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  • Chapter 2 - Mani’s Background and Early Life

  • Iain Gardner, University of Sydney
  • Foreword by Jason BeDuhn, Northern Arizona University
  • Book:
    The Founder of Manichaeism
    Published online:
    16 January 2020
    Print publication:
    05 March 2020, pp 18-36

  • Summary

    The Christian tradition has regarded Mani as the arch-heretic and seducer of the faithful. His memory has been profoundly shaped by a fascinating counter-biography known as The Acts of Archelaus. This circulated from circa 340 CE and dominated Western knowledge until the reading of new sources from the Islamicate world in the nineteenth century and then the recovery of texts written by the Manichaean community in the twentieth century. The most remarkable of these has been the miniature Mani-Codex written in Greek that preserves an entirely different narrative of Mani’s youth and upbringing in a sectarian Jewish–Christian community of southern Mesopotamia. This chapter discusses and compares various pictures of Mani, including topics such as his origins, name and the religious experiences that he claimed.