4. Metodología
4.2. Procedimiento e instrumentos
4.2.1. Intervención didáctica
Whilst many scholarly treatments of Manichaeism suggest (justifiably) that Mani’s myth was principally concerned with offering an answer to the age-old question, ‘Where does evil come from?’ (Lat Unde malum?), little consideration is given in such accounts to the other central purpose which the myth served, namely to provide reasons for the existence and activities of the Manichaean
69 Concerning Secundinus, see van Oort 2001b
Manichaean Theology II: The Universe, its Rituals and its Community
community, particularly in relation to its ascetic and ritual practices. Many modern summary accounts of Manichaeism move from presenting the details of the myth in one chapter to descriptions of the structural organisation of the community in the next, without providing any sense in which the two could be linked to one another: yet, precisely how the narrative impacted on the bicameral structure of the Manichaean church, on the lives of the senior Manichaeans, the Elect, and the lay Manichaeans, the Hearers, is surely a fundamental question in appreciating the nature of this late-antique religion.
Manichaeans themselves recognised clearly the relationship which existed between the universe, as depicted in their myth, and the ‘realities’ of their daily lives. Late-antique followers of Mani responsible for the editing of The Chapters included two accounts (nos 38 and 70; trans. I. Gardner 1995, 93–105 and 179–84 respectively), both ascribed to Mani, that considered the ways in which the environment and behaviour of the microcosm of the body replicated those same concerns in the macrocosm of the universe, and vice versa.70 For instance, the discord and rebellious actions of the evil nature in the universe during the imprisonment of the archons by the five sons of the Living Spirit – the rebellions of the watchers against the King of Honour (38.92.24–31), and the abortions against the Adamas of Light (38.92.32–93.2 and 70.171.19–21) – reverberate through the body of the individual as a result of the equivalence existing between the spheres of governance of the sons of the Living Spirit in the universe, and the spheres of governance of the Light-Nous in the human body:
Like these five watch-stations, which exist in this great . . . these five camps, which I have recounted to you. This is also the case with this body the elect wear. There are another five camps there, and the Light Mind is watching over them, and the new man is with them (The Chapters 70.171.28–172.4;
trans. I. Gardner 1995, 181).
Thus, as it is with the universe, ‘so also is this body!’ (38.94.17; trans. I. Gardner 1995, 99). The importance of demonstrating the connectedness between the rebellions of the evil nature in the universe with the rebellions occurring throughout the individual lay in highlighting the fragile condition of the new man, the ‘child of righteousness’ (38.96.26–7), which the Light-Nous assists in establishing in individuals (the Elect), as he frees the intellectual operations (mind, thought, insight, counsel and consideration; patterned on the Five Sons of the Father) from their enslavement in the body: ‘. . . he shall release the members of the soul, and make them free from the five members of sin . . . he shall set right the members of the soul; form and purify them, and construct a new man of them, a child of righteousness’ (38.96.22–7; trans. I. Gardner 1995, 101). Rebellion within the individual is therefore linked, as it was within the universe, to the role of sin, which in Manichaeism became ‘an active power’71 constantly threatening to disturb the on-going endeavour to purify the light.
With the assistance of the Light-Nous, the old man of sin is replaced by the new
70 See esp. Pettipiece 2009, 36–42.
71 Colditz 2009, 79.
man of righteousness: a further indication of Mani and the Manichaeans’ indebt-edness to the terminology of Paul (cf. Romans 6.5).72 However, just as rebellions continue to break out against the rule of the sons of the Living Spirit, so also the Light-Nous experiences the occasional weakening of the individual in abiding by its guidance, and also in abiding by the precepts of religion.
