Origins of Manichaeism

The discovery of the Cologne Mani Codex at the University of Cologne in 1969 revealed as great deal about the early history of Manichaeism. According to John Reeve’s Heralds of That Good Realm: Syro-Mesopotamian Gnosis and Jewish Traditions (6), the discovery encouraged “a dawning realization that there is a genetic linkage – conceptual, ideological, and most importantly, literary – between the intellectual circles of Second Temple Judaism and late antique heterodox Judaism . . . and late antique Syrian and Mesopotamian syncretic currents (incoporating also pagan, Hellenistic, and Iranian motifs).” This linkage, he notes, “illuminates and explains man otherwise puzzling textual correspondence and correlations found among these regions.”