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Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies is an electronic journal dedicated to the study of the Syriac tradition, published semi-annually (in January and July) by Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute. Published since 1998, Hugoye seeks to offer the best scholarship available in the field of Syriac studies.
The recently published Syriac Revelation of the Magi has proven to be a remarkable addition to the corpus of early Christian apocryphal literature. This unique amplification of the traditional Nativity narrative recounts the Magi’s encounter with a “star-child” who leads them from their homeland in the far east to the birth of Jesus at Nazareth, where the polymorphic nature of Christ is revealed along with his message of universal salvation. Interestingly, the Revelation of the Magi contains several important points of contact with early Manichaean texts. This paper will examine what those shared motifs might tell us about the common milieu out of which both Manichaeism and the Revelation of the Magi might have emerged.
Over-familiarity with the biblical narrative often obscures
the strangeness of the tradition, attested by the Gospel of
Matthew, that the infant Jesus was visited by a group of Persian
priests. Stranger still, if the term magos is interpreted
as “sorcerer.” Either way, the idea that the birth of Jesus was attended by a
group of travelling magicians or Zoroastrian clergy is an odd detail to be
included in the Christian foundation narrative. Unfortunately, Matthew’s account
is short on specifics, other than that they were led to Bethlehem from “the
east” by some astral event—an equally exotic motif—and that they brought with
them some rather impractical gifts. Over time, however, Christian tradition has
tried to fill in the blanks. Centuries of commentary and apocryphal mythmaking
have transformed the magoi of the gospel account into the
“Three Wise Men” (or “Kings”) prominently featured in nativity scenes and
Christmas carols throughout many parts of the Christian world.
In fact, the tradition of the magi developed in two divergent directions. Whereas
western Christian tradition saw them fashioned into Balthazar, Melchior, and
Gaspar—kings from Arabia, Persia, and India respectively—eastern Christians
identified twelve kings from “beyond the land of Nod.” One of the
“apocryphal”
While the utility of this term has been contested, it continues to be
used (albeit reluctantly) by various scholars as a way to demarcate an
important body of early Christian literature. For an extensive
discussion see
Brent Landau has done a great service to the field of Early Christian
Studies by bringing increased attention to this hitherto practically
unknown Syriac text. Landau’s Harvard doctoral dissertation, under the
supervision of François Bovon, “The Sages and the Star-Child:An
Introduction to the Revelation of the Magi, An Ancient Christian
Apocryphon” (PhD diss., Harvard University, 2008) contains a re-edited
Syriac text along with English translation and contextual commentary. A
“popular” translation was published in 2010 by HarperCollins, The text appears
to have undergone several redactional stages, such as the possible later
addition of the Judas Thomas epilogue ( Landau has asserted a partial
Edessene association for the text
( The text was
inserted into the world-chronicle by the author/compiler with no
commentary (Landau, New Testament Apocrypha: More Canonical
Scriptures, Volume I, ed. Tony Burke and Brent Landau (Grand
Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2016), xxii-xxiii.Revelation of the
Magi.Revelation of the Magi: The Lost Tale of the Wise
Men’s Journey to Bethlehem, while a summary of the text has
appeared in New Testament Apocrypha: More Canonical
Scriptures, Volume I, 19-38. nd and early 4th century CENew Testament
Apocrypha I, 20-23). A much shorter version of the story is
found in a 5th-century Latin commentary on
Matthew, known as the Opus Imperfectum. While
some scholars, such as Duchesne-Guillemin, believed that both works drew
on a common source (“Die Magier in Bethlehem und Mithras als Erlöser?”
Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morganländischen Gesellschaft 111,
no. 2 (1961): 472), Landau has argued that the Opus
Imperfectum is an abbreviation of a 4th-century Greek version of the Revelation
of the Magi, with the original Syriac version dated even
earlier to the 3rd or 2nd century CE (New
Testament Apocrypha I, 21-22). Moreover, thematic affinities
with other early Christian apocrypha texts also point to a 2nd-3rd century
context
(New Testament Apocrypha I, 22).
New Testament Apocrypha I, 23),
but this is conjectural. It has become customary in scholarship to
highlight the role of Edessa in the emergence of Christianity in
Mesopotamia, largely due to the success of the Abgar legend, and to
associate early Syriac literary traditions with that locale. This view,
however, has been problematized by The Syriac World, ed. Daniel
King [New York: Routledge, 2019], 68-87), who highlights the historical
unreliability of the traditional apostolic origin stories and advocates
for a more nuanced reconstruction of the origins of Syriac Christianity.
As for the Revelation of the Magi, there is no
internal evidence that specifically links its origins to Edessa, other
than the emphasis on Thomas, which itself appears to be a later
addition. Revelation of the Magi remain
largely obscure. We find it preserved in the 8th-century Syriac Chronicle of Zuqnin,Sages and the Star-Child,
3-5).
According to the For perceptions of
the far east in late antique literature, including the Early Christians
have put forward a variety of explanations for the appearance of a star
at the birth of Jesus (see Nicola Denzey, “A New Star on the Horizon:
Astral Christologies and Stellar Debates in Early Christian Discourse,”
in See Landau’s full translation in Revelation’s account, the magi form part
of a long lineage of initiates from “land of Shir” (2.4) in the far east,Revelation of the Magi, see Annette Yoshiko Reed, “Beyond the
Land of Nod: Syriac Images of Asia and the Historiography of ‘The
West’,” History of Religions 49, no. 1 (August
2009): 48-87.Prayer, Magic, and the Stars in the Ancient and
Late Antique World, ed. Scott Noegel et al [Pennsylvania:
Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003], 207-221), although none are
as theologically developed as what is presented in the Revelation of the Magi. Revelation of the Magi and summary in
New Testament Apocrypha 30-38.
In-depth study of the Revelation of the Magi has only just
begun and its relationship with other late antique religious traditions has yet
to be fully explored. Who wrote it and for what sort of audience or community
are questions that remain unanswered. As a starting point for further
contextualization, it should be noted that there are a number of passages in the
text that resonate with terminological and theological motifs found in the
surviving corpus of Manichaean literature. As such, this article will argue that
several key elements found in both the Revelation of the
Magi and Manichaean discourse are indicators of their emergence from a
shared historical and religious milieu within early Syriac Christianity.
