Iasion

Greetings all,

While we were discussing the external references to Jesus recently, the subject of Mani as comparison came up.

I checked the external record for Mani (Manes, Manicheus, Maniceus) and here present a table for comparison.

You can also see the web version here:
http://members.iinet.net.au/~quentin...aniVJesus.html


I have split the references into periods of 1/3 century after the accepted death of Jesus (33CE) or Mani (276CE).

In each period I list the number of external works which refer to the name, and also the total number of references there-in (as a very broad measure of the size of the reference.)


The results are notable :


First 3rd-C. :
Jesus 0 (0) - none
v
Mani 2 (19) - Alexander of Lycopolis (16), Arnobius (3)


Second 3rd-C. :
Jesus 1? (2?) - Josephus (2, disputed)
v
Mani 2 (103) - Archelaus (97), Athanasius (7)


Third 3rd-C. :
Jesus 2 (2) - Tacitus (1), Pliny (1)
v
Mani 6 (124) - Ephraim (88), Cyril of Jerusalem (18), Gregory of Nyssa (9), Hilary of Poitiers (7), Eusebius (1), Gregory Nazianzen (1)


Fourth 3rd-C. :
Jesus 3 (~45) - Celsus(40-50), Lucian (1), Galen(2)
v
Mani 3 (26) - Theodoretus (13), Socrates Scholasticus (7), Leo the Great (6)



By this measure, Mani was much better known than Jesus, and much earlier after his death.


Iasion

Vorkosigan

Looks great. You should put in a paragraph or a link/URL that shows why Mani is such a good comparison to Jesus.

andrewcriddle

One issue here is that Mani was killed c 36 years after beginning his ministry Jesus c 3 years after beginning his. Using death as a time to begin ones comparison is biased in favour of Mani, who had much more time to build a reputation before his death.

(One minor point is thatr IMHO the Mara bar Serapion reference comes from less than a century after Christ's death and probably should be included although I agree its dating and significance are both controversial.)

Andrew Criddle

GakuseiDon

To get a comparison, you would probably need to weight the comparisons by dividing by the number of materials extant from the periods in question, and/or the number of materials we would have expected a mention to have occurred in.

As an example, I have no doubt that the USA has more poor people than Australia, but comparing raw numbers without taking population into account would not be too useful if doing a comparison.

Roland

I hate to sound too ignorant, but who the heck is Mani? :huh:

Chili

If the 3 years and 36 years are actual time periods of Jesus and Mani they are not comparable with each other. If anything they confirm that Jesus died and went to heaven while Mani refused to die and spend his time preaching while wandering in the desert until he died and was buried (this became known as hell later on and therefore Jesus and Mani would be opposites).

In other words, anyone who spends 36 years of his life preaching the gospel is cooked enough to never know the difference between heaven and hell.

Let me point at the difference between the first and second beast of Rev. 13 to make this clear wherein the first beast was only given 42 months to get out of there.

mopc

Excellent idea, a athread about Mani.

Mani was a religious leader from Iran whose religios was derived from Zoroastrism, maybe the worl'd first monotheistic religion. He lived in the early centuries a.C., as since his followers kept shouting Mani Khai (Mani lives, in Aramaic) the faith became know as Manichaeism in Greek/Latin.

Like Zoroastrism, Manicheism preached a kind of dualism, the battle of good vs evil, that's why until today people who classify everything in two extremes is called manicheist.

That's what I remember, most if what I know comes from the EXCELLENT book "In Search of Zarathustra" by Paul Kriwaczek. Manicheism survived subsconsciously in many of the so-called christian heresies of medieval times, which were brutally massacred by the Catholic Church (most famous: Albingensian Heresy, whose members were killed mercilessly by the Church, children, women, everyone; they believed a world so filled with disgrace could only have been created by the devil and lived with no sex, only eating plants, as far as I remember). The Bogomils of ancient Bosnia had some Manicheist beliefs.

andrewcriddle

Founder of Manichaeanism a dualistic religion involving the eternal battle of the light with the darkness.

The physical world is largely under the control of the realm of darkness but human souls are fragments of light trapped in this dark world.

Various redeemers have been sent from the realm of light to deliver the trapped light fragments and bring them back home. The practice of celibacy and vegearianism aid the deliverance of the light trapped within the physical world.

Manichaeanism spread to North Africa in the West and China in the East but has had no living followers for several hundred years. (The last Manichaeans died out in China a few hundred years ago.)

Andrew Criddle

mopc

oh, also read my thread on how Zoroastrism influenced Abrahamism:


http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=115499

Chili

If the battle is eternal it shows no victory and must be a heresy if the Catholic church shows victory over darkness and sin.

Dualism enters the mind after being born again (also known as the famous saved-sinner paradox) that must lead to victory wherein the sin nature is crucified in the said time of 42 months (or thereabouts) to end the paradox -- and with it goes religion and its bondage to slavery and sin.