stephan huller

I have stumbled onto some more examples of Mani being used as a diminutive of Menachem:

http://www.woodstockfilmfestival.com...s.php?id=20592

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7...613211,00.html

http://israeliartistsgroup.com/blog/...a-strigberger/

But most important of all I have found an Aramaic inscription with the name Mani which at least some scholars have argued is a diminutive form of Menachem:

http://cojs.org/cojswiki/Meroth_Syna...5th_century_CE

How can anyone argue now that the theoretical possibility exists that Mani is related to menachem or 'Paraclete' in Aramaic in the scholarly literature that the reason Corbicus was so called as a confirmation of his status within the community as the messiah? And furthermore that in the period before Mani that there were gospels witnessing Jesus expecting a menachem to come? We know this already because the Acts of Archelaus and the Marcionite literature make clear that this was the belief of the Marcionites.

I am not interested in stomping on the claims of mountainman here. I am instead focusing my attack on the volumonous nonsense that has been written on Mani. Why hasn't anyone figured out that Mani is probably a diminutive form of Menachem? I guess I will find out tonight when I call a couple of Semitic language experts I know ...

Transient

Not sure what you are talking about here.
I was talking about the documents that you said had been found that related to mani.
What pre-constantine documents are there that support the tying of Mani to "Jesus"? What name did they use instead of "Jesus". Where can I view such documents to double check those claims?
I am not interested in what people have said in later years about Mani - could be made up for all I know.

stephan huller

I actually want to thank mountainman for bringing up this question because I have finally proved my suspicion from ten years ago that Mani is a dimunitive of Menachem. I knew that the form was used in modern Hebrew but now I finally bothered to check Aramaic manuscripts and lo and behold Mani is indeed a diminutive of Menachem:

It is reported that "Haggai opened the discourse and Jonah and Jose closed it" (TJ Rosh ha-shanah ii. 58b) Jonah left a worthy son and successor in Mani II. (Mani is an abbreviation of Menachem), who was a pupil of Jose II. He lived and taught for the most part in Sepphoris. http://books.google.com/books?id=VRk...II.%22&f=false

R. Mani II or Mana, son of Yonah, of the fifth generation of the Amora era (fifth century CE) studied under Yose II and appears frequently in the Jerusalem Talmud. R. Mani I of Mana son of Tanchum lived in the second generation of the Amora era. Here also appears in the Jerusalem Talmud http://books.google.com/books?id=wxN...bbinic&f=false

There is evidence that it was a common dimunitive for Menachem. For instance Leviticus Rabbah mentions a R. Mani of Sheab. Yet I wonder whether the Babylonian Talmud's reference to "R. Mani of Tyre" (Sanhedrin 5a) is proof enough that the dimunitive Mani derived its origins from Babylonian Jewish Aramaic. The same figure seems to be referenced in Palestinian sources as R. Mana. If so this would strengthen the connection between Mani the Paraclete and the term menachem.

Mani also has a gematria of 100 = m (40) n (50) y (10). I think I can even argue that the title was known to the Marcionites from Irenaeus's Against Heresies. But that's later.

The point now is that there is no getting around the fact that Coribus was a Christian. He chose the title 'Mani' for himself because he was claiming to be the Paraclete of Jesus in the Aramaic language.

Toto

Who is this Coribus? NewAdvent says

stephan huller

I was copying the form of Mani's real name from the Acts of Archelaus. You know I am always rushed. It should have read 'Corbicius.'

I did find however that Schaff points to someone who formulated the same hypothesis I have presented just now. So at the very least there are two crazy people who came up with the same idea. Schaff presents a number of theories about the title Mani. Ephiphanius of course throws out the bullshit that it comes from 'mania.' Then he goes on:

Hyde, whose opinion on any Oriental subject must have weight, tells us that in Persian mani means painter, and that he was so called from his profession. Archbishop Usher conjectured that it was a form of Manaem or Menahem, which means Paraclete or Comforter ; founding this conjecture on the fact that Sulpicius Severus calls the Israelitish king Menahem, Mane. Gataker supplements this idea by the conjecture that Mani took this name at his own instance, and in pursuance of his claim to be the Paraclete. It is more probable that, if his name was really given on account of this meaning, he received it from the widow who seems to have adopted him when a boy, and may have called him her Consolation.

