MANICHAEAN LITERATURE 635
to purify the soul. Daily they took in refined parts
up to their height, yet however they mixed the dregs
they couldn't move them up or down.
The whole world halts for a season. A great building
is being built outside the world.
As soon as the workers finish, the cosmos will dissolve,
catch fire, and flame will melt it away.
All life, the relic of light wherever it is, he will take
to himself and then project an image.
The counsel of death—it is all darkness—will meet
and create a likeness of itself and the ruler,
but in a flash the living spirit comes, succors the light,
and will lock up the counsel of death
and darkness in a house made to hold them there forever.
There is no other way to freeze the enemy. He won't be
received to the light, for he is a stranger,
yet he can't be left in his land of darkness. He must not
engage in a war greater than the first one.
A new aeon will be built in the place of the cosmos
that will dissolve. In the aeon the powers
of light may reign, since they have performed and fulfilled
the will of the whole father, subdued the hated
over him forever.
This is Mani's knowledge. Let us worship and bless him.
Whoever trusts him will be blessed and live
with justice. Glory and victory to our lord Mani. Spirit
of truth from the father. He reveals to us
the beginning, the middle, and the end. Victory to the soul
of the blessed Mary, Theona, Pshaijmnoute.^13
- Another Manichaean name or epithet. In Coptic noute means "god."