Even though the figure of Zoroaster (Zarathustra) is
considered to be an important part of the Manichaean prophetic lineage—along
with the Buddha and Jesus—and Mani is sometimes presented as debating
Zoroastrian doctrines, See Paul Dilley, “Also Schrieb Zarathustra? Mani
As Interpreter of the ‘Law of Zarades’” in Iain Gardner, Jason BeDuhn,
and Paul Dilley, See W. B.
Henning, “Mani’s Last Journey,” Mani at the Court of the Persian
Kings: Studies on the Chester Beatty "Kephalaia" Codex (Leiden:
Brill, 2015), 101-135.magus is generally despised in early Manichaean texts due to the role
played by members of the Zoroastrian priesthood in the execution of ManiBulletin of the School
of Oriental and African Studies 10, no.4 (1942): 941-953; see
also Iain Gardner, “Mani’s Last Days,” in Gardner, BeDuhn, and Dilley,
Mani at the Court of the Persian Kings,
159-208.Narrative of the Crucifixion, from the Manichaean
Homilies codex:
When the Magi noticed how (people) asked: ‘Who, indeed, is
this person who has entered (the city)?,’ [(and how others) answered] them: ‘It
is Manichaios,”—when they heard [these (words), they shook] and were filled with
wrath. They went and accused [him] before Kardel ( Nils Arne Pedersen, Homilies 45.11-20).Manichaean
Homilies, Corpus Fontium Manichae-orum, Series Coptica II
(Turnhout: Brepols, 2006).
The “Kardel” mentioned in this Coptic text is none other than the (im)famous
Zoroastrian high priest Kartir, who boasted about his persecution of various
religious communities in the Sassanian Empire in Middle Persian inscriptions
from the 3 D. N. MacKenzie, “A Zoroastrian Master of
Ceremonies,” in rd century CE,
including the Manichaeans themselves.W.B. Henning Memorial Volume, ed.
Mary Boyce, and Ilya Gershevitch (London: Lund Humphries,
1970).
As a result, the Zoroastrian priestly class is subsequently portrayed in an
extremely negative light by Manichaean authors, particularly those writing in
the late 3 Pedersen, The
rd and early 4th century CE Mesopotamian context, for whom the traumas of
persecution were still deeply felt. For instance, in the Manichaean Sermon on the Great War, also from the Coptic Homilies codex, the biblical figure of Babylon is
presented as the personification of Evil and as the enemy of righteousness in
the world. Specifically, we are told, she has “reigned in the fire [of the]
magi” (Homilies 11.17-18),Manichaean Homilies. Homilies 26.2) in the text’s
originally Sassanian context. Similarly, in the Coptic Manichaean Psalm-Book, the magi (Psalm-Book 15.7) and are called “impious men, mad and godless” (Psalm-Book 15.11).Psalm-Book further castes
them as “brothers of the Jews, the murderers of Christ” (Psalm-Book 15.11-12) in an effort to make the
death of Mani more closely resemble that of Jesus.
Moreover, on a more scriptural level, Manichaeans had little to no interest in
the Nativity story, since they generally denied the physical birth of Jesus. In
the 4th century CE anti-Manichaean disputation known
as the Acts of Archelaus, Mani is presented as writing to
a pious Mesopotamian man named Marcellus in order to win him as a convert to his
new religion, saying:
I am completely amazed at how they can dare to call God the
maker and creator of Satan and his evil deeds. Would that their vacuity had
reached only this far and they did not say that the only-begotten Christ, ‘who
descended from the Father’s bosom,’ was the son of a woman called Mary, and was
born of flesh and blood and all the other pollutions of women” ( Hegemonius, Acts of Archelaus V).Acta Archelai
(The Acts of Archelaus), trans. Mark Vermes (Louvain: Brepols,
2001), 42; Hegemonius, Acta Archelai, GCS 16
(Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1906).
This position is also affirmed by the “Psalms to Jesus” from the Manichaean C.R.C. Allberry,
On the origins of Jesus in the Manichaean myth see Majella Franzmann,
Psalm-Book, which state that Jesus “was not born in a
womb corrupted” (Psalm-Book 53.23).A Manichaean Psalm-Book, Part II (Stuttgart:
Kohlhammer, 1938). Jesus in the Manichaean Writings (London:
T&T Clark, 2003), 51-59.
You are not ashamed, however, to speak ill of the star by
which the Magi were led to adore the infant Christ. And yet you do not locate
your false Christ, the son of your false first man, under a star that bears
witness to him, but you say that he is imprisoned in all the stars. For you
believe that he was mingled with the princes of darkness in that war by which
that first man of yours fought against the nation of darkness, with the result
that the world was fashioned out of the very princes of darkness who were
captured in such a mingling. Hence, these sacrilegious ravings also force you to
say that Christ—no longer your savior but someone for you to save when you eat
those things and belch—is confined and imprisoned not only in heaven and in all
the stars but also in the earth and in all the things that are born from it ( Augustine, Contra Faustum, 2.5).Answer to
Faustus, a Manichean, trans. Roland Teske, The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21
st
Century (NY: New
City Press, 2007), 73-74;
Sancti Aureli Augustini, ed.
Zycha, CSEL 25.1 (Vienna, 1891), 258.
Unbeknownst to Augustine, the astral messiah he ridicules here is not entirely
dissimilar to the saviour figure portrayed in the Revelation
of the Magi.
Given the apparent lack of interest that Manichaeans would
have had in the Nativity story generally and the “magi” specifically, it seems
surprising that a text such as the
This comparative exercise is
based on the fact that both the
It should be noted, also,
that this study seeks to compare a single text (Revelation of the Magi which seeks
to amplify and expand upon their story should contain elements that appear to
resonate strongly with several important conceptsRevelation of the Magi and
early Manichaean texts derive from the same geographic and linguistic
milieu, as well as being more or less contemporaneous with each other.
