ANTI-MANICHAEAN PROPAGANDA IN SYRIAC LITERATURE

ANTI-MANICHAEAN PROPAGANDA
IN SYRIAC LITERATURE

AMIR HARRAK

I. INTRODUCTION

Syriac literature contains several references to the ‘Manichaeans’ of Îarran,1

describing them as generally uncultured, and specifically violent and even
blood-thirsty. These allegations are found in accounts which have been
uncritically integrated by Syriac writers in their histories and chronicles. The
accounts, containing familiar toponyms and names of famous rulers which
help to date them, appear historical to the unwary reader. Careful analysis of
their contents, however, suggests that they are more propaganda than fact,
and that they circulated among religious groups with the aim of defaming
the Manichaeans.
In the present paper we will present the anti-Manichaean accounts in
translation, and proceed to analyze their contents so as to highlight their
propagandistic nature.

II. SOURCES

II.1. The Chronicle of Khuzistan2

This anonymous chronicle, dated to the third quarter of the 7th century,3
contains two accounts alleging that the Manichaeans committed man-
slaughter as part of a ritual involving sorcery and divination. The rite is al-
leged to have been performed not in Îarran but in Mesopotamia proper.
No date is given. The tale, along with one about Jews, is introduced by the

1
Syriac sources use the term Manichaean to refer to those people called in mediaeval
Arabic sources ‘Harnanians’ and more commonly ‘Sabians’. Since the aim of the present
paper is not to deal with this complex terminology, we will use the term Manichaean in
reference to the people of Îarran alleged by Syriac authors to have practiced human sac-
rifice.
2
Ed. I. Guidi, Chronica Minora, I, CSCO 1/Syr. 1 (Paris, 1903), pp. 33:14-34:12.
3
S. Brock, A Brief Outline of Syriac Literature (Kottayam, 1997), pp. 53-54.
50 AMIR HARRAK

vague phrase ‘at that time’, without any contextual anchor. It reads as fol-
lows:
‘ Also in the region of Behqawad, Manichaeans were captured in a village
named Shatru. For it is reported that they used to confine a man in a
place under the ground at the beginning of the year. They used to feed
him during the whole year whatever he desired, but then slaughter him
in sacrifice for the devils. They used the (severed) head to practice magic
and divination throughout the year. Every year they used to slaughter a
man.
Then they used to bring a young woman whom a man had not known.
All of them used to sleep with her, and the one who would be born from
her, they used to boil until the flesh and the bones turned into oil as it
were. Then they would bray the remains in a mortar, and mix them with
flour, making small loaves. They would give one loaf to him who joined
them, and he would never ever curse Mani. Through a divine action, all
of them were captured, by way of a student whom they sought to seize,
but he fled from them. They were crucified along with the adulterous
women, whom they confined to fornicate with them. They were about
seventy people’.

II.2. The Chronicle of Zuqnin (A.D. 775/6)

In Part IV of this Chronicle the author compiles various accounts in an
annalistic manner, before he begins to write about the history of his own
time. The following account about the Manichaeans is dated with the vague
temporal clause ‘at this time’, and is inserted between two accounts dated to
the year 764/5.4 A title commenting on the whole account is given, as fol-
lows: 5

‘At this time the doctrine of the Manichaeans in Îarran, a city in Meso-
potamia, was subjected to ridicule.

4
The first account deals with the falling of the stars, and the second with the death of
Severus, bishop of Amida.
5
Although the translation of this account is found in Harrak, Chronicle of Zuqnin, Parts
III and IV A.D. 488-775, Mediaeval Sources in Translation, 36 (Toronto: Pontifical Insti-
tute of Mediaeval Studies, 1999), pp. 202-204, it is reproduced here for the sake of com-
parison with the other accounts of relevance.
ANTI-MANICHAEAN PROPAGANDA IN SYRIAC LITERATURE 51

The Manichaeans had a monastery located to the east of Îarran, about a

mile away from the city. In this monastery, where their impious bishop
used to live, they used to celebrate once every year a great and violent
feast during which they used to offer sacrifices. During this great feast,
moreover, celebrated in the monastery, they used to practice divination.
As their feast approached, they had the custom of grabbing and impris-
oning one man for one year, to slaughter in their feast. They used to take
off the head, put a coin in its mouth and place it in a niche, to worship it
and practice divination with it.
When the day of their wicked feast approached, they decided to bring a
man, whom they were ready to confine so as to sacrifice him in the feast
following the one that was approaching. The Manichaean leaders wrote a
letter and went out to the public place of Îarran. When they found a
man as they wanted, they grabbed him and said to him: “Take a wage as
much as you desire, and go to bring this letter to such and such monas-
tery, to the superior of this monastery.” Unaware of Satan’s treachery that
aimed at killing him, the miserable one cunningly hurried to go like a
lamb to the slaughter. When he quickly arrived at the monastery in ques-
tion, he came to the door and asked whomever he encountered about
their superior and even persuaded them to call him. They hurriedly went
in and informed their superior, who, upon hearing the news, came out
quickly and welcomed the man with respect and great joy, saying: “Come
in, rest a bit and eat bread; you shall take the reply to your letter and go
in peace.”
They brought the man into one, two, three, and more, six and seven
rooms one inside another, until they arrived at the man who had been
imprisoned the year before the present one, and whom they prepared to
bring to the slaughter in the forthcoming feast. They ordered him: “Sit
down here beside this man.” When he sat, that man said to him: “Woe
unto you! What happened to you?” He replied: “Why?” He said: “They
did the same thing to me. When I came here I found another man sit-
ting, but they slaughtered him in their feast. Here is his head in this
niche; they kindle a candle before it, worship it and practise divination
with it. Behold! They are also preparing to slaughter me in this feast;
then you will also sit in my place until the next feast, and at that point
you will also come to the slaughter. But if you want to escape from here,
52 AMIR HARRAK

