Apocalypses Real and Alleged in The Mani Codex

Apocalypses Real and Alleged in the Mani Codex
Author(s): David Frankfurter

Source: Numen, Vol. 44, Fasc. 1 (Jan., 1997), pp. 60-73
Published by: BRILL
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APOCALYPSES REAL AND ALLEGED IN THE MANI CODEX1
DAVID FRANKFURTER
Summary
The
florilegium
of revelations that Mani adduces as
proof
of his own
authority
in
the
Cologne
Mani Codex has stimulated research into the circulation and influence
of Jewish
apocalypses among
the various Jewish-Christian sects of late
antiquity.
But it has also
proved frustrating,
since not one of the
apocalyptic
"texts" that
Mani
quotes
matches extant
apocalypses
in the name of
Enoch, Adam, Seth,
or
Enosh.
Considering
the breadth of the Enoch literature now known from textual
and
patristic
sources, including
Manichaean
literature,
the absence of a
parallel
for
Mani's
Enoch-"quotation" may
be reason to
suspect
that Mani invented this
quotation
as well as the others. This
paper proposes
an
interpretation
of Mani's
apocalyptic
florilegium
that
depends
not on the historical existence of the
putative
texts but on
Mani's own distinctive scheme of
prophetic lineage
and
authority.
It is
argued
that
Mani's universalist view of mission and
religion
led him to revise
existing
schemes
of Jewish
revelatory
heroes that were traditional to Jewish and Jewish-Christian sects
and that invoked the
patriarchs
constitutive of Jewish
identity,
like
Abraham, Moses,
and
Elijah.
In
contrast,
Mani
promotes
his relevation's ecumenical
appeal by casting
himself in a line of biblical
figures
who in the late
antique
world had
especially
universalist
significance:
Adam, Seth,
and Enoch
(all
antediluvian and therefore
pre-covenantal)
and Paul
(Mani's
model of an ecumenical
missionary).
For those scholars interested in the "life-context" of Jewish
apoca-
lypses
in
antiquity
Mani's odd little
autobiography,
"On the
Origin
of
His
Body,"
has
proved
itself a veritable windfall.2 For here
among
the
various reminiscences of Mani's life the
disciple
Baraies
quoted
Mani
explicitly invoking "apocalypses"
of
Adam, Sethel, Enosh, Shem,
and
Enoch. If the Mani codex had
already vastly expanded
our knowl-
edge
of the ancient Jewish-Christian
group
the
Elchasaites,
then Mani
through
Baraies revealed their
library catalogue.
Or did he? I would like to
suggest
that this
highly
desirable as-
sumption may
be
premature
and that this
"florilegium"
of
apocalyptic
?
Koninklijke Brill,
Leiden
(1997) NUMEN,
Vol. 44
Apocalypses
Real and
Alleged
in the Mani Codex 61
incipits
assembled
by
Mani
might
be
governed-at
least in
part-by
an
ideological
scheme. I want at least to
lay
out the
possibility
that
the
florilegium's alleged
"sources" were invented for the
purpose
of
locating
Mani in the
lineage
of a
particular type
of
revelatory
hero.
I.
Problems in the "Sources"
of
the
Florilegium
Let us look first at the
framing
material in which the
alleged apoc-
alypses appear:
[Thus]
first Adam
[...]
said
[in]
his
[Apocalypse]:
...
Likewise,
also
Sethel,
his
son,
has written thus in his
Apocalyps
e, saying:
"I
opened my eyes
and beheld before
my
face
[an
angel],..."
Again
in the
Apocalypse
of Enosh it reads thus: "In the third
year,
on the
tenth month,
I went out for a walk into the desert
land,..."
Likewise, also,
Shem
spoke
in this
way
in his
Apocalypse:
...
Again
Enoch
spoke
in this
way
in his
Apocalypse:
...
Likewise we know that the
apostle
Paul was snatched
up
to the third hea-
ven,
...
In
conclusion,
all the most blessed
apostles,
saviors, evangelists,
and
prophets
of the truth-each of them beheld insofar as the
living hope
was revealed to
him for
proclamation.
And
they
wrote
down,
bequeathed,
and stored
up
for
remembrance for
[the]
future sons of the
[divine] Spirit,
who will understand
the sense of
[his]
voice.3
It is
quite
obvious,
from a form-critical
perspective,
that this list is
not a
library catalogue.
Even if the
introductory phrases
and the ac-
curate
quotation
of the Pauline material
might imply
the
prior literary
existence of the
testimonies,
the text nowhere
gives any explicit
indi-
cation of
documenting
books read
among
the Elchasaites or others.4
The list
functions, rather,
to
ground
Mani's own
concept
of author-
ity
in a sacred
lineage
of
predecessors.
This function
emerges
most
vividly
in the
preface
and conclusion to the list:
... [E]ach
one of the forefathers showed his own
apokalypsis
to his
elect,
which
he chose and
brought together
in that
generation
in which he
appeared,
and how
he wrote
(it)
and
bequeathed (it)
to
posterity
...
