Iain Gardner, Jason
BeDuhn, and Paul Dilley, Mani at the Court of the Persian Kings: Studies on
the Chester Beatty Kephalaia Codex (Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies 87;
Leiden: Brill, 2015).
This latest volume in
Brill’s on-going Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies series provides a
fascinating preview of the work currently being undertaken by the authors to
finally edit and publish the second volume of Manichaean Kephalaia
discovered in 1929 at Medinet Madi, Egypt. Volume one of the Kephalaia
(the Berlin Codex) has been the subject of magisterial work by Polotsky (1940),
Böhlig (1940, 1966) and Funk (1999, 2000), while volume two (the Dublin codex)
has long languished in obscurity. Part of the problem lies in the fact that the
text preserved on the papyrus is largely illegible, making reading and
reconstruction of the manuscript incredibly difficult. With the exception of
some articles by Funk (1990, 1997) and Tardieu (1988), almost no use has been
made of this material. Nonetheless, Gardner, BeDuhn, and Dilley have persevered
and as a prelude to the forthcoming publication of their edition of the codex,
they have offered some of the first fruits of their study in the current
collection of studies.
The Manichaean Kephalaia
represent a collection of “question-and-answer” literature in which Mani
addresses doctrinal questions posed by various interlocutors. One of the most
remarkable aspects of the Dublin Kephalaia, however, is its decidedly
“Iranian” character. This is explored in several chapters of the book: Chapter
3 “Parallels between Coptic and Iranian Kephalaia : Goundesh and the
King of Touran (BeDuhn); Chapter 5 “Also Schrieb Zarathustra? Mani as
Interpreter of the ‘Law of Zarades’” (Dilley); Chapter 6 “Iranian Epic in the
Cheaster Beatty Kephalaia” (BeDuhn), and Chapter 8 “‘Hell Exists, and We
have Seen the Place Where It Is’: Rapture and Religious Competition in Sasanian
Iran” (Dilley). Much of the exchanges and discussions in the Dublin codex take
place at the Sasanian court and Mani’s interlocutors include a number of
prominent Iranian personages (p. 16-17). These discussions, the authors
suggest, fit into a larger context of court disputations between rival
religious factions (p. 50-51) and indicate an interest in apocalyptic visions
by the ruling elite (p. 214). Moreover, the Dublin Kephalaia contain a
number of references to Iranian epic and religious tradition, which is somewhat
startling given the text’s provenance in a Coptic manuscript from Roman Egypt.
In fact, this means that Manichaeans can be seen as key transmitters of Iranian
traditions from Persian to Roman territory. For those interested in
cross-cultural transmission in Late Antiquity, these chapters will be of
particular interest.
Also of interest, perhaps more to
Manichaean scholars specifically, is the information contained in the Dublin Kephalaia
about the “Last Days” of Mani. In Chapter 7, with the help of the newly
analyzed Dublin material, Gardner attempts to make sense of the various textual
fragments relating to the end of Mani’s life. As such, he offers the intriguing
suggesting that Mani might have spent time exiled in Armenia before being put
on trial. Hopefully, the publication of the edition of the text will help
resolve some of the vexing questions relating to the chronology of Mani’s life.
Finally,
Mani at the Court of the Persian Kings, will also be useful to those
with more theoretical interests related to the academic study of religion,
particularly Chapter 9 “Mani and the Crystallization of the Concept of
‘Religion’ in Third Century Iran” (BeDuhn). In this very insightful chapter
BeDuhn undermines the “tautological” truism, so commonplace in academic
seminars lately, that “religion” is a purely modern construct. BeDuhn makes a
persuasive argument that the idea of religion as system of beliefs and
practices detached from culture and ethnicity, to which one may voluntarily
adhere, reaches its full expression with the dēn founded by Mani himself…in
antiquity! BeDuhn suggests that “Manichaean texts consistently and exclusively
employ…terms to refer to entities recognizable as ‘religions’ rather than
ethnic or political institutions” and that with “Mani, a ‘religion’ category
has displaced ethnicity as the primary marker of identity” (p. 270). This, in
turn, established a paradigm employed by early Islamic scholars (p. 274). What
is so refreshing about this discussion is that it is based on actual historical
and textual evidence, as opposed to being simply reflecting on the concept of
“religion” in a theoretical vacuum.
In general, Mani at the Court of
the Persian Kings is a well-written and solidly researched set of studies
that raise important historical, cultural, and theoretical questions for
specialists and non-specialists alike. It is highly recommended.
