This volume contains selected papers from the International Conference on Women in Occidental and Oriental Manichaeism, held June 27th–28th, 2014 at the University of Sorbonne, Paris, under the sponsorship of the University of Paris Sorbonne and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS). The conference and the publication of the presented papers in this volume are but two steps within a larger project which began when individual scholars working on various themes and questions related to women and female figures in Manichaeism came together over some years to formulate a research plan for an area that had been so underrepresented within scholarship.
The impetus for the project can be traced as far back as Kevin Coyle’s first article on the Manichaean portrayal of Mary Magdalene in 1991,1 in which he questioned why scholars had not focused on the role of women in Manichaeism when, in the years beforehand, so many studies had emerged on women in the Judaeo-Christian scriptures, and on women in other Gnostic movements. Coyle then followed up in 2001 with an outline of methodological considerations for such a study of Manichaean women.2 In the previous year, Majella Franzmann had published Women and Religion, concentrating on the methodology and hermeneutics for studying women in religious traditions.3 Shortly thereafter, at the Society for Biblical Literature 2002 conference in Toronto, Coyle and Franzmann met and began to plan for a larger project on the subject of women in Manichaeism, both having come to the conclusion that the project was too big to be attempted single-handedly.
Coyle published his second article on Mary Magdalene in 2005,4 and that same year Madeleine Scopello published a volume of collected works, Femme, Gnose et Manichéisme, including her article on the Manichaean woman Bassa,5 and a reprint of an earlier work on another Manichaean woman, Julia.6 In 2006 Franzmann visited Scopello in Paris to discuss a possible three-way project with Coyle, but necessarily dependent on other expertise that each could call on from colleagues and institutions: Coyle worked with a Université Laval group headed by Paul-Hubert Poirier; Franzmann was connected to the Manichaean Documentation Centre at Macquarie University led by Sam Lieu; and Scopello had colleagues at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and at Sorbonne University. That same year, Franzmann began to publish her work on the women of 4th century Roman Kellis in Egypt, the first extended studies of women in a Manichaean community,7 to be followed in 2007 by further suggestions for Coyle’s hermeneutical outline in her study of the depiction of women and female cosmic figures in the Kephalaia of the Teacher and the Manichaean Psalm Book.8
In 2008 Coyle, Franzmann and Scopello finally launched the international project, but tragedy struck with the untimely death of Coyle in October 2010. Nevertheless the project continued, including extensive work on the key figure of Mary Magdalene.9 With the first international conference in 2014, a major commitment has been done to including papers from the next generation of scholars and with a wide canvas of methodologies. In this conference, the theme of women in Manichaeism was examined either in its mythical constructions or in precise social and historical contexts, taking into account Eastern or Western case studies. The papers approached some of the numerous dimensions of this subject through literary and artistic sources, and attracted a large public of colleagues of other fields of Antiquity, Late Antiquity, and the Middle Ages.
The conference was opened by professor Pascal Aquien, Vice-Président Recherche of the University of Paris Sorbonne who welcomed the participants; professor Olivier Munnich, director of the center of research at Sorbonne, Antiquité classique et tardive, delivered an opening speech. The conference was realized thanks to the generous contributions of several French institutions. It is a pleasure to thank the Labex Resmed (Religions et sociétés dans les mondes méditerranéens), directed by professor Jean-Claude Cheynet, the Unité Mixte de Recherche Orient et Méditerranée (UMR 8167), led by professor Véronique Boudon-Millot, and the center of research at CNRS-Paris Sorbonne, Antiquité classique et tardive (UMR 8167), directed by professor Olivier Munnich. I am very grateful to the following institutions of the University of Sorbonne: the Conseil Scientifique; the École Doctorale I; the Institut de Recherche pour l’Étude des Religions, and the Maison de la recherche where the conference was held. Thanks are also due to the reprography service of the Maison de la Recherche which took care of the program, the posters and the invitations, and to Satenik Simonin, who helped in the efficacious organization of the conference.
Madeleine Scopello
Works Cited
Coyle, J. Kevin, “Mary Magdalene in Manichaeism?,” Le Muséon 104 (1991), 39–55.
Coyle, J. Kevin, “Prolegomena to a Study of Women in Manichaeism,” in Paul Mirecki and Jason BeDuhn eds., The Light and the Darkness: Studies in Manichaeism and its World, NHMS 50 (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 79–92.
Coyle, J. Kevin, “Twelve Years Later: Revisiting the ‘Marys’ of Manichaeism,” in Deirdre Good ed., Mariam, the Magdalen, and the Mother (Bloomington and Indianapolis: University of Indiana Press, 2005), 197–211.
Franzmann, Majella, Women and Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000).
Franzmann, Majella, “An ‘Heretical’ Use of the New Testament: a Manichaean Adaptation of Matt 6:19–20 in P. Kell. Copt. 32,” in Cilliers Breytenbach, Johan Thom, and Jeremy Punt eds., The New Testament Interpreted. Essays in Honour of Bernard C. Lategan, Novum Testamentum Supplementum 124 (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 153–162.
Franzmann, Majella, “Tehat the Weaver: Women’s Experience in Manichaeism in 4th Century Roman Kellis,” Australian Religion Studies Review 20/1 (2007a), 17–26.
Franzmann, Majella, “Manichaean Views of Women: A Study of the Teaching and Perspectives on Women from the Kephalaia of the Teacher and the Manichaean Psalm Book,” in Pauline Allen, Majella Franzmann, and Rick Strelan eds., “I Sowed Fruits into Hearts” (Odes Sol. 17:13): Festschrift for Professor Michael Lattke, Early Christian Studies 12 (Strathfield, NSW: St Paul’s Publications, 2007b), 67–85.
Franzmann, Majella, “Mothers, Virgins and Demons: Reading Beyond the Female Stereotypes in Manichaean Cosmology and Story,” Humanities Australia 1/1 (2010), 56–63.
Franzmann, Majella, “Mariam, the Net-Caster and Shepherd: the Further Development of the Johannine Mary Magdalene in the Manichaean Psalm Book,” in Team “Turfanforschung” ed., Zur lichten Heimat. Studien zu Manichäismus, Iranistik und Zentralasienkunde im Gedenken an Werner Sundermann, Iranica Bd 25 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2017), 157–164.
Scopello, Madeleine, “Julie, Manichénne d’Antioche (d’après la Vie de Porphyre de Marc le Diacre, Ch. 85–91),” Antiquité Tardive 5 (1997) 187–209. (Reprinted in Madeleine Scopello, Femme, Gnose et Manichéisme. De l’espace mythique au territoire du réel, NHMS 53 [Leiden: Brill, 2005], 237–291).
Scopello, Madeleine, “Bassa la Lydienne”, in Femme, Gnose et Manichéisme. De l’espace mythique au territoire du réel, NHMS 53 (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 293–315.
Scopello, Madeleine, “Relectures et réinterprétations du personnage de Marie-Madeleine dans le Psautier manichéen copte et chez Éphrem de Nisibe”, Comptes rendus de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 1 (2011), 535–563.
Coyle, 1991. 39–55.
Coyle, 2001, 79–92.
Franzmann, 2000.
Coyle, 2005, 197–211.
Scopello, 2005, 293–315.
Scopello, 1997, 187–209.
Franzmann, 2006, 153–162; see also 2007a, 17–26.
Franzmann, 2007b, 67–69; see also partly revised in 2010, 56–63.
Scopello, 2011, 535–563; Franzmann, 2017, 157–164.