Mani teaches that the whole of creation 'refines.'

"Moreover," (he says) "he (i.e., Primal Man) made trees to be Furnaces." Yet they do not at all times separate fruit from the dust and their produce from the soil; and also cornfields (are said to be furnaces) ; and yet they do not continually draw up life from the earth. And if, as they teach, a Refining goes [xxxv] up from the offal of the Archons, [P. 13, l.12] then the greater part of that swallowed Light is going forth by means of the offal of the Archons who swallowed it. Such is the polluted teaching which refines the Parts of its God from the midst of offal!