Recent publications concerned with attitudes to the human body in the religion of Mani have revealed a complex spectrum of ideas.Footnote 1 A reading of the “Manichaean body” informed by a gnostic polarity of flesh versus spirit has been largely rejected, and a more complex, ambivalent portrayal of the body, shaped by specific cosmological and theological readings of its origin and purpose, has come to light. New interpretive tools and approaches have changed perceptions of classical texts and revealed how the “subjugated, perfected [Manichaean body was] put into use in the process of salvation.”Footnote 2 For example, rereading chapter 70 of the Coptic workFootnote 3 the Kephalaia of the Teacher,Footnote 4 we encounter a complex lesson that betrays the Manichaeans’ understanding of the dual heritage of the human body. Here the Mani of the Kephalaia Footnote 5 instructs his disciples about the correspondences that exist between the fleshly body and the universe and formulates them in a manner that suggests a simultaneous patterning of the two forms: “Mani says to his disciples: ‘This whole universe, above and below, reflects the pattern of the human body; as the formation of this body of flesh accords to the pattern of the universe’” (70.169.28–170.1).Footnote 6 The organs and limbs of the body resemble specific astral structures and elements in the universe, and both body and universe are afflicted by a range of competing powers. Chapter 70 offers a melothesiac reading of these archontic powers as zodiacal signs fused with the organs, bones, and sinews of the body (cf. chapter 69).Footnote 7 As archons they exercise a malevolent influence over the flesh. However, they are also constantly in conflict with each other, and the cause of bodily sickness lies in their “creeping, and moving within the body. . . [where] they shall beset and destroy one another. . . they shall erupt from the body of the person who will die; and make putrid boils and sores and burning wounds in the body” (70.175.12–14, 16–18). Leaving such colorful descriptions of lesions aside, chapter 70 also indicates that human beings, specifically the Manichaean elect, possess enormous potential as the ones who are able to facilitate the release of the “light” by subduing the activities of the “five camps” (i.e., the face, heart, genitalia, stomach, and ground).
The ascetic regimen underlying the Manichaean myth has been extensively discussed by Jason BeDuhn and others, and I do not propose to add to the debate about the role of the body in realizing the salvific ambitions of the religion. Instead, as suggested by the purulence of chapter 70, the point of departure for this paper is to examine the concomitant concerns of health and illness in Manichaeism—specifically, attitudes of Manichaeans to health in the early history of the religion, namely, from the time of Mani (d. ca. 276 CE) to the mid-fourth century CE, a period that witnessed not only the rapid geographical expansion of the faith, but also the development of Mani's ideas into a comprehensive theology practiced by exclusive communities in Mesopotamia, Egypt, and North Africa.Footnote 8 This paper is especially concerned with investigating references to health and illness in a selection of Coptic Manichaean sources from Roman Egypt, along with scrutinizing these same sources for Manichaean responses to the related themes of physical and emotional suffering, which this paper will also consider in light of the prevailing ancient definition of well-being as a state of physical and emotional equilibrium (see below). The preliminary conclusion in light of these issues is that late antique Manichaeans appear to have valorized both health and illness, since the evidence would seem to suggest that they assigned constructive meaning—sometimes pastoral, sometimes empathetic—to their own experiences of the two states.
Two sets of sources in particular form the locus for this paper. In the first instance, there are fragments in Coptic translation from some letters written by Mani himself, in which we can hear echoes of “Mani's true voice.”Footnote 9 These fragments enable us to understand, albeit within a limited context, the ways in which Mani valorized his own experiences of illness. Mani was a talented and prolific author, whose writings include evangelical, apocalyptic, and epistolographic works.Footnote 10 Mani's letters in particular offered an important conversational medium for himself and his followers, in which a range of ideas was discussed and problems and other issues affecting nascent Manichaean communities were resolved between the correspondents.Footnote 11 A further important feature was the opportunity that letter writing afforded Mani for developing a distinctive, authorial persona. The role that Mani took as an author of letters offering pastoral guidance to his followers is especially relevant to a discussion of health and illness in Manichaeism, since it is in his letters that we witness Mani imparting meaning to his own physical and emotional hardships. For instance, in the composite text known as P. Kellis Copt. 53, which is discussed below, Mani is seen transforming such hardships into a rhetorical trope with pastoral connotations that he utilizes in his letters in order to reinforce his and his followers’ identities as members of a sacred community, within the context of a broader religious landscape where physical suffering carried theological and pastoral significance.
