Religious-philosophical system founded by Mani (216-276), a Persian prophet, in third-century Mesopotamia. Mani presented himself as the final prophet in a line including Zoroaster, the Buddha, Jesus, and Paul; the Manichaean scriptures (six of which Mani composed himself) presented a comprehensive cosmic dualism in which two equal eternal principles, Light and Darkness, are in primordial conflict. The Manichaean cosmogony narrates how Darkness invaded the realm of Light; how particles of divine Light became trapped in the material-physical world (which is the product of Darkness); how the elect among humanity gradually liberate the trapped Light particles back to the realm of Light through ascetic practice and ritual. Manichaeism's principal distinctives included: (1) thoroughgoing dualism (two equal eternal principles, not the creation-ex-nihilo of the orthodox Christian doctrine in which one God creates all things, including matter, good); (2) material-evil ontology (matter and the physical body are the product of Darkness; the goal of religion is liberation of the soul from the body); (3) elect-and-hearer hierarchy (a small elect who undertake strict ascetic life; a larger group of hearers who support the elect materially); (4) rejection of OT (the Manichaeans rejected the Hebrew Bible as the product of the dark principle; they kept a heavily-edited NT and Mani's own writings). Manichaeism spread widely across the Roman and Persian empires; persecuted by both Christian and Zoroastrian authorities; eventually died out in the West (medieval period) but persisted in Central Asia and China into the late medieval period. Augustine was a Manichaean for nine years (373-382) before his Christian conversion; his subsequent Confessions and anti-Manichaean writings are principal sources for understanding the religion. The patriarchal-Reformed reader engages Manichaeism as a substantive historic-religious dualism that recurs in various forms throughout subsequent religious history.