A. L. KHOSROEV. ISTORIYA MANICHEYSTVA (PROLEGOMENA) [HISTORY of MANICHAEISM (PROLEGOMENA)], St. Petersburg: SPbU Publ., 2007, 480 p., ill. Filologicheskiy fakultet (Asiatika)

Over the past two decades, the study of Manichaeism has reached a fundamentally new stage. Established in the late 1980s, the International Association for the Study of Manichaeism publishes the Manichaean Studies Newsletter. Since 1996, the Corpus fontium Manichaeorum series has been published, divided into separate language groups, with the task of publishing all sources on Manichaeism. Since 1998, a series of concordance dictionaries has been published that describe the terminology of the Manichaean corpus in all its languages (Syriac, Greek, Coptic, Latin, Parthian, Middle Persian, Sogdian, Persian, Arabic, Uyghur, and Chinese). To date, four volumes have been published, and most of the languages of the Manichaean corpus have already been processed. Since the late 1990s, several monographs on Manichaeism have been published annually - publications that either describe new sources, or monographs specifically devoted to the history or doctrine of this religion. In every leading Oriental journal in the world, several articles related to Manichaeism necessarily appear every year, not counting the huge number of reviews of published publications on this topic. New texts are put into circulation every year.

Such a rosy picture, unfortunately, does not apply to Russian Oriental studies. Two full-fledged scientific essays on this religion were written by B. A. Litvinsky and E. B. Smagina for the series "East Turkestan in Ancient Times and in the Early Middle Ages" (Litvinsky and Smagina, 1992) and E. B. Smagina (Smagina, 1995). She also published a Russian translation of the Manichaean work - the Coptic treatise "Kefalaya "("Chapters"). [Kefalaia, 1998]. In 2001, the only translation of a foreign monograph on Manichaeism so far was published - the book "Mani and Manichaeism" by the Swedish scholar G. Wiedengren [Wiedengren, 2001], which was already quite outdated at that time, due to the findings in Central Asia and Egypt, especially with the publication of the Cologne Manichaean Codex. Despite the fact that the publication is practically devoid of scientific commentary, this event can be considered a landmark.

Over the past 30 years, quite a few scientific articles have been published on Manichaeism. The exceptions are the articles of the patristic specialist A. I. Sidorov [Sidorov, 1980; aka, 1983], E. B. Smagina on the demon king in Manichaeism [Smagina, 1993], and E. V. Abdulaev on the connection of the Mani doctrine with Neoplatonism [Abdulaev, 2003]. In 2007, A. G. Aleksanyan published a large article on Chinese Manichaeism, which is quite exotic for Russian science (a historiographical review of research) [Aleksanyan, 2007]. Several articles by L. R. Kyzlasov are devoted to Manichaeism in Siberia [Kyzlasov, 2001; aka, 2001 (1)]. Reviews of Western works on Manichaeism occasionally appear in the journal "Christian East".

In this regard, it is difficult to overestimate the importance of the peer-reviewed monograph by the well-known expert on early Christianity and Gnosticism A. L. Khosroev. The source database of the study includes almost the entire Manichaean corpus of Coptic, Greek, Syriac, and Latin texts, while the Iranian texts are taken into account to a lesser extent, especially for texts from Turfan, whose repertoire is currently so diverse that it is comparable in volume to the corpus in Greek, Coptic, and Syriac. A number of Chinese and Turkic texts are also taken into account. Almost all anti-Manichaean polemical texts were used (in Greek, Syriac, Latin, and Arabic). Information from the Middle Persian polemical texts "Denkarda" and "Shkand gumanig vizar"remained unaccounted for.

The first chapter provides a brief history of the study of Manichaeism.

The second chapter lists sources of anti-Manichaean literature (in Greek, Latin, Syriac, Arabic, and a brief overview of literature in other languages) and original Manichaean works (in Greek, Coptic, Syriac, Latin, Iranian, Turkic, and Chinese).

