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Manichaeism is a former major world religion, founded in the 3rd century CE by the Parthian prophet Mani, in the Sasanian Empire.
The Chester Beatty Library, now known as the Chester Beatty, is a museum and library in Dublin. It was established in Ireland in 1953, to house the collections of mining magnate, Sir Alfred Chester Beatty. The present museum, on the grounds of Dublin Castle, opened on 7 February 2000, the 125th anniversary of Beatty's birth and was named European Museum of the Year in 2002.
The Nag Hammadi library is a collection of early Christian and Gnostic texts discovered near the Upper Egyptian town of Nag Hammadi in 1945.
The Hymn of the Pearl is a passage of the apocryphal Acts of Thomas. In that work, originally written in Syriac, the Apostle Thomas sings the hymn while praying for himself and fellow prisoners. Some scholars believe the hymn predates the Acts, as it only appears in one Syriac manuscript and one Greek manuscript of the Acts of Thomas. The author of the Hymn is unknown, though there is a belief that it was composed by the Syriac gnostic Bardaisan from Edessa due to some parallels between his life and that of the hymn. It is believed to have been written in the 2nd century or even possibly the 1st century, and shows influences from heroic folk epics from the region.
The New Testament apocrypha are a number of writings by early Christians that give accounts of Jesus and his teachings, the nature of God, or the teachings of his apostles and of their lives. Some of these writings were cited as scripture by early Christians, but since the fifth century a widespread consensus has emerged limiting the New Testament to the 27 books of the modern canon. Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant churches generally do not view the New Testament apocrypha as part of the Bible.
The Gospel of the Truth is one of the Gnostic texts from the New Testament apocrypha found in the Nag Hammadi codices ("NHC"). It exists in two Coptic translations, a Subakhmimic rendition surviving almost in full in the first Nag Hammadi codex and a Sahidic in fragments in the twelfth codex.
James McConkey Robinson was an American scholar who retired as Professor Emeritus of Religion at Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, California, specializing in New Testament Studies and Nag Hammadi Studies. He was a member of the Jesus Seminar and arguably the most prominent Q and Nag Hammadi library scholar of the twentieth century. He was also a major contributor to The International Q Project, acting as an editor for most of their publications. Particularly, he laid the groundwork for John S. Kloppenborg's foundational work into the compositional history of Q, by arguing its genre as an ancient wisdom collection. He also was the permanent secretary of UNESCO's International Committee for the Nag Hammadi codices. He is known for his work on the Medinet Madi library, a collection of Coptic Manichaean manuscripts.
John D. Turner was the Cotner Professor of Religious Studies and Charles J. Mach University Professor of Classics and History Classics & Religious Studies at the University of Nebraska. He was well known for his translations of the Nag Hammadi library.
Charles Robert Cecil Augustine Allberry was an English Egyptologist and Coptic scholar. He was best known during his lifetime for his 1938 partial translation of A Manichean Psalm-Book, and posthumously as the model for C. P. Snow's character, Roy Calvert, introduced in The Light and the Dark (1947). Allberry served in the Royal Air Force in the Second World War and was shot down and killed in 1943.
The Psalms of Thomas are a set of third-century psalms found appended to the end of a Coptic Manichaean psalm book, which was in turn part of the Medinet Madi library excavated in 1929. The psalms were originally published in 1938 by Charles Allberry.
Birger A. Pearson is an American scholar and professor studying early Christianity and Gnosticism. He currently holds the positions of Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara and Professor and Interim Director of the Religious Studies Program at the University of California, Berkeley.
Medinet Madi, also known simply as Madi or Maadi (ماضي) in Arabic, is a site in the southwestern Faiyum region of Egypt with the remains of a Greco-Roman town where a temple of the cobra-goddess Renenutet was founded during the reigns of Amenemhat III and Amenemhat IV. It was later expanded and embellished during the Greco-Roman period. In the Middle Kingdom the town was called Dja, later the town was known as Narmouti, Narmouthis and Narmuda.
The Father of Greatness is the eternal divine manifestation of good in Manichaeism, a four-fold deity, embracing divinity, light, power and goodness. His throne is surrounded by at least 156 peaceful entities: 12 aeons, aeons of the aeons and angels.
Phokion J. Tanos, also known as Phocion Jean Tano, Phoqué J. Tano, Phokion J. Tano, was a Cypriot dealer of antiques in Cairo, who was involved in the sale of papyri belonging to the Nag Hammadi library.
The Epistles is one of the Seven Treatises of Manichaeism. It is derived from the Middle Ancient Persian dēwān, which means "Letter Collection". They have been long known among Manichaean scriptures They were originally written during the years of Mani’s public mission in the Sasanian Empire. They were collected together by his followers and became one of the canonical books of the Manichaean community It served a purpose of explaining the doctrine and arguing for the correctness of Manichaeism
Leaf from a Manichaean book MIK III 4959 is a fragment of Manichaean manuscripts collected in Germany Berlin Asian Art Museum, drawn during the 8th-9th centuries, Was discovered in Xinjiang by German Turpan expedition team in the early 20th century. The remaining page is 8.2 cm long and 11.0 cm wide, with slender painting illustrations on both sides.
Kephalaia are a genre of Manichaean literature represented mainly by two large papyrus codices containing Coptic translations from 5th-century Roman Egypt. The kephalaia are sometimes seen as the actual words or teachings of the prophet Mani, but are probably better viewed as later discourses and interpretations laid upon "an authoritative oral tradition" ostensibly going back to Mani and thus analogous to the Talmud in Judaism and the ḥadīth in Islam.
Wolf-Peter Funk was a German historian of religion and Coptologist known for his pioneering studies on Gnosticism, Manichaeism, and Coptic manuscripts such as the Nag Hammadi library.
In Sethian Gnosticism, a luminary is an angel-like being. Four luminaries are typically listed in Sethian Gnostic texts, such as the Secret Book of John, the Holy Book of the Great Invisible Spirit, and Zostrianos. The luminaries are considered to be emanations of the supreme divine triad consisting of the Father, the Mother (Barbelo), and the Child (Autogenes). Listed from highest to lowest hierarchical order, they are:
- Harmozel
- Oroiael
- Daveithe
- Eleleth
The Medinet Madi library is a collection of Manichaean texts discovered at Medinet Madi in the Faiyum region of Egypt in 1929. There is a total of seven codices, some of which have been split up and held in different collections across Europe. The texts, many of which remain unpublished and untranslated today, were composed in the Lycopolis dialect of Coptic during the 5th century A.D.
References
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