RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIESof twelve prostrations in the direction of the sun or the moon. The
Elect worshiped seven times, the Hearers four times each day-at
noon, between noon and sunset, just after sunset, and three hours
after sunset. In the fourth century, Mariitha of Maypherkat described
them as people who considered marriage and food to be unclean and
who worshiped the sun and moon; who believed in the power of the
planets, the zodiac, lucky stars, and fate; and who were "totally zeal-
ous" about Chaldaean arts. "88 They also engaged in group singing of
hymns and followed a calendar of fasts, including one thirty-day fast
ending with a feast in memory of Mani's ascension. Under Mani's
successors a hierarchic organization of teachers, bishops, and elders
was centered in Babylonia.
The challenge of Manichaeism was mainly in its social implica-
tions-in its rejection of material values, work, and violence. The
Manichaean· potential for bringing about the end of the world through
racial suicide was an extreme expression of alienation and escape and
provoked a reaction from Mazdaeans. The Zandiks, whom the Maz-
daean priest, Kartir, claimed to suppress at the end of the third century,
were Manichaeans who put their own meaning into the Avestan texts
through esoteric interpretation (M.P., zand).89 Zandiks are equated
with sorcerers in the Miitikiin and identified in the Denkart as people
who believe that the body and soul are of different substances, and
that at the end of the world Darkness will be separated from Light
again.^90 The nature of the threat is clear in the contrast made in the
Denkart between Mazdaean and Manichaean positions. Whereas the
Mazdaeans would drive the evil Lie (M.P., druj) from the body in
order to make it a dwelling place for the yazdiin, Mani considered the
body as druj and the yazdiin as imprisoned in it. Whereas Mazdaeans
would achieve justice through the proper legal procedures of complaint
and defense, Mani would do away with legal procedures, justice, and
judges. Whereas Mazdaeans would marry their own female relatives,
Mani declared that it was a sin for the Elect to marry any woman in
order to have children. Whereas Mazdaeans would not accumulate
wealth out of avarice, Mani would destroy the source of wealth, nour-
88 Von Harnack, "Ketzer-Katalog," p. 9; Ibn an-Nadim, Fihrist, II, 788-91; Runci-
man, Manichee, pp. 15-16.
89 De Menasce, "L'Eglise mazdeenne," p. 560; Frye, Golden Age, p. 132; Tha'alibi,
Ghurar, p. 501; Zaehner, Dawn and Twilight, p. 196; idem, "Postscript," pp. 236-
37.
90 De Menasce, Denkart, pp. 117,273; idem, "Problems" p. 222.