Dr. David Gwynn

It began in the Persian Empire in the 3rd century.

But while Mani, the founder of Manichaeism, claimed to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, his basic religious view is dualist rather than monotheist.

which is in tune with the Persians, who are Zoroastrian dualists.

So it's a principle that there is light and darkness, and they are eternally in conflict.

And Manichaeism drew on Judeo-Christian ideas, Zoroastrian ideas, and Buddhist ideas entering the Persian empire through India to create a new potential global religion.

And Manichaeism then spread out

It's actually unique.

It is the only religion ever persecuted by pagan Roman emperors, Christian Roman emperors, Persian shahs, Islamic caliphs, and Chinese emperors.

No other religion ever achieved what I refer to as the grand slam of persecution.

And actually, the Manichaeans will survive until after AD 1000, when unfortunately, their last communities were on Genghis Khan's line of march.

We don't think Genghis Khan had anything specifically against them religiously.

They just were in the way.

So Manichaeism is a fascinating religion in its own right.

But it makes it interesting that that seems to have been the first target.

Because we have an edict passed by Diocletian, we think in the year 302.

that outlaws Manichaeism.

And the reason it's a very important edict, we don't have Diocletian's edicts against Christians.

None of them survived.

So our closest indication of how Diocletian would have argued is in the edict against the Manichaeists, which is that people should be following the old traditional gods, not angering them with new customs.

All of that could have been said about Christians.