As mentioned above, the Revelation of the Magi is
thought to have been composed originally in Syriac sometime during the
3rd-4th
centuries CE, whereas the earliest expressions of Manichaean theological
discourse would have been in Syriac (the language of Mani himself)
during that same period. Some of the earliest surviving Manichaean
literature in Greek and Coptic shows significant traces of this Syriac
substratum (particularly the “Psalms of Thomas” and the Cologne Mani Codex, see below). In fact, the
Manichaean material from Kellis contains multilingual texts including
Coptic-Syriac glossaries (Iain Gardner,
Kellis Literary Texts, Vol. I [Oxford:
Oxbow, 1996], 101-131). For these reasons, as well as the limits of the
author’s linguistic abilities, this study is restricted primarily to
Manichaean texts in Coptic and Greek. Further work would be needed to
trance these elements further afield in Manichaean literature from
Central Asia. Revelation of the Magi) to a parallel religious “discourse”
attested by multiple (often fragmentary) sources. Even thought Mani went
to great lengths to record his teachings in writing, this “canonical”
tradition has been mostly lost. The theological framework articulated by
Mani must be pieced together from a variety of sources, some of which
show significant evidence of redaction and development by later
Manichaean interpreters (see Timothy Pettipiece, Pentadic Redaction in the Manichaean Kephalaia [Leiden: Brill,
2009]), as well as a degree of regional variation (see Jason BeDuhn,
The Manichaean Body in Discipline and Ritual [Baltimore:
John Hopkins University Press, 2000], 1-24). At most we can speak of
early Manichaean tradition(s), as opposed to what Mani himself may or
may not have specifically taught. Still the proximity of these sources
to one another warrants juxtaposition.
The first element that stands out is the terminology used by the author of
the Landau, According to John C. Reeves, terms like
A slight
variant occurs at
Sebastian Brock has already signaled the
importance of this association in 2006 (“An Archaic Syriac Prayer
over Baptismal Oil,”
See Mandaean
Revelation of the Magi to describe God. According
to the text, as the magi reflected upon their ancient ritual tradition, they
knelt before the “Cave of Treasures of Hidden Mysteries” Father of that heavenly majesty that is ineffable and
infinite forever” (Revelation of the Magi 5.7).Revelation of the Magi, 43.Treasure of Life and the Mysteries,treasury and
treasure of life “pepper
the lexicon of Syro-Mesopotamian gnosis” (“Reconsidering the
‘Prophecy of Zardūšt’,” in A Multiform Heritage:
Studies in Early Judaism and Christianity in Honor of Robert A.
Kraft, ed. Benjamin G. Wright (Atlanta: Scholars Press,
1999), 167-182) as commonly shared motifs. Revelation of the Magi 3.5:
“Greatness of the Father” (Revelation
of the Magi 5.7). As it happens, the “Father of Greatness” is the
primary name for the ruler of the Manichaean light-realm used in Syriac,
Greek, and Coptic Manichaean texts.Studia Patristica 41
[2006]: 12), although without further comment. See Theodore bar
Khonai’s Syriac account of the Manichaean cosmogony in Book of Scholia
(Liber scholiorum, ed.
Addai Scher; CSCO 69; [Louvain: Imprimerie orientaliste L. Durbecq,
1954], 313.15). Also attested in Greek as ὁ πατἠρ τοῦ μεγέθους in
the
Seven Chapters Against Manichaeans 3
(see Lieu, Fox, and Sheldon Greek and Latin
Sources on Manichaean Cosmogony and Ethics, Corpus Fontium
Manichaeorum, Series Subsidia VI [Turnhout: Brepols, 2010], 119),
and as
Living Gospel from the
Synaxeis codex (Wolf-Peter Funk, personal communication). See Aloïs van
Tongerloo, “The Father of Greatness,” in
Gnosisforschung und Religionsgeschichte. Festschrift fūr Kurt Rudolph zum 65. Geburtstag, ed.
Holger Preißler und Hubert Seiwert (Marburg: diagonal-Verlag, 1994),
329-342 and Paul Van Lindt, The Names of
Manichaean Mythological Figures: A Comparative Study on
Terminology in the Coptic Sources (Wiesbaden: Otto
Harrassowitz, 1992), 3-16.mara d-rabuta) is also mentioned in
Mandaean texts,Book of
John 66.13; 67.41 (Charles G. Häberl and James F. McGrath,
eds., The Mandaean Book of John: Text and
Translation [Berlin: De Gruyter, 2020]).Revelation of the Magi and those
traditions.Iranisch-semitische Kulturbegegnung in parthischer Zeit (Köln:
Westdeut-scher Verlag, 1960), 74.
While the use of the title “Father of Greatness” is most often associated
with Manichaeism, it is not unthinkable that such an epithet formed part of
a shared Aramaic religious vocabulary in late antique Mesopotamia, as it is
also attested in a handful of post-Manichaean sectarian theologies. Theodore bar
Khonai describes the teaching of a certain John of Apamea (not the
influential monastic spiritual author), in which the sole God is
referred to as the “Father of Greatness” (Book of
Scholia 11.76)
(Théodore bar Koni: Livre des scholies (recension de Séert) I. Mimrè I-V, trans.
Robert Hespel and René Draguet, CSCO, Scriptores syri 187 (Louvain:
Peeters, 1981), 248. He also presents the doctrine of the (5th cent CE?) sectarian leader Batai, who
promoted a kind of modified dualism whereby Good and Evil were
derived from the “Father of Greatness” (Book of
Scholia 11.85 (Théodore bar Koni,
256-257).
Similarly, the Revelation of the Magi also refers to
God as the “Lord of All” (Homilies 47.13-14; Kephalaia 40.10; 156.6).
Once again, it is difficult to determine if this reflects a distinctively
Manichaean usage or is derived from a common theological lexicon.
The Revelation of the Magi also puts an important
emphasis on revealed knowledge being recorded in books. Seth, we are told,
set his wisdom “down in a book” and, in fact, “from him a book appeared in
the world for the first time” (3.2-3). Noah, in turn, preserved the “books
of Seth about the majesty (i.e. greatness) of the Father” (3.5
With this idea, too, we find parallels in Manichaean tradition. Whereas Mani
is said to have included Buddha, Zoroaster, and Jesus in his list of
prophetic predecessors, some early Manichaean texts also insert a
pre-Noachid lineage going back to the biblical figure of Seth(el). This sort of
biblical lineage is found in a wide array of Manichaean and
anti-Manichaean sources, see Michel Tardieu, Polotsky, H.-J. and A. Böhlig, Iain Gardner
and Samuel Lieu, Le
manichéisme (Paris: Presses universitaires de France,
1981), 20-22. Moreover, the idea of “Sethian” gnosis is a well-established trope in apocryphal
literature, see A. F. J. Klijn, Seth in Jewish,
Christian, and Gnostic Traditions (Leiden: Brill, 1977). A
discussion of a so-called “Prayer of Sethel” forms the basis of
Kephalaia chapter 10
(42.24-43.21). This connection to Seth is particularly notable in
light of the fact that the “abbreviated” version of the
Revelation of the Magi story,
found in the Opus Imperfectum, is said to be
derived from an “apocryphal book in the name of Seth” Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: More
Noncanonical Scriptures, vol. 1, ed. Bauckham, Davila, and
Panayotov [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013], 33-39).Kephalaia Chapter 1 “On the Coming of the
Apostle” Mani is presented as articulating a sequence of apostolic
predecessors “from Sethel [the first] born son of Adam up to Enosh, along
with [Enoch]; [from] Enoch [up] to Sem [the] son of [Noah …” (Kephalaia 12.10-12).Kephalaia (I): 1. Hälfte [Lieferung 1-10].
Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1940. See also the litany from
Psalm-Book 179.Psalm-Book as part of a litany
of biblical and apostolic figures embodying the ideal of “endurance” (Cologne Mani
Codex, where Seth(el) recounts a vision of a luminous entity: “I
opened my eyes and I saw before my face an [angel] whose [brightness] I
could not describe [for he was] nothing other than lightning” (CMC 50).Manichaean Texts from the Roman
Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 55;
Albert Henrichs and Ludwig Koenen,
Der Kölner Mani-Kodex: Über das Werden seines Liebes (Opladen:
Westdeutscher Verlag, 1988), 32-33.Revelation of the
Magi, where we are told:
Adam instructed Seth his son about … [and about the
revelation] of the light of the star and about its glory, because he [saw]
it in the Garden of Eden when it descended and came to rest over the Tree of
Life; and it illuminated the entire (garden) before Adam transgressed
against the commandment of the Father of heavenly majesty (i.e. greatness)
(
As such, in both the
Nicholas Baker-Brian, Cologne Mani Codex and the Revelation of the Magi we have accounts of revelatory
encounters with luminous beings in the Garden of Eden which are then
recorded in primordial holy books. In both contexts these episodes are used
as a means to establish their protagonists’ divine authority as part of a
chain of true prophecy traced back to the biblical forefathers Adam and
Seth.Manichaeism: An Ancient
Faith Rediscovered (London: T&T Clark, 2011),
50-51.
Mani’s notion of prophetic succession was also linked
to the periodic appearance of an entity he called the “Light-Mind”
(essentially a sort of Manichaean Logos) via “apostles of light” in various
times and places. Most notably, Mani is quoted as stating in a discourse
given to Sassanian King Shapur I that “Apostles of God have constantly
brought wisdom and deeds in successive times.” As quoted by 11 Tardieu, Hippolytus’ authorship is
disputed. See th century Islamic scholar al-Biruni in
his Chronology of Ancient Nations (see John
C. Reeves, Prolegomena to a History of Islamicate
Manichaeism (Sheffield: Equinox, 2011), 102.Kephalaia equates “all the
apostles who are on occasion sent to the world” to farmers” (9.24-25),
comparing their periodic appearance with the agricultural cycle of sowing
and reaping. According to John C. Reeves, Mani would have likely inherited
this idea of a cyclical apostolate from the Elchasaites, a Mesopotamian sect
among whom he is reported to have spent his early life.Le manichéisme, 9-12; Baker-Brian, Manichaeism, 47-48; Samuel N. C. Lieu, Manichaeism in the Later Roman Empire and Medieval
China (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1992), 35-50.rd-century CE Christian
heresiological treatise attributed to Hippolytus,Refutation of All Heresies,
trans. M. David Litwa, Writings from the
Greco-Roman World 40 (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2016),
xxxiii-xlii.Book
of Elchasai:
do not confess one Christ. Rather, they believe in a
single Christ above who transmigrates numerous times into numerous bodies
and was recently incarnated in Jesus. Likewise, he is sometimes born from
God, while at other times he becomes spirit. Sometimes he is born from a
virgin, at other times not. Later on, he continues his never-ending
transmigration into bodies and is manifested in many different bodies at
various times. They also use incantations and baptisms in addition to their
confession by the elements. They plume themselves on their knowledge of
astronomy, astrology, and magic; and they call themselves “knowers of the
future” (
Refutation of All Heresies 10.29.2).Refutation of All Heresies, 739. See John C.
Reeves,
Heralds of That Good Realm: Syro-Mesopotamian Gnosis and Jewish Traditions (Leiden:
Brill, 1996), 8; A. F. J. Klijn and G. J. Reinink,
Patristic Evidence for Jewish-Christian Sects (Leiden:
Brill, 1973), 122-123
In the 4 Reeves, Rehm,
ed. See
th cent. CE, Epiphanius similarly stated
that the Elchasaites believed Christ “was created and that he appears time
and again…he was formed for the first time in Adam and he puts off the body
of Adam and assumes it again whenever he wished” (Panarion 53.1.8).Heralds of That Good
Realm, 8; Klijn and Reinink, Patristic
Evidence, 196-197.Homilies, which state that
Christ “changed his forms along with his names from age to age” (Die Pseudoklementinen I: Homilien
(Berlin: Akademie, 1992), 64. rd century CE.New Testament Apocrypha, Vol. 2, ed.
Schneemelcher, (Louisville: WJK Press, 2003), 488-492, where the
resonances with Manichaean and Mandaean tradition are
noted.
The idea that the saviour has appeared periodically in many forms Landau
discusses the topic of the polymorphic Christ and universal
reve-lation in his dissertation on the Thomas was
traditionally considered to have been an apostle to the east.
Eusebius mentions him going to Parthia in particular
(Revelation
of the Magi, but only engages with a small sample of
possible cognate traditions (mostly biblical) (“Sages and the
Star-Child,” 249-255). A survey of (the fairly extensive) evidence
from both canonical and non-canonical sources is provided by Paul
Foster, “Polymorphic Christology: Its Origins and Development in
Early Christianity,” Journal of Theological
Studies 58 (2007): 66-99. Revelation of the Magi, which
states that Christ (the “star-child”) has appeared “in the world in a body,
and the forms with him are seen in every land, because he has been sent by
his majesty (i.e. greatness) (History of the Church 3.1).
We glorify your sweet majesty (i.e greatness) ( From Greek εἰκών.
appearance,
likeness” (R. Payne Smith, A Compendious
Syriac Dictionary [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1903],
464a).Revelation of the Magi 31.4-6).
This passage presents a remarkably open-ended Christology, even employing the
term πρόσωπον for the savior’s many manifestations and appearances. Such
radical inclusivism has startled modern readers and has been used to market
the text to the religiously interested reading public. The back of the
dust-jacket to the mass-market edition published by HarperCollins
includes quotations from well-known scholars of early Christianity
such as Marvin Meyer and John Dominic Crossan about the
“astonishing,” “theologically sophisticated,” “unique,” and “radical
depth” of the text. The work no doubt appeals to those seeking
ancient precedent for an inclusivist and pluralist approach to
Christianity in a modern context.
