Note 1059 — Chapter XIII · MANES AND THE MANICHAEANS

Hegemonius, Acta, c. VIII. pp. 11, 12, Beeson, mentions Omophorus, but not Splenditenens. Splenditenens is, however, well known to St Augustine, who describes him (contra Faustum, Bk XV. c. 7) as Splenditenentem magnum, sex vultus et ora ferentem, micantemque lumine, “Great Splenditenens, bearing six faces and mouths, and glittering with light.” So later (op. cit. Bk XX. c. 9) he says, Splenditenentem, reliquias eorumdem membrorum Dei vestri in manu habentem, et cetera omnia capta, oppressa, inquinata plangentem, et Atlantem maximum subter humeris suis cum eo ferentem, ne totum ille fatigatus abjiciat. “Splenditenens, who has in his hand the remains of these members of your God [i.e. the five elements or ‘sons’ of the First Man] and who mourns the capture and oppression and defilement of all the rest; and huge Atlas, who bears everything with him on his shoulders, lest he should be wearied and cast it away.” Bar Khôni (Pognon, pp. 188, 189) describes them both, and calls Splenditenens “the Ornament of Splendour,” while he makes the pair two of the five sons of the Living Spirit, as more clearly appears in the Tunhuang treatise (Chavannes et Pelliot, op. cit. p. 549, and notes 2 and 5). Where Manes found the figure of Splenditenens is not apparent, but the world-bearing angel is an old conception in Western Asia, as M. Cumont has shown in his before-quoted Cosmogonie Manichéenne, App. II. He appears prominently on the Mithraic monuments and was no doubt the original of the Greek Atlas.