As its title suggests, this volume addresses the feminine in Manichaeism. The initial impetus came from the distinguished Manichaean scholar, the late Kevin Coyle, who published in 1991 on the Manichaean portrayal of Mary Magdalene, followed by a second work in 2005. Coyle began negotiations with Majella Franzmann and Madeleine Scopello to launch a project on women in Manichaeism, but died in 2008. Notwithstanding, the project did proceed (with extensive work on Mary Magdalene) and the nine papers in this volume are a product of an international conference that was held in 2014. Drawing on an international range of scholars from the USA, Europe and Australia, it is pleasing to see ‘early career’ scholars in the line-up of papers.

Not surprisingly in a religion where the corporeal figured so prominently, two papers deal with ‘bodily aspects’. Jason Beduhn, ‘Ambivalent beauty: divine transgendering in the “Seduction of the Archons”’ aims to explore ‘a coherence between Manichaean myth, value and practices, without assuming that it is necessarily there to be found’ (p.1). It tackles the relationship of sexuality and gender, with Beduhn arguing that the ‘Seduction of the Archons’ myth’s significance lay in its careful distinction between gender and sexuality: ‘what Mani accepted could not be changed – gender – from what he expected to change in human behaviour – sexuality’ (p. 15). The precedents of divine seduction and seed-spilling in the Sumerian myth of ‘Enki and Ninhursag’ and in the wider Middle Eastern and Greek contexts valuably demonstrate the wider background to this integral episode. The definition of the ‘normative body’ in Beduhn’s monograph, The Manichaean body, underpins the discussion of Adam Benkato and Sam Langsdale, ‘The (female) Manichaean body: an interdisciplinary approach to the eastern Manichaean texts’. Focusing on the formation and performance of the female Manichaean body, the chapter mines Iranian and Chinese primary sources via three bodily themes (maternal, hidden and lustful), reaching the conclusion that – despite differences with western Manichaean texts where female embodiment is linked with aspects of darkness: notably lust and concupiscence – the ‘normative’ Manichaean body in the eastern texts was male.

Primary sources, in Greek and Coptic, were richly utilised by three papers. Madeleine Scopello’s ‘Trois Témoignages polémiques sur l’engagement des femmes dans la diffusion de la religion de Mani: analyse historique et lexicale’ focuses on three texts, written in Greek with late third- to fifth-century dating. Selected terminology is dissected in the letter of Théonas of Alexandra to a Christian congregation at Alexandra, when discussing the purported use of the menstrual flux of elect women in ‘abominable’ Manichaean rites. The mixed gender of the companions in the Acta Archelai xiv/2 and the Julia of Antioch episode in the Life of Porphyry exposed male-female aspects of the elect while Julia’s role as a leader and her debate with male clergy portrays a woman prominent in Manichaeism. This exceptional episode might be a trope. Coptic papyri found during excavations at Kellis offer different perspectives to the ‘ideal world-view’ (p. 99) of formal texts such as the Kephalaia, giving real insight into the lives of Manichaean women. Mattias Brand, ‘Manichaean gift-exchange in the village of Kellis’, exposes how women functioned as ‘gift-givers’ in four types of exchange: economic interactions, solidarity-based gifts within the family, household gifts to the elect, charity to the non-elect. Majella Franzmann, ‘The Manichaean women in the Greek and Coptic letters from Kellis’, probes letter-writing and the lives of the women at Kellis. That there are no women writers of the Greek letters (and only one female recipient), in contrast to the Coptic corpus where women predominate, raises fascinating questions about literacy patterns and education amongst Manichaean women at this oasis settlement. The Kellis letters invaluably reveal the ‘lived experience of Manichaean women, at least in Roman Egypt’ (p. 99).

Coptic fragments of the Kephalaia provide the primary material for Jean-Daniel Dubois, ‘L’Usage manichéen du term Enthymèsis dans les Kephalaia coptes de Berlin’. His appraisal of the application of Enthymèsis lucidly exposes the nuanced differences to its usage in Greek. Despite wide-ranging definitions, the term principally functioned in the Kephalaia as an intellectual power and from this basis, Dubois challenges Werner Sundemann’s hypothesis of a Valentinian Gnostic source for the Manichaean term. Fernando Bermeno-Rubio, ‘La <Mère de la Vie>: identité et fonctions’, also used Coptic sources in his focused examination of this female Manichaean deity. With valuable references to the patristic Fathers and early Syriac sources, his paper explores the background and complexity of the Mother of Life, often interchangeable with the Holy Spirit. In the latter part of his discussion, Bermeno-Rubio illustrates the emotional and soteriological dimensions of the Mother of Life, as expressed in Middle Persian and Parthian fragments.

The Virgin of Light or Light Maiden, a central female deity in Manichaeism, is the subject of two papers. Gábor Kósa, ‘The figure of the Virgin of Light in the new Chinese Manichaica’, uses two corpora of the texts from Xiapu county in Fujian province of China that were identified in 2009. Although the manuscripts date from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries, their contents may go back to the Song (960–1279) or Tang (618–907) dynasties. In a penetrating study, punctuated by numerous textual excerpts, Kósa draws out the associations of the Xiapu corpus with the Hymnscroll from Dunhuang; highlighting the Virgin of Light as a royal deity (Wangfu) who is often grouped in a triad with Yishu (Jesus) and Mani. The second part of the paper focuses on the iconographic aspects of the figure of the Virgin of Light depicted on a cosmological painting on silk that is now in a private Japanese collection. Here, her role is one of a rescuer, purifying and liberating light from demonic clouds; her meteorological aspect is fascinating. The ‘best-preserved solo image of the Light Maiden … found in an intact context’ (p. 137) is the subject of Zsuzsanna Gulácsi, ‘Digital restoration of an icon of the Light Maiden preserved on a Uyghur Manichaean mortuary runner from tenth-century Kocho’. Hailing from the golden age of manuscript and art production (eighth and eleventh centuries) at Kocho in the Turfan oasis, the banner is now housed in Berlin. Much of the chapter addresses methodological concerns; with detailed descriptions of the current condition of the fragments (these are intrinsically valuable per se as records for future conservation) together with step-by-step explanations of the digital restoration and exposure of a startling image.

The volume provides a fascinating introit into the feminine dimensions of Manichaeism that have, until fairly recently, been overlooked. The late Kevin Coyle would have applauded its initiative. Its rich contents cover a wide range of subjects, with varied sources emanating from different strata: Kephalaia fragments, domestic letters and imagery. The diverse material gives significant insight into gendering, but what the papers also reveal is the importance of primary sources (and concomitantly of language skills) for understanding the voices of the female Manichaean adherents.