listen to me and it will be good for you. Look! As soon as they are ready
to kill me, stand at my side. When my head falls on the ground, take it
quickly, and while it sheds my blood spray with it the door. If they will
call upon you, beg you, and increase gifts for you, do not put it down,
and if they want to grab you, sprinkle them with that blood and they will
flee from you.”
The man took to his heart with great ire what had been said to him and
fulfilled the plan without failing. After they killed the first man, the sec-
ond man took the head and ran toward the door. They begged him and
cried out, saying: “Lay it down!” But he wanted neither a gift nor beg-
ging, nor was he intimidated by his fear of them. They could not come
close to him, and with a fast pace he took it away and went into the pres-
ence of {Abbas, who was the amir of the Jazirah at that time. Upon
learning about what had happened, {Abbas sent men to capture them.
Then he imprisoned all of them – men, women and children – and con-
fiscated all their assets; he made them suffer various tortures and took
away from them the sum of more than four hundred or five hundred
thousand (dinars)’.

II.3. Kitab al-Majdal by Mari ibn Sulayman (12th century)6

Although Kitab al-Majdal is in Arabic, it must have used unknown Syriac
sources,7 and for this and other reasons its reference to the Manichaeans is
included here. The following brief reference to the ‘people of Îarran’ is
dated to the time of the Caliph Harun al-Rashid who ruled between A.D.
786 and 809.

‘And the people of Îarran seized a man suitable to them, in order to

sever his head in sacrifice. Nevertheless, he fled and notified al-Rashid
about them. The latter ordered their slaughter and extermination, but
they dispersed across the land’.

II.4. Miscellaneous Claims in Syriac Literature

In his Ecclesiastical History, John of Ephesus (6th century) wrote about the
persecution of the pagans in Heliopolis (Baalbek) at the hands of the Chris-
6
H. Gismondi, Maris, Amri et Salibae: De patriarchis nestorianorum commentaria. (In
Arabic:) Akhbar fatarikah kursi al-Mashriq (Rome, 1896-1899), p. 75.
7
A. Abouna, Adab al-lughah al-aramiyyah (Aramaic [= Syriac] Literature) (Beirut: Dar al-
Mashriq, 1996), p. 412.
ANTI-MANICHAEAN PROPAGANDA IN SYRIAC LITERATURE 53

tians during the second year of Tiberius’ reign (A.D. 579). In this context,
Anatolius, the governor of Edessa, and Theodore his secretary, confessed
under severe torture and blows that they were present, along with Gregory,
Patriarch of Antioch, and Eulogius who later became Patriarch of Alexan-
dria, at the sacrifice of a boy which took place in the night at Daphne (sub-
urb of Antioch).8
Theodore Bar Koni (late 8th century) wrote in his presentation of the
Manichaean “heresy” that all the Manichaeans were evil for ‘they sacrifice
humans during the secret (rituals) of the devils’.9

III. IN DEFENSE OF THE ALLEGATIONS

Two main allegations were made against the Manichaeans: a) the slaughter-
ing of one man every year for the purpose of divination, and b) the boiling
of a baby boy born out of the group violation of a virgin woman, also for
the purpose of sorcery. The allegations seem to be corroborated by medieval
Arabic sources, in both sum and detail.
Thus, al-Mas{udi (died 945) made mention of a poet native to Îarran
(died after Hijra 300/A.D. 912), who talked about an underground place
(bayt) used by the people of Îarran to worship the planets.10 A similar place
is mentioned in II.2 above, where a man was incarcerated and then decapi-
tated, and a second man who managed to run away with the severed head of
the first man.
Moreover and more importantly, Ibn-Nadim (after A.D. 1000) in his
Fihrist, quoting several Arab authors, claimed that the Sabians of Îarran
placed a man in a solution of oil and borax, disjoining his head. The man
looked like the planetary deity Mercury, and it was when Mercury was at its
height that his head was severed. They believed that the soul, which came to
the head of this individual because of Mercury, was able to relate what was
happening and to answer specific questions.11 This report almost exactly
echoes the claim previously made by the Chronicle of Khuzistan (II.1).
8
Ed. E. Brooks, Iohannis Ephesini Historiae Ecclesiasticae pars tertia, III 29, CSCO 105/
Syr. 54 (Paris, 1935).
9
Ed. A. Scher, Theodorus bar Koni, Liber Scholiorum II, CSCO 69/Syr. 26 (Paris: E
Typographeo Reipublicae 1910), p. 313.
10
Muruj al-Dhahab wa-Ma‘adin al-Jawhar (Meadows of Gold and Mines of Diamond),
II (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyyah, 1986), p. 263.
11
B. Dodge, The Fihrist of al-Nadim, a Tenth-Century Survey of Muslim Culture, II (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1970), pp. 753f.
54 AMIR HARRAK