The apostle Thomas, it should be noted, is already
well-known for his many Manichaean associations, Not only are there
“Thomas Psalms” in the Manichaean A list of
sources for the polymorphic Christ is provided by Henri-Charles
Puech, For a discussion of the widely attested
tradition of divine twinship in Late Antiquity see Brock has pointed out the
early Syriac usage of the grammatical feminine for the Holy Spirit
(“An Archaic Syriac Prayer over Baptismal Oil,”
Psalm-Book,
but strong associations with both the Gospel of
Thomas (Wolf-Peter Funk, “Einer aus Tausend, zwei aus
Zehntausend: Zitate aus dem Thomasevangelium in den koptischen
Manichaica,” in For the Children, Perfect
Instruction: Studies in Honor of Hans-Martin Schenke, ed.
Bethge et al. [Leiden: Brill, 2002], 67-94; J. Kevin Coyle, “The
Gospel of Thomas in Manichaeism?” in Colloque
international L’Évangile selon Thomas et les textes de Nag
Hammadi, Québec, 29-31 mai 2003, ed. Louis Painchaud and
Paul-Hubert Poirier [Québec : Les Presses de l’Université Laval /
Louvain : Éditions Peeters, 2007], 75-91; Paul Allan Mirecki,
“Coptic Manichaean Psalm 278 and the Gospel of Thomas 37,” in Manichaica selecta, ed. A. van Tongerloo and
S. Giversen [Louvain, 1991], 243-262) and the
Acts of Thomas (A. F. J.
Klijn, “The So-Called Hymn of the Pearl [Acts of Thomas ch.
108-113],” Vigiliae Christianae 14, no. 3
[1960]: 154-164).EPHE Annuaire 73 (1964): 122-125. See
also Gedaliahu G. Stroumsa, “Polymorphie divine et transformations
d’un mythologème : L’Apocryphon de Jean et ses sources,” Vigiliae Christianae 35, no. 4 (1981) :
412-434.Psalm-Book states: “You
assumed different forms until you had visited all races” (42.31). In this
context, Mani himself is understood as being the last of those many forms,
since the psalmist refers to Christ as Mani’s “light-twin”
(Psalm-Book 42.22). The concept of the celestial
“twin” is central to Mani’s own prophetic and revelatory authority, as it is
for all of his alleged predecessors.Our Divine Double (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 2016).Revelation of the Magi, where Judas Thomas
describes Christ as “twinned (ܡܬܐܡܬ) with the Spirit” (30.5) and as soaring
over the water “like your twin (Studia Patristica 41
[2006]: 9). See also Susan Ashbrook Harvey, “Feminine Imagery for
the Divine: The Holy Spirit, the Odes of Solomon, and Early Syriac
Tradition,”
St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 37
(2004): 1-29.
Paul-Hubert Poirier has argued that the “Thomas” to whom the “Psalms of
Thomas” ( Paul-Hubert
Poirier, “Une nouvelle hypothèse sur le titre des Psaumes manichéens
dits de Thomas”
Peter Nagel,
For example, “Psalm of Thomas 13” (T.
Säve-Söderbergh, Psalm-Book could be based on a
word-play involving the Aramaic/Syriac term for twin (Apocrypha 12 (2001) :
9-27. According to the 10th-century
Islamic scholar al-Nadim, when Mani was twenty-four years old, he
was visited by an angel named “the Tawm,
which is a Nabatean word meaning ‘Companion’” (Bayard Dodge, ed.,
The Fihrist of al-Nadim, Vol 2 [New York:
Columbia University Press, 1970], 774).Revelation of the Magi (30.5).
Similarly, the Greek term σύζυγος, used as a loan-word in the same passage
(30.6), is used of Mani’s celestial twin throughout the Greek Cologne Mani Codex. Moreover, of all the liturgical
texts collected in the Manichaean Psalm-Book, the
“Psalms of Thomas/Thōm” are the ones that most clearly reveal traces of an
Aramaic Vorlage,Die Thomaspsalmen des koptisch-manichäischen Psalmbuches (Berlin,
1980).Studies in the Coptic Manichaean
Psalm-Book [Uppsala, 1949] 119-120). The relationship
between Manichaean and Mandaean traditions is complex, as there are
multiple points of context between both textual corpora.
Säve-Söderbergh ultimately argued that the Manichaean “Psalms of
Thomas” were based on Mandaean prototypes (161). Revelation of the Magi.
The Revelation of the Magi also
presents an episode that is strangely evocative of Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind. When the magi
have their epiphany in the Cave of Treasures, they see “(something) like the
hand of a small person draw near from the pillar and the star,” (12.3) and a
light-being “that appeared to us in the bodily form of a small and humble
human, and he said to us: ‘Peace to you’” (13.1). Surprised by this luminous
appearance, the light-being reassures the sages: “(do not doubt that)… it
appeared to you in the form of a small, humble, and unworthy human, because
indeed, the inhabitants of the world cannot bear to see the glory of the
only Son of the Father of majesty (i.e. greatness) (
Once again, the Manichaean “Psalms of Thomas” provide an important parallel.
There, the cosmic avatar of the heavenly father is described as the “the
Little One” ( See Psalm-Book 204.22-27), and describe him as appearing as an “image
of light” (Revelation of the Magi 31.4 mentioned above.
Psalm-Book 214.1-12) who are
driven mad by its brightness. In reverence, the powers then proclaim: “You
have come in peace, O Child of Brightness, that you shall be the illuminator
of our worlds” (Psalm-Book 214.12-14). In fact,
“Jesus the Child” features prominently in the “Psalms of Thomas” as one
important aspect of the polymorphic Manichaean Christ.
As might be expected, a similar motif is also found in the Mandaean Book of John, although with a somewhat different
prophetological focus:
In this passage a divine child is reveled from the heavenly realm, holy
silence is observed, just as the sages pray silently in the Interestingly, the Mandaean Revelation of the Magi, while a star appears, as well
as light in multiple forms. Even though the focus may be different, the
general contours remain the same.Book of John presents Christ’s polymorphy as a sign of his
duplicity and untrustworthiness (Chapter 76) as one who “changes his
appearance.” See James McGrath, “Polemic, Redaction, and History in
the Mandaean Book of John: The Case of the Lightworld Visitors to
Jerusalem,” Aram 25
(2013): 378-379.
