L’Hymnaire manichéen chinois Xiabuzan 下部讚 à l’usage des Auditeurs

L’Hymnaire manichéen chinois Xiabuzan 下部讚 à l’usage des Auditeurs
Author: Lucie Rault
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 499
Release: 2018-10-16
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004380264

L’Hymnaire manichéen chinois offre un ensemble de 25 hymnes destinées à la pratique de la religion manichéenne par la Section des Auditeurs. Mis au jour à Dunhuang (actuel Gansu) au début du 20ème siècle, après être resté enfoui dans une cache pendant quelque douze siècles, ce rouleau écrit en langue chinoise, comprend plusieurs hymnes transcrites de diverses langues courantes en Asie centrale à l’époque de sa rédaction. Cette traduction apporte une vision nouvelle de la Religion de Lumière, telle qu’elle se vit adoptée par les Chinois, ainsi que de l’ampleur du message du prophète iranien Mani (216-276), aspirant à une portée universelle et destiné à relier entre eux les hommes de tous horizons de par le monde, quelque soit leur origine, leur langue ou leur histoire. L’Hymnaire manichéen chinois presents a collection of twenty-five hymns that were intended for the Manichean religious practice of the class of Auditors. The scroll, which came to light in the early twentieth century in the province of Dunhuang (modern Ganzu) after lying buried for around twelve centuries, contains several hymns transcribed from a variety of languages that were current in Central Asia during the epoch of its redaction. This translation provides a new perspective on the Religion of Light as it was adopted in China, and on the wide reach of the message of the Iranian prophet Mani (216-276) that aimed at universal scope and was meant to unite people from all parts of the world, of whatever origin, language and history.

Women in Western and Eastern Manichaeism

Women in Western and Eastern Manichaeism
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 218
Release: 2022-07-18
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004472223

These papers examine the unique place women held in Manichaeism, both in myth and in everyday life – in marked difference with other religions. The reader is invited to a journey from 4th century Roman Empire and Iran to Central Asia and China

Byzantium to China: Religion, History and Culture on the Silk Roads

Byzantium to China: Religion, History and Culture on the Silk Roads
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 694
Release: 2022-07-18
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004517987

This volume celebrates the outstanding achievements of Samuel N. C. Lieu and his contribution to Manichaean, Roman, Byzantine, and Silk Road Studies. Readers will find his wide range of scholarly interests reflected in the contributions of his colleagues and former students.

The Medinet Madi Library of Manichaean Codices at 90

The Medinet Madi Library of Manichaean Codices at 90
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 294
Release: 2023-06-26
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004542930

The Medinet Madi Library comes of age in this landmark volume as one of the 20th century’s major finds of religious manuscripts. Discovered in Egypt’s Fayum region in 1929, these Coptic codices contain a cross-section of the sacred literature of the Manichaean religion. Early work on the collection in the 1930s was cut short by the ravages of the second world war. Recent decades have brought multiple new editorial projects, on which this volume offers a comprehensive set of status reports, as well as individual studies on aspects of the Manichaean religion informed by the library’s contents.

Mani and Augustine

Mani and Augustine
Author: Johannes van Oort
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 630
Release: 2020-02-10
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004417591

Mani and Augustine: collected essays on Mani, Manichaeism and Augustine gathers in one volume contributions on Manichaean scholarship made by the internationally renowned scholar Johannes van Oort. The first part of the book focuses on the Babylonian prophet Mani (216-277) who styled himself an ‘apostle of Jesus Christ’, on Jewish elements in Manichaeism and on ‘human semen eucharist’, eschatology and imagery of Christ as ‘God’s Right Hand’. The second part of the book concentrates on the question to what extent the former ‘auditor’ Augustine became acquainted with Mani’s gnostic world religion and his canonical writings, and explores to what extent Manichaeism had a lasting impact on the most influential church father of the West.

