stephan huller

I think is going to put the death knell on the idea that Mani's association with Christianity was invented at a later date: http://www.iranica.com/articles/coptic-manichean-texts

COPTIC MANICHEAN TEXTS. Until the turn of this century Manicheism (see chinese turkestan vii; Ries, 1988; van Tongerloo, 1991) was known exclusively from secondary sources, mainly Christian, Zoroastrian, Buddhist, and Islamic heresiological writings by opponents of Mani (216-76 c.e.). At the beginning of the 20th century discoveries along the Silk Road provided new primary source material; these text fragments, written in previously undeciphered or little-known languages and scripts—*that is, Tokharian, Middle Persian, Parthian, Sogdian, Bactrian, and Old Uighur—or in Chinese and Persian, considerably changed the interpretation and apprecia*tion of Manicheism, which was revealed as a complex mosaic, to which pieces are continually being added. While research on these texts was in progress a group of Coptic Manichean texts was discovered in Egypt in the late 1920s, and major editions were released within a decade. With the contemporaneous discovery, deci*phering, and initial publication (which extended into the period after World War II) of the Turfan texts, the appearance of these texts was the most significant advance in the period between the two world wars. After 1945 the major advance in Manichean source material was the acquisition and edition of a miniature Greek codex (see cologne mani codex) until 1991, when new Coptic and other texts were discovered in the sands of Dāḵla oasis, about 230 miles straight west of Luxor in Egypt, on the ancient site of Kellis (modern (I)smant al-Ḵarab). All the known Coptic Manichean documents are in a characteristic sub-Akhmimic dia*lect (L4, Manichean Coptic; see, e.g., Funk, 1985; Kasser, 1984; idem, forthcoming).

Coptic Manichean texts discovered in the 1920s. At least seven 4th-century Coptic Manichean papyrus codices said, probably erroneously, to have come from Madīnat Māżī (Gk. Narmoûthis, in the Egyptian Fayyūm) were divided into eight parts by three dealers (among them the former chief cashier of Crédit Foncier in Cairo, Maurice Nahman, d. March 1948) in 1929; the Danish Egyptologist Hans Ostenfeld Lange (1863*-1943) was approached in November of that year, but after extensive negotiations the codices were sold to Alfred Chester Beatty (see chester beatty library i) and Professor Carl Schmidt “Kopten-Schmidt”; 1868-1943) of Berlin, who collaborated on the first scholarly publication of the finds (Schmidt and Polotsky); eventually part of Schmidt’s collection was given to the Akademie der Wissenschaften in Berlin. After conservation work on the entire group by the German specialists Hugo Ibscher (1874-1943) and his son Rolf (d. 1967) in Berlin the Beatty material that had been mounted was returned to its owner in Lon*don; in 1953 his collection was transferred to Dublin (see chester beatty library iii). The fate of the remaining fragments is not entirely clear. Owing to the vicissitudes of World War II some seem to have been returned to the Ägyptologisches Museum in East Ber*lin, some were taken by the Soviets and ended up in Warsaw, and some may have been destroyed or lost, though it is possible that they have been preserved in the Community of Independent States (formerly U.S.S.R.). The history of the discovery and present whereabouts of the collections has been described in contradictory fashion by Walter Beltz, Alexander Böhlig (1968; 1989a; 1989b), Søren Giversen (1986a; 1988c; 1988a; 1988b), Rolf Ibscher, James M. Robinson, and Michel Tardieu (1982). The seven identified codices include the Manichean psalmbook, a fragment of the Synaxeis, two versions of the Kephalaia, a collection of homilies, the Acts, and a volume of Mani’s letters.

The two parts of the psalmbook (Codex A, Chester Beatty Library, 578 pp.) have been published, part I (172 folios) in a facsimile (Giversen, 1988a; 172 folios), part II (117 folios) first in an edition with English translation (Allberry; 117 folios) and then in facsimile (Giversen, 1988b). Only a few of the psalms have been studied (Giversen, 1986a, pp. 375ff.; idem, 1988d, pp. 269ff.; Krause). Some unmounted frag*ments were brought from the Ägyptologisches Museum in East Berlin by Otto Firchow when he fled to the British zone in 1945; they are now in the British Museum.

