century
a.d., but it would seem that Christianity was established at Edessa
about a.d. 165 by one Tatian, who prepared the Diatessaron, a
version of the Four Gospels in Syriac, which was the Edessan dialect
of Aramaic. Edessa thus became the home of a Christian Church
which used a language other than Greek, and in time produced a
Christian literature of its own and a Syriac Bible. From Edessa the
faith spread into Adiabene (Assyria), where Arbela was a bishopric,