Also in this
way,
it is
fitting
for the
all-praiseworthy apostle (Mani), through
whom and from whom has come to us the
hope
and inheritance of
life,
to write
to us ...5
62 David
Frankfurter
The list
goes beyond
mere
lineage
to reflect the intrinsic
importance
of
turning
one's revelations into text. More than
simply privileged
to meet
angels
and tour
heaven, Adam, Sethel,
and the rest were
specifically
instructed to write down their revelations. In a world
replete
with
legends
of
prophets,
oral
teachings
of
prophets,
and ru-
mors of new
prophets
Mani
put special importance
on the book as the
guarantee
of authentic and authoritative revelation.6
And,
since Mani
criticized
Zoroaster,
the
Buddha,
and Jesus for not
writing
down their
ipsissima
verba,
Jewish
apocalypses may
have
initially
stood as the
paradigms
of
properly
recorded
heavenly teachings.7
Their emotional
call-narratives and
glorious supernatural imagery
echoed Mani's own
intense
religious experiences
of his
heavenly
Twin. But even
more,
their self-conscious
scribality
with its intrinsic
implication
of heav-
enly authority presented
itself as the
quintessential way
of
establishing
one's message
in a
competitive religious
world.8
But
then,
from a
literary perspective,
we are
talking
about Mani's
appeal
not to
particular
historical texts but rather to the idea of Jewish
apocalypses,
their
typical
structures and
visions,
and their construc-
tions of
literary authority.
Now,
when someone
says
that he is
quoting something
and
gives
the
title,
the historian tends to believe that book existed. The
Epistle
of
Jude,
after
all,
quotes
the Enochic Book of the Watchers
(1:9)
accurately
in
citing
what "Enoch
prophesied" (Jude 14).
But this kind
of
assumption
can in
many
cases be
highly misleading.
That fourth-
century historiographical enigma
known as the Historia
Augusta
cites
numerous books whose existence is
highly
doubtful.9 And in such
"bibliolatrous" cultures as the Middle East
produced, among
whom
the mere notion of book or "source" carried
mythical
overtones,
the
citation of books could be an
imaginative
act,
an
appeal
to the notion
of
heavenly
or secret books and one's own authorial
lineage
to such
books.'0
Why
in this
particular
case should we be
skeptical
about the
existence of the cited books?
My
and
perhaps
others'
suspicions
that these books
may
not have
been "all there" were
initially
raised
by
the
quotation
from the
"apoc-
alypse"
of Enoch, which has no
parallel
in extant Enoch literature.
Apocalypses
Real and
Alleged
This observation would be
insignificant
were it not for the
enormity
of the extant
corpus
of Enoch books and
fragments.11
Thus one
might
begin
to
wonder,
has Mani or Baraies coined a kind of
"archetypal"
Enoch
apocalypse,
the verisimilitude of which would be
guaranteed
by
its
similarity
to other Enoch
apocalypses
of the ancient
world,
with some of which we know Mani was
acquainted?12
And since none of the other
"apocalypses,"
of
Adam, Seth,
or
Enosh,
match known
pseudepigrapha
either,
might they
too be made
up along
the same lines-
pretending
to be the
revelatory
testimonies
of antediluvian heroes whom
anyone
of that
period
would have ex-
pected
to issue
apocalypses?"
At this
point
one needs to
propose
some kind of rationale for
the invention of
apocalypses
in these
figures'
names. And this ra-
tionale must lie in Mani's selection of antediluvian
figures.
The
scholar of
early
Judaism,
for
example,
could
hardly
avoid notic-
ing
that a
fairly large corpus
of
pseudepigrapha
in the names of
post-diluvian figures-Abraham,
Moses, Isaiah,
Zephaniah,
Baruch,
Ezra-that were
probably circulating quite widely by
the third cen-
tury
have not been
"quoted"
in Mani's
florilegium.
What
meaning
might
we infer from a selection of revealers active before the flood?
II.
Themes in the Construction
of
the
Florilegium:
The
Genealogy of
the True
Prophet
One must
begin
with the tradition of the revealer-list
itself,
upon
which Mani's
apocalyptic florilegium
seems to be based. Scholars of
Mani and his world have noted the
strong
influence of that ancient
Semitic notion of the "True
Prophet,"
a divine mediator
figure
be-
lieved to rest
upon
certain
figures
in
history
at intervals
continuing
up through
the end of the world.14 The idea of a chain of
especially
privileged
seers became
particularly popular among
Jewish-Christians
of the Middle
East,
who
employed
it to describe the nature of the di-
vine
presence
in Jesus. For
example,
discussions of the True
Prophet
in the Pseudo-Clementine texts offer the list:
Adam, Enoch, Noah,
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and
Moses.15
Among
the Elchasaites too there
64 David
Frankfurter
was the
view,
according
to
Hippolytus,
"that there is one
[Christ]
above and that he is infused into
many
bodies
frequently
and now is
in Jesus."16
Epiphanius
adds that the
heavenly figure
concerned "is a
spirit
and stands above the
angels...