Ibn-Nadim also reported that the Sabians of Îarran came to be called

aÒÌab al-ra's, ‘the adherents of the Head’, as a result of their practice of be-
heading human sacrifices during the reign of Caliph al-Rashid.12 The men-
tion of this Caliph is particularly interesting, since Kitab al-Majdal claimed
that the man who managed to run away from his Manichaean captors in-
formed al-Rashid about them, at which time he ordered their extermination
(see II.3).
In addition, Ibn-Nadim claimed that each year, when wine was pressed
for the deities in August, the Sabians of Îarran sacrificed a newly born
baby. Not only is this detail found in the Chronicle of Khuzistan, the man-
ner in which this baby was put to death is described in the same way by
both sources; the variants between these two sources are minor, Ibn-Nadim
being more descriptive. Reportedly, the infant was boiled in oil until he dis-
integrated. Then the flesh was kneaded with fine flour (saffron, spikenard
and cloves: Ibn-Nadim), and made into cakes as small as figs (which they
baked in a new clay oven: Ibn-Nadim). Three priests performed the rite in
strict secrecy, and consumers of this cake included adherents of Mani-
chaeism (Kitab al-Majdal), but excluded women, slaves, sons of slave moth-
ers, and lunatics (Ibn-Nadim).
Al-Biruni, another 11th century Arab author, confirmed the claim that
the Manichaeans practiced human sacrifice. Quoting an existing written
source, he said that the ‘Sabians of Îarran’ had the custom of slaughtering
their children, as Abraham planned to do with his son Isaac. Quoting a sec-
ond source, he wrote that the same people ‘were notorious for sacrificing
human beings, but nowadays they are not able to do so in public’.13 And the
13th century Arab author al-Dimashqi was even more generous in giving
details about human sacrifices offered by the ‘Sabians’ in Îarran.14 The re-
curring theme in his list of Manichaean temples where sacrifices were of-
fered is that the human beings to be sacrificed had to carry physical and
moral characteristics found also in the deities to whom they were being of-
fered. At least in this theme, al-Dimashqi agrees with the sources of Ibn-

12
Ibid. p. 751.
13
Ed. C. E. Sachau, Chronologie Orientalischer Volker von Albêrûnî (Leipzig: Deutsche
Morgen L. Gesellschaft, Otto Harrassowitz, 1923), p. 205.
14
A. Mehren, Ed-Dimichqui, Nukhbat ad Dahr fî ‘Adschâ’ib al Barr wal bahr: Cosmo-
graphie (Leipzig: Otto Harrassowitz, 1928), pp. 39ff.
ANTI-MANICHAEAN PROPAGANDA IN SYRIAC LITERATURE 55

Nadim that the men to be sacrificed had to have the looks of the planetary
deities.15
Thus in the temple of Jupiter, a suckling baby (the offspring of a young
woman violated in the temple) was put to death by prodding him with a
needle, because the baby was innocent just as Jupiter ‘did not know evildo-
ing’.16 In the temple of the Sun-god, the baby's mother ‘in the likeness’ of
the sun was sacrificed, whereas in the temple of Mars a man was plunged in
oil for a whole year, after which he was decapitated. The claim that his head
was able to talk to the Sabians about what would happen in the year to
come agrees with the sources of Ibn-Nadim,17 and these Arabic sources also
affirm with the Chronicle of Zuqnin (II.2) that the head was used for sor-
cery and divination. In the temple of Venus an old woman was burned to
death for the planetary deity, and in the temple of Mercury an educated
man was chosen, just as the Chronicle of Khuzistan mentions a student
(‘eskuloyo) who would have been sacrificed had he not fled his captors. Fi-
nally in the temple of the Moon a man ‘with a wide face’ was pierced to
death with arrows in sacrifice.18
Michael Morony notes the affinities between the Syriac and Arabic
sources, and relates all of these to a skull inscribed with a magical text, un-
covered among incantation bowls in Nippur. In light of these various
sources, he believes that the events described in them were at least possi-
ble.19 Their possibility is heightened, in his opinion, by the fact that it is
very hard to prove any influence of the Syriac chronicle of Khuzistan on the
Arabic accounts found in the Fihrist of Ibn-Nadim or in al-Mas{udi.20 One
could also add that the different versions of the stories involving the killing
15
Dodge, The Fihrist of al-Nadim, p. 753. Here it is stated how the Manichaeans found a
man who had ‘the appearance which they considered to be that of ‘Utarid (Mercury)’.
16
Sachau, Chronologie, p. 41.
17
Ibid., p. 42; Dodge, The Fihrist of al-Nadim, p. 752.
18
Al-Majriti (9th-10th centuries) also talked about two human sacrifices, one involving a
child (they said that Hermes commanded them to do so) and another involving a boy (or
a slave girl). The latter’s head was brought to Dayr Kadi (in Îarran) and was placed in
front of the idol; see S. Gündüz, The Knowledge of Life: The Origins and early History of
the Mandaeans and Their Relation to the Sabians of the Qur‘an and to the Harranians (Ox-
ford: Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 212.
19
M. Morony, Iraq after the Muslim Conquest (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1984), p. 397f.
20
Ibid., p. 398 n. 66: ‘It is almost impossible to see how this Syriac chronicle could have
influenced the accounts of al-Kindi or Mas{udi’.
56 AMIR HARRAK

of a man every year could reflect the yearly Manichaean practice of human
sacrifice in both northern Syria and Mesopotamia, which might explain the
conflicting toponyms and names of officials found in the various sources in
question. In this context, the alleged event that took place during the reign
of al-Rashid must have been widely known since it is mentioned in Ibn-
Nadim and Kitab al-Majdal.

