Note 1134 — Chapter XIII · MANES AND THE MANICHAEANS

See n. 2 supra. M. Cumont (Cosmog. Manich. p. 34) thinks that this Messenger was added to the two triads (of Father, Mother, and Son, and the Friend of the Lights, Great Ban, and Living Spirit, respectively) in order to make up “the sacred number of seven.” But seven is a number singularly neglected by the Manichaeans, who paid the greatest reverence to five, and preferred to seven the three and the twelve. Nor do I think that there is any real parallel in Manichaeism to the Seven Amshaspands of Zoroastrianism. The actual word amshaspand is used in the Tun-huang treatise (Chavannes et Pelliot, op. cit. 1ère ptie, p. 544), but with an entirely different signification from that of archangel or divinity. It seems there to mean simply “element.” Cf. Chavannes et Pelliot, op. cit. 2me partie, p. 101.