Manichaeism in Central Asia and China

Manichaeism in Central Asia and China
Author: Samuel Lieu
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2020-10-26
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004439838

The discovery of genuine Manichaean texts from sites like Turfan and Tun-huang since the beginning of the century has greatly increased our knowledge of the teaching of Manichaeism and of its amazing geographical spread in pre-Islamic times. This volume brings together the contributions by a leading authority on the subject including a long survey article on the history of the discovery of the texts from Central Asia as well as articles focusing on some of these texts and on the incredible history of adaptation and survival of the sect in China proper. The studies include many Chinese texts on Manichaeism made available for the first time in their original scripts and in translation. The volume also contains the first ever working catalogue of all Manichaean texts (in western as well as oriental languages) published up to 1997.

The Making of the Medieval Middle East

The Making of the Medieval Middle East
Author: Jack Tannous
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 664
Release: 2018-12-04
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0691179093

A bold new religious history of the late antique and medieval Middle East that places ordinary Christians at the center of the story In the second half of the first millennium CE, the Christian Middle East fractured irreparably into competing churches and Arabs conquered the region, setting in motion a process that would lead to its eventual conversion to Islam. Jack Tannous argues that key to understanding these dramatic religious transformations are ordinary religious believers, often called “the simple” in late antique and medieval sources. Largely agrarian and illiterate, these Christians outnumbered Muslims well into the era of the Crusades, and yet they have typically been invisible in our understanding of the Middle East’s history. What did it mean for Christian communities to break apart over theological disagreements that most people could not understand? How does our view of the rise of Islam change if we take seriously the fact that Muslims remained a demographic minority for much of the Middle Ages? In addressing these and other questions, Tannous provides a sweeping reinterpretation of the religious history of the medieval Middle East. This provocative book draws on a wealth of Greek, Syriac, and Arabic sources to recast these conquered lands as largely Christian ones whose growing Muslim populations are properly understood as converting away from and in competition with the non-Muslim communities around them.

Sino-Tibetan Buddhism across the Ages

Sino-Tibetan Buddhism across the Ages
Author: Ester Bianchi
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 392
Release: 2021-08-24
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004468374

Sino-Tibetan Buddhism implies cross-cultural contacts and exchanges between China and Tibet. The ten case-studies collected in this book focus on the spread of Chinese Buddhism within a mainly Tibetan environment and the adaptation of Tibetan Buddhism among a Chinese-speaking audience throughout the ages.

Self-Portrait in Three Colors

Self-Portrait in Three Colors
Author: Bradley K. Storin
Publisher: University of California Press
Total Pages: 275
Release: 2019-09-03
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0520304136

A seminal figure in late antique Christianity and Christian orthodoxy, Saint Gregory of Nazianzus published a collection of more than 240 letters. Whereas these letters have often been cast aside as readers turn to his theological orations or autobiographical poetry for insight into his life, thought, and times, Self-Portrait in Three Colors focuses squarely on them, building a provocative case that the finalized collection constitutes not an epistolary archive but an autobiography in epistolary form—a single text composed to secure his status among provincial contemporaries and later generations. Shedding light on late-ancient letter writing, fourth-century Christian intelligentsia, Christianity and classical culture, and the Christianization of Roman society, these letters offer a fascinating and unique view of Gregory’s life, engagement with literary culture, and leadership in the church. As a single unit, this autobiographical epistolary collection proved a powerful tool in Gregory’s attempts to govern the contours of his authorial image as well as his provincial and ecclesiastical legacy.

The Medieval Manichee

The Medieval Manichee
Author: Steven Runciman
Publisher:
Total Pages: 234
Release: 1982-09-16
Genre: History
ISBN:

A reissue of Sir Steven Runciman's classic account of the Dualist heretic tradition in Christianity from its Gnostic origins, through Armenia, Byzantium, and the Balkans to its final flowering in Italy and Southern France. The chief danger that early Christianity had to face came from the heretical Dualist sect founded in the mid-third century AD by the prophet Mani. Within a century of his death Manichaean churches were established from western Mediterranean lands to eastern Turkestan. Though Manichaeism failed in the end to supplant orthodox Christianity, the Church had been badly frightened; and henceforth it gave the hated epithet of 'Manichaean' to the churches of Dualist doctrines that survived into the late Middle Ages.