IV. REFUTING THE ANTI-MANICHAEAN ALLEGATIONS

There are reasons to believe that the claims made by both the Syriac and
Arabic sources were designed to discredit the Manichaeans (to say the
least!), or to “ridicule” them, to use the wording of the Chronicler of
Zuqnin found in the title of his own account.

IV.1. Literary Motifs behind the Anti-Manichaean Propaganda

The Syriac anti-Manichaean accounts seem to be no more than folk stories
conveniently included in Syriac chronicles as historical events. The earliest
source, the Khuzistan Chronicle, placed the attempt at sacrificing the adult
man in the village of Shatru in Behqawad.21 No exact date is given, but the
account was placed between two historical events: the construction of a
church by the East Syriac Patriarch Maremmeh, and the death of the latter
(in 649). The Chronicler of Zuqnin and Mari (in Kitab al-Majdal) wrote
about a similar event in Îarran (northern Syria). Neither author gives an
exact year, but the Chronicler mentions the name of {Abbas, who was gover-
nor in Îarran between 759/60 and 771/2, whereas Mari claims that Caliph
al-Rashid ordered the extermination of the Manichaeans. One might object
that a specific date is of relevance only if one speaks of a single occurrence,
not if one speaks of a rite that was practiced each year. In other words, an
uncertainty about time and place does not necessarily disprove the existence
of a rite.
Nonetheless, the lack of date becomes relatively significant in light of the
same literary core shared by the three Syriac and Christian Arabic accounts.
The core is made of a) the capture of a man by the Manichaeans to behead,
b) his fleeing from them, c) his informing of a state official, and d) the se-
21
Behqawad: ‘a district of Beth-Aramaye’ (Babylonia); J. P. Margoliouth, Supplement to
the Thesaurus Syriacus of R. Payne Smith (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1927), p. 44.
ANTI-MANICHAEAN PROPAGANDA IN SYRIAC LITERATURE 57

vere punishment imposed by the official upon the Manichaeans. It seems

that we are dealing with a literary motif or anecdote, circulating through
time and place, and to give it a context, Christian authors filled in names of
famous rulers (al-Rashid, {Abbas) and familiar place names (Behqawad,
Îarran). The fact that Syriac literature abounds with literary motifs turned
into historical events by Syriac writers through manipulation weakens the
historical value of the three accounts about the Manichaeans. The following
two literary motifs, though they do not deal with rituals, illustrate best this
practice.
John of Ephesus (6th century) reported that during the Great Plague three
men died while greedily counting the money, which they received as reward
for removing corpses in Constantinople at the time of Justinian.22 This story
was important for John, because the plague for him was a reminder for peo-
ple to give up material things for the sake of their own salvation. The Arabic
Chronicle of Seert reported exactly the same story,23 but in the version given
by ∑aliba (13th century) in Kitab al-Majdal, the men are identified as work-
ers hired not by Justinian but by the Sassanian king Chosroe, and not in
Constantinople but ‘in the town in which he (Chosroe) was at that time’.24
Another motif involves a miracle performed by holy men, in that they
were able to talk to the dead. Socrates (died c. 450) seems to have been the
first to include it in his Ecclesiastical History, with regard to Spiridion,
bishop of Tremithus in Cyprus (died c. 348).25 This bishop reportedly
learned from his deceased sister Irene the whereabouts of valuable orna-
ments entrusted to her by a man when she was still alive. According to the
story, a voice came from the grave, saying: ‘Lo, it is in such and such a
place!’.26 In Syriac literature the theme is found in the Life of Gabriel of
Qartmin (died 648) and in that of Mar Îabib, bishop of Edessa (died 707).
In the Life of Gabriel, an Arab merchant is said to have entrusted gold to a

22
Harrak, Chronicle, p. 110.
23
A. Scher, Histoire nestorienne inédite, PO VII/2 [93], p. 185.
24
H. Gismondi, Maris, Amri et Salibae: De patriarchis nestorianorum commentaria, p. 43;
Harrak Chronicle, p. 111 n. 1.
25
Socrates Scholasticus, Ecclesiastical History, I xii, ed. C. Günther, et al. (Berlin: Aka-
demie-Verlag, 1995).
26
The story is also found in the Chronicle of Michael the Syrian; J.-B. Chabot,
Chronique de Michel le Syrien patriarche jacobite d’Antioche (1166-1199), IV (Paris: Ernest
Leroux, 1910), p. 133 upper left column.
58 AMIR HARRAK

monk in the monastery of Qartmin, but by the time the Arab returned to
recover his gold, the monk was already dead. Gabriel spoke with the dead
monk, who revealed to him the exact place where he had hidden the gold.27
The Chronicler of Zuqnin used this literary motif with reference to Mar
Îabib.28 Here the Arab is a military man on his way to an expedition
against Byzantium. The monk entrusted with the gold was a doorkeeper in
the monastery of Mar Abel near Edessa. The doorkeeper died before the re-
turn of the Arab military man, and when the latter returned, he threatened
to destroy the monastery if he could not recover his gold. Mar Îabib spoke
with the deceased monk, who rose up from the dead to indicate to him the
place where he once hid the gold (in this case under the atrium of the mon-
astery). A true dialogue took place between the two men about this matter,
which is an expansion of the original theme found in Socrates.
Taken individually, each story, whether about the Manichaeans, or the
Great Plague, or the miracle involving talking with the dead, shares with its
various versions or adaptations a same literary core. The variants between
the versions were intended to turn the literary core into a real historical
event, certified by familiar toponyms and names of famous personalities
added, at will, by the story-teller. The motif of the miracle illustrates this
best. The Chronicler of Zuqnin exploited this motif to highlight the saintly
personality of his hero Mar Îabib. He did not hesitate to include, as an in-
disputable historical event, the story which he (or someone else) made up in
that part of the Chronicle that he himself authored. If this manipulation of
literary motifs can be done by the Chronicler, the same could be done to the
motif involving the Manichaeans of Îarran, turning it into a historical
event through the name of {Abbas, governor of the Jazira, which the author
inserted into the tale. If this is true, the other accounts about the
Manichaeans found in Syriac literature must be questioned also.

