The Book of Giants and Manichaean Cosmogony

The Manichaean Book of Giants is a revered text in the Manichaean religion. The Book of Giants is a collection of texts which are believed to have been compiled by Mani himself; it holds significant importance in understanding the cosmology of Manichaean beliefs. The texts are based on the Enochian literature of 2nd Temple Judaism, which is essentially an expanded and enriched version of the Genesis 6 narrative.

The Book of Giants is a complex and enigmatic text, and it contains a number of different narratives and stories which revolve around the theme of the giants and their interactions with humanity. The giants are portrayed as evil and demonic beings, and the text describes their conflicts and battles with the forces of light and goodness. The Book of Giants also contains references to biblical figures such as Noah and Enoch, and it presents a unique perspective on the events and characters of the Old Testament.

The relationship between the Book of Giants and Manichaean cosmology can be identified in the general structure of texts and Mani’s thought. The Manichaean Hymn “Let Us Worship the Spirit of the Paraclete” provides a brief overview of Mani’s cosmology;

The Kingdom of Light consisted of five Greatnesses,
these are the Father and his twelve Aeons,
the Aeon of Aeons, the Living Air, and the Land of Light,
the Great Spirit blows in them and feeds them with its Light.

The Kingdom of Darkness, however, consisted in five Chambers,
these are Smoke, Fire, Wind and Water and Darkness.
Their resolution crawls in them,
moves them and spurs them on to make war with one another.

Now as they were warring with each other,
they made bold to attack the Land of Light,
considering themselves capable of conquering it.
Yet they know not that what they thought will recoil upon their own heads.

But there was a host of angels in the Land of Light
which possessed the power to issue forth and overcome the enemy of the Father,
whom it pleased that through the Word that he would send,
he would subdue the rebels
who desired to raise themselves above what was more exalted than they.

Like a shepherd who sees a lion approaching to destroy his sheepfold,
he uses guile, takes a lamb and sets it as a snare that he may catch it with it,
for with a single lamb he saves his sheepfold.
Afterwards he heals the lamb that has been wounded by the lion.

In this way too the Father acted,
who sent his stout Son.
He produced out of himself his Maiden, furnished with the five Powers
that she might fight against the five Abysses of the Dark.

When the Watchman stood fast within the frontiers of Light
he showed the powers of the Darkness his Maiden, who is his Soul.
They became agitated in the Abyss and wanted to possess her,
they opened their mouths and tried to swallow her.

He seized the Maidens power and spread it over the Powers of the Darkness,
like nets over fish, he rained her down on them.
Like purified clouds of water, she penetrated into them like a piercing lightning stroke.
She crept inside their insides and bound them all without their ever knowing.

When the First Man had ended his struggle the Father sent forth his Second Son.
He came and helped his brother out of the Abyss.
He built this whole world up out of the mixture
that had come into existence out of Light and Darkness.

All the Powers of the Abyss he spread out to the ten Heavens and to eight Earths,
he shut them up into this World and made it a dungeon for all the Powers of Darkness.
This World is also, however, a place of purification of the soul
which had been swallowed up in the Powers of Darkness.

The Sun and the Moon where set up and fixed in the heights, to purify the Soul.
They take the refined part daily upward to the heights but they destroy the deposit.
They convey it up and down.

This whole World stands firm for a Season,
since there is a great Building being erected outside the World.
At the Hour when the Architect shall complete it, the entire World shall be dissolved.
It shall be set afire, that the fire may melt it away.

All Life, the Remnants of Light in every Place
he shall gather to himself and form of it a Statue (Eidolon -- image, likeness).
Even the Resolution of Death also, the whole of Darkness,
he shall gather in and make an image of itself along with the Archon.

In a moment the Living Spirit shall come. 
It will succor to the Light,
but the Resolution of Death and the Darkness
lock away in the chamber that was built for it that it may lie in chains forever.

There is no other means save this means to bind the Enemy,
for he shall not be received into the Light because he is a stranger to it,
but he shall also not be left in his Land of darkness,
lest he may wage a greater war than the first.

A New Aeon shall be built in the place of this World, which shall be dissolved,
so that in it the Powers of Light may reign
since they have preformed and fulfilled the whole of the Father's will.
They have overthrown the hateful one, they have defeated him forever.

There are three epochs of time within Manichaean thought, which are known as the “three times”. There is the Past, Present, and Future.

