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"Manichaeism."
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Manichaean Texts from the Roman Empire
Founded by Mani (c. AD 216–276), a Syrian visionary of Judaeo-Christian background who lived in Persian Mesopotamia, Manichaeism spread rapidly into the Roman Empire in the third and fourth centuries AD and became one of the most persecuted heresies under Christian Roman emperors. The religion established missionary cells in Syria, Egypt, North Africa and Rome and has in Augustine of Hippo the most famous of its converts. The study of the religion in the Roman Empire has benefited from discoveries of genuine Manichaean texts from Medinet Madi and from the Dakhleh Oasis in Egypt, as well as successful decipherment of the Cologne Mani-Codex which gives an autobiography of the founder in Greek. This 2004 book is a single-volume collection of sources for this religion, and draws from material mostly unknown to English-speaking scholars and students, offers in translation genuine Manichaean texts from Greek, Latin and Coptic.
eBook
Frontiers of Faith
Through a systematic analysis of the sources, compositional structure, and apologetic and polemical strategies of the early fourth century Acts of Archelaus (Acta Archelai), this volume explores inter-religious contact, conflict, and comprehension in the encounter between Christianity and Manichaeism.
eBook
Der antimanichäische Augustin
Antimanichäische Inhalte aus dem gesamten Werkkorpus Augustins werden, auch unter Berücksichtigung manichäischer Originaltexte, mit Blick auf ihr polemisches Gepräge untersucht.
eBook
Reading Between the Lines: Toward a Methodology for Tracing Manichaean Echoes in the Epistulae of Augustine of Hippo
Augustine of Hippo (354–430), one of the most influential theologians of Late Antiquity, spent nearly a decade in the Manichaean sect before becoming a central figure in the shaping of Western “orthodox” Christianity. While his major works such as the Confessiones and De civitate Dei have been extensively studied for their treatment of Manichaeism, the vast collection of his ca. 300 preserved letters (Epistulae) remains an understudied source for understanding this aspect of his intellectual and theological development. This article addresses that gap by proposing a methodology to identify both anti- and crypto-Manichaean themes in his letters. Drawing on phenomenological openness, hermeneutical perspective, and close reading, the study also incorporates genuine Manichaean sources and anti-Manichaean polemics to contextualise Augustine’s rhetorical strategies. The Epistulae, unpolished and situated in specific communicative contexts, offer a unique view of Augustine’s doctrinal positioning after his conversion. Traces of his Manichaean past re-emerge in vocabulary, argumentation, and theological emphasis. This is exemplified in Epistula 137 to Volusianus (411–412), which, without naming the sect, covertly critiques key Manichaean doctrines such as Docetism and materialism. These critiques align with extant Manichaean sources and may reflect Augustine’s awareness of latent Manichaean influence in Christian communities. By bringing the Epistulae into the broader discussion of Augustine’s anti-Manichaean engagement, this study highlights their value as a window into his theological evolution and pastoral strategy in a religiously contested environment.
Journal Article
Spiritual Hunger and the Search for God in Augustine’s Confessions: A New ‘Sensory’ Approach to the Text-Audience Interaction
This article investigates the role of sensory metaphors of food and hunger in the communicative project of the Confessions. Under the broad framework of cognitive poetics, which focuses on the interaction between text and audience, I analyse how sensory language contributes to an appeal to the readers’ sensory imaginations and emotions that they might be responsive to the viewpoint put forward by the text. I find that Augustine stimulates and reorientates especially his Manichaean readers’ intuitive but also cultural and familiar conceptions of the sensible world in relation to God, of their religious food and dietary rituals and, by extension, of their experience of God. This, I argue, seems to be a persuasive device to encourage new interpretation of the senses as signs which point towards immaterial reality, and new understanding of man’s relationship to God as utterly transcendent and unchangeable. Este artículo investiga el papel de las metáforas sensoriales de la comida y el hambre en el proyecto comunicativo de las Confesiones. En el amplio marco de la poética cognitiva, que se centra en la interacción entre el texto y la audiencia, analizo cómo el lenguaje sensorial contribuye a apelar a la imaginación sensorial y a las emociones del lector, para que responda al punto de vista propuesto por el texto. Encuentro que Agustín estimula y reorienta las concepciones intuitivas, pero también culturales y familiares de su audiencia maniquea especialmente, respecto al mundo sensible en relación con Dios, su comida religiosa y rituales dietéticos y, por extensión, su experiencia de Dios. Argumento que esto parece ser un recurso persuasivo para fomentar una nueva interpretación de los sentidos como signos que apuntan hacia la realidad inmaterial y una nueva comprensión de la relación del hombre con Dios como totalmente trascendente e inmutable.
Journal Article
The Manichaean body : in discipline and ritual
Award for the Best First Book in the History of Religions from the American Academy of Religion
Reconstructing Manichaeism from scraps of ancient texts and the ungenerous polemic of its enemies (such as the ex-Manichaean Augustine of Hippo), BeDuhn reveals for the first time the religion as it was actually practiced. He describes the Manichaeans' daily ritual meal, their stringent disciplinary codes (intended to prevent humans from harming plants and animals), and their secretive religious procedures designed to transform the cosmos and bring about the salvation of all living beings.
Overturning long-held assumptions about Manichaean dualism, asceticism, spirituality, and the pursuit of salvation, The Manichaean Body changes completely how we look at this ancient religion and the environment in which Christianity arose. BeDuhn's conclusions revolutionize our understanding of the Manichaeans, clearly distinguishing them from Gnostics and other early Christian heretics and revealing them to be practitioners of a unique world religion.
eBook