The third chapter is devoted to the analysis of the canon of Manichaean writings. On the basis of various evidences, the author reconstructs the composition of the building, which belonged to the pen of Mani himself. "One of the

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the main difference from his predecessors, Mani saw in the fact that none of them wrote down their own teachings... Mani takes credit for being the first to do this; he wrote down the whole truth that he preached, and thereby protected his teaching from subsequent distortions; he himself established the canon of his writings, to which nothing could be added from now on" (p.71).

In the fourth chapter, the author reconstructs the life path of the creator of the Manichaean doctrine and the origins of Mani's worldviews. Having spent his childhood and youth in the Judeo-Christian community of the Elka Saites, Mani, according to the author, developed as a Judeo-Christian. But the turning point for the future founder of Manichaeism was the teaching of Paulinism. Mani gained access to the works of Paul through the writings of Marcion. The second author, whose acquaintance can be traced in the texts of Mani, according to A. L. Khosroev, was Bardaisan. Their ideas were the source of the Manichaean dualistic doctrine.

The following sections of the chapter are devoted to the Mani religious system, Manichaean astrology, and the Manichaean concept of time. The last section deals with Mani's teaching about three tenses: initial "separation", "mixing" and final "separation". The first version, presented in the Iranian, Turkic, and Chinese Manichaean sources, as well as in Augustine, projects this scheme to the entire cosmic time. Coptic texts and occasionally Augustine refer this division only to the period of confusion, i.e., to the historical time-from the descent of the First Man from heaven to the end of the world. Proceeding from the premise that the same text cannot contain two different versions, A. L. Khosroev incorporates the second scheme in the period of mixing and calls it "historical", and the first and last periods-respectively "Before-time" (Vor-Zeit) and "After-time" (Nach-Zeit). However, the overwhelming majority of researchers believe that here we have two different teachings about time - Eastern and Western, or two stages of development of the Manichaean doctrine, two versions, could be combined in one school1.

Often, A. L. Khosroev himself writes about the unique adaptability of Manichaeism (note 568), which allowed it to be incorporated, for example, into Egyptian Christianity, giving rise to the phenomenon of cultural synthesis. The plasticity of the teaching had to allow for reinterpretations that arose in different regions of the spread of religion. Questions related not to the ritual, but to the metaphysical side of the teaching, replete with complex subtleties, sometimes inaccessible to the minds of most believers, could not cause adequate understanding among the mass of believers. Therefore, an error of the translator or copyist may well have distorted the subtle meaning of the source. A. L. Khosroev himself (note 780) believes that the testimony of Augustine in the passage from the work "Against Faust" (p. Faust XXVIII. 5) you may not need to talk about three tenses. Augustine, as a polemicist, could not have set himself the task of analyzing the problem of time among the Manichaeans, especially since, as a philosopher, he himself is the author of the original Christian doctrine of temporality, which, according to him, is not a product of physical movement, but a change of mental states (such as memory, contemplation and expectation) (Confession XI. 20). The question of the reflection of the two versions of the Manichaean doctrine of time in Augustine remains open.

Comparing the Manichaean idea of three times with the periods that describe the gradual degradation of humanity in the Greek, Iranian, Indian and Jewish traditions, the author reveals the greatest similarity with the Iranian myth, but makes a reservation that the Manichaeans could have borrowed their motif from any version, and later adapted it. Most of all, A. L. Khosroev is attracted by the Greek myth of five generations, presented in Hesiod, which could have come to the Greeks through the "Books of the Sibyls". According to the author of the monograph, they could overlap with the Iranian myth (pp. 197-202). It has long been noted that the Hesiod myth must have had some Babylonian source. It should be recognized that the Iranian version is the most complete source of Manichaean ideas.

The fifth chapter deals with the organization of the Manichaean Church, which is based on the binary division into "listeners" and "perfect". From among the latter, all church ranks are selected. In the same chapter, the author deals with the rites of the Manichaean Church, mainly the feast of Bema.