Exceptions to the conventional types of analysis concerning the associations between myth and cultic practice in Manichaeism nevertheless do exist, and one in particular has been highly influential in transforming modern, academic discussions of Manichaeism. The Manichaean Body by Jason BeDuhn, published in 2000 (and republished in 2002), provides a clear-eyed yet detailed assessment of the carefully defined cultic associations which existed between the mythology of the religion, and the ritual and ascetic components of Manichaeism. Central to BeDuhn’s study is the notion that the narrative traditions of the religion supplied the rationales for both the way in which Manichaeans behaved towards themselves, the natural world, and their ‘gods’, i.e., their disciplinary rationales, but also for supplying their alimentary rationales, i.e., what they ate and how they ate it, which were geared towards the realisation of the principal ritual act of the religion, namely the consumption of a daily meal by the Elect, the purpose of which was to liberate the Living Soul.73 As BeDuhn notes:
. . . [t]he significance of the Manichaean universe – in the sense of why it is there in the first place or what its function is for those who describe it – lies in relation to the practices that presuppose it. Any given ritual requires for its effectiveness a specific configuration of the universe. Likewise, the codes that guide participation for ritual performance rely on a particular structure in nature in order to accomplish their task. Such a universe must really exist; it must be there literally.74
BeDuhn’s analysis is remarkable for very many reasons, but arguably its most important achievement lies in the re-establishment of Manichaeism as a ritual faith, a characterisation which had been lost to history under the influence of the ancient heresiological refusal to take seriously Manichaean practice, a correlative to the concern with highlighting the inconsistency of Manichaean beliefs. Even with the recent emergence of ancient Manichaean sources, consideration of the ritual face of the religion, especially the role of the Elect in the primary task of freeing the enslaved light, remained a distant concern for scholars during the best part of the previous century. F.C. Burkitt’s apparent disinterest in this regard was therefore typical: ‘Exactly how the fully qualified Manichee [i.e., the Elect]
separates the Light that is mixed in the substances with which he is concerned our documents do not inform us. I doubt very much whether Mani himself had a really consistent theory about it.’75 The fact was, however, the documents could inform us about this process, and indeed have subsequently done so, although
72 See Klimkeit 1998.
73 See BeDuhn 2002, 144–60.
74 BeDuhn 2002, 70.
75 Burkitt 1925, 47.
Manichaean Theology II: The Universe, its Rituals and its Community
it was necessary to concentrate the conceptual horizons of research on a much more immediate concern, namely with the role taken by the physical body of the Elect in realising the original soteriological ambitions of Mani. BeDuhn achieved this act of ritual restoration by reconstructing the religion’s explanations for human psychology and physiology, which were most readily associated with the efficacious consumption of food by the Manichaean Elect, as the principal way of freeing light from the constraints of matter. Reading The Manichaean Body, it becomes apparent that, for the individual Manichaean, the gnosis of self-awareness – understood in archetypal terms as the awakening of Adam by Jesus the Splendour – was in itself insufficient for achieving the wider salvation of the soul as light in the universe. Rather, the heart of Manichaean soteriology resided in the way that the Elect Manichaean in particular exerted his will over his own body, in such a way as to transform its metabolic, psychic and intel-lectual functions from being something that was harmful to light into something that was helpful.
The disciplinary conditioning of the bodies of the Elect was achieved through their commitment to the ascetic ordinances of the religion, the ‘commandments’
of Manichaeism (see below). The ascetic practices followed by the Elect – e.g., celibacy, fasting, vegetarianism and a life of non-violence – were all intended to foster in senior Manichaeans a duty of care towards the light trapped in the material world. However, the specific purpose of the commandments was to transform the bodies of the Elect into highly efficient ‘systems’ capable of purifying light present in foodstuffs, through the consumption of the daily ritual meal; a conditioning which was achieved by the abstention on the part of the Elect from particular behaviours and activities – e.g., from harmful emotions, violence, sexual intercourse – all of which not only had a negative impact on the Living Soul present in the world, but were also likely to corrupt the saintly temperament required of the Elect.
BeDuhn’s argument concerning the alignment of the religion’s soteriology with the training of the human body owes indeed much to the earlier, insightful work of Jorunn Jacobsen Buckley who, in a series of articles that focused on the CMC and Mani’s break from Elchasaite practices including daily baptism and his repositioning of ritual practice within the matrix of the body, made the important observation that ‘soteriological gnosis . . . involves speculation and down-to-earth, ritual “know-how”’,76 thereby overturning another, patristic-inspired characterisation of ancient Gnosticism as being pre-occupied with the internalisation of ‘metaphysical, conceptual aspects’.77
Whilst the body itself as matter was therefore considered irredeemable, it could nevertheless be put to work as a ‘tool of conviviality’ (adapting the famous phrase of Ivan Illich) – as something which facilitated the divine ambition to free light. However, in order for this to be realised, the effect of the evil nature on the way the Elect thought and acted had to be minimised. As a result of the complex interplay between psychology and physiology, Manichaeans recognised the need to suppress those emotions and feelings that were endemic to the evil
76 Buckley 1986, 399.
77 Buckley 1986, 399. Also see Buckley 1983.
nature, which exerted their influence on their day-to-day lives, and which, if not controlled, could affect the efficacy of an adherent’s engagement with the primary tasks of the religion. In this, Manichaeans were guided by a range of precepts for governing conduct in line with the principal ideological idioms of the religion, and which determined in the wider sense their engagement with the world at large.