In the second instance, there are the very many references to health and illness in the correspondence of Mani's later, fourth-century Egyptian followers associated with the village of Kellis in the Dakhleh Oasis (referred to as the “Coptic Documentary Texts”).Footnote 12 In these texts, the valorization of health and ill health takes on a different form from the examples seen in Mani's letters. In the Kellis letters, inquiries between correspondents about each other's well-being, which include details of the ways in which good health might be maintained (e.g., in the sharing of medicinal remedies), suggest that the matter here was practical rather than literary and was determined by the need to uphold a functioning community of Manichaean practitioners. Thus, sanguine hopes for good health exchanged between correspondents in the documentary texts clash strikingly with the “infamous reputation” for bodily hatred and bodily renunciation that gnostic forms of Christianity (including Manichaeism) have long been accused by scholars of having espoused.Footnote 13
However, the matter under consideration here is not reducible to the correction or otherwise of long-established narratives. Indeed, certain of Mani's own sentiments in the letters discussed in this paper appear to reinforce the academic perceptions of a gnostic-Manichaean attitude to the physical body. For instance, P. Kellis Copt. 53 reveals Mani speaking about his own bodily sickness and stating that he “strove to come forth from it [i.e., his body]” (52.06–52.07); and, when raising the topic of the strenuousness of his efforts for the community, Mani notes that: “All these things I have endured for my children and my disciples; they whom I saved from the bondage of the world and the bondage of the body” (41.13–41.16). As the passage from chapter 70 of the Kephalaia above indicates, the human body was for Mani and his followers something that was ultimately irredeemable. Nevertheless, while practitioners of the religion lived “in the body” they were not to be neglectful of it, as the reconstructive work of BeDuhn on the regimens, rationales, and rites of the religion has illustrated.Footnote 14 As the material under discussion here also indicates, consideration was given by Mani and his followers to maintaining a purposeful and healthy existence for the sake of the religion's ideals. The aim of this paper, therefore, is to highlight the numerous complexities of Manichaean anthropology and theology in the late antique period.
While some thought has been given in recent times to the titular designation of Mani as physician (e.g., in relation to the origin of the term and its significance for followers of Mani's teachings),Footnote 15 it is fair to say that health and illness have never been major discussion points for scholars of Manichaeism. This is a curious omission in light of the flourishing interest in both topics among historians of antiquity (to say little about recent research into the practice of ancient health care and medicineFootnote 16 ), and in particular among those scholars interested in the relationships among health, illness, ascetic practice, and the formulation of sanctity in late antique religions (including Christianity, Gnosticism, and later manifestations of pagan religion and philosophy).Footnote 17 In view of the dietetic orientation of Mani's teachings,Footnote 18 Manichaeism lends itself very appropriately to the research questions raised by the study of health and illness in the ancient world. Indeed, there are some notable exceptions to this dearth of interest, with Jason BeDuhn having led the charge towards establishing a more responsible understanding of Manichaean attitudes to health in the context of his work on the “Manichaean body.” In an early article from 1992, “A Regimen for Salvation: Medical Models in Manichaean Asceticism,”Footnote 19 BeDuhn analyzes the Hellenistic medical foundations for the dietetic concerns of the Manichaean elect's practice of asceticism. He notes the broad correspondences between the medical language of Manichaean texts (e.g., the Psalm-Book, the Kephalaia, and the Cologne Mani Codex) and Greek medical and philosophical writings dealing with health, but also the fundamental differences separating Manichaean ideas about the role and purpose of the body from those proposed by other ancient philosophies. In 1999, John Kevin Coyle took up some of the issues raised by BeDuhn's article in a paper entitled “Healing and the ‘Physician’ in Manichaeism.” Coyle raises the interesting question, albeit in a tangential fashion, of how the Manichaean elect understood their own experiences of ill health given the quotidian risk to their health brought about by engaging in so intimate a manner (i.e., via the digestion of “light” in food) with the noxious products of matter. A preliminary inference, that Manichaeans had some conception of good health, can be drawn from Coyle's observation that “a physically afflicted body was not worth curing, except to restore its utility to the salvific process,”Footnote 20 a point that Coyle raises when proposing that medical treatments were prohibited within Manichaeism (an argument I nuance later in this article).
However, the project of reconstructing ancient attitudes to health and illness is fraught with problems, not least because people in the past thought differently about these issues than people in the modern age do. As the medical historian Henry Sigerist pointed out as far back as 1941, attitudes to health have never been constant, and “while [health] always seemed desirable to the individual, the degree of desirability and motivations changed considerably.”Footnote 21 Therefore, not everything about the attitudes of Manichaeans to health has been settled, or in all likelihood can be settled. For instance, in light of Manichaean thinking on the soul (e.g., its origin and destiny), and the ambiguous statements about the status of the body in sources for the religion,Footnote 22 it has yet to be established precisely what a Manichaean definition of health amounted to, with well-being understood broadly in antiquity as the attainment of humoral equilibrium for both soul and body.Footnote 23 Given the complex interplay among anthropology, cosmology, and theology in Manichaeism, it may not be possible to arrive at such a definition. Nevertheless, much work can still be done in this area: for instance, there are the recently discovered fourth-century texts from the Dakhleh Oasis, which contain material relevant to the themes of health and illness. These texts were not available to BeDuhn and Coyle at the time they produced their studies. Much of this material is epistolographic, which lends poignancy to our understanding of these themes given the timeless role served by letters as a way of inquiring about the health of an addressee, and for informing an addressee about one's own well-being. Furthermore, many of the epistolographic texts were written or received by non-elite Manichaeans from fourth-century Egypt; while their precise status in the religion is often undefined, they appear to belong to the catechumenate or to be related supporters of Manichaeans in and around Kellis and the Nile Valley, an important section of the Manichaean ecclesia Footnote 24 about whom little has been known in the past.Footnote 25
Illness and Holiness in Manichaean Writings
We will begin with the state antithetical to health, namely, sickness. There are a number of references to illness in Manichaean literature, indicating that Manichaeans were very aware of the consequences of ill health and physical suffering to their cause: as Coyle notes, “like everyone else, Manichaeans would have had to somehow take [illness] into account.”Footnote 26 As noted above, recent research has scrutinized more carefully the portrayal of the ailing saint in early Christian literature, and in particular the role played by representations of illness in shaping perceptions of holiness: rather than seeing the two as being opposed to one another, scholars now recognize that the saint's willingness to endure episodes of ill health was regarded in some quarters as a useful component in defining the nature of Christian asceticism.Footnote 27 In this regard, the Manichaeans appear to have been more aware than most of the close association between holiness and sickness. The mythic substrate of Manichaean ontology conveyed in chapter 59 of the Kephalaia of the Teacher indicates that the origins of illness are located in the abandonment of “the Garments, the Sons of the First Man” (59.148.24–25), who, after the ascent of their father (i.e., the First Man) from the abyss of darkness, weep and “[become] sick (šōne) under the pressure of the weighty burden of all the works, until the end of time” (59.149.12–13).Footnote 28 Sickness is here the consequence of the elaborate demands that befall the Five Sons as a result of their abandonment in the realm of darkness. More specifically, the cause of the Sons’ collective ill health is the emotional strain placed on them as a result of having been left behind in “the darkness of the abyss” after the First Man's departure; their anxiety thereby makes them more susceptible to the archontic powers, who contribute to an intensification of ill health and suffering in the human body, as the body (as we know from chapter 70) is the locus for warring powers. This cosmogonic version of the myth importantly demonstrates that being divine does not mean that the Five Sons can escape falling ill.