1 A historiographical analysis of this problem is given in the notes on pages 187-188.

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The sixth chapter is devoted to Mani's disciples and the spread of his teachings throughout the Ecumene, mainly in the Roman Empire. Central to the analysis of the mission of Adda, who, according to the Manichaean texts, was sent to the Roman Empire and reached Alexandria. According to the testimony of Christian polemicists, he was sent not to Egypt, but to Mesopotamia. A. L. Khosroev believes that the polemicists took the disciples of Adda, Popes (p)a and Thomas, for independent missionaries (pp. 218-223). With the same reason, we can assume that the Manichaean texts do not refer to Alexandria of Egypt. A smaller part of the chapter is devoted to the arrival of the doctrine in Central Asia and China, but exhaustive references to the literature do not allow us to say that the author ignored this issue.

In the seventh chapter, Manichaeism is considered as one of the Christian heresies.

In Appendix 1, the author analyzes two of Mani's revelations, setting their time based on the texts. Appendix 2 provides a textual analysis of the Greek prayer from Kellis (the oasis of Dakhla in Egypt) (T. Kellis 22). Despite the fact that most researchers consider this prayer to be Manichaean (S. N. K. Lieu even calls it "the most important Manichaean Greek text from Kellis" [Lieu, 1994, p. 94]), A. L. Khosroev believes that its compiler was a syncretist Christian. Appendix 3 includes translations of Manichaean works from Greek (excerpts from the work "On the Birth of his Body"), Coptic (excerpts from the work "Kefalaia", Manichaean Psalms: Psalm of Bema, three Psalms of Heraclides, Psalms of Thomas), " From the letter of Macarius to his (spiritual?) to the son of Matthew"), Latin-quotations from the Manichaean writings of Christian polemicists (from "Epistola fundamenti": Augustine, Evodius and "Thesaurus": Augustine). The app also includes translations of key anti-Manichaean passages from Greek (Cyril of Jerusalem, Epiphanius of Cyprus, Theodoret of Cyrus, (pseudo -) Leontius of Byzantium, Zacharias of Miletus, Presbyter Timothy, Photius) and Latin (Augustine).

The monograph is provided with an extensive set of indexes (quotations from original works, Manichaean mythology, indexes of personal and subject, geographical). The bibliography is also provided with indexes indicating the pages or citation notes of a particular book. Such a meticulously compiled reference apparatus is a rare exception in Russian science.

Until now, the debate between supporters of the Iranian and Christian (Gnostic) origin of Manichaeism has not subsided. The most prominent proponent of the first hypothesis was G. Wiedengren. Nyoli. Some researchers, and Iranists, have recently been inclined to recognize the Christian origins of Manichaeism. The reason for this was the discovery of new Manichaean texts in Central Asia and Egypt, especially the Cologne Manichaean Codex (CMC). Due to the fact that the influence of both religions can be traced in almost equal proportions, the dispute about which religious tradition served as a substrate, and which only had an impact, is likely to continue for a long time. For example, P. O. Shervo considers the possibility of non-Zoroastrian influence on Mani, for example, Bardaisan, but immediately notes that the latter, apparently, was himself under Iranian influence [Skjærw¢, p. 270], and rightly speaks of the mixed background of Manichaeism.

The fact that Mani was originally associated with Christians is evidenced by his belonging to the Elkasait sect in his childhood and youth. According to A. L. Khosroev, Mani's worldview was directly influenced by the teachings of Marcion and Bardaisan. Manichaean dualism, which is traditionally associated with Iranian dualism, A. L. Khosroev deduces from Marcion's doctrine of two gods - the Old Testament Law and the Gospel, although he himself says that there are no references to them in the Manichaean corpus (p. 121). Mani, according to the author, was not aware of himself as the founder of a new world religion, but as a Christian.

According to A. L. Khosroev, Mani saw himself as an apostle of Christ, the seal of the prophets, the finisher of the cycle of prophecy, the reformer of Christian teaching, the creator of the "true" "universal" church, called to consolidate the teaching of the written canon. The ideal for Mani, according to the author, was the Apostle Paul, and he considered himself as his follower. The fact that Mani saw himself not only as an apostle of Christ, but also as a Paraclete, the Spirit of Truth, which none of the apostles spoke about, immediately put his teaching outside the framework of Christianity. Another important difference is that Mani has two revelations (at the age of 12 and 24). This put him above Jesus, who did not receive revelations at such an early age.

