39. The Story of the Death of Mani

T

he various descriptions of Mani's last days and death range from

the one here, which says nothing of Mani's suffering and empha-

sizes his disciplined calm and salvation, to others that speak of his

torture and martyrdom. While Mani had enjoyed support from the Persian

king Shapur I, with the advent of Bahram I his fate changed. The Zoroastrian

magi were eager to consolidate their national religion and to halt the spread of

Manichaeism and Christianity. The high priest Karder, who appears in the

text, may have engineered Mani's imprisonment and death. After the unfortu-

nate audience with the king, Mani was fettered and taken away in chains.

While in his cell, he was apparently able to speak to his close followers, and

during these days he designated his twelve messengers and seventy-two bish-

ops, who would form the clerical structure of his church. The story of his ex-

ecution parallels the story of the death of Jesus in the New Testament gospels,

including the Gospel of John. In John 17, the so-called high priestly prayer,

Jesus discusses with god his accomplishments on earth, even as Mani does in

his prayer to Ohrmizd, below.

By some accounts Mani died by fasting and mortification and "at eleven

o'clock ascended out of his body to the great sanctuary on high." Other docu-

ments say the messenger of light was flayed alive or was crucified. A song from

the Coptic Manichaean Songbook has the king ordering a burning torch

thrust through Mani's body to insure that he is dead; he then orders the body