Manichaeism: The Silk Road Religion

manichaeism was an ancient religion named after the 3rd century visionary and prophet mani among his many titles he was called both an apostle of jesus christ and the buddha of light in these two titles we see one of the defining features of manichaeism it was a universalist and missionary religion that was carried across the trade routes bridging europe with asia starting in the sasanian empire it spread westward toward rome and east toward china adapting to its cultural surroundings wherever it ended up including adapting terminology and ideas from christianity zoroastrianism and buddhism we see this in what is possibly the only surviving manikin temple which houses a statue of mani appearing as the buddha in many respects manichaeism was a silk road religion but what was manichaeism all about who was its founder mani and how did it relate to these other religions in antiquity this episode of religion for breakfast was made possible by our awesome fans on patreon if you'd like to gain access to the religion for breakfast discord server as well as participate in exclusive monthly live streams please consider supporting the channel at patreon.com religion for breakfast little is known with certainty about the founder of manichaeism mani many legends surround his youth upbringing and life even his name mani might be a religious title rather than a proper name deriving from a syriac word meaning my living vessel but what we know is that he was a world traveler a prolific writer and was remembered as a visionary healer and miracle worker mani lived most of his life in the sasanian empire a persian empire that covered much of mesopotamia and modern-day iran he was born around 216 ce among the aramaic-speaking populations near the city of catessaphon on the tigers river and here in the marshlands of mesopotamia surrounded by a multi-religious population of syriac christians mandaeans and jews mani was raised within some sort of religious sect that practiced baptism we know this from one of the most consequential discoveries for the study of manichaeans the mani codex a credit card sized book discovered in egypt in the 20th century and it dates to the 5th century the monty codex contains a description of mani's life presumably compiled by his earliest disciples now despite some obvious embellishments in his biography most scholars have accepted the information about his upbringing as historical based on the monty codex and other sources many scholars now believe that we can identify the baptizing community of mani's youth as the christian alka-site community which would explain the prominent role of biblical narratives and christian terminology and manichaean thought when mani was a teenager he received his first vision from a spiritual companion a supernatural twin that revealed hidden wisdom about a supernatural light imprisoned in the darkness of the material world this light was even trapped inside animals and plants and could be harmed by harvesting fruit and vegetables in one of the most fascinating passages in the monticodex monty tells of a member of the baptist sect who is bringing vegetables to the elder of the city when suddenly the veggie starts talking that vegetable wept and said to him are you not righteous are you not pure why then are you taking us to the fornicators similar stories about talking bread and talking palm trees highlight monty's new message about how the supernatural light is trapped in our world and could be harmed in everyday life by everyday actions he set out to reform the baptist community but his fellow baptizers did not appreciate his revelation and novel practices these revelations led to conflicts within the community and ultimately mani broke away from them at the age of 24 following yet another vision from his spirit twin mani embarked on a missionary phase of his movement manikin texts describe him traveling all over mesopotamia iran and even sailing as far as india to the mouth of the indus river mani apparently gathered followers and friends in high places as seen in his relationship with the great sasanian king shopper the first manikin literature says that mani's public mission coincided with the coronation of shopper and later describes him gaining imperial support from persian royalty he even wrote a middle persian book for the king in which he lays out his teachings ultimately mani's message and growing popularity led to animosity with one of the court priests who managed to get mani imprisoned and executed around the age of 60. an event that is remembered in coptic manichaean texts as a crucifixion though it's much more likely he simply died in prison it's difficult to untangle what parts of his biography are real and what parts are legendary one legend describes that on his way back west from india mani traveled through the kingdom of tehran in central asia and was granted an audience with the king the king of tehran recognized mani's authority and declares him the two titles that i mentioned at the start of this video you are blessed buddha you are the apostle of god basically recognizing him as a new universalist prophet but unlike so many religious founders mani actually left behind a lot of his own writings it appears that mani viewed himself in the mold of the apostle paul writing letters and embarking on missionary journeys in his own letters he introduces himself as an apostle of jesus christ self-reflectively using the same title that paul adopted 150 years before and although none of his texts survive in their entirety the many fragments of mani's own writings give us a glimpse into the early framework of manikin belief and practice after his death mani's message lived on in a network of traveling missionaries with the support of local manikin communities this so-called manikin church regarded itself as the carrier of a superior revelation transcending previous wisdom revealed by other prophets like jesus the buddha and zarathustra a coptic manichaean text claims my church surpasses the first churches because the first churches were chosen according to place according to city my church it is provided for it to go out from