Christianity and Manichaeism

The religion of Mani arose from a Judaeo-Christian milieu in southern Mesopotamia in the third century - a time of both cultural and religious syncretism. When it was first proclaimed in the Roman empire by missionaries from the Syriac-speaking parts of the Persian empire it was attacked by pagan emperors as a Persian religion bent on destroying the moral fabric of the empire and by Christian leaders as a Gnostic-type heresy embodying a strong element of Marcionism as well as numerous pagan and foreign (mainly Iranian) features. The discovery of genuine Manichaean sources, from Turfan in Central Asia and from Medinet Madi and Kellis (Ismant el-Kharab in the Dakhleh oasis) in Egypt, has shown that Manichaeism was a universalist religon founded not to imitate but to surpass other major religions of late antiquity in order to absorb their followers into its fold.17 page(s