This equivalence of holiness with illness is continued in a number of other Manichaean texts, most significantly in the remains of the canonical collection of Mani's letters in Coptic from Kellis. The text referred to as P. Kellis Copt. 53 contains epistolographic material from at least three letters composed by Mani himself, portions of which provide an intriguing autobiographical insight into Mani's own health. The passage that concerns us here is taken from Mani's “Epistle of the Ten Words,” and is drawn from Iain Gardner's reconstruction of a continuous translation of the text:
I was very sick in my body. I did not find the way to spend a single hour to sit and hear it; nor also was I able to straighten out, because I was greatly pained. Indeed, further, when I listened to the words that you wrote for me in that letter, all my limbs slackened and worsened with me painfully in the anguish of my body. . . . What will I proclaim to you, my loved ones? It is your well-being [nafre] that I seek daily: the things that benefit your life I am proclaiming for you; so that you will live by them and become without fault. Indeed, my loved ones, I was obliged to write a mass of words for you this time; but it is God himself who knows that these little ones, whom you sent, came and found me in what pain! For I was sick in my body; and I strove to come forth from it, as I had no ease in it at all. For all of thirty years until today I was never sick like this occasion. And these little ones who had come: I wished only to proclaim the news to them by my mouth, and send to you without a letter. However, (thinking of) you, your heart grieves from the words of the brethren who are sick; Because of this I suffered myself a greater pain and have written for you these ten words that I would comfort your heart, my child. And I have suffered that I would give ease to my child. Know then: These words, I heard them in suffering; but you, receive them in joy and consent, and you reflect upon them! (30.24–31.08; 51.17–52.23)Footnote 29
The fragments of this text in Coptic form one part of P. Kellis Copt. 53, a single codex comprising over eighty fragments as eleven double-sided leaves.Footnote 30 The codex as a collection of Mani's canonical epistles has been assigned a date of around 360 CE, although the original letters of Mani were composed in Syriac and date from his lifetime at some point in the third century (from approximately 240 CE onwards). As Gardner notes, the fragments of this letter most likely formed part of the “Epistle of the Ten Words” (the ten words offered as consolation to the addressee at 52.18), listed as one of Mani's epistles by al-Nadīm.Footnote 31 While a historical context for the concerns addressed by Mani is largely absent, it seems that the background for the “ten words” lies in Mani's receipt of a letter from a member of a nascent Manichaean community (location unknown), in which the author describes the behavior of a fellow member who, having “generated these wicked words” (32.4), has prompted a major (unspecified) disturbance in the community. Mani's “ten words”—that is, the letter he writes back to the author—are thus intended to pour oil on some very troubled waters. Throughout, Mani seeks to strike a consolatory tone in the letter, calling on the addressee to remember happier times and to recall “your first faith that you had in your youth” (51.2–3). Beyond the remarkable fact that the codex preserves in translation some of the canonical remains of Mani's letters, there are several points of interest raised by the fragments of this epistle. The disclosure by Mani of his own ill health is seemingly strategic, and his empathy for the anguish of his followers is evident at numerous points. Most strikingly, Mani indicates that his physical pain grew more acute after hearing the news of the difficulties described by the author of an earlier letter: “Indeed, further, when I listened to the words that you wrote for me in that letter, all my limbs slackened and worsened with me painfully in the anguish of my body” (31.5–8); and he later writes: “However, (thinking of) you, your heart grieves from the words of the brethren who are sick. Because of this I suffered myself a greater pain and have written for you these ten words that I would comfort your heart, my child” (52.14–19). The fact that Mani's pain is an emotive response to an unspecified rupture in communal relations among his followers bears some comparison with the fracturing of the archetypal divine family (i.e., the departure of the First Man in chapter 59 of the Kephalaia, discussed above) as the cause for the collective sickness of the Five Sons. The disclosure of his illness seems quite deliberate and raises questions about why a religious authority like Mani would speak about his own bodily illness in a letter; Mani is writing as “Mani the living, the apostle of Jesus Chrestos” (12.1–2) on behalf of the “God of Truth” in whom Mani has “sealed” all believers (12.10–14).Footnote 32 An answer may be found in considering the place of illness as “a marker of moral and theological meaning”Footnote 33 in the religious milieu of late antiquity. With reference to the place of illness in early Christian literature, Andrew Crislip has stated recently:
Late ancient Christians—ascetics and their observers—needed to make sense of illness as part of the ascetic or self-forming practice of Christianity. . . . In the eyes of some, illness came to be regarded as a useful component of Christian asceticism, even the highest form of asceticism. Others presented health as the surest signifier of ascetic sanctity. Still others withheld judgment.Footnote 34
Without engaging in the broader, taxonomic debates about Mani's religion
as a late antique form of Christianity,Footnote
35
we can make a case that Crislip's argument applies equally to the
disclosure of Mani's ailing condition in P. Kellis Copt. 53: namely, that
there was always a way to profit from a holy man's misery (see
Paul's admission in Gal 4:13:
οἴδατε
δὲ ὅτι
δι’
ἀσθένειαν τ
ς
σαρκὸς
εὐηγγελισάμην ὑμ
ν τὸ
πρότερονFootnote
36
). However, Mani's disclosure in this regard should not really
strike us as all that puzzling especially when we consider both the literary and
historical context for displays of ascetic endurance in the face of suffering. In
terms of literary context, Mani's admission of ill health is intimately
linked, I suggest, with handling the “Epistle of the Ten
Words” as a type of consolatory text, in which empathy for others is
paramount.Footnote
37
Mani's efforts to console in the letter could indeed be taken as
evidence for the religion's self-forming practices, principally as an
indication of Mani's emergent sanctity within early Manichaeism, and in
particular as an indication of the unfolding of his persona as the Paraclete, the
teacher-comforter figure to which Mani appears to have first laid claim in his
Living Gospel.Footnote
38
We could go further by suggesting that the theme of consolation, especially
the call to “carry a burden” or “bear
up” under illness and suffering—themes evident throughout
Mani's address in the “Epistle of the Ten
Words”Footnote
39
—was a major concern for him and thereby placed Mani squarely in
the prevailing ascetic milieu of late antiquity. The emergence of endurance
(ὑπομονή/ὑπομένω)
as the cardinal ascetic virtue in post-classical and early Christian literature
(e.g., in martyrological narratives) signified the transformation of a repertoire of
passive behaviors (endurance, long-suffering, etc.) into the “active
resistance” of the body to physical torture and suffering inflicted by
the (Roman) state on followers of an illegitimate pre-Constantinian
Christianity.Footnote
40
While Mani's comprehension of the role of physical and emotional
endurance in shaping the ascetic identity of his own theology shared features with
certain broader trends in the ascetic landscape of the period, it was the ability to
endure the pains of ill health that marked out his own contribution to the ongoing
debate about how religious meaning could be extracted from the travails of the body.
In this regard, therefore, Mani must be viewed as one of the earliest innovators in
aligning illness with ascetic endurance and holiness.Footnote
41
While violence, such as torture and rape, inflicted by external agencies on
the bodies of recalcitrant Christians conditioned the explication of
hypomonē in Passiones and related
literature, in the letters of Mani from Kellis we witness something subtly
different. Here, illness replaces violence as the causative force eliciting displays
of ascetic endurance. The cosmic, archontic origins of illness as presented in the
Kephalaia indicate that for Mani and his followers, ill health
was also, however, caused by an agency hostile to the body, even if at times the
body was sympathetic to demonic influence.Footnote
42
A form of resistance to these forces for Mani and his followers may,
therefore, have entailed maintaining a semblance of good health in the face of the
overwhelming odds stacked against the Manichaean body and soul.Footnote
43
As the documentary sources discussed in the second half of this paper
indicate in unequivocal fashion, the Manichaeans of fourth-century Kellis
acknowledged the need to maintain their own well-being in order to ensure the
continued functioning of their community; beyond such practical considerations, the
awareness of Manichaeans in this matter may also have been determined by the
theological intuition that maintaining health thwarted in some way the ambitions of
the powers of darkness. The Manichaean discourse on fortitude in the face of pain
was not, however, entirely conditioned by the somatic effects of malevolent cosmic
forces. As we shall discuss below, later Manichaean literature (e.g., the Coptic
Psalms) also reveals the influence of (Sasanian and Roman) state-sponsored antipathy
in shaping the identity of Manichaeans as “long-sufferers” in
the face of religious persecutions.