all cities and its good news attains every country this summarizes the universalist expansionism underlying manichaean ideology jesus was sent to the west buddha to the east zarathustra to iran but mani himself to the whole world but what was this message what did manakean beliefs and practices involve the manikin myth revolved around a cosmological drama the fate of the living soul which is ensnared in the material world the story goes something like this though it's much more complicated the living soul originated from the father of greatness a transcendent god who stands outside of the universe who through a series of emanations or non-sexual acts of creation surrounded himself with light beings that acted on his behalf but this world of light had an enemy similar to zoroastrians and mandians manichaeans believed in a universe in which light and darkness stood against each other in a primordial cosmological battle a conflict that continued to define all of reality the first man or the primal man one of the beings from the first emanation of the father of greatness descended with his five sons to wage war against the realm of darkness but he was captured stripped of his sons and trapped there light beings from the second emanation came to the rescue they awakened the first man by reminding him of his true destiny and origin in the process they fashioned the universe which despite being made from darkness was considered to be working toward the liberation of the last bits of light that had been left behind the elements of light imprisoned in the material world had several names it was called the living soul the cross of light or in some western sources the suffering jesus this cosmological drama of the living soul being stuck in our world formed the foundation for manichaean religious practice humankind could participate in this battle between light and dark through revealed knowledge or gnosis which has led some to compare it with other forms of gnostic groups in antiquity but the primary way humans engaged in the battle between light and dark was by following the rules and regulations of the manichaean church as members of two classes the elect and the hearers who were also called catechumens in western sources there was a reciprocal relation between these two classes of manichaeans the elect needed the financial and material support of the hearers because the elect needed to keep strict rules of behavior for example since manikins believed in a divine spark captured in the material world simple acts like farming drinking wine or commerce could hurt this light harvesting food could be construed as potential murder we saw this already in the monty codex which tells stories like a baptizer climbing a palm tree to chop down some wood and the palm tree cries out in pain if you protect me from this pain you will not die with the man who is trying to kill me the manichaean elect therefore lived an ascetic lifestyle and depended on food that was donated in order to eat without guilt hearers or catechumens were expected to bring food as daily alms by ingesting food the manichaean elect could purify and liberate the supernatural elements of light trapped inside defiling matter through their digestive processes they themselves are not purified by eating the food but rather they become the altars on which the food is offered and burned the darkness and light mixture is dissolved and the light is liberated this is the same ritual ridiculed by early christian authorities saint augustine who himself was once a manichaean before converting to christianity mocked this belief and if one of the elect should eat the fig after someone else of course committed the sin of picking it after getting it into his guts would burp out angels belching prayers the while another christian bishop cites a manichaean ritual prayer as evidence of their madness calling it an apology to the bread neither have i cast it into the oven another brought me this and i have eaten it without guilt modern scholarship has shown that despite this mocking tone this prayer must reflect an authentic manichaean meal ritual of hearers bringing bread to the elect though detractors made fun of it this remained a core practice for centuries here we see a reconstruction of one of the later depictions of the manichaean meal ritual from an illustrated manuscript dating sometime between the 9th to 11th centuries it illustrates not only the catechumens donating the food but also the sun and the moon the two storage vessels of the light according to manichaean belief we also have a massive amount of evidence of manichaean prayers and liturgies preserved in the sands of egypt manuscripts discovered at sites such as merinet mahdi and kellus attest to a rich culture of prayers and psalms that were presumably performed in congregation one prayer preserved on a piece of wood discovered in the dhaka oasis in egypt reads i worship and glorify all gods all angels all splendors all luminaries all powers these which are from the great and glorious father these which are purified of all darkness and malignants this prayer had been transmitted in several languages and the discovery of this artifact at kellis shows that it was the text of the daily prayers for the hearers and the elect here we see a prayer that expresses both the strong universalism and dualism of manichaean thought we also see an indirect reference to the manikin mission of purifying the light from the darkness perhaps because of its universalism or because of the importance of missionary journeys manichaeans demonstrated an endless capacity to adapt religious ideas from other cultures into their own religious framework another way we can define this is syncretism which means adopting adapting or mixing religious elements from one culture into a native culture manikin texts from various regions were written in the local languages and adopted religious analogies from their religious environments for example some scholars now theorize that buddhism might have influenced manichaeans particularly around their shared belief in the transmigration of the soul while jainism shares the manichaean idea of strict non-violence