The theological hallmark of Manichaeism is its dualistic cosmological
framework in which Light is radically opposed to Darkness as two
pre-existent cosmic principles. This doctrine, more than any other aspect of
Manichaean teaching, was the focus of fierce polemical backlash from a
variety of quarters. Although not nearly as pronounced, traces of this sort
of dualistic imagery can also be discerned in the Sebastian
Brock has suggested that this may indicated the influence of
“Zoroastrian terminology” (“An Archaic Syriac Prayer over Baptismal
Oil,”
See Revelation of the Magi. For example, when the magi encounter Mary
and Joseph in Bethlehem, Mary is said to a have become “a gate for the great
light (Studia Patristica 41
[2006]: 8), whereas Geo Widengren perceived an Iranian background
behind the text as a whole
(Iranisch-semitische Kulturbegegnung in parthischer Zeit [Köln:
Westdeutscher Verlag, 1960], 71-72). Hultgård, however, acknowledged
criticisms of Widengren’s interpretation, but nonetheless asserts
that Iranian traditions were at play (Anders Hultgård, “The Magi and
the Star—the Persian Background in Text and Iconography,” in
“Being Religious and Living Through the Eyes”: Studies in Religious Iconography [Uppsala,
1998], 223). Kephalaia 21.18; 28.31; 31.30; 33.24,30; 48.34; 90.20,
etc.; Psalm-Book 4.22;
8.8,24; 52.31, etc. Psalm-Book states: “Let us bless
our Lord Jesus who has sent us the Spirit of Truth. He came and separated us
from the Error (Revelation of
the Magi explains how “error has reigned in deceit over your
generations” (21.9) and that only those who possess true knowledge belong to
the “race of light” (21.9 Psalm-Book in a passage denouncing the “sects of Error” (
The use of imagery contrasting light and darkness is certainly not unique to
Manichaean discourse, as it appears to have been widespread in Mesopotamia.
Not only were dualistic concepts important to various forms of Zoroastrian
theology, but also to the teachings of Marcion and Bardaisan, each of whom
were closely associated with Mani in early Syriac tradition. François De
Blois, “Dualism in Iranian and Christian Traditions,”
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 10,
no. 1 (2000): 1-19.Revelation of the Magi should display
at least some dualistic tendencies.
Fittingly, the final point that ought to be highlighted
in this study is how the
Revelation of the Magi imagines
the end of cosmic history. As much as the text is focused on the beginning
of the Christian narrative, by highlighting the birth of Jesus, it closes
with a (dualistic) vision of the end-time and an eschatological exhortation
from the magi:
Flee from the
darkness (light (ܢܘܗܪܐ) that does not pass away, so that
you may live and have refuge under the wings of our Lord Jesus, our saviour
and our great refuge on the last day, from the fearsome judgement of fire that will come suddenly to purify the entire
earth from error, which has ruled over it in its
deceit. And you shall be delivered by faith from the heat of the fire and
shall enter that rest that is prepared for all the
chosen and the believers who have believed in the
child of perfect light (Lord of all (majesty (i.e. greatness) (new world (emphasis added).
Once again, we can observe numerous resemblances to Manichaean religious
discourse. For its part, the Manichaean vision of the end times foresees the
final appearance of Jesus the Splendor, avatar of the “Lord of All” (see
above) who will vanquish the powers of darkness and purify the world by
means of a “Great Fire.” The chosen “Elect” will then be rewarded in a “New
Aeon” of eternal light and rest. Baker-Brian, Counted among Mani’s canonical
scriptures, this work contains many points of contact with other
apocryphal texts from an Aramaic background (see John C. Reeves,
Manichaeism, 116-118; Timothy Pettipiece, “Burn the World
Down: Manichaean Apocalyptic in Comparative Perspective,” in
The Armenian Apocalyptic Tradition: A Comparative Perspective, ed.
Kevork Bardakjian and Sergio La Porta (Leiden: Brill, 2014),
657-666.Book of Giants
Jewish Lore in Manichaean Cosmogony: Studies in the Book
of
Giants Traditions [Cincinatti,
1992]).
…on brilliant wings they (the righteous ones) shall fly
and soar further beyond and above that Fire, and shall gaze into its depth
and height. And those righteous ones that will stand around it, outside and
above, they shall have power over the Great Fire, and over everything in it
… they are purer and stronger [than the] Great Fire of Ruin that sets the
worlds ablaze. T ii D ii 164 (trans. Hans-Joachim Klimkeit,
Gnosis on the Silk Road [San Francisco:
HarperCollins, 1993], 247);
What, then, are we to make of all the apparent similarities
between the Revelation of the Magi and Manichaean
theological language? While some resemblances are perhaps more on the surface
level, such as imagining God and the divine realm in terms of
life, light, treasure, splendor, and greatness—all
of which seem to have been part of a shared Aramaic religious vocabulary—others
emerge as more deeply rooted themes. Most notably:
i) identifying God as the “Father of Greatness”
ii) a chain of True Prophets traced back to Adam and
Seth
iii) a polymorphic messiah-figure who appears to all
humanity
iv) revelatory authority granted through divine
twinship
v) emphasis on Thomas traditions
vi) opposition between Light and Darkness / Truth and
Error
vii) eschatological fire and rest
As such, both the Revelation of the Magi and Manichaean
literature construct the same basic soteriological storyline. Namely, that the
Father of Greatness reveals himself through a chain
of true prophets extending back to Adam
and Seth that have appeared in many times and places as manifestations
of divine twinship. The message that these prophets
deliver periodically to all humanity emphasizes the opposition between light and darkness and the
error manifest in sectarian
divisions. The forces of darkness and evil, however, will ultimately be defeated
when Jesus returns in glory to set
fire to the world and grant eternal
rest to the children of light.
Does this mean that the
This in itself
does not necessarily discount the idea of the
There is a somewhat oblique
reference to the “Paraclete Spirit” (14.8) in the text, although this
does not appear to connect with the Manichaean notion of Mani as the
Paraclete promised by Jesus. See Timothy Pettipiece, “Manichaean
Redaction of the By This geographic area has been described as a
“crucible of cultural creativity for Jews no less than Platonists,
Christians, and Manichaeans in the first three centuries of the Common
Era” (Han and Reed, “Reorienting Ancient Judaism,” 148).
