MANI
This quotation is one of the great religious ecumenical statements of history. Mani’s religion became extinct. Zoroaster was the prophet who founded the religion of Persia that preceded Islam and still has some followers. Like Judaism and Christianity, it is allowed under Islam as Mohammad had a large part of the Middle East who followed that religion.
He saw the different religions’ “messengers of God” such as the Jewish prophets, Jesus, and prophets of other religions as all part of God’s inspiration of man. His writings were influential on several religions. For example, Saint Thomas Aquinas quotes Mani on several occasions.
Mani, of Iranian origin, was the prophet and the founder of Manichaeism, a religion of late antiquity strongly influenced by Gnosticism which was once widespread but is no longer prevalent by name. Mani was born in or near Seleucia-Ctesiphon in Babylonia, at the time still part of the Parthian Empire. Six of his major works were written in Syriac, and the seventh, dedicated to the Sasanian emperor Shapur I, was written in Middle Persian. He died in Gundeshapur.
