Toto

OK, #11 and a reply, #12 have been moved back to this thread. They will appear in chronological order.

That was the discussion I wanted to remove from this thread. I don't think it will go anywhere. Everyone follows experts at some time, when we don't have the time or energy or expertise to do our own investigation. No one wants to follow some charlatan who merely claims to be an expert. And we all know that even certified experts can be wrong.

Please keep this thread focused on Mani.

avi

And I am still waiting for the Pre-Nicean evidence that Mani's efforts relate in some way to Christianity. Please don't quote from Post-Nicean documents.

avi

stephan huller

Avi,

You are just recycling the arguments you guys use against the documents associated with the Nicene tradition. While I do not agree with that hypothesis I can see where Pete got the germ of his idea - viz. the degree to which Eusebius becomes our filter for a disproportionate amount of information for the writers of the ante-Nicene tradition.

Again while not agreeing with his conclusions there is a certain logic i.e. the ante-Nicene Church Fathers are brought forward by the fourth century Church to prove their origins date back to Jesus.

The problem with this thread that Pete started on the subject of the 'Christianization' of Mani is that he has tried to recycle the same ideas to explain away another Christian culture that has nothing to do with Nicene Christianity. It reminds me of the fifth or sixth movie in a series (i.e. Rush Hour 11, Rocky 15) where the same characters have been dropped into a familiar formula except now set in ancient Persia.

The problem of course is that you can't just drop Eusebius and Constantine into fourth century Persia like you would Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte into Rio de Janeiro to make the sixteenth remake of 48 Hours. Indeed you can't REASONABLY make the case that Eusebius et al corrupted the Manichaean writings.

Or I should say you can't do so and gain any sort of acceptance outside of the echo chamber at this board.

So it is that when I ask for you and Pete to spell out how, when and why this alleged un-Christian form of Manichaeanism was transformed into one which embraced Jesus, you attempt to use the same methods of answering objections with regards to the ante-Nicene writings.

The problem is that it doesn't work here.

The Manichaean writings betray no signs of manipulation by Nicene Christianity. Indeed the Acts of Archelaus clearly originated within a Marcionite community outside of the Roman Empire.

You do owe an explanation to clarify:

(a) WHY Nicene Christians would manipulate a tradition that supposedly had nothing to do with Jesus into a heretical Christian sect

(b) HOW this would have been carried out given that Manichaeanism started and undoubtedly most influential outside the Roman Empire

and

(c) WHEN this was carried out.

Indeed Mani died less than fifty years before Nicaea and we have Manichaean texts from Egypt dated to the third century by Gardner to the period before Nicaea.

I think you are still developing arguments suited for your more familiar explanations regarding the ante-Nicene tradition. Manichaean documents betray no sign of being manipulated by Eusebius or people that thought like him. The arguments make no sense and shouldn't be taken serious by anyone other than those who desperately want to rescue mountainman's aburdities.

Transient

Couple of points:
I asked in an earlier post for details of the earliest documents which connect Mani with christianity - got no response. Please give some details now of these documents you mention here that are pre-Nicea.

Secondly, it has been mentioned many times here that it was not necessarily the RCC, Eusebius etc who "christianized" the Mani tradition - it could have been his followers yet you persist in suggesting that it has to be Eusibius or no-one.

You suggest that there are people here who desperately want to support Pete's theory. Name them because I for sure am not one of them and I know of no-one else here. Please drop that ridiculous accusation.

avi

No. The problem is that without proper evidence, folks on this forum are claiming that Mani was this, or that, type of Christian.

In my opinion, he was a Buddhist. In someone else's view, he was a Zoroastrian.

What you, Toto, need to furnish, to convince me of your supposition that CMC is a legitimate document properly assigning to Mani his own authority, is some other document, (not the CMC,) predating Nicea, (which CMC does not do), affirming this post-Nicean Christian propaganda about Mani's supposed claim to having been the Paraclete.

It is not my job, as skeptic, to refute the contention of forgers, by introducing fresh evidence demonstrating that the orthodox post-Nicean Christians forged various texts, destroying many others.

If you knew more about Buddhism, I think you would understand, that Mani would have had, as one influenced by that tradition, no need to proclaim himself some sort of superman, godlike fanatic. That notion is part and parcel of Judaism, and its two offshoots, Christianity and Islam. The manifestation of unhealthy egoism, resulting from boastfulness, is absolutely hostile, as a component of human behaviour, to one practicing any flavour of of Buddhism.