The notoriously difficult puzzle of “Jewish Christianity” has been the
subject of much debate and controversy. See Annette Yoshiko Reed,
“Historicizing ‘Jewish-Christianity’,” in Revelation of the Magi is a
Manichaean text? I am not ready to go that far. Notably absent are a
multiplicity of technical terms for the many well-defined figures from the
Manichaean cosmogonic myth, other than the “Father of Greatness.”Revelation of the Magi being
a Manichaean text, as the specific technical language of the cosmogony
appears to have been largely unknown to outsiders, with a few notable
exceptions such as Theodore bar Khonai. Most polemical descriptions of
the Manichaean myth make use of a generic template focused on its
dualistic basis rather than a detailed narrative. Secret Book of John,” in Fakes, Forgeries, and Fictions: Writing Ancient and
Modern Christian Apocrypha: Proceedings from the 2015 York Christian
Apocrypha Symposium, ed. Tony Burke (Eugene, Oregon: Cascade
Books, 2017).Revelation of the Magi and
Manichaeism emerged. More specifically, I would argue that both are building on
a pre-existing soteriological narrative that appears to have been rooted in variant
variant I mean streams
of early Christian tradition that diverge considerably from emerging
orthodoxy. Jewish-Christianity and the History of Judaism: Collected
Essays (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2018), xv-xxx. Typically, this
hybrid term has been used to describe either an imagined segment of
Jesus’ earliest followers, or in reference to certain sectarian groups
identified by patristic heresiologists as outliers. In spite of the term
being “anachronistic, clumsy, fraught, and contested,” (as Reed admits),
it nonetheless points to a liminal historical, discursive, and even
geographical space in which certain discernable expressions of late
antique religious tradition and community connect themselves in
important ways to both
Christianity and Judaism while at the same time resisting those
categorical constructs as they have come to be defined. As problematic
as the term is, it nonetheless points to something that needs to be
further explored and better understood.
As mentioned earlier, the See note 4. The recent re-assessment by Kevin van Bladel
suggests that a distinctive “Mandaean” identity only emerged in the 5 See, for example, Adam H. Becker, “The Comparative
Study of ‘Scholas-ticism’ in Late Antique Mesopotamia: Rabbis and East
Syrians,” Revelation of the Magi was
likely composed in Syriac, possibly near Edessa in the 3rd or 4th century CE,rd cent. CE.th century CE out of competition among other
“Syro-Mesopotamia” religious groups (From Sasanian
Mandaeans to Ṣābians of the Marshes [Leiden: Brill,
2017]).AJS Review 34 no.
1 (2010): 91-113; Yishai Kiel, “Study Versus Sustenance: A Rabbinic
Dilemma in Its Zoroastrian and Manichaean Context,”
AJS Review 38 no. 2 (2014):
275-302; Yishai Kiel, “Reimagining Enoch in Sassanian Babylonia in Light
of Zoroastrian and Manichaean Traditions,” AJS
Review 39 no.2 (2015): 407-432 to name but a few.
Unfortunately, the story of early Christianity beyond the eastern borders of the
Roman Empire is not one that is well-known or well-understood outside of
specialized circles. As Sebastian Brock has pointed out, the Eusebian
model of early Christian history has linked that narrative so closely
with the Roman Empire, that the development of Christianity in Persia is
either omitted from that story or minimized (see Sebastian Brock,
“Christians in the Sasanian Empire: A Case of Divided Loyalties,” in Josef Wiesehöfer, It is difficult to imagine that Kartir would use
these terms in an official inscription without understanding that they
implied some important distinction. Based on what we know from early Christian
heresiological sources, the term “Nazorean” is used as a kind of
catch-all to connect a cluster of sectarian groups that were all thought
to derive from the so-called “Jewish-Christian” stream of early
Christianity, such as Cerninthians, Elchasaites, and Ebionites.
“Nazorean” is also attested as a term of self-designation found in
Mandaean writings, although in a somewhat ambivalent sense, and is
applied to Christians pejoratively in the Talmud (see François De Blois,
“Naṣrānī [Ναζωραȋος] and ḥanīf [ἐθνικός]: Studies on the Religious
Vocabulary of Christianity and of Islam”
Sebastian Brock, “Christians in the Sasanian Empire: A Case of Divided Loyalties,” De Blois, “Naṣrānī [Syriac Perspectives on Late Antiquity,
2-3).Revelation of the Magi. While early missionaries would
have arrived by the 2nd century CE, there was also a
significant influx of Christians due to the forced deportation of hundreds of
thousands of captives from the Roman Empire by Persian King Shapur I in the 3rd century CE.Ancient
Persia from 550 BC to 650 AD (New York: I. B. Tauris, 1998),
201.nāsrāy and kristiyān.Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 65,
no. 1 [2002]: 4).Syriac Perspectives on Late Antiquity,
3-6.
While a more concrete history of the churches of Persia begins to take shape in
the 4 Wiesehöfer, The work of Stanley Jones has
helped further refine this understanding of early Christianity in
Syro-Mesopotamia (see F.S. Jones,
th century CE, prior to that, particularly in
the 2nd and 3rd
centuries, Iranian territories appear to have been home to an eclectic mix of
doctrines and sects associated with early Christian teachers such as Marcion,
Bardaisan, and Elchasai,Ancient Persia,
205. Later, Mani himself will be added to this list of founding figures.
Pseudoclementia Elchasaiticaque inter Judaeochristiana: Collected Studies [Leuven:
Peeters, 2012]).Revelation of
the Magi and Manichaean discourse, such as the chain of True Prophets
and the polymorphic Christ, point back to such “Elchasaite” or “Nazorean”
prototypes.Il
Manicheismo: Nuove Prospettive della Richerca. Atti del Quinto
Congresso Internazionale di Studi sul Manicheismo (Dipartimento di
Studi Asiatici, Università degli Studi di Napoli “L’Orientale”;
Napoli, 2-8 Settembre 2001), ed. van Tongerloo, Aloïs and
Cirillo, Luigi. Manichaean Studies 5. Turnhout: Brepols, 2005), 47-54.
Gerard P. Luttikhuizen has referred to this idea as a distinctly “Syrian
Christology” (see “The Baptists of Mani’s Youth and the Elchasaites,”
in Gnostic Revisions of Genesis Stories and Early
Jesus Traditions, NHMS 58 [Leiden: Brill, 2006],
178-179).
