Within Manichaean society, religious life was structured around two complementary groups whose roles expressed the faith’s dualistic vision in social form. The Elect constituted a small spiritual elite, bound by rigorous vows of celibacy, poverty, and strict nonviolence toward all living beings, including plants. They refrained from marriage, procreation, ownership of property, and any manual labor that might harm the subtle “light” believed to be imprisoned in matter. Their diet excluded meat and other animal products, and they lived as ascetics devoted to prayer, meditation, preaching, and the study or copying of sacred texts. By their purity of conduct and ritual practice, they were regarded as the principal agents of the liberation of divine light, and thus as those most closely aligned with the ultimate salvific goal of the tradition. Their needs for food, clothing, and shelter were met not through personal labor, but through the offerings of the broader community.

The Hearers, by contrast, formed the larger lay body of Manichaean adherents and embodied a more moderate path within the same cosmic drama. They lived conventional lives, with families, occupations, and property, and were permitted to engage in trade and other forms of work, including agriculture, while still observing a milder ethical discipline. Their religious responsibility centered on supporting the Elect materially and morally: providing alms, food, and protection, listening to their teaching, and striving for honesty, restraint, and avoidance of unnecessary violence or greed. Through this support, Hearers participated indirectly in the Elect’s work of freeing the light, accumulating merit that was understood to bear fruit across multiple lifetimes. Over the course of these rebirths, a Hearer might eventually attain the status of Elect, entering more fully into the ascetic vocation. In this way, the two groups formed an interdependent whole: the Elect as spiritual specialists dedicated to cosmic purification, and the Hearers as the sustaining community that made such radical renunciation possible.