Of course I have now taken this one step further - the name is common among Jews to this day. There can be no doubt about the connection. What's the matter with these people? Why wouldn't they have looked for example among Aramaic speaking Jews named Menachem?

stephan huller

Some more people who had my idea before I did:

The learned and sagacious Archbishop Usher having dropped a suggestion in his Annals on the similarity between the name of Menahem king of Israel, and that of Manes,* Beau- sobre has sought to confirm the conjecture, which indeed is unquestionably the right one. The name Manes is nothing but that of but that of Manaem, that is to say, the Paraclete, the Comforter, changed first into Manem, and thence by the Greeks, not admitting the termination m, into Manen or Manes. It was very natural to suppose (Paraclete being one of the Oriental significations of the name,) that Manes chose it because of his pretensions to be considered the Paraclete promised in the New Testament We think it more likely that the name, acting with and upon his growing fanaticism, suggested to him the pretension, or rather confirmed him in it. He may have really persuaded himself that he had been thus marked and designated.

http://books.google.com/books?id=-vs...%2C%22&f=false

stephan huller

And here's a guy who doesn't seem to be aware that Jews have always used Mani as an abbreviation or diminutive of Menachem. As such this other guy writes:

Hebrew James Ussher (Usher, Usserius, 1581-1656) and Thomas Gataker (1574-1654) thought that Mani is a short form of the Hebrew name Menahem and that it is a synonym for the Greek parakletos "comforter, consoler". In the Greek Bible translation Menahem is rendered as Mana'em, (II Reg 15.14-23). The laryngeal is omitted in Greek. Sulpicius Severus (ca. 360-ca - 410 CE) a Christian historian from Aquitania, quotes the Israelite king Menahem as Mane in his chronicle (I.49.2): a name which is very similar to the Latin Mani. Already in the early tradition the parakletos of the Gospel of John was identified either with Mani's heavenly twin, who revealed him all secrets, or with Mani himself. Therefore it would not be completely impossible to derive Mani's name from the Syriac mnahhem or the Hebrew menahem - both participial forms have the same meaning and correspond to the Greek parakletos. But the eastern forms of Mani's name require a long vowel and not a short one or a neutral vowel as here. Because it is not a common practice in hypocoristic names to transform a syllable with a long vowel into a syllable with a short vowel followed by a double consonant, it is better to exclude this possibility.

http://books.google.com/books?id=gjm...mes%22&f=false

Of course we have already demonstrated that in the real world, Jews always substituted Mani for Menachem. Notice that the author does not outright deny the possibility. It might be a good idea for him to make some Jewish friends the next time he makes pronouncements on what is possible and impossible in the Semitic languages.

The lesson here as always is never think you know everything ...

Littlejohn

Hi Stephan!

I do not know if are correct your assumptions about the relationship between the Mani name and Hebrew 'Menachen'. However I'm certainly agree with you about the real meaning of 'Paraclete'..

Concerning Mani, I must say that I disagree completely the allegations made by someone according to which Mani was a Christian.

A statement of such a kind is corresponding to the one according to which the 'johannites' (ie the Sabaean / Mandaeans) were the 'Christians of St. John, 'as they were defined in West until about a couple of centuries ago. Today scientists know perfectly well that nothing is further from the truth of that statement, starting with the fact that John the Baptist was absolutely NOT a Christian and nor a 'precursor' of Christianity, since he was a well-known Gnostic teacher of his time!

Mani was mostly an astute 'syncretizer' of cults, which knew how make to live in a only doctrinaire reality elements belonging to various religions, including Gnosticism by John the Baptiste, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Judaism and Christianity.