IV.2. The Questionable Reliability of the Arab Sources

Although the accounts in the Fihrist of Ibn-Nadim seem to be independent
reports about Manichaean sacrificial atrocities, a close look at these Arab

27
Life of Gabriel of Qartmin X 67-71, microfiche supplement to A. Palmer, Monk and
Mason on the Tigris Frontier: The Early History of Tur-‘Abdin, Cambridge Oriental Publica-
tions, 39 (Cambridge: University Press, 1990).
28
Harrak, Chronicle, pp. 153ff.
ANTI-MANICHAEAN PROPAGANDA IN SYRIAC LITERATURE 59

sources reveals that they were in fact Christian in origin, a fact which under-
mines the historicity of the anti-Manichaean allegations.
The detail about the Manichaeans living during the time of Caliph al-
Rashid, and the story of the Mercury-looking man immolated by the
Manichaeans when Mercury was at its height, derive from a book ‘on an
investigation of the schools of thought of the Harnaniyun, who are known
in our time as the Sabians,’ written by Abu Yusuf Isha{ al-Qatiy{i “the Chris-
tian”.29 Al-Qatiy{i talked about an encounter that took place between the
Sabians of Îarran and Caliph al-Ma'mun, son of al-Rashid, while he was
passing through the regions of Mudhar on his way to raid Byzantine lands.
Diyar Mudhar refers to the land to the East of the Euphrates, which in-
cluded Îarran, Raqqah, Sarug, and other towns of the Jazira.30 Among the
people who went out to the encounter of the Caliph were the Sabians, who
attracted his attention because of their ‘short gowns and long hair with side
bangs’. Inquiring about them, he realized that they were ‘aÒÌab al-ra's, who
lived during the days of my father, al-Rashid’. Then the account of al-ra's is
given. That this section is in continuation of the previous sections written
by the Christian al-Qatiy{i is made clear by a reference made to a Mani-
chaean leader who was mentioned by al-Qatiy{i earlier. Interestingly, this
author mentions amulets borne by the Manichaeans made of parts of ani-
mals, such as pigs, donkeys, crows and others, but no human parts are used
in the same manner.
The second book quoted by Ibn-Nadim is a manuscript which he read,
‘in the handwriting of Abu Sa{id Wahb ibn Ibrahim, the Christian, about
Offerings’. Abu Sa{id gives a list of Manichaean feasts, month after month,
which highlights the affinities existing between Manichaean culture and an-
cient Babylonian and Hellenistic civilizations. For example, not only did
their year start in the first of Nisan (April) as in ancient Babylonia, but they
also prayed to their goddess Baltha (Venus). ‘Baltha’ is obviously the Ara-
maic version of the name of the goddess Beltu, who can probably be associ-
ated with ∑arpanitu, consort of the Babylonian god Marduk. They also wor-
shipped Sin, Bel and Ta-uz (Tammuz) under their Babylonian names, and
many sacrifices were offered in every feast to these and other deities wor-
shipped by the Manichaeans. Animals of several species, but mostly bulls
29
Dodge, The Fihrist of al-Nadim, p. 751.
30
Yaqut, Mu{jam al-Buldan, II (Beirut: Dar ∑adir, 1986), p. 494.
60 AMIR HARRAK

and lambs, were offered month after month, but in the month of August,
according to the Christian author Abu Sa{id, an infant boy was sacrificed in
the manner also described in the Khuzistan Chronicle.
During eight days of August the Manichaeans trod new wine for the
gods. But no reasons were given to explain why the Manichaeans practiced
human sacrifice in that same month, nor was the name of any deity given.
The sacrifice of a baby is an isolated occurrence in the otherwise fairly de-
tailed account on the Manichaean feasts written by Abu Sa{id. One would
like to think that this author managed to insert a circulating anecdote about
the Manichaeans in his account, in the same unscrupulous manner in which
the Chronicler of Zuqnin managed to insert the allegation about the at-
tempt to sacrifice a man in Îarran.
The other Arabic sources were no less dependent on Christian literature
than the accounts of Ibn-Nadim. Although al-Dimashqi's report about
Manichaean temples and sacrifices is quite rich in detail, he himself con-
fessed that he wrote what ‘was reported about them (i.e. the Manichaeans)
by those who were close to them’. He was not witness to the events that he
reported and no names were given to his sources. He even expressed
skepticism in what he wrote, since he ended the section about temples with
the phrase allahu a{lam ‘God only knows’.31 As for al-Biruni, his sources
were Ibn Sankilla (Syncellus) “the Christian” who wrote ‘a book aiming at
refuting their (=The Manichaeans) sect’,32 and Abdul-MasiÌ ibn IsÌaq al-
Kindi “the Christian”, who wrote about the Manichaean notorious reputa-
tion of sacrificing human beings. In a state of disbelief in the claims made
by al-Kindi, al-Biruni stated that ‘we know of them (=the Manichaeans)
only as people who believe in the oneness of God, whom they deem above
any abomination, and whom they describe with negative rather than posi-
tive titles, such as their saying he is limitless, invisible, not cruel, who does
not oppress…’.33
In sum, no one single Arabic source can claim to be an eyewitness to the
Manichaean practice of human sacrifice. What Arab authors said about the

