INTRODUCTION

to be greeted with the same questions that were asked in the beginning:

What does my Father do, the Father of the Lights? . . .
outside him. Tell me the news.
What do the twelve Aeons do, whom I left surrounding
the Father? Tell [me] the news.¹

The Envoy answers that all is well in Paradise, ‘the Gods rejoicing’² at the victory gained; and summons the First Man to return there, accompanied by his ‘garlanded host’.³ This host is evidently the assembly of victorious souls in the New Paradise, who are also spoken of as the ‘merchandise’ of the First Man, recovered by him from the powers of Darkness:

The Fathers of Light came that they might help their loved
one. Take the news.
They helped the First Man, he cried before him
in joy: ‘Behold me, behold my merchandise’. Lo.
Great is the joy that there was, the First Man being
in their midst, laden with garlands and palms. Lo, this is the news.⁴

In the final verses the psalmist speaks in his own person, making clear the parable to his hearers:

May it happen to us together that we may be counted in his
merchandise and rejoice with all the Aeons. Lo, this is the news.
May we be counted among those of the right hand and inherit our
kingdom. Lo, this is the news.
And may we live with our kinsmen from everlasting to everlasting.
Lo, this is the news.⁵

The belief expressed here is that the First Man gathers the redeemed in the New Paradise during the centuries, until he has won back all, or almost all, that he had lost, and can bear them with him to the Eternal Paradise in a celestial triumph.

These texts, Coptic and Iranian, establish a Manichaean doctrine of immediate redemption in the New Paradise, followed by ultimate union with the Paradise of Light. Yet such texts, although clear in the evidence they yield, are few in number. By far the most references to the destination of the soul are in ambiguous, general terms such as ‘the land of the gods’, ‘the city of the blessed’. This is the case, not only in hymns of a general character,

¹ Ps. Bk. 198²³⁻²⁶.
² Ibid. 199¹⁰.
³ Ibid. 201⁷⁻⁸.
⁴ Ibid. 202¹²⁻¹⁷.
⁵ Ibid. 202¹⁸⁻²³.