The Death of Mani in Retrospect
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Matthew O’Farrell
Abstract
The execution of the prophet Mani (c. 216-273) by the Sasanian king Bahram I (r. 271-274) received sharply different treatments in the historiography of three of the confessional groups of the Sasanian empire. Variously a persecuted prophet, a blasphemous lunatic or a sinister heresiarch the representations of this moment sought to establish its meaning in the context of communal narratives predicated on the claims of sacred history. Despite this, it is notable that Manichean, Christian and Perso-Arabic accounts clearly share features. This indicates not only that Mani’s death became a site of competition between the constituent groups of the Sasanian empire, but that the internal historiographies of these groups were in some sense entwined, or at least sensitive to the historical claims made by their opponents. This is particularly relevant in the case of the Perso-Arabic narrative. This version, which almost certainly descends from a priestly Zoroastrian source, presents a picture of a confident priesthood stiffening the spine of a wavering king. It is contended that the source of this story was composed as a counterstrike in a historical debate in which Christian and Manichean authors had successfully propagated an image of Bahram’s court as religiously tepid and his priests as slanderers or non-entities. That such an intervention was required signals a disjuncture between early and late forms of Sasanian ideology. Moreover, it presents more evidence in support of theories of a late and deliberate construction of Zoroastrian “orthodoxy”.
© 2021 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston
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Articles in the same Issue
- Titelseiten
- Inhalt
- Titel
- Inhalt
- Abkürzungen (Editionen, Zeitschriften, Reihen, Nachschlagewerke)
- Barbatoriam facere. Distinktion und Transgression in der römischen Kaiserzeit
- The Death of Mani in Retrospect
- The Origin and Evolution of Early Christian and Byzantine Universal Historiography
- Natural Disasters and Time: Non-eschatological Perceptions of Earthquakes in Late Antique and Medieval Historiography
- The Emperor at the Council. Imperial Interventions in Late Antique Church Councils in Literary Sources and Documentary Records
- Frühbyzantinische Kreuzdiskurse des 6. und 7. Jahrhunderts und ihre Rezeption in Konstantinopel, Kappadokien und im Westen
- A Hidden Agenda of Imperial Appropriation and Power Play? Iconological Considerations Concerning Apse Images and Their Role in the Iconoclast Controversy
- Diskretion bis Verschleierung. Der Weg zur byzantinischen Anerkennung des Kaisertums von Karl dem Großen, vor allem im Spiegel diplomatischer Aktivitäten 802–812
- The Abbey of Werden on the Frankish-Saxon Frontier. The Depictions of Landscapes and Emotions in the vita Gregorii and the vitae Liudgeri
- A New Edition of the De cerimoniis: No Longer a ‘geteiltes Dossier’?
- Das ‚Schisma von 1054‘ als mikro- und makrohistorisches Ereignis. Überlegungen zu einem theologisch-kirchenpolitischen Erklärungsmodell