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Even the Manichaean Church, according to the author, in the first centuries of its existence did not separate itself from Christianity. A. L. Khosroev's conclusion is as follows: Manichaeism has always been one of the Gnostic Christian sects. The author returns to the assessment of the early Christian polemicists, who considered the Manichaeans a Christian heresy and explained all their teachings directly from Christianity. "In this case, it will be necessary to consider Manichaeism (both in its theology, morals, and organization) not as a new religion, but as one of the possible modifications of Christianity (and only Christianity-sic!), among which was the Christianity of Marcion, Valentine, Bardaisan, and the Elkasaites themselves"(p. 256). Expecting an objection to see Christianity in Gnosticism, A. L. Khosroev pre-dates this conclusion with a detailed discussion of definitions that allow us to draw a clear line between a Christian sect (heresy) and an independent religious teaching. Based on his previous fundamental research in the field of Gnosticism, the author recognizes Gnosticism not as a separate religion, but as a special form of Christian religiosity. Thus, A. L. Khosroev defines Manichaeism as "extremely mythologized syncretically-dualistic... Christianity of Mani and his followers " (p. 265).

However, the fact that Jesus was an integral part of the Manichaean teaching cannot be a proof of his central role in this teaching. It should be noted that often the founders of a new religious teaching position themselves as the founders of a new religion. Often they try to fit in with some traditional trend, claiming to be reformers or "restorers" of previously distorted teachings. A direct parallel can be drawn with Quranic Islam. Muhammad, in the text of the Qur'an, also never mentions the creation of a new religion, but says that he follows the "religion of Abraham". He, like Mani, sees himself as the seal of the prophets, that is, he puts himself on a par with the Old Testament prophets, Jesus, and the Arabian prophets. The very concept of Islam existed in pagan Arabia, which is reflected in the same Koran [see, for example, Ringgren, 1949]. The world religion, unlike the same Rachmanic South Arabian cults (the same correlation of Manichaeism and individual Gnostic sects), Islam was made not only by a radically new teaching, but also by the circumstances and a series of historical events that established its dominance in Arabia, and then in the vast territory from the Maghreb to Indochina. The Bab, the founder of Babism, or Baha'u'llah, the founder of Baha'ism, had exactly the same attitude towards his teaching.

The relationship between Mani and the Elkasait community can be seen as the relationship of Jesus to the Jewish community. According to Mani himself, the Paraclete (Double) He was sent to him to free him from the "delusions of the sectarians" and "separated and tore me out of the law in which I had grown up" (CMC 19.15, 20.5 - 15, cf.65.1 - 5) (see pp. 291, 292, 297). Thus, it is problematic to speak about the line of rigid succession in relation to the Elkasait doctrine in Mani2. From these lines, it is more logical to assume something else: Mani was "torn out" of the Gnostic sect by a certain preacher, whose confessional affiliation is difficult to determine. "All the ineffable things that my Father gave me, having concealed and concealed them from various religions (emphasis added-P. B.) and even from the world, I have revealed to you by the good pleasure of my most blessed Father" (CMC 68.5 - 10) (see p.298). Moreover, the fact that Christian heresiographers, beginning with Augustine, considered the Manichaeans as a Christian sect cannot serve as proof of its origin. It is known that the label of heresy in the Christian tradition was often applied to other religious traditions.

L. A. Khosroev states that Manichaeism should not be considered a world religion and put it on a par with Christianity, Islam and Buddhism. Apparently, he does not specifically mention such independent religions as Zoroastrianism and even Judaism. Thus, the radical nature of his statement is mitigated.

Purely textual in Parthian and Middle Persian, the word den (dyn) denotes both a religion and a religious community. Numerous contexts of its use do not allow us to judge what exactly is being discussed in each particular passage 3. However, this is not a reason to say that everywhere Mani speaks only about his own community, and not about a new religion.