1. In the first epoch, there existed two eternal principles. The Light represents the Good, whilst the Darkness represents Evil. The good principle exists within the Kingdom of Light and is the realm of the Father of Greatness whose fourfold majesty embraces Divinity, Light, Power, and Goodness. His throne is surrounded by at least 156 peace-loving hypostases: twelve Aeons (in three groups of four each) and 144 Aeons of Aeons. The Kingdom of Light is constructed of five elements (stoicheia: air, wind, light, water, and fire) and contains five peaceful “dwellings” (intelligence, knowledge, reason, thought, and deliberation). The evil principle, on the other hand, the Kingdom of Darkness, is the complete antitheses of the good principle and the Kingdom of Light. The inhabitants of the Kingdom of Darkness are ruled by five monstrous evil archons (demon, lion, eagle, fish, and dragon). These demonic rulers are in constant opposition to each other and who, collectively, make up the hellish Prince of Darkness. They are sexually preoccupied, controlled by unreined passions, and dwell in an ominous netherworld of smoke, fire, wind, water, and darkness. The two kingdoms are completely distinct yet eternally coexistent.

2. The present epoch begins when the evil inhabitants of the Kingdom of Darkness drive a wedge into the Kingdom of Light in a lustful desire to mingle with the light. The Kingdom of Darkness is thoroughly aroused, and its terrifyingly vicious inhabitants enter the light in a full-scale invasion. The Father of Greatness responds by producing a series of emanations, which will be sacrificed to the invaders to prohibit the realm of light being dominated by the powers of darkness. The first emanation is the Mother of Life, the Primal Man is the emanation that fights the incoming forces of darkness but loses his battle. The five evil archons, (Prince of Darkness) then consume some light elements of the Primal Man’s armour and, having unwittingly fallen into the trap of the Father of Greatness, are now dependent on the light for their continued existence.

The Primal Man awakens from his sleep of forgetfulness, remembers his divine origins, and prays for his rescue. The Father of Greatness responds by emanating a further series of beings who initiate the rescue of the Primal Man: the Friend of Lights evokes the Great Architect who then evokes the Living Spirit who evokes his five Sons (the Custodian of Splendour, the Great King of Honour, Adamas of Light, the King of Glory, and Atlas). The Living Spirit cries out from the Kingdom of Light into the darkness to the Primal Man, who answers. The Cry and Answer are hypostatized and ascend to the Kingdom of Light (representing the divine word of salvation and the positive human response). The Living Spirit then grasps the Primal Man by the hand and rescues him from the Kingdom of Darkness.

The rest of the drama in the Present Time focuses on the work of the Father of Greatness to regain all the light particles swallowed by the five evil archons. The Living Spirit first creates ten heavens and eight earths out of the material corpses of the slain demons. He separates the swallowed light particles into three types: the first is undefiled and from it, he creates the Sun and the Moon; the second is only partly defiled and from it, he creates the Stars; the third is completely defiled, and so he creates an elaborate cosmic mechanism, which does resemble a form of Persian alchemy, to distil the light from the matter.

The Living Spirit then evokes the Third Messenger, who evokes the zodiacal Twelve Maidens, collectively the Maiden of Light, who operate the cosmic Three Wheels created to distil the light particles out of the material universe. Another emanation is the Column of Glory (the Milky Way), which transports the recovered light particles from the distilling Three Wheels to the Moon and then the Sun. Light is then sent on ships that transport the light particles to their temporary haven (the New Earth created by the Great Architect).

The Third Messenger and the Maiden of Light then excite the sexual nature of the male archons, causing them to ejaculate the light particles from within them. The Sun which excites the archons falls to the earth, becoming the source of all plant life. The female archons miscarry their light-bearing fetuses, which fall to the earth and copulate among themselves, becoming the source of all animal life. The total of all of these light particles trapped in matter, including plants and animals, is called the Living Self in Eastern Manichaeism. In the West it is called the Suffering Jesus (Jesus patibilis) who is on the Light Cross (crux luminus).

The Prince of Darkness, in an attempt to frustrate the cosmic distillation of light particles, gives birth to the two evil demons Saclas (Ashqulan) and Nebroel (Namrael). These demons eat the monstrous offspring of the miscarried fetuses to ingest their light particles. The two demons then copulate and Nebroel gives birth to exact miniature replicas (Gen 1:27) of the confused “light-matter” macrocosm: Adam and Eve. In a typically gnostic “inverted exegesis” of Genesis 1–5, the sexually oriented evil creator can only create by copulation and birth, and so can only create matter (which is inherently evil). He is completely unable to create in the manner of the Father of Greatness by evoking pure spiritual hypostases.

