Bibliographia Iranica

A predominantly bibliographic blog for Iranian Studies

Tag: Manichaeism

  • Manichaeism and Church History

    Manichaeism and Church History

    Toft, Lasse Løvlund, Mattias Sommer Bostrup & René Falkenberg (eds.). 2025. On the Matter. Studies on Manichaeism and Church History Presented to Nils Arne Pedersen at Sixty-Five (Corpus Fontium Manichaeorum – Analecta Manichaica 4). Turnhout: Brepols Publishers.

    The anthology consists of twenty-nine studies on Manichaean texts in Coptic, Syriac, Chinese, and Iranian languages, as well as on broader Church History including texts from the Nag Hammadi Codices, Coptic and Syriac heresiology and Early Modern religious polemics. Of interest to all scholars of Manichaeism and Late Antique and Medieval Eastern Christianity, and to scholars working on the phenomenon of heresiology and doctrinal polemics within the churches at large. The anthology is a Festschrift for Nils Arne Pedersen at Aarhus University.

    TABLE OF CONTENTS

    Manichaean Texts, Imagery, and Terminology

    • Jean-Daniel Dubois, About the Use of the Term Pistos in Coptic Manichaean Writings
    • Iain Gardner, Who Was Salmaios and What Was His Lament?
    • Jason BeDuhn, Rethinking Manichaean Asceticism
    • Samuel N.C. Lieu, Database of Manichaean Texts – Past, Present, and Future
    • Claudia Leurini, Secret Messages: Traces of Cryptography in the Middle Persian Manichaean Hymns to the Church
    • Iris Colditz, Eine Parabel in einer Homilie Manis in parthischer Sprache
    • Yutaka Yoshida, Middle Iranian Fragments in Sogdian Script from the St. Petersburg Collection – The Fourth Section of the Manichaean Daily Prayers in Parthian and Some Other Middle Iranian Texts
    • Nicholas Sims-Williams, On the Sources of the Manichaean Sogdian Religious Terminology
    • Enrico Morano, A Manichaean Middle Persian Text on the Descent of the Holy Spirit and the Beginning of Mani’s Church (M788)
    • Gunner Mikkelsen, Pearl Imagery in a Chinese Manichaean Hymn
    • John Møller Larsen, Ligatures in the Syriac Manichaean Texts from Kellis
    • Erica C.D. Hunter, Hunting Manichaean Syriac Incantation Bowls
    • Sebastian P. Brock, Imagery Shared and Imagery Avoided: The Manichaean Psalms and Syriac Religious Poetry

    Nag Hammadi, the Bible, and Early Heterodoxy

    • Einar Thomassen, Manichaeans and Gnostics on the Creation of Humanity
    • Hugo Lundhaug, A Luminous Soul in the Likeness of God: Dispensing with the Psychic God in Paul’s Prayer for Revelation in Nag Hammadi Codex I
    • Anders Klostergaard Petersen, The Gospel of Truth as Fully-Fledged Christ Religion
    • Peter Nagel (†), Das Gleichnis vom viererlei Acker in den synoptischen Evangelien und im Thomasevangelium (Logion 9)
    • Mogens Müller, Traces of Marcion in the New Testament?

    Eastern Orthodoxies in Formation

    • Jan Dochhorn, Acherusischer See und Paradies im Zauberpapyrus London, Brit. Libr. Or. 5987, l. 13–24
    • Lasse Løvlund Toft, Virgin Mary as a Heavenly Power in Egypt: Doctrinal Polemics and Theological Diversity in Coptic and Copto-Arabic Homiletic Apocrypha on the God-bearer
    • David G.K. Taylor, Eschatological Rivers of Fire and Purgatorial Purification in Sixth-Century Syriac Texts
    • Flavia Ruani, Le catalogue d’hérésies de Jacques bar Šakko (XIIIe s.) :Livre des trésors II. De l’Incarnation du Verbe, ch. 1
    • Paul-Hubert Poirier (†), Une traduction latine inédite du Contra Manichaeos de Titus de Bostra
    • Henning Lehmann, Eusebius of Emesa Interpreting Exod. 3:14f: Some Remarks on Recent Eusebius Studies

    Churches, and Theologies in Early Modern and Modern Northern Europe

    • Per Ingesman, ‘In Principio Erat Error, Et Error Erat Apud Lutherum’: Paulus Helie on Luther and His Adherents in the Danish Reformation
    • Rasmus H.C. Dreyer, Between Danish and German: A First-Generation Danish Reformer as Lutheran Superintendent (1541–1561)
    • Carsten Bach-Nielsen, Theme and Variations: Lazarus and the Rich Man. Iconography of a New Testament narrative in an age of Reform, c. 1500–1640
    • Kim Arne Pedersen, Grundtvig, the Greeks, and Heresy
    • Mattias Sommer Bostrup, The Life and Afterlives of Bishop Fredrik Nielsen (1846–1907): Social Functions of Church History at the Fin de Siècle
  • Manichaeism: Encounters with Death

    Manichaeism: Encounters with Death

    Towers, Susanna. 2025. Manichaeism: Encounters with death. Studies in the material, spiritual and parabolic body (Studia Traditionis Theologiae 61). Turnhout: Brepols Publishers.

