The Baptist Followers of Mani: Reframing the Cologne Mani Codex

For decades, scholars of religious studies have questioned the anachronism of the category of "religion" for discussing the historical emergence of Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, and Hinduism. Beginning already with Wilfred Cantwell Smith in the 1960s, however, Manichaeism was heralded a...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Han, Jae Hee (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Brill [2019]
In: Numen
Year: 2019, Volume: 66, Issue: 2/3, Pages: 243-270
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains:B Codex Manichaicus Coloniensis / Manichaeism / Baptists
IxTheo Classification:AZ New religious movements
KDH Christian sects
Further subjects:B Baptists
B Cologne Mani Codex
B Origin
B Manichaeism
B Parting of Ways
B Sasanian Empire
B Jewish Christian
B Elchasaites
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Summary:For decades, scholars of religious studies have questioned the anachronism of the category of "religion" for discussing the historical emergence of Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, and Hinduism. Beginning already with Wilfred Cantwell Smith in the 1960s, however, Manichaeism was heralded as an exception to this pattern, and Mani has been understood as perhaps the first to found a new "religion." This article considers how this model shaped the interpretation of the Cologne Mani Codex (CMC) and offers a fresh reading of its rhetoric of differentiation and identification. It attends to how the CMC frames Mani as a reformer among the Baptists and in continuity with this Baptist past. It ultimately argues that the creators of the CMC did not think of "Manichaeism" as a distinct "religion." Finally, it aims to recalibrate the study of the Cologne Mani Codex towards broader attempts at situating it within a Syro-Mesopotamian milieu.
ISSN:1568-5276
Contains:Enthalten in: Numen
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1163/15685276-12341539