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The Kephalaia of the Teacher: The Edited Coptic Manichaean Texts in Translation with Commentary
The Kephalaia of the Teacher is the most detailed account available to modern scholarship of the teachings of Mani, and of the universal religion that he founded as the final successor to Buddha, Zarathushtra and Jesus. This volume provides the first complete English translation of the Coptic text (c. 400 CE), together with introduction, commentaries and indices. Topics include the apostleship of Mani, the practices of the Manichaean community, accounts of the heavenly and demonic beings and worlds, as well as discussions of astrology and religious psychology. In Manichaeism many of the gnostic and dualistic themes of early Christianity achieved the status of a world religion, and the subject is the heir to contemporary interest in heterodoxy and the deconstruction of received histories (see the Nag Hammadi codices).
- GenresGnosticism
352 pages, Paperback
Published September 8, 2016
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October 29, 2024
I recently read a very nice collection of Manichaean texts, also edited by Iain Gardner, that contained some of the kephalaia contained in this collection. This collection is obviously more complete. I am unsure if this collection contains all the available kephalaia of Mani, but if not, it surely contains almost all of them. I think this is essential reading for anyone interested in Manichaeism, or really, anyone interested in gnosticism. Mani's cosmogony is fascinating and while sharing broadly some of the features of other gnostic systems, it also has many idiosyncratic elements that take some time to get used to. This is another one of those books I would love to have in my library someday, but like all the books in this series it is prohibitively expensive.
The work that the editor put into this volume is impressive. In the introduction he warns that Mani's style is dense and loaded, and that in the lacunose section meaning relies more on the impression given by key terms than actual content. So I resolved that rather than reading large sections of this book at a time I would read only a single kephalion if it was long, or only a few if they were short, and then switch to another book to rest my brain.
The editor's explanatory notes at the head of each kephalion were especially helpful. Particularly with long kephalaia, such as kephalion 38 or 56 it is easy to lose one’s way. In such cases the editor labeled the introductory comments to which section of the kephalion he was referencing. This way I was able to refer back to the notes when the topic of the kephalion changed.
It’s a shame that we don’t have a better record of the text. I would like to know more about Mani's views on transmigration but the kephalion where he explains his views most thoroughly was very lacunose. Ah, well. Maybe a better manuscript will show up someday. You never know.
The work that the editor put into this volume is impressive. In the introduction he warns that Mani's style is dense and loaded, and that in the lacunose section meaning relies more on the impression given by key terms than actual content. So I resolved that rather than reading large sections of this book at a time I would read only a single kephalion if it was long, or only a few if they were short, and then switch to another book to rest my brain.
The editor's explanatory notes at the head of each kephalion were especially helpful. Particularly with long kephalaia, such as kephalion 38 or 56 it is easy to lose one’s way. In such cases the editor labeled the introductory comments to which section of the kephalion he was referencing. This way I was able to refer back to the notes when the topic of the kephalion changed.
It’s a shame that we don’t have a better record of the text. I would like to know more about Mani's views on transmigration but the kephalion where he explains his views most thoroughly was very lacunose. Ah, well. Maybe a better manuscript will show up someday. You never know.
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