The Synaxeis, which was broken up by the Egyptian dealers, includes Codex B in the Chester Beatty Li*brary (thirteen mounted leaves; facsimile edition, Giversen, 1986c, pp. 101-26) and P. Berol. 15995 in Berlin (156 mounted leaves and the preserved book block, containing at most 120 unmounted leaves). Although several scholars have studied this badly preserved codex (Böhlig, Carsten Colpe, and Robinson and his colleagues), only some of the chapter titles and notes on the codicological structure have been pub*lished (Mirecki, 1988; idem, forthcoming; King).

The two collections of the Kephalaia, despite their similarities in title and other details, are characterized by significant differences. The largest portion of one of them is preserved in Berlin (P. Berol. 15996; more than 472 pages, partially published with German trans*lation; Polotsky [pp. 1-102] and Böhlig [pp. 103-292]; Böhlig, 1966; idem, 1989a, pp. 638ff.); after 1945 some unpublished leaves turned up in Warsaw, and pages 311-30, missing from the Berlin fragment, were bought in Egypt by Adolf Grohmann and are now in the Nationalbibliothek, Vienna (K 11010a-h; cf. Gardner, 1988, I, pp. 53-55). The second codex is in the Chester Beatty Library (Codex C, 354pp.; fac*simile edition, Giversen, 1986b); it contains running heads with the title The Kephalaia of the Wisdom of My Lord Mani.

Only the smaller portion of the collection of homilies (Codex D, Chester Beatty Library) was immediately published and translated into German (Polotsky; facsimile edition, Giversen, 1986c, pp. 1-98); the larger portion (P. Berol. 15999) was considered by prewar scholars to be unmountable and was treated as an exhibition piece (known as “the wig”).

A photograph of the Acts codex (P. Berol. 15997) with its cover intact was published in 1933 (Schmidt and Polotsky, pl. 2), but only seven or eight leaves survived 1945. At least one of them is in Warsaw, and another ended up in Dublin (ed. Giversen, 1986c, pp. viii-ix, pls. 99-100).

The last codex contains a selection of Mani’s letters (P. Berol. 15998); a total of between twenty-six and thirty-four leaves are known to survive, three of them in Warsaw.

Recent discoveries. In the first three seasons of excavations (1986-88) conducted by Colin Hope (1988; idem, 1990), the joint Australian, Canadian, and En*glish Dakhleh (Dāḵla) Oasis Project, under the overall direction of Anthony J. Mills, unearthed a quantity of promising Christian and classical Greek texts, includ*ing one by Isocrates Orator (436-338 b.c.e.). In the fourth season (January-February 1991; Hope, 1991; Jenkins, 1991) House Three was uncovered at Kellis; it contained more than 3,000 papyri and other frag*ments, among them 4th-century Manichean documents in Syriac script (on papyrus and parchment), a bilin*gual Syriac-Coptic board containing an eschatological text of major importance (Depuydt, 1991), several fragments of a miniature codex (cf. the Greek Cologne Mani Codex), and two codices made up of wooden boards (from room 4) containing Manichean hymns and psalms, both known and unknown examples. The publication of this important collection has been announced (Alcock et al.).

Directions for research. Because of the very nature of the material, each group of sources (Coptic, Greek, Iranian, Uighur, and so on) has a particular importance for the study of Manicheism. Despite the loss of Mani’s Living Gospel, the fragments of a commentary contained in the Coptic Synaxeis furnish a glimpse of this canonical work (Böhlig, 1968, pp. 185, 222ff.), and perhaps eventually a link with similar Central Asian material will be established. The psalms, be*cause of both their number and their literary qualities, are unique; a connection with Mandeism should be considered, and a comparison with the Iranian hymns would also be advantageous. The psalms of Thomas in particular have been a focus of study (Adam; Kasser, 1991; Krause; Mirecki, 1991; Nagel; Oerter; Richter; Säve-Söderberg; Segelberg; Wurst). On the other hand, the Kephalaia provide true doctrinal compendia, clarifying many points in the Turfan documentation (e.g., the pantheon, technical terminology, Mani’s background, and relations with the Iranian and Chi*nese treatises; see Sundermann, forthcoming). The Dublin Kephalaia codex is particularly promising, for it includes references to the traditions of eastern Manicheism. Coptic documents are also important for the study of Manichean christology (see christianity v; Gardner, 1991; Helderman). The homilies are not only beautifully expressed lamentations but also in*clude information on the historical events connected with Mani’s tragic end and the beginnings of ecclesi*astical history (Sundermann, 1986; idem, 1987). One major difference from the Central Asian sources is that there seems to be no confessional ritual in Coptic Manicheism. The only published leaf of the letters and the Dublin Kephalaia are also of great interest for Iranology, as they contain names and functions (cf. Tardieu, 1988; Funk, 1990). Relations and exchanges between Manichean communities and early Christians in Egypt are still much debated (Stroumsa). Finally, comparison of Manichean technical terminology with that in the critical editions of the gnostic corpus, planned as part of A Dictionary of Manichean Terms and Concepts, under the aegis of the international research project Manichaica, should result in a more elaborated interpretation of Manicheism as a gnostic system (Rudolph; Ries, 1975-76). Linguistic, and especially dialectological, research and publication of archivalia (copies of lost or deteriorated originals preserved in the archives of the former Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin) are also im*perative. The bilingual and trilingual fragments from Kellis will eventually cast new light on the originality of the texts and the techniques of translation.