He comes into the world when
he
wishes,
for he came into Adam and
appeared
to the
patriarchs
clothed with a
body.
He is the same who went to
Abraham,
Isaac
and Jacob and who came at the end of the times" in human form as
Jesus." In its
emphasis
on Abraham and often
Moses,
in its echoes
of the
peregrinations
of Wisdom in Ben
Sira,
in its
very
basis in the
Book of
Deuteronomy,
the True
Prophet
tradition must be said to be
Jewish in essence.'8
The
prophet
Elchasai
himself,
founder of Mani's
birth-community,
seems to have been viewed in Elchasaite tradition as an avatar of the
True
Prophet.
Indeed,
there is some evidence that the
Elchasaites
took
Mani as "the False
Prophet,"
the True
Prophet's negative counterpart
in the
end-times.19
So in one sense Mani understood his own
position
in the chain of
patriarchs
in
quite
traditional terms: he is the
recipient
of
"great mysteries"
and "secrets" revealed
by
his
heavenly
"Twin"
just
as the antediluvian seers had encountered them with
angels.20
And here Mani's
development
of the True
Prophet
tradition made
a crucial addition: the
revelatory lineage
consisted not
simply
of
legendary "appearances"
(as
in the Pseudo-Clementine
texts)
but of
legendary apocalypses,
texts in which the seers had recorded the
wisdom
they
had
received,
standing symbolically
as monuments to
each encounter with the
heavenly
world.21
By
the third
century
CE the term
apokalypsis
had come to be reified
as a
category
of
literary genre.
We see this
development
in the refer-
ence titles of the
Nag
Hammadi
Library,
in the
complaint
of
Synesius
of
Cyrene
that
people
around him were
producing
"dreams that
they
call
apocalypses,"
which filled him with
dread,
and in the witness of
Porphyry
to
"apokalypseis
of Zoroaster and Zostrianus and Nicotheus
and
Allogenes
and Messus and other
people
of the kind."22 But this
reification of
apokalypsis
did not render it as some mundane
species
of codex. For the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies the true
apokalypsis
is "what is
untaught,
without visions and dreams," what "becomes
Apocalypses
Real and
Alleged
known not
by
instruction but
understanding,"
and which
thereby
dis-
tinguishes
the
just
and
pure
from the
unjust
and
impious recipient
of
heavenly knowledge.23
In Mani's
usage apokalypsis
constitutes a
model for the disclosure of
heavenly
secrets,
bringing together
in
one
concept
the affective
impact
of revelation on the
seer,
the self-
authenticating
nature of the
alleged experience
and the
ensuing
text,
and the
legendary preparation
of that text as a sacred
object
transmit-
ted
among generations.
The
impact
of this idealized sense of
apokalypsis emerges
in Mani's
other crucial
change
to the True
Prophet lineage. Deeply
influenced
by
Marcionite notions of biblical
theology
and
authority
Mani had
once come into conflict with the Elchasaites over his
appeal
to Pauline
and other "Gentile"
scripture,
where the Elchasaites
gave primary
authority
to
texts,
biblical and
extracanonical,
that were
firmly
rooted
in Judaism and Jewish-Christian tradition.24 But how then could Mani
reconcile his fascination with the "True
Prophet"
tradition or with
Jewish
apocalypticism
with his neo-Marcionite
ideology?
Mani must
have understood Jewish
apocalypses
and their seers
independently
of
the Jewish biblical tradition
(in
its broad
sense).25
And it is in this
separation
of
apocalypticism
from its Jewish basis that the essential
Jewish
patriarchs
of the "True
Prophet"
tradition-and indeed of most
extant
apocalypses-were
shoved aside in favor of more
mysterious,
antediluvian
patriarchs
like
Adam, Seth,
and Enoch.
IlL.
The
Significance of
the Antediluvian Seer in the Manichaean
Mission
Antediluvian heroes had
become,
in
early Judaism,
the
putative
discoverers and
spokesmen
for whatever areas of
knowledge
were
not
obviously
biblical and sometimes
patently foreign: astrology,
alchemy, magic.26
In this
way by
Mani's era these
particular
He-
brew
figures
had achieved a
place among
the most
important
of a vast
number of
legendary
seers in the Mediterranean
world,
like
Zoroaster,
Hermes
Trismegistos, Hystaspes,
Ostanes,
and such names as have
come down to us
only
in the
incipits
to
magical spells.27
66 David
Frankfurter
With such
associations,
antediluvian
figures (and
their
alleged
writ-
ings)
could function much better as
ecumenical-pan-Mediterrane-
an--culture-heroes (even syncretizing
with other ecumenical culture
heroes),
than the
patriarchs
and
prophets,
whose
deep,
covenantal
links to Jewish
(and Jewish-Christian) identity
and
religious
concerns
constituted an
integral part
of their
legends. Ephraem Syrus
and Au-
gustine
of
Hippo
make clear that Manichaeans had no use for the
Hebrew
prophets,
God,
or Bible in
general
and that the sect
actually
put
a much
higher
store in
Sibylline,
Hermetic,
and
Orphic writings,
which
represented
a kind of
revelatory
eclecticism and ecumenism
that was basic to the Manichaean movement.28
Certainly
Abraham could come off as a
legendary astrologer,
Moses
as a
legendary magos.
