
The Letters of Mani
A Lost Scripture of the Late Antique World
Iain Gardner(Author)
Oxford University Press
Will be published approx. on 23. June 2026
Book
Hardback
304 pages
978-0-19-889275-5 (ISBN)
Description
Mani or Manichaios was a major religious figure in early Sasanian Mesopotamia (third century CE) renowned as a healer, a visionary, an artist, and a public sage. The community that he founded, the religion of Manichaeism, spread across Eurasia from the late Roman world of the Mediterranean to south China, where it lasted into the early modern period. Due to its prominent success in Central Asia through the latter part of the first millennium, it played a major role as a conduit for ideas, literatures, and practices between east and west. Mani authored many letters in Aramaic during the years of his public mission (ca. 240-270s CE). These letters were collected together to become one 'book' in his new scriptures and the letters were regarded as canonical by followers of Manichaeism. They were translated into numerous languages and read for centuries as guides to life and faith, as well as being utilized in liturgical contexts.
No complete version of The Letters survives from antiquity, but there are many remnants and quotations scattered across a diverse set of sources and languages: lengthy citations from individual letters in Latin preserved by Augustine of Hippo and his circle; codex pages preserved in Coptic and Middle Persian recovered during the twentieth century from Egypt and Xinjiang; references throughout other Manichaean literature in Coptic, Sogdian, Uighur, Chinese etc.; a list of titles preserved in Arabic by Ibn al-Nadim; and forgeries used in polemical texts that circulated in the ancient world. This major new study, the first ever dedicated to the topic, contains both a detailed study of the available evidence and a new English translation of all the relevant texts, citations, and allusions. A considerable amount of the material included is either entirely new to scholarship or only known to a small circle of specialists working on original manuscripts in diverse languages.
No complete version of The Letters survives from antiquity, but there are many remnants and quotations scattered across a diverse set of sources and languages: lengthy citations from individual letters in Latin preserved by Augustine of Hippo and his circle; codex pages preserved in Coptic and Middle Persian recovered during the twentieth century from Egypt and Xinjiang; references throughout other Manichaean literature in Coptic, Sogdian, Uighur, Chinese etc.; a list of titles preserved in Arabic by Ibn al-Nadim; and forgeries used in polemical texts that circulated in the ancient world. This major new study, the first ever dedicated to the topic, contains both a detailed study of the available evidence and a new English translation of all the relevant texts, citations, and allusions. A considerable amount of the material included is either entirely new to scholarship or only known to a small circle of specialists working on original manuscripts in diverse languages.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 22 mm
Weight
609 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-889275-5 (9780198892755)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Iain Gardner is Emeritus Professor of the History of Religions at the University of Sydney. He was appointed to a Lectureship in Early Christian Studies at the University of Kent at Canterbury in 1979 and received his Doctorate from the University of Manchester on 'The Christology of Manichaeism' in 1983. Professor Gardner emigrated to Australia in 1986 and after several years at Edith Cowan University in Western Australia, he was appointed as Chair of the Department of Studies in Religion at the University of Sydney in 1998. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities.
Author
Emeritus Professor of the History of Religions, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Sydney
Content
1: Introduction to Mani as a Writer of Letters 2: The Nature of the Evidence 3: The Collection and Circulation of The Letters 4: Letter-Writing within the Manichaean Community 5: Case Studies A: The Texts: A B: A List of Titles as Recorded by Ibn al-Nadim in his Fihrist (Tenth Century, Arabic) C: The Coptic Epistles Codex from Medinet Madi (P. Berol. inv. 15998) #REF! E: A Small Codex in Middle Persian F: Quotation from The Letter to Edessa (Greek) G: Passages from The Letter on the Foundation (Latin) H: Short Citations from The Letters in Manichaean Texts from Central Asia and China I: The Letter on the Seal in Middle Iranian Sources J: A Leaf from a Coptic Codex (P. Kellis VI Copt. 54) K: A Fragment in Uighur Turkic (U140) L: The Letter to Menoch (Latin) M: Mani's Letter to Marcellus According to The Acts of Archelaus N: Extracts from Letters by Mani in Christological Controversy O: An Early Letter Written between Two Church Leaders in Parthian (M5815II) P: A Selection of Manichaean Community Letters and Phraseology in Greek, Coptic, and Latin Q: Other Potential Evidence for Mani's Letters