After the early publication of Coptic texts in the 1930s World War II and the subsequent discovery of the gnostic texts from Nag Hammadi (Najʿ Hammādī) in Egypt diverted attention from them until Giversen undertook facsimile editions of the Dublin material in the 1980s. Critical text editions, translations, and commentaries of this material are expected in the 1990s, under the supervision of the International Com*mittee for the Publication of the Manichaean Coptic Papyri Belonging to the Chester Beatty Library, directed by Giversen (Denmark), Rodolphe Kasser (Swit*zerland), and Martin Krause (Germany). An edition of the Berlin Coptic documents, under Robinson’s direction, is also anticipated. For current Manichean bibliography and information on the International Association of Manichaean Studies, the issues of The Manichaean Studies Newsletter (1988-), edited by Alois van Tongerloo, should be consulted

Given the scope of the fourth century evidence and the fact that it contains clear allusions to Jesus and the Manichaean form of Christianity (which ultimately developed from heretical sources) it is impossible to argue that Mani's association with Christianity was secondary. Mani died in 276. These fragments come from within a few generations of his death. How can anyone propose a posthumous origin here. There is just too much evidence. The Acts of Archelaus clearly portray Mani going to Marcion (= Marcellus) for his approval (through his bishop Archelaus) and recognition that he was the Paraclete foretold by Jesus.

Can you really tell me that a Catholic made up this stuff? Really?

Toto

Why would Eusebius or his henchmen insert the Marcionite form of Jesus' name or citations from a heretical gospel?

...

But Christians did not insert Jesus' name into the story of Apollonius.

Nope. So far you have no reasons. Just idle speculation.

mountainman

I get that point alright. Toto (and perhaps yourself) may not be up with the latest scholarship on the Acts of Archelaus:

"Scholarly consensus now solidly takes the position that the events as described in the AA are fictitious.

Frontiers of faith: the Christian encounter with Manichaeism in the Acts of Archelaus,
by Jason BeDuhn, Paul Allan Mirecki. (2007 CE)

NB: "AA" hereunder refers to "Acts of Achelaus"

This is what I have termed in the OP the process of "Christianization".
(Building a new religion out of parts scavenged from older models.)

stephan huller

The work was developed however by a community that thought that Paul was the Paraclete. This means that the narrative was NOT fabricated by an orthodox author. You always get hung up on the fact that fiction means 'Constantine did it.' People write narratives to make a point. I never cited the narrative to prove that Mani did this or that in Harran:

The real point of the narrative was that a Manichaean 'disciple' visited the community named Turbo. I noted that 'Marcion' appears in the narrative. It is impossible to believe that Marcion was actually there when he was dead for centuries.

