Note 1213 — Chapter XIII · MANES AND THE MANICHAEANS (continued 2)

The Manichaeans seem always to have been favoured by the better classes and high officials of the Empire who maintained for some time a secret leaning towards Paganism. See de Stoop, op. cit. p. 84. The case of Barsymès, the banker or money-changer whom Theodora made Praetorian Prefect, and who was allowed according to Procopius (Anecdota, c. XXII. 7) to profess Manichaeism openly, was doubtless only one of many. It is apparently this Barsymès who is invoked in the Turfan texts as “the Lord Bar Simus,” see Müller, Handschriften-Reste, pp. 45, 59.