    Born in Persian Mesopotamia in the year 232 CE, the self-proclaimed prophet Mani promulgated a dualist faith that rapidly spread throughout the Roman Empire, Central Asia and China. This monograph comprises a series of studies of the Manichaean conceptualization of death and the afterlife in the context of Manichaean soteriology, eschatology and anthropology. Material, documentary and liturgical evidence is analysed to enrich knowledge of Manichaean funeral ritual and mourning practice. The book explores the thematic symbolism of the corpse in Manichaean parabolic literature, offering fresh interpretations and exploring the influence of Buddhist teachings on the impermanence of the body, karma and metempsychosis.

    Summary

  • Beiträge zur Iranistik und zum iranischen Manichäismus

    Santos, Diego M. & Marcos Albino. 2024. Beiträge zur Iranistik und zum iranischen Manichäismus I (PHILOLOGIA – Sprachwissenschaftliche Forschungsergebnisse, 276). Hamburg: Dr. Kovač.

    Dieser voraussichtlich erste Band eines gemeinsamen, den iranischen Sprachen und dem iranischen Manichäismus gewidmeten Werkes enthält drei Kapitel, von denen jeder eine selbstständige Untersuchung darstellt.

    In “Manichäisch Parthisch zād-murd ‘geboren werden (und) sterben’” wird versucht nachzuweisen, dass zād-murd ein kopulatives Kompositum aus zwei kurzen Infinitiven und eine Lehnprägung nach Gandhari *jadimarana– (~ buddh. Sanskrit jātimaraṇa-) ‘Geburt und Tod; Saṃsāra’ ist.

    In “Parthisch zan(a)g ‘Art, Gattung’” wird vorgeschlagen, dass zan(a)g eine dekompositionelle Bildung vom Kompositum wispzan(a)g ‘aller Arten’ ist.

    In “Mittelpersisch wāz ud wāg ‘Sprache und Rede’” wird die Phrase wāz ud āwāg, welche in zwei Fragmenten des Šābuhragān bezeugt ist, als Übersetzung einer Phrase in Genesis 11.1 erklärt. Dazu wird eine etymologische Erklärung von āwāg entworfen.

    Alle drei Kapitel enthalten darüber hinaus Beobachtungen zu mehreren mitteliranischen Texten und Wörtern.

    To see ToC, select pages, and index click here.

  • Cosmos, society, religion

    Maurer, Moritz. 2024. Kosmos, Gesellschaft, Religion: Zoroastrische und manichäische Sozialordnungsdiskurse in der langen Spätantike (Religionsgeschichtliche Versuche und Vorarbeiten 80). Berlin: De Gruyter.

    For over 400 years, the Sasanian Empire was one of late antiquity’s most powerful empires. Zoroastrian religious specialists came up with a system to order its complex society. By looking at numerous primary sources, this volume reconstructs that process in the context of Sasanian social and economic history and examines its afterlife in Zoroastrian texts.

    About

  • Mani’s Living Gospel and the Ewangelyōnīg Hymns

    Shokri-Foumeshi, Mohammad (ed.). 2025. Mani’s Living Gospel and the Ewangelyōnīg hymns. Edition, reconstruction and commentary with a codicological and textual approach based on Manichaean Turfan fragments in the Berlin Collection (Corpus Fontium Manichaeorum. Series Iranica 3). Turnhout: Brepols.

    This work deals with the manuscript fragments of Maniʼs Living Gospel and the Ewangeliōnīg Hymns of his followers in the eastern Manichaean churches. The author identifies new fragments and improves the previous reconstructions. In this context, he analyzes all the Manichaean and non-Manichaean documents. This book is designed to enlarge our understanding of the Turfan texts by presenting new texts and interpretations.

    Summary

    TABLE OF CONTENTS

    Acknowledgements
     
    CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION
    1.1 Aim, Plan, and Strategy
    1.2 Material and Content of the Living Gospel and Ewangelyōnīg Hymns
    1.3 Outline of This Study
    1.4 History of Prior Research

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  • Lost Turfan Fragments

    Benkato, Adam. 2024. Lost Turfan fragments from the Nachlass of W.B. Henning. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, FirstView. 1–17.

    During the Second World War, a number of manuscript fragments in Iranian languages from the Berlin Turfan collections were lost. Photographs of these fragments preserved in the Nachlass of Walter B. Henning bring to light their contents and fill gaps in the record of Turfan texts. These photographs are published here for the first time, together with a description of the fragments and their contents.