2 Below, Mani refers to them as "those who are under the rule of the law", i.e., he probably compares them to Jews (CMC 69.20) (p. 298). That is, in his eyes, the Elkasaites are the same as the Jews in the eyes of Jesus.

3 For a complete concordance for dyn, see Durkin-Meisterernst, 2005, pp. 150-151.

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L. A. Khosroev completely rejects Mani's direct acquaintance with the Zoroastrian doctrine, knowledge of the Zoroastrian canon, and even communication with Zoroastrian priests, and he tends to consider any similarity of the Manichaean teaching with Zoroastrianism typological, rather than genetic.

Repeating some of the points of P. O. Shervo's research cited above, I will list the most significant coincidences of the Manichaean and Zoroastrian doctrines. This is mainly a similar cosmogony and cosmology (according to Bundahishnu): cosmological dualism, three stages of sacred history (creation, mixing and restoration + the era of separation, which as time was not realized), the battle of the forces of evil with good (in Zoroastrianism - Ahriman with the creations of Ahura Mazda), the role of the First Man in this struggle eschatology, astrology (the juxtaposition of good creations-luminaries and stars, and evil creations-planets, the location of planets above the sphere of the Zodiac, etc.). When complete correspondences are striking and they can no longer be reduced, as in the case of dualism, to typological coincidences, L. A. Khosroev suggests a secondary borrowing through Gnostic means, for example, in the case of the coincidence of the Manichaean doctrine of time and the doctrine of "Bundahishna" (p. 197).

He explains the same astrological ideas of the Zoroastrians and Manichaeans, which are absent among the Hellenes, not by a possible common source - Babylonian astronomy, but by oral transmission, denying Mani's acquaintance with Zoroastrian written culture. Such a transfer, explained by the "people's faith", is unlikely. Astronomically complex reasoning cannot be transmitted through an environment divorced from book culture. "They (the Manichaeans) preserved in their teaching a whole series of primitive astronomical ideas... which don't seem to have been widely adopted outside of the Iranian cultural space. These ideas are attested in various Zoroastrian texts, and above all in the book" Bundahishn", which is an attempt to merge into a single whole the vulgar Iranian astronomical ideas and late Greek astrological speculations, which by the time of Mani had penetrated Iran through translations of Greek astrological texts " (p.183). One gets the impression that the indirect Iranian influence on Manichaean astrology is reflected in the most "vulgar" and "primitive" part of it, a certain lower layer. One cannot agree with this statement (for the system of Sasanian astrology, see [Rafaelli, 2001]).

In connection with the general aim of the book - to negate the Iranian influence on Manichaeism when considering the issue of Manichaean preaching in Parthia, the author states that only the head of the eastern mission of Map Ammo was able to first convey the sermon to the Parthians. The claim that there were few people in Parthia who knew Aramaic is deeply erroneous. One might recall, for example, that the language of office work in Parthia was Aramaic. Literacy required knowledge of this language. The author asks how Mani himself communicated at the court of Shapur I, not wanting, on the one hand, to assume that Mani knew the Iranian language, and on the other - Aramaic by the Iranian population (pp. 227-228). Mani's ignorance of the Iranian languages is opposed by the fragmentary preserved treatise "Shapurakan", written in Middle Persian and presented by Mani himself as a gift to Shapur I in April 242. In appendix 1 to the monograph, A. L. Khosroev himself admits that this is the earliest treatise of Mani, written in the Elkasait sect. At the same time, the treatise is written in the language of Zoroastrianism and, according to some scholars, could have been presented under the guise of a true revelation of Zarathustra [see, for example, Sundermann, 1979, p. 112]. The probability that this book was translated from Aramaic specifically for Shapur is small (this assumption itself belongs to M. Boyce, but it seems that no other researchers share it). Even the author himself admits that the original language of "Shapurakan" could well have been Middle Persian, which contradicts his statement about Mani's ignorance of Iranian languages.

