The Founder of Manichaeism

The Founder of Manichaeism
Author: Iain Gardner
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 145
Release: 2020-03-05
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1108499074

A new critical look at Mani's life to establish a proper historical foundation for the study of this fascinating thinker.

Manichaeism

Manichaeism
Author: Michel Tardieu
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Total Pages: 134
Release: 2008
Genre: Manichaeism
ISBN: 0252032780

Good and evil, light and darkness; for the first time in English, a potent survey of Manichaeism

Manichaeism

Manichaeism
Author: Nicholas J. Baker-Brian
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 168
Release: 2011-02-17
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0567308979

This is the first general comprehensive introduction to Manichaeism aimed at a non-specialist and undergraduate readership. This study will be a historical and theological introduction to Manichaeism. It will comprise a biographical treatment of the founder Mani, situating his personality, his writings and his ideas within the Aramaic Christian tradition of third century (CE) Mesopotamia. It will provide a historical treatment of the Manichaean church in late antiquity (250-700 CE), detailing the emergence of Manichaeism in the late Roman and Byzantine empires, in addition to examining the continuation of Manichaean traditions in the eastern world (China) up to the thirteenth century and beyond. The book will consider the theology of Mani's system, with the aim of providing a clear-eyed treatment of the cosmogonic, scriptural and ecclesiological ideas forming its foundations. The study will base its analysis on original Manichaean literary sources, together with rehabilitating the representation of Manichaeism in those writings that polemicised against the religion. The study will aim to demonstrate the highly syncretic nature of Manichaeism, and will look to move forward 'traditional' perceptions of the religion as being simply a form of Christian Gnostic Dualism.

Constructions of Gender in Late Antique Manichaean Cosmological Narrative

Constructions of Gender in Late Antique Manichaean Cosmological Narrative
Author: Susanna Towers
Publisher:
Total Pages: 324
Release: 2019-12-12
Genre: Manichaean cosmology
ISBN: 9782503586663

Manichaeism emerged from Sasanian Persia in the third century CE and flourished in Persia, the Roman Empire, Central Asia and beyond until succumbing to persecution from rival faiths in the eighth to ninth century. Its founder, Mani, claimed to be the final embodiment of a series of prophets sent over time to expound divine wisdom. This monograph explores the constructions of gender embedded in Mani's colourful dualist cosmological narrative, in which a series of gendered divinities are in conflict with the demonic beings of the Kingdom of Darkness. The Jewish and Gnostic roots of Mani's literary constructions of gender are examined in parallel with Sasanian societal expectations. Reconstructions of gender in subsequent Manichaean literature reflect the changing circumstances of the Manichaean community. As the first major study of gender in Manichaean literature, this monograph draws upon established approaches to the study of gender in late antique religious literature, to present a portrait of a historically maligned and persecuted religious community.

Manichaean Texts from the Roman Empire

Manichaean Texts from the Roman Empire
Author: Iain Gardner
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 342
Release: 2004-06-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780521568227

This 2004 book is a single-volume collection of sources for Manichaeism, a world religion founded by Mani, the Syrian visionary.

Mani's Pictures

Mani's Pictures
Author: Zsuzsanna Gulácsi
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 555
Release: 2016-04-18
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004308946

The founder of Manichaeism, Mani (216-274/277 CE), not only wrote down his teachings to prevent their adulteration, but also created a set of paintings—the Book of Pictures—to be used in the context of oral instruction. That pictorial handscroll and its later editions became canonical art for Mani's followers for a millennium afterwards. This richly illustrated study systematically explores the artistic culture of religious instruction of the Manichaeans based on textual and artistic evidence. It discusses the doctrinal themes (soteriology, prophetology, theology, and cosmology) depicted in Mani’s canonical pictures. Moreover, it identifies 10th-century fragments of canonical picture books, as well as select didactic images adapted to other, non-canonical art objects (murals, hanging scrolls, mortuary banners, and illuminated liturgical manuscripts) in Uygur Central Asia and Tang-Ming China.

The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Studies

The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Studies
Author: Susan Ashbrook Harvey
Publisher: Oxford Handbooks Online
Total Pages: 1049
Release: 2008-09-04
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0199271569

Provides an introduction to the academic study of early Christianity (c. 100-600 AD) and examines the vast geographical area impacted by the early church, in Western and Eastern late antiquity. --from publisher description.

Mani & Rudolf Steiner

Mani & Rudolf Steiner
Author: Christine Gruwez
Publisher: SteinerBooks
Total Pages: 123
Release: 2014-08-26
Genre: Anthroposophy
ISBN: 1621481093

For many centuries, the teaching of Mani was hidden behind the distorted picture that had been created by the adversaries of Manichaeism in East and West. In the course of the twentieth century, new light was shed on Manichaeism by the discovery of several Manichaean scriptures. These have shown that Manichaeism was a true, distinct world religion that, in the question of good and evil, for instance, offers insights that complement and deepen Christianity. Also in the twentieth century, Rudolf Steiner brought Anthro­posophy, Spiritual Science, which is a continuation of a stream of esoteric Christianity that has run through human history ever since the resurrection of Christ. Anthroposophy is centered on a new, deepened idea of Christianity that, as indicated by Rudolf Steiner, is so great and all-encompassing that it can be understood in its full depth only gradually. In this book, Christine Gruwez explores the essence of Mani’s revelation and then shows what Rudolf Steiner has communicated regarding Mani and his teaching. This generates an image of two spiritual streams that, each from its own beginning, are moving toward a future when a Christianity of the deed shall become reality.

The Manichaean Body

The Manichaean Body
Author: Jason David BeDuhn
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 390
Release: 2002-08-23
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780801871078

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.

Muhammad and the Empires of Faith

Muhammad and the Empires of Faith
Author: Sean W. Anthony
Publisher:
Total Pages: 303
Release: 2020
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0520340418

Introduction : the making of the historical Muḥammad -- The earliest evidence -- Muḥammad the Arabian merchant -- The Beginnings of the corpus -- The letters of 'Urwah ibn al-Zubayr -- The court impulse -- Prophecy and empires of faith -- Muḥammad and Cædmon -- Epilogue : The future of the historical Muḥammad.