Manichaeism

The most interesting aspect of Manichaeism is certainly its syncretic nature. It obviously combines many religious traditions: here we see Jesus described in many aspects, simultaneously a "buddha" and an aspect of the (ancient Mesopotamian) moon god; Mani's explication of the end of the world takes directly from the Christian gospels, but uses them to explain how the Zoroastrian principles of light and darkness will one day be separated into pure forms. However, unlike the model of syncretism we debunked in class, our readings suggest that Mani was an actual person, and was largely responsible for the synthesizing all the religious elements in his teachings. This may afford us a new way of understanding syncretism. In the face of a confusion of religious influences, individual people sometimes attempt to organize the deities of different religions into a single system, postulating a system of rules and a body of narratives that allow the different religious influences to coexist. Obviously, which religions are included, and which overarching systems are used to bring them into communication, are dependent on the lived context of the synthesizer. This model would be acceptable to our class' criteria, given that it re-imagines syncretism as a localized and historically specific practice of individuals.

If I may critique the readings by Klimkeit and Aitken slightly, neither of these readings successfully present Manichaeism as a lived practice. Where did Manicheans worship? What kinds of relationships did Manicheans have with adherents of different religions? A case study, based on historical and archeaological evidence, would have breathed life into their discussions.

Tang Dynasty and Nestorian Christianity

For my blog post today, a couple of disparate reflections:

1.       I wonder what the Nestorian tablet meant to Christians living in Changan during the Tang Dynasty. Assuming that the vast majority of people could not read, what did this object signify to the everyday observer? To a Nestorian Christian, perhaps this monument was a holy and venerable site, an object of worship as much as an inscription of church history. To an imperial official the tablet may have represented nothing more than a quaint foreign artefact, of no particular importance at all.

2.       Hansen describes Changan as a city under constant surveillance, a heavily codified and rigid separation of classes. How would being a Nestorian Christian affect a person's place in this hierarchy? How far could a Christian rise in the imperial government? I gather that the Emperor was very lenient with regards to other religions in the capital city, but both Hansen and Bundy suggest that Nestorian Christians experienced some prejudice at the hands of ethnic Tang Chinese.

3.       Bundy suggests that:

"The loss of cultural and intellectual centres as well as internal political strife making communication with Baghdad difficult, if not impossible, combined to weaken missionary activity and, probably, to increase the rapidity of general cultural assimilation."

This would suggest that a religion, as a social body, needs networks of economic and information exchange. To view religion in this way seems very different than the approach we have taken in this course thus far. We have been asked to understand religion in terms of localized practices... this quotation asks us to imagine religions in terms of institutions, institutions which attempt to unify and control localized practices. Are these schema compatible?