The Third Messenger is the great redeeming god of the Manichaean Third Creation, evoked by the Father of Greatness once the Living Spirit has built the cosmos. His task is the liberation of the light still imprisoned in matter. He sets in motion the cosmic machinery — the wheels of the spheres, the columns and the vessels of moon and sun — by which freed light is conveyed upward and back to the Realm of Light. To wring the swallowed light from the dark archons he and his agents reveal a luminous, alluring form; in the most striking episode he sends the Maiden of Light to display herself to the male and female demons so that, in their lust, they discharge the captive light. In the Iranian texts he is named Narisah or Narēsaf and titled Rōšnšahr Yazd; confusingly, the Iranian name Mihr, which in Middle Persian denotes the Living Spirit, denotes this Third Messenger in Parthian and Sogdian.