Manichaeism: Classes of Followers

Mani's followers were divided into two classes: the elect, or perfect, were assured of immediate felicity after death because of the resource of light they had acquired through strict celibacy, austerity, teaching, and preaching; and the auditors, or hearers, the laity who administered to the elect, and who could marry. Believing in metempsychosis (see transmigration of souls), the auditors hoped to be reborn as elect. All other were sinners, doomed to hell.

Sections in this article:

• Introduction
• Decline
• Classes of Followers
• Beliefs
• The Religion
• Mani's Life
• Bibliography

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