If you wish to understand Mani, spend LESS time studying Judaism and its descendants, and more time studying Siddhartha. Boastfulness is found in not even the smallest fragment of Buddhist philosophy, so, the idea that Mani would have boasted of being the reincarnation of Jesus is anathematic to anyone with knowledge of the Buddhist tradition. It would have been impossible for Mani to have proclaimed the validity of any aspect of Buddhist philosophy, and concurrently, to have expressed something as idiotic as his having been the living successor to JC, i.e. JC's genuine successor, the actual "Holy Spirit, itself" in human flesh: THE paraclete, as described in John's Gospel.

avi

stephan huller

The documents which were universally acknowledged to have been written by Mani. Even the opponents of Mani acknowledge he wrote the documents central to his tradition. By contrast the Catholic tradition denied that Marcion or the Marcionite explanation as to who wrote the New Testament. Why is this significant? Because the argument which the earlest Patristic writers developed against Marcion is more powerful. By saying that Marcion falsified an original tradition which did not say what Marcion claimed that it witnessed, the Church Fathers effectively cast Marcion as a liar. Making your opponent seem like a liar distracts people from the more important issue regarding whether what they are saying is correct. The Marcionites again never get to explain their interpretation of the New Testament because they are accused of being liars.

The Manichaean claims regarding the origin of their holy books is never disputed. Instead they call Mani a 'madman.' The same situation exists in Maimonides's polemic against Mohammed interestingly (i.e. it is never doubted that he indeed wrote the documents his followers claim he wrote). Instead Mani and Mohammed are identified as 'madmen.'

Arguing that someone is a madman is a subjective argument and much weaker that impugning someone's character. Religious enthusiasm always seems like madness from the outside but believers take it to manifest 'divine inspiration.'

The fact that Ephrem never puts forward that the Manichaean association with Christianity was falsified effectively means that HE COULDN'T MAKE THAT ARGUMENT because it was generally acknowledged EVEN IN THE EAST that Mani wrote the documents attributed to him.

Again they would have claimed that Mani wasn't really Christian if they could have. They couldn't make that bird fly because the contemporary world knew better.

Transient

Well why didn't you say so in the first place. There are documents that were written by Mani. That changes everything. Here is me thinking that we had nothing written by Mani, that it was just later copies that could have been edited, re-worked and all.
So now you just need to point to the proof that there are writings by Mani himself, then it will be case closed.

stephan huller

There are no documents from the earliest period of evidence for the Manichaean tradition that supports your hypothesis. You have to justify why you would ignore all the earliest evidence which witnesses that Mani claimed he was the Paraclete of Jesus

mountainman

As far as I am aware no original Syriac manuscripts or even fragments of the "Canon of Mani" are extant. I may be wrong about this, please correct me if this is not the case. These original writings and all copies thereof were targeted for destruction by the christian orthodoxy during the 4th and 5th centuries, and it appears they were commonly burnt against the sturdy doors of State Church Basilicas. It would be another miraculous event if and when such manuscripts and/or fragments are recovered.


That is correct.

Aspects of Anti-Manichaean Polemics in Late Antiquity and under Early Islam ...by S Stroumsa - 1988


"For more than half a millennium, from its birth in the third century
throughout late antiquity and beyond, his [Mani's] religion was
despised and rejected with the utmost violence by rulers and thinkers
belonging to all shades of the spiritual and religious spectrum.
In this sense, Manichaeism, an insane system, a "mania" [2] appeared
as the outsider par excellence.

[2] So called by Greek Christian heresiographers using a word play
on the founder's name. It appears already in the earliest polemics
in Greek; see e.g. Titus of Bostra "Contra Manichaeos 1.1; and
Epiphanius Pan 66.1

Historians can take it or leave it.


But this is the question: what did those documents of Mani originally disclose? Mani was executed, possibly by cricifixion in the Persian capital c.276/277 CE and his apostles were also persecuted and his writings presumeably destroyed with his body. We may presume that copies and perhaps originals at that time made it out to, or were already being preserved within numerous monasteries within the Roman Empire. It is generally recognised Mani had a number of apostles who travelled to Egypt and Rome and other places.


The post Nicaean Manichaeans appear to have claimed that they were the "True Christians". The question being asked is this. Would the post Nicaean Manichaeans have made this claim if Constantine had not decreed that the state religion was henceforth to be "Christian". To answer this question (and others) it would be good to be able to see exactly what Mani himself wrote in his "Canon of Books", in the third century, before the Council of Nicaea happened.

Correct me if I am mistaken, but we do not yet have such evidence. The evidence which has come to light in the 20th century warns us that the two orthodox polemical anti-Manichaean texts of the early 4th century cannot be relied upon for historical reconstructions. The "AA" by Hegemonius (whoever he was) and "AM" by Ephrem are romantic accounts, containing fictitious material not conducive to historical reality.

Transient

Haha very funny Step.
My theory? I don't have one.
You said there were documents written by Mani that would support YOUR theory.
hehe I was not born yesterday - your convolution and misrepresentations might work on the average dodo but not on me
I guess over the years you have developed these techniques of evasion, misrepresentation and contortions but it is your undoing in the end.
The very fact that you do these things destroys your credibility - who can believe your interpretations of history now?
I have no interest in pulling you down - it does me no good at all - just desist from making false accusations etc, even an apology would help and we can all start over.