Scythianus was an instructor of religion from Alexandria, who reputedly visited India in the middle years of the 1st century CE. Regarded as a, perhaps even the source of Manichaeism, he was attacked by various church fathers in the 3rd and 4th centuries CE, of whom Cyril of Jerusalem was the most scathing, though Hippolytus and Epiphanius were hardly less so; he gets better treatment in the 4th century "Acta Archelai" of Hegemonius, a polemical attack on Manichaeism in the guise of a critical biography of Mani, but written from an orthodox Christian perspective.
Hippolytus believed that Scythianus had brought "The doctrine of the Two Principles" from India, and that Mani learned it from Scythianus. Epiphanius describes him as preaching "that there is something beyond the one who exists and that, so to speak, the activity of all things comes from two roots or two principles" - a dualism that is often apparent in Christianity, despite its claims to be based on One and Three, but not Two.
Scythianus is reputed to have written four books: "The Mysteries", "A Treasure", "Summaries", and the Gospel that bears his name, the latter probably a consequence of a visit to Jerusalem, where he is said to have engaged in dispute with the Apostles.
Of all the references, none is more intriguing than Cyril of Jerusalem's statement that, after Scythianus' death, his pupil Terebinthus went to Yehudah (Judaea), where he became "known and condemned", and then on to Babylon. In both places he used the name "Buddas", which may affirm the Indian origin of "The doctrine of the Two Principles", as well as helping to explain how the Gnosticism of the following centuries, as noted with respect to several of the Lost Gospels, bore so many similarities with Indian Buddhism.
Incidentally, when Terebinthus travelled, he always carried copies of Scythianus' books, for teaching purposes, but also to offer as gifts. According to the legends, when he knew that death was approaching, he presented his remaining copies to his lodger, a widow who had a slave named Cubricus. And according to the legend, Cubricus later changed his name to Mani (the word is thought to mean "discourse" in Persian, but my sources for "The Gospel of Mani" insist that it means "eternity, and the link here tells us that no one really knows anyway), and studied the books, using them as the starting-point for his own philosophy, or "heresy" to use the correct Christian term.
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