The ability and willingness to “bear up” under pain and other trials is also a central plank in the accompanying “Enemy Letter” (P. Kellis Copt. 53.41.5–19). Here, Mani recounts a recent betrayal in his community:
The word that our lord proclaimed with his mouth has been fulfilled with me, that “one who eats the salt with me has set his foot upon me” [cf. John 13.18]. I myself also, this thing has happened to me: One who eats salt with me at the evening table, my garments upon his body, set his foot upon me; just as an enemy would do to his enemy. All these things I have endured from my children and my disciples; they whom I saved from the bondage of the world and the bondage of the body. I took them from the death of the world. I, all these things I have borne and endured from time to time, from many people. (41.5–41.19)Footnote 44
Mani's concern with expressing his own endurance in the face of adversity here and elsewhere presaged the importance of “long-suffering” (mntharšhēt, e.g., 44.13,15) in Manichaean literature, as for example, in one of the “Psalms of the Wanderers” from the Coptic Psalm-Book (141.1–143.34). Here endurance (hupomonē) is given a cosmic-historical setting both in Mani's cosmogony and in the historical travails of the Manichaean ecclesia, the latter of which includes the trials and tribulations of Mani himself and his prophetic forebears.Footnote 45
Thus, for Mani, illness appears to have been a purposeful ordeal that lay on a spectrum of trials and tribulations that could lead to the spiritual ennobling of the individual and the community more generally. Mani's stamina in the face of terrible ordeals received legendary representation in the commemorations surrounding his imprisonment and death (his “crucifixion”) in the homiletic tradition of the church.Footnote 46 As the psalm on endurance indicates, the valorization of perseverance in the face of hardship was presented as a requisite for Manichaeans in their role as heirs of Mani and the true apostles (e.g., Psalm-Book 143.23), an attitude one imagines derived from the early history of the religion as it faced successive persecutions in both Sasanian and Roman territories during the late third and most of the fourth century and beyond.Footnote 47 The constructive meaning that Mani reads into his own physical infirmity in the “Epistle of the Ten Words” thereby casts into greater relief the attempts by the opponents of Manichaeism to defame Mani's reputation by ascribing to him a physical disability—for example, the infamous stigmatizing description from the Zoroastrian Dēnkart of Mani as “the crippled fiend,” and the less pejorative description by al-Nadīm of Mani as suffering “a distortion of the foot.”Footnote 48 Rather than regarding this simply as invented slander,Footnote 49 we have good grounds for believing that Mani did bear some impairment or injury that caused him severe pain. The important issue here is the recognition that Mani's pastoral persona in at least one of his letters was contingent on his disclosing the details of his own illness and consequent suffering, and the possible act of inversion that the opponents of Manichaeism undertook in transforming something affirmative and intrinsic to this persona into an aspersion.
Health and Well-Being in the Kellis Documentary Archive
Further material from Kellis also offers a seemingly alternative insight into the attitudes to health and well-being of other adherents of the religion. The texts in question, designated “documentary” by the editors of the archive,Footnote 50 are letters exchanged among kinship groups who are primarily concerned with the practical concerns of daily life, such as greeting and inquiring about the well-being of people (e.g., of the addressee of the letter or of individuals known to the author and addressee), requests for items (e.g., foodstuffs, clothing, books, medicines), and requests for the acknowledgment of items sent previously. These are letters concerned with the exchange of news, gossip, matters of household economy, and material possessions, although a substantial number of the letters demonstrates that these concerns were entwined with the religious obligations of the Manichaean faith.Footnote 51 In the main, they show a familiarity with the theological and ecclesial terminology of the late antique Manichaean church in Egypt Footnote 52 and were discovered in House 3 of the Dakhleh Oasis site together with a range of Manichaean theological and liturgical texts (e.g., versions of the Coptic Psalms).Footnote 53
Many of these letters making requests for material items are in effect “begging letters,”Footnote 54 and where the evidence exists, these may be read in the context of Manichaean social relations. In brief, these social relations were defined by a complex series of reciprocal obligations between the Manichaean elect and the “hearers.” The latter were required to supply alms—principally foodstuffs—to their coreligionists, specifically to the elect, who were charged with the task of realizing the soteriological aims of the religion by consuming the food in their daily ritualized meal.Footnote 55 Additionally, obligations extended to providing hospitality and clothing for the itinerant elect.Footnote 56 These relations—and by extension the “begging” implicit in the texts—are clearly apparent in a number of letters, including P. Kell. Copt. 31 and P. Kell. Copt. 32, where unnamed authors write to “my loved daughters” (31) and “our loved daughter, the daughter of the holy church” (32, the recipient of which is Eirene). These “loved daughters” are female catechumens of the faith from whom oil and wheat are sought as part of their religious responsibilities to the community. The operation of these social relations is less defined but no less apparent in other letters, for example in those letters connected with the figures of Makarios and Maria (likely husband and wife), two Manichaeans who form a fixed point in an exchange of letters (P. Kell. Copt. 19–29, about which see below). Makarios, together with Mattheos and Piene, the children of Maria, write often (e.g., P. Kell. Copt. 20, 22, 24, 25, 26, and 29) to request food, clothing, and the like from Maria in Kellis, while they remain engaged with religious and business matters in the Nile Valley. The men's association with senior figures, likely members of the elect, such as Lysimachos (e.g., P. Kell. Copt. 24) and an individual referred to as the “Teacher” (P. Kell. Copt. 25)—one of the most senior grades in the Manichaean ecclesia—suggests strongly that their requests to Maria are defined by her religious obligations to them and their associates, although Maria's spousal and maternal obligations to her family appear irretrievably interwoven with her religious commitments.