Consequently, Adam (representing humanity) is specifically designed by the evil creator in his own image (Gen 1:26) to procreate sexually (Gen 1:27–28). Thus, Adam can only continue the evil cycle of birth, copulation, and rebirth and in so doing fulfils his natural inclination to be “fruitful and multiply” (Gen 1:28; 5:4b). Adam’s nature (representing human sexuality) thus entangles the precious light particles, transmitted through male seed, in potentially endless generations of material bodies (representing human history). But Adam was ignorant of the light within him and the facts of his true origin in the Kingdom of Light.

The evocations of the Father of Greatness then send Jesus of Light to awaken Adam (Gen 3:1), to inform him of his true nature (Gen 3:4–5), and to lead him to self-recognition (Gen 3:7, 11a, 22a). Jesus of Light helps Adam eat of the Tree of Life (Gen 3:22), warns him of the dangers of sexual procreation with Eve, and so encourages an ascetic lifestyle (central for Manichaean ethics). Then Eve and a male archon copulate and Eve gives birth to Cain (Gen 4:1), who then copulates with his mother Eve, who gives birth to Abel (Gen 4:2), and so begins the incestuous interaction of Cain (Gen 4:2a) and Abel with Eve and with each other’s daughters borne by Eve (Gen 4:17).

Eve then receives magical knowledge from an evil archon which would enable her to copulate with the ascetic Adam. She succeeds in her desire and bears Seth (Gen 4:25a), who, as the first true son of Adam (Gen 5:3, 4b), contains a significantly larger amount of light particles than the other offspring of Eve. The ascetic Adam and Seth, self-conscious particles of light entrapped in innately evil material bodies, become the exemplary human figures for Manichaean ethics (Gen 4:26b; 5:1–32; cf. Pearson 1988: 147–55).

3. The Final epoch is the third and final act of the cosmic drama, and provides for Manichaean ethics a preview into the system of rewards and punishments. The final and Great War will break out among the unenlightened powers of darkness when the distillation of light particles from the material cosmos has neared its completion. Jesus will return at a decisive eschatological moment as the Great King and will judge humanity and the infernal powers. The Elect will become angels, the Auditors will be judged righteous, and the sinners will be cast into hell with Eve and her hellish offspring. The cosmos will disintegrate and burn in a conflagration for 1,468 years. The remaining light particles will be gathered and finally return by ascent to the Kingdom of Light. The Prince of Darkness and his diabolical minions will be cast into a bottomless pit, permanently sealed will a giant stone for all eternity. The two principles of Light and Darkness will again be two separate and distinct entities, but Darkness has lost all of its potency, and can never pose a threat to the realm of light again.

The foundational narrative of 1 Enoch chapters 6-11 significantly influences Mani as he constructs his elaborate view of the universe. A side-by-side analysis reveals the depth of Mani's adherence to the tradition found in Enoch;

“And it came to pass that when the sons of men multiplied, in those days beautiful and fair daughters were born. And the angels, the sons of heaven, saw them and desired them, and said to one another: “Come! Let us choose for ourselves wives from people, and we will beget for ourselves children.” And Semiaza, who was their ruler, said to them: “I fear that you will not desire to do this deed, and I alone will be a debtor of a great sin.” Therefore, they all answered him: “Let us swear an oath and let us all anathematize one another, not to turn away from this plan, until we should complete it and should do this deed.”

Then they all swore together and anathematized one another by it. And these were the two hundred who descended in the days of Jared to the summit of Mount Hermonieim, and they called the mountain Hermon because they swore and anathematized one another by it. And these are the names of their leaders: Semiaza, he is their leader, Arathak, Kimbra, Sammane, Daneiel, Arearos, Semiel, Iomeiel, Chochariel, Ezekiel, Batriel, Sathiel, Atriel, Tamiel, Barakiel, Ananthna, Thoniel, Ramiel, Aseal, Rakeiel, Touriel.

These are their rulers who (are) [over] tens. And they took wives for themselves, each of them chose for themselves wives, and they began to enter them and to be defiled in them. And they taught them sorceries and enchantments and root-cutting, and explained the plants to them. And the women became pregnant and bore great giants of three thousand cubits, who devoured the labors of people. And when the people were not able to sustain them, the giants dared (to attack) them, and they devoured the people. And they began to sin with birds and wild animals and reptiles and fish, and to devour one another’s flesh, and drink blood. Then the earth appealed against the lawless ones.

