Mani at the Court of the Persian Kings Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies Editors Johannes van Oort Einar Thomassen Editorial Board j.d. beduhn – a.d. deconick – w.-p. funk i. gardner – s.n.c. lieu – a. marjanen p. nagel – l. painchaud – b.a. pearson n.a. pedersen – s.g. richter – j.m. robinson m. scopello – j.d. turner – g. wurst volume 87 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/nhms Mani at the Court of the Persian Kings Studies on the Chester Beatty Kephalaia Codex By Iain Gardner Jason BeDuhn Paul Dilley leiden | boston Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Gardner, Iain. Mani at the court of the Persian kings : studies on the Chester Beatty Kephalaia Codex / by Iain Gardner, Jason BeDuhn, Paul Dilley. pages cm. – (Nag hammadi and manichaean studies ; v. 87) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-23470-3 (hardback : alk. paper) – ISBN 978-90-04-28262-9 (e-book) 1. Mani, active 3rd century. 2. Kephalaia. 3. Manichaeism. I. BeDuhn, Jason. II. Dilley, Paul. III. Title. BT1410.G37 2015 299'.932–dc23 2014032759 This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, ipa, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 0929-2470 isbn 978-90-04-23470-3 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-28262-9 (e-book) Copyright 2015 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill nv incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill nv provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, ma 01923, usa. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper. Contents Preface vii Abbreviations ix 1 An Introduction to the Chester Beatty Kephalaia Codex 1 Iain Gardner part 1 Studies on the Manichaean Kephalaia 2 Mani’s Wisdom at the Court of the Persian Kings: The Genre and Context of the Chester Beatty Kephalaia 15 Paul Dilley 3 Parallels between Coptic and Iranian Kephalaia: Goundesh and the King of Touran 52 Jason BeDuhn 4 The Final Ten Chapters 75 Iain Gardner part 2 New Sources from the Chester Beatty Codex 5 Also Schrieb Zarathustra? Mani as Interpreter of the ‘Law of Zarades’ 101 Paul Dilley 6 Iranian Epic in the Chester Beatty Kephalaia 136 Jason BeDuhn 7 Mani’s Last Days 159 Iain Gardner Map and Table of Place Names 206 vi contents part 3 Manichaeism and the History of Religions 8 ‘Hell Exists, and We have Seen the Place Where It Is’: Rapture and Religious Competition in Sasanian Iran 211 Paul Dilley 9 Mani and the Crystallization of the Concept of ‘Religion’ in Third Century Iran 247 Jason BeDuhn Works Cited 277 Index 308 Preface This volume represents the first fruits of a major and laborious project to edit and translate the Chester Beatty Kephalaia, a Coptic codex discovered more than eighty years ago, but neglected until now due to the readily evident chal- lenges of the poor condition in which it was found. The project was initiated by the authors of this volume in 2008 with a determination to work as quickly as possible to reconstruct an accurate, if necessarily provisional text, using the full range of modern papyrological tools and techniques, and make it available for the benefit of research at the earliest possible date. That goal is within reach in the next few years. This volume offers a substantial introduction to the codex and to some of the potential significance of its content for future scholarship in a number of fields. It is our intention and hope that interested researchers will take inspiration from the following pages, and begin planning how to incorpo- rate the Kephalaia into their future projects when it becomes available. Despite surface appearances, this project is not the work of a team of three; its successful outcome is the work of a team of dozens. We have been unbe- lievably fortunate to be aided and surrounded by gifted individuals, all expert in their own work, and enthusiastic about ours. Over the entire course of the project, the staff of the Chester Beatty Library have been extraordinarily under- standing and helpful, beginning with two successive Directors, Dr. Michael Ryan and Dr. Fionnuala Croke, and Charles Horton, Curator of the Western Collection (retired), and extending to librarians Celine Ward and Hyder Abbas, curatorial assistant Elizabeth Omidvaran, and conservator Jessica Baldwin, as well as the many others who have assisted at one time or another, from the conservation lab to the photography room, from handling the glassed leaves to archival research. Our imaging team of Daniel Boone and Ryan Belnap, of the Northern Arizona University idea Lab, provided skills of the most essential kind, enabling