The fact that there were fictitious elements to the story in no way 'proves' your point. You cite the material again quite selectively (as is your habit). The whole section reads:

... how shall we deal with one who presents himself nearly three hundred years after, and sets up his claim to the heirship? Shall we not cast him off from us? Shall we not justly pronounce such a one an alien— one who cannot prove himself to have belonged to those related to our Master, who never was with our departed Lord in the hour of His sickness, who never walked in the funeral procession of the Crucified, who never stood by the sepulchre, who has no knowledge whatsoever of the manner or the character of His departure, and who, in fine, is now desirous of getting access to the storehouse of grain without presenting any token from him who placed it under lock and seal? Shall we not cast him off from us like a robber and a thief, and thrust him out of our number by all possible means? Yet this man is now in our presence, and falls to produce any of the credentials which we have summarized in what we have already said, and declares that he is the Paraclete whose mission was presignified by Jesus. And by this assertion, in his ignorance perchance, he will make out Jesus Himself to be a liar; for thus He who once said that He would send the Paraclete no long time after, will be proved only to have sent this person, if we accept the testimony which he bears to himself, after an interval of three hundred years and more. In the day of judgment, then, what will those say to Jesus who have departed this life from that time on to the present period?

Just a question - how do you continue to do this? I can almost understand orthodox believers who manipulate texts in the defence of God. But this is just an idea you had. You probably had lot's of ideas. Why misrepresent a text to make a point that doesn't even prove your over all point.

The rabbinic literature thought that Jesus lived at the time of Alexander Jannaeus. What's your point? That the rabbinic literature was invented by a Roman conspiracy? Believe it or not I have corresponded with these guys and pointed out a number of errors in the book.

Whenever the text was written. If it was 'three hundred years from the The text is clearly rewritten according by at least two Catholics revisions. Jerome says that the narrative was originally written in Syriac. It was rewritten in Greek before surviving ultimately in a barbarous Latin. The inescapable point however is that original authors were not Catholics but Marcionites in Osrhoene. This proves that there were TWO independent witnesses to the idea that Mani was a heretical Christian (Catholic and Marcionite witnesses). The existence of a villages and manuscripts from Egypt within the same period close the case.

Mani claimed to be the Paraclete of Jesus. Thus Christianity was already pre-existent prior to Constantine.

Mani died c. 276 CE. The Acts of Archelaus were written within one or two generations of his death claiming that he was a Christian. We have archaeological evidence around the same time that a Manichaean canon and related writings witnessed his original claim to be associated with Jesus. Ephrem lived only slightly later (c. 306 - 373) and witnessed the same thing. Various Roman reports affirm the same thing. To argue that some conspiracy was responsible for making Mani Christian post-humously is a terrible way of explaining away the evidence.

stephan huller

And just to emphasize again. Those claiming that Jesus was 'made up' (not necessarily mountainman but all so-called 'mythicists') MIGHT have an argument although I do not necessarily buy into that argument. I would argue that whatever Christianity was in the first century it was constantly redefining itself throughout the second, third and fourth centuries.

But in the case of 'Mani' (remember this is a title not his real name) we have a real person. No one doubts this and the evidence comes very close to his death. It is very, very, very, very difficult - if not impossible - to argue within two generations of his death the tradition associated with him became radically transformed from something that had no knowledge of Jesus, Christianity and the New Testament into something else that bought into the whole Christian paradigm and made it central to Manichaeanism.

If you think there is a rational argument to be made for this position I haven't heard it. I have just heard the typical 'there are wierd things' about the reporting of the tradition. I do not see this as an argument FOR conspiracy, corruption, remoulding, refashioning of an original Manichaeanism that knew nothing about Jesus, Christianity and the New Testament (and related apocryphal texts). This is just a deperate attempt to rescue a fourth century conspiracy doctrine from oblivion.

In order to explain a wholesale revision of Marcionitism you'd have to explain why a Manichaean settlement in Egypt would already have been Christianized within two to three generations after Mani's death. You'd have to explain the 'almost three hundred years' after Jesus's crucifixion in Acts of Archelaus (I take that to mean any number of years more than two hundred and fifty so 28 + 250 = a document written around 278 CE or the time of Mani's death) AND most importantly you'd have to explain why the neo-Marcionite tradition of Osrhoene would have invented a historical text and would have been influential in 'corrupting' or counterfeiting the original non-Christian Manichaean belief into one which argued that Jesus heralded the coming of a Paraclete who wasn't the apostle Paul (i.e. Marcionite orthodoxy) but that he was really heralding Mani. In other words, you'd have to argue that the tradition was falsified by disgruntled Marcionites in a region of the Empire that was not controlled by the Romans.