But from an ancient Jewish-Christian
perspec-
tive,
or in Mani's
particular ideological world,
these
figures
were
inseparable
from the Jewish traditions
through
which the
Babylonian
sects defined themselves.29 One could
scarcely imagine
Ezra
being
credited with an ecumenical
message;
and the Hebrew
prophets, leg-
endary
crusaders for the
worship
of the one
god
YHWH,
were of-
ten
singled
out for disdain in Manichaean tradition.30 Antediluvian
figures
could,
to be
sure,
appear
as Jewish culture
heroes--even
as
proto-priests-in early
Jewish
apocalypses
like I Enoch and Jubilees.
But their
literary antiquity
seems to have rendered them safe for ec-
umenical
appropriation--even magnetic
in their
potential
for
pan-
Mediterranean
authority.
Thus a
figure
like Enoch or Seth could be
brought together
with the
Greco-Egyptian
Hermes
Trismegistos;
an
Apocalypse
of Adam from
Nag
Hammadi
grounds
a
particularly
ec-
umenical
compendium
of savior traditions from around the Mediter-
ranean
world;
and Seth functions as a
primary
Gnostic revealer in
three
Nag
Hammadi tractates and as the sole
object
of a Manichaean
hymn
from
Egypt.3'
It is
precisely
this
scope
of
revelatory authority
that Manichaeans both
enjoyed
and
promoted.32
We must also
recognize
that each antediluvian
patriarch
in Mani's
apocalyptic florilegium
is cast as a kind of
apostle
to
outsiders.33
Apocalypses
Real and
Alleged
Indeed,
it was not
just
Marcionite attitudes that led Mani to af-
filiate himself with a
lineage
of
pre-Jewish patriarchs.
Mani's en-
tire
self-image
was as
"missionary
to the
world,"
as one
spreading
a
religion
across all ethnic boundaries. It is of
particular impor-
tance that this
very florilegium
concludes with the
example
of Paul's
ascent,
for Paul and his own
self-consciously
ecumenical mission
provided
Mani with his
greatest
model.34 Mani
(and consequently
Manichaeism)
conceived himself as the culmination of all
religions,
an
apostle
to the cosmos at
large,
and thus transcendent of all
par-
ticular doctrines and
religions.
35 He
would, indeed,
signal
his further
shift from the Elchasaites'
quasi-Jewish
frame of reference in
plac-
ing
himself in
"prophetic"
succession with Zoroaster and Buddha.36
In all these endeavors Mani
departed
from the
essentially
Jewish
Christianity
of the
Babylonian
sects,
from their
apocalyptic
literature
and "True
Prophet" lineages,
from that entire
genus
of 'Hebraistic"
identity
that elsewhere
sought revelatory authority
in Testaments of
Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob or
apocalypses
of Isaiah or
Zephaniah.37
It
was,
ironically, precisely
this "Hebraistic"
Christianity
that seems
to have dominated the
Egyptian
ch6ra
into which Manichaean mis-
sions moved in the later third
century
CE;
and a
hymn
from one of
these
Egyptian
Manichaean communities
brings
the Manichaean re-
jection
of
post-diluvian
biblical heroes into stark relief. The
hymn
holds
up
the identical series of antediluvian heroes as
appears
in the
CMC's
apocalyptic florilegium-Adam through
Enoch-but now as
paragons
of fortitude under
stress,
as
martyrs.38
The
significance
of
this
martyrological sequence emerges against
the contrast of contem-
poraneous
Christian
martyrological
literature
(particularly
that liter-
ature in circulation in
Egypt
and North
Africa),
which
commonly
cast the Hebrew
prophets
as
proto-martyrs
and derived the transcen-
dent
powers
of
martyrdom
from,
especially, post-diluvian
biblical
tradition. One reads in such literature of enthusiastic
martyrs
claim-
ing
the names of
prophets, legends
of
prophets' martyrdoms,
visions
and ascents credited to
martyrs.39
The Manichaean
hymn,
which ex-
tends from the antediluvian heroes to a series of
apostolic martyrs,
68 David
Frankfurter
thus draws
upon
the
typically third-century
obsession with
martyrdom
while still
refusing
to exalt
any
but antediluvian seers.
IV Conclusions
Perhaps
Mani's most succinct
expression
of this
ecumenical,
pan-
religious scope appears
at the end of the
Kephalaia:
The
writings
and the wisdom and the
apocalypses
and the
parables
and the
psalms
of all earlier
[religions]
were
gathered everywhere
and came to
my [re-
ligion]
and were added to the wisdom which I revealed. As water will be added
to water and becomes much
water,
so were the ancient books
augmented by
my writings
and became a
great
wisdom,
the like of which was not
proclaimed
(hitherto)
in all ancient
generations.40
"Ancient
books,"
as Mani conceives
them,
are
precursors
to his
own revelation. But even
more,
their international nature-"of all
earlier
[religions]"-immediately positions
him
beyond
Judaism or
Jewish-Christian
identity.