Should be noted that Mani, already since his early childhood, grew up in a Mandaean community of the southeastern Iraq (at the time of Mani as part of the Sassanid Empire). The one that Mandaeans taught to Mani was to detest the figure of Jesus of Nazareth (but NOT the mother!), inasmuch their ancestors, namely the 'nasurei' of the John's sect, retained Jesus as a deceiver and an evil person. (the reason about the one must be researched in facts occurred in Palestine between the years 30-50)

However at one point was the 'turning point' and Mani began to rescue the figure of the Nazarene, so much as to arouse the grudge and the wrath of the Mandaeans, with whom he had lived until then. At that point, Mani was forced to abandon this community, in order to better develop its new 'creature': the Manichaeism!


Greetings


Littlejohn

.

stephan huller

Little John,

I am quite certain now that 'Mani' was taken to be related to menachem. Previous generations of scholarship AS ALWAYS had no real working knowledge of Judaism IN THE REAL WORLD. In other words, not having Jewish friends, lovers, acquaintances has cost them dearly. If these people had one friend, acquaintance, lover named Menachem they would have known the name was always shortened to Mani. The fact that we see this process happening in fourth century rabbinic sources IN ARAMAIC closes the book on the issue for me.

The other thing you should be aware of - and it is something which many, many people don't get (mostly because of the fixation that people have with Jesus) - and that is that the evidence from the Marcionite, Manichaean and Islamic traditions make clear that Christianity itself was defined differently in the east. I know this is hard to grasp for people but IMO Jesus really didn't matter as much to these people. He wasn't the focus of the religion. He was just a set up person for 'the one who was to come.' As a result Mani really thought of himself as a Christian - it just wasn't 'Christian' in the sense that we are used to i.e. a believer in 'Jesus Christ.'

stephan huller

Another point that people fail to recognize is that the Manichaean tradition's origin from someone claiming to be the 'Paraclete' (i.e. Mani) is paralleled three hundred years later by Islam's origin from someone with that same name in Arabic. This can't be a coincidence.

Muḥammad is the Arabic equivalent of a title of the Menaḥem. At the moment I don't know the Hebrew form behind it, but it will be from the same root, ḥet mem dalet. Look up the passive participle ḥamud and the abstract noun ḥemdah. I mean look them up in the big dictionary of Biblical Hebrew for attested usage as well as Jastrow. Note the contexts in the OT which words from this root are used. Try to find verses or groups of verses with both forms from nun ḥet mem (verbs in the pi'el and the abstract noun neḥamah) and the root ḥet mem dalet.

We shouldn't forget although that the verb nun ḥet mem in the nif'al usually means either to change your mind or to regret having done something, and in the pi'el to comfort someone, it can mean to take vengeance in the hitpa'el or nif'al.

The point is that since both Mani and Mohammed both identified themselves as the Menaḥem of Jesus and both can also be traced back to some kind of affiliation with the neo-Marcionite tradition of Osrhoene we have to accept the idea that our 'Jesus Christ' tradition only represents the reforms IMPOSED on Christianity by the Roman leadership from 180 - 325 CE. In other words in the lands outside of the Roman Empire Jesus came as the herald of someone else who was to be the messiah.

I argue that Mark was the original Menaḥem, Mevasser (Arab. Mubashir = Evangelist), Shelaḥ (שלח Arab Rasul = Apostle) who was divided and renamed 'Paul.' Mani came to argue that Jesus AND Paul heralded him. It is unclear how Mohammed viewed Paul but clearly he had copies of the Diatessaron with variant readings in support of the idea that Jesus came to herald the coming of another messiah. Mohammed's appropriated all of the titles of the Marcionite messiah (i.e. his name Mohammed = Paraclete, Mubashir and Rasul and 'the Prophet' like Moses Deut 18.18

Jesus was old news for Semitic Christianity. He wasn't the central focus of the tradition. The glad tidings were about 'Christ' who was someone else.