More broadly, the network of obligations and dependencies linking Manichaeans together as evidenced in the Kellis archive—specifically, the importance of those in a position to supply food and other essentials to believers—underlies the valorization of good health in the letters. In light of the labors revealed in the letters, such as the gathering and preparation of food, the making of garments to be worn (as in P. Kell. Copt. 20.33), inquiries about or expressions of hope for “good health” would seem to imply concern especially for physical well-being, although the possibility that concern for a broader notion of well-being is being expressed should also be entertained, as perhaps evidenced by the use of the “Pauline” formula of body, soul, and spirit in P. Kell. Copt. 25 (as discussed below). Thus, illness was seen as a direct threat to the continuity of care offered by catechumens and other supporters of the faith in Kellis and the fulfillment of duties that sustained Manichaean communities and cells beyond the village.Footnote 57
Thus, while the cache of letters naturally contains theological sentiments of an “otherworldly” nature, the letters indicate that the Manichaeans of Kellis did not have their eyes fixed only on the hereafter and were not simply wishing for release into “a better world where the tragic opacities of normal society would be removed”:Footnote 58 instead, these were individuals fully engaged with the affairs of daily life. This point raises the broader issue concerning the integration of this type of evidence into the study of Manichaeism, as well as into the study of late antique religious history more generally. These are documentary texts, and the types of issues arising from them are different in the main from those arising from theological writings. This does not mean, however, that the conclusions reached in the course of analyzing them should have little or no influence on the academic assessment of Manichaean theology from the period. Indeed, it is arguable that the documentary evidence for Manichaean activity and belief from Kellis provides a significant challenge to the enduring types of conclusions that scholars have drawn when analyzing textual artifacts for this late antique religion; in particular, this evidence problematizes the sorts of typologies that emerge from analyses based on texts that were composed with the express intention of affirming elite identities and practices (e.g., liturgical, theological, and hagiographical writings). The evidence for the attitudes of the catechumens associated with Kellis to their own physical well-being presents a striking departure from a traditional reading of Manichaeism's rejection of the body as a demonic shell, a reading that has been oriented around sources relaying elite (that is, elect) attitudes.
Of the thirty-six letters designated “personal correspondence” by the editors, twenty-two letters express some sort of sentiment relating to health and illness: an outline of references to health, illness, and related concerns in these letters is supplied in table 1 below. The most frequently expressed type of sentiment in the Kellis letters with regard to health falls within the epistolary opening (greeting), reception, or farewell formulae of letters. For example, from the same Kellis letter (P. Kell. Copt. 15) the following reception and farewell formulae appear: “There is no measuring the joy that came to me when I received your letter; all the more, for I learned about your health,” and “Be well and live for a long time.”Footnote 59 Such formulae were standard in ancient epistolography across a range of linguistic traditions, including Greek, Demotic, Latin, Coptic, and others,Footnote 60 although significant variations in the formulation of such sentiments even within a single linguistic group are apparent.Footnote 61 However, further inquiries about the health and well-being of correspondents that appear not to be formulaic are also in evidence in the Kellis archive (see the “Additional” column in table 1 below). Furthermore, a number of letters contain requests for medicine or acknowledgments of medicine received. Nevertheless, the extent to which such inquiries and good wishes about health can be seen as sincere expressions of emotional interest is a controversial question. They have tended to be regarded as polite asides, topoi or “conventions that have largely lost their meaning.”Footnote 62 As a result primarily of their use as model sentences copied by pupils learning to write,Footnote 63 the rote pedagogical role of such formulae has meant that they have been studied primarily “as part of the development of epistolary topoi, modes of politesse, and rhetorical strategies.”Footnote 64
Although such sentiments are formulaic, it is also the case that they have lately been reappraised by commentators seeking to understand more clearly the conversational role taken by ancient epistolographyFootnote 65 and the possibility that such conventions carried genuine emotional meaning in addition to revealing the prevailing values of those engaged in epistolary exchanges.Footnote 66 In a number of letters from Kellis (e.g., P. Kell. Copt. 20, 32) farewell formulae have been utilized expressly, so it appears, to elicit updates from addressees about the state of their own health, thereby further indicating the importance of formulae in the context of the exchange of letters as a form of conversation. Thus, the assessment of formulae as topoi has to some extent been replaced by the assessment of formulae as authentic expressions of solicitude. As Roger Bagnall has noted,Footnote 67 the ubiquity of ill health in late antique Egypt in all likelihood meant that such sentiments were not simply polite asides; rather, they comprised “very strong statements”Footnote 68 of emotional sincerity indicating the high regard in which good health was held. Should such a reading of the letters from Kellis prove valid, then the findings with regard to the Manichaeans residing there are remarkable in light of the long-standing scholarly assumptions about the body-hating attitudes of late antique gnostic Christians, as noted above.Footnote 69
Nevertheless, context remains indispensable when appraising emotive and familiar language. In determining whether epistolary formulae wishing good health were—to borrow the words of Raymond van Dam—signs of affection rather than affectation,Footnote 70 it is important to consider a number of other details in the letters, such as the overall reason for composition, the nature of the relationship between the correspondents (a project that is largely dependent on developing a reliable prosopography, evidence permitting), the language and allusions employed, and other seemingly incidental details—whether, for instance, anything was sent with the letters, such as food, clothing, or medicine, which may be construed as tokens of affection.Footnote 71 In this way, a more accurate impression of the formulaic language so often employed in these letters may come to light. In this regard, our task is partially assisted by the survival of a cache of letters detailing aspects of family relations associated with a certain Makarios, a Manichaean residing in the Nile Valley, with members of his family living in or associated with Kellis. This particular collection of letters demonstrates the largely domestic, familial context for Manichaean activity in this region during the first quarter of the fourth century,Footnote 72 with Maria and her household forming the nucleus of the family where the activities of her sons and husband take place in and beyond the village. The Makarios group of letters is arguably the most integral epistolary collection from Kellis, comprising around thirteen letters (nos. 19–29, including 30 and 52Footnote 73 ), counting three fragmentary texts (P. Kell. Copt. 23, 27, and 28) that the editors have suggested also belong to the group.Footnote 74 The cache provides a suitable starting point for gauging the exchange of sentiments between correspondents, where exchanges about one another's health, while often brief, are nevertheless essential items in the overall concerns of these letters.