Antediluvian
patriarchs
and their
putative
writings
would serve this
positioning; post-diluvian patriarchs
who
taught
about covenant and
priestly purity (or
received such
teachings
from
angels)
would not.
What then does this
paper suggest
about Mani's
apocalypses?
It
offers a
literary-or, really, ideological--context
in which the
apoca-
lyptic florilegium might
function even without
referring
to
historically
extant texts. That
is,
the
florilegium
would constitute
only
the most
general
allusion to
apocalyptic
texts in historical circulation. It was
produced
not to document
library holdings
or
"sources
consulted" but
rather with the sheer interests of
self-promotion
within a sacred lin-
eage
of
revealers,
revealers
who,
in Mani's
view,
appropriately
wrote
down their wisdom.
Mani-through
Baraies-thus
chose not the
pa-
triarchs of the "True
Prophet"
tradition,
Jewish
patriarchs
in whose
names we have numerous extant
apocalypses,
but an
antediluvian,
"pre-Jewish"
list of
patriarchs
who
might symbolize
his
ecumenical,
pan-religious authority.
This is no conclusive
argument against
the historical existence of
the cited texts within Mani's own
literary
milieu;
but it is at the
Apocalypses
Real and
Alleged
very
least a corrective
against viewing
the list
uncritically
as a
major
witness to the use of
apocalypses
in
antiquity.
Rather,
we
may
be
looking
at a more subtle
concept
of
apocalyptic
text in late
antiquity,
in which the
production
of a book becomes a
necessary component
of a seer's
legend.
University
of New
Hampshire
DAVID
FRANKFURTER
Department
of
History
Durham,
NH
03824-3586,
USA
1
A
previous
version of this
paper
was
presented
to the Manichaeism
Group
of the
Society
of Biblical Literature,
1995 Annual
Meeting, Philadelphia
PA. I am
grateful
for the comments of Martha
Himmelfarb,
William
Adler,
and
especially
John
Reeves,
whose
forthcoming
book Heralds
of
That Good Realm
(Leiden: Brill)
will
provide
the most
complete analysis
to date of the text under discussion.
2 In
general
on the
Cologne
Mani Codex and its
significance
see Albert Henrichs
and
Ludwig
Koenen, "Ein griechischer
Mani-Codex
(P.
Colon.
inv.
nr.
4780),"
ZPE
5
(1970): 97-217;
Albert
Henrichs,
"Mani and the
Babylonian Baptists:
a historical
confrontation,"
HSCP 77
(1973): 23-59;
Ludwig
Koenen,
"From
Baptism
to the
Gnosis of
Manichaeism,"
The
Rediscovery of
Gnosticism
2,
ed.
Bentley Layton (Nu-
men
Supp
41;
Leiden:
Brill, 1981), 734-756;
Ithamar
Gruenwald,
"Manichaeism and
Judaism in
Light
of the
Cologne
Mani
Codex,"
ZPE 50
(1983): 29-45;
and the con-
ference volume Codex Manichaicus Coloniensis: Atti del
Simposio
Internazionale,
ed.
Luigi
Cirillo
(Cosenza: Marra, 1986).
3
CMC
48.16-18; 50.8-12; 52.8-13; 55.10-12; 58.6-8; 60.13-16,
ed. & tr. Ron
Cameron and Arthur J.
Dewey,
The
Cologne
Mani Codex:
"Concerning
the
Origin
of
His
Body",
SBLTT 15
(Missoula
MT: Scholars
Press, 1979),
36-49
(following
edition of Albert Henrichs and
Ludwig
Koenen,
"Der
K61ner
Mani-Kodex
[P.
Colon.
inv. nr.
4780],"
ZPE 19
[1975]: 1-85).
4
Compare, e.g.,
a
library
list in the Ashmolean
Museum,
Oxford: P. Ash.
inv.
3,
ed. C.H.
Roberts,
"Two Oxford
Papyri,"
ZNW 37
(1938):
185-188. A closer
analogue
to Mani's list
might
be that in 4 Macc 18:
10-19,
esp.
14-18,
in which
biblical heroes are listed in their
capacities
as authors. I am indebted to Pamela
Eisenbaum for this reference.
5
CMC
47.1-16; 62.9-63.7,
ed. & tr.
Cameron/Dewey, Cologne
Mani
Codex,
36-37,
48-51.
6 This
privileging
of the book
certainly
had much broader late
antique currency:
see,
for
example,
Geo
Widengren,
The Ascension
of
the
Apostle
and the
Heavenly
Book,
Uppsala
Universitets Arsskrift 1950: 7
(Uppsala: Lundequistska, 1950).
70 David
Frankfurter
7
H.-J.
Polotsky
and Carl
Schmidt, Kephalaia 1 (Manichaische
Handschriften der
staatlichen Museen,
Berlin
1;
Stuttgart 1940),
7.27 ff. See also Jes P.
Asmussen,
Manichaean
Literature,
Persian
Heritage
Series 22
(repr.