The current model of the historical development of early Christianity has long
had its own version of a “dark matter” problem. There are strong indicators of
an important stream of early Christian tradition that exerted considerable
influence on other contemporary trajectories and against which proto-orthodoxy
defined itself, but whose exact nature remains obscure, since evidence of it has
been almost totally erased. Nearly a century ago, Walter Bauer argued that the
prevailing forms of “orthodox” Christianity that developed during Late
Antiquity were often built against a pre-existing background of
traditions later deemed “heretical.” A key example of this phenomenon
relates to the story of King Abgar and the introduction of Christianity
to the city of Edessa ( Geo Widengren
identified this as a form of “jüdisch-iranischen Gnosis” in specific
reference to the
This too was a reflection of
its Aramaic context, in which the word for “spirit” is grammatically
feminine. See Timothy Pettipiece, “Many Faced Gods: Triadic
(Proto-)Structure and Divine Androgyny in Early Manichaean Cosmogony,”
Rechtgläubigkeit und Ketzerei
im ältesten Christentum [Tübingen: Mohr, 1934]).Revelation of the Magi (Mani und der Manichäismus [Stuttgart:
Kohlhammer, 1961], 29).parallel Christian
tradition (or cluster of traditions) developed early on and largely
independently in Aramaic-speaking Mesopotamia that presented a much different
theological focus than what developed later into Nicene orthodoxy and therefore
looks alien to ancient and modern commentators for whom Christianity in the
Roman Empire is the primary point of reference. In particular, in these
alternate traditions, a much stronger emphasis is placed on Christ’s appearance
(or rather appearances) in the world and his role as a revealer rather than the
redemptive value of his embodiment, death, and resurrection, which were viewed
as illusory. It is also differentiated by its assertion of an alternative
Trinity emphasizing the femininity of the Spirit,Open Theology (2015) 1: 245–254, where it is
argued that the entirety of the early Manichaean cosmogonic myth is
rooted in this alternate trinitarian framework of Father-Mother-Child.
François De Blois has suggested that this type of trinity tradition was
“widespread” on the periphery of the late-antique world, and in fact
represents the form of Christianity likely engaged with by Muhammed and
the early Muslims, adding to its historical importance (“Naṣrānī
[Ναζωραȋος] and ḥanīf [ἐθνικός],” 27).Revelation of the Magi and the teaching of Mani represent
two closely related theological trajectories derived from this stream of early
Mesopotamian Christianity.
What accounts for such theological differences? The fact that these alternate
Christian traditions developed in Iranian territory, during the late Parthian
and early Sassanian periods, is certainly key. Sebastian Brock has suggested
that the
Sebastian Brock, “An Archaic Syriac Prayer over Baptismal Oil,”
5. Wiesehöfer, See Hultgård, “The Magi and the Star—the
Persian Background in Text and Iconography,” 225. A similar point is
made by Sergey Minov in relation to representations of the magi in the
Syriac Revelation of the Magi may have, at least in
part, sought to provide “a foundation legend for the Iranian Christian
community.”on the ground in the early Sasanian
Empire, as evidenced by the inscription of Kartir, which mentions Jews (yahūd), Buddhists (šaman),
Brahmans (brāman), and “baptisers” (makdag) as objects of his derision,Ancient
Persia, 199. Revelation of the Magi (and the
teachings of Mani for that matter) could be viewed as an attempt to bridge the
gap between a diversity of communities and establish a unified soteriological
framework. It is worth noting, however, that the Revelation of
the Magi contains almost no overtly polemical elements, and its author
does not seem interested in attacking other religious perspectives directly.
Instead, a story is told of a saviour from the light-realm that appears in
multiple forms throughout the ages to all people in an on-going effort to
achieve universal salvation. Tellingly, at the end of the star-child’s discourse
to the magi a voice is heard saying: “Amen! The will of complete salvation, joy
and peace to all the worlds!” (Revelation of the Magi
21.12). One has to wonder if the very focus placed on the magi as bearing
witness to the appearance of Jesus is in some sense an attempt to appeal to the
imperial Zoroastrian tradition and to validate Christianity’s status as a
religious minority in the Sasanian Empire.Cave of Treasures, which are said to
“reflect the values and aspirations of a Christian minority group
seeking to engage actively the dominant culture of the Sassanian empire”
(“Dynamics of Christian Acculturation in the Sassanian Empire: Some
Iranian Motifs in the Cave of Treasures,” in Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians: Religious Dynamics
in a Sasanian Context, ed. G. Herman, Judaism
in Context 17 (Piscataway, New Jersey: Gorgias Press, 2014),
200). Even the names of the Magi, such as Hormizd, Atrahšišat, Merodak,
appear designed to make allusion to figures from prior Iranian and
Mesopotamian traditions
(Revelation of the Magi 2.3).
As Sebastian Brock has also pointed out, the history of early Christianity is
often distorted by the overriding emphasis placed on the Roman context, which is
seen as somehow essential to its early development. From this perspective, the
experience of Christians has often been stereotyped as either persecuted
minority or supremacist majority. Sebastian Brock, “Christians in the Sasanian
Empire: A Case of Divided Loyalties,” 1-2. A similar issue has affected
scholarly discussions of ancient Judaism, which until recently have
placed emphasis on Graeco-Roman contexts as opposed to Parthian and
Sassanian (see Jae Hee Han and Annette Yoshiko Reed, “Reorienting
Ancient Judaism: Syrian, Mesopotamian, and Persian Perspectives,” Journal of Ancient Judaism 9 no. 2 (2018):
145-146).rd
century, sought to replace all existing religious traditions with his own
universal church, his highly polemical efforts generated enormous hostility and
resulted in his execution by the state. The Revelation of the
Magi, however, appears to take an equally inclusivist approach, but a
more conciliatory tone, in that it avoids overt attempts to antagonize other
religious communities, while seeking to integrate them into a discourse of
universal salvation. Such a universalizing soteriology might appear surprising
and appealing to modern readers, but when viewed in its historical context and
against a broader background of other related, early Christian traditions, it is
perhaps not all that original. It is simply unfamiliar.
While enigmatic and exotic on the surface, the
I am not particularly fond of the plural coinage
“Christianities.” However, in the case of the earliest forms of the
Christian movement in Syriac-speaking Mesopotamia it does seem as though
we are faced with some fairly independent trajectories of development
with unique characteristics. Revelation of the Magi and its
Manichaean parallels appear to have inherited and integrated significant
elements from a pre-existing tradition we know largely from fragments and
hostile testimonies. Not only is it theologically compelling, but it also
provides another important piece to the still incomplete puzzle of “early
Christianities”