The nature of the kin relations in evidence in the Makarios letters indicates strongly that while formulaic statements were employed to elicit or provide updates on health, they were unlikely to have been either intended or received as epistolary embellishments. Rather, one of the main reasons for writing letters in the first place was to receive news about the state of health of family members and associates.Footnote 75 In view of its relative integrity as an archive—in all likelihood maintained by Maria, the wife or sister of MakariosFootnote 76 —the letters associated with Makarios provide suitable subject matter for pursuing the points outlined above. One caveat should be stated, however: relationships between correspondents that are defined by consanguinity and affinity may result in different styles and concerns from the correspondence between people who are not related, and thus with the Makarios letters we may (or indeed, may not) gain an exaggerated impression of a correspondent's concerns for the health of a letter's addressee. At the same time, the nature of familial relationships in the documentary archive is often difficult to judge even within defined family groupings (e.g., the relationship of Maria and her children to Makarios), a difficulty compounded by the fact that many letters seem to indicate the adoption of family titles (e.g., father, mother, daughter, brother) by correspondents and recipients who are not biologically related to one another, and which seem to be determined in part by religious (Manichaean) and/or social onomastic practices.Footnote 77 The following is therefore offered as a brief, preliminary set of remarks on matters relating to health and illness in three letters from this group.
P. Kell. Copt. 19.
This is a letter from Makarios to his son Matheos (also spelled Mathaios and Matthaios) in which the language of familial affection coalesces with the obligations of religious duty: it is the letter of a father to his son, although one where their relationship is framed by their joint commitment to the teachings of Mani. Matheos would appear to be based in Kellis, and Makarios is writing from the Nile Valley—where he may be engaged in the affairs of the religionFootnote 78 —with three main concerns: firstly, to inquire about Matheos's progress as a student of theology and to remind Matheos to complete his “indicative reading,” the (Manichaean) Psalms, the Judgment of Peter, the Apostolos, the Great Prayers, the Sayings, and the Prostrations;Footnote 79 secondly, to request various items from Matheos, and also from Maria (who is addressed directly from 19.28); and thirdly, to ask Matheos to send greetings to other relatives and associates (19.45). Along with requests (to Maria) for clothing and money (including a request to sell her loom to pay for Matheos's fare [?]), Makarios also requests that Matheos send “a good remedy” (oupanakis enanous, 19.21), evidently a reference to a medicament required by Makarios himself or someone associated with him in the Nile Valley. P. Kell. Copt. 19 expresses hope for good health to a group of women, referred to by Makarios as his daughters and sisters—most likely female Manichaean devotees (catechumens) in KellisFootnote 80 —in the form of the following greeting at 19.65–68: “Tell them that I myself am very grateful to them, and God is my witness that. . . all [are] in my prayers and my supplications. I [remember] you very very much, praying for your health.”
P. Kell. Copt. 20.
This is an important letter from Makarios to Maria that exposes some of the conventions surrounding the exchange of letters among Manichaeans, in particular the anxieties arising from letters that remained unanswered. In the Makarios group of letters, however, where family relationships dovetail with religious obligations, concerns expressed about letters that remain unanswered do offer up a degree of ambiguity. For instance, where Makarios expresses such anxieties, we are justified in reading his concerns in two ways: firstly, that as Maria's husband, his concern is for her welfare, and, not having heard from her, he is justifiably worried; and secondly, that his anxieties are determined by the social-religious obligations that also inform their relationship, especially the running of the household in Kellis on which Makarios, his family, and possibly other Manichaeans are dependent. The two readings are not exclusive, and in the context of P. Kell. Copt. 20, we are justified in seeing both spousal and religious concerns lying behind Makarios's pleas for information. However, the context for Makarios's concerns is relatively clear: he wants to receive some assurance from Maria that she is well, together with the corollary assurance that the household in Kellis continues to serve his family's needs. Promised items not received by Makarios—such as a garment for Mathaios, who is now with his father Makarios in the Nile Valley, together with a cushion and a book requested by Makarios—lead to expressions of concern about Maria's health: “Now indeed, do not neglect to send (a message) to us about your health, so that we can leave our house” (20.39); “I am astonished how I entrusted you: ‘Do not neglect to send (a message) to me about your health’. . . and you did not send a greeting to us at all” (20.53). Whatever the reason for the lack of response on Maria's part in Makarios's letter, the same complaint against her is made by her son Matthaios writing from Hermopolis to Maria in Kellis in P. Kell. Copt. 26. In light of Makarios's concern for the running of the household—that is, Maria's ability and willingness to dispatch necessary items to her family—we would be amiss not to take seriously Makarios's need for an assurance of Maria's health.Footnote 81