31
Mehren, Ed-Dimichqui, p. 44.
32
Sachau, Chronologie, p. 205.
33
Al-Biruni contradicted various allegations made also against Mani, saying: ‘As for me, I
did not find in books concerning him something similar to those (allegations); on the
contrary, his way of life is unlike what was told (about him)’. Ibid. p. 208.
ANTI-MANICHAEAN PROPAGANDA IN SYRIAC LITERATURE 61

Manichaeans was borrowed mainly from Christian sources as they them-

selves confessed while compiling their sources. Most importantly, the infor-
mation about the cruelty of the Manichaeans raised the eyebrows of more
than one Muslim writer in disbelief, and one of them contrasted between
his written sources and what he himself knew about the Manichaeans.

IV.3. The Misnomer ‘Adherents of the Head’

The Christian Abu Sa{id commented on how the Manichaeans slaughtered
their animals in sacrifice, and his comments might shed light on the reason
why the Manichaeans were called aÒÌab al-ra's ‘Adherents of the Head’:

‘Their way of slaughtering every kind of animal is to cut off its head with
one blow. Then they carefully observe its two eyes with their movements,
as well as its mouth, its convulsions, and how it quivers. They draw an
augury from it, employ magic, and seek an omen about what will happen
and take place’.34

It seems that the Manichaeans followed a very ancient practice in Mesopota-

mia and elsewhere in the Near East, which involved the slaughtering of ani-
mals, usually sheep, for the purpose of divination. In this land and up to the
Hellenistic period, the entrails, lungs, and livers of animals were believed to
carry divine messages in their appearance, which the professional class of the
baru was able to identify and communicate to the seekers of oracles. There
is no evidence that in ancient Mesopotamia the heads of sheep or other ani-
mals were used in divination, as was done by the Manichaeans of Îarran.
Nonetheless, whether it was the liver, lung, entrails, or head of the animal
that was used in search for augury, the method is all the same. The way the
Manichaeans examined the head of the sacrificed animal for divination has
been described by Abu Sa{id in details that conform with the Mesopotamian
manner of observing the other parts of the slaughtered animal, in their own
process of divination.
That the Manichaeans of Îarran were the survivors of ancient paganism
is a fact admitted by Christian and Muslim writers in medieval times as well
as by modern scholarship. The more puritan Christian and Muslim writers
condemned their worship of the planets, polytheism, feasts and festivals,
34
Dodge, The Fihrist of al-Nadim, pp. 764-65.
62 AMIR HARRAK

and all their religious practices. Their usual practice of divination through
the observation of the head of a sacrificed animal was probably unique in a
society dominated by at least two monotheistic religions, Christianity and
Islam. If this were true, there would be little wonder that the Christians and
the Muslims dubbed all the Manichaeans who lived among them with such
mocking titles as ‘Those of the Head’ or ‘Adherents of the Head’. Since this
designation persisted, it may have been given another dimension by Chris-
tians and Muslims in that the head was not anymore that of the sacrificed
animal but the head of a human person cruelly put to death by the pagan
Manichaeans. This scenario could be true if one considers the religious
antagonisms that existed in the Near East during the medieval period.

IV.4. Religious Antagonism and the Anti-Manichaean Allegations

The Near East was (and still is) a mosaic of people divided more by religious
affiliation than by ethnicity. There are many examples of systematic abuse
perpetrated by a religious majority against a religious minority, especially if
that minority secluded itself from the rest of the society out of fear of as-
similation.35 Syriac literature is a witness to such abuse perpetrated by
Christians in Anatolia against the pagans there, including the Manichaeans,
in which John of Ephesus himself took an important part.36 Although the
abuse there was partially physical, in the case of the Manichaeans of Îarran
it was rather verbal.
Places which remained inaccessible to non-members of those communi-
ties, such as temples and monasteries of specific communities, generated
rumors among outsiders that were soon turned into confirmed reports in
the minds of the latter. The Syriac people suffered such abuse specifically
with regards to Syriac monasteries. No one within the Syriac community
throughout the centuries disputed the holy character of Syriac monasticism,
and the role of Syriac monasteries in promoting spirituality, self-denial and
altruism for the sake of God's Kingdom. Yet, Syriac monasticism and mon-
asteries generated contradictory rumors among generations of Muslim writ-
ers and poets during the medieval period, and which were transmitted as

