Third Messenger
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.
Parentage
Children
Domains
- redemption of the light
- sun and light vessels
Powers
- to set turning the wheels that ferry liberated light to the moon and sun
- to reveal a radiant seductive form that wrings the swallowed light from the demons
Epithets
- Narisah Yazd
- Rōšnšahr Yazd
Relations
- subordinate to: Father of Greatness
- ally: Maiden of Light
Sources
- Werner Sundermann, 'Manicheism ii. The Manichean Pantheon', Encyclopaedia Iranica (online ed., 2009)
- Werner Sundermann, 'Mithra iii. In Manicheism', Encyclopaedia Iranica (online ed., 2002)
- Paul Van Lindt, The Names of Manichaean Mythological Figures: A Comparative Study on Terminology in the Coptic Sources (Studies in Oriental Religions 26) (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1992)