Delmar
NY:
Scholars' Fac-
similes and
Reprints,
1975), 12,
15-16.
8
Cf. Henri-Charles
Puech,
Le
manichdisme:
Son
fondateur,
sa doctrine
(Paris:
Mus6e
Guimet, 1949), 66-67; Henrichs,
"Mani and the
Babylonian Baptists,"
28-
29,
and L.J.R.
Ort,
"Mani's
Conception
of
Gnosis,"
Le
Origini
dello Gnosticismo
(Colloquio
di Messina 13-18
Aprile 1966,)
ed.
Ugo
Bianchi
(Numen Supp
12;
Lei-
den:
Brill, 1970), 606-607;
John C.
Reeves,
"Jewish
Pseudepigrapha
in Manichaean
Literature: The Influence of the Enochic
Library," Tracing
the Threads: Studies in
the
Vitality of
Jewish
Pseudepigrapha,
ed. John C. Reeves
(Atlanta:
Scholars
Press,
1994),
173-184.
9 See Sir Ronald
Syme, "Bogus
Authors,"
Bonner
Historia-Augusta-Colloquium
1972/1974 (1976):
311-321.
10
Note that Moses de
L6on
deployed
numerous
pseudo-citations
of secret books
to
ground
his Zohar in the
bibliophilic
traditions of
thirteenth-century Judaism,
tra-
ditions that themselves served to locate
any
"new" revelation
according
to archaic
authorities. See Daniel Chanan
Matt,
Zohar: the Book
of Enlightenment (Ramsey
NJ: Paulist, 1983), 9,
25-27.
11
In the Testaments
of
the Twelve Patriarchs "Books of Enoch" are
repeatedly
cited as authorites for
eschatological
detail:
T.Sim.
5:4;
T.Levi
10:5; 14:1; 16:1;
T.Jud. 18:1;
T.Zeb.
3:4;
T.Dan
5:6;
T.Naph.
4:1;
T.Ben. 9:1. Some citations recall
materials in I Enoch
(e.g.,
T.Levi 16:1 = 1
En 89:59
ff),
while others are so
vague
as
merely
to
appeal
to Enoch
writings
for
authority
in
eschatological predictions (e.g.,
T.Sim.
5:4;
T.Jud.
18:1).
One thus detects both the authors'
particular regard
for
the extant
1
Enoch texts and their broader devotion to a
general "myth"
of Enoch
scripture.
See R.H.
Charles,
The Books
of
Enoch,
or
1
Enoch
(Oxford: Clarendon,
1912), lxxv-lxxvi,
on intertextual
parallels,
and H.W. Hollander and M. De
Jonge,
The Testaments
of
the Twelve Patriarchs: A
Commentary (SVTP 8; Leiden: Brill,
1985), 39-40,
on thematic
consistency among
the Enoch citations.
12 On Mani's
knowledge
of some Enochiana see John C.
Reeves,
Jewish Lore
in Manichaean
Cosmogony:
Studies in the Book
of
Giants Traditions
(Cincinnati:
Hebrew Union
College
Press, 1992).
13
Although
once
having proposed
"a
library containing writings allegedly
au-
thored
by
these biblical 'forefathers' "
among
the Elchasaites
(Jewish Lore, 208),
John Reeves now
approaches
conclusions similar to mine in his
forthcoming study
of Mani's
florilegium,
Heralds
of
That Good Realm:
Syro-Mesopotamian
Gnosis and
Jewish Traditions,
Nag
Hammadi Studies
(Leiden: Brill, 1996), especially
16-17.
14 See
esp.
Hans-Joachim
Schoeps,
Jewish
Christianity:
Factional
Disputes
in the
Early
Church,
tr.
Douglas
R.A.
Hare
(Philadelphia:
Fortress, 1969), 65-71;
and on
Apocalypses
Real and
Alleged
the tradition's
legacy
in Mani:
Puech,
Le
manicheisme, 61-62,
144-146
n.241;
Hen-
richs,
"Mani and the
54-55;
Michel
Tardieu,
Le
manicheisme
(Paris:
Presses universitaires de
France, 1981), 19-25; Jarl Fossum,
The Name
of
God and the
Angel of
the Lord
(Tilbingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1985), 158-162;
and
Reeves, "Pseudepigrapha,"
174.
15
Ps-Cl Hom 17.4.3;
Rec 2.47.
16
Hippolytus, Ref 10.29.2,
ed. & tr. A.F.J.
Klijn
and G.J.
Reinink,
Patristic
Evidence
for
Jewish-Christian
Sects,
NovT
Supp
36
(Leiden: Brill, 1973),
122-123.
Cf.
Ref
9.14.1.
17
Epiphanius,
Pan.
30.3.4-5,
ed. & tr.
Klijn/Reinink,
Patristic
Evidence,
178-179.
18
See Lucien
Cerfaux,
"Le vrai
prophite
des
Cl6mentines,"
Recherches de sci-
ence
religieuse
18
(1928): 160-162,
and
esp.
