THE EGYPTIAN FOUNDATIONS OF GNOSTIC THOUGHT

Chapter Nine: Egyptian Manichaeism
According to Persian sources, the first Manichaean proselytisers probably
arrived in Egypt between 244 and 270 C.E., some 20-50 years after Mani had
received his first revelation in Mesopotamia. 1
Three missionaries were sent
westwards in this period and an important Manichaean missionary to arrive in Egypt
was one Addas, known in Egypt as Pappos. There it is recorded that he set up
numerous monasteries and established a Manichaean community based upon an order
of elects and their supporting auditors. He is also said to have used the writings of
Mani, as well as his own, to great effect in Upper Egypt before making his way to
Alexandria. In the Acta Archelai and in Epiphanius a certain Skythanios, an apostle of
Manichaeism, is mentioned as having made his first disciples at Hypsele south of
Assyut. 2
Finally, there is the evidence of a major Manichaean textual find made in
the Fayyum in 1930 which indirectly supports an Upper Egyptian provenance since
the dialect used in this extensive literature is not the Fayyumic Coptic of the area as
one would expect, but is rather a type of Achmîmic which places its composition
much further to the south in the Assyut area north of Thebes. 3
This, then, confirms
the presence of a major Manichaean community in Upper Egypt which may have
resulted from early missionising efforts there. Although some scholars have argued
that the Red Sea trade route with its overland passage to Thebes from the Gulf of
Aqaba through the Wadi Hammamat would have facilitated such a development, 4
this
cannot be firmly ascertained and one might equally argue that the Manichaeans, with
their penchant for public disputation, would have aimed initially for Alexandria,
intellectual and economic nucleus of Egypt at this time. At the very end of this period,
from 244-270 C.E., there is indeed direct evidence of a major Manichaean influence
1
See text M2 in F.C. Andreas and W.B. Henning, Sitzungsberichte der preuss. Akadamie der
Wissenschaften (1933), 301-2; also Werner Sundermann, Mitteliranische manichäische
Texte kirchengeschichtlichen Inhalts, BTT 11, no.3.3 (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1981), 450-
51.
2
Epiphanius depended upon the latter in his polemical work. See Acta Archelai, ed. and trans.,
C.H. Beeson (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1906), 90-91, and Epiphanius, Panarion 69, ed. and
trans. K. Holl (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1922). This information, however, is unreliable.
3
See Joseph Vergote, “Der Manichäismus in Ägypten,” in Der Manichäismus, ed. Geo
Widengren (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1977), 214-24. Vergote takes
this to indicate that as the texts are not original Egyptian works, they must have come
directly from Syria, thus indicating a historical transmission via the southern route. While
this is certainly possible, it is still inconclusive insofar as we cannot say that Manichaean
texts written in Fayyumic (or any other northern dialect) did not exist. The existence of these
would suggest a northern route.
4
See W. Seston, “L’Égypte Manichéenne,”CdE 14 (1939): 362-72.