Beyond the Stereotypes: Female Characters and Imagery in Manichaean Cosmology and Story

Abstract

Unlike the intense scholarly interest over last century in the analysis of women characters and themes related to women in biblical texts (often dated from the publication of Elizabeth Cady Stanton's 'The Women's Bible' in 1895), and in classical, patristic, and Gnostic texts in general, scholars have been slow to attempt similar analysis of the texts of Manichaeism, the religion that represents the last and greatest flowering of the Gnostic systems of the early centuries CE, named for its founder Mani, a native of Babylonia in Persia, born in 216 CE. Such a lack of interest is all the more surprising because there is general scholarly consensus that women fared rather well within Manichaeism by their eligibility to join the inner circle of the Elect, although at least in western Manichaeism they were not eligible for the higher administrative positions in the community.