35
Two such communities still exist in Iraq, the Yezidi and the ∑ibba (or the Mandaean).
The mountains helped the Yezidi to become truly isolated from the rest of the Iraqi com-
munity, until recently.
36
Harrak, Chronicle, pp. 91-93.
ANTI-MANICHAEAN PROPAGANDA IN SYRIAC LITERATURE 63

historical facts, namely in a series of manuscripts entitled Kitab al-Diyarat,

‘Book of Monasteries’.
Kitab al-Diyarat represented Syriac monasteries uniquely as the places of
wine drinking, merry-making, the seduction of young boys and girls, and
sometimes young monks and nuns, by Muslim men, and places of sexual
encounters and intercourse, mainly in the meadows of the monasteries and
behind their walls.37 These allegations were expressed through highly sophis-
ticated poetry, dominated by an open and explicit language. Moral excesses
may have taken place in periodical festivities around the monasteries, about
which Patriarch Michael the Syrian once complained,38 but such occurences
do not justify the voluptuous and sensual tone of the Arab poetry.
Worse than all the claims about sexual license among the laity, which
Arabic poetry had made in connection with monasteries, is the allegation
that during the darkness of one night, called laylat al-hashush (or al-
mashush), the consecrated virgins used to have intercourse with the celibate
monks in the monastery called Dayr al-Khawat, ‘Monastery of the Sisters
(i.e. Nuns)’. The context of this alleged act was none other than the First
Sunday of Lent,39 a time of mortification and repentance in the Syriac
Christian culture. This flagrant allegation is not only found in poetry but
also in prose. Thus, a story circulated that in the same monastery, Arab men
sought to violate as many consecrated virgins as the number of the Arabs
was, but supposedly found out that ‘the priest had done it to them’ before
the Arab men sought to do it anew.40
The inside of Christian monasteries was beyond the reach of the laity,
whether Christian or not. For male non-believers, to whom celibacy and vir-
ginity meant absolutely nothing and women were no more than objects of
pleasure, anything could have happened there. And since Syriac Christians
were a minority reduced to the legal class of dhimmi, Arab poets could af-
ford to desecrate these Christian holy sites, if not in praxis, at least in their
37
J.-M. Fiey, ‘Fêtes des couvents, fêtes populaires’, in Le Génie de la Messe Syriaque,
Patrimoine Syriaque, Actes du colloque II (Antélias: Centre d’Études et de Recherche Pas-
torales, 1994), pp. 115-122.
38
J. Chabot, Chronique de Michel le Syrien Patriarche Jacobite d’Antioche (1166-1199), II
(Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1901), p. 422.
39
Ed. G. Awwad, Al-Diyarat, Ta’lif al-Îasan ‘Ali bin MuÌammad al-Ma‘ruf bil-Shabushti
(Baghdad: Dar al-Ma{arif, 1951), pp. 60-61.
40
Yaqut al-Îamawi, Mu{jam al-Buldan, 1, p. 523, after al-JaÌiz.
64 AMIR HARRAK

imagination. If the Muslims were able to reduce Syriac monasticism into

cheap entertainment and sexual license and turn the monasteries into tav-
erns, the Christians could well have reduced the pagan Manichaean liturgy
to the killing and dismembering of human beings, supposedly as sacrifices
to the deities.
Interestingly enough, the Chronicler of Zuqnin (II.2) mentions that the
human sacrifices of the Manichaeans used to be offered inside their “monas-
tery” near Îarran, ‘where their impious bishop used to reside’. The sources
of Ibn-Nadim informed that the infant boy was to be sacrificed in August
by only three priests – in other words, in strict secrecy. Despite secrecy, we
are not told how the information about human sacrifice infiltrated to the
outside world. The list given by al-Dimashqi of temples where sacrifices
were supposedly offered is amazingly detailed, though as said earlier, al-
Dimashqi himself found his list hard to believe. It seems equally unbeliev-
able that the Manichaeans of Îarran who must have remained secretive out
of a defensive policy would give such a frank admission of performing hu-
man sacrifice, along with providing the prayers accompanying each sacri-
fice.41 At any rate, it is the inaccessibility of religious sites, whether Chris-
tian or Manichaean, by the non-members of both religious communities
that opened the door to ample speculations. The allegations were highly
sexual in the case of the Christian monasteries, and highly bloody in the
case of the Manichaean religious sites.

IV.5. The Literary Background of the Anti-Manichaean Propaganda

Before discussing the background of the allegations, one should deal with
the account of John of Ephesus about Patriarch Gregory of Antioch and
Eulogius of Alexandria being present at the sacrifice of a boy in Daphne (see
II.4). The whole account is wrapped in suspicion since these were accused of
being adherents of Nestorianism, and the claim made by the Chalcedonians
that they were present at a human sacrifice must be sheer invention. Moreo-
ver, the account includes extraordinary events. It is said that immediately
after the afore-mentioned human sacrifice the city of Daphne suddenly
trembled, shaking through an earthquake. Moreover, when Anatolius
wanted to show that he was a true Christian by means of the picture of
41
To use a modern example of keeping religion out of the reach of outsiders, the Yezidis
of Iraq managed until recently to remain firmly secretive and enigmatic.
ANTI-MANICHAEAN PROPAGANDA IN SYRIAC LITERATURE 65

Christ hung in his house, the picture miraculously turned its face against
the wall three times. When the people around him went to see the matter
from close, they realized that the back of the picture bore the likeness of
Apollo. In light of these details, it is difficult to bestow credibility to John's
account.
The best proof that the Syriac claims about the Manichaeans are no more
than allegations is the fact that they have their roots in anti-Jewish propa-
ganda during the late Hellenistic period. The most important motif against
the Manichaeans, the abduction every year of a stranger to sacrifice him in a
feast, was one of a series of anti-Jewish allegations given by the Alexandrine
author Apion (1st century A.D.), whom Josephus refuted. To highlight the
dependence of the anti-Manichaean propaganda on the anti-Jewish allega-
tions, the story, which survived in Josephus, is given here:42

