«Реферат по истории религий на английском языке Manichaeism as a Religious Community»

Manichaeism as a syncretic dualistic doctrine and a specific religious community dates back to the period of Roman Late Antiquity; however, nowadays there is not much evidence testifying to its existence. Basic information on Manichaean religious practices in the Roman Empire comes from a variety of sources – literary texts, as well as documentary evidence. Manichaean literary texts include the fourth century Coptic Medinet Madi library recovered from the ruins of a private home in the Fayum region of Egypt, several literary fragments in Syriac and Coptic from private homes in Kellis in the Egyptian Dakhkeh Oasis, the Latin Tebessa Codex from Algeria, and, most important, the Greek Cologne Mani Codex from an undetermined location in Egypt which contains the description of characteristically Manichaean practices of the late antique period. Although, basically, the contents of these texts reflect their original non-Roman composition, nevertheless, they provide information of what was being copied and read by Manichaeans inside the Roman domains, and reflect Manichaean ideas in local terms and languages.

Manichaeism as a religious community presents a well-organized domestic setting, designed to saturate and invest the individual with a delimited set of thoughts and behaviors that become the Manichaean self, identity. By its domestic location, this system of practice does not allocate religious performance to a public sphere where the broader society’s gaze plays a role in affirming a selfhood in conformity to social norms. On the contrary, the confinement of Manichaeism to the domestic sphere marks a division and separation of the Manichaean from that social gaze and norm, into a more intimate sphere of affirmation and reinforcement in the close-knit family or even in the private space of the individual alone with him / herself between contacts with visiting Elect.

1. BeDuhn J.D. The Domestic Setting of Manichaean Cultic Associations in Roman Late Antiquity // Archiv für Religionsgeschichte, 10. Band, 2008. – P. 259-274.

2. Smith J.Z. Map is not Territory: Studies in the History of Religions, 1978. – P. 187-188.