The good king and the bad king. Manichean philological strategies to manage political reality in Mid-Persian and Coptic texts
The good king and the bad king. Manichean philological strategies to manage political reality in Mid-Persian and Coptic texts

Summary/Abstract: If its Gnostic heritage endowed Manichaeism with a remarkable ability to adapt to the various cultures and religions it came in touch with, its history as a persecuted religion made its relation to the political somewhat problematic. This paper tries to highlight some of the key points of the strategies Mani and his followers pursued in their attempt to cope with a hostile political environment. These points have to do with some fundamental features of the Manichaean doctrine itself: its missionary character, its emphasis on suffering, and its eschatology. Biographical accounts of Mani’s mission to various Persian princes and kings, and his subsequent condemnation, substantially contributed to the literary depiction of the good and the evil king, in the context of a view on history centred on the suffering of the divine particles of Light and their eschatological redemption. Manichaean texts and fragments in Middle Persian dialects (Parthian and Manichaean Middle Persian), as well as in Coptic, are adduced to substantiate the thesis that the Manichaean view on politics was a core element of the Manichaean doctrine itself.

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