DeConick A.D

309
PLEASANTVILLE RELIGIONS
I knew him,
And understood that I am he
From whom I was separated.
I have witnessed,
That I myself am he
And (we are) the same.
When Mani turned twenty-four, he received instructions from his avatar
angel to leave the baptists. He took his father and a few converts
with him. He traveled around Persia, present-day Iran. Persia at that time
was home to a number of religious communities, including Zoroastrians,
Jews, and different sorts of Christians. Mani journeyed all the way to India.
In these eastern frontiers, he encountered Buddhists.
Among none of these religious people does he find the true religion,
or “dogma” as he calls it. Nothing comes close to matching the religion
he had seen so clearly in his visions. He comes to believe strongly that his
religion will be better than all the religions of the ancients because it will
not be geographically limited to one country or linguistically bound to
one language. He intentionally creates his religion to be universal, able to
inhabit any country, even in distant corners of his world, and to be taught
in any language.
He also thinks that his religion is superior to all others because he
himself composes its scripture and establishes its leadership structure,
something that the founders of the other religions failed to do. In Mani’s
mind, this failure is what led to the corruption of the founders’ teachings.
To avoid this pitfall, Mani literally scripts his religion, making it a religion
of the book, or more accurately, a religion of his books. Following the
instructions of his angel to “write all these secrets on tablets of bronze,”
Mani set about the task of composing his own revealed scripture (Cologne
Mani Codex 54).
His scripture included seven volumes, most of which do not survive
today except in fragmented pieces. These scriptures include his epistolary
correspondence to his churches, pragmatic letters, which were collected
to imitate the compendium of Paul’s letters in the New Testament. He
also wrote the Living Gospel, arranged in twenty-two segments, each