Some First Preliminary Studies of Manichaeism
The first significant study on Manichaeism as a religion appeared in 1578. It was a work by Cyriacus Spangenberg entitled: Historia Manichaeorum: de furiosae et pestiferae huius Sectae origine. The author’s perspective is clear from the title: History of the Manichaeans, on the origin of this mad and pestiferous sect. The Lutheran theologian Spangenberg mainly bases himself on the Panarion or “Medicine Chest” against the heresies of church father Epiphanius; his exposition stands entirely within a heresiological frame existing since the church fathers of the early Christian centuries. The perspective is no better in another important work from around 1600, the famous Annales Ecclesiastici of Cesarius Cardinal Baronius. His innovation is that he brings in a new source to study the origin of Mani’s religion, namely the Acta Archelai, which relative value has been discussed so much, even until this very day (Jason BeDuhn and Paul Mirecki, eds., Frontiers of Faith: Encounters between Christianity and Manichaeism in the Acts of Archelaus, nhms 61).
Modern Researchers of Manichaeism
Limiting this survey to the book publications on Mani and his religion, the first important (though small) volume in the twentieth century is Burkitt’s The Religion of the Manichees(Cambridge, 1925). Francis Crawford Burkitt was a professor of divinity in the University of Cambridge, a specialist in Syriac studies and several other fields. His admirably accessible booklet (it was based on lectures) is crystal clear about the phenomenon called Mani’s Church: the real background of Manichaeism is Christianity. According to Burkitt, Manichaeism is a Christian Gnostic sect, especially in the line of Bardaisan and Marcion. It deserves our special attention that Burkitt claims all this and in this way, although he is also very well acquainted with the new sources discovered at Turfan and Dunhuang who tended to change the view of many a contemporary researcher to other points of view. In essence, much of the same may be said of Henri-Charles Puech. His famous book, Le manichéisme. Son fondateur, sa doctrine, appeared in1949. This publication is still much quoted today, as are his volume Sur le manichéisme et autres essais that includes many of his still very valuable lectures at the Collège de France. Puech does not speak much about the possible inspirational sources of Mani’s religion: like many of his precursors, he refers to Marcion and Bardaisan. For him Mani’s religion is above all a doctrine deliberately designed by the founder, for which Puech prefers the term “gnosticisme” over “syncrétisme.” While he was obviously unaware of recent discoveries such as those of the Cologne Mani Codex and Kellis,16 Puech’s publications on Mani and Manichaeism remain brilliant.
We enter a rather different world with Geo Widengren’s book Mani und der Manichäismus. His fairly complete overview first appeared as an Urban Taschenbuch in 1961 (English translation: London, 1965).Widengren was a very well-known history of religion scholar who had dealt with Mani and his views much earlier in his career. It is striking that for this great Swedish scholar “Iran” always seems to have the last word. For example, Widengren reports in his 1945 publication The Great Vohu Manah and the Apostle of God: “The doctrine of cyclic revelation [is] an Iranian theologoumenon.” But perhaps even more emphasis should be placed on (as the title of his next 1946 book reads) Mesopotamian Elements in Manichaeism. This book is full of discussions of Manichaean terms and concepts like “the tree of life,” “the defeated Saviour,” “the Dialogue between the heavenly Messenger and Primal Man” and concludes that these terms and concepts should be interpreted as Mesopotamian elements. According to Widengren, Mani gives Iranian interpretations of old Mesopotamian myths. Or phrased differently: “The basic thoughts of his religious system are Iranian, the language is that of the Mesopotamian Gnostic with Christian sympathies.”17 Indeed, Widengren is aware of the latter (i.e., the Christian) elements; as witnessed, for example, by the fact that already in 1945 he reports that the heavenly twin met by Mani is Christ: “Mani, the Apostle, has a Pair-companion, Christ, and so has also the individual soul.”
But Iran (and its Zurvanism in particular) remains Widengren’s point of reference, as he also clearly states in his “Einleitung” to the collection Der Manichäismus in the influential series Wege der Forschung. The said book was published in 1977, five years after the revolutionary discovery of the Cologne Mani Codex. The cmc clearly pointed to a Jewish and Jewish-Christian milieu of origin of young Mani and consequently contradicted many of Widengren’s opinions. Widengren saw the contradiction with his own views, but his answer was to doubt the authenticity of the cmc: “Bis dieses Problem gelöst ist, ist es unmöglich diesen Text für die Entwicklungsgeschichte des Manichäismus zu werten.”19 Interesting and too little noticed is the 1962 monograph of the Czech scholar Otakar Klíma, Manis Zeit und Leben. Klíma is best known as an Iranist; he sees Mani’s doctrine as a grand Gnostic system in which ideas from Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, and Christianity have become dominant.20 Klíma’s book contains much important information and the author (I wonder if he had Jewish roots; in any case, his knowledge of the Hebrew language and Jewish customs is admirable) provides valuable data precisely about Jewish traditions in Babylonia and thus also, e.g., for the name of Mani.
The Amsterdam dissertation of Lodewijk J.R. Ort, Mani. A Religio-Historical Description of his Personality, published in 1967 as the first volume of the supplements to Numen, has also received little attention. I must mention the book because it is a monograph and purports to be a description of Mani’s personality and call. Ort summarises which Manichaean texts from East and West are available; he discusses Mani’s perception of his own religious significance; he also shows how Mani’s religious personality is judged by his followers and by others. There is some good discussion in the book, but the criticism of his use of the Iranian material by, for instance, Mary Boyce and Shaul Shaked was severe.22 The book is mainly introductory and a summary of opinions; it does not in fact bring new insights.
The Discovery of the Cologne Mani Codex (cmc)