Why these neo-Marcionites would have wanted to work hand in hand with the alleged Eusebian conspirators 'falsely implying' that Mani revised the local Marcionite orthodoxy of 'Paul the Paraclete' simply boggles the mind. I look forward to your thesis.

Littlejohn

What do you think that the 'Paraclete' term really means ?..... I ask you this because behind such a term is hidden an exegetical 'key' extremely important, because it allows us to reconnect to the jesuan vicissitude a narrative that apparently does not seem to be referenced to Jesus of Nazareth ...



Greetings


Littlejohn

.

stephan huller

Little John

Menachem literally means 'one who consoles' in Aramaic but is always used in rabbinic Judaism as a name of the messiah (i.e. the one who's appearance 'consoles' the weary hearts of the oppressed Jewry). I have always thought that the name 'Mani' was a dimunitive of Menachem as it is today in modern Hebrew:

http://israelmatzav.blogspot.com/200...headlines.html

http://books.google.com/books?id=8JE...eni%22&f=false

I think the circumstantial case is pretty strong that 'Mani' is really only a diminutive form of menachem in Aramaic too. You will always see rabbis named Menachem referenced as 'Mani.' It provides a powerful argument not only that his followers called him '(beloved) Paraclete' - after all Mani's original name was 'Corbicus.' (Acts of Archelaus 53). While the text and many scholars have inferred that the name must be Persian Mani's native tongue was Aramaic. His claim to being the paraclete of Jesus is so central to the cult that the Aramaic diminutive makes more sense.

And I think with this we close the book on the idea that 'Mani' was only Christianized after his death (like it was ever in doubt) ...

One more thing that is useful to note. If my theory holds up and Mani means '(beloved) Paraclete' it is interest that the name of Marcion is still preserved in the Latin diminutive (Marcellus). Was the Manichaean cults use of the diminutive an appropriation of the Marcionite devotion to 'Marcion' i.e. (beloved) Mark? Yes, it would seem to be so, I think. Will confer with some people on this tonight. But there are examples in the Coptic Psalm Book that Marcion was a precursor of Mani. It would make sense.

Toto

If Pete cannot come up with more than the mere possibility that some Christian forger inserted Jesus' name into a fourth century manuscript, that will be the end of this topic.

Transient

Possibilities are all we work with really - nothing is for certain in history.
Some things are merely more likely than others.
As far as Mani is concerned, we seem to have some documents, some of which don't seem to have been yet translated, and others seem to be difficult to get translations of for the average person to check.
If we accept the details of these documents as being true, ie that Mani was what the documents suggest, then why wouldn't we also just accept what the NT documents say about "Jesus"?
It seems to me that we readily accept stuff written about anyone else except "Jesus".
We don't even know if the documents about Mani are all based on a single source or not or whether there was any truth to what they say.

stephan huller

What kind of a cop out is that? Either there is a case to be made that Mani was misrepresented by his own tradition or there isn't. I haven't seen anything yet that would lead me or anyone else to take this position seriously. I am troubled by this concerted effort to build a firewall around a theory (the fourth century conspiracy) that even you yourself say that you don't subscribe to.

Mani was received as the (beloved) Paraclete by his followers because he presented his missionary activity as being related to Christianity. Indeed the very fact that Manichaeanism spread so quickly in the Empire was owing to the fact that there were pre-existent Christian communities who held that Jesus was announcing the coming of a Paraclete - not a divine wind but a messiah.

This form of gospel interpretation was still influential enough to allow for the rise of Mohammed three hundred years later. The gospel text that reinforced this notion seems to have been some early version of the Diatessaron.

Again as bring up the weakest of objections - i.e. "we seem to have some documents, some of which don't seem to have been yet translated, and others seem to be difficult to get translations of for the average person to check."

Where do you get this information that there are texts which support the fourth century conspiracy theory position if they haven't been translated yet? Have you spoken to the scholars who discovered them and they told you the contents (I am seriously asking this question because many of them are from Australia)?

As it stands referencing the 'possible' existence of 'some' documents 'some of which' might possible, maybe if someone gets around to 'translating' them seems hardly a serious argument or one that anyone should worry about.

Not only is Mani the Paraclete who never knew Jesus hypothesis dead in the water, the 'conspiracy' of Eusebius and Constantine manufacturing Christianity in the fourth century has just been sunk too. Not that you should care because you said you never subscribed to that belief in the first place, right?