P. Kell. Copt. 25.
A letter of pronounced complexity, this document shows Matthaios writing to update his mother Maria about his situation in Antinoou following an earlier request by Maria to “tell me about how you are” (25.41). Matthaios informs his mother about the success of Piene, his brother and Maria's other son—specifically about Piene's adoption by the Teacher (one of the senior Manichaeans in EgyptFootnote 82 ) and Piene's role in the Manichaean church as a reader. In the course of the letter, Matthaios divulges news of the mourning for “my great mother” by members of the community.Footnote 83 The ceremony of remembrance for this figure seems to precipitate Matthaios's anxiety about the health of Maria, and he instructs her, “Do not neglect to write to us about your health” (25.53). Matthaios greets Maria and her associates with a distinctive prayer: “This is my prayer to the Father, the God of Truth, and his beloved son the Christ, and his Holy Spirit, and his light angels: That he will watch over you together, you being healthy in body, joyful in heart and rejoicing in soul and spirit, all the time we pass in the body, free from any evil and any temptation by Satan and any sickness of the body” (25.12–22).Footnote 84 As Iain Gardner, Alanna Nobbs, and Malcolm Choat have noted, this tripartite formulation of body, soul, and spirit (and variations thereof) draws on the trichotomy of blessings from Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians (1 Thess 5:23) and is repeated in other letters from Kellis (see table 1 below), thus becoming “a feature of the epistolary style in that religious community.”Footnote 85 Matthaios indicates to Maria that among a bundle of letters, including some from his father (i.e., Makarios), he has also included medicines (pahre) for her. As evidence from a range of other letters demonstrates, the Manichaeans connected with Kellis were not averse to exchanging medicinal remedies in order to maintain their health. P. Kell. Copt. 19, 24, 25, and 26 all relate requests for, or the receipt of, remedies. For instance, in P. Kell. Copt. 26 (26.31) reference is made to an eye salve (collyrium) for the treatment of an unspecified eye disease (see table 1 below for details of all other references). Coyle's careful assertions, therefore—pertaining, it should be noted, to the elect—that “some sources explicitly deny to the Manichaean any recourse to medical attention” and that “such references, however, are few and appear to stem exclusively from Eastern Manichaean sources,”Footnote 86 require further nuance in light of the seeming circulation of medicinal remedies among Manichaeans in Egypt. Having said this, however, we should not overlook the importance attached to prayer as a “medium of healing”Footnote 87 across the spectrum of letters from Kellis (as noted in table 1); this bears comparison with the instances of prayer in the context of healing as seen in the sources discussed by Coyle.
As the anxieties of Makarios and Matthaios surrounding Maria's silences (in 20 and 26, respectively) indicate, it was enormously important for a correspondent to know that the person on whom they were dependent for so many of life's necessities was in good health. Thus, rather than reading such inquires as polite asides or even as signs of sycophancy in expectation of provender, we should understand that the letter writers are routinely disclosing their dependence on the continued good health of their correspondents for the perceived benefits that they provide.Footnote 88 A reflection of the importance that a supportive (healthy) catechumen offered Manichaeans associated with the village can be glimpsed outside the letters associated with Makarios in P. Kell. Copt. 32, addressed to the “daughter of the holy church,” the catechumen Eirene (“She whose deeds resemble her name, our daughter Eirene. It is I your father who writes to you”; 32.14–15). The author of the letter requests from Eirene measures of oil and wheat for “our brother” and inquires about the general running of her affairs framing the inquiry by alluding to Matt 6:19–20 (“She who has acquired for herself her riches and stored them in the treasuries, where moths shall not find a way, nor shall thieves dig through them to steal”) and Matt 24:43 (“for a person knows not at what hour the thief will come to dig through to the house”). The farewell statement by the writer of the letter is striking and would seem to encapsulate the conversational conventions of ancient epistolography, where concerns about the health and well-being of an addressee are expressed in order to evoke a response from that person. Thus, the writer, having heard from someone that Eirene has been unwell, seeks news about the catechumen's health. The writer's dependence on Eirene is openly declared in the following claim: “Indeed, I have heard that you are sick: since some days. I am grieving; but, praise God, they say that you are getting better. There is no health without your health [oujeite en ajn peoujeite]! Live in God, our beloved daughter” (P. Kell. Copt. 32.45–51).Footnote 89 We may take this concern for Eirene's health as exemplary of the broader valorization of health in the Kellis archive, the context for which was social, and one where health was essential to the continued practice of the religion.
Conclusion
The epistolographic texts from Kellis reveal a valorization not only of health but also of illness by Mani and his followers. The fragments of Mani's epistles translated and preserved by Egyptian Manichaeans of the fourth century reveal the role played by Mani's own disorder in the presentation of his apostolic persona, both by Mani himself and by his later followers. The importance of Mani's ability to “bear up” under the ordeals of his life formed an essential component in the broader identity of the Manichaean church in relation to its experiences of persecution during much of the late antique period. Conversely, the state of being healthy—however that was defined by the Kellis Manichaeans—was also assigned a significant degree of importance by Mani's followers. The frequent appearance of expressions such as “I pray for your health,” along with references to the exchange of medicines and other remedies—to be employed one assumes in order either to alleviate illness or to maintain health—is an indication of the value assigned to health by the Manichaeans associated with Kellis. Above all, however, the theological writings of Manichaean authors that convey negative portrayals of the body's origin and natureFootnote 90 now need to be read alongside these other literary and documentary sources that reveal the valorization of both health and illness. In this way, assumptions about the absolute claims of Manichaean theology that emanate from the “master discourse” of Manichaeism (as first defined by Christian heresiology)Footnote 91 can give way to a more complex understanding of a manifestly complicated late antique religion.
Appendix: Table 1
