Customer Reviews

Manichaeism in the later Roman Empire and medieval China (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament)

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All of his major books are exceptional reading and extremely informative. They aren't for someone who wants a casual understanding of Manichaeism, but they are never unreadably obtuse or so loaded with jargon as to be incomprehensible. I used them extensively in university and was sad when I had to return them to the library.

If you're interested in Late Antique religion of the Roman Empire and Syria, early Christianity, or Manichaeism, you must hunt this book down. It is not only the best introduction to Manichaeism available to date, but every page drips with the astounding erudition and expertise of the author. Thus, it is inspiring academically as well as an invaluable historical reference work. I paid $100 for this book, and, after having read it, I think every penny was well spent.

In the third century AD a Syro-Persian, Mani, founded a highly evangelistic Gnostic religion in Mesopotamia which was to claim among its converts in the Roman Empire the young Augustine, and which was later to be seen as the inspiration for Paulicians, Bogomils and Cathars in medieval West. It became a world religion with followers spread across Central Asia as far as China it was suppressed as a rebel ideology. Professor Lieu, an international Authority on Manichaeism, presents the first full account of its origins and history, its persecution in the Roman and Chinese Empires and its extraordinary survival in Egypt, North Africa, Central Asia and China, and provides the first English translations of many Greek, Latin, Syriac and Chinese texts. It will appeal to both specialist and general readers in the history of Rome, China and Iran, in theology and comparative religion, and anyone with an interest in the history of contacts between ancient civilisations.

Manichaeism was a third century dualistic religion, founded by Mani, who fused Persian, Christian, and Buddhist elements into a major new faith. It was fought in the West as a virulent Christian heresy. Mani's religion was a complex Gnostic system offering salvation by knowledge. The main features of Manichaeism were enunciated in an elaborate cosmogonical myth of two absolute and eternal principles which manifest themselves in three eras or "moments." The first moment describes a radical dualism in a previous age. Light and darkness (good and evil), personified in the Father of Lights and the Prince of Darkness, were both coeternal and independent. In the middle moment Darkness attacked and became mixed with Light in a precosmic fall of primal man. This resulted in a second creation of the material world and man by the evil powers in which Light is trapped in nature and human bodies. Redemption of Light occurs by a cosmic mechanism in the heavens by which particles of Light (souls) are drawn up and fill the moon for fifteen days. In the last phases of the moon Light is transferred to the sun and finally to Paradise.

Short Passage:
"At death, the soul of the Elect returns direct to the Kingdom of Light and is received with great honour. The soul of the Hearer however, has to remain on earth and by a series of reincarnations in the luminous bodies of fruits and finally in the body of the Elect it too will return to the Kingdom of Light. How soon this final liberation is achieved depends on how devoted the Hearer has been to the service of the Elect. The souls who have not awakened by the Nous are reincarnated in the souls of beasts..."