Manichaean Views of Women: A Study of the Teaching and Perspectives on Women from the 'Kephalaia of the Teacher' and the 'Manichaean Psalm Book'

Abstract

This contribution to Professor Lattke's Festschrift deals with perspectives on women in two major Manichaean texts, covering a range of material from direct teaching to believing women to the imagery used of women in general. In particular it analyses the positive use of female imagery in relation to female cosmic figures compared with negative presentations of the same aspects of "femaleness" when applied to women within the world in which Manichaeans existed.