Note 1057 — Chapter XIII · MANES AND THE MANICHAEANS
Reading edition
The Ecpyrosis or final conflagration is always present in orthodox Mazdeism, where it inspires its Apocalypses, and is in effect the necessary conclusion to the drama which begins with the assault on the world of light by Ahriman. For references, see Söderblom, op. cit. chap. IV. From the Persians it probably passed to the Stoics and thus reached the Western world slightly in advance of Christianity. “The day when the Great Dragon shall be judged” is continually on the lips of the authors of the Pistis Sophia and the Μέρος τευχῶν Σωτῆρος, and the conception may therefore have reached Manes from two sources at once. The angels maintaining the world as mentioned in the text are of course the Splenditenens and Omophorus about to be described.