Seduction of the Archons (Manichaeism)
A Manichaean myth of light recovery through sensual deception.
The Seduction of the Archons, part of Manichaeism’s Third Creation, describes how light beings used sensual displays to extract light from captive archons. This process released light into the material world, eventually forming plants, animals, and the first humans, Adam and Eve.
Quick Facts
- Part of
- Third Creation
- Key beings
- Father of Greatness
- Mother of Life
- Primal Man
- Living Spirit
- Third Messenger
- Virgins of Light
- Number of captive archons
- two-hundred
- Resulting creations
- first plants
- animals
- monstrous abortions
- Adam and Eve
Facts from the source article.
Narrative
After the Second Creation established the physical cosmos—the stars, sun, moon, ten heavens, and eight earths—the Father of Greatness imprisoned many dark demons, known as archons, within the heavens. This was done to reclaim the light these archons had stolen from the World of Light. The Mother of Life, Primal Man, and the Living Spirit then appealed to the Father to free that trapped light. A detailed procedure for extracting light from the two hundred captive archons began. The Father formed a luminous being called the Third Messenger, who summoned the Virgins of Light. These Virgins, or the Messenger themselves, acted seductively toward the archons, appearing as boys to female archons and as beautiful women to male archons. Overcome with desire, the male archons ejaculated and the female archons miscarried, releasing a blend of light and darkness. The male ejaculate fell to earth as rain, sprouting the first plants, while the miscarriages landed as animals and monstrous abortions. These abortions devoured the plants and rampaged across the earth, scattering light further. Through acts of cannibalism and elaborate sexual unions, they fashioned the first material humans—Adam and Eve—in the remembered likeness of the gender-shifting Messenger. Accounts of these events vary, largely because many surviving descriptions come from hostile critics of Manichaean teachings.
Preceding Seductions
The Manichaean canon contains multiple seduction narratives, not just the one in the Third Creation. Theodore bar-Konai describes an earlier seduction carried out by the Living Spirit. In some accounts, Original Man’s descent into darkness is presented as a seduction rather than a military campaign. The Coptic Psalm-Book depicts a masculine Original Man offering his transgender soul, a feminine Maiden, to the dark forces as a lure. Augustine, in his Contra Faustum, also notes that Original Man’s gender shifts within the Manichaean creation myth.
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