Nicholas Baker-Brian - 'Not Sacrament, but Sacrilege': Manichaean Women in Christian Heresiology

This paper will look at a central aspect of the theme of the proposed Workshop, ‘Women in Manichaeism’, by investigating references to female Manichaeans in Catholic heresiology with, inevitably, an especial focus on the anti-Manichaean writings of Augustine of Hippo. It intends to examine the central role which the polemical representation of female Manichaeans played in the wider Catholic defamation of Manichaeism, principally with regard to the way in which female affiliates of the religion were portrayed according to established literary models of indecency, sexualised passivity, and religious impurity - all aspects of Catholic invectio, the intention of which was to set up a false yet persuasive distinction between Manichaean immorality on the one hand, and the exemplary mores of Catholic Christianity on the other. This paper will argue that such accounts of nefarious Manichaean ritual practices as evidenced in heresiology offered, to quote David Frankfurter, ‘a case of smoke without the merest glint of fire’.  Nevertheless, issues relating to the formulation of gender distinctions within Manichaeism can arguably be glimpsed in the attempts of heresiologists to link the allegedly debased Manichaean rituals to the theogonic details of Mani’s myth, and this paper will attempt to unpick the strategies of Catholic invective with a view to refining Manichaean conceptions of the feminine and masculine in Manichaean theology. 

Richard Vaggione - Who were Mani's "Greeks"? "Greek Bread" in the Cologne Mani Codex

In CMC [Cologne Mani Codex]  87.20-21, 23-88.1, cf. 91.22-3 Mani is said to favour a wheat bread characterized as Ἑλ̣[ληνικὸν] ἄρτον, effectively a hapax. The paper will use Rabbinic, Latin, and Greek medical sources to establish the probable identity of the bread, and of the Ἕλλη[ν]ας to whom the Baptists were afraid Mani might flee in 80.16-18.

After a brief discussion of the Aramaic background of the CMC (with a guess as to the profession, but not the identity of the translator), the paper will address “purity” and diet as understood by the “Mani” portrayed in the CMC. 

Then, after a brief discussion of ancient breads in general, a candidate found in Latin and Greek sources will be discussed (recipe available to the interested). Finally, a discussion of the meaning of “Greeks” and “Greek Bread” in the CMC using Rabbinic evidence, and a suggestion as to the possible political context.