‘Thereupon, with sighs and tears, the man in a pitiful tone, told the tale
of his distress. He said that he was a Greek, and that while he was travel-
ling about the province for his livelihood, he was suddenly kidnapped by
men of a foreign race and conveyed to the temple; there he was shut up
and seen by nobody, but was fattened on feasts of the most lavish de-
scription. At first this unlooked for attention deceived him and caused
him pleasure; suspicion followed, then consternation. Finally, on consult-
ing the attendants who waited upon him, he heard of the unutterable law
of the Jews, for the sake of which he was being fed. The practice was re-
peated annually at a fixed season. They would kidnap a Greek foreigner,
fatten him up for a year, and then convey him to a wood, where they
slew him, sacrificed his body with their customary ritual, partook of his
flesh, and, while immolating the Greek, swore an oath of hostility to the
Greeks. The remains of their victim were then thrown into a pit’.43

The similarity between the Syriac and Arabic tale of the man captured by
the Manichaeans for sacrifice and the Greek tale of the man seized by the
Jews for the same purpose is indisputable. The fattening of the man men-
42
The context is as follows: Antiochus entered the Temple and saw a man lying in bed,
and near a table loaded with food. The man told him his story and implored him to set
him free.
43
Josephus, Against Apion, II, 89-96, translated by H.St.J. Thackeray (London: William
Heinemann Ltd., 1926, repr. 1966).
66 AMIR HARRAK

tioned in the Greek tale is also found in the Chronicle of Khuzistan (II.1).
The claim that the man was captured for sacrifice is another common detail,
but the Syriac and Arabic sources seem unparalleled with regard to two
claims: the beheading of the man, and the use of his head in divination.
These variants are in fact part of the adaptation process to make the tale
suited to the Manichaeans. Even here, one can see some dependence of the
Syriac and Arabic claims on the anti-Jewish propaganda during the Hellen-
istic period.
In his refutation of Apion, Josephus gives another defamatory tale, ac-
cording to which the Jews worshipped not a man's head but an ass's head in
the Temple of Jerusalem. The cult of the ass's head appeared in the writings
of Mnaseas of Patara. Quoting him, Apion of Alexandria wrote that an
Idumaean man entered the inside of the Temple in ruse, snatching the ass's
head that was made of gold.44 It seems that, in their propagandistic activities
against the Manichaeans, the Syriac authors took an element directly from
the alleged Jewish worship of the ass's head and integrated it into human
sacrifice motif. And since the Manichaeans practiced divination they also
connected the worship of the head to this practice, which was an integral
part of the Manichaean cult.
Josephus gives no details on the alleged practice of boiling a baby boy as
described in Syriac and Arabic sources. Perhaps the background of this
claim can also be found in anti-Jewish propaganda, in this case the accusa-
tion that Jews murdered Christian children, using their blood for the Passo-
ver ritual. Although the first clear case of blood libel dates to 1144, the mo-
tif of child murdering in religious rituals is ancient, and was used against the
Christians themselves, as testified by Tertullian (c. 160 - c. 225). In his
Apologeticus 7:1 and 1:12,45 he defended the Christians of his time as fol-
lows: ‘We are said to be the most criminal of men, on the score of our sacra-
mental baby-killing, and the baby-eating that goes with it’. According to
him, Christians were tortured because of this false accusation, for ‘it ought
… to be wrung out of us (whenever that false charge is made) how many

44
Josephus, Against Apion, II, 112-114. The claim is known in other Classical sources;
see V. Tcherikover, Hellenistic Civilization and the Jews (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publica-
tion Society of America, 1959), pp. 365-366.
45
Ed. T.H. Bindley, Tertulliani Apologeticus Adversus Gentes pro Christianis (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1889), pp. 26-27.
ANTI-MANICHAEAN PROPAGANDA IN SYRIAC LITERATURE 67

murdered babies each of us had tasted… Oh! The glory of that magistrate
who had brought to light some Christian who had eaten up to date a hun-
dred babies!’.

V. CONCLUSION

Modern scholars are not unaware of the anti-Manichaean propaganda in

Syriac and Arabic sources. We mentioned Michael Morony, who thought
that the Syriac and Arabic claims are possibly true. More recently S.
Gündüz could not totally dismiss these accounts ‘because human sacrifice
was common among the pagan communities of this area in antiquity’.46 J.B.
Segal, by contrast, rightly noticed that hostile narrators made the claims in
questions, and these, therefore, are prone to suspicion.47
In the present paper we have discussed a series of reasons in support of
Segal's caution. The most important reason for dismissing all the anti-
Manichaean claims expressed in Syriac and Arabic sources can be applied to
the similar claim made against the Jews several centuries earlier. The earliest
reference to human sacrifice performed by the pagans of Daphne was given
by John of Ephesus during the second half of the 6th century. At least five
centuries separated this claim from the time when Josephus wrote his
Against Apion (i.e. the end of the 1st century A.D.), but this is not a prob-
lem, since the writings of Josephus had long been available in Syriac edi-
tions.

46
Gündüz, The Knowledge of Life, p. 213.
47
J.B. Segal, ‘The Sabian Mysteries: The Planet Cult of Ancient Harran’, in Vanished
Civilizations of the Ancient World, ed. E. Bacon (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1963), p. 217.