Azael taught the people to make swords and armor and shields and breastplates, lessons of angels, and he showed them the metals and their working, and arm bands and decorations and also eye-painting of beautiful eyes, and all kinds of chosen stones and the things fit for dyeing. And there was much ungodliness, and they committed sexual immorality, and they were led astray, and they were ruined in all their ways. Semiaza taught enchantments and root-cutting, Armaros releasing enchantments, Barakiel astronomy, Chochiel astrology, Sathiel star-gazing, and Seriel the course of the moon. Therefore the people died, and cries rose up to heaven.

Then Michael and Uriel and Raphael and Gabriel looked down, these one from heaven saw much blood being poured out upon the earth. And they said to one another: “A voice of those crying out upon the earth up to the gates of heaven.” The souls of the people are appealing, saying out: “Bring your (case for) judgment to the Most High.” And they said to the Lord: “You are Lord of lords and God of gods and King of the ages. Your throne of glory endures for all generations of the age, and your name is holy and great and blessed for all the ages.”

Then the Most High commanded the holy archangels, and they bound their leaders and threw them into the abyss, until the (day of) judgment. “For you made all things, and you have all authority, and all things are plain and uncovered before you. “And you see all things that Azael has done, who has taught all the unrighteousness upon the earth and he revealed the mysteries of the ages, the things in heaven which the people were pursuing and learning, and Semiazas, who was given authority to rule over those together with him. “And they have gone to the people of the earth’s daughters and slept with them and defiled themselves, and revealed to them all sins.

“And the women gave birth to titans, from which all the earth was filled with blood and unrighteousness. “And now look! The souls of those who have died are appealing to the gates of heaven, and their groaning has gone up and is not able to go out from the face of those lawless beings upon the earth. “And you have known all things before these things happen, and you see these things and permit them, and you do not say to us what is necessary for us concerning these things.” (1Enoch 6:1-9:11 PSEUD-E)

To begin with, the concept of Heaven and Earth is established, with the Watchers becoming enchanted by human women's beauty, leading to inappropriate desire. This mirrors how in Mani's first epoch, the realms of Light and Darkness exist, with Darkness being drawn to the Light, aiming to merge with it. It is noteworthy how Mani reverses the order of events.

The dynamic between observation, longing, amalgamation, and the chaotic aftermath of such blending is clearly demonstrated. The Watchers covet the beauty of human women, paralleling how Darkness covets Light, aiming for union. Similarly, the Archons are captivated by the Messenger's allure.

The Watchers descend to engage with women, while Darkness climbs to blend with Light. The offspring of the Watchers and human women are the giants known as Nephilim. The commingling of darkness with light leads to the imprisonment of the Original Man and his five offspring. Additionally, the demonic entities create malformed beings that descend to earth in their pursuit of beings of light.

The Nephilim unleash havoc on Earth, causing misery that reaches Heaven. Similarly, the Light's realm experiences turmoil upon the realization that the Prince of Darkness seeks to join with the Light.

Angelic beings are dispatched to detain the Watchers and cleanse the Earth through a great deluge; Messengers are sent forth to slay, bind, and initiate a process that separates light from physical matter. The Watchers are confined in Tartarus, and Earth undergoes a rebirth through Noah. In parallel fashion, the Primal Man is liberated, the five divine beings are still trapped within the Archons, but a mechanism is created that works to free the light trapped in matter. The ultimate renewal is envisioned as a celestial conflagration that will ultimately purify the entire cosmos.

To conclude, Manichaean cosmology is conveyed in an inverted and expanded interplay of the Book of Giants from 2nd Temple Judaism. It is a complex and rich cosmological system that reflects Mani’s syncretism, as he combines different theological and cosmological ideas and myths into his new religion. The relationship of the Essene movement and Mani is an interesting avenue for further study. This article has shown just how closely Mani followed the Watchers narrative of 1 Enoch, which was revered among the community at Qumran. Finally, it is a fascinating cosmology that brings the macrocosm down to the microcosmic level. The Manichaean participates in this grand narrative and works toward ensuring as much light is sent back to the Aeon of Light before the final consummation of all things. The mechanical sifting of light from matter is enacted through the ritual and asetic practices of a Manichaeans religious life. It is has also been interesting to see how Mani inverts Genesis and Enoch in subtle but ingenuis ways.