Mani and the Manichaeans

At this time, too, the man mad in his wits, who gave his name to the demon-possessed heresy, was arming himself with his deranged reason, for the demon, Satan himself, the enemy of God, had put him forward for the ruin of many. He was a barbarian in his way of life, in speech and conduct, and by nature demonic and raving. In keeping with this he tried to pass himself off as Christ. At one time, puffed up in his madness, he proclaimed himself the Paraclete and the Holy Spirit himself; at another, like Christ, he chose twelve disciples as partners in his new teaching. [a] He stitched together false and godless doctrines from countless godless heresies long since extinct, and wiped them off like a deadly poison from Persia onto our part of the world. From him the ungodly name of the Manichaeans is still widespread among many today. Such was the foundation of this “knowledge falsely so called” too, which sprang up in the times we have described. [e]