The Manichaean body : in discipline and ritual

385 Pages·2000·1.048 MB·English

by  Jason BeDuhn

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THE MANICHAEAN
BODY

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The Manichaean
Body
In Discipline and Ritual
J D B D
ASON AVID E UHN
T J H U P
HE OHNS OPKINS NIVERSITY RESS
Baltimore & London
©2000 The Johns Hopkins University Press
All rights reserved. Published 2000
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
2 4 6 8 9 7 5 3 1
The Johns Hopkins University Press
2715 North Charles Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21218-4363
www.press.jhu.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data will be found at the end
of this book.
A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 0-8018-6270-1
To Richard Frye and Kurt Rudolph
for opening the door

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Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xv
Note on Texts and Transliterations xvii
1. Out of the Past 1
2. Disciplinary Regimens 25
3. Disciplinary Rationales 69
4. Alimentary Rites 126
5. Alimentary Rationales 163
6. The Liberation of the Embodied Self 209
7. “Ein Etwas am Leibe” 234
Table of Textual References 273
Notes 277
Bibliography 337
Index 349
Plates follow page 162

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PREFACE
The preponderate orientation of the history of religions towards
“ideology” . . . should recede in favor of a greater emphasis on the
practical field of the cultus. . . . Religious communities are chiefly
cultic communities. . . . It is from practice that mythology derives
its religious significance; otherwise, it is only literature.
—Kurt Rudolph
We are in danger of losing the Manichaeans. The adherents of this extinct
world religion have been brought before our eyes again only in this century,
in the form of the lacunous utterances of their tattered books and the faded
images of their faces on scraps of a once-accomplished art. This is all that re-
mains of one of the major forces in religious history, a world religion on a
scale that rivaled the more familiar members of that elite category: Buddhism,
Christianity, and Islam. Beginning in third-century C.E.Mesopotamia in the
proclamation of Mani, or Manihayya (Latinized as Manichaeus, from which
we get the modern designation of the religion), it quickly spread throughout
the Roman and Persian empires, and within four centuries had planted com-
munities from Spain to China. In each region, it competed with and influ-
enced its religious rivals, leaving a lasting mark on the world’s religious inher-
itance. But failure to gain significant and sustained political backing,
relentless persecution, and other factors still not fully understood brought the
Manichaean world crashing down. One by one, Manichaean communities
died out, disappearing from Europe by early mediaeval times, driven from the