upon the King of Light by the ravages of the King of Darkness, and is at best only partially good.  Zoroastrianism looked upon earth, fire, water, as sacred elements, to defile which was sin of the most heinous kind.  Manichæism regarded actual fire and water as made up of a mixture of elements of light and darkness, and so, as by no means wholly pure.  Manichæans regarded earth, so far as it consisted of dead matter, with the utmost contempt.  The life-giving light in it was alone thought of with respect.  Zoroastrianism somewhat ar- bitrarily divided animals and plants between the kingdoms of Ormuzd and Ahriman; but the idea that all material things, so far as they are material, are evil, seems never to have oc- curred to the early Mazdeists.  Manichæans agreed with Mazdeists in their veneration for the sun, but the principles underlying this veneration seem to have been widely different in the two cases.  The most radical opposition of the two systems is seen in their views of human propagation.  Mani regarded the procreation of children as ministering directly to the designs of the King of Darkness to imprison the light, and so absolutely condemned it.  The Zend- Avesta says:  (Vendîdâd, Fargard IV.):  "Verily I say unto thee, O Spitama Zarathustra; the man who has a wife is far above him who begets no sons; he who keeps a house is far above him who has none; he who has children is far above a childless man."  Mani made great merit of voluntary poverty.  The Zend-Avesta (ibid.) says:  "He who has riches is far above him who has none."  Mani forbade the use of animal food as preventing the escape of the light contained in the bodies of animals.  The Zend-Avesta (ibid.):  "And of two men, he who fills himself with meat is filled with the good spirit much more than he who does not do so; the latter is all but dead; the former is above him by the worth of an Asperena, by the worth of a sheep, by the worth of an ox, by the worth of a man."10 The eschatology of the two systems might be shown to present just as striking contrasts, and just as marked resemblances.  In both systems the consummation of the age is effected by means of a conflagration, the aim of the conflagration in Mazdeism being the punishment and the purging of wicked men, the destruction of wicked spirits, the renovation of the earth, and the inauguration of the sole sovereignty of Ormuzd, while in Manichæism the aim of the conflagration is to liberate the portions of light which the processes of animal and vegetable growth, with the aid of sun and the moon have proved unable to liberate. 21 But enough has been said to make it evident that Manichæism was by no means a slightly altered edition of Zoroastrianism.  The points of similarity between the two are certainly more apparent than real, though the historical relationship can by no means be denied. 10 That meat is used in the sense of flesh may be inferred from Darmsteter’s comment on this passage, which he suggests may be a bit of religious polemics against Manichæism.  See his Introd. to the Zend-Avesta, p. xl. sq. 29 Relation of Manichæism to Zoroastrianism.