    Abstract
  • Varia Manichaica

    Varia Manichaica

    Morano, Enrico & Samuel N. C. Lieu (eds.). 2024. Varia Manichaica (Corpus Fontium Manichaeorum. Analecta Manichaica 3). Turnhout: Brepols.

    This volume brings together the works of some of the best known and most established scholars in Gnostic and Manichaean studies, Iranologists and art historians. It contains two important and indispensable catalogues of Turfan texts and also studies covering topics such as cosmogony, hymnology and manuscript illumination. A number of Turfan texts in Sogdian and Uygur are published here for the first time.

    Table of Contents

    • Sergio Basso: “Manichaean fragments related to the ‘Barlaam and Ioasaph saga’”
    • Adam Benkato: A Fragment of an Iranian Manichaean ‘Oral Tradition’
    • Fernando Bermejo-Rubio: Mani as a paradigm of the Manichaean Church in the Cologne Mani Codex
    • Şehnaz Biçer and Betül Özbay: The Lotus illustration in a Manichaean manuscript
    • Iris Colditz: Strategies for success. Manichaeism under the early Sasanians
    • Desmond Durkin-Meisterernst: An update of Boyce’s Catalogue of Manichaean Middle Persian and Parthian 
    • Eduard Iricinschi: How Do Wisdom, Law, and Revelation a Religion Make? Appropriation and Displacement in the ‘Chapters of the Wisdom of My Lord Mani’
    • Samuel N.C. Lieu: A catalogue of the Uygur Manichaean texts 
    • Enrico Morano: Uygur in the Manichaean Sogdian texts in Manichaean script from the Berlin Turfan Collection 
    • Nicholas Sims-Williams: The “seven adversities” in a Manichaean Sogdian hymn
    • Michel Tardieu: La métaphore de l’auberge
    • Peter Zieme: “Worte für die Seele”. Altuigurische manichäische Fragmente with an appendix by Yutaka Yoshida

  • Studies in Iranian Philology

    Barbera, Gerardo, Matteo De Chiara, Alessandro Del Tomba, Bhikkhunī Dhammadinnā, Federico Dragoni & Paola Orsatti (eds.). 2024. Siddham. Studies in Iranian philology in honour of Mauro Maggi. Wiesbaden: Ludwig Reichert Verlag.

    This volume is a tribute to Mauro Maggi, celebrating his distinguished career and significant contributions in the fields of Iranian, Indo-Aryan, and Central Asian philology and linguistics. It features a diverse collection of papers presented by colleagues, former students, and friends, reflecting the broad spectrum of Mauro Maggi’s research interests. This collection not only honours Mauro Maggi’s extensive scholarly contributions but also serves as a valuable resource for researchers in Iranian, Indo-Aryan, and Central Asian studies. It will be of interest and value to scholars of Iranian philology and linguistics, as well as those in Indo-European linguistics, Central Asian philology, and Buddhist literature. Through this comprehensive tribute, the volume underscores the lasting impact of Mauro Maggi’s work and his enduring legacy in the field.

    Description
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  • Der Manichäismus

    Hutter, Manfred. 2023. Der Manichäismus. Vom Iran in den Mittelmeerraum und über die Seidenstraße nach Südchina. Anton Hiersemann Verlag.

    Das erste umfassende deutschsprachige Handbuch der unterschiedlichen religionsgeschichtlichen Ausformungen des Manichäismus seit 1961.

    Der in der Mitte des 3. Jahrhunderts u.Z. entstandene Manichäismus war die erste „weltweit“ verbreitete Religion. Mani (216-277) präsentierte seine aus biblisch-gnostischen und iranisch-zoroastrischen Vorstellungen schrittweise entwickelte Lehre als den älteren Religionen überlegen, um die Lehre Jesu im Westen, Zarathustras im Iran und Buddhas in Indien abzulösen. Dieser Überlegenheitsanspruch wurde jeweils lokal spezifiziert, was von christlichen Theologen, zoroastrischen Priestern und chinesischen buddhistischen Gelehrten nicht unkommentiert blieb. Dadurch lässt sich diese Religion durch religionsinterne Quellen sowie externe Fremdbeschreibungen facettenreich rekonstruieren.

  • Women in Western and Eastern Manichaeism

    Scopello, Madeleine. 2022. Women in Western and Eastern Manichaeism (Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies, 101). Leiden: Brill.

    The exceptional place women held in Manichaeism, in everyday life or myth, is the object of this book. Relying on firsthand Manichaean texts in several languages and on polemical sources, as well as on iconography, the various papers analyze aspects of women’s social engagement by spreading Mani’s doctrine, working to support the community, or corresponding with other Manichaean groups. Topics such as women’s relation to the body and elect or hearer status are also investigated. The major role played by female entities in the myth is enlightened through occidental and oriental texts and paintings discovered in Central Asia and China.