According to Gulacsi, Mani believed other religious leaders had their teachings distorted because they could not write themselves. "Their disciples did not have the capacity of a prophet, whose clarity of religious insight was believed to surpass that of ordinary human beings," Gulacsi said.
Gulacsi thinks Mani wore his crystal seal as a pendant, a practice of that time. The prophet's only known surviving artifact is about the size of a quarter; the thin quartz seal was likely once encased in gold to facilitate its use.
The rock crystal is flat on one side and rounded on the other, with a sunken carving on one half creating a positive image on the opposite side. Mani is flanked by two people, possibly disciples, and an inscription reading 'Mani, apostle of Jesus Christ' forms the perimeter.'
Map 2: Existence of Mani's Picture-Book as documented in eighteen textual sources (Geographical distribution and dates)
A "cobbler of fables" [Augustine]; "Leucius is the disciple of the devil" [Decretum Gelasianum]; and his books "should be utterly swept away and burned" [Pope Leo I]; they are the "source and mother of all heresy" [Photius]
Mani lived in the 3rd century of the common era along with his one true seal. Between this epoch and the modern epoch lies 18 centuries. If we allow about 25 years for every generation (a figure sometimes used in generational studies for humans) we have about 72 (human) generations between Mani's true seal and the seal depicted above. Logically, the seal depicted above may well have had an ancestral lineage to Mani's seal. However the number of direct ancestors for the seal depicted during these 18 centuries may be given by the expression .... 2 72 which is a very large number.
Now I don't have the figure for generations of seals. It could be a lot less than the human analog of 25 years, which would allow this seal to have even more ancestors between the 3rd and the 21st century.
Anyway I like Mani. For every century one moves away from 1st century Christian origins theory, another century of events opens up as being possible events which were used by the authors of the Jesus Story. If the Jesus story was not written before the end of the 3rd century, then the crucifixion of the religious leader Mani in a capital city, the persecution of his disciples, the foundation of the Manichaean churches (monasteries???) in the Roman Empire, and the central focus of a literature work titled as a "Gospel", all become relevant.
Be well,
LC
A "cobbler of fables" [Augustine]; "Leucius is the disciple of the devil" [Decretum Gelasianum]; and his books "should be utterly swept away and burned" [Pope Leo I]; they are the "source and mother of all heresy" [Photius]
A "cobbler of fables" [Augustine]; "Leucius is the disciple of the devil" [Decretum Gelasianum]; and his books "should be utterly swept away and burned" [Pope Leo I]; they are the "source and mother of all heresy" [Photius]