us to read the potentially unreadable in the manuscript. The planning and coordination of their multi-spectral imaging of the codex ben- efited from the management of the idea Lab’s Director, Marcelle Coder. For consultation on various aspects of the project, we would like to give special thanks to Wolf-Peter Funk of the Université Laval, and to acknowledge the kind assistance of John Gee of Brigham Young University. The project has been blessed from the start by the generous support of many institutions and individuals. Foremost among this support have been major grants from the Australian Research Council and the United States National Endowment for the Humanities, without which the project would have been impossible. Iain Gardner would like to express gratitude to the School of Let- viii preface ters, Art and Media, and the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, at the Uni- versity of Sydney for enabling dedicated research time and use of its facilities, as well as to the Ancient World Mapping Center for the map used in this vol- ume. Jason BeDuhn would like to acknowledge the generosity of the Goheen Fellowship of the National Humanities Center, and the many individual acts of support and kindness from the staff of the nhc. For their part in enabling his work, he would also like to thank the Northern Arizona University Intramural Grants Program, Dean Michael Vincent of the College of Arts and Letters, and Alexandra Carpino, Chair of the Department of Comparative Cultural Studies. Paul Dilley wishes to thank the American Philosophical Society, the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung, and the University of Iowa Arts and Humanities Initia- tive for their support of his work on the project. Lastly, we would like to extend warm gratitude to the city of Dublin and to the Republic of Ireland for making the setting of our labors over the last six years so lovely and hospitable. Iain Gardner, Jason BeDuhn, Paul Dilley Dublin, June 2014 Abbreviations 1 Ke Kephalaia vol. 1: “Kephalaia of the Teacher” (eds. Polotsky 1940/Böhlig 1940 and 1966/Funk 1999 and 2000) 2 Ke Kephalaia vol. 2: “Kephalaia of the Wisdom of My Lord Mani” (eds. Gardner, BeDuhn, and Dilley, in progress) 2Ps Psalm-Book part 2 (eds. Allberry 1938/Richter 1996/Wurst 1996) ams Acta Martyrum et Sanctorum (ed. Bedjan 1890–1897) bsoas Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies cmc Cologne Mani Codex (eds. Koenen and Römer 1988) EIr Encyclopaedia Iranica gcs Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten Jahrhunderte Hom Homilies (eds. Polotsky 1934/Pedersen 2006) htr Harvard Theological Review jecs Journal of Early Christian Studies jras Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society k Kephalaion (chapter numbers in 1 Ke and 2 Ke) nhms Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies P. Kellis vi Kellis Literary Texts, vol. 2 (ed. Gardner 2007) sc Sources Chrétiennes chapter 1 An Introduction to the Chester Beatty Kephalaia Codex Iain Gardner In this volume the reader will find a series of essays occasioned by our (the edi- tors) efforts to make sense of what remains from an ancient book with the title: The Chapters of the Wisdom of My Lord Manichaios. This codex now belongs to the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin, and as the editorial team we have the honour and privilege of being the first persons to read its contents since late antiquity. This is because the codex is the unique surviving copy of a work otherwise lost, which circulated amongst followers of a once-famous religious preacher, healer and visionary; an historical figure of the third century c.e. whom the devotees termed ‘apostle’, ‘enlightener’, ‘father’ and ‘master’. Mani, (this is the usual form of his name employed in modern studies), lived dur- ing the early years of the Sasanian dynasty; and his followers (‘Manichaeans’) ascribed to him divine wisdom and knowledge of all things. They were eager to demonstrate the superiority of Mani’s teachings, the recognition of his mastery by others, and in particular the success he enjoyed amongst religious sages of the time, nobles at court, and even the ‘king of kings’ himself. Since this context is a particularly striking feature of the narrative, we have given this volume the title: Mani at the Court of the Persian Kings. The word translated as Chapters in the codex title is a Greek term, κεφάλαια. In what follows we will generally refer to this book as the ‘Chester Beatty Kepha- laia’; this is because many different works circulated in the ancient world under variations of the name.