Fossum,
The Name
of God, 111-159,
on filiation with Jewish
"Prophet
after Moses." In Ps-Cl Rec 3.61 a list of ten
jux-
taposed (good
and
evil) "pairs"
also reflects a basis in Jewish tradition:
extending
from Abel
(vs. Cain)
to Christ
(vs. Antichrist),
the list includes
Abraham, Isaac,
Jacob,
and Moses before the Son of
Man, Peter,
and the "sower of the word." Han
Drijvers argues
that,
more than
just "Jewish-Christian,"
the True
Prophet
discourses
are
actually
anti-Marcionite
polemics, making
Mani's own
dependence
on this tra-
dition all the more ironic: "Adam and the True
Prophet
in the
Pseudo-Clementines,"
Loyalitdtskonflikte
in der
Religionsgeschichte. Festschrift
fiir
Carsten
Colpe,
ed.
C. Elsas and
H.G.
Kippenberg (Wirzburg:
K6nigshausen
&
Neumann, 1990),
314-
323
[= Drijvers, History
and
Religion
in Late
Antique Syria (London: Variorum,
1994), XIV].
19
Ludwig
Koenen,
"Manichaean
Apocalypticism
at the Crossroads of
Iranian,
Egyptian,
Jewish and Christian
Thought,"
Codex Manichaicus
Coloniensis, 286-291;
John C.
Reeves,
"The 'Elchasaite' Sanhedrin of the
Cologne
Mani Codex in
Light
of Second
Temple
Jewish Sectarian
Sources,"
JJS 42
(1991):
88-91.
20 Gedaliahu
Stroumsa,
"Esotericism in Mani's
Thought
and
Background,"
Codex
Manichaicus
Coloniensis,
155.
21
The
subsequently
more established
list,
wherein Mani follows
Jesus, Zoroaster,
and the
Buddha,
will
imply
Mani's
superiority by
virtue of his
having
fixed his actual
teachings
in
writing.
22
Synesius, Ep.
54;
Porphyry,
VPlotini 16. See in
general
Morton
Smith,
"On
the
History
of APOKALYPTQ and
APOKALY,
IS,"
Apocalypticism
in the Mediter-
ranean World and the Near
East,
ed. David Hellholm
(Tiibingen:
Mohr/Siebeck,
1983),
9-20.
23
Ps-Cl Hom. 17.14-18;
18.6-7
(quotations
from
17.18; 18.6). I
am indebted to
William Adler for this reference.
24
Henrichs, "Mani and the
51-53.
72 David
Frankfurter
25
That is, as it
encapsulated
notions of
purity, religious identity
in time and
space (including
notions of
covenant),
and
otherworldly mediation,
all of which
might
be
appropriated (or, occasionally inherited) by
"Jewish-Christians" in
Syria
and Palestine for
religious
self-definition.
26
As,
for
example,
in Ps-Cl Rec 4.27 and the Rabbinic
"magical apocalypse"
Sefer
Ha-Razim. Enoch is
already represented
as such a culture hero in Jubilees
(4:17-18)
and
Pseudo-Eupolemus (apud
Eusebius,
Praep. Evang. 9.17.9);
see James
C. VanderKam,
Enoch and the Growth
of
an
Apocalyptic
Tradition
(CBQMS 16;
Washington
DC: Catholic Biblical
Association, 1984),
180-184.
27 See in
general Joseph
Bidez and Franz
Cumont,
Les
mages
hellenises
1-2
(Paris:
"Les Belles
Lettres," 1938;
repr.
New York:
Arno, 1975),
and Hans Dieter
Betz,
"The Formation of Authoritative Tradition in the Greek
Magical Papyri,"
Jewish
and Christian
Self-Definition
3,
ed. Ben F.
Meyer
and
E.P.
Sanders
(Philadelphia:
Fortress, 1982), 161-170,
236-238.
28
Augustine,
Contra Faustum
13.1; 15.1;
Ephraem,
Prose
Refutations (ed.
Mitch-
ell)
2.208. See in
general
Reeves,
Heralds
of
That Good
Realm, 6-7,
12-14.
29 Abraham: James
E. Bowley,
"The
Compositions
of
Abraham,"
in Reeves
(ed.),
Tracing
the
Treads,
231. Abraham is included in but one Manichaean
prophet-lineage
(out
of twelve
extant),
recorded
by
the
chronographer
al-Shahrastani: see
Tardieu,
Le manicheisme, 22,
and
Reeves,
Heralds
of
that Good
Realm,
11. Moses: John
G.
Gager,
Moses in Greco-Roman
Paganism,
SBLMS 16
(Nashville: Abingdon,
1972), 134-161, largely
on
testimony
of PGM. The
attempt
to render the
patriarchs
as ecumenical culture-heroes
appears
most
prominently among
the
fragments
of
"Judeo-Hellenistic" authors like
Eupolemus (apud
Eusebius,
Praep. Evang. 9.26.1),
Pseudo-Eupolemus (apud
Eusebius, ibid., 9.17.2-9),
and
Artapanus (apud
Eusebius,
ibid., 9.18.1; 9.23.1-4; 9.27.1-37).
