China: Celestial beings and a church ceremony. Fragments of a Manichaean painting from Turfan, Xinjiang, c. 8th-9th century. Manichaeism was the most important Gnostic religion. Central in the Manichaean teaching was dualism, that the world itself, and all creatures, were part of a battle between the good, represented by God, and the bad, the darkness, represented by a power driven by envy and lust. Manichaeism spread over most of the known world of the 1st millennium CE, from Spain to China. But the religion disappeared in the 14th century and is now extinct.

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Size: 6000px × 3038px
Photo credit: © Pictures From History / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No

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