This article investigates the nature of Manichaean pedagogy as expressed through the late antique codices known as the Kephalaia of the Teacher and the Kephalaia of the Wisdom of my Lord Mani. By paying attention to a range of contextual cues that frame each moment of instruction, it first argues that much like their rabbinic and Christian neighbors, Mesopotamian Manichaeans did not study in academic institutions. Rather, instruction took place on an ad-hoc, individual basis, often based on happenstance events; there is no mention of a building dedicated to learning, a standard curriculum, or a semester schedule. This article then contextualizes this form of non-institutionalized Manichaean instruction by comparing three formulae found in the Kephalaia codices that have parallels in the Babylonian Talmud: the formula of Mani “sitting among” his disciples (or of his disciples “sitting before” Mani), of Mani’s disciples “standing before” Mani, and of various people “coming before” Mani. In so doing, this article ultimately argues that the Babylonian Rabbis and Syro-Mesopotamian Manichaeans shared a common pedagogical habitus, one expressed through bodily comportment and hierarchy rather than through the imposition of institutional norms.

In a famous story in b. Šabb. 116a–b, Imma Shalom and her brother, Rabban Gamaliel, present to a philosopher a dispute concerning the inheritance of the daughter. The judge, having being bribed by Imma Shalom, rules in her favor, against the ruling of the Torah of Moses, arguing that the latter has been abrogated and replaced by the “Torah of the Gospel,” which states that “the son and the daughter inherit equally.” After being bribed by Rabban Gamaliel, the philosopher recants, citing Matt 5:17, where Jesus reaffirms the validity of the Mosaic Law.

This article argues that the “Torah of the Gospel” actually refers to The Syro-Roman Lawbook, and that the story is constructed as a response to a radical and new legal supersessionist argument brought forth in this book which is directly linked to the Roman law of equal inheritance. This is the first clear evidence we have that, alongside the New Testament, the Babylonian rabbis also read and engaged directly with Christian books of their time written in Syriac. This has major ramifications on the way we perceive the textual culture of the Babylonian rabbis and their intellectual interactions with East Syrians.