The Manichaean Body in Discipline and Ritual (review)

The Manichaean Body in Discipline and Ritual. By Jason David BeDuhn (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. 2000. Pp. xix, 354. $42.50.)

Since the beginning of the twentieth century, the study of Manichaeism has been dominated by the study of genuine Manichaean texts discovered from Turfan (in Middle Iranian and Old Turkish), from Dunhuang (in Chinese and Old Turkish) in Central Asia, from Medinet Madi (in Coptic), and more recently from the Dakhleh Oasis (in Coptic, Greek, and Syriac) in Egypt. The editing of these texts, some in languages very imperfectly known at the time of their discovery, and their translation and interpretation have inevitably come to occupy a high proportion of Manichaean scholarship. The decipherment of the now famous Cologne Mani-Codex in the 1970's also opened a new and controversial direction of research, namely, the Judaeo-Christian roots of Manichaeism. Given the preoccupation of the majority of Manichaean scholars in these specialized activities, a new scholarly contribution to understanding some of the basic tenets of the religion is therefore both unique and timely.

The title of BeDuhn's work suggests a study of Manichaean anthropogenesis or asceticism or the Mani's equation of parts of the human body with those of the Zodiac in the Coptic Kephalaia. The book certainly touches on these issues, but more importantly it is a thorough, and sometimes exhaustive, study of the place of the sacred meal for the Elect in Manichaean doctrine, especially in Eastern Manichaean texts. Manichaeans had an aversion for harvesting and cooking as both actions would damage the Light Particles held captive in plants and animals and the suffering of which is symbolized by the Cross of Light. To avoid starvation, the Hearers, namely, the second rank of the sect, were charged with dire injunctions to attend to the culinary needs of the Elect. Far from being an arrangement of necessity or even of hypocrisy, BeDuhn argues from an impressive survey of both genuine Manichaean texts (especially the Greek Cologne Mani-Codex and the so-called Monastery Scroll in Old Turkish) and writings of the more informative polemicists like Augustine in Roman North Africa and Lu Yu in South China that the meals eaten by the Elect played an important part in both the final liberation of the captive Light Particles and the maintenance of the moral standards of the sect. Earlier scholars like Henri-Charles Puech and Nils Arne Pedersen had drawn attention to the doctrinal importance of the meal in Manichaeism, but BeDuhn's work is the first comprehensive examination of the available evidence and the fullest exposition of the rationale of the ritus.

The Manichaean ritual meal was, according to BeDuhn, an essential part of the religious life of a Manichaean community or cell. Conducted daily, the Hearers delivered their alms to the place of consumption and the table on which the food is placed is a ritual locale. In the author's own words "...Manichaeans participated in a templeless and altarless tradition. While other religious communities carried their offerings into temples, where their priests burned them on altars, the Manichaeans bore their alms to the Elect, who cooked them in their own stomachs" (pp. 164-165). Though the Manichaean cosmogony is highly complex and replete with a multitude of deities and demons, the Manichaeans were expert in reducing their main ethical teachings to "The Three Seals," "The Five Commandments" (for the Elect), and "The Ten Commandments" (for the Hearers). The Seal of the Mouth forbids an Elect from eating meat and drinking wine while the Seal of the Breast prevents fornication and marriage and therefore physical procreation which prolongs the captivity of Light, and the Seal of the Hands is the command to avoid injury to water, fire, trees, and living things and hence bans the procurement of food. Through observance of commands like these the Elect purify their bodies as instruments for the purification and liberation of Light. One...