Augustine comes across the Manichee sect in Carthage, when he goes there for his studies. He ends up believing strongly in Manichee doctrine for nearly ten years, until rational philosophy and astronomy persuade him that the colorful Manichee cosmology is false. The self-declared prophet Mani claimed that God was not omnipotent and struggled against the opposing substance of evil. The Manicheans also believed that the human soul was of the same substance of God. The opposition of these views is one of the main themes of the Confessions. Manichee doctrines depended heavily on visualization of the concepts of God and evil, and this dependence greatly delayed Augustine from coming to know God without imagining him.