30
On the Manichaean distaste for Hebrew
prophets
see Acta Archelai 11
(= Epiphanius,
Panarion
66.30.1-2);
Ibn
al-Nadim,
Fihrist 9.1
(tr. Bayard Dodge,
The Fihrist
of
al-Nadim
[New
York and London: Columbia
University Press, 1970],
2:794).
31
Apocalypse ofAdam (NHC V, 5)
77.26-82.28. On Enoch-Hermes
syntheses
see
VanderKam,
Enoch and the Growth
of
an
Apocalyptic
Tradition, 181-183,
and
Fodor,
"The
Origins
of the Arabic
Legends
of the
Pyramids,"
Acta Orientalia
Hungaricae
23
(1970):
340-341. Enoch's status
among
the
Egyptian
Gnostic
groups responsible
for the Pistis
Sophia
and the Books of Jeu
implies
a
synthesis
with Thoth-Hermes:
see J.T.
Milik,
The Books
of
Enoch
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1976),
98-100.
Hymn
to Seth: ed. C.R.C.
Allberry,
A Manichaean Psalm-Book 2
(Stuttgart, 1938),
144-
146,
with discussion
by
Andr6
Villey,
Psaumes des errants: Ecrits
maniche'ens
du
Fayyum (Sources gnostiques
et manicheennes 4: Paris: Du
Cerf, 1994),
237-246. On
Seth-Thoth
syntheses
see
Josephus,
Ant.
1.69-71; Gospel
of the
Egyptians (NHC
Apocalypses
Real and
Alleged
III.68);
Three Steles of Seth
(NHC VII, 5);
and additional sources discussed in Walter
Scott,
Hermetica 3
(Oxford:
Oxford
University Press, 1924-1936; repr.
Boulder CO:
Shambhala, 1985), 491-492;
Garth
Fowden,
The
Egyptian
Hermes: An Historical
Approach
to the Late
Pagan
Mind
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986),
29-31.
32 Samuel N.C.
Lieu,
Manichaeism in the Later Roman
Empire
and Medieval
China: A Historical
Survey (Manchester: U.P., 1985), 51,
and
Koenen,
"Manichaean
Apocalypticism,"
288-291,
on Mani's use of a Gnostic
Apocalypse of
Nikotheos.
Augustine
elsewhere remarks that Manichaeans
anteponunt
nonnullas
apocryphas
(De
Haeresibus
46.15,
CCSL
46:318).
33
A crucial observation
by
Martha
Himmelfarb,
"Revelation and
Rapture:
The
Transformation of the
Visionary
in the Ascent
Apocalypses," Mysteries
and Reve-
lations:
Apocalyptic
Studies since the
Uppsala Colloquium
JSPSS
9,
ed. John J.
Collins and James H. Charlesworth
(Sheffield:
JSOT
Press, 1991),
79-81.
34 See Peter
Brown,
"The Diffusion of Manichaeism in the Roman
Empire,"
Religion
and
Society
in the
Age of
Saint
Augustine (London:
Faber &
Faber, 1972),
94; Henrichs,
"Mani and the
32-33; Tardieu,
Le
manichdisme,
25-27;
and Hans Dieter
Betz,
"Paul in the Mani
Biography,"
Codex Manichaicus
Coloniensis,
215-234.
35 See CMC 104.12-105.8.
36
See
Tardieu,
Le
manichdisme,
21-25.
37
Cf.
Puech,
Le
manichdisme,
62-63. On "Hebraistic"
identity
in
general
see
Robert
Murray, "Jews,
Hebrews and Christians: Some Needed
Distinctions,"
NovT
24
(1982): 194-208,
esp.
205-207,
and on its influence in
Coptic tradition,
David
Frankfurter,
"The
Legacy
of the Jewish
Apocalypse
in
Early
Chistian Communities:
Two
Regional Trajectories,"
in The Jewish
Apocalyptic Heritage
in
Early
Christian-
ity,
ed.
by
James C. VanderKam and William Adler
(Corpus
Rerum ludaicarum ad
Novum
Testamentum 111.4; Assen/Maastricht:
van
Gorcum;
Minneapolis:
Fortress,
1996),
161-194.
38 "Psalm of
Forebearance,"
ed.
Allberry,
Manichaean Psalm-Book
2, 142,
with
commentary by Villey,
Psaumes des
errants,
215-222.
39
On the nature of
third-century martyrdom ideology
in
Egypt
see David Frank-
furter,
"The Cult of the
Martyrs
in
Egypt
Before Constantine: The Evidence of the
Coptic Apocalypse of Elijah," VigChr
48
(1994):
25-47.
Compare,
on North
Africa,
Cyprian, Epp.
31 and 32.
40
Kephalaia
154,
ed. Carl Schmidt and H.J.
Polotsky, "Ein
Mani-Fund in
Agyp-
ten,"
SPAW
Phil.-Hist, (1933): 86,
tr. Kurt
Rudolph,
Gnosis
(San
Francisco:
Harper
&
Row, 1983),
335.

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