based on the avoidance of harming plant life the manichaean cosmological drama also probably reflects zoroastrianism manichaean cosmology can be summarized in two catch phrases the two principles and the three times which refers to the worlds of light and darkness and the three temporal stages of the cosmological drama before the mixture of light and dark the mixture itself and the separation at the end of times there's no doubt that both notions were rooted in zoroastrian cosmology because so many manikin texts were written in middle persian parthian and other iranian languages scholars in the early 20th century increasingly viewed manichaeism as in essence an iranian religion some argued that manichaean cosmology is strongly related to the zoroastrian sect zervanism because manichaeans used iranian names for all manichaean spiritual beings the supreme deity of the manichaean pantheon the father of greatness is called zervan and middle iranian terminology while jesus and adam and eve are all given iranian names in addition to the zoroastrian connection manichaeism also is deeply tied to early christianity as we said earlier mani himself was probably raised in a christian sect and later styled himself like the apostle paul he also called himself the paraclete or the one who intercedes on our behalf a term that's usually applied to the holy spirit in trinitarian christianity throughout the 20th century scholars of syriac christianity began to notice similarities between mani's teachings and those of other varieties of early christianity such as mercian for example monty's interest in apostleship and positioning himself in the mold of the apostle paul seems to echo marcion's own interest in pauline christianity marcion himself was a paul fanboy christian heresologists also suggest that marcianism was entrenched in the aramaic speaking east and tied mani with martian manichaean prayers and liturgies also draw heavily from christian practice in fact some of the manikin psalms to jesus that were discovered in egypt are almost indistinguishable from christian psalms one psalm from the coptic manikin psalm book basically praises jesus in every single stanza you would never have guessed it was a manichaean prayer instead of a christian prayer until the last few lines glory and victory to our lord our light mani and his holy elect this last example demonstrates the manikin devotion to jesus although to a different type of jesus than the one venerated by most third and fourth century christians which led some christian authorities to attack it as a heresy these heresyologists frequently called manichaeism madness or manas in greek making a pretty obvious pun on mani's name one example of these heresy hunters is found on a 4th century papyrus from egypt seen here written in a beautiful greek hand by a trained scribe it was carefully folded as you can see here in the nine still visible folds in this letter a fourth century christian bishop from egypt warned his flock against the madness of the manichaeans warning them to be on their guard against these who with deceitful and lying words steal into our houses another christian document writes this false doctrine of different heresies and pagan beliefs was created with the treacherous and fraudulent intent of enticing all kinds of people in fact the manichaeans worship many gods thus wishing to please the pagans here it seems the author is annoyed by manikin universalism as something that tries to entice all kinds of people scholars continue to debate the extent to which these adaptations influenced manichaeism in particular because it's so hard to determine a baseline that might go back to mani himself this makes it difficult to estimate to what extent certain elements belong to the original core of mani's teachings or represented secondary layers of additions but i'd say we should not be so obsessed with searching for a core of manichaeism scholars of religion have argued in recent years that it's a mistake to essentialize a religion boil a religion down to a monolithic essence i'd rather argue that the history of manichaeism is a story of varieties of manichaeism varieties of manichaeism that adapted differently over the centuries whether in egypt iran or in china the recent excavations at the egyptian village ismat al-qarab have demonstrated that loosely connected networks of manikin families lived in egypt supporting traveling elect copying manikin books and praying and singing together in congregation in other words they lived a very similar life to how egyptian christians would have supported a local holy man while gathering in houses or churches to perform prayers hundreds of years later we see a very different kind of manichaeism and the uyghur and chinese world in which these beautiful manuscript illustrations were produced and where manikins made use of buddhist-style temples up-close analysis of such historical and material sources contribute to a rich palette of a multicultural manichaeism a manichaeism that spanned egypt to iran to china if you'd like to learn more about manichaeism i'm including a bibliography in the description below and i'd also like to invite you to an online seminar that i'm teaching about gnosticism in the late antique mediterranean world so every month or so i offer online seminars for about 10 to 15 people through the service speak easy they basically help professors run online workshops i really try to model these seminars after university seminars so they're really discussion based hence the small group this makes it a different experience than an explainer video where i'm just talking at you through the camera or a live stream where i'm basically trying to answer hundreds of comments flying at me at the same time this month's seminar is intro to gnosticism it's a four-part seminar we will examine some of the most important gnostic texts and groups as well as some of the most strident critics among early christianity for tickets click on the link on screen or in the description below thanks everyone

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Length: 18min 55sec (1135 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 03 2021