Unfortunately, throughout the text of the monograph there are numerous typos in the transcription of Arabic terminology (in addition to a large number of typos, assimilation of the article is often not written out, complete confusion with the symbols for 'ain (') and hamza ( ‘ ), for the consonants gayn (g) and jym (j), one grapheme g is introduced.Jahiz is named Gahiz; the date of his death is incorrect (856 instead of 869) (p. 17). Ibn an-Nadim loses his Ibn. H. S. Nyberg (H. S. Nyberg) throughout the text of the book is called Nyberg, in the list of references his initials are given incorrectly-N. S.

Such inaccuracies somewhat reduce the scientific level of the monograph itself. However, this in no way detracts from the overall high level of the publication. Undoubtedly, the book of A. L. Khosroev is intended to become a historical milestone in the study of Manichaeism in Russia and serve as a topical issue.

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it reflects the current stage of studying the complex of problems associated with this religion in world science.

list of literature

Abdullaev E. V. Mani and platonists / / Central Asia: sources, history, culture. Proceedings of the International Scientific Conference dedicated to the 80th anniversary of Doctor of Historical Sciences E. A. Davidovich and full member of the Academy of Sciences of Tajikistan, Academician of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, Doctor of Historical Sciences B. A. Litvinsky (Moscow, April 3 - 5, 2003) / Ed. by E. A. Antonov, T. K. Mkrtychev. Moscow, 2005.

Aleksanyan A. G. historiography of Manichaeism in China (review of Western and Chinese studies) // Problems of the Far East. 2007. N 2.

Videngren G. Mani and Manichaeism / Translated from German by St. Ivanov, St. Petersburg, 2001.

Kefalaya ("Chapters"). Coptic Manichaean Treatise / Translated from Coptic, research, commentary. gloss, and decree of E. B. Smagina, Moscow, 1998.

Kyzlasov L. R. Siberian manichaeism // Ethnographic review. 2001. N 5.

Kizlasov L. R. Smena mirovozzreniya v Yuzhnoi Sibiri v rannem Srednevekovye (Idei monobozhiya v eniseyskikh napisisyakh) [Change of worldview in Southern Siberia in the Early Middle Ages (Ideas of Monotheism in the Yenisei inscriptions)]. Istoriya i kul'tura [History and Culture], Moscow, 2001.

Litvinsky B. A., Smagina E. B. Manichaeism // Vostochny Turkestan in antiquity and in the early Middle Ages. Ethnos, languages, religion, Moscow, 1992.
Sidorov A. I. Neoplatonism and Manichaeism (Alexander of Lycopolis, Simplicius) // Bulletin of Ancient History. 1980. N 3.

Sidorov A. I. Manichaeism in the image of Augustine (De haeresibus, 46) // Bulletin of Ancient History. 1983. N 2.

Smagina E. B. Istoki i formirovanie predstavleniya o tsar demonov v manicheyskoi religii [The origins and formation of ideas about the demon king in the Manichean religion]. 1993. N 1.

Smagina E. B. Manichaeism /Religions of the Ancient East, Moscow, 1995.
Durkin-Meisterernst D. Dictionary of Manichaean Texts. Vol. III. Texts from Central Asia and China. Pt. 1. Dictionary Middle-Persian and Parthian. Brepols, 2005.

Lieu S. N. C. Manichaeism in Mesopotamia and the Roman East. Leid., 1994.

Rafaelli E. G. L'oroscopo del mondo. II tenia di nascita del mondo e del prima noma secondo I'astrologia zoroastri-ana. Milano, 2001.

Ringgren H. Islam, 'aslama and muslim. Uppsala, 1949.

Skjærw¢P. O. Iranian Elements in Manicheism. A Comparative Contrastive Approach. Irano-Manichaica I // Melanges offerts a Philippe Ginoux. Bureus-sur-Yvette, 1995.

Sundermann W. Namen von Gottern, Damonen und Menschen in iranischen Versionen des manichaischen